Photo credit: Brian Howell

I’ve written about Olympic Village a few times in the past year, and it always fascinates me.  The whole neighborhood – something like 25 high-rises comprising eight city blocks – was built from scratch at a cost of more than a billion dollars to house athletes during the 2010 Olympics.  Then, when the games were over, the place sat vacant – or nearly so – for at least a year: a ghost town right on the edge of downtown Vancouver.  Well, things are finally starting to come around.  You can see people on the streets, lights on in the condo towers and even eager recruits lining up for pole dancing classes.  More on that in the article below, written for BC Business Magazine.

It Takes a Village: Signs of life in Vancouver’s newest neighborhood

Remy Scalza; Special to BC Business

On a recent Sunday afternoon, a free tasting of fortified wines has lured the thirsty and curious into Legacy Liquor Store, the cavernous new 8,600-square-foot private store in the heart of Olympic Village, now officially known as the Village on False Creek. Couples with monstrous strollers, the young and bearded of Mount Pleasant, and seniors in track suits and dark glasses crowd the granite-topped bar in back, sipping a mid-priced reserve from Jerez.

“I always think of this one as butter tarts in a glass,” says 31-year-old Legacy general manager Darryl Lamb, uncorking a bottle behind the bar. “With a little crème brûlée, flan, even Fig Newtons, it’s magic.” A line has formed, curling back through elaborate displays of craft beer and a maze of well-stocked wine racks. Between pours, Lamb explains that the healthy turnout today is hardly unusual: “The amount of walk-in traffic since we opened in November has been unbelievable. We’re already months and months ahead of our sales projections.”

In the throes of receivership, against a backdrop of lawsuits from jilted condo buyers and lingering controversies about concessions to developers and taxpayer-shouldered losses, the Olympic Village development and the surrounding Southeast False Creek neighbourhood (stretching from the Cambie Bridge to Main Street, and from False Creek to West Second Avenue) are quietly getting on with the business of business. Proximity to downtown, ample mass transit and an ambitious residential plan all seem to augur well for the area’s commercial future. “Developers are creating a lot of density and a lot of residential activity,” says Tsur Somerville, director of the Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “The fact that there are no readily accessible amenities there right now creates an excellent environment for retailers to go into.”

To read the full article, click here.

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Photo: Greg Geipel for Vancouver Magazine

Vancouver has long been a popular destination for international students, in particular ESL students from Japan and Korea who come across the Pacific to study English.  Recently, however, I began noticing a new constituency:  Arabic speaking students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  After asking some questions, I discovered that there are tens of thousands of Saudi students studying in Canada (even more in the U.S.) as part of an ambitious scholarship program intended to show young Saudis a glimpse of Western life.  I spent a few days hanging out with a group of guys from Riyadh during Ramadan, and I wrote about the experience for Vancouver Magazine.

Western Promises

By Remy Scalza published Nov 30, 2010

By Saudi Arabian standards, Trad Bahabri, a 21-year-old from the capital city of Riyadh, may be a good driver. By Vancouver standards, however, he is not. One afternoon during Eid, the holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Bahabri is driving north on Knight trying to get to Richmond. This is the wrong direction. He eyes oncoming traffic, slams on the brakes, and makes an abrupt U-turn in his Chrysler 300, a hulking new sedan with an imposing metal grille. “Saudis like American cars,” he explains. “We don’t have to worry about the gas.”

By the time we finally crest the Knight Street Bridge, other drivers have begun to stare. It’s not just his driving skills that are attracting attention. To mark the holiday, Bahabri is in traditional Saudi dress: a flowing white robe known as a thobe, which he stayed up late ironing, and a brilliant red and white-checked head scarf, or shemagh. The shemagh spills over the headrest and flaps around when the window is rolled down.

Bahabri stops in an industrial part of Richmond near Ikea and parks behind a drab cinderblock building with a sign strung above the doorway: Saudi Students Society of British Columbia. Later in the day there will be a feast to commemorate the end of Ramadan. A small crowd of men—some in thobes and shemaghs, and just as many in jeans and hoodies—is already gathering out front.

Click here to read the full article on the Vancouver Magazine website.

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Photo: Remy Scalza

Editor’s Note: This post was originally written for HGTV.ca.

Word is officially out on Whistler.  In 2009, for the 13^th year in a row, the BC resort town was voted North America’s premier ski destination – and that was before the Olympic spotlight blazed down for two whole weeks during February.

But amazingly – despite all the publicity – Whistler has managed to keep one of its biggest charms a secret.  I’m talking about summer.  When the snow finally melts, Whistler turns into an alpine wonderland of aquamarine glacial lakes, churning rivers and brilliant green mountains.  Ski bums ship out, crowds thin down and the village is left to grateful locals and in-the-know travelers.

