Pop-up? That happened at 6:30 p.m. last Sunday (Nov. 3) at Gudrun Tasting Room in Steveston.
Owner Patrick Tubajon has invited his friend, Chef Tai Keattivanichvily, to cook a five-course dinner at Gudrun on the first Sunday of every month, with its debut last weekend.
Unlike those annoying pop-up ads on your computer, this restaurant pop-up is a pleasant culinary surprise.
"We want to revive Steveston, it gets dull here in the evening," Tubajon said.
Keattivanichvily added, "We want to tell people that Steveston isn't just fish and chips!" Keattivanichvily certainly has the right stuff to make this event a success. He grew up in Bangkok and operates two Bob Likes Thai Food restaurants in Vancouver.
I recently joined the pair at Gudrun for a tasting of the meal, which was served with a delicious bottle of Kettle Valley Gewurztraminer.
The set menu began with Miang, a traditional snack from northern Thailand. It's nice to know there's more to Thai food than just pad Thai! A pair of cups lined with cha plu leaves are filled with fresh coconut, limes, peanuts, ginