Fresh is Best

There's this salsa company based out of Kamloops called Fresh is Best that makes salsas, nacho chips, guacamole and a garlic spinach dip. They sell their products at certain places throughout BC. They have this little store on Broadway near MacDonald in Vancouver that sells all of their products, and places like Save on Foods and Whole Foods carry their chips. They are so delicious. The chips are always so light and crispy, and their dips taste as if they're made with the freshest of ingredients. My boyfriend is originally from Kamloops, and his mom introduced us to the garlic spinach dip over a year ago. Coincidentally my mom discovered the nacho chips in Nanaimo, and introduced me to those. They have a website here .

This past weekend I ate out quite a bit. On Saturday afternoon, some friends and myself went to The Foundation on Main and East 7th. It's this total hipster restaurant with 70s furniture, jam jars as glasses, and sort of crappy service. But the food is great. The menu is odd... It really takes you a while to decipher what the items are. It's difficult to describe what I mean, but if you ever go there, you'll immediately know what I mean. I had a spinach-chickpea salad in a sesame dressing. It was called Goman Salad - once I started eating the salad I realized that it was named after Spinach Gomae at Japanese restaurants as it tasted almost identical. I also had a carrot, yam and ginger soup.

Saturday evening I had my first concert as a violinist with the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, and it went wonderfully! Afterwards, a few friends and myself went to Earls for a late night appetizer/drink/dessert. I had these two mini flour tortilla chicken tacos, with lettuce, avocado and this hot sauce. I also had a martini and shared a vanilla gelato sundae with Carla.

Sunday morning, Carla and I went to The Naam on West 4th and MacDonald. We aimed to go for breakfast because we really felt like eggs! She and I had been meaning to go to The Naam for a long time - I had been a couple of times for lunch, and she had never been at all. It's quite a famous Vancouver restaurant, notorious for its vegetarian menu, its poor service and the fact that it's open 24 hours for those cram-studying UBC students. We both had the special, which was scrambled eggs with cheese, mushrooms, zucchini, red pepper, onion and parsley. It came with a slice of baked-in-house multigrain bread, home-made raspberry jam, and little square potatoes fried with green onion and parsley. I also asked for a side of peanut butter and found out that even their peanut butter is made in house. I also had a small pot of "Catnap" relaxation tea, where the tea blends are made in house, also.

Today, after class, I met Carla again for lunch downtown at a little soup, sandwich, salad and hot meal place called The Dish, on Davie near Burrard. I had a simple turkey sandwich. It had real sliced turkey, mayo, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and a wonderful cranberry-pear chutney.

Let's review all of these places so I can demonstrate why Fresh is in fact, Best!

• The Foundation - Goman Salad & Carrot, Yam and Ginger soup - $11.50
• The Naam - Breakfast special and a small pot of tea - $11
• The Dish - Turkey sandwich - $6.25
• Earls - Chicken taco appetizer, martini ($1 off special) - $16.60

The three first are all single-location restaurants, and they all focus on creating foods with in-house made, fresh ingredients. All three of the first serve decent portions, at reasonable prices. After having eaten at the Foundation, Naam and Dish, I felt really well. I felt little to no pain from what I ate, and also felt energized, and even if I was full, it wasn't the uncomfortable, painful kind. 

Earls, however, was the most expensive, had the smallest portion of food, had foods that were I'm sure, mostly shipped in or frozen, and ended up hurting me so much I woke in the middle of the night from the pain. 

I'm finding this pattern more and more as I eat... the fresher the foods, the more simple and natural the ingredients, the better it is for me. Not only that, but places like Earls, Cactus Club, Moxie's, Milestones, etc. all have really pricey menus and small portions. As franchises, they need to have consistent recipes for their menus, so that means that everything is pre-prepared at a different location, and that the cooks in the kitchen make the food via a very strict formula - meaning that they're usually not necessarily trained cooks, and generally, they don't give a shit about what they're doing... Whereas in the small, single-location restaurants, everything is made on site, by trained cooks who, for the most part, generally care and take pride in what they're doing. I myself have worked in the food industry for quite a few years, in places where all the food is made on site. One place I was the main cook, and I used to create recipes and would do all the prep and a lot of the cooking, and I took so much pride in that food, and made sure that what I prepared was as fresh and delicious as it could be!

... So, all-in-all, I think we can now see that Fresh is Best! I apologize to Elijah, as he has to read these long posts for class... Sorry!

Until next time!