Mia Stainsby

Alex Kim, culinary director at Five Sails restaurants and current Canadian Culinary Champion doesn’t rest on laurels and he doesn’t park his culinary skills on a plateau. It seems to me, with every visit, he’s hoisted himself to another level. Upon experiencing his current spring tasting menu, well, he’s done it again. It’s a complete wow!
The menu is part of a seasonal series called The Altitude, inspired by a visit to Peru, and I’d guess, Central restaurant in Lima. There, one of the world’s top chefs, Virgilio Martinez, creates menus guiding diners, vertically, through various Peruvian ecosystems starting from sea level and ending in the Andes. His restaurant is a regular on the World’s 50 Best Restaurant, and it took top spot in 2023. I have visited this famous restaurant in Lima and was gob-smacked by the depth of research, scientific and culinary, through all the country’s ecosystems and by the exotic ingredients.
But, were I forced to vote on which restaurant gave me the most pleasure and excitement in the mouth, I would give it to Kim’s Pacific Northwest Altitude menu for the sensual flavours, gorgeous visuals, playful inventiveness and creative agility. The dishes journey below sea level, to shore, then elevate inland and upward. Out of the gate, his famous oyster tartlet has a shell so real, you must command your teeth to bite. At alpine level, wild berries, spruce tips, and wildflowers feel like a fresh, cool mountain breeze.
Dishes on tasting menus rarely hit home runs with every course but Kim pretty much did. Only one dish felt less than perfect — it dazzled with flavour and technique but was visually overwhelmingly white and pale — a silken rice and almond coverlet hid a couple of chicken surprises underneath, where some pops of colour would have clinched it. Overall, though, what an impressive choreography of story, taste, sight, and talent.
These are highlights from the dinner. Less

I’ve followed Waleed Ogbah since he first started a pop-up in the same building as The Vancouver Sun, serving Yemenese food on weekends, in a coffee shop that operated only on weekdays. That was in 2017.
Since then, he’s grown Saba Foods, into a flourishing restaurant. It had moved around few times before settling in South Granville, in the elegant former West restaurant location. The stars of the menu have always been the lamb and chicken haneeth, slow braised and succulent. But he’s added another — the tomahawk steak. “If you asked for a knife, it means we didn’t do a good job,” he said of the haneeth when I first interviewed him.
The other Saba strength is the warm hospitality, filtering down from Ogbah. Less

St. Patrick Day is soon upon us and while Ireland is on your mind, let me tell you of a lunch I had this week with Ireland’s minister of state for agriculture, food, and marine, the Irish consul general in Vancouver and an organization they wish to support and promote. And once I learned of it, I do too. Good Food Ireland, founded by Margaret Jeffares, a farmer 20 years ago, promotes Irish farmers, fishers, artisans, chefs and works to change the perception of Irish food, which has always been local, sustainable, and artisanal thanks to a land of small, local producers.
And now they have launched a website connecting you to experiences, curated by Good Food Ireland, with these producers and creators when you travel to Ireland and you can book the tours, cooking classes, tastings through https://goodfoodirelandexperiences.com.
They include afternoon teas, tours and tastings at distilleries, cheesemakers, beekeeping facilities, oyster farms, chocolate makers, and Irish soda bread classes. Longer tours include three-days of visiting distilleries, including Jameson, and the one I would certainly join, a private tour of the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School Gardens and Organic Farm in Cork.

#irishfood #irelandtravel #ballymaloe #Botanist Less

Fans of chef Nutcha Phanthoupheng’s exquisite Thai cuisine at Richmond’s Baan Lao restaurant can celebrate International Women’s Month in a momentous dinner collaboration with three brilliant female chefs.

These masters (mistresses?) of Thai cuisine — and it’s not an exaggeration to say they are three of the world’s most influential Thai chefs — will present a tasting menu that ranges from the refined Royal Thai cuisine to the bold flavours of Southern Thailand and the culinary synthesis of Bangkok’s Chinatown.
Guest chef “Pam” Pichaya Soontornyanakij of Bangkok’s Michelin-starred Potong restaurant was named the world’s best female chef in 2025 and her restaurant ranked thirteenth in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025.

She will be joined by Chef Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon of Philadelphia’s Kalaya restaurant, named best female chef in North America last year. Her restaurant ranked seventh in North America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025.

Chef Nutcha can, of course, more than hold her own in this company. Baan Lao was named the best restaurant in Canada by the World Culinary Awards in 2024 and 2025 and was ranked twelfth on North America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025.

