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Dining in the Canadian Rockies: Jasper, Alberta

Remy — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:45:12 +0000

Editor’s Note: I originally wrote this post for FoodNetwork.ca.

There’s no doubt that Jasper – a resort town in Western Canada set amidst glacial lakes and snow-capped peaks – has some of the prettiest scenery anywhere in the Canadian Rockies. But for visitors who demand as much from their plates as from their landscapes, Jasper has long been overshadowed by its big sister a few hundred kilometers to the south, the glitzy alpine capital of Banff.

But after a recent trip, I have good news to report: Jasper’s restaurant and bar scene is finally coming into its own. My culinary adventure started at the Jasper Brewing Company, a brew pub opened in 2005 just across the street from the rail depot. Inside, the décor aspires toward mountain chic: stone accents and exposed rafters with low, conspiratorial lighting and a big bar.

The beer, crafted with passion by 33-year-old bremaster Dave Mozel, has always been great, with the Honey Bear Ale (Okanagan clover honey plus a hint of coriander) a real must-drink. But the big news is that the food has finally risen to the level of the beer. The menu leans towards standard pub classics – wings, burgers, as well as some chops and fish dishes – but what stands out is the freshness and sourcing of the ingredients: Alberta beef and, whenever possible, local produce.

The next day, eager to hit some of the incredible hiking trails around Jasper, I went out in search of a picnic lunch. A good tip from the concierge at Whistlers Inn led me to the Patricia Street Deli, an easy-to-miss, bare-bones sandwich shop behind Jasper’s main drag. The guy behind the counter – in classic Seinfeld soup Nazi fashion – barely gave me the time of day, ignoring me as I waited to order. But in the end I didn’t mind – The rotisserie chicken sandwich on a fresh baked panini with cranberry mayo was astoundingly good.

After a day spent hiking around the sites in Jasper – the Old Fort Point trail with its panoramic views, the emerald waters of Lac Beauvert – I had worked up a healthy appetite for dinner. But I resisted the temptation to duck into the first restaurant I saw. More than a few overpriced tourist traps line Jasper’s main street. The real secret to finding a good meal, as usual, is to follow the crowds.

And on this night, the crowds led to Earl’s, the casual restaurant with locations all over Western Canada. I know what you’re thinking: How could I go to a chain restaurant? To be honest, Earl’s wouldn’t normally have been my first choice, but I’m glad I gave it a try. Prices are lower than just about anywhere else in Jasper and the simple dishes on the menu are well prepared, flavourful and satisfying. I opted for an Earl’s classic – the roasted chicken quesadilla, served with warm tortillas and a smoky, house-roasted salsa.

Final verdict: Don’t expect any Araxis showing up in Jasper anytime soon, but there are a wealth of new, adventurous restaurants in town emphasizing local ingredients, freshness and value. True to Jasper’s rustic roots, the atmosphere is unfailingly welcoming and informal, with an optimistic, young vibe. Other great choices include Evil Dave’s, an inventive bistro with a tongue-in-cheek evil-themed menu, and La Fiesta, the always-crowded tapas bar.

Click here to read the original post at FoodNetwork.ca.

Dining Aboard Canada’s Rocky Mountaineer Train

Remy — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 20:36:25 +0000

Editor’s Note: I originally wrote this post for foodnetwork.ca.

Preparing a three-course meal for several hundred guests is a test of any chef’s mettle. Add to that the challenge of prepping, cooking and plating aboard a moving train and you’ll get an idea of Frederic Couton’s job as executive chef on the Rocky Mountaineer.

British Columbia’s luxury rail line, the Rocky Mountaineer runs its glass-domed, double-decker trains from Vancouver up and over the Canadian Rockies and into Alberta. I recently had a chance to experience the Journey Through the Clouds, a two-day trip up the Fraser Canyon, through Kamloops and over the Rockies at Yellowhead Pass.

For the train aficionados aboard, it was the trip of a lifetime – a ride through stunning alpine scenery on Canada’s equivalent of the Orient Express. But, as I was surprised to find out, the trip has a lot to offer foodies as well, especially if you opt for the top-tier Gold Leaf Service.

