Shopping

One of our favourite things is to go to Chinatown on the weekend and buy fresh rice noodle sheets (Sa-Ho Fun) from Hon's at 268 Keefer.

These noodles are great and cheap at about a buck a pound! Here's a recipe outline:

Rinse 'em under water, separate, and cut into bite size pieces. Heat a wok, add some oil and stir fry.

We heard about Fraserview Spice House through Nattalia, the mom of our friend Toni. As Nattalia is one of the best home chefs we know, we completely trust any of her recommendations on Indian cooking and we had to check it out.

Tucked in between a banquet hall and fabric store and just on the south side of Marine Drive, FSH is surprisingly bright and tidy. They stock just about all the dry ingredients you would ever need to cook Indian food. I particularly like the variety of dry goods that are available from bulk bins.

We were delighted to find out this Saturday that our current favourite bread, Tuscan Bread from Casa Breads that we buy from Pane e Formaggio on West 10th is also available at Bosa in East Van.

So if you are on the East side, buy it at Bosa, if you are on the West Side buy it at Pane e Formaggio. Both places are great and well worth checking out!

As promised here's our mini-review of Pane e Formaggio. To summarize: Buy their Tuscan and pecan and fig breads and their lovely sandwiches!

[Editor's Note: Wow, we're starting to get lots of input from our members! Thanks! This one is from our friend Teresa (and her husband Robert) in Ontario, who just returned from her annual visit to Portugal. Hopefully this wine is available in BC too! I am going to look for it. In the meantime, if anyone else has tried it, please let us know what you think.]

A few weeks ago Robert read a review of a red Portugese wine in the paper and thought we should try it. We are glad we did! It was fabulous.

[Editor's Note: San Marzano plum tomatoes come from a small town outside Naples, Italy, peel easily, have less seeds and have a more concentrated flavour. You can buy them canned here in Vancouver. The controversy is that, of course, the San Marzano seeds can be grown elsewhere. For example, California. Since the soil, climate, etc. are different, California San Marzanos will naturally taste different then Italian San Marzanos.

Stella, one of our readers, submitted the following item about Oyama Sausage Company at Granville Island Market (#126 - 1689 Johnston St, 604-648-2783).

In response to Shelley's query about a BC mail order source of hard to find outside of a big city spices, Brenda wrote us an email pointing us to Golda's Kitchen. Thanks Brenda!

Although they are not in BC, Brenda writes that orders are shipped promptly and wrapped securely and she has no problems with the merchandise she has ordered from them.

Upon the recommendation of Sylvia Molnar, I went to Stong's in Dunbar today to pick up some ground lamb.

I was very pleasantly surprised! Stong's started out as a neighbourhood grocery store in 1931 and has evolved into an independent yet modern supermarket.

On Saturday, Barb and I went shopping at Sunrise Market, a fixture in Vancouver's Chinatown for many years. It's well worth shopping there. Please check out our review of Sunrise Market for more details.