At the end of July, I had an amazing opportunity to visit, for the very first time, the Pacific Northwest region of North America with my family. I hopped through two states and a province of Canada, hitting up
- Seattle, WA;
- Juneau, AK;
- Skagway, AK;
- Ketchikan, AK;
- Victoria, BC;
- Vancouver, BC; and
- Richmond, BC.
I saw live bald eagles (aMURRca!), wild king salmon measuring two feet long, and active glaciers, the majesty of which cannot be conveyed by diagrams in classroom textbooks. I crossed over a gorge in a wooden plank bridge that swayed and rocked dreadfully with every brush of wind and footsteps. I got to explore an old growth redwood forest top-down, by walking along wood plank bridges connecting tree houses built high above the forest floor. I learned that much of the Pacific Northwest region of North America is actually classified as rainforest of the temperate variety. Imagine that!
And I had a lot of good food. In this post, I think I have managed to boil down two weeks of delicious food into the key highlights, organized by food types and section links for easier consumption. Photos also have hover captions if no other descriptions are available. Please enjoy!
Live Seafood
I had very high expectations for seafood from the Pacific Northwest, affectionately named the PNW, so I am told. And the PNW granted me every wish I made. There were cheap oysters at Seattle's Pike Place Market, Alaskan King Salmon sashimi in the salmon capitol of the world, and fresh caught king crab and lobster off the shores of Vancouver.
The night before we boarded the Alaskan cruise ship, my family decided to buy some live clams to make a seafood ramen dinner. The light broth was brought together with clams, two plum tomatoes, four fresh shiitake, eight green onion stalks, and some dashi to taste. It was much lighter fare than the heavy ramen meals I prefer, complete with deep, rich broths that have been cooking for days. But the playful tease of flavors combined from fruits of the harvest and fruits of the sea suited the rest of my family very well. Unfortunately, all we had for serving were cereal bowls.
Dining Like Royalty
Haute cuisine applies specifically to high dining establishments in the French tradition, but imagine French and Chinese food pretending like it was prepared for nobility. This is some of what I was fortunate enough to sample on this trip.
Below is a "creation of the day" by the French chef aboard the Alaskan cruise. Four samplings of meats, potatoes, squashes, and mushrooms were each diced, prepared in unique enhancing sauces, and presented delightfully in crispy wafer cones.
When a president or monarch visits China, the Chinese head of state lavishly wines and dines his influential visitors in a guesthouse called Fisherman's Terrace (钓鱼台), a place with historical significance dating back nearly one thousand years. Because the food served here is intended to represent the pinnacle of modern Chinese cuisine, you might imagine that it is pretty ballsy, even on the other side of the world, to name your restaurant after the Chinese state guesthouse. That is exactly what this restaurant, located in affluent Aberdeen Center, has done. And while I have never been honored by a Chinese dictator so that I can compare one establishment to its copycat, I can say that Fisherman's Terrace in Vancouver is very top notch. Here is their five course lobster dinner set for four, including Seafood Soup with Bird's Nest (a gourmet Chinese delicacy), Lobster Platter, Crispy Halibut, Scallops and Abalone (another Chinese delicacy), and Garlic Snow Pea Tips (a well-sought after vegetable). The house dessert consisting of Sweet Red Bean Porridge and Almond Cookie Biscuits is not pictured.
On this trip, I also tried risotto for the first time. It was tastefully presented in the fashion of fine cuisine, but the flavor carried none of the herbal character I would think to find in even a mediocre Italian dish. It left me wondering if risotto is just not my thing or if the Italian chef on board was hired straight out of Olive Garden.
Sweet Persuasions
I have written before about how
Chinese adults from my parents' generation often have an anti-sweet tooth. Added sugar, to them, is like the plague Having grown up American, I look upon sweets with far fewer inhibitions. Can you imagine what it is like on an Alaskan cruise line tailored for Americans? The breadth and depth of the dessert spread rivaled that of every other food item on the ship combined, although many of the desserts were rather forgettable. Here are new and/or delectable sweets I encountered on my trip through Seattle, Alaska, and Vancouver.
