Turkey Dinner (at sea)
My cousin got married this weekend, in a sunny afternoon ceremony at the Rowing Club in Stanley Park, with a brilliant red maple tree acting as a backdrop. A gentle breeze set hundreds of leaves fluttering as they finished their vows, as bikers zipped down the path and couples strolled by and stopped to look up and watch. It was stunning. I took hundreds of photos. I thought I’d let them speak for me – they’re worth a thousand words each, I hear.
But it turns out when I downloaded the software onto my new MacBook before we left, I didn’t actually open it, which is when you have to plug in your serial number, which you have to do before you can actually use it. So you’ll have to wait.
Before the ceremony we went for breakfast at Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe – bacon and eggs and pancakes with berries and whipped cream for the kids. After the ceremony we took a sunset cruise around the island, under the Lions Gate Bridge (did you know it was built by the Guinness family in 1937? it’s true) and past the Granville Island Market, through False Creek. On the boat we were served a lovely buffet turkey dinner with all the trimmings. W spent most of the meal either crying and lying on the floor because the seat he wanted was taken, or standing wistfully by the galley kitchen, hoping to catch a glimpse of the chef, who picked up on how smitten W was and brought him in for a peek.
Later, back at the Rowing Club, there was a tower of chocolate cupcakes, an open bar and dancing. At 11pm, they put out a poutine buffet – fries and cheese curds and coffee-sized carafes of gravy – I never saw so many happy drunk people. At one point I looked over from the photo booth (oh yes, I’ll be scanning those once we’re back home) and saw Mike upending his paper french fry cup full of gravy (whomever dreamt up serve-yourself poutine didn’t anticipate Mike being there) into his mouth like a giant gravy shooter.
Needless to say no one got much sleep that night. After brunch the next day, W collapsed into smoking-hot ball of snot – throbbing with symptoms, they say, that are in fact indicators of H1N1. (Then again, they could be symptoms of most any flu.) Which has kept us more or less in the hotel room since then. (It’s a good thing it’s a nice one. But get this: there’s a MOTION SENSOR in the mini bar. As in, you move it, you bought it. The hotel’s answer, I assume, to those who get the munchies, eat all the $4 bags of M&Ms and then go to 7-11 the next day and replace them. AND there’s a teeny stuffed dog in a box strategically placed beside the $8 bottle of Evian on the corner of the folding table with the coffee maker on it, which is also apparently sensored, so that if it moves you end up with a $16 charge on your room bill. And not only is the mini bar the exact right size for a preschooler -and not locked- that dog is right at 4 year old eye level. We moved it behind the TV so that he couldn’t touch it, and today they replaced it with another one. I can’t imagine the debates that go on at the check out counter over $96 worth’ of stuffies on your room bill.)
Last night Mike and I snuck out for a quick dinner at Memphis Blues – on our must-visit list every time we come to Vancouver. Shrimp swimming in barbecue-spiked butter with wedges of cornbread, perfect pulled pork with creamy coleslaw on soft buns, and brisket that was not the least bit dry, and deliciously crusty on the edges.
I’ll fast forward through the post-Canucks game traffic jam and not particularly exciting events of today to dinner – out again as my parents took over W duty and we had a chance to (finally!) sneak out to Vij’s just off Granville, where I’m a bit reluctant to admit I’ve never actually eaten (no reservations-go early on Thanksgiving and you might just nab the last table).
It was dark – too dark to do the food justice, so I liberated myself from my photographer duties and diverted all my attention to the experience. The serving staff ran like a well-oiled machine; as we sat down they brought steaming mugs of chai (which-honestly? could convince me to ditch coffee if I could recreate it) and as we perused the menu dishes of steaming zucchini pakoras and other nibbles I missed the names of came by for sampling. We started with samosas stuffed with lamb, beef and paneer with coconut chutney and two “Punjabi heart attacks” – round, ornate silver soup spoons filled with a chunky mulch of spicy cashews, raw sugar, paneer and ghee, chased with a light, lemony quinoa salad. We followed that with BC spot prawns and halibut with black chick peas in a coconut-lemon curry (that was tomato-based, not creamy) and incredibly tender wine marinated lamb popsicles and turmeric spinach potatoes bathed in a fenugreek cream curry. All, of course, came with naan and perfect rice. Bliss.
And now to digest, and pack, and mop W’s brow, and time his breathing again, and try to get some sleep with my fleshy little space heater. We’re heading home tomorrow after my meeting with Whitecap, skipping a stop at Sue’s on the way because their household is also experiencing a flu smackdown.
Sometimes holidays are like delicate houses of cards-one sneeze brings all your nicely-balanced plans right down.
October 12 2009 | eating out | 15 Comments »
