St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 31

SECTION May 28,1986 General NewtPage 7 SXLOUIS POST-DISPATCH Right, salmon and other fish from the Pacific Ocean on ice at Granville Island Market in Vancouver. Five kinds of salmon are caught locally, and other seafood is also plentiful in Vancouver, which is surrounded by water on three sides. Below, bright banners enliven the interior of the market, which has more than 40 permanent, independently owned shops plus space that can be rented by the day. I cmcower 1 iSi. '''W, JL2 Ft Story and Photos By Gail Pennington 01 the Post-Dispatch Staff WHERE IN the world can you have borsch brewed by Russian chefs for brunch, bratwurst at a German beer hall for lunch and a Big Mac on a big McBarge for an afternoon snack? Why, Expo '86, of course.

Vancouver's world's fair, which opened May 2, has more than 50 restaurants plus 40 fast-food carts something, surely, to please every one of the more than 13 million visitors Expo expects before it closes on Oct. 13. Hungry fairgoers can try: Pate, croissants and coq au vin at a French bistro. Prawns and papaya at a Hawaiian luau. Cornish pasties or bangers and mash at the British Pavilion; Scotch eggs and rover pie at an Irish pub.

Lamb and calamari at a Mediterranean dinery, or gyros and souvlaki at the Greek Chef's Corner. Norwegian specialties at the Norway Pavilion and raclette chez Switzerland. Czech and Slovak specialties at the Czechoslovakia Pavilion; Yugoslavian dishes at the Yugoslavian Pavilion. Peruvian desserts and Inca cola at the Peru Pavilion. Oriental food at a Korean, Japanese, Philippine or Chinese restaurant.

(One of the two Chinese eateries specializes in Asian seafood.) And last but perhaps most intriguing, musk ox and reindeer at the Northwest Territories Pavilion, barbecued salmon and caribou stew at the First Nation restaurant. There also will be deli fare, nachos, pizza, pasta, barbecue and burgers, of course. On the luxury side, the Canada Pavilion has a glass-enclosed cafe overlooking the water, and the Ontario Pavilion has a wine garden and a continental restaurant featuring Ontario meats and produce. The Flying Club also has a continental menu, with a comedy show in the evenings. The U.S.S.R.

has flown in five chefs to run its luxury restaurant, but it's the Canadians who will be offering $7.50 "caviar burgers." But what promoters may be proudest of are the five McDonald's. "We got a lot of criticism from the press in advance about jacked-up food prices," Rob Brimacombe of the Expo staff told reporters touring the fairgrounds in advance of the May 2 opening. "They said visitors would be trapped into buying $5 hot dogs and $7.50 hamburgers" thus the tongue-in-cheek burger," a hamburger topped with fish roe, which will indeed sell for $7.50. But the five McDonald's one of them a floating extravaganza dubbed, of course, McBarge will be selling Big Macs and fries at (ahem) fair prices, Brimacombe said; in other words, the same prices as outside the fair. Parents of picky fairgoers will no doubt rejoice, and maybe they can lose the kids long enough to visit something more exotic.

Outside Expo's gates, visitors to Vancouver will find an equally diverse selection of restaurants. For a European flavor, there's Robson Street downtown, lined with so many European-style cafes, delis and pastry shops that it's called "Robsonstrasse." A few blocks east is Vancouver's big, bustling Chinatown, where every other storefront seems to be a restaurant. It is the second-largest Chinatown in North America (after San Francisco's), largely because 1 i Kj mv a a Left, the entrance to Granville Island Market, in a restored warehouse neighborhood, boasts of the origins of its bounty: Canada. The big public market specializes in the plentiful products of the Pacific Northwest fish, seafood, fruits and vegetables as well as sophisticated imports from rice paper to radicchio. Below left, oolichans are a bargain at $1.49 a pound.

The small fish, something like a smelt, is often smoked. ROYAL SAUTE OF CABBAGE 1 tablespoon rice vinegar 1 tablespoon mild soy sauce 1 teaspoon granulated sugar 1 teaspoon cornstarch or arrowroot 1 teaspoon sesame oil 2 cups thinly sliced white cabbage 2 cups thinly sliced Chinese cabbage 2 cups thinly sliced bok choy 1 cup diced red cabbage 2 tablespoons peanut oil 1 Cj-inch) piece fresh ginger root, peeled and finely chopped 1 clove garlic, finely chopped Pinch crushed dried chili pepper (optional) Combine vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch and sesame oil in a small bowl. Set aside. Mix cabbages in a large bowl. Heat wok or heavy, deep skillet on high heat until a drop of water sizzles on contact.

Add peanut oil and rotate pan to coat. Stir in ginger and garlic and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, until garlic just begins to color. Add cabbage to pan and stir-fry until it just begins to wilt, about 3 minutes. Add chili pepper and the reserved vinegar mixture. Stir-fry until cabbage is der-crisp and evenly coated with dressing, about 1 minute.

Serve immediately. Yield: 4 to 6 servings. Tester's note: Chinese cabbage is sometimes called napa or celery cabbage. It is generally a pale-green, elongated head with curly inside leaves, and is available at many supermarkets as well as Oriental markets. Bok choy is almost white, shaped like celery but smoother, with dark-green spinach-like leaves.

