Taking tastebuds for a sleigh ride
Mark Laba
Province
Hart House owner Carol Smolen offers ambiance and cheer for Christmas diners. Photograph by : Les Bazso, The Province
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, banker’s lips are glistening, a beautiful sight, credit limits take flight, shopping in a winter wonderland. But that’s just my cynicism talking and truly Christmas is more than that. It’s also about family dysfunction at holiday functions, roasting chestnuts in a microwave (wear a motorcycle helmet if you try this), reindeer hauling ass before Santa corrals them and makes them pull his fat flesh across the country and, of course, eating until even your
La-Z-Boy recliner groans under your weight. So here’s some picks for Christmas dinner festivities to save you the trouble of cooking.
Memphis Blues Barbecue House
Have yourself an Elvis Christmas and chow down on some of the food that made the King the King. This take-home feast will have you stretching the seams of your sequined pant suit as you enjoy all the usual pulled pork, beef brisket, rib end, and other smoked treats that come with the Elvis or the really massive Priscilla Platter. But they’ll also smoke you a 16-lb free-range turkey for $65.
Enough food to feed a horde of shopping-mall Santas who’ve been gazing into the fluorescent bowels of a food court all day long, stomachs growling.
1342 Commercial Dr., 604-215-2599; 1465 W. Broadway, 604-738-6806; 1629 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 604-929-3699; 289 Bernard St., Kelowna, 250-868-3699
The William Tell Restaurant
An elegant establishment that makes dining as exciting as having a crossbow fired at your noggin. Well, not really, but the dining is as classic as the story and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the restaurant is offering a three-themed option culinary experience.
First is The Canadian, with Fraser Valley roasted turkey, apple-and-sage dressing, plus an appetizer, soup and dessert. Or there’s The Westcoast with an ahi-tuna tartar starter, then a mussel-and-saffron velouté, followed by Salmon Wellington, or hit The Swiss with a gruyere-cheese soufflé, chestnut soup and then roasted tenderloin of Angus beef with a wild-mushroom Madeira sauce and spatzli and chocolate terrine for dessert. Priced $44.50, $54.50 and $64.50 respectively, a good deal for such beautifully prepared food.
765 Beatty St., Vancouver, 604-688-3504
Hart House Restaurant
This place oozes Christmas spirit like your Uncle Floyd around the rum-and-eggnog punchbowl. It’s a Dickens setting for the famed Christmas Day dinner with plenty of seatings to squeeze in you and your family. $55 per person gets you a great lineup of selections.
Starters of roasted butternut-squash soup with candied hazelnuts and cinnamon crème fraîche, or organic greens with macerated sour-cherry-and-vanilla vinaigrette. Don’t let the macerating scare you off. Then pick from roasted turkey with fixings, baked pork loin with roast potatoes, brussel sprouts and double-smoked bacon or seared lingcod with some fancy veggie concoctions. End it all with bread pudding and vanilla gelato, or chocolate Guiness cake and then take a walk along the shore of Deer Lake where you can waddle with the geese.
6664 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby, 604-298-4278
Pan Pacific
Go big or go home seems to be the philosophy of this waterfront landmark, and if the five architectural sails jutting into the skyline don’t prove the point, the variety of festivities occurring kind of reinforce this frame of mind. But the big draw is the ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Buffet on Dec. 24 between 5-10 p.m. where they pull out all the stops when it comes to edible temptations. Ranging from baked Lobster Thermador with bay scallops, snow crab and mushrooms, to New York steaks with wild-mushroom sauce, the traditional turkey shindig to vast salad, charcuterie and soup selections. The evening isn’t complete until you run amok through the decadent dessert table. $95 per person, which may seem steep but worth the price for the variety of dishes.
Pan Pacific Hotel, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, 604-891-2555
Sonoma Grill
Once an Austrian restaurant, the architecture remains the same comforting theme but the menu, like the Napa Valley-inspired name, proves to have some tricks up its culinary sleeve. Nevertheless, you don’t screw with Christmas and the classic Christmas Day dinner here should prove to be most pleasing. Two seatings at 4 and 6:30 p.m. and at $37.95 per person, it’s an offer you can’t refuse. Choose from butternut-squash soup, mixed greens with avocado vinaigrette or a Caesar salad before laying into either roasted prime rib with Yorkshire pudding and garlic mashed ‘taters, roast turkey with all the fixings, Schnitzel Cordon Bleu or pesto penne with roasted seasonal veggies. Finish it off with triple-layer chocolate cake, pumpkin pie or New York cheesecake, enjoy a candy-cane martini and you’ll be decking your belly with boughs of tastes.
20598 Fraser Hwy., Langley, 604-534-2104
La Belle Auberge
This place is as classy as Charles Boyer’s cufflinks. I’m not even sure what that means but its sounds French, which is good enough for me. A 100-year-old Victorian house is the setting for this fantastic Christmas Day feast starting with assorted canapés to get the tastebuds fired up. Then it’s lobster bisque and then various entrée options, like braised beef shortrib with tomato confit, traditional turkey dinner, roasted bison loin with green peppercorn sauce or a Pacific seafood medley with a little Pernod and fine herbs for inspiration. Priced in the $49-$54 range depending on what you pick, all dishes are served with fresh veggies and finished with Parisienne chocolate mousse with frozen orange parfait.
4856 48th Ave., Ladner, 604-946-7717
Raincity Grill
This always elegant joint with its great showcase of locally sourced ingredients is putting on a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner for $59 per person. Start with tempura Fanny Bay oysters and then an appetizer selection with entries like butternut-squash soup with Dungeness crab and Agassiz hazelnut, rillette and parfait of Fraser Valley duck or seared Bayne Sound scallop with a leg of Polderside chicken. Mains include grilled shoulder of lamb, beef striploin with sautéed spinach and mushroom ragout or seared Pacific wild salmon with applewood-smoked bacon sauce. Desserts are inspiring from the Fireweed honey crème brulée to molten-chocolate pudding to apple tarte tatin.
1193 Denman St., Vancouver, 604-685-7337
© The Vancouver Province 2007