Beard Papa, a Japanese cream puff bakery that I have been wanting to try. Pictured here is a matcha cream puff.
A chocolate parfait consisting of fresh fruit slices resting on a bed of fluffy chocolate pudding held in a little bowl made of thin dark chocolate.
Banana, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry crepe with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream on top.
I got to try three new fruits this trip, and I learned why we really do not bother to eat two of them here in America. Pictured below are finger grapes (left), figs (upper right), and passion fruit (lower right).
I am always learning new things about food, and on this trip, I learned I was very mistaken about the delicious Chinese baked good called Wife Cake (
老婆饼). I always thought the sweet paste in the center was made purely of sugar, but that is not true! It is actually a winter melon paste. This is a chewy, flaky, sweet treat originating in Canton, China. Arguably, the best cakes are made by Hong-Kongnese producer Maxim's (美心), and there are many Taiwanese producers that make delectable wife cakes for cheaper prices. From personal experience, avoid at all costs the wife cakes made by mainland Chinese companies (you get what you pay for).
Being in Canada, I did find it necessary to order a donut from Tim Hortons. Check that one off the bucket list.
Best Brunch in Vancouver
Consistently rated the best dim sum joint in Vancouver, Kirin (麒麟) Seafood Restaurant easily meets those expectations. They also price like they know they are the best. Their cheapest dim sum platters are nearly $6, which is double those of most other dim sum restaurants. But know that every dollar you fork over at this establishment is a dollar well spent. After all, even a $6 dim sum platter is cheaper than your run-of-the-mill mediocre plate of tapas, to say nothing of really good tapas. Here are some of my favorite dim sum dishes as imagined and prepared by Kirin.
Vancouver Japanese Food
Vancouver's Japanese food scene is as rewarding as its Chinese food scene, although I did not find as much presence from Japanese folks as I did from the Chinese folks in the area (numbering nearly 40% of the metropolitan population, I am told). Many of my Japanese meals did not get photographed for various reasons, so I will provide a Vancouver food map at the end of this post, and provide notable feedback in this section.
During my stay, I enjoyed an alarmingly mouth-watering bowl of ramen at Ramen Jinya; two platters of Japanese curry at Clubhouse Japanese Restaurant and Zac Zac; one beef donburi at Gyudonya; and some very succulent karaage.
Most notable of all was the bowl of Jinya Tonkotsu Black for $12.95 at Ramen Jinya. I alluded above that I like my broths so deep and rich, the flavors would seem to seep into your tongue as if it were a sponge. This ramen broth, tasting like they actually stewed a pig carcass for days, blew me away. When I ordered it, I regretted not including any extra toppings; but by the end of it, I had forgotten entirely about the toppings. All I needed or wanted was more of that pork broth infused with black sesame. Pictured below is their downtown Vancouver menu with the Tonkotsu Black featured front and center. Apparently, they have branches throughout the West Coast, Texas, and Chicago.
On my last evening in Vancouver, I was really craving Japanese curry. So I found Zac Zac, a fast-food curry joint tucked away inside the food court at the H-Mart near the entertainment district. I found the curry to be much thinner than I would expect and a lot less spicy than I would like, but the other flavors were done well. I ordered a spicy beef curry thinking they would take the heat up a notch, but they only added a few jalapeno slices, which can be hit or miss on the spiciness scale. These pepper slices were mostly misses.
Summary and Map
And that was mostly it! I enjoyed a bowl of pho one night at one of Vancouver's better rated restaurants, but it did not really measure up to
Pho 75 in the DC Metropolitan area, and it fell far short of the amazing bowl of pho I had years ago in Toronto. I was also tempted to try poutine until I learned that it was (or seemed like), for all intents and purposes, cheesy fries. And honeslty, I prefer my terribly greasy, heart-attack flavored, obesity epidemic inducing cheesy fries "Made in USA." The map below shows my notable food excursions in Vancouver.