Breakfast, for starters, is no casual affair. As the train entered the mouth of the Fraser Canyon, we were led from the upstairs viewing car to the dining car on the lower level. The narrow space holds an intimate dining room: banquettes with window views laid out with white linen tablecloths and gleaming silver.

I opted for the Sir Sanford Fleming breakfast, a variation on eggs Benedict named after one of Canada’s rail pioneers. The poached egg was served over Montreal smoked meat on top of a fluffy crumpet and topped with creamy tarragon Hollandaise. While the scenery blurred by outside, I got to know a few fellow passengers dining at my table, travelers from Los Angeles visiting Canada for the first time.

After breakfast, I took a peek inside the car’s galley, a space no wider than a shipping container where 144 gourmet meals are prepared every day. A crew of seven white-aproned cooks were already hard at work slicing and grilling for lunch. Overseeing the controlled chaos was executive chef Couton.

French-born and trained – with a thick accent to prove it – Couton worked at Vancouver’s famous Cannery Restaurant before coming to the Rocky Mountaineer. “It’s not like other kitchens. There are a few tricks you have to learn,” he said over the rumble of the rails. “When you open the fridge, you open it very slowly.”

When we crest the Fraser Canyon and enter the arid BC interior, it’s time for lunch. Locally sourced and organic ingredients – including BC Salmon and Alberta beef – feature prominently on the menu, as does wine from the nearby Okanagan Valley. I opt for the Alberta pork tenderloin, which comes with a confit of sweet onions, as well as market veggies and whipped garlic potatoes. How the food was plated so artfully on a moving train – each carrot in its place – remains a mystery to me.

By the time we finally reached the Rockies on our second day, talk focused almost as much on food as on the stunning peaks outside. Over the duration of the trip, we were treated to black tiger prawns and Alberta sirloin, Fraser Valley chicken and honey-glazed salmon. The highlight for many, however, was a much simpler pairing: local cheeses and B.C. wine, served each afternoon as the province’s mountains and canyons rolled by.

Click here to see the post on FoodNetwork.ca.

Cabo Polonio: Lonely but lovely Uruguayan beach

Remy — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:38:36 +0000

Great beaches – wherever they are – seem to have an incredibly short life span. Once they’re discovered, in come the condos, the patio dining and the shops selling t-shirts and cheap boogie boards. Natural oasis becomes man-made playground and the charm is lost. The challenge, of course, is finding a beach before it reaches that point on the curve; i.e. with just enough amenities to accommodate the hardy traveler but none of the commercial excess. Cabo Polonio, an isolated beach town on the tip of South America in Uruguay, fits that bill nicely. I recently wrote about a stay there for the Toronto Star.

Cabo Polonio: A lonely but lovely Uruguayan beach

September 1, 2010; Remy Scalza – Special to The Star

CABO POLONIO, URUGUAY—It’s well past midnight when Joselo, the blind bartender with silver hair past his shoulders, brings up the story of El Pingüino.

“Four penguins washed up on shore,” he says. “I took them all in . . . but El Pingüino was special.”

Joselo is speaking by candlelight in his eponymous bar in Cabo Polonio, a tiny beach town about 150 miles east of Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. The candles aren’t for effect. Cabo Polonio, a thirty-minute dune buggy ride from the nearest highway, has no cars, no paved roads and, apart from its signature lighthouse, no municipal electric power.

“When the bar would fill up, I used to bring [El Pingüino] out on the dance floor,” Joselo explains. “He’d walk right through the crowd . . . completely at home.”

Welcome to Uruguay, a place where dancing penguins hardly seem out of the question. A diminutive, Dorito-shaped country of 3 million wedged between Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay remains largely untouristed, nonglobalized and just plain quirky. Of the dozens of towns, cities and villages strung along its Atlantic coast, no two are alike. Cut off in capes, isolated on rocky points, marooned behind dunes, each has evolved along its own, often eccentric, path.

To read the full article on the Toronto Star website, click here.

Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

Remy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:32:11 +0000

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.

Water into Wine: Drought in Canada’s Wine Country

Remy — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 19:21:17 +0000

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.

