[Sca-cooks] (no subject)

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>On 2/13/05 9:43 PM, "lilinah at earthlink.net" <lilinah at earthlink.net> wrote:
>  > I just got back - a few hours ago - from a week in Vancouver. Ate
>  > good food (including a dinner at a First Nations restaurant), met
>  > good people, didn't read e-mail, very far behind...
>  >
>  > Anahita
>
>I would like to hear about that dinner.  My only trip to Vancouver was in
>1977, going to my first out-of-country SF convention [Westercon 30] and a
>bunch of us went to a restaurant called Muckamuck, if memory serves.
>WONDERFUL salmon and interesting things done with raspberries.
>
>Selene

Whoa! Now i'm up to Monday's messages... getting closer...

OK, the restaurant was called Lilliget Feast House, run by a First 
Nations chef, who had gotten her degree in Anthropology a while back. 
Apparently she first opened some iteration of this restaurant in 1995.

It was in a basement, very modern, very spare (i wondered if it had 
been a Japanese restaurant earlier). There were thick cedar pillars 
(and the steam from the kitchen kept the scent of the wood subtly in 
the air). The basic setting was cast concrete in its original grey, 
the steps down from the sidewalk continued down, turning in two 
places, to the bottom- at the bottom were river pebbles in grey and 
black covered with a few cedar planks over them leading through the 
very small space to another short set of steps up for the server to 
get to the kitchen, which had a glass window so diners and the server 
could see in, and for the diners to get to the two small but very 
nicely decorated "restrooms". The entire space was quite small - they 
only served 50 diners in an evening.

The dining areas were raised up areas of concrete, with more grey and 
black pebbles around each. Diners sat on black cushions resting on 
cedar planks set on these raised areas. The tables were cedar wood 
tops set a number of inches above the cushions. The space under the 
table top was "cut away", as some Japanese restaurants do so Gaijin 
can dangle their legs rather than sit cross legged or in the proper 
kneeling posture.

There were a few selected pieces of First Nations art on the walls 
from several different tribes, and there was background music, all by 
Native Americans - i recognized some Robbie Robertson and some R. 
Carlos Nakai.

The menu was mostly foods native to the Pacific Northwest, including 
some "wild" foods, like seaweed. Appetizers included a number of 
different kinds of fish roe. We didn't have any because Geoffroi said 
he didn't like roe - alas, as i love the stuff. The main dishes 
included salmon cooked two different ways, and several other fish 
dishes, elk, a vegetarian plate, and what we ordered, the feast 
platter for two.

This was served in a large rectangular cedarwood "bowl"with Haida 
style painting on the handles. It  included smallish portions of 
oysters (the biggest oysters i've even eaten), mussels, and lightly 
smoked salmon, with a juniper sauce in a small container, and duck, 
venison, and smoked buffalo sausage with a blueberry sauce in a small 
container (the tiniest blueberries i've ever seen). There was a scoop 
of rice mixed with wild rice and some greenish bits (maybe 
scallions), sweet potatoes of a variety i had never seen before 
(looked like a "white" potato in shape, but was very pale yellow and 
definitely more sweet potatoey - not the usual light yellow sweet 
potato with the pointy ends) sprinkled with chopped roasted 
hazelnuts, and some steamed carrot slices.

Then for dessert we had whipped sopalilla berries with raspberry 
sauce - the sopalilla berries are also called soap berries. When 
whipped they form a slightly off-white foam (which was not all that 
tasty). But i'm glad we had them, as they apparently are a typical 
Northwest Coast Native treat.

There's a website:
http://www.liliget.com/

Remember prices are in Canadian dollars - the exchange was $1 US = 
$1.25 CA when we were there.

Anahita