Finding a restaurant was no easy feat.  Mine and Miriam’s allergies were the least of it (all British Columbia restaurant are nonsmoking (indoors anyway) so that wasn’t a problem for any place without a patio).  Our Burnaby host has celiac and can’t have dairy or eggs and our New Brunswick friend can’t have a long list of items, the worst of which is peanuts (any trace of which could kill her).  Cooking for all of us was fairly easy (well, I like a challenge) but restaurants are a different matter.

Fortunately, I found Food Vancouver, a great listing of area restaurants, including checkboxes for different dietary restrictions, which you can add to a search by location or cuisine.  Unfortunately, it’s clear that some of the restaurants who added themselves (or patrons who added them) didn’t understand the meaning of the checkboxes.  We had a long back and forth with a supposedly gluten-free-friendly Chinese restaurant and decided not to bother.

So we went to an Indian place that sounded promising and was an easy walk from the hotel.

India Bistro
1157 Davie Street, Vancouver, BC
604-684-INDIA (6342)
http://www.indiabistro.ca/
http://www.foodvancouver.com/restaurant.php?restaurant=137

Davie Street is filled with restaurants and people but India Bistro was calm and quiet once we passed through the doors.  No patio, no incense, no peanut oil, no problem getting a table.

Our server Steve was so knowledgeable we assumed he must be an owner, and perhaps he is. He was amazing and really got our needs (aside from one common blip of saying a dish didn’t have any gluten because it was made with white flour).  Four out of the six of us had strict dietary restrictions that only partially overlapped, yet he managed to keep it all in his head and warn us whenever one of us expressed interest in a dish that contained a potentially forbidden ingredient.

Unfortunately, our New Brunswick friend did have an allergic reaction, but it was to some obscure spice she didn’t know she reacted to and it was not the restaurant’s fault in the slightest. But even she says, if she were local, she’d “go back there in a heartbeat,” with some precautions about which dishes she ordered of course.

They don’t use eggs at all (the cheesecake, which is made off site, is the only dish with eggs).  All of their breading is vegan chickpea flour and the fryers aren’t used for anything containing gluten, dairy, or eggs.

But this wasn’t just a safe meal, it was delicious.  Some of the best Indian food I’ve had in a long time.  We started off with two chickpea-battered appetizers, both gluten-free by default: fried calamari ($6.95) and chicken pakoras ($5.95).

I don’t eat meat (I do eat seafood) and have been raising Miriam the same.  Michael eats meat (no pork and very little red meat) and we agreed Miriam could have turkey this Thanksgiving with the condition that she understand where the meat comes from.  At the tender age of three, she has demonstrated that she understands death and that animals used for meat need to be killed.

Recently, she has been asking “am I allergic to chicken?”  I had to tell her no.  At the restaurant, she asked again, and Michael and I decided she could have her first taste of it.  She was so excited she told the server and everyone else within earshot, multiple times, “I’m having chicken! I’m not allergic to chicken!”  Well, she loved it.  She ate about half the pakoras by herself.  The rest of us devoured what was left.  I only had the calamari and it was tender and delicious.

We ate so quickly I didn’t get a picture until the very end.

Miriam after her first taste of chicken

For my entree, I chose the Tandoori Trout (trout marinated in fresh ginger, garlic and spices & char-broiled. $13.95).  Although the websites say it’s marinated in youghart, if memory serves me, it was actually nondairy (I can cheat with dairy and gluten once in a while).  Cooked perfectly with a crispy skin and tender meat.  Although the accompanying mint sauce was wonderful, the fish didn’t need anything.

Tandoori Trout

The table shared papadum (lentil crackers, $1.50 times 3), which were the only bread not made with wheat, rice Pulao (basmati rice cooked with cumin, onions & aromatic spices.  $3.95 times 2.  Vegan and delicate and great for soaking up those marvelous sauces), and cucumber salad ($3.95).

Lamb Palak

The other adults ordered Chicken Jalfrazi (chicken cooked with onion, bell peppers, tomato in a light curry sauce. $10.95), Lamb Palak (lamb cooked with spinach & Indian spices. $10.95), Murgh Coconut (boneless chicken cooked in a unique combination of coriander & coconut curry. $10.95, and Lamb Rogan Josh (lamb cooked with onions, garlic, ginger and traditional Indian herbs & spices. $10.95).  I tasted some of the chicken sauces and they plus some rice would have made a meal by themselves.

We were in the process of ordering dessert when our friend (who left early to get some air) became ill and we had to rush out (her husband went on ahead so the rest of us could deal with the bill).  Our server was preparing some samples so we could decide what to order and he sweetly packed them up with our leftovers as we paid.

We ate the desserts the next day.  The rice pudding (kheer) was good but the Gulabjamun (dark brown round shaped cheese balls in a honey syrup) were my favorite.

The prices were excellent.  Our meal for 6 people (5 adults) had two beers, 2 appetizers, 5 entrees, rice, and salad and came to $100 including tax (but not tip).  Parking is a nightmare; take the Skytrain if  you can.

If I were local, India Bistro would be one of my regular haunts.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

A few days later, all was calm and we opted for something closer to where we were staying.  The place we chose turned out to be perfect.

