Through My Lens: Bastion Square
One last look at Victoria, and then we’ll leave what a friend of mine who lives there likes to call “City of the Newlywed and Nearly Dead.”
This photo was taken in Bastion Square, a pedestrian-only street that begins at the corner of View and Government, where the North Bastion of Fort Victoria once stood, and ends at Wharf Street, overlooking the Inner Harbour.
Magnolia Hotel and Spa
When I travel, I try to arrange a home exchange, but when I’m not successful in finding one that suits my destination or my dates, I stay in hotels. I haven’t been blogging about the hotels I stay in because, to be quite frank, I usually bunk down in budget hotels that aren’t anything to write home about.
The other weekend I went to Victoria to visit a friend who was there on business, and I stayed with her as her guest at the Magnolia Hotel and Spa. This hotel is most definitely not a budget hotel and my two-night stay there was a real treat for me.
The Magnolia Hotel and Spa is rated by Tripadvisor.ca as the # 2 hotel in Victoria and # 11 of the Top 25 Luxury Hotels in Canada. The room my friend and I shared contained two queen-sized beds made up with fluffy white duvets and a mountain of soft and hard pillows to suit any preference. The ensuite bathroom was the size of my kitchen at home, with a soaker tub and separate spacious shower, and was fully stocked with Aveda bath and hair products.
Turn-down service included chocolates on the bedside table ― very good chocolate, I should add. I enjoyed the best sleep I’ve had in months and did not want to get out of bed come morning. My friend took advantage of the spa facilities and went for a massage to help her get over her jetlag.
The complementary breakfast was continental, but don’t think small when you read “continental.” Served buffet style, it included your choice of carb (croissants, toast, waffles, oatmeal, and a variety of cold cereals), yogurt or made-to-order smoothies, fresh fruit, cheese, boiled eggs, and cold cuts. After my arrival on Friday night, my friend and I caught up on each other’s lives over drinks and tapas in the hotel bar, the Catalano Restaurant & Cicchetti Bar, which sources its seafood and produce from local fishers and farmers.
The Magnolia Hotel and Spa is located one block from the Inner Harbour. I highly recommend it.
Afternoon Tea at the Empress
Most afternoons, I have a cup of tea. With milk. It’s such a part of my routine that this past week there was an “incident” (shall we say) at work when I discovered someone had used up the milk I keep for my tea in the office fridge, thinking it was hers. My co-workers laughed at my distress, but I can’t drink tea without milk. And I really enjoy my afternoon cup of tea.
So last weekend, while I was in Victoria visiting a friend there on business who told me she really wanted to someday, one day, have afternoon tea at the Empress, it didn’t take much for me to decide I liked that idea very much. “And what’s stopping us from having tea at the Empress this weekend?” I asked. Within minutes, we had a reservation in the hotel’s Tea Lobby for the next day.
Victoria, BC, has been called the most English city in Canada, and the city definitely plays up that reputation for the tourists. Afternoon Tea at the Empress Hotel is a big part of that playing up, and there is no setting more lovely than the Empress Hotel. One of Canada’s iconic “railway hotels,” it has been a landmark on Victoria’s Inner Harbour since its opening in 1908.
We both skipped breakfast and arrived at the hotel’s Tea Lobby appropriately famished. It’s located off the main lobby and its windows overlook the Inner Harbour. We were seated near those windows at a low table.
(And here’s an aside for you: I learned that high tea is actually the supper-type meal the English eat in the early evening, while afternoon tea or low tea is always taken in the afternoon. It’s called low tea because typically you sit at a low table.)
The meal began with cups of seasonal fruit served with cream ― in our case, strawberries. I’m a bit of a strawberry snob and unless the berries are grown locally and are in season, I really don’t think much of their taste. Such was the case with these strawberries, shipped in from California, I’m sure, but hey, what seasonal fruit would you find anywhere in Canada in mid-April?
We were given a choice of eight teas ― I chose the Empress Blend, a tea that “boasts a bright coppery colour and takes milk exceedingly well.” My friend chose Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling, which offered “the distinctive character of Muscat grapes and hints of current.” Clearly tea can be as sophisticated as wine.
Along with our pots of tea came the three-tiered plate of … well … the main event. Our little table was packed, what with the silver teapots, china teacups and small plates, and the tower of savouries, scones, and sweets, but the server positioned everything on the table with expertise and, remarkably, it all fit. Then, after pouring our tea and ensuring we had everything we needed, he offered to take photos of us with our own cameras. He definitely had the routine down pat.
