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

When it come to pizza, Vancouver might not have the storied past of a New York – with its signature big slices – or a Chicago – with its deep dish bragging rights. But that doesn’t mean the city is a pizza wasteland.

In fact, owing to Vancouver’s sizable Italian population (plus some unique contributions from its Greek community) good pizza is available all over the city, from mom ‘n’ pop joints on Commercial Drive to erstwhile souvlaki houses on Broadway and fancy Italian bistros downtown. But what I want to know is where to get great pizza in Vancouver. Not just a good slice but a phenomenal one.

I’d like to put in my own nomination for Vancouver’s best pizza: Bella, which has locations in Yaletown and the West End, plus a few branches in the ‘burbs. Now I know that any talk of pizza supremacy is bound to stir up controversy. Some people like thin crusts. Others like thick, doughy crusts. There’s the issue of toppings – from pepperoni to arugula and everything in between – which can make or break an otherwise decent pie. Not to mention the whole murky terrain of pizzas without cheese and pizzas without sauce and low-carb pizzas that don’t have any crusts at all.

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

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Wanted: Real Mexican Food

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

While many ethnic cuisines from around the world are well represented in Vancouver, Mexican isn’t one of them. For anyone who’s spent time in Mexico – or who knows what a really good taco tastes like – the city can sometimes feel like a no man’s land.

Now there are, of course, a few Mexican places out there in Vancouver. You’ve got your burrito joints – Steamrollers and Red Burrito come to mind – which are great for a big fat tortilla loaded up with beans, rice and marinated steak or chicken. But this is more of a Californian take on Mexican cuisine, rather than the real deal. Then, you’ve got your sit-down restaurants, with the requisite sombreros on the wall and oversized margarita glasses, like Las Margaritas and Primos. Nothing wrong with these places either, if you’re in the mood for a slightly Canadian take on enchiladas or fajitas.

But when I think of the essence of real Mexican food – correct me if I’m wrong on this – I think of tacos. Not the crunchy, Taco Bell kind but soft corn tortillas – handmade and petite enough to fit in the palm of your hand. And inside: not just the standard stuff, but a whole range of savory meats, from pastor (marinated pork) to the delicacy which is lengua (beef tongue).

It’s not exactly rocket science, but – for whatever reason – it’s not easy to find real Mexican tacos around town. So, if you know of a good little taco joint, please spread the word and leave a comment below. I’ll start the ball rolling with a little discovery I made recently: Salsa & Agave, a taqueria in Yaletown (of all places).

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

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Next-door neighbor to both Iraq and Iran, Kuwait is in a volatile part of the world.  But in the decades since Iraq’s invasion, Kuwait has prospered off of a steady stream of oil revenue.  Today, the country is something of a contradiction:  A conservative Muslim state where Sharia law prevails and a consumer-oriented society where lavish wealth has encouraged lots and lots of shopping.  I visited Kuwait recently and spent some time in the country’s largest mall.  I wrote about my experiences for National Geographic Traveler.

Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

By Remy Scalza; Special to National Geographic Traveler

Just beyond the gleaming new subdivisions built in the desert, it rises – glorious and shimmering – in the Kuwaiti heat.

With 250 stores covering 2.5 million square feet, The Avenues is neither mosque nor desert palace but Kuwait’s largest shopping mall, a temple to the cult of consumerism.  I’ve come to be initiated.

Read more . . . .

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Photo: Vancouver Saudi Club

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

Vancouver is a great city for challenging stereotypes. The city’s population is not only incredibly diverse but also mixed. Walk down any downtown street and you’re likely to hear a blend of English, Mandarin, Chinese, Farsi, French and at least a half-dozen other languages. With so much interaction, it’s hard to hold onto simple preconceived ideas about groups of people.

I was reminded of this recently when, on a Saturday night, I saw a group of young guys from Saudi Arabia partying it up on Granville Street. Perhaps no region in recent years has been the victim of as much stereotyping as the Middle East. More often than not, Saudi Arabia is talked about in the context of violence and extremism. In the absence of any real contact with Saudis, that’s all many people know.

