{"id":348,"date":"2010-12-06T10:24:59","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T18:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/?p=348"},"modified":"2015-10-23T10:29:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T17:29:30","slug":"the-coming-of-age-of-chinese-dining-in-vancouver-montecristo-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/the-coming-of-age-of-chinese-dining-in-vancouver-montecristo-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming of Age of Chinese Dining in Vancouver – Montecristo Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Read original<\/a><\/header>\n
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Story:Joie Alvaro Kent<\/a><\/header>\n
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As visitors from every\u00a0corner of the globe flocked to our doorstep for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, another medal-worthy stir spotlighted Vancouver on the global stage. Mark Schatzker\u2019s article in the February edition of\u00a0Cond\u00e9 Nast Traveler<\/em>\u00a0singled out our city as \u201chome to the best Chinese food in the world. Period.\u201d A bold assertion, indeed, but it joins the growing list of plaudits f\u00eating the variety and calibre of our local Chinese restaurants. Celebrated food writer and television personality Mark Bittman declared in\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0that \u201cVancouver is to Asian food what New York is to European: a place where a cuisine is often as good, and sometimes better, than in its country of origin.\u201d Nearly one in five of Vancouver\u2019s two million residents is of Chinese descent, and Schatzker opines that our city\u2019s ethnic demographics married with its \u201clegendary seafood\u201d offers fertile ground \u201cfor an outsize number of extremely good Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Szechuan restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in its third year, the Chinese Restaurant Awards (CRA) celebrates this wealth of choice and showcases the benchmark of excellence that is consistently attained by Vancouver\u2019s Chinese chefs. The Diners\u2019 Choice component of the awards encourages the public to choose their favourites across a total of 15 categories ranging from Best Northern\/Shanghainese to Best\u00a0Taiwanese Restaurant\/Bubble Tea Caf\u00e9\u00a0and Best Cantonese Dim Sum. In 2009, a flood of nearly 10,000 votes was cast online. The Critics\u2019 Choice Awards are selected by a panel of 13 esteemed judges. Appointed for their passion and expertise in Chinese cuisine, these judges bestow 24 Gold Signature Dish Awards recognizing singular menu items that define a chef\u2019s skill and creativity.<\/p>\n

Yet all great things often come from humble beginnings. Stephen Wong, founding chair of the CRA, reminisces, \u201cMost of my memories of Chinese food in Vancouver from the late seventies through the eighties were from Chinatown\u2014very few restaurants were located outside of those boundaries. Restaurants like Kam\u2019s and Gain Wah were the places to eat, and Richmond basically didn\u2019t exist as a culinary destination.\u201d A respected chef, cookbook author and food and wine journalist, Wong is a well-regarded authority on local Chinese cuisine. \u201cBack then, earthy rustic Cantonese-style cooking was still prevalent and regionalism wasn\u2019t particularly defined. Dishes like Alaskan black cod hot pot and singing chicken were very popular with far less emphasis on high-priced items like abalone.\u201d Wong recalls that, \u201cfreshness was key. Live seafood like clams, swimming scallops, Dungeness crab and rockfish were always available.\u201d When it came to dim sum, push-cart service was the norm, a trend that began to disappear more acutely as Hong Kong\u2013style service began to increase in scope.<\/p>\n

The period from the late seventies through the mid-nineties saw a diaspora from Hong Kong with people anticipating the repatriation of the colony to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997. \u00c9migr\u00e9s, among them chefs from Hong Kong\u2019s\u00a0finest restaurants, capitalized on the Canadian government\u2019s accommodating regulations\u00a0of the day and rode the immigration wave to Vancouver. They transplanted wealth in the form of both assets and culinary expertise and were responsible for a new generation of restaurants that expanded the breadth of cuisine available to local diners. Accompanying the influx of new Hong Kong immigrants was a shift in culinary approach, heralding the rise in popularity of more subtly nuanced cooking techniques and sophisticated plating and presentation. \u201cIt was a heady time,\u201d says Wong. \u201cImmigrants were looking to establish a new sense of place and discover what their adopted home offered in terms of regional ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best Cantonese cuisine is akin to Italian with its focus on clean, simple preparations. \u2026 Authenticity isn\u2019t defined by the inclusion of specific ingredients. Rather, it\u2019s about approach and rigour.