It’s not Susur Lee or Tojo, this is Susur Lee and Tojo!
A collaboration dinner between the celebrated Toronto chef and Vancouver’s renowned sushi master, Hidekazu Tojo, is surprisingly part of EAT! Vancouver’s new “Dinner Series”.
We’ve come to expect the expected from EAT! Vancouver, and to be honest, excitement for the event was dying. But, they changed things up this year and the Dinner Series is where my appetite strikes.
Leading chefs from across Canada have paired up with some of Vancouver’s finest for 11 once-in-a-lifetime chef collaboration dinners. Well, hopefully they happen more than once, but for now, this is your only chance and missing out, from a food enthusiast’s perspective, seems tragic. These are hot ticket dinners, the hottest of which is, perhaps, this one with Lee and Tojo.
When it comes to “modern Chinese”, I’m extremely hesitant and biased. The mostly poorly done “Asian fusion” food trend from the ‘90s is still haunting us, but there’s a right way and wrong way of doing everything, and Susur Lee is arguably one of the leaders in this category doing things right.
As a side note, another chef doing modern Chinese food justice in Vancouver is Joël Watanabe of Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie (who is also hosting an EAT! Vancouver chef collab dinner series with Michael Caballo and Tobey Nemeth of Edulis in Toronto on April 28). I recently dined at Bao Bei and must plug the phenomenal Crispy Pork Belly with pickled watermelon radish, cucumbers, pickled ginger, crispy potatoes, and Vietnamese dressing, and the Lettuce Root, stir-fried with aged in-house prosciutto and dried baby shrimp. Can someone say, umami? I still think about it.
Okay, now back to Lee and Tojo.
Paired with chef Lee is one of Vancouver’s most well known sushi chefs, Hidekazu Tojo of Tojo’s Restaurant. Not only has Tojo-san pioneered Vancouver’s Japanese fine-dining scene, but he was among the four Japanese restaurants in the city in the 1970s.
His claim to fame is the California Roll, and although some food historians argue its parentage, his skills go way beyond the roll. More traditional than modern Japanese in theory, he still has love for BC ingredients and West Coast influences, so I’m expecting classic Japanese with quirky Tojo personality in his dishes.
Rolls will be on the menu for sure, and a preliminary sneak peak teases the Great Canadian Roll (asparagus, Atlantic lobster, and smoked sockeye salmon), the Tojo Roll (California), and the Golden Roll (crab, scallop, and salmon wrapped in a sweet egg crepe).
This six-course dinner, paired with wine, takes place Friday, May 1 at Tojo’s Restaurant (1133 West Broadway). Tickets to this legendary evening of modern Chinese meets Japanese from two culinary icons in Canada are $225 (includes gratuity, taxes not included). Buy tickets here.
See full list of EAT! Vancouver Dinner Series
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