But on Saturday night, I saw something entirely different. A small crowd had gathered outside near the corner of Granville and Robson Streets, where Arabic music was being pumped out of a speaker. In the middle of the circle stood about a dozen Saudis, all guys in their teens and twenties. Except for the fact that they were speaking Arabic, it could have been any group of guys. They had managed to plug an iPod into a street busker’s amplifier – the kind of random stuff that happens late at night on Granville Street – and had cranked up a popular Saudi tune.

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

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Photo: The Province

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

Vancouver is rightly known as a hockey town, and from October through April (and well beyond that on good years) the Canucks are the hottest ticket in town. During the summer, however, other sports take the spotlight. There’s football with the B.C. Lions, soccer with the Whitecaps and – believe it or not – professional baseball.

Although the squad doesn’t get a lot of attention from local press, the Vancouver Canadians is the city’s very own minor league baseball team. The Canadians are a farm club for the Oakland Athletics and play in the little known Pacific Northwest League from June to September. In the past, the Canadians were a prime source of Major League talent, with Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi and other big superstars spending time with the club.

In 2000, however, the team moved from the AAA to A division and now features mainly untested rookies still a long way from playing in the big leagues. But that doesn’t mean that a trip to the Canadian’s ballpark isn’t a thrilling experience. The team plays at Nat Bailey Stadium, a 5,100-seat field built in 1951 and located in the suburban neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant.

Surrounded by quaint residential streets and equipped with bleachers and wooden fences, Nat Bailey feels like an old-time ballpark. Plus, with general admission seats in the grandstand starting at $12.50, tickets are among the cheapest in town.

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

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Photo: Remy Scalza

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

From its modest beginnings, Vancouver’s microbrew scene has exploded in recent years, with dozens of craft brewers now operating in and around the city. For fans of Vancouver beers, there’s nothing more exhilarating than a brewery tour – getting an up close look at how our local brews are lovingly crafted and – ideally – trying a few afterward.

The only problem is that brewery tours are few and far between in Vancouver. Information on tours is hard to find and often sketchy. With that in mind, I’m issuing a call to to local beer fanatics out there: Do you know of any microbrewery tours being offered in Vancouver? If so, please share the wealth by leaving a comment below.

I’ll start things off by spreading the word about the one tour that I’ve been on myself, the Granville Island Brewing tour. Now purists will protest that GIB is no longer a microbrewery and is, in fact, owned by industrial beer giant Molson. True enough. However, GIB’s special seasonal beers are still made in small, hand-crafted batches at the Granville Island facility where the tour is offered.

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

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

It was probably the biggest open house Canada has ever seen.  12,000 people toured Vancouver’s Olympic Village over the weekend, taking a peek inside the maze of gleaming new high-rises that housed 2,800 athletes and officials during the Winter Games.  By the time it was all said and done, 36 condos had been snatched up by eager buyers, ranging from a $445,000 one-bedroom to a pimped-out $4.75 million waterfront condo (If you’re in the market, don’t worry:  There are still about 450 units up for grabs).

I checked things out on Saturday, the big opening day, when a mix of buyers, curious onlookers and a few dozen protesters thronged the new neighborhood to witness VANOC (Vancouver’s Olympic committee) officially hand over the keys to the village to the city.  The excitement was understandable.  From the beginning, Olympic Village – which spans seven city blocks and consists of 16 separate buildings – has been shrouded in mystery and dogged by controversy.

Photo: Remy Scalza

When Olympic Village’s private developers were hit hard by the recession last year, the city of Vancouver ponied up $760 million in low interest loans to keep the project going, raising objections from local taxpayers.  Plans to include social housing units in the village have been successively cut back, raising the ire of housing advocates.  On top of that, Vancouverites weren’t even allowed near the village during the Olympics, when access to the area was restricted to athletes and officials.

So what did Vancouver’s newest and most anticipated neighborhood feel like?

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

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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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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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