Pallas Athena - Coquitlam

So, here we go, it has been a while.  Too long actually.  I feel I have things I want to say in this blog, but am to analytical and too full of self doubt to actually come up with something that I feel will be at all useful to anyone.  But here I am trying again, because of a really wonderful experience that I would like to share.

For those folks who like instant gratification, here it is:

http://www.pallasathena.org/

If you live in Coquitlam and like Greek food, this is the best I have found.  Better than Kefi (just off Lougheed near SilverCity) which I had considered best, though it has been quite a while since I was there.  Certainly better than the place near the IGA in Port Moody, but again it has been a while, so long in fact that I won't name them, as the place has probably turned over two or three times since I ate there.

I have eaten at many Greek places around Vancouver, and for the most part they are solid eats.  You always have a fairly good idea what you are getting, and if they are average for the style of cuisine, you are probably getting good value.  If they are not so good, you are still probably better off than you would be at one of the expensive "upscale casual" places that are so popular now.

Pallas Athena exceeded my expectations by a shocking amount, and my desire to give publicity to this restaurant has made me rethink what I am trying to accomplish with my blog.  I have decided that I am not going to take photos of everything I eat, and then regurgitate the images onto a page, along with a mess of type (though, when it is not disruptive to take them, I will include photos).  I aim to be helpful to the potential diner, and, if they happen to stumble upon my blog, to the restaurant that I am discussing.  To that end, I will be writing about places I really enjoyed, and those I really hate.  There is no in between.  I don't have time for "average" restaurants, and neither should you.  I will probably name them as I come across them, but I won't be giving much of a review at all, just basically "you can do much better".  If the place sucks, I will warn you.  If you are familiar with my sparse Yelp history, you will see that I am not afraid to call a shitty restaurant a shitty restaurant:

http://www.yelp.ca/user_details?userid=aSpExwJQSHo6ds2K2az73w

So, with the Yelp link serving as a view of the worst (and one of the best) think of this blog as my All-Star list of places to visit.  

All-Stars include (and I will happily discuss the rationale for each in a later post, or in comments here):   

Seattle:

Pike Street Fish Fry  http://www.yelp.ca/biz/pike-street-fish-fry-seattle

Paseo Caribbean Restaurant  http://www.paseoseattle.com/

The Blackfish at Tulalip  http://www.tulalipresortcasino.com/Dining/Blackfish

Bellingham:

The Steak House at the Silver Reef Casino Resort  http://silverreefcasino.com/the-steak-house/

Boundary Bay Brewing  http://www.bbaybrewery.com/

Vancouver:

Les Faux Bourgeios (inexpensive bistro) http://www.lesfauxbourgeois.com/

Tacofino  http://tacofino.com/

Colony Bar  http://colonykits.com/ 

Tri-Cities and Maple Ridge:

Pallas Athena Greek Kouzina http://www.pallasathena.org/

Joe Blow's - Maple Ridge (bloody hell, the internet says they are closed.  When I was there in March, there was discussion that they wanted to sell and open up a chicken place.  I had both their fish AND their chicken, and if they open up a chicken place, it will SURELY be on this list).

Now, lets talk Pallas Athena.

My Aunt an Uncle were here from LA for the Labour Day long weekend.  They were here three years ago, and we had a great time travelling all over Vancouver, pretty much making up each day's itinerary as we went along.  As such, after Friday night dinner, lunch and dinner on Saturday, lunch of Sunday, and a long day driving, (we went to Harrison Hot Springs) we wanted to stay close to home.  We thought of The Keg (which I don't consider an all-star at all; while I have had a couple of good experiences lately, in general I find them expensive and inconsistent), a Thai place in Port Moody, a Greek place in Port Moody, and a couple of Italian places.  We are driving along Barnet Highway at Falcon, and I spot Pallas Athena, next to a sushi restaurant.  The sign looks nice, but being a strip mall, there is nothing to go on when I look at it.  There is a nice sign, but nothing else.  We pass.  We try one of the Italian places, but it is closed for the long weekend.  The four of us are seriously conflicted - we like Thai, there is always The Keg, but there is that Greek place.... we decide literally, after a few minutes of discussion, that there is less downside to the Greek restaurant if things go bad than there is for the Thai.  

