East is East

I cannot believe it took me 10.5 months to feature one of my favourite hangouts for Saturday lunch - East is East.

East is East is more than a restaurant; it is more than Indian food; what exactly it is, I cannot pinpoint it. For me, it is the pleasure of relaxing there with a book and munching on light meals. 

Not to miss is Kashmiri Sunset - a mango lassi flavoured generously with cardamon and rose water.

Another favourite is Eastern Ecstacy - rice pudding, ice cream and a warm gulab jamun (deep fried syrupy rolls) - all stacked on top of each other and sprinkled with rose water, pistachios and cardamon.

East is East has two locations: 4413 Main Street and 3239 West Broadway. 

Despite identical menus and ambiance, the Main Street location is by far my preferred one: better service, quieter seating area, more varied clientele and more generous with their rose water and cardamon.

East is East

4413 Main Street 

3239 West Broadway

Vancouver, BC

www.eastiseast.ca 

Jardin Adventure with Shahi

An Iranian friend left me some Iranian herb seeds last year. She did not know what they were specifically, so I planted them referring to them as the red and black Iranian seeds.

And they grew pretty fast and are almost starting to seed. Well, I couldn't let them go to seed without trying something with them.

Another Iranian friend educated me further on this, calling them greens shahi. They could be eaten as salad, or dried and used in all sorts of manners. 

So the adventure begun. I picked a bunch of the two types, chopped them, added olive oil, salt and lemon juice. A salad of green herbs that I have never seen before was ready.

Now I needed to figure out what to eat with this salad. 

Lebanon has similar greens that are usually made into a salad and eaten with a dish called Moujadara. Moujadara is simply Moudardara (see Good Friday Moudardara) passed through the moulin and turned into a dip texture.

The Moujadara turned out perfect and it went really well with my Iranian jardin shahi salad.

Another side that goes well with Moujadara are olives. Tonight's olives were Lebanese ones bought in Toronto two weeks ago (see Food Shopping in Toronto).

Kore Wa Nan Desuka?

This is Japanese Octopus, or at least this is what the lovely hostess of a Japanese picnic calls it. It was the highlight of the picnic.

 Octopus photography courtesy of artist Tomoyo Ihaya

Those were only one of many dishes  this picnic packed. Alongside were the dashimaki - grilled egg rolls.

The flavourful extravaganza included lotus roots kinpira (simmered in sesame oil and sake until crispy, sprinkled with sesame seeds). Addictive. Tsukune - ground chicken with green onions, ginger and seaweed (I ate half that platter).

According to our Japanese hostess, childhood Japanese picnic memories always had Japanese macaroni salad.

Similarities to North America macaroni salad include the macaronis and the cold cuts. But this salad was dressed with Japanese mayonnaise and Japanese marinated cucumbers - Much lighter and nicer tasting than typical macaroni salads.

Then the onigiri showed up. A set of salmon onigiri that will satisfy any rice craving one could have ever had.

More unique were the umeboshi onigiri - Japanese pickled plums hidden within the rice. Sweet, sour, and tasty - all at the same time.

And then came dessert!

Anita was given the theme of Japanese picnic and delivered a wonderful matcha cake.

According to the Japanese present, it looked like Japanese Christmas cakes. Other than delicious, it is difficult to describe the taste of the cake - some melange of red velvet cake turned green or spice cake with light tea flavour. 

Thank you T.I., you outdid yourself.

Canucks' Game WIth Cats

Rather than deal with the crowds downtown for the game tonight, I stuck home and invited the neighbourhood's cats who are all ignored by their humans watching the game. Fascinating enough, these cats got into both the game and the fancy pasta I prepared.

 

And these cats were treated to my fanciest pasta purchase from McEwan (see Food Shopping in Toronto Part B) - Pastificio Marella Papillons Primavera.

I simply could not resist paying the equivalent of the price of a new camera for those pastas. Look how beautiful the colours are (uncooked). And it is all natural. They are made with durum wheat and coloured with natural ingredients such as paprika, beetroot, and spinach. 

Once cooked, they retained their colours brilliantly (photo below is of them cooked).

This fancy pasta was served with Bolognese Sauce (see recipe at Italiano Night) and a jardin lettuce salad with Dijon Vinaigrette (see recipe at More Jardin Lettuce).

Remember Canucks fans, It is not whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game.

Found a Decent Street Food Vendor

Last week, we were still searching for a good street food vendor (see In Search of Good Street Food Vendors).

Today's discovery was based on the closest one to the office. Slingers' Mobile Food is probably the best one tried to date (mind you, it is not exceptional, just simply better than the other three tried to-date).

Their concept is simple - they call it Signature Parmesan Sandwich which is a sandwich of breaded veal, chicken or eggplant on Calabrese bun.

The Special includes a sandwich, french fries, and a Brio for $11.75 plus taxes. A bit pricy, but you are not stuck with a pop-fountain drink.

But silly me, I got distracted with all the artwork on the food wagon and was taking pictures left and right that I missed the sign about the special. I ended up paying close to $8.00 for the sandwich only.

My choice was the breaded fried eggplant -  covered with a nice tasting home made marinara sauce and melted provolone cheese.

The sandwich was topped with sauteed mushrooms, onions and jalapeno peppers.

It was quiet tasty, not extremely filling, and the bread felt very fresh. I will visit them again for sure, but not after trying the other two dozens or so street food vendors roaming the streets of Vancouver.

Jardin's Radishes

As Vancouver was brooding over the Canucks' loss tonight, I was in the zen of my jardin plucking out fresh radishes.

I planted two types of radishes; the regular ones and a variety called Sparkle White Tip. Both grew nicely and tonight was the tasting.

But how to turn radishes into a meal I wonder?

Well, back to the jardin. I picked up some lettuce, but the envisioned salad still felt boring. To make it more exciting, a large spring of fresh mint was cut.

Clean, chop, add lemon and olive oil and I had a lovely end-of-spring salad with freshly picked vegetables. Exactly what I needed to inject calmness into this night.

Cooking with West 10th Foods

With all this food shopping yesterday (see Discovering West 10th Foods), it was time to make use of at a BBQ.

Appetizers included delicious grilled local red peppers that I picked up at a small grocer on West 10th. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name, but it sure had excellent vegetables.

And then it was time to try those fancy sausages I bought from The Butcher.

The sausage options overwhelmed me, so I chose the Romanian Beef sausages. Dense layers of ground beef spiced up with cilantro seeds. The taste was unique alright, but it took a bit to get used to. I should have went for the dijon beef or lamb and mint ones. Next time.

At Pane Formaggio I picked up a small can of the Spanish Merula olive oil (not cheap, but sure a beautiful looking tin). Jardin lettuce was served but given varied guests' tastes, they were offered a choice of dressings:
1. Lemon and olive oil
2. Raspberry vinegar and olive oil
3. Lemon, garlic, dijon and olive oil


And finally, the Sacher cake from T Room Bakery was served. Decadent!