The many kinds of cabbage make this dish special, but if you can't find all of them, increase the amount of the others to make a total of 7 cups. This delicious side dish is like a hot Oriental' slaw. LEMON YOGURT MUFFINS Vancouver calls itself the muffin capital of the world, with more muffin shops per capita than any other city a statistic we didn't ask for proof on. But it's certainly true that wonderful muffins are sold at every turn. This recipe is from the Grainry in Granville Island Market.

tablespoons honey 4 cup butter, softened 1 cup plain yogurt 1 egg yt cup fresh lemon juice teaspoon grated lemon rind cups pastry flour 'j teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons baking powde teaspoon salt Dash ground nutmeg 75 i rv it 1 i idents throng for fresh vegetables, fruit, flowers, local fish and baked goods. It opened in 1979. At the market, every stand is an independently owned food shop, and "day table" space is available for local growers with seasonal products. There are more than 40 permanent installations at the market, ranging from fresh and smoked seafood to cheese, fudge and muffins. Two shopkeepers, Judie Glick and Fiona McLlod, drew on the recipes of experts and shoppers alike to write "The Granville Island Market Cookbook," published in 1985 by Talonbooks Vancouver.

"In Vancouver, a seaport and a very cosmpolitan city, we are becoming much more adventurous in our tastes, and we are developing our own 'West Coast they say in their introduction, adding, "The natural abundance of many foods right here in B.C.'s lower mainland gives us access to an infinite variety of products all through the year." Here are some recipes adapted from "The Granville Island Market Cookbook" to give you a taste of Vancouver, even if you don't make it to the fair. V. i vv ill; the Canadian Pacific Railway chose Vancouver as the terminus for its trans-Canada rail line. When the railroad ended, thousands of Chinese workers were stranded and settled in Vancouver. Chinatown cuisine is so authentic that the restaurant we chose offered a menu ranging from fish lips to live shrimp.

A giggling party of Chinese at the next table ordered the shrimp, which were served hopping in glass bowl and then doused with boiling water. They were allowed to settle down before they were dished out onto the plates. Just a few blocks from Chinatown is Gas-town, where Vancouver began. Its founder, the story goes, was a saloonkeeper named "Gassy Jack," and a statue of him is front and center. Although Gastown, renovated in the '60s, has faded, you can find authentic French cafes that reflect the French side of Canada's French-British heritage as well an assemblage of souvenir shops.

Restaurants with a view are abundant in Vancouver. At sunset, there's the Cascades Lounge of the elegant new Pan Pacific Vancouver at Canada Place, part of the Expo '86 construction, or the very English Ferguson Point Tea Room. Even after sunset, the view is lovely at the Cannery, a rustic beams-and-nets kind of place specializing in fresh seafood and harbor lights. Another nice view is from the English Bay Cafe, charming even on a misty night with its three-sided glass view of the scalloped bayside. One Vancouver restaurant that shouldn't be missed is Quilicum, 1724 Davie Street, which serves native Indian dishes in a stone-and-wood "longhouse," the traditional Indian dwelling on three levels one for sleeping, one for daily activity and the lowest for dining.

At, Quilicum. decorated with Indian masks and other handicrafts, the tables have wells into which your feet dangle. Indian music plays in the background, and the air is fragrant with smoke from open cooking fires. An appetizer platter included salmon jerky, wind-dried salmon, smoked oolichans (a tiny fish similar to smelts) and herring roe on kelp. Also available is salmon soup and duck chowder.

The specialty of the house, however, is the barbecued fish and seafood. (It's grilled over mesquite, which gives food a delicious flavor. But not so many years ago, fish in the Pacific Northwest was grilled over native alder wood, which has a special taste all its own. When the mesquite trend passes, perhaps the alder tradition will be rediscovered.) Rabbit, caribou and goat also are barbecued at Quilicum, but the hit of the night was the salmon and oysters. Indian cuisine relies primarily on the natural flavor of fresh foods, heightened by smoke searing, technique that is especially effective on oysters.

Wild rice and fern shoots are side dishes. Desserts include cold raspberry soup, dried-fruit cocktail, upside-down blueberry cake and whipped soapalaille berries (a tart, raspberry-like fruit). To sample some of almost everything, there's the Potlatch platter, $24.95 for two (but plenty for three). Although British Columbia, as its name implies, was discovered and settled by the English, its cuisine has been shaped less by English traditions than by the abundance of fresh food available in the province. The Pacific Ocean yields a variety of seafood king crab, oysters, shrimp and other shellfish as well as cod, haddock and five varieties of salmon (coho, Chinook, chum, sock- eye and pink).

The Okanagan Valley is one of the great fruit-growing areas of North America. The valley, which enjoys a temperate climate year-round, produces apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, but it is most famous for Bing cherries and for the loganberry, created here by crossing the blackberry and the raspberry. Many of these fruits also are used to make wines and cordials. Vancouver has rediscovered its bounty of fresh food, and nowhere is that more apparent than at Granville Island Market. The island, actually a small peninsula just south of downtown, is a Laclede's Landing kind of place, a once-dumpy warehouse area transformed into a colorful neighborhood of shops, cafes and theaters.

It may not rival Anheuser-Busch in size, but Granville Island has its own brewery. It makes a good Eurorean-style lager and a darker bock beer both without preservatives or chemicals. They are sold all over town. The heart of Granville, though, is the huge, enclosed Public Market, open Tuesday through Sunday, where Vancouver res 'j cup chopped pecans Whip honey and butter in a large mixing bowl. Add yogurt, egg, lemon juice and rind; mix well.

Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together. Add sifted mixture to egg mixture. Stir briefly, just until flour is moistened. Fold in pecans. Fill greased muffin cups two-thirds full.

Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven 25 minutes. Yield: 12 muffins. Tester's note: To make these even more lemony and like the bakery muffins I enjoyed in Vancouver, I increased the lemon rind in the batter to 1 teaspoon and topped the muffins with a mixture of 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel (combined in the food processor) before baking. See VANCOUVER, Page I.