With Tourism Vancouver’s annual Dine Out Vancouver event just around the corner, the culinary connoisseurs and gremolata goons at K&K thought you’d want to know what are the hottest, most-under-the-radar dining deals to be had this year.
• The Vancouver Courier’s Downstairs Fridge a.k.a. Ol’ Stinky
Cost: by donation
What to order: “This is the year of fermentation, bacteria cultures and hard-to-discern aromas of neglect, apathy and fridge amnesia,” says one of several anonymous chefs behind the Courier’s ongoing lunch room “experience.” Treat yourself to a sweaty package of aged blue cheese, which didn’t start off blue; an assortment of Tupperware containers filled with what appears to be edible Jackson Pollock paintings; a six-month-old chicken tortellini Lean Cuisine, which we’re pretty sure is still consumable thanks to the miracles of preservatives and over-microwaving; and a slushy bag of grapes that can now be considered wine. Talk about mouth feel! For the truly adventurous, just open the grimy door, stick your head in and take a huff. You’ll wake up in no time.
• Downtown Costco
Cost: yearly membership fee (or ride the coattails of someone with a card), plus ongoing guilt for destroying the fabric of community so near and dear to Vancouverites
What to order: While the Costco cafeteria’s fresh-breath-destroying $2 hot dog and pop combo is a surefire hit with members and non-members alike, it’s the sample stations dotting the inside of the members-only gluttony emporium that really make Costco a grazer’s paradise — not that we’re implying Costco customers are overly large… wink, wink. For an amuse bouche, we highly recommend the Clif Bar sample station, overseen by a passionless woman with food-cutting scissors, hair net, plastic gloves and script-reading skills on par with a stroke-afflicted Meryl Streep getting a root canal. If savoury is more your bag, there’s always something sizzling near the frozen food and cleaning products aisles — hand-cut portions of Pizza Pops in their very own paper thimble, a spoonful of what we think is pasta, something slathered in teriyaki sauce, and cubes of toothpick-pierced Monterrey jack cheese served with all the enthusiasm and attention to detail you’d expect from someone toiling away in a thankless, low-paying service industry job feeding greedy shoppers who love shoving anything that’s free into their lazy mouths.
• Cactus Club Food Architect Rob Feenie’s Back Alley Food Waste Recycling Container
Cost: your dignity, a night in jail if caught
What to order: It’s a veritable buffet of delights at Feenie’s Point Grey home composter — remnants of the previous night’s milk-fed elk medallion, essence of winter squash and organic quinoa salad (at least we hope that was quinoa); discarded beet tops splattered with truffle oil and granulated guinea hen gizzard; a half-drained can of Red Bull; a pair of jockey shorts stained with a Sharpei-wrinkle-dander-and-balsamic-reduction; and what appears to be goatee stubble from Feenie’s electric razor, which, we don’t mind saying, was pretty effin’ delicious.
