No doubt Vancouver has a lively, thriving and relentlessly morphing restaurant scene. Seems like a new place to eat out in this town pops up as often as local meteorologists offer predictions that never materialize.
The periphery of our local culinary world is also very active, and EAT! Vancouver: The Everything Food + Cooking Festival is certainly proof of that. This annual consumer trade show was just last weekend at BC Place Stadium in downtown Vancouver. I couldn't resist an invite from Suzanne to check it out with she and Nicole to sample some good stuff.
Approaching our meeting place, the Terry Fox statue near the main west entrance of BC Place, I remembered the fact that in 5 months this venue will host Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour, as the Eternal Girl brings her Fiddy year old cookies to Vancouver for the first time. I sure hope a second date is added to the Vancouver tour stop since due to a disappointing turn of events I was unable to get tickets for the show.
But for the time being last weekend, BC Place was all about food. An ancient revolving door turned us inside the entrance, where we then proceeded down the long pedestrian ramp to the playing field level in the stadium. That's where all the action was taking place. Zillions of Vancouverites and exhibitors were offering, sampling, cooking, pouring, eating and enjoying. The place was freakin' packed!
A majority of the exhibitors had long lines of people waiting to sample whatever was on offer including everything from fresh focaccia & tomato sauce, chocolate pudding, soy beverage, Belgian waffles, Canadian Club bbq sauce, all-natural granola snack bars and lots more. The 'lots more' stuff required tickets for sampling. So that means that not only do you have to pay to get in to EAT! Vancouver but you also have to pay additional money inside for tickets needed to sample certain food. It seemed like a bit of double gouge to us considering it apparently used to be free.
As we casually strolled elbow-to-elbow through the sampling grid, I had the pleasure of meeting Rob Clarke, the executive chef of C, Nu and Rain City Grill - three restaurants which are consistently ranked among the best in Vancouver.
I did not, however, have the pleasure of meeting another well known local chef, Rob Feenie, who also made a public appearance at EAT! Vancouver. Not only a local and international legend, Feenie is also now the Food Concept Architect for Cactus Club Restaurants.
I wonder if he is the architect of a concept, or the conceiver of architecture? If you're like me, you might be unsure of just what exactly is the nature of this job considering its grandiose and unfocused title. Maybe Wikipedia can help? It says: Although the term architect refers to a professionally-qualified individual, the word is frequently used in the broader sense noted above to define someone who brings order to a built or non-built situation.
That should help us understand more clearly the parameters of this highly-publicized role created for this restaurant chain. At least now we may understand and prepare for any possible *adjustments* in the price of menu items.
As I pondered this "concept", we progressed through the mostly well-behaved crowd to the Food Network Celebrity Stage where Anna Olson, pastry chef and host of Fresh with Anna Olson, was cooking. She was telling her large, seated audience about her experience of baking pastries on a kitchen set in a TV studio where she 'usually has someone telling me how much time is left on the clock'. Hmmm… one would think that one would need to know how to tell the time in order to be accepted into pastry chef school.
As we craned our necks over huddled groups to determine where the good samples were, Nicole nearly fell victim to her own food sampling enthusiasm by mistaking dog food samples for the human variety. Kinda reminded me of my inexplicable eating of two Milkbones in the back yard of my friend Laurie in grade 7. Luckily, Nicole realized the sample she was reaching for was actually of the canine variety. Here's a pic of her with the dog food sampling guy who just seemed happy for the attention.
We only lasted a little over an hour at EAT! Vancouver and I for one was glad to get away from the crowd and return outside where a sunny, warm afternoon awaited. But another few exhibitors from EAT! Vancouver were also setup along the exterior concourse of BC Place. Here's a couple pictures of what was going on there. Trust me, only in Vancouver will you see a sausage stand with a name like this:
It was also nice to see that EAT! Vancouver drew a crowd of all ages, including this elderly couple who, judging by their behaviour, were very well situated considering the name of their chosen food venue:
