NEW TWISTS FOR FALL

They wouldn’t be chefs if they were never tempted to tweak the classics or kick a few standard menu items over sideways.  You can blame molecular gastronomy, the fad for playing Professor Higgins to the Eliza Doolittles of the comfort food world, or even that old cultural fusion thing if you want to, but in most cases, chefs are just hard wired to fiddle with the recipe, and they simply can’t help themselves. 

Here are three current menu examples of a culinary imagination at work …


Appetizer: Wayne Martin takes Caesar Salad with Chicken Fingers upscale as Buttermilk Fried Chicken Cobb Salad.

This one is a favourite for Chef Wayne Martin’s customers at Crave on Main Street, and now the new Crave Beachside in West Vancouver.  Strips of chicken breast meat are dipped in buttermilk, lightly pan-fried in panko crumbs, and then added to torn romaine lettuce leaves, along with a lot of other crisp and crunchy good things. Despite a new fall menu for Crave Beachside filled with such new options as whole wheat penne with lobster and butternut squash; seared sablefish with cauliflower puree; and beef striploin with blue cheese and caramelized heirloom carrots, Martin is keeping his Chicken Cobb available as one of his two salad choices due to customer demand.

Crave Beachside, 1362 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, 604-926-3332



Entrée:  Connor Butler morphs Smoked Salmon into Tea-smoked Steelhead

No smoking in restaurants?  Not in this case. Connor Butler is taking partially cooked fillets of BC Steelhead, and smoking them  tableside under a small glass dome.  The fish sits on a serving platter atop a small grill that Butler has rigged up himself, and soaks up the smoke from the smoldering tea leaves placed beneath. After a brief period when the cooking is finished, the dish is served up with pickled wild mushrooms on the side. The item is one of the alternate entrees on Restaurant Conner Butler’s $35 prix fixe menu for September. (Or $50 if you also go for the matching wine by the glass options.) For the smoked steelhead, Butler suggests the Township 7 Chardonnay.

Restaurant Connor Butler. 2145 Granville Street, Vancouver.  604-734-2145



Dessert: Amanda Cheng translates Chocolate and Chipotle into Pink Peppercorn Chocolate Cake

Meanwhile up the hill at Fraîche, young pastry chef Amanda Cheng (mentioned in this month’s issue of Vancouver Magazine), is giving the Latin theme of chocolate and chile a French accent via a pink peppercorn flourless chocolate cake. For the presentation, Cheng takes a rectangular serving plate, smears a streak of  pink peppercorn ganache across it, and on the narrow end of the “schmear” places an individual-sized circular  chocolate cake (which she bakes in a muffin tin). The cake is topped with whipped crème fraîche and sprinkled with pink peppercorn dust. The cake will be on the dessert menu at Fraîche for at least 2 months (and if it proves popular, on through the winter).

Fraîche. 2240 Chippendale Road, West Vancouver. 604-925-7595.