Local Seasonal Dining

Photos from left, clockwise: At Yew: Pork t-bone (sans bone) came with a corn and white bean succotash, Berkshire pork and peaches, crab salad in parsley water with jicama and grapefruit. At Provence Marinaside: tomato tart, tomato gnocchi topped with crab.

Photos by Anya Levykh

It’s the height of the growing season, and products like tomatoes, corn and seafood are at their best. For the past week, I have been enjoying the local bounty at a couple local restaurants. Here are a few things you may want to try out before time—and crops—runs out.

Yew at the Four Seasons

This is one of those progressive restaurants that just keeps swinging it out of the park. They’ve nailed another home run with their latest, a series of three-course prix fixe menus, each for $35, that run throughout the year, featuring different local products each month. The Fresh From series features Berkshire pork and peaches for August, and will be looking at Dungeness crab and corn for September. I tried a bit of both menus. Sloping Hills Farms pork belly was matched with buttery seared sablefish and roasted Okanagan peach. Pork t-bone (sans bone) came with a corn and white bean succotash, drizzled with caramelized apple jus. From the September menu, a crab salad in parsley water with jicama and grapefruit was so tangy, fresh and refreshing that it felt like a healthy shot of Red Bull. And if you’re wondering what’s coming up in October, think wild salmon and hazelnuts…

Website

Provence Marinaside

As I mentioned earlier, tomato season is in full swing, and there’s still time to enjoy the Tomato Festival menu at Provence Marinaside and Provence Mediterranean Grill. I went to Marinaside recently, and inhaled my way through an absolutely heavenly chilled yellow tomato soup with prawns and cucumber, a puffy tomato tart, and a slobberingly good tomato gnocchi topped with a small mountain of crab. The three course menus go for $48 at Marinaside and $45 at Mediterranean Grill, and include your choice of any dessert off the menu, including a special tomato capadano.

Website

And for a true local experience…

Feast of Fields Lower Mainland still has some tickets available for this Sunday. Come on out, support your local producers, and taste your way through some of the city’s top chefs and bakers—not to mention the wine! Tickets are $85 for adults, $15 for children ages 7 to 12, and children age 6 and under are free.