The dinners at Baan Lao are two nights only, March 17 and 18, and seating is limited. The cost is a stratospheric $850 per person, but for those who can afford it, this promises to be a beautiful, heaven-sent event and ticket prices include the 22-course collaboration menu, premium wine pairings and a welcome glass of Rothschild Champagne. They do not include tax and gratuity. Tickets are available on Open Table’s Baan Lao site.

Chef “Pam” Pichaya Soontornyanakij, Chef Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon, Chef Nutcha Phanthoupheng (L to R)
Photo credit: @gastrofilm Less

Miku Japanese restaurant is about to open another location at the River Rock Casino with a soft opening on February 17, ahead of its official opening, to be announced in March. Limited reservations can be made online now at mikurichmond.com.
Expect the same level of service and food as at the Coal Harbour location, including well-known dishes such as: aburi oshi sushi, ebi fritters, Iwate Wagyu carpaccio, Saikyo miso sablefish, along with the nigiri and sashimi platters.
The first Miku, of Aburi Restaurants Canada, opened in 2008 and a second opened 10 years later in Toronto. Less

Five Sails seems to get even better with each visit. I attended a Dine Out World Chef Exchange dinner there with chef Alex Kim cooking with guest chef Taejun Eom of Michelin-starred Solbam based in Seoul.
I know it was a special dinner and Kim can’t pull it off every evening but it sure showed he has Michelin prowess and for a moment, they achieved two star equivalence, with imagination, technique, flavour harmony, artistry with stories from the chefs on the plates. It was a wow!

On the table:
*Solbam’s pork jowl. Stuffed morels, tofu (Chef TE)
*Chef Kim’s signature oyster tartlet (Chef AK)
*Sweet shrimp and Kaluga caviar, brioche, dill (TE)
*Golden-eye snapper dumpling, scallop, napa, quinoa, yuzu kosho oil (TE)
*Dry-aged duck, gochujang romesco, confit leg comesquis, liver sando (best duck ever!) (AK)
*A5 Wagyu, braised chard, goguma stems, akjeot sauce, mustard seeds (TE)
*Injeolmi cake, roasted soy mascarpone, gold strike honey (AK) Less

Michelin says the young chef at Oaxaca’s Tika’aya brings a refined flair to indigenous Mixtecan dishes and that they wouldn’t be out of place in far ritzier settings. Mexico’s amazing cuisine leans heavily on Mixteca traditions and the Oaxaca region is the gastronomic epicentre of the country.
I’m wondering if we experienced the Michelin effect since it arrived in 2024. Five years ago, a Yelp post showed the seven course menu was $35 (US) per person. We paid $124 C per person for the same number of courses, before tip and drinks. The extremely dark, rustic room made it difficult to see what was on the plate. I needed a camera light to capture images of what we ate.
The dishes were complex, creative, and tweezered into place à la international tasting menu style, and not remotely ‘indigenous’ aside from some ingredients. Flavours blurred and courses felt repetitive. Except for the one served with a burning piece of charcoal meant to smoke the food but came right for me instead.
There was a table of six and us, otherwise pretty quiet.
#oaxaca #miztecacuisine Less

Until February 22, Fairmont Hotel Vancouver’s tea room is ablush in red, lit by a multitude of Chinese lanterns, quickening pulses, and the need for tea.
It’s the current afternoon tea theme, saluting Lunar New Year and the Year of the Horse. The hotel regularly changes the theme and story lines and this one is teamworked with Chinatown Storytelling Centre in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. One of the nine teas is an exclusive blend created by the Storytelling Centre in collab with Vancouver’s Tealeaves, “tea blender to Michelin chefs and five-star hotels.”
Food highlights include Jasmine Earl Grey scones, Szechuan-glazed prawn toast, char siu-inspired salmon mi-cuit with yuzu accents; sweets include sesame miso biscuit, mandarin sago pudding, and pastries flecked with gold leaf to symbolize good fortune. Five guests will receive lucky gifts including a Foo Hung Curios prize bundle and tickets to a Sip and Paint event with Justine Crawford, the artist who transformed the room into something out of Shanghai’s golden age. Each guest receives a complimentary ticket to the Storytelling Centre.
On Lunar New Year, February 17, the hotel will explode with the energy of lion dance by Hon Hsing Athletic Club in the lobby, Notch8 Restaurant. The Lunar New Year Afternoon Tea is available Thursday to Sunday.

My weekly columns are at Life/Food/Local Reviews in The Vancouver Sun and The Province
Or sign up for West Coast Table at vancouversun.com/newsletters.
Or https://muckrack.com/miastainsby/articles
Or google Mia Stainsby and Word of Mouth, my restaurant blog

#afternoonteas #vancouvertea #chinatownyvr Less