I checked out Whistler over the weekend, when streets were filled with a procession of girls in bikini tops headed for a dip in the village lake, mountain bikers drawn to Whistler’s gnarly slopes and even guys with snowboards and ski goggles taking advantage of late season snow packs on the peaks.

Photo: Remy Scalza

On top of postcard scenery and an abundance of outdoor activities, I should mention another virtue of Whistler’s summer season: bargain hotel prices. During summer hotels slash their rates, and even Whistler’s fabled five-star properties – the domain of celebs and tycoons during ski season – become accessible and, in some cases, affordable.

I started my weekend at the crème de la crème: Whistler’s Four Seasons, the only hotel in all of Canada to earn the AAA’s coveted Five Diamond rating.

Click here to read the full post on HGTV.ca.

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Photo: Remy Scalza

Editor’s Note: This post was originally written for FoodNetwork.ca.

Once upon a time – in the late ‘60s when Whistler was just a gleam in developers’ eyes – chili, poutine and other ski bum staples defined the culinary scene.  Fast-forward a few decades and the resort town, firmly ensconced as North America’s premier ski destination and still flush with Olympic afterglow, is a certified foodie mecca, known nearly as well for its fine dining as its world class slopes.

I checked out Whistler’s summer dining scene over the weekend, on a whirlwind, belly-busting tour that embraced everything from burgers to pork cheek ravioli.  A few big trends are evident across the board.  First, the hundred-mile diet is alive and well in Whistler.  Every bistro, snack shack and restaurant I tried emphasized local ingredients, specifically, fresh produce and meats from nearby Pemberton and from the Fraser Valley.  Second, snooty is out; casual and casually elegant is in.  Even fine dining spots have revisioned their looks, aiming for an informal, welcoming atmosphere that appeals to locals and well-heeled out-of-towners alike.

Here’s a quick run-down of my culinary adventure in Whistler:

Photo: Remy Scalza

Araxi: Now a household name thanks to Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen, Araxi is a superlative restaurant hitting on all cylinders and clearly at the top of its game.  Ambiance and service are impeccable – a real model for other restaurants to emulate.  Chef James Walt’s menu – while rooted in West Coast standards like wild BC salmon and Qualicum Bay scallops – also wholeheartedly embraces locally grown produce and locally raised pork and lamb.   The encyclopedic wine list – 42 pages, with its own table of contents – is a bit overwhelming but sure to please the most discriminating of winos.

Click here to read the full post on HGTV.ca.

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Photo: Remy Scalza

The Okanagan wine country in western Canada is an amazing success story.  Twenty-five years ago, nobody had heard of the place and the only wine being made there was barely drinkable plonk.  Today, it’s one of North America’s most promising wine regions, lauded by The New York Times as the “Napa of the North.”  But behind the beautiful countryside and increasingly impressive wines is a big problem: lack of water.  Much of the South Okanagan is desert, and the demands of agriculture and a new wave of wine tourism have stretched limited water resources nearly to the breaking point.  I wrote about the region’s water problems and growing pains in a recent article for BCBusiness, a magazine based in Vancouver.

Tourism Threatens Water Security in the Okanagan

By Remy Scalza for BCBusiness Magazine

In the bone-dry southern tip of the Okanagan Valley, just outside the town of Osoyoos, a network of footpaths winds through thickets of sage and antelope brush. Braving the midday sun, a few hardy hikers – red-faced and sweating – push down the trail, leaving faint footprints in the sand and keeping an eye out for the rattlesnakes that make their home here, in Canada’s only desert.

What awaits around the final turn in the trail must first seem illusion, a trick played on the eyes by the shimmering South Okanagan heat. Abruptly, brush gives way. Neat rows of vines rise from the desert floor, leaves interlacing into a vast and improbable tapestry of green.

Here the path dead ends, sparse foot traffic giving way to the steady pulse of people and cars in the parking lot of Spirit Ridge Vineyard and Resort, one of a wave of new wineries and resorts to open in the South Okanagan in the last five years. In shorts and visors, visitors by the mini-busload spill into the wine shop, restaurant and wellness spa. Out back small children throng an oasis of pools, while duffers hack away on the Technicolor greens of a nine-hole course edged by sand and sagebrush just beyond. Surrounding it all, running right up to the 226 desert suites and vineyard villas at the sprawling resort, are grape vines: Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Merlot, ripening in the summer sun.

Click here to read the full article on BCBusinessOnline.ca.

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It turns out that Vancouver’s gorgeous scenery, vibrant multicultural population and world-class infrastructure make for more than great vacations.  Lured by the city’s many charms, global banking giant HSBC opted to set up the world headquarters for its IT division here.  In a break from my usual travel and food reporting, I explored why HSBC and its well-heeled CEOs have fallen in love with Vancouver.