The Xiang Cuisine
aka Alvin Garden
4850 Imperial Street, Burnaby, BC Canada
604-437-0828
Credit and debit cards accepted but only if your bill is over a certain amount ($30?).
Reviews at Chowhound, DineHere, EatVancouver (with photos of the menu (old version)), and some lovely pictures (pre and post-renovation but with the newer menu).

Xiang is this hole in the wall just east of Vancouver.  They renovated a few months ago (based on the pictures I’ve seen, it’s looking much better) and changed their name to Alvin Garden, though they seem to use both names.  We walked in to find a pleasant interior with two rooms of tables and no white faces (a good sign).  There were some larger groups as well as couples there, and both fit in well.

I wouldn’t call it particularly romantic, but it had the right feel to it for an anniversary (or even a date) and you could easily carry on a conversation.

Our waitress was nice and knowledgeable about the food.  Despite warnings from other reviewers about poor English skills, we had no trouble communicating.  She seemed perplexed though when we asked for no meat (in particular, no pork).  Other reviewers report similar experiences: they ask for no meat and are told it won’t be as good, but it turns out to be excellent.  We had no trouble finding several dishes to try and going egg-free was easy too (she just steered us away from a couple of dishes).  Dairy-free is pretty much a given in Chinese restaurants (authentic ones anyway).  Forget about gluten-free; we didn’t even try.  I can eat gluten once in a while, so I didn’t worry about it (but I avoided the leftovers so I wouldn’t have gluten two days in a row).

Not being familiar with Hunan cuisine, aside from knowing it’s the hottest food in China, we didn’t order correctly.  We should have had a raw (or at least cold) salad to balance out the heat.  And we got way too much food.  Our dishes could have easily fed four.  Nor did we eat it right.  You’re supposed to put some rice in the little bowl they give you and then put food on top, eating the rice as it gets soaked with sauce.  Since our bowls still had soup, we used the plates.  If anyone laughed at us, they were discrete.

We started with soup, broiled fish with chili.

Broiled fish with chili soup

At $18.98, this seemed like quite an extravagance, until we saw the pot.  We could have served 8, as part of a larger meal, and it had a fair bit of firm white fish.  Our waitress warned us this one would be hot, and it was blistering.  I had trouble eating it, though I kept doing it since it was so good.  Michael wasn’t fond of the style of putting dried chilies on top as he prefers his heat more integrated.

Our other dishes were fried eggplant with black bean sauce (top left of picture, $8.90); Hunan style shrimp (bottom right of picture, $14.90); steamed dried tofu with special chili (bottom left of picture, $9.90); and a pot of rice.  We both prefer our food lowcarb, which everything was, but wanted the rice to soak up the amazing sauces and, in my case, reduce the heat level.  I can’t recall which of the dishes normally have pork in them, but ours came meat-free.

Michael enjoying Xiang's offerings

The eggplant was like silk and melted in our mouths.  It was the only dish we managed to finish.  It and the shrimp were our favorites.  The chili sauce on the shrimp was similar to the soup’s but the heat was more a part of the dish and wasn’t as intense.  We loved the crispy edible shells.  I ate the tofu without the sliced jalapenos and found it to be a nice contrast to the tomato/chili based dishes.  It had some heat but was fairly mild.  The chewiness of the tofu was also a good counter to the softness of most of the ingredients in the other dishes.

Xiang passed the girlfriend-cry-test, which is now the wife-cry-test.  That’s where if I take a single bite of something and tears start rolling down my face, then it’s hot enough for Michael.  Part of my anniversary gift to him was choosing a restaurant where I knew he’d have the heat he craved, and the joy of watching me suffer with delight.

Michael had a Chinese beer ($4.50) and I had a glass of sweetened and chalky soymilk ($1.50), mostly because I needed something to dial down the heat.  Dessert was pumpkin cake (egg-free) which turned out to be 4 large glutenous pies, filled with a bit of pumpkin and fried.  They had a mild flavor, not as sweet as most Westerners would expect of a dessert, but complemented the meal and had a definite addictive property.

So this turned out to be a fairly pricey meal for us, but worth it due to the special occasion and the massive amount of leftovers we carted home.  Although any size group (or solo diner) can get a great meal, Xiang seems best geared for large groups who will share the oversized plates and get the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of dishes.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Chi Cake
http://www.chicake.com/
Vegan, gluten-free, organic cheesecake
Vegan Choice Foods, Inc., Contact: Alan Munro
Unit 14 – 7621 Vantage Way
Delta, BC V4G 1A6 Canada
Phone:  778-88VEGAN (778-888-3426)
E-Mail:  questions@chicake.com

The good news is, it’s delicious.  The bad news…it’s only available in the Vancouver area.  It’s also pricey: $20 for a 19 oz (540g) cake.

We had the New York Style lemon.  It wasn’t really New York style, which is dense and rich.  This was light and melted in your mouth.  So doesn’t quite hit all my cheesecake satisfaction buttons (I’m a NY style girl) but it was really quite good.

Given that I can’t get this at home, I wonder if I can duplicate it.  It seems fairly simple.  The filling is a soy-based cream cheese (the Follow Your Heart brand is very good and may be similar to what they use, if not the same) with tofu (I assume silken) and then they add sugar, lemon juice, salt, and an egg replacer (theirs is various starches).

The crust is cornmeal, puffed millet, sugar, grape juice, coconut flour, Earth Balance margarine, and ginger.

Maybe when I return home…

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.