And then? And then we dug in!
The savoury level of the tiered plate consisted of tiny sandwiches: smoked salmon pinwheels, cucumber sandwiches (of course!) with saffron loaf, mango & curried chicken sandwiches (my favourite), free-range egg salad croissants (also very tasty), and cognac pork pâté on sundried tomato bread.
Then we moved up a level to the fresh baked raisin scones with clotted cream and the Empress’s own strawberry jam.
On the final, upper-most tier were the pastries: lemon curd tartlets, cappuccino chocolate tea cups, rose petal shortbread, chocolate and pistachio Battenberg cakes, and the one I’d been waiting for: Parisian style macaroons.
Sigh.
It was heavenly. And when we were finished, our server presented each of us with a small box of the tea we had been drinking.
I didn’t eat dinner that night. Who knew afternoon tea could sustain your body for an entire day?
Muttart Conservatory
In my last post, I promised you more about what Edmonton has to offer.
One of Edmonton’s gems, in my humble opinion, is the Muttart Conservatory. These four pyramids have been a landmark in Edmonton’s river valley since 1976. They are an amazing oasis in the heart of the city, particularly in the middle of a harsh Alberta winter. Three of the pyramids focus on plant life from temperate, arid, and tropical climates; the fourth rotates through various seasonal plants. When I was there earlier this month, it was filled with tulips.
My favourite is the arid pyramid ― because I think the cactuses have the most personality.
West Edmonton Mall
Yup. I’m writing about a mall. Not just any mall. The mall.
I’ve been debating whether to write this post. What is there to say about West Edmonton Mall? It’s big. It’s huge. It’s there.
But then I looked online to see what the Lonely Planet website had to say about Edmonton and laughed when I read, “Edmonton? Is that the place with the big mall?” After I stopped laughing, I realized that the mall does have a world-wide reputation. So, here’s a quick summary for you.
West Edmonton Mall gets 28 million visitors a year. (If you consider that the population of Edmonton is less than a million, that’s means either Edmonton is a city of shoppers or it gets a lot of out-of-town visitors. I suspect the latter.) Last weekend, my niece and I were two of those 28 million visitors. The mall’s claim to fame is not only that it’s the largest mall in North America, but that for 23 years (from its opening in 1981 until 2004) it was the largest mall in the world. That’s no mean feat for Edmonton, considering how many malls there are on this planet.
There’s an amusement park, a water park, an NHL-sized ice rink, a hotel, and, oh yeah, a few stores. Over 800 of them. For those of us urbanites who make it an art form to disparage West Edmonton Mall, we have to remember that Edmonton is a service centre for a vast chunk of rural Alberta. I’m quite sure there are a lot of Albertans who find a one-stop shop most convenient, especially if you have a handful of kids in tow. And a weekend of shopping and water-parking is a nice break from the cold icy winters northern Alberta is known for.
I won’t recommend you go to Edmonton just to see the mall. But if you happen to be in the vicinity, and have never seen the place, check it out. Just so you can say you’ve been in the largest mall in North America.
And then check out what else Edmonton has to offer. For more on that, stay tuned.
Great Blue Herons
The herons are back!
A sure sign of spring for me ― even more than crocuses or cherry blossoms in bloom ― is when the Pacific Great Blue Herons return to Stanley Park. They arrived a few weeks ago. This is the thirteenth consecutive year they’re nesting in what is one of the largest urban Great Blue Heron colonies in North America. Last year, the Stanley Park heronry hosted 86 mating pairs, which produced 169 fledglings.
The heronry is fenced off to keep people from walking beneath the nests, and metal flashing placed around the base of the trees keeps the raccoons from climbing the trees. The eggs are at risk from bald eagles, though, which also live in the park.
The Pacific Great Blue Heron is the largest heron native to North America.
Joe Fortes
I wanted to publish this post last month, but I had to wait for a break in the rain so I could take the photo. And … well … I had to wait quite awhile. I finally got my chance last weekend.
This photo is of a fountain in Alexandra Park that stands facing English Bay Beach. The fountain was erected in honour of Joe Fortes. There’s also a popular downtown restaurant named after Joe Fortes, and the local branch of the Vancouver Public Library is named after him. If you live in Vancouver’s West End, eventually you’re going to ask (as I did), “Who’s this Joe Fortes guy they keep naming things after?”
Joe Fortes was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1863, and he arrived in Vancouver, via England, in 1885. He first started up a shoeshine business, then worked as a bartender and a porter.