Brazil’s Backyard Jungle

Remy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:59:25 +0000

Pretty much everyone knows that Brazil is home to the Amazon jungle: one of the wildest and most biodiverse places on the planet. But Brazil also has another jungle: the mata or Atlantic rain forest. And, in contrast to the Amazon – which is hard to get to and tends to attract mainly hardcore adventure types – the mata is right next door to some of Brazil’s biggest cities – Rio and Sao Paulo. For travelers who might not have the budget or inclination to see the Amazon, the mata offers a unique glimpse of real jungle – howler monkeys, toucans, isolated and unsettled beaches, dense old growth forest. Plus, you’re never far from a clean bed, a nice restaurant and a cold caiparinha. I wrote about some recent experiences in the mata for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Brazil’s backyard jungle a rugged, restful strip

Remy Scalza, Special to The Chronicle

Sunday, July 18, 2010

In downtown Rio de Janeiro, in the shadow of one of the city’s most famous landmarks, concrete jungle meets the real thing.

Just past the double-decker tour buses and cable cars that zip up Sugar Loaf, Rio’s granite dome, an inconspicuous footpath makes a beeline into thick forest. Winding past trees draped with vines and clinging plants, I climb higher and higher above the city. At one turn, micos – tiny monkeys with pinched-up faces – glare from a tangle of treetops.

Though the Amazon gets most of the press, Brazil is also home to another jungle: the Mata, or Atlantic rain forest. Defiantly wild – with biodiversity levels rivaling the Amazon’s – the Mata surrounds Rio and Sao Paulo, stretching in a thin strip all along Brazil’s central coast.

For travelers like me – nature lovers but not full-blown “Survivor” men – this translates into a unique one-two punch. Choose your trails right, and you can start the day tramping through protected Mata in the company of toucans and howler monkeys and finish it sipping caipirinhas on the beach with Brazil’s buff and beautiful.

Click here for the full article at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Uncool, Overlooked Montevideo

Remy — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:01:36 +0000

A fishing boat sits in the delta waters off of Montevideo.

Most people couldn’t find Uruguay on a map. The country doesn’t have a Lonely Planet guidebook. There isn’t a single Hard Rock Cafe in any of its cities. No American university has opened up a satellite campus there. And for all of those reasons, Uruguay and its capital Montevideo are precious, rare and beautiful. I had an opportunity to spend a year living and writing in Montevideo, a city that marches to the beat of its own drummer and really can’t be compared to anywhere else in Latin America. This story for the Canadian magazine BCBusiness was an effort to sum up my feelings.

Sister Act: Travelling to Montevideo, Uruguay

Remy Scalza; Special to BCBusiness

A little sibling rivalry would seem inevitable in Montevideo. The diminutive Uruguayan capital lies just a hundred or so miles across the muddy shallows of the Rio de la Plata from big sister Buenos Aires. The family resemblance is unmistakable. Both cities tango. Both share the same predilection for big steaks and bold wines. Both feel more southern European than South American. But while Buenos Aires has long basked in the international limelight, Montevideo has quietly carried on in the shadows – the quiet, bespectacled sister who, in her own way, is irresistible.

Click here for the full article on the BCBusiness site.

Olympic Winos: Great grapes at Vancouver 2010

Remy — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:32:44 +0000

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.

Olympics for Procrastinators: So you still wanna come to Vancouver

Remy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:21:12 +0000

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.

Vancouver side trips: Eagle capital of the world

Remy — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:53:45 +0000

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.

RemyScalza.com: Independent Journalism » Remy Scalza

Dining in the Canadian Rockies: Jasper, Alberta

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Dining Aboard Canada’s Rocky Mountaineer Train

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Cabo Polonio: Lonely but lovely Uruguayan beach

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Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

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Water into Wine: Drought in Canada’s Wine Country

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Brazil’s Backyard Jungle

Brazil’s backyard jungle a rugged, restful strip

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Uncool, Overlooked Montevideo

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Olympic Winos: Great grapes at Vancouver 2010

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Olympics for Procrastinators: So you still wanna come to Vancouver

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