2008-05-22 - The Vancouver Province
By: Mark Laba
Feenie adds a little pizzazz
HIGH-OCTANE DISHES: Celebrity chef understands mass appeal and freshness
I like to think of myself as the Chuck Yeager of the food world. I'll test drive most anything once, except for larvae, monkey brains or Christmas fruit cake. I prefer to focus my experimental nature on the more proletarian pursuits of the culinary world, namely the various microwaveable or aerosol-spray food products science has so boldly provided because space is the final frontier and this is the food that'll carry us through to our future. I've even built my own test kitchen for these endeavours or at least I bought a microwave and a stack of paper plates.
Well, it seems I'm not the only one with a test kitchen at my disposal because apparently the big boys and girls of the restaurant world are similarly equipped. At least some of them, and a case in point is the venerable Cactus Club, where they even erected a sign proclaiming such a thing at the rear of their Broadway-and-Ash location.
What really separates their test kitchen from my measly affair is the addition of home-grown star chef Rob Feenie running the show. All I have is my friend Morris Goldblatt who shows up to eat whatever I've zapped while complaining about how he can't find a good pair of breathable cotton socks in this city.
Feenie's new gig comes complete with a spiffy new title -- food architect. In the world of professional titles this isn't a bad one to have. You can just call yourself an architect and nobody has to know you're building stuff out of goose liver.
On an architectural theme you have to hand it to Cactus Club. It's like Arthur Erickson and Hugh Hefner teamed up to design a dining space. West Coast contemporary with a little swinger swagger.
The new Feenie-inspired menu items that he's reintroduced from his previous multi-star restaurants, his vacating of which seemingly covered by everyone except Wolf Blitzer, has added a little pizzazz into an already exemplary menu and Feenie's ability to understand mass appeal realized through fresh ingredients and their interplay is one of his greatest successes. You can be a trailer-park boy and still enjoy the calamari sandwich with your Kokanee and hockey game.
Which leads me to this outing. Peaches and I hit the Broadway and Ash location, although you will start seeing the Feenie creations appearing on Cactus Club menus throughout the Lower Mainland in the coming weeks.
We did the lunch thing, beginning with an amazing albacore tuna tataki ($12.50) that visually was breathtaking in its riot of structured colours matched by equally inventive flavour pairings. Tuna lightly seared on the edges arrayed on an oblong plate with green papaya, mint-and-basil salad, oranges, avocado and yuzu dressing. Colourful edible doodles followed the perimeter and the fleshiness of the fish with a zip of citrus and the depth of the foliage was like eating a Jack Shadbolt painting.
The Duck Clubhouse ($16) beckoned to me like the call of the loon over Lost Lagoon. Barbecued duck, pan-seared chicken and prosciutto on pecan fruit bread was a winner reinterpreting the adage to read: Two birds in the hand is worth one in the bush, or something to that effect.
Peaches had the wonderfully tender beef short-rib dip ($16) with caramelized onion and emmenthal cheese, also reinvented for a dinner affair as braised short ribs with celeriac puree, pecorino cheese and braised celery.
Keep an eye and molar out for the butternut-squash ravioli with truffle beurre blanc, fried sage and pine nuts, the Rocket Salad with panko and parmesan-breaded chicken, baby arugula, tomato, cucumber and lemon-caper dressing, the roasted sake-miso marinated sablefish or just get down and dirty with the Angus beef burger with bacon and aged cheddar.
Prices seem steep but to Cactus Club's credit, every last detail down to the side shrubbery is fresh and without question. They may not have reinvented the wheel but with the addition of Feenie, they may just break the sound barrier with these high-octane recipes.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Bringing a little class to the masses.
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