RemyScalza.com: Independent Journalism

Dining in the Canadian Rockies: Jasper, Alberta

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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

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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.

On a Taco Mission in San Francisco

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I visited San Francisco for the first time earlier this year.  As a traveler, the city can be overwhelming – so much history, so much culture, so many tourist traps.  I decided to skip the Fisherman’s Wharf and the cable cars and instead caught the BART to the gritty Mission District.   Home to a huge Latin American population, the Mission is revered among taco lovers for its cheap, authentic Mexican cuisine.  I spent a day trolling the neighborhood’s main drag for the perfect taco and wrote about the experience for BCBusiness Magazine.

Travelling to San Francisco

Remy Scalza; Special to BCBusiness

October 2010

At the southern end of Mission Street, amid the fruit stands and pawn shops, is a sign that reads simply La Taquería.  Here in America’s taco heartland – San Francisco’s gritty Mission District – that name speaks volumes.  There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of taquerías packed into the neighborhood – humble taco joints serving Mexican street food to clientele who know their jalapeños from their habaneros.  To call yourself La Taquería – literally, the taco stand – in this context is brassy, even confrontational.  It says, “I alone am worthy of the name: the one, the only.”

With carne asada like this, however, it’s hard to argue.

The Mission District is just a brisk subway ride from the cable cars and fishermen’s wharves of San Francisco’s well touristed center.  But in appearance, demographics and culture, it’s a world away.

Click here to read the full article on BCBusiness.

Cabo Polonio: Lonely but lovely Uruguayan beach

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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

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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 . . . .

Whistler’s Best Kept Secret: Summer fun and bargains on hotels

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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 13th 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.

Beyond the Slopes: Culinary Touring in Whistler

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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.

Water into Wine: Drought in Canada's Wine Country

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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.

Brazil's Backyard Jungle

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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.

Mudslide Buries Vineyards in Western Canada

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The Okanagan Valley has been called a Canadian Garden of Eden.  Wedged between two mighty mountain ranges, the valley is dominated by glacial lakes and sprawling vineyards and orchards.   Balmy summer temperatures have drawn growing numbers of wine tourists in recent years, and Okanagan wineries have garnered recognition from Conde Nast and other authorities as among the best in North America.  A freak mudslide devastated a corner of the Okanagan last week, after a ruptured dam spilled tons of water and debris onto prime farmland.  I reported on the disaster for Wine Spectator.

Mudslide Buries Okanagan Vineyards

Debris buries 40 acres of vines in British Columbia; dam failed

Remy Scalza
Posted: June 18, 2010

A dam failure triggered a massive mudslide in western Canada’s Okanagan wine country this past week, burying approximately 40 acres of vineyards and orchards under soil, rocks and debris, in some spots up to 25 feet deep. The slide destroyed five homes and blocked the region’s main highway. Although no one was injured, property damages are estimated to be in the millions of dollars, and affected vintners and residents are now asking if the disaster could have been averted.

“My Chardonnay is under five feet of mud. You can’t even see the top of the plants,” said Rasoul Salehi, executive director of Enotecca Winery and Resorts, which manages the LaStella and Le Vieux Pin wineries. Enotecca’s vineyard in the Okanagan’s acclaimed Golden Mile grapegrowing zone was among the worst hit. The mud destroyed 3 acres of Moscato Bianco and Chardonnay vines, including some of the oldest vines in the valley, as well as winemaking equipment, vehicles and an outbuilding.

Click here to read the full article on Wine Spectator.

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