The Mighty Bowl utilizes the power of social media to inform customers of their stops each week.
Find them at:
360-602-BOWL
Try it our way
Filed Under Devour, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
Drink handcrafted coffee in style at Torque
photo by annie becker
In the newest chapter of downtown Vancouver’s continued revitalization, a local entrepreneur has turned a former tile factory at the city’s southern edge into a popular coffee house and gathering place. Torque Coffee Roasters embraces the rough, industrial quality of the space, which was an auto shop for years, and creates a welcoming, urban space unlike any other coffee shop in Vancouver.
Owner Ryan Palmer has a long history in the coffee business, with 14 years of experience with companies large and small, all over the country. Most recently, he owned and ran Meriwether’s Cafe, inside Vancouver’s Firstenburg Community Center. With Torque, he’s taken it another step. The lofty space is open and very hip, with plenty of reused tables and chairs or a coffee bar to sit at, and an urban patio decorated with one of the ubiquitous Vancouver murals. The coffee house, he emphasizes, is bike-friendly and dog-friendly – you can bring both inside.
The shop currently serves Coava Coffee at the bar, though he plans to begin roasting his own beans in the near future with the large roaster sitting in the corner. He also serves and will soon be certified to bottle cold-brew coffee. “We try to make our own syrups, chocolate, chai, all of it, in-house,” he says. “We also make our own tea and have a filtering system we developed ourselves. You get a fully-brewed cup of tea, not a little bag or some floaty stuff in your cup.”
Coffee is the focus at Torque – you won’t get a meal here. But incredible baked goods come from Portland’s Bake Shop, run by James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Kim Boyce. And he supports local food vendors by inviting them to set up outside, aiming “to have food carts or trucks here most days of the week.”
“We’re quality-focused above anything else,” says Palmer. Between himself and his six employees, “We’ve got about 45 years of experience behind our bar. A lot of us are former competitors in the U.S. Barista Competition – we have a different level of expertise than most people are used to.” That said, he also insists that you won’t get attitude from behind the bar. “We take the newer, fancier places that have popped up with a ‘No, we won’t DO that’ attitude, and we turn it around. Try it our way first. And if you don’t like it? We’ll do it your way.”
The Mighty Bowl
Filed Under Devour, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
After nearly a year of planning, The Mighty Bowl food truck embarked on its maiden voyage through Downtown Vancouver in early June. Kevin DeGraw, Sherilee Valenta and Steve Valenta founded The Mighty Bowl with the goal to provide the quick, easy meal a food cart can offer, while still serving healthy food with quality ingredients. The lemon curry sauce on the eponymous signature dish, engineered by Sherilee Valenta, was the beginning of the first recipe and as such the resulting bowl was lovingly dubbed, The Mighty Bowl.
The food cart bowl concept is not new, however The Mighty Bowl’s blend of flavors is. The tangy lemon curry sauce sits in the brown rice and black bean base. On top, sour cream, shredded cheddar, olives and cilantro, blend with the zesty sauce and substantial base to create a well-balanced meal with a light, fresh taste. The sauce is free of gluten, egg, dairy, soy and nuts; combined with the other components, the dish leaves a pleasant and unique aftertaste.
Doorway to delicious: Bleu Door Bakery offers pastries, breakfast and lunch fare
Filed Under Devour, Featured North Bank magazine stories, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
story by jessica swanson | photo by nicholas shannon kulmac
Bleu Door Bakery
2413 Main St., Vancouver
www.bleudoorbakery.com
360-693-2538 | Facebook
Don’t tell me change is good. I have to taste it for myself.
When Main Street favorite, Je T’aime Bakery, owned by local restaurateur Claire Ghormley, made way for Bleu Door Bakery, my first response was “No! (Followed by dramatic gasp.) But it was time for Ghormley to move on and for Bonnie Gougér to expand her homegrown bakeshop, known for Brownies from Heaven.
On a trip to the bakery soon after it opened in October, I was delighted to see a packed case of French and American-inspired pastries, sandwiches, cookies and a rack full of classic rustic breads. The daily specials, including soup and quiche were listed on a lovely chalkboard.
The coffee selection – much expanded from its predecessor’s – now competes with (nay, trumps) the Starbucks located across the street. A full espresso menu at Bleu Door is available from Café Femenino, a fair trade line of coffees that help women worldwide. The attentive barista asked me if I wanted my cappuccino dry or wet. Dry, of course, but the attention to detail made me smile. In fact, the customer service was quite impeccable. (I can’t help but compare to a similar new business in the area, where I seem to have to repeat every aspect of my order at least once before it is made. “Did you say large? Did you say room for cream? Did you say you wanted that heated? Etc.)
