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Calgary Herald Column 352
February 18, 2007
Vancouver / Whistler - In just three years, Whistler will host some of the hottest Olympic competition ever seen. And to help Canadian athletes own the podium at the Vancouver / Whistler Olympics, numerous fundraising activities have been created. From a culinary perspective, one of the biggest fundraisers is the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championship. Over the past few months, regional Gold Medal Plate competitions were held in seven Canadian cities, and recently, the seven winning chefs were invited to Whistler for a big, national cook-off. One judge from each city - I was fortunate to represent Calgary - helped form the judging panel for the three-day competition.
It was the most intense food competition I have ever participated in. The chefs had three major challenges: a one-hour, black box event; a food and wine pairing; and an evening gala for 150 guests.
The black box held five mystery ingredients: scallops, bell peppers, quince, venison flank, and seaweed. The chefs had one hour to prepare two dishes containing these five ingredients and anything else they could find in the communal pantry. Cooking in a crowded kitchen, the black box made an exciting, elbows-high opener for the competition.
Each chef was then given a bottle of wine - they all received the same Okanagan cabernet sauvignon, but the labels had been removed - and were challenged with creating a dish that paired well with it. They were also given $300 and directed to venture into Whistler to purchase - plus beg, borrow, and steal - enough ingredients to prepare their dish for seventy guests.
At the same time they were charged with preparing other, pre-planned dishes for the third portion of the competition, an evening gala for 150. These chefs worked tirelessly to shop, scrounge, and cook. And they all showed why they were regional winners.
When the truffle dust settled, star chef Mark McEwan from Toronto's North 44, traveling with a Food Network television crew, came third overall. Michael Blackie from Ottawa's Brookstreet came second. And chef Makoto Ono of Winnipeg's Gluttons took home the gold and won a trip to the 2008 Olympic Summer games in Beijing. (On my score sheet he had won both the black box and the gala sections of the event, and had finished strongly in the wine-pairing section.)
Halifax's Ray Bear, Edmonton's Michael Brown, Vancouver's Robert Clark, and Calgary-Banff's Michael Lyon (from Giorgio's Trattoria and the Maple Leaf Grill) were all close behind. This was an extremely tight competition with great cooking all around.
Ono's gala dish, for example, was a tuna triple-header featuring tea-smoked tuna over a Caesar panna cotta, olive oil poached tuna filet with safron jelly, and a tuna tartare with red beets and ginger. It was superb.
Proceeds from the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championship go toward athlete training for the upcoming Beijing and Vancouver-Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Games. Watch for the event on an episode of Mark McEwan's The Heat on the Food Network this fall.
Hard to believe, but I had room for a quick lunch in Vancouver before heading back to Calgary. So I stopped in at a new place that has a lot of buzz - Salt Tasting Room. You have to admire the chutzpah of a restaurant that opens on a strip called Blood Alley. Especially when that location is a dimly lit, badly signed alley in one of the more questionable areas of Vancouver. And when they don't even put out a sign that says the name of the restaurant, you have to wonder if they're deliberately trying to make the place hard to find. So that if you find it, you feel like you're part of the "in" crowd.
Salt is situated at 45 Blood Alley (604-633-1912) just around the corner from The Irish Heather, a gastropub owned by the same group. Blood Alley runs parallel to Water Street - Gastown's main drag - and is bookended by Carrall and Abbott Streets. It's named after the unfortunate residue of the butcher shops that used the alley in previous decades. It's also purportedly where public executions took place, once upon a long time ago.
Salt is about mid-way down the alley and is marked by a black cloth sign with a white line drawing of an upside-down salt shaker. It's opposite Blood Alley Square, a collecting point for Gastown street addicts. So, this can be an uncomfortable area to stroll through, even at lunch time.
But Salt is worth a look. It's a long, narrow, concrete-floored room with a large, communal table and a row of smaller tables along a banquette. The wall at one end doubles as a blackboard and is covered in three chalked lists. One list contains ten cheeses, one has ten meats, and one holds ten condiments. You choose three items from the meats and cheeses and three from the condiments, and they serve them up with a basket of bread for $15. I had some wild boar salami, a brandy-tinged French ham, and a Spanish blue cheese along with some cornichons, a fig pate, and a pile of apple chips. All were terrific artisanal ingredients, and with a bowl of tomato-paprika soup, they made an excellent lunch.
Salt also offers a couple of sandwich options - made from the same ingredients listed on the wall - and a soup of the day. Plus nice wine, beer, and scotch. That's it.
They don't really cook anything except the soup. And that's just heated in a soup pot that sits on the assembly counter at the front. Because Salt doesn't have a kitchen. That keeps it simple.
A companion restaurant for Salt is slated to open a few blocks away later this spring. It will be called - no surprise here - Pepper. It will have a full kitchen and maybe better signage too.
John Gilchrist reviews restaurants for CBC Radio One. The 6th Edition of Gilchrist's My Favourite Restaurants in Calgary & Banff is now available in bookstores across southern Alberta. He can be reached at escurial@telus.net or 235-7532.