When he wasn’t working, he hung out at English Bay, acting as a volunteer lifeguard. In 1897, the city of Vancouver made his volunteer position official when he was put on the payroll as the city’s first lifeguard. He lived in a little cottage just above the beach on Bidwell Street, and is credited with saving more than a hundred people from drowning, and with teaching thousands of children how to swim.
When Joe Fortes died in 1922, his funeral was attended by the mayor, the chief of police, and thousands of Vancouver citizens ― the largest public funeral Vancouver had ever seen. There was also a moment of silence held in the city’s schools.
On February 1, 2013 (which is why I wanted to publish this post a month ago), Canada Post issued a stamp featuring Joe Fortes to commemorate Black History Month. Joe Fortes is an appropriate choice for this year’s stamp as 2013 is the 150th anniversary of the year of his birth.
Dishing: Pizzeria Libretto
Here’s one last post on food, and then I’ll let you all go back to your New Year’s resolutions. (Which I know you’re following religiously.)
This post is about how I discovered Naples on the Danforth. The Danforth, for those of my readers unfamiliar with Toronto’s Greektown, is Souvlaki Central. A decade ago, there wasn’t much variety in the way of restaurants on the Danforth ― it was all Greek all the time. Every time I went back to Toronto for a visit, I made sure to get my fill of the best souvlaki in the country (in my humble opinion).
But during my most recent visit to the Centre of the Universe, I realized the Danforth is undergoing a transformation. There is still a heavy Greek influence, to be sure, but there’s a whole lot more as well.
Including Italian.
My friend insisted while I was in town that we eat at least one night at Pizzeria Libretto, a neighbourhood pizzeria that serves Real Neapolitan Pizza certified by VPN. (Verace Pizza Napoletana is a non-profit association that protects and promotes real Neapolitan pizza around the world.) She promised me I wouldn’t regret it.
I didn’t.
Pizzeria Libretto is about the closest I’ve been to Italian pizza outside of Italy. Libretto is Italian for “booklet.” You fold the pizza at Pizzeria Libretto like a booklet ― that’s the only way you’ll get it in your mouth, unless you deign to eat your pizza with a knife and fork. Pizza crust that soft and that thin ― that’s a true Neapolitan pizza. Our pizza Margherita had a super thin, soft crust, the thinnest layer of tomato sauce, the freshest basil, dollops of fresh mozzarella cheese … and it was baked in a wood-fired oven. Heaven on earth, truly, for pizza lovers.
There was no room upstairs when we arrived (we didn’t have a reservation), but lots of room downstairs and the attentive service was excellent. Pizzeria Libretto has a stylish but down-to-earth décor ― I went dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and Birkenstocks. I really liked the water bottles they used, with the name Pizzeria Libretto stamped on the side, and asked to buy one to take home with me. Our server said he was sure it wouldn’t be a problem, but then someone with a higher pay grade vetoed his decision. To help me get over my disappointment (I’m thinking), our server brought us complimentary after-dinner digestifs.
Before my evening at Pizzeria Libretto, I would tell people that the best souvlaki outside of Greece is made on the Danforth. Now I will tell everyone that the Danforth also has the best pizza outside of Italy. It was so good, in fact, I went back the next week with another friend for lunch. I never did get my souvlaki fix.
Dishing: Acadia
Update: Acadia closed in December 2013.
My friend was so impressed with our experience at Jean-Georges in New York City last summer that she decided we should check out some fine dining options in Toronto as long as I was in town. We decided on Acadia, which features the “flavors and techniques of Acadian and Lowcountry cuisine” and was rated by enRoute magazine as Canada’s fourth-best new restaurant of 2012. My friend (“C”) spends part of every summer in modern-day Acadia (aka Nova Scotia), she and I had travelled together many years ago to Louisiana, and I once spent a month in South Carolina, so we were both rather curious to see what Acadia had to offer on its menu.
Plus, a friend of C’s (“J”) ― also from Nova Scotia and in town for TIFF ― would be joining us. There was no debate. Acadia was our #1 choice.
(And we pause here momentarily for a brief history and geography lesson: Acadia, as I’m sure you all know, is that part of North America (present-day Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) settled by the French in the early seventeenth century. Its connection to Louisiana is that, when the British deported most of the Acadians between 1755 and 1763, many of them ended up in Louisiana, which at that time was still a colony of New France. Their descendents are known as Cajuns.
Not so well known (OK, yes, I admit it: I looked this up on Wikipedia) is the Lowcountry region. It’s the South Carolinian coast, and food typical to the area is known as Lowcountry cuisine.
