- It's fantastic, I love it.
I'm like totally blissed out with this.
It really feels like the perfect way
to have a bite of Vancouver.
(upbeat music)
- I'm in Vancouver and it's my first time in Canada,
I'm so excited to be here.
I'm meeting up with my friend Pearl,
who runs the instagram Pearl the foodie.
She's gonna show me all around the city.
I'm gonna try poutine for the first tine.
We're going to her favorite ramen spot
and then we're gonna have a meal on top of a mountain.
Lets go meet her.
(upbeat music)
- So nice to see you.
- So good to see you.
- And welcome to Vancouver.
- Thank you so much.
- So here, we're at Granville Island,
one of the most popular places in Vancouver.
- [Alexis] It looks so vibrant; there's so much going on.
- I'm so excited for you to be here.
So the first place I want to bring you to is Edible Canada.
- Okay cool.
- So lets go.
- Hi, I'm Eric Pateman, president and founder
of Eidble Canada right here on Granville Island
in beautiful British Colombia.
Edible Canada is a group of companies
that has restaurants, retail stores
and a culinary travel division
all focused on showcasing the best of Canada.
One of our signature dishes is bison poutine.
Comes from Quebec, its cheese curds,
gravy, on top of french fries.
We do a couple fried eggs on top and you break the yolks
and that yolk sort of runs all through the dish
and you got that with the cheese.
When we think of Canada and we think of Canadian cuisine
we think of food in the hands of many cultures
and obviously bison was one of the
first things to roam this country
so this is really all about the
ultimate Canadian comfort food.
(laughter)
- [Alexis] I mean this looks crazy.
Wow.
First time trying bison.
I mean I've heard it's a lean meat.
But the gravy, I was worried it was gonna
make the fries too soggy but it's actually
like the perfect consistency.
- The egg yolk with it is just, makes it more creamy.
I like how it has like a meaty texture and its like lean.
French fries are already kind of indulgent
so if you add like a lean meat
it kind of balances things out.
- Also these crispy onions on top it's
just like elevates it a little more
- Yeah, gives it a little bit of a crisp
- Yeah, I can imagine that like on a cold winter
Canadian night, like this is exactly what you want.
- So it's your first time having bison poutine;
what do you think about it?
- I love it; this is the perfect way to start
my first day in Canada.
Thank you so much.
I would love to go explore the rest of the market
and see like what else is here
- Yeah lets go.
- Okay, cool.
- We're about to go in Granville public market,
what's your favorite stall in here?
- There's ice cream, and there's seafood;
the oysters are really good.
- Oh my god.
- We're on the suspension bridge.
How far off the ground are we?
- We are about 70 meters above the ground.
And the bridge is about 450 feet long.
- So we're in this beautiful forest now.
- Yeah it's so nice here;
and it's like really good to come over here
just to relax and everything and
just take a break from the city life.
So I truly think this is like one of BCs biggest gems.
- Everyone's enjoying it, and just so blown away
by how beautiful this is.
- So we're coming to the Marutama in Vancouver,
and this is actually one of my favorite ramen places in town
and I always bring my friends here.
- Awesome, lets try it.
- Hi my name is Tatsushi Kozumi,
I'm a director of Marutama ra-men in Canada.
Marutama is a ramen joint;
we started the business from 2001 from Japan
and came to Canada 2013.
Our signature ramen is a tamago ramen.
Some people recognize ramen using the pork form,
but our signature is chicken broth.
We make everything in the house
which is including the noodle.
The ramen noodle is made from flour
and lime water to make the noodle a Chinese noodle.
It has more texture to it.
We mix the dough and we let it stay,
and flatten the dough and cut the noodle.
It's simple but delicate process to make it.
Our ramen is simple, the broth and noodle goes
and the cha-shu meat which is simmered
for more that three hours, so tender and juicy.
Aosa seaweed is a type of seaweed
and it gives the hint of seafood flavor
and people love the egg.
Half runny yolk inside and my egg is a soy base,
that's amazing.
When customers come to the restaurant
our staff welcome them in Japanese way.
Giving them warm feeling.
And once customer get in,
they can see we make the noodle in the open kitchen.
Our signature is simple.
People notice that it's more light but comfortable place.
A few days later people will be craving our ramen again.
- Here you go.
- Thank you.
- Wow.
- Here you go.
- Beautiful.
It smells so good.
Its like a chicken is hugging me right now.
- Yes.
- It's amazing.
- This is like perfect for the winter.
- Yes.
And so in Japan, it's actually respectful
to slurp your noodles.
- Yes.
- This is really really really good.
- The broth is creamy, it's flavorful,
it's really rich but still really light.
- [Alexis] Because of the chicken, I doesn't feel too heavy.
Whereas like a pork Tonkotsu situation
can sometimes feel a little overpowering.
- And I definitely find that at a lot of ramen places
after you finish eating it you feel kind of sick
cause it's too rich.
For this one, it's still equally rich and creamy
and still it's quite light, so you feel good afterwards.
- Also the handmade noodles are so, so good.
They have the right amount of spring.
- You have to try the egg, its marinated on the outside,
but its also marinated in the inside.
So you can taste the soy sauce flavor in the yolk as well.
- Totally.
This is an exceptional bowl of ramen.
- Its almost as if you teleported to Japan,
but you're still in Vancouver.
Which is something I think we're
really lucky about in Vancouver.