We drive back to Barnet and Falcon.  We pull in, and doubt ourselves immediately.  The restaurant, from the street anyway, is very dark.  We cannot see more than 8 to 10 feet into the place, and thus can only see one couple in the window.  The other window seats are empty, and we fear we have made a mistake - empty restaurants are usually empty for a reason, and while standing on the sidewalk considering other options, we decide to open the door and look.  This, for anyone from Pallas Athena who happens to stumble upon this, is important.  We like Greek food.  My Aunt and Uncle have spent a LOT of time in Greece.  We are more adventurous than your usual diner.  For us to stand outside your restaurant and seriously doubt what we are doing there is a bad thing.  Get some more inviting lights.  Make it so folks can see maybe 12 or 15 feet into your place.  I realize you don't want to light the thing up like a Vegas gambling hall, but seriously, we were within inches of bailing.  Get some lights.  We go in, and there are only three couples in the restaurant.  We think we have made a mistake.  There is no hostess, and no restaurant staff can be seen.  We are SURE we have made a mistake.  After a short wait, a young disinterested blonde woman comes up and, without saying Hello, or Hi, or Welcome, or kiss my ass, says, in this empty restaurant, "Do you have a reservation?" in a completely blank tone.  I can see the reservation 'book' really a three ring scribble pad with 5 lines of writing on it.  4 lines are crossed off.  The last one is not crossed yet, and has a name written down with a number - 2.  We are 4.  Clearly we are not the 2 you are expecting, and really, when you say "do you have a reservation?" while it may help you decide whether we happen to be the 2 people you are expecting later, it is an exclusionary phrase - it is a barrier between you and your customer.  When asked if you have a reservation, and you don't, the first thing a customer thinks is do I need one?  Do I need one for this empty restaurant?  What is going on?  Have I made a mistake?  When are pretty sure now that we are about to have a crappy meal.

We are taken to our seats.  The restaurant is very elegant.  There is a beautiful statue of Athena in the middle, and the tables are tastefully done with white tablecloths, and attractive glassware.  The chairs are tasteful, almost elegant, and made of wood.  Things are looking up.  The blonde drops of menus and asks if we want a drink.  We decline for now, we want to check out the menu.  She comes by again, 2 minutes later, and again blankly asks if we want a drink.  We again say we are not ready, and she looks inconvenienced, and leaves without saying a word.  I spot another staff member, who looks like she is either an owner or a manager.  She is tastefully dressed, and seems much more interested in the restaurant than the blonde.  She comes by and says hello, and by now we are ready to order.  It is clear right off that she is by far the better server.  She seems to care about us right away, and we are feeling more comfortable immediately.  My Uncle orders Retsina, which is a white wine with a hint of pine oil.  My Aunt and I order an Australian shiraz, and my wife has water.  The wine is a reasonable price.  The Retsina is actually excellent, the pine is nowhere near as obtrusive as I had expected, and my uncle says that it is a very good example of the style.  The shiraz was also very good.  

  

The menu is a huge comfort.  It is relatively sparse, with maybe 20 items on it in total, and the dishes are written with a focus on the language, so instead of saying Roast Lamb, it says arni psito.  My wife and I each order that, my Uncle orders moussaka, and my Aunt orders kota lemonati, which is a chicken breast with olive oil, oregano, and lemon.  Each dish comes with a Greek salad, which comes right away.  It is great.  I know, it is hard to get enthusiastic about a Greek salad, but recall, we were really wary until basically we saw the well written menu.  We were a bit at ease, but the salad totally sold us.  It was freshly made, probably immediately after we ordered it, the dressing was light yet flavorful, and the feta on top was ample yet not salty.  I am not a fan of super salty feta, and this was very nice.  The salad had excellent balance, and everyone loved it.  The second server comes by and asks how we like the salad, and we tell her how much we like it.  Her face literally lights up, she is either genuinely thrilled that we are happy, or she is one heck of an actress.  We felt that after our initial misgivings, we might actually be in for a special night.

Next was the pita and tzatziki, I somehow doubt they make their own, as it seems the perfect thing to outsource.  Maybe all the other places that get their pita bread hold it in the freezer for a while or something, because this was really fantastic.  Light, airy, brushed with a bit of oil (did I sense a hint of garlic? Yeah I did!) this was really excellent.  We have made a good decision after all!

Then the entrees.  Uniformly excellent.  My lamb came with a beautiful lemon roasted potato, not to lemony, with a nice roasted crunch on the outside.  The rice pilaf may have been the best pilaf I have had - light, fluffy, balanced in seasoning, almost... "sophisticated" if that term can really be used with rice pilaf.  Very good.  The veggies were steamed green beans, which were good, but a tiny bit on the over cooked side.  But....  The lamb was truly excellent.  Well seasoned - I am tempted to say "boldly seasoned" as it was a bit more than I expected initially, but after a bite or two, I really appreciated how it was done.  I thought this was flat out the best roast lamb I have had in my life.  Without doubt.  It was not too fatty, the portion was generous, the seasoning was right on, it was excellent.  Well done Pallas Athena!