Calgary Herald Column 352
February 18, 2007
Vancouver / Whistler - In just three years, Whistler will host some of the hottest Olympic competition ever seen. And to help Canadian athletes own the podium at the Vancouver / Whistler Olympics, numerous fundraising activities have been created. From a culinary perspective, one of the biggest fundraisers is the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championship. Over the past few months, regional Gold Medal Plate competitions were held in seven Canadian cities, and recently, the seven winning chefs were invited to Whistler for a big, national cook-off. One judge from each city - I was fortunate to represent Calgary - helped form the judging panel for the three-day competition.
It was the most intense food competition I have ever participated in. The chefs had three major challenges: a one-hour, black box event; a food and wine pairing; and an evening gala for 150 guests.
The black box held five mystery ingredients: scallops, bell peppers, quince, venison flank, and seaweed. The chefs had one hour to prepare two dishes containing these five ingredients and anything else they could find in the communal pantry. Cooking in a crowded kitchen, the black box made an exciting, elbows-high opener for the competition.
Each chef was then given a bottle of wine - they all received the same Okanagan cabernet sauvignon, but the labels had been removed - and were challenged with creating a dish that paired well with it. They were also given $300 and directed to venture into Whistler to purchase - plus beg, borrow, and steal - enough ingredients to prepare their dish for seventy guests.
At the same time they were charged with preparing other, pre-planned dishes for the third portion of the competition, an evening gala for 150. These chefs worked tirelessly to shop, scrounge, and cook. And they all showed why they were regional winners.
When the truffle dust settled, star chef Mark McEwan from Toronto's North 44, traveling with a Food Network television crew, came third overall. Michael Blackie from Ottawa's Brookstreet came second. And chef Makoto Ono of Winnipeg's Gluttons took home the gold and won a trip to the 2008 Olympic Summer games in Beijing. (On my score sheet he had won both the black box and the gala sections of the event, and had finished strongly in the wine-pairing section.)
Halifax's Ray Bear, Edmonton's Michael Brown, Vancouver's Robert Clark, and Calgary-Banff's Michael Lyon (from Giorgio's Trattoria and the Maple Leaf Grill) were all close behind. This was an extremely tight competition with great cooking all around.
Ono's gala dish, for example, was a tuna triple-header featuring tea-smoked tuna over a Caesar panna cotta, olive oil poached tuna filet with safron jelly, and a tuna tartare with red beets and ginger. It was superb.
Proceeds from the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championship go toward athlete training for the upcoming Beijing and Vancouver-Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Games. Watch for the event on an episode of Mark McEwan's The Heat on the Food Network this fall.
Hard to believe, but I had room for a quick lunch in Vancouver before heading back to Calgary. So I stopped in at a new place that has a lot of buzz - Salt Tasting Room. You have to admire the chutzpah of a restaurant that opens on a strip called Blood Alley. Especially when that location is a dimly lit, badly signed alley in one of the more questionable areas of Vancouver. And when they don't even put out a sign that says the name of the restaurant, you have to wonder if they're deliberately trying to make the place hard to find. So that if you find it, you feel like you're part of the "in" crowd.
Salt is situated at 45 Blood Alley (604-633-1912) just around the corner from The Irish Heather, a gastropub owned by the same group. Blood Alley runs parallel to Water Street - Gastown's main drag - and is bookended by Carrall and Abbott Streets. It's named after the unfortunate residue of the butcher shops that used the alley in previous decades. It's also purportedly where public executions took place, once upon a long time ago.
Salt is about mid-way down the alley and is marked by a black cloth sign with a white line drawing of an upside-down salt shaker. It's opposite Blood Alley Square, a collecting point for Gastown street addicts. So, this can be an uncomfortable area to stroll through, even at lunch time.
But Salt is worth a look. It's a long, narrow, concrete-floored room with a large, communal table and a row of smaller tables along a banquette. The wall at one end doubles as a blackboard and is covered in three chalked lists. One list contains ten cheeses, one has ten meats, and one holds ten condiments. You choose three items from the meats and cheeses and three from the condiments, and they serve them up with a basket of bread for $15. I had some wild boar salami, a brandy-tinged French ham, and a Spanish blue cheese along with some cornichons, a fig pate, and a pile of apple chips. All were terrific artisanal ingredients, and with a bowl of tomato-paprika soup, they made an excellent lunch.
Salt also offers a couple of sandwich options - made from the same ingredients listed on the wall - and a soup of the day. Plus nice wine, beer, and scotch. That's it.
They don't really cook anything except the soup. And that's just heated in a soup pot that sits on the assembly counter at the front. Because Salt doesn't have a kitchen. That keeps it simple.
A companion restaurant for Salt is slated to open a few blocks away later this spring. It will be called - no surprise here - Pepper. It will have a full kitchen and maybe better signage too.
John Gilchrist reviews restaurants for CBC Radio One. The 6th Edition of Gilchrist's My Favourite Restaurants in Calgary & Banff is now available in bookstores across southern Alberta. He can be reached at escurial@telus.net or 235-7532.