Cause we're really multicultural
and we're blessed with all these Japanese, Chinese.
They're really good at it.
So we're here today at Grouse Mountain for
the VIP experience and I'm super excited to try it out.
- [Alexis] We're in a forest, how are we getting
to the top of this massive mountain?
- So people usually hike up there;
and its gonna take a couple of hours,
depending on how good you are.
But we're actually gonna take the gondola today.
- [Alexis] Okay gondola feels like a
much better idea for us.
It's hard to imagine that there's a restaurant
at the top of this massive mountain.
But I can't wait to see.
- So this is one of the most exquisite
dining places in Vancouver.
And there's so many activities to do;
you can look at bears,
you can go snowboarding or skiing in the winter.
- [Alexis] I've never eaten anywhere like this.
This is so so cool.
- Hello my name is Dino Gazzola
I'm the food and beverage director
at Grouse Mountain Resorts in
north Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Observatory is our fine dining restaurant;
showcasing the best of what we offer here in BC,
local, organic, sustainable cuisine.
If you look at the setting we have,
it's absolutely exemplary up here,
everything that we produce here you can
basically see out here in the valley.
I mean you got a good overview of
where everything comes from and
what we serve in The Observatory.
The first course will be a chilled sorrel
and compressed fennel soup,
so its made with local sorrel
that we get from a farm out in Aldigo.
That is again, comprised with a vegetable base stock,
its garnished with some lemon verbena yogurt.
That's our tapioca crisp;
that's basically just dehydrated tapioca pearls.
Really just speaks to what's local,
what's fresh and using in season.
Its a great dish, its chilled,
it encompasses everything BC and
it works well this time of year.
- Oh.
- [Waiter] Enjoy.
- [Alexis] It's so bright and it looks so vibrant.
Wow.
- This is really refreshing.
- [Alexis] You know sorrel has this citrus-y notes.
- It feels almost like a smoothie, but in a savory way.
(laughter)
- You know they've got this great tapioca puff,
so there's this little crunchy.
Yeah the little crunchy element with this like smooth soup.
It kind of ties it all in in this really interesting way.
- And I think it really breaks up the texture.
You get more like different layers of texture in it.
I feel like this is a really good way
to open up your appetite before the meal.
- [Alexis] Definitely.
- [Dino] That will be followed by a
organic grain fed flat iron steak.
The steak is a flat iron steak
that we source from Two Rivers Meat
so it's taken from the shoulder blade basically of cattle.
Potato prep is just to peel a potato,
that we poach it first in duck fat.
And at that point there we're just gonna sear it off,
get some color to it and then finish it off in the oven.
So just a simple preparation
for the accompanying vegetables.
Just a little butter and just juvenile vegetables from BC.
Getting a lot of that nice sort of brown butter
over the vegetables that's another level of flavor to it.
So we'll give that one last hard sear.
Add that butter in there.
And that butter will start to brown,
it'll give that a nice base.
And that's served with a parsnip puree,
potato fondant, kale from our garden
and then the last component is the bone marrow juice.
So that's a veal stock that we make in house.
We then reduce that veal stock down
with lots of aromatic vegetables and herbs
and lots of red wine.
I really love the dish I mean its really got
some really nice flavor to it and some really nice texture.
- It's really tender. I love how is seared
and its slightly crispy on the outside.
- I mean you really get that duck fat
flavor coming through the potato.
Its really nice to have these fresh vegetables
along with something heavier like a duck fat potato.
And it kind of makes it feel like a more balanced meal.
- It's like a whole complete perfect set.
- Totally.
The meat is perfectly cooked
the jus all around it, which is basically a reduction.
- [Pearl] Yes.
- Everything feels like buttery and smooth,
but then you have the lightness of the vegetables.
But similarly to the poutine I feel like
we could be having this on a cold Canadian night
- And really warm you up.
- Really warm you up.
- [Dino] To finish off we're gonna have
a local rhubarb tart.
So we're just gonna plate up our rhubarb tart.
Rhubarb has been slightly poached in simple syrup,
it brings out some really nice flavors to it.
Then we further have a garnish of a hibiscus tweel
so that's made with iso-melt sugar
which is just a modified sugar so it stays
nice and clear and has that really nice color to it.
And to finish it off we have our hibiscus sorbet,
and candied rhubarb.
Very few components, but nice simple fresh seasonal.
We love it.
- Wow.
- It looks like a work of art.
Its so delicate
Wow.
There's so much happening.
You know rhubarb can be sometimes a little too tart.
This feels perfectly just the right amount of sweetness.
I am a big big fan of this.
- So this is kind of an example of
what's in season right now.
There's a lot of rhubarb deserts in Vancouver.
Especially in the summer.
- I also love, I meant this, little glassy rhubarb.
Its beautiful.
- Its definitely a really fun piece to eat.
And it looks beautiful.
- Its like a rhubarb jolly rancher.
Like a really elegant jolly rancher.
- [Pearl] Its like bursting with flavor
- It really is; this is so lovely.
I think this is my favorite course we've had.
I had so many awesome experiences
to choose from in Vancouver.
And now I get to choose how to pay for them
with pay it plan it from American Express.
I feel so lucky to have you as my tour guide.
- And I'm so glad you came to Vancouver to visit.
- [Alexis] Yeah, thank you.
- Cheers.
(upbeat music)