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lee Man remembers Chinatown as the nexus of both Chinese culture and dining during his childhood years. \u201cWhen I was growing up, coming together to eat was more than just about having a meal\u2014it was about being part of a community, and food was integral to that identity.\u201d A CRA judge and food writer with an exceptional scope of knowledge on Asian cuisine, he reflects on some of his early dining memories. \u201cWhile schoolmates celebrated birthdays at the\u00a0Old Spaghetti Factory, my family marked special occasions with banquets at New Diamond Lounge. Dim sum at Ming\u2019s was a weekly ritual, and picking up chilled red bean soup at Hon\u2019s was a summertime treat.\u201d He adds that restaurants like Hon\u2019s were \u201cvalue-for-money\u00a0driven \u2026 We ate to get full in a way, a motivation that people are stepping away from now.\u201d Yet at the same time, there was an emerging desire to explore local seasonal bounty. \u201cI remember foraging for wild watercress with my parents, fishing for rock cod and digging for geoduck and oysters. And when we brought the ingredients home,\u00a0it was all about applying Chinese cooking techniques to our new finds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Man pauses to collect his thoughts as he peruses the menu at Golden Paramount Seafood Restaurant<\/a>. Its nondescript location in a Richmond strip mall belies how well the restaurant exemplifies current Chinese cooking trends in the Lower Mainland. \u201cThe best Cantonese cuisine is akin to Italian with its focus on clean, simple preparations. Paramount reflects the Chinese understanding that authenticity isn\u2019t defined by the inclusion of specific ingredients. Rather, it\u2019s about approach and rigour.\u201d He sees Paramount\u2019s dishes as a celebration of the Chinese love for fresh regional ingredients. \u201cIt\u2019s about the Chinese chef looking into the local larder, really loving what he sees and preparing food in a way that enhances the intrinsic ingredients with minimal alteration.\u201d He singles out the unusually named \u201cfried milk with pan-seared oysters\u201d as an example. \u201cThe chef air-dries local oysters to remove their flabbiness and concentrate their seafoody flavour. He then cooks them in first-draw soy sauce to further amplify their taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Man\u2019s eyes, immigration over the past 15 years has brought with it both sides of the equation: highly skilled chefs and restaurateurs as well as astute diners with sharp palates. \u201cWhat\u2019s driving the ever-increasing prominence of our local Chinese dining scene is this hyper-discipline that has come to Vancouver and the incredible competitiveness that it has\u00a0spawned.\u201d Indeed, this creative climate prevents stagnancy and complacency while\u00a0encouraging alternative expressions of Chinese cuisine. He cites Bao Bei<\/a> as being \u201clike the Chinese kid who grew up in Vancouver, spent some time travelling and now wants to interpret Mom\u2019s home cooking in his own way.\u201d\u00a0Bao Bei\u2019s menu focuses on regionally sourced\u00a0ingredients with pinpoint\u00a0accuracy and draws upon a range of international cooking techniques to\u00a0create original dishes that are still completely recognizable to an old-school palate. Their version of beef tartar imparts a classical French dish with\u00a0Chinese flavours and local ingredients, incorporating preserved mustard root, crispy shallots, ginger and burnt scallion oil with Pemberton beef tenderloin.<\/p>\n

Vancouver native Robert Wong is part of this new vanguard of innovative Chinese chefs. He brings nearly three decades of culinary expertise to the CRA judging panel, having recently returned to Vancouver after six years of living and cooking in Hong Kong and traveling through mainland China. His storied r\u00e9sum\u00e9\u00a0is a litany of success: youngest honouree as one of Hong Kong\u2019s \u2018Top 100 Chefs\u2019, winner of Hong Kong Tourism Board\u2019s Best of the Best culinary award in the Signature Dish category and chef\/co-owner of Michelin-starred Chilli Fagara in Hong Kong\u2019s SoHo district. Wong\u2019s culinary skills are bred in the bone\u2014a fourth-generation chef, he began learning the trade in his family\u2019s restaurant kitchen at the age of 13. \u201cI never wanted to be a chef after watching my parents work such long hours,\u201d he admits. \u201cBut I started working with my father after school and on weekends. It wasn\u2019t long before I became the fastest on the line at stir-frying noodles and vegetables.