For the close of the meal, my Uncle ordered a Greek coffee, which I had not much knowledge of.  I figured it was like espresso.  My wife ordered one as well, and then he drew on his extensive history in Greece to tell us what to expect.  Strong coffee, percolated several times, served already sweetened with a solid foundation of coffee grounds at the bottom, this was not a coffee to be stirred.  Pallas Athena's version was a good example of what a Greek coffee should be, and my Uncle and my wife were very happy with their choice.

Excellent restaurant, I will be back.  They have two locations, the other is near Costco in Port Coquitlam.

Authenticity in Cooking and Dining.

What is authentic?

Yesterday's debacle could have been avoided, in fact it SHOULD have been avoided.  I should know better.  When Sushi Dragon opened a month ago, the staff went around to businesses in the area and handed out copies of their take out menu.  The young ladies that dropped off the menus were Chinese, not Japanese.  There are huge exceptions which I will discuss later, but deep down, I am suspicious of restaurants owned and operated by individuals of one country trying to re-create food from a country other than theirs.  For some reason, the whole world thinks that all you need to open a sushi restaurant is a supplier of fish and some rice.  This is preposterous, and in some cases, insulting.

I have been to sushi restaurants operated by Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, and likely many other ethnicities.  Yet, the only dim sum restaurants I have been to seem entirely operated by Hong Kong Chinese.  The pho places are all run by Vietnamese.  Korean BBQ?  Strangely, never seems to be run by Japanese staff, and Taiwanese beef noodle soup?  Again, oddly, never run by Mexican chefs or the French.  Always folks from Taiwan.

What is it about sushi that makes it fair game for everyone?

Korean operators actually makes a lot of sense.  There are almost a million ethnic Koreans in Japan, with about half of them being non-Japanese citizens.  We have family friends who are born in Japan to Korean parents, but who never were able to obtain citizenship.  The Koreans in Japan have historically been considered lower class, and to survive many of them would have operated restaurants, pachinko parlours, brothels and other "lower" forms of employment.  It is certainly possible that some skilled Korean-Japanese sushi chefs have emigrated to Canada and have set up successful sushi restaurants.  In fact right next to Sushi Dragon in Port Coquitlam there is a decent ramen shop called Takano.  It is my understanding that the owner operators are Japanese Canadians of Korean ancestry, and while there is better ramen available in the Vancouver area, their ramen is pretty good, certainly the best in the Tri-Cities. 

Any discussion about authenticity and food, where ramen is brought up, has to mention David Chang and Ivan Orkin.  Chang is famous for his Momofuku empire, which has something like 12 restaurants in New York, Toronto and Sydney Australia.  Born and raised in Virginia if I recall, he has a strong culinary education, worked in New York for some excellent chefs at very well know restaurants and then rounded off his education by going back to Japan (he was first there to teach English) and working in ramen and soba shops.  Orkin also went to Japan to teach English, but he got married and stayed there, and in time opened a ramen shop.  He had a built in marketing campaign, as I am sure many of his first customers were curious to see how bad (or good) the ramen made by an American was.  He did so well that he now has two shops in Tokyo, and you can buy his premade ramen in supermarkets in Japan.  He recently opened two ramen restaurants in New York, and the reviews have been very good, in fact he was recently on CBS Morning News who ran a segment about him and Chang.

Both Chang and Orkin have had people question their authenticity.  With Chang, while I have not eaten there, the overriding theme is "it has to be delicious".  I own his cookbook, and it very much seems that he takes authentic, historic recipes and adds twists learned through his experience at cooking school as well as from his working in fine dining restaurants in New York.  And example is his "Bo Saam", which is basically a Korean lettuce wrap.  He makes a vinaigrette with sherry vinegar, saamjang and gochujang.  It is delicious, but the sherry vinegar clearly is not part of any historic recipe for the dish. 

Orkin on the other hand, from what I know, ran a pretty authentic shop in Tokyo.  He made his broth with chicken and pork bones, just like everyone else.  He was the 'inauthentic' part of the equation, and while at first the curiosity effect must have helped get his customers in the door, the ramen must have been good enough to get them to come back.  His places in New York deviate quite a bit from the authentic however, with menu items such as smoked whitefish donburi (which is apparently excellent).

