Login / RegisterSix food and dining events
New Place to Commune
Slated to open this Saturday (August 7) Commune Café (1002 Seymour Street) will offer delicious design and counter-service food from dawn to dark. A bright-red entryway fronts a sleek, modern room featuring felt-lined booths, a communal table with swish red chairs, cork-shaded lights, and fab murals. Service consultant Annette Rawlinson and chef Tina Fineza have staffed Commune’s kitchen with a youthful team that dishes out things like Fineza’s porchetta panini and sangkak Persian flatbread pizzas for starters. Prices range from $8 for a wild smoked salmon breakfast sandwich to $18 for dinner mains like halibut.
Palki Comes to the Drive
Bhupinder Mroke, who owns the popular Palki restaurant in North Vancouver, is set to open a second location of Palki in the old Lime space at 1130 Commercial Drive. The menu will be similar to that of the North Vancouver location. Main dishes—including butter chicken, lamb rogan josh, and tandoori items—will run $10 to $15. It’s scheduled to open in the coming week; hours will be 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.
South Burnaby Spiced Up
A second location of Galloway’s Specialty Foods is now open at 110–8620 Glenlyon Parkway, just east of Boundary Road and Marine Way in Burnaby. The spacious store carries thousands of specialty food items from around the world, including Calimyrna figs, dry-roasted edamame, Lebanese rose and orange waters, amaranth and teff flours, and Italian 00 flour for pasta.
It’s open daily; for info, see www.gallowaysfoods.com. The Richmond location remains at 7860 Alderbridge Way.
Food in Your Back Yard
Launched in April, the Backyard Bounty Collective is a joint project of the Environmental Youth Alliance and Farm Folk/City Folk. The collective’s goal is to teach people urban agricultural skills, and it’s holding a series of workshops on back-yard food production at the Strathcona Community Garden Eco-Pavilion (corner of Prior Street and Hawks Avenue). Learn about growing mushrooms on August 14, beekeeping on August 21, and building a chicken coop on September 11. Fees vary; for info, see www.backyardbountycollective.com.
Get the Kids Cooking
Fall may be in sight, but there’s still time for hands-on summer cooking courses at the CookShop & CookSchool (3–555 West 12th Avenue). August 9 to 12, kids 10 years and up will learn to cook Italian, Japanese, and Greek meals. Teens will get their chance to learn French, Thai, and New Orleans cuisine August 16 to 18. Each three-day course is $149. Book at www.cookshop.ca or 604-873-5683.
You Say Tomato
The French say tomate, the Italians pomodoro. Find this versatile fruit in tomato dishes throughout August when Provence Mediterranean Grill (4473 West 10th Avenue), Provence Marinaside (1177 Marinaside Crescent), and Campagnolo (1020 Main Street) roll out tomato-centric three-course prix fixes ($45, $48, and $40, respectively). Both Provences list heirloom-tomato tart and tomato and caper-crusted sablefish among their choices, while Campagnolo will serve Black Russian tomato tart, Polderside Farms chicken with sautéed tomatoes, and more.