That’s it for today’s lesson ― we now return to our regular programming.)
C and I arrived early, so we each ordered a bourbon-based cocktail to start. As we waited for J to arrive, we devoured an order of chicken cracklin’ with hot sauce and blue cheese. The cracklin’ are like thin, smooth potato chips, but they’re made from stretched chicken skin, not potatoes. I know, I know … it sounds disgusting, but trust me ― these are addictive. The blue cheese was foamy and light, and we scooped it up with each cracklin’ like dip.
Chicken cracklin’ with hot sauce and blue cheese
When J arrived, appropriately famished as well, he ordered a beer and we ordered another round of the chicken cracklin’, as well as the spiced beer nuts, flavoured with brown butter and paprika, and Acadia’s cornbread, which is served with whipped pork butter and mesquite.
Acadia’s cornbread, with whipped pork butter and mesquite
After the nibblies and drinks were gone, we were ready for the serious stuff. We each ordered a different starter. C choose Anson Mills grits with Gulf prawn, oyster mushroom, pimento cheese, and ham hock consommé. Anson Mills is located in South Carolina, so these were the authentic southern grits I remember. I came to like grits mixed with scrambled eggs during my month of South Carolinian breakfasts. I like grits with eggs; I like grits for breakfast. But as a starter? With prawns? Never mind — C was happy. She gave me a taste, but I’ll be honest: not my favourite and I found it a curious dish.
J ordered the charred octopus served with crispy pork belly, tomatillo, new potato, spicy collards, and a black vinaigrette. He summed it up as simply the best octopus he’d ever eaten. I’ll admit I had some regrets on not ordering it when I saw his plate.
I had chilled corn soup with andouille, yellow plum, smoked cream, and tarragon. All the texture was in the andouille and plum that lay at the bottom of the bowl because the soup was as smooth as consommé. I soon got over my octopus-regret; my soup was delicious.
Chilled corn soup with andouille, yellow plum, smoked cream, and tarragon
Before the arrival of our main courses, our server came by with the most sincerest of warnings. We needed to prepare ourselves. More accurately, I needed to prepare myself, because, in her words, I was about to experience “some serious food envy.”
She wasn’t kidding. C and J had ordered the special of the night: an entire braised veal shank to share. It left all three of us speechless. It was encircled by chanterelle mushrooms and tomatoes of a variety of colours.
The magnificent veal shank
So magnificent it deserves a second photo
I had scallops (miniscule, our server teased me, compared to the veal shank), with shaved foie gras, celery purée, pecan, Concord grape, and scuppernong mustard. Scallop is one of my favourite types of sea food, so I can be quite forgiving, but no need this time. They were excellent. But I also had a few bites of the veal shank, and had to admit that it too was delicious.
Scallops with shaved foie gras, celery purée, pecan, Concord grape, and scuppernong mustard
It didn’t take long before J and C admitted they were defeated. Truthfully, that hunk of meat was enough for four people. Our server grinned. “Oh, so it’s going to be lunch tomorrow?” she asked.
C piped up that she would appreciate some suggestions on what to do with the veal in the way of leftovers. “I don’t want to ruin it,” she said. We were surprised and delighted to see Acadia’s chef, Patrick Kriss, come to our table after we had been served our desserts, speaking most earnestly, and advising C to braise the leftover meat in chicken stock to retain the moisture. “Don’t put it in the microwave,” he warned. “That will dry the meat out.” We were all impressed by the attention he gave us ― although, if I think about it, it was probably the veal shank he was most concerned about.
For dessert, I had wild blueberry sorbet with peaches, lavender, and ricotta, while J and C shared a dark chocolate cremeaux with milk sorbet, pistachio, and cherries. Espresso to finish, and we were sated. My Toronto readers: if you’re interested in a medley of cuisines and a lesson in geography, check out Acadia. I highly recommend it.
Wild blueberry sorbet with peaches, lavender, and ricotta
Vancouver’s 93rd Annual Polar Bear Swim
I can’t believe I’ve lived in this neighbourhood for 14 winters, and today was the first time I witnessed the annual New Year’s Day Polar Bear Swim. My reaction? They’re all nuts.
Vancouver’s Polar Bear Swim has been going on since 1920, and is one of the largest in the world. There are more than 2000 registered swimmers, but estimates of how many actually go into the water are as high as 10,000.
I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. (Note the guys in beaver hats enjoying their Timmy’s coffee and Timbits.)
There and Back Again 