I ordered a huge butter croissant (they only seemed to come in “huge”), a pear Danish (which is really more of a deep pastry dish holding a delectable stash of melty pear compote and light, sweet cheese), a blue cheese and mushroom frittata croissant sandwich, and a coffee chocolate chip scone. I topped it off with a rustic rosemary potato bread.
I brought all of these offerings back to the office to be photographed and to share with my coworkers. But by lunchtime I had eaten the scone and the frittata and had dug all of the pear and cheese out of the Danish in the name of “reviewing” the items.
Well, here’s the review: Yum! Thank you, Bleu Door! The photographer was pleased with his butter croissant, and the potato loaf is going home to family for further “review.”
(Update: Potato loaf was well-received! However, I went back a couple of days later to try a different version of the pear Danish. As I was purchasing it, I was told it was “the biggest pear Danish in the world” and they would be smaller in the future. Also, the traditional French pastry crust was dark and dense/chewy, rather than light and fluffy. So…maybe the kinks are still being worked out. Still, this won’t stop me from going back for the lunchtime Hungarian mushroom soup….)
Urban entrepreneurship
Filed Under A Green Life, Craft, Devour, Featured North Bank magazine stories, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
New market creates connections between backyard growers and buyers
story + photos by mary preiser potts
Urban Growers Market
Second Fridays (next one Friday June 10!
2315 Main St., Vancouver
(One World Merchants parking lot)
www.urbangrowersmarket.com
Embarking on its first year, the Urban Growers Market is an evolution of Craft in the Village, started in 2009 by Chris Stevens of NW Shirts and Liz Halili of One World Merchants. The new market brings together a mix of backyard growers, small farmers and food artisans, as well as artists and crafters. It features a co-op table run by Urban Abundance, a barter table where backyard farmers can swap produce, and a table where fresh eggs and plant starts are offered by Posey Patch.
You may even see a table of budding child gardeners trade and sell their own fresh produce.
A swift outpouring of support got the market off the ground. In just a few days, a Kickstarter campaign raised money for permits and fees. Sponsorships from local businesses followed. Other fundraisers included the Vancouver Vixen (skateboard) Benefit Race sponsored by NW Shirts, as well as a silent auction and concert at the Brickhouse organized by Anni Becker.
“The Urban Growers Market has been fully funded by the community, 100 percent,” Halili said.
The local food movement in Vancouver is already strong. As the UGM founders see it, the more options there are for buying local, the better, especially as people become increasingly concerned about their food sources. This is evidenced by the proliferation of community-supported agriculture farms and farmers markets in recent years.
“All of the neighborhoods around here are very interested in buying local. It’s just giving them another option for a local, community, family event,” said Sunrise O’Mahoney, a co-founder of the Urban Growers Market, alongside Halili and Stevens.
Bigger than the sum of its parts, the market aims to serve as a community gathering place. In a city with low walkability in many areas, the founders hope to provide people with a reason to get outside, walk around and get to know their neighbors.
“This is just something that oil has done away with. People don’t know their neighbors…. I would just like for people to see how closely tied we are,” Stevens said.
A backyard grower and mother of three, Erica Barnes-Davis sells produce via the Urban Abundance co-op table. She thought participating in the market would be a good way to educate her children about where their food comes from.
“It’s so hard for kids to know about seasons for foods,” she said, “since we can get anything anytime from some part of the world.”
Plant flowers at Propstra Square
Filed Under A Green Life, Clark County, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
The Parks Foundation is recruiting volunteers to help plant the large planters and flowerbeds in and around Propstra Square, at Esther Short Park on Saturday, May 14. The planting will begin at 9 a.m. and is expected to be completed by 11 a.m. Event sponsor Hilton Vancouver Washington will provide refreshments for volunteers both before and after the planting.
Volunteers must preregister through the Parks Foundation office by Thursday, May 12, arrive at Propstra Square no later than 8:45 the morning of May 14 to sign volunteer forms, and should bring their own small gardening trowel. Please contact the Parks Foundation office at 360-487-8370 or email Cheri Martin to preregister. For more information, please see event flyer.
Flowers and plants for the 2011 planting were funded through Parks Foundation Propstra Square Memorial Brick sales. To help support future plantings, please consider purchasing a Memorial Brick.