I suppose in the end, the intention of the owners and chefs is what really what matters, and whether a restaurant holds itself out to be authentic or not.  Chang and Orkin hold themselves out to be providers of delicious food; Chang's menus are clearly a form of Asian inspired "world food", while Orkin's hold more true to his inspirations.  But you know what you are getting - if the place is called Ivan Ramen, you can logically infer that you are getting Ivan's take on ramen.  Unlike Sushi Dragon, who holds themselves out as an authentic Japanese sushi restaurant.  For someone walking off the street, there is no way that they can prepare themselves for the debacle to come - the place looks like a Japanese sushi shop, the menu includes everything you would normally expect to see; the disguise is set, you are not going to find that you chose a bad spot for your lunch until the food starts to come, and at that point it is too late.

 

Sushi Dragon - Port Coquitlam

**Sushi Dragon is closed.  Space now occupied by a donair shop.**

This is a new restaurant on Westwood, occupying a space formerly held by a defunct donair shop.  I would have prefered a left over donair, lost behind a seat some three months back when the donair shop packed up and left.

This was horrible.  I had the box C, and my friend had the box A.  The difference?  I had 6 pieces of zombie sashimi meat, or so it appeared, while everything else was the same.  Started with complimentary edamame.  It was flabby and underseasoned.  Followed with "tempura tuna", also complimentary...  Here is where I got suspicious.  Who gives tuna away?  Unless it is old and can't be used for something else?  The batter was wallpaper paste thick, and this gut bomb is still giving me issues 11 hours later.  Ugh...  Next was the teriyaki portion of our meal, mine was beef, his was chicken.  My beef looked like someone ran a chuck steak through a meat grinder, then soused it with teriyaki sauce.  It was disgusting, my dog eats better food than this.

The miso soup was crap, hot water with slivers of tofu and a spoonful of miso.  No onion, no wakame, nothing.  I found no reason to finish it. The California roll was average, which is sad, as the average California roll sucks balls.  There were also two gyoza, which were palateable.

The salad was large but boring and premade.  The sashimi was a strange colour and tasted extra dense.  Speaking of extra dense, I ate all the fish.  I am insane.

Consider yourself lucky, no pictures of the train wreck, but we do have a shot of the restaurant.  Note the remnants of the "Donair Stop" sign above the Sushi Dragon sign.

Pizannini @ The Silver Reef Casino

If you are over 55, on Mondays the Silver Reef Casino just outside of Ferndale has a great deal for you, a voucher for $7.15 towards your lunch!  The ticket can be used at any of their restaurants, as long as you use it by 2pm.  Wifey and I had no idea of this until recently, which is unfortunate, as Monday is often the day we cross the border to buy gas and groceries.  The day we found out about this deal, we were sitting in Pizzanini, the pizza and sandwich shop at the casino.  We were having our (undiscounted) hot dogs, and our neighbouring table was composed of an unusual couple, a regular, who knew all about the deal, and a first-timer.  The regular was eating a half sandwich and a soup, while the new lady was having a calzone.  In discussion, the regular told the first timer about the $7.95 deal, and we were lucky enough to eavesdrop.  Further, the first timer raved about her calzone, saying it was amazing.  Given that we had paid a similar price for our two hot dogs (well, mine had cheese), we resolved to try the calzone next time, it truly did look like a good deal, and the lady seemed to love it.

So, like conspirators planning a crime, my wife and I waited until the following Monday, and headed down to capture this deal.  The menu of calzones unfortunately only had 4 items, and we ran with the Spicy Mushroom.  I, being a devout carnivore, insisted on adding sliced Italian sausage.  Well, for a guy starting a food blog, I suck hard, there is no photo.  Worse, I have had the same calzone three times now, and I did not take a picture one single time.  I hope to add one later, but what a moron.

As for the calzone, it does not need the sausage at all, though it does not detract one bit.  There are several great big, fat slices of portobello mushrooms, surrounded by onions, olives, some chili peppers and a lot of cheese.  Just spicy enough, hearty and meaty, and absolutely delicious.  With a pepsi, and without sausage, the cost is $9.95, which turns out to be about $4.50 after the voucher.  It EASILY serves two adults.  Heck of a bargain.

Going back next Monday!

Silver Reef - Pizzanini

So, I did go back on the 9th, too good of a deal to pass yup.  This is 1/2 of the calzone, it literally weighs something like 2 pounds total.  I added the sausage again, as I just can't seem not to, though the calzone really does not need it at all.  Cheesy, nice balance of olives, nice amount of onions and stuff, really delicious.