Funny that the first big article I find in the New York Times, happens to be about the one thing that we *know* will catch people by surprise
If Meals Won Medals
By SAM SIFTON
Published: February 2, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia
AS breakfasts go, it’s not much to look at, just a small plastic container of maple-glazed smoked salmon bits. There is a sourdough roll to go with it, and a cup of hot coffee with cream.
Eating them together here on a dock in False Creek, though, with low clouds scudding over a hedge of green-glass buildings across the water, past Stanley Park in the distance, is to experience something of the solemn, awestruck joy that the philosopher Edmund Burke called the sublime. Above the skyline, to the north and west, mountains rise into a darkening sky as bathtub ferryboats chug past beneath them on still saltwater the color of slate. Gulls come close, beg for scraps. They won’t get any.
Vancouver is a terrific place to eat. It is diverse and exciting in its culinary offerings. But a simple breakfast taken on the pier outside the Granville Island Public Market is an important stop for any wayfaring food pilgrim. The fish — ruddy and cold-smoked, a taste of British Columbia for centuries, best purchased at Longliner Seafoods in the main shed — is a sweet-sour-salty baseline from which we can measure the region’s best meals.
I was on the dock in late January, an advance man for the more than two million people organizers say will descend on Vancouver and its environs for the 2010 Winter Games, which run from Feb. 12 to 28. While in the city and its suburbs, I fed as if in danger of imminent execution. And I was able to confirm earlier reconnaissance: Vancouver is among the best eating towns in the history of the Winter Games.
(more…)
