LIQUOR

FOOD/LIQUOR Plenty of opportunities to get saucy with Lunch Lady

by Charlie Smith

Lunch Lady on Commercial Drive doesn’t really need a review. The place is almost always full because its food is so delicious. So if you’re inclined to try the new version of Vietnamese cooking—mainly street eats with bold, bright flavours—you should make a reservation.

For those interested in the history of Lunch Lady, it was inspired by Anthony Bourdain’s coverage of a food stall by the same name in Ho Chi Minh City. “My first love—a place I remain besotted with, fascinated by,” is how Bourdain described it.

The original Lunch Lady in Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Tan, shared her recipes with the founding partners of the Vancouver restaurant, Michael Tran, his mother Victoria, and Benedict Lim. It was their bad luck to launch the restaurant last year in the midst of a pandemic, but they’ve survived.

On a recent dinner visit, my dining companion ordered three things that screamed out at us from the menu.

The first was the street-style caramelized corn. It was sautéed and succulent, with an unusual, tangy taste that transported us from Vancouver to the Mekong Delta.

Next up were two char-grilled and fairly substantial pork-belly skewers, marinated with plenty of garlic. While the corn had a red-chili aftertaste, the skewers left me with a lingering sweetness on the palate, almost like a drop of honey. The final dish was the garlic-fried noodles. This, too, came well flavoured with garlic, as well as with aged Parmigiano-Reggiano.

It’s clear that garlic is a mainstay of Vietnamese street food, something I never knew before my first visit. And the Calamansi Soda Chanh cost $4, which is nicely priced for Vancouver.

The server, Dexter, was great, offering personal advice on what to order. On a side note, patrons’ temperatures are taken before they enter as part of the restaurant’s COVID-19 safety protocols. There’s also Plexiglas separating diners as well as those at the bar.

A hallmark of a good restaurant is if you would return. On that score, Lunch Lady passed this test with ease. g A s a valuable public service, we crack open spirits from B.C. to Bahrain and beyond, and then give you a highly opinionated, pocket flask–sized review.

Lunch Lady offers juicy pork-belly skewers as an appetizer for dinner. Photo by Lunch Lady.

My first love—a place I remain besotted with, fascinated by.

– Anthony Bourdain

Come visit our new Downtown & False Creek market locations this summer!

Find out more at eatlocal.org

Appleton makes memories without a visit to Jamaica

by Mike Usinger

TODAY’S FREE POUR Appleton Estate 15 Year Old Black River Casks

THEIR WORDS “Appleton Estate 15 Year Old Black River Casks is a tribute to the Black River that is integral to Jamaica’s rum history and the source of the limestone-filtered water used to craft our rums. The rums that make up Black River Casks are hand-selected and crafted with Jamaican limestone-filtered water, with no added flavors, and have all been aged for a minimum of 15 years in the tropical climate of Jamaica. Our 15 Year Old rum is perfect for sipping neat or on the rocks.”

TASTING NOTES Get ready for something so grandly transporting, you’ll do anything to avoid breaking the spell. That’s a heads-up that Appleton Estate 15 Year Old Black River Casks smells almost insanely wonderful—like freshly cut Blue Mountains sugar-loaf pineapple, grilled tangelo slices, and molasses-heavy ginger cake. What do all three of those have in common? They’re deeply woven into the fabric of Jamaica, a madefor-Instagram tropical wonderland that you’re unfortunately not getting to any time soon.

So close your eyes, inhale deeply, and picture yourself lounging on the white sands of Seven Mile Beach. Or floating aimlessly in the turquoise waters of Blue Lagoon. Or tucking into a plate of jerk chicken and roasted breadfruit at Scotchies in Montego Bay. And, no, it doesn’t matter that the closest you ever came to Jamaica is Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Legend.

What’s in the glass is no less heavenly once it’s sipping time. Silky, slightly viscous, and crushed-velvet smooth, Appleton Estate Black River Casks is a bold and complex rum, heavy with notes of fresh vanilla bean caviar, orange-infused molasses, and toffee-coated Indian almonds. If that sounds beautifully elegant, that’s not by accident.

COCKTAIL TIME There are two lines of thinking that apply here. You know how, when you’re cooking, you tend to avoid using the good stuff— sorry 1941 Inglenook Cabernet Sauvignon—and instead reach for the Wild Irish Rose, Carlo Rossi, or anything that comes in a box from Kelowna.

Anthony Bourdain would have argued that you don’t put anything in your pasta sauce that you wouldn’t serve Francis Ford Coppola. In other words, you can’t make a quality meal, or cocktail, without using quality ingredients. So you’ve got a choice with Appleton Estate 15 Year Old Black River Casks.

Option number one is using it in a liquor-forward cocktail like an Old Fashioned. A great base, after all, makes for a great cocktail. Don’t forget to stir it up!

Option number two is neat, or, if you must, pouring it over an oversize ice cube. Ahh, memories of Jamaica—even if they’re only imagined.

OLD FASHIONED 2.5 oz Appleton Estate 15 Year Old Black River Casks 0.5 oz simple syrup One dash Peychaud’s bitters Two dashes Angostura bitters Two dashes orange bitters Orange peel garnish

Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass with large, cubed ice. Stir quickly until glass frosts, then strain into an Old Fashioned glass, over a large block ice or ice sphere. Finish it off with an orange twist. g

Appleton Estate Black River Casks is a bold and complex rum infused with elegant flavours.