HSBC Comes to Burnaby: What HSBC’s new nerve centre means to Metro Vancouver’s IT industry

By Remy Scalza; Special for BC Business

There’s a cold drizzle falling in Burnaby, where the sky has been overcast all day. Now, with almost theatrical gloom, crows have started circling, climbing in menacing gyres above HSBC’s brand new global software development centre, the five-storey, 146,000-square-foot building it has dubbed Discovery Green.

But despite the ominous portents outdoors, inside the atmosphere is anything but bleak . . . .

Click here for the full article on the BC Business site.

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Vancouver’s Winter Games have an official credit card, cola and cold medicine, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s an official wine gracing Olympic tables.  Last week, I had a chance to cover the Olympic wine scene for Wine Spectator.  Among the highlights: discovering North America’s first Aboriginal-owned winery, tasting with Napa Valley wine royalty Margrit Mondavi and sampling the Olympics’ own brand of bubbly.   The reporting was included in a special Olympic Unfiltered column on WineSpectator.com.

Olympic Champion Lindsey Vonn says, ‘Cheese!’

WineSpectator.com

Inside the big Indian longhouse erected in the heart of downtown Vancouver, a bit of Olympic history is taking place. Vancouver 2010 marks the first Olympic Games ever in which an Aboriginal community—Canada’s First Nations peoples—has participated as an official host. Guests at the Chief’s House, as the quirky, postmodern Aboriginal Pavilion is known, enjoy traditional Inuit throat singing, buffalo burgers and wines from North America’s first native-owned winery . . . .

Click here for the full article on the Wine Spectator site.

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Like birthdays and anniversaries, Olympics tend to be the kind of thing that sneaks up on you.  Next Friday, the 21st installment of the Olympic Winter Games kicks off in Vancouver.  Now, I live here.  For at least the last five years, it’s been just about all anyone has talked about.  But I know that the rest of the world has had more pressing things to worry about than crowning the next Nancy Kerrigan.  The good news is that if you still want to come, there are plenty of flights, beds and tickets available (For a price, of course).  I broke it all down for The Washington Post.

Vancouver Snapshot: Last-minute travelers’ sprint is a quadrennial Olympic event

By Remy Scalza, Special to The Washington Post

So between slogging your way through the Great Recession and following the inaugural season of “Jersey Shore,” you haven’t had much time to think about the Olympic Winter Games starting in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday. But now, all of a sudden, those Morgan Freeman commercials for Visa — the ones with the slow-mo shots of Olympic glories past — have you in the spirit. You want in, front-row center, as the next generation of Apolo Ohnos is crowned.

Is it too late? Maybe not.

Click here for the full article on The Washington Post site.

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Maybe Ben Franklin had it right.  Turkey booster until the bitter end, Franklin railed against the choice of bald eagle as America’s symbol.  “He is a bird of bad moral character,” Franklin wrote. “He does not get his living honestly.”  Up close, it definitely looked that way.  I had a chance to visit Brackendale, B.C., the world’s self-proclaimed bald eagle capital, while researching a story for The Washington Post.  A few eagles kind of looked like the majestic bird on the back of the quarter, but most were busy tearing into rotten salmon, which end up floating in the rivers after spawning is over.  One local lady called them nothing but big seagulls.  Still, it was pretty impressive to see dozens all in one place.

Vancouver snapshot: Bald eagles find a home in Canada

By Remy Scalza; Special to The Washington Post

The highway turnoff is easy to miss. On the rugged stretch of mountain road that connects Olympic cities Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., just past the midway point, is a small, handmade sign. Look hard and you’ll see a bald eagle in profile, beak painted a brilliant yellow, beady eye aglow.

Next stop: Brackendale, self-proclaimed World Eagle Capital.

“One year, we counted 3,769 bald eagles in one day,” says 40-year resident and avian enthusiast Thor Froslev. “You practically had to have a hard hat on to go outside.”

Click here for the full article on The Washington Post site.

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Vancouver snapshot: Japanese cuisine beyond sushi

Welcome to the dark side of Japanese dining: izakayas. Greasier and louder than a sushi joint, these Japanese pubs have invaded Vancouver, B.C.

Izakayas have reportedly been around for a few hundred years in Japan. Their patrons, mostly men, congregate after work to drink and snack on deep-fried tofu, chicken and savory salads — the buffalo wings and nachos of a parallel universe — before heading home, often roundly soused. But like the hibachi and sushi before it, izakaya cuisine has found a global following, and Vancouver, with its strong ties to Japan, is at the forefront of the izakaya explosion.

Click here for the full article on The Washington Post site.

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