culinary events: vancouver christmas market

An interesting happened to Vancouver after the Olympics - people started getting the idea that Vancouver is an actual city with denizenry who like to have fun! It's been almost a year since the five-ring-circus closed down, and suddenly there have been more and more fun events occuring in town. One of the more recent ones is the Vancouver Christmas Market.

Designed to emulate a small Bavarian town in the midst of the festive season, the Christmas Market features stalls selling Bavarian food and other items. A large tent by the entrance showcases a wide array of beautiful hand-crafted Christmas decorations. Closer to the theatre-side is a children's mini-market with handpainting, chocolate-making, and wooden toys, as well as a chance to meet the Market's mascots. All of this is centred around a gazebo featuring music from traditional bands, to something more offbeat-yet-infinitely-Vancouver like a Japanese drum band. The entertainment schedule is available on their website. As this is Bavaria, several "warming festive refreshment" stations are located throughout the area.

I love the Christmas season. Growing up in the tropical Philippines, I have always carried this fairy tale image of Christmas in Germany: snow on the ground, the sweet smell of sausage and sauerkraut pervading the air, large men with handlebar mustaches wearing lederhausen having their way with a tuba and/or accordion, and equally large women weaving their way through the crowds with overflowing beer steins balanced in their hands. There's a small town in the Washington mountains called Leavenworth that recreates this not unlike what a Disney-Germany would seem like. I've visited it twice now and can't wait to go back soon, so when I heard Vancouver was getting something similar - I couldn't wait!

Once we set foot through the gates - I couldn't help but be a tad disappointed. Sure there were giant Nutcracker statues, and they had even trucked in some evergreens to make it a bit more natural - but stalls were all ramshackle constructions looking like they were built overnight, and not a single lederhausen to be found. On the upside, the British Columbia Regiment Band was playing and sure as heck, they had a tuba player - and that put a smile to my face. They were a little out-of-tune... but hey, it's Christmas carols - not the VSO. There was beer being served, but not in large steins, nor were there jolly wenches serving them... perhaps I had set my expectations too high... but lo! There was a sweet smell to the air!



Black Forest Meat & Sausages was serving up smokies and brats, with traditional pretzels, and topped with onions and sauerkraut. I went with the brats, of which I got 2 sausages the size of hotdogs, topped with the works. My friend went with the smokie. Each roll cost $8, which was the standard pricepoint for most foodstuff in the market. Quite steep actually, especially since we had to pay admission to begin with. The outcome? Meh. The brats were juicy for sure, but lacking in the flavour department, and for $8 - I wanted... more. And definitely less bread. You can see the imbalance of dough to meat in the picture. Same opinion about the smokie. Another point of annoyance? All the food stalls only offered neon red ketchup and neon yellow mustard as condiments. My German friend practically spat on the ground in outrage when I told him this.



Next up on the tour was Plöeger Delikatessen who were offering quiches and schnitzel. Guess which one I went for? The pork schnitzel ($8) were par-cooked frozen patties and baked on-site. They went into the same rolls as the aforementioned sausages, and topped with a leaf of romaine. There were squeeze bottles of, you guessed it, diner-style ketchup, mustard and mayo, and to my dismay, I had to use them. The bun was stale, and the meat was what you would expect from baked frozen battered meat: tasteless, slightly-dry, but still edible.



Next, we ventured to the Potato Hut, which specializes in steamed Russet potatoes loaded with toppings. Prices ranged from $5-$8 depending on how fancy you got. We started with a "West-Coast," topped with smoked salmon, sour cream, onions and capers. I didn't quite know what to expect as I'm not the biggest fan of smoked salmon or sour cream, so it was a pleasant surprise when I enjoyed this iteration tremendously. The flavours (all traditional companions) worked so well together that I had to stop myself from scarfing the whole thing down - that honour would go to Maggs who ordered it.



Ray and I of course went for the BBQ pulled pork, with mushrooms, caramelized onions, sour cream and mustard. The pulled pork had some good flavour to it, but the onions were far from "caramelized" - you can see from the picture they're barely translucent and lacked any seasoning. The mushrooms were non-existent, and I found the combination of BBQ sauce with sour cream and mustard off-putting. If the sour cream were kept off, and perhaps some bacon bits thrown on, this would've been a winner. As it was, I went back to eating the West-Coast potato.



Now every market usually has that one "it" item that's so fascinating that everyone has to give it a shot. The Christmas Market has raclette cheese, a name the refers both to the preparation and the cheese itself. Traditionally from Switzerland, a large wheel is placed underneath a broiler to melt the top layer, which is then scraped onto a bowl to be used as a dip a la fondue. The cheese also creates a distinctive pungent smell that I can only describe as fetid garbage, not dissimilar to Taiwanese stinky tofu. That being said, it is not at all unpleasant to eat, and you can purchase home raclette kits for your next party. This particular dish was served with slices of ciabatta and proscuitto slivers. A Swiss dish, with Italian sides, served at a Bavarian market, in a stall located next to a Peruvian alpaca blanket vendor. I couldn't help but smirk in bemusement.



I had saved the best for last. Vancouver's foremost destination for all things German, the Alpen Club had a stall offering roasted pork sandwiches (and they had a huge charcoal grill beside their shack so you know it was prepared that day). Served in the now-ubiquitous doughy roll, the pork shards were served with caramelized onions and topped with a light chipotle aioli. This was a winner. The pork was juicy, a little fatty, and more to the point, there was LOTS of meat. The onions were flavourful, and were counterbalanced by the lightly-spiced aioli. At $8 though, I'd choose Re-Up's BBQ pork sandwich over it anyday.



Other menu items offered were a goulash and a "German cheesecake" (käsekuchen). We took a pass on the goulash (why tempt fate?), but I was curious about the cheesecake. It came slathered with 2 berry syrups, and a thin crust. The initial reaction on my first bite was... nothing. There was nothing to taste. I thought perhaps my palate was overwhelmed with all the savoury eats so I drank some water, then tried again - and same conclusion. The syrups were a non-factor, and the cheesecake itself was tasteless. It was like eating solidified milk. I did some research on it and they use quark, a very light and watery cheese similar in texture to ricotta, instead of cream cheese. This would explain the light texture, but not the flavour. They either underesimated or entirely neglected to add sugar. Another tick to top off a mountain of disappointments.

So after 2 visits with different groups of friends to the Vancouver Christmas Market, I can honestly say it doesn't provide the best value for your dining dollars. As something to keep you busy before heading off somewhere else, maybe... but consider the high price of the food in addition to admission, which is $5, but is discounted to $2 if you go on weekdays between 11 AM to 2 PM. I still love the idea of it though, and I hope the organizers get their act together and come back better than ever next year, and every year after that.

The Vancouver Christmas Market is located downtown at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre grounds on the corner of West Georgia and Hamilton. It runs daily until December 24 (Christmas Eve), with a full entertainment schedule on weekends. If you have young children and are looking for something interesting to do, bring them in. Otherwise, consider yourself warned.

Done.