\u201d His true love of food, though, blossomed under his mother\u2019s influence. \u201cI got my sense of playfulness in the kitchen from my Mom. We traveled throughout China and Southeast Asia, across North America and the Caribbean, trying different food and flavour combinations and learning about different cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ll see our Chinese fare increasingly move away from false luxuries such as shark\u2019s fin soup in favour of really embracing seasonality.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wong currently dishes up his brand of fiery fare at the helm of his family\u2019s Szechuan Chongqing<\/a> on West Broadway while simultaneously working toward opening a restaurant of his own in early 2011. \u201cI\u2019m hoping to replicate\u00a0and expand upon the foundation I established with Chilli Fagara. Based on the time I spent in Hong Kong, I think that Vancouver is still about four or five years behind in terms of the speed at which its Chinese cuisine is developing. Menus there change daily and chefs crank out original signature dishes on almost a weekly basis.\u201d Wong seeks to foster an adventurous culinary culture that motivates Chinese chefs to push the envelope and perhaps cater to a different customer base. \u201cMy goal is to reach out and educate people\u2014especially Western diners\u2014more about Chinese food, but I\u2019d like to incorporate local ingredients and exotic meats into my menu and mix it up a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wong\u2019s culinary ethos dovetails with Lee Man\u2019s assessment of what characterizes Vancouver\u2019s Chinese cuisine: \u201cChinese food is made to satisfy the local diner. We cook to please ourselves and we\u2019re seeking out new and sophisticated points of view.\u201d He remarks that the influence of Northern Chinese cuisine with its deeper, often smoky flavours and sharp, piney heat of Szechuan peppercorns has been injecting new taste sensibilities into the local dining scene, \u201copening up even Chinese palates to a different way of tasting food. I\u2019m really looking forward to someone who takes these influences and really marries them to the local preference for fresh, clean flavours without diluting the punch of heat. Already you see many Northern Chinese restaurants dialing back on the heaviness and muddiness that can mar some of their cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Man also notes that Vancouver\u2019s Chinese chefs are only just scratching the surface of exploring local ingredients. \u201cMany Chinese tourists come to our city looking for Vancouver-specific delicacies such as Dungeness crab and geoduck. King crab and spotted prawn seasons are already firmly entrenched on the Chinese dining calendar, and I think you\u2019ll see our Chinese fare increasingly move away from false luxuries such as shark\u2019s fin soup in favour of really embracing seasonality.\u201d He observes that ingredients such as local wild mushrooms along with winter vegetables such as kale and cabbage are still absent from local menus. \u201cAnd of course there\u2019s local game such as farmed venison that\u2019s a little too rich for Cantonese-style lightness. But Northern Chinese cookery is used to working with cold-weather bounty and transforming it through braising and stewing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver truly is one of the most reciprocally interactive, culturally diverse cities, and the calibre of our Chinese cuisine on an international scale bespeaks our success as a multi-ethnic society. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing isn\u2019t a slavish re-creation of homeland dishes,\u201d Man says. \u201cChefs are moving forward with an unparalleled sense of confidence.\u201d It\u2019s a wide-open culinary road with the promise of a delicious ride ahead.
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Read original Story:Joie Alvaro Kent As visitors from every\u00a0corner of the globe flocked to our doorstep for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, another medal-worthy stir spotlighted Vancouver on the global stage. Mark Schatzker\u2019s article in the February edition of\u00a0Cond\u00e9 Nast Traveler\u00a0singled out our city as \u201chome to the best Chinese food in the world. Period.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cra-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chineserestaurantawards.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}