Alfie Lau
Sun
Jim van der Tas (left), operating partner of Blue Canoe Waterfront Restaurant, and chef Vicente Mabanta with seafood on their open-air deck in Steveston. Photograph by : Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
Jim van der Tas and Bruce Lawson have spent more than a year working on their dream restaurant, and it’s hard to argue with the results.
The Blue Canoe Waterfront Restaurant in the heart of Steveston opened its doors on June 7, attracting more than 350 patrons to the place locals used to know as Jake’s on the Pier.
With brilliant summer weather and a patio that seats almost 100 people, those numbers have become even better, as 450 people enjoyed the culinary creations of Vicente Mabanta on a recent Saturday.
“We worked for 10 months renovating this place,” said Lawson. “We’ve put a lot of work into this and we are pretty happy with how it’s gone so far.”
“The reason why we did this is we wanted to build a destination restaurant for the people of Steveston,” said van der Tas. “We want to have the best upscale casual destination restaurant in Steveston.”
That’s a pretty heady goal, but judging by the positive word-of-mouth buzz about the Blue Canoe already circulating in Richmond, Lawson and van der Tas are making their dream a reality.
On a brilliant holiday afternoon, we decided to see what all the commotion was about.
We had perhaps the best seats in the house, right on the patio overlooking the pier where boats were selling spot prawns and rockfish.
We started with six oysters on the half-shell ($13), which were simply delectable when we added the three different toppings: the pepper minuet, ground horseradish and tomato fondue. For my money, the horseradish was the winner, not too strong and just enough of a kick to go with the slippery suckers.
Our non-seafood eater went with the chili nachos ($13) for his appetizer and the pesto chicken sandwich ($12) for his main.
The nachos were perfect summer fare — just filling enough to whet your appetite, but not too much to spoil your main course — and were notable for the homemade guacamole, which featured just enough citrus to make it the most refreshing dip.
The chicken sandwich featured a hunk of chicken breast that was overflowing out of the bun. Because Mabanta uses brie cheese, poached apples and watercress in the rub, the taste was unlike anything we had sampled in the area.
The seafood eaters at our table had a plethora of choices and we couldn’t complain about any of our picks.
The two-piece cod fish and chips ($14) features some of the lightest batter and freshest cod we’d tasted anywhere. The salmon barbecued in a corn husk ($20), which you won’t find on many menus, was deliciously tender.
I went with what turned out to be a mountain of mussels ($16), served with a Spanish sauce. There were almost two dozen mussels before me and when I mixed the dish with the chorizo, onions and saffron sauce, it was as if I had been transported to Madrid and was celebrating the Spanish Euro 2008 championship.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the three items on the menu that we were itching to try, but couldn’t find room for.
I had never seen lobster potato chip salad ($13) offered before and would have loved the lobster tail, roasted corn and green pepper dish — but the word salad is foreign to a carnivore like myself.
The salmon and avocado tartare ($14), served with citrus, chili and tobiko, is Lawson’s favourite appetizer, while van der Tas loves the sirloin sliders (six for $17).
“The sliders are absolutely brilliant,” he said. “We sell more sliders in the lounge than any other item and it’s been so successful that we’re looking at salmon sliders in the future.”
Van der Tas is clear where the credit for the menu goes.
“Vince is 28 and he’s a brilliant, brilliant chef,” he said. “He blew us away during the black-box test [where chefs cook their signature dish anonymously] with the salmon and avocado tartare. We could see that this guy just had everything figured out and that what he’s making in the kitchen is filling, but doesn’t leave you bloated.”
AT A GLANCE
The Blue Canoe Waterfront Restaurant is located at 140-3866 Bayview St. in the heart of Steveston.
Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week (11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday to Thursday; 11:30 a.m. until midnight Friday and Saturday), reservations are strongly recommended.
Call 604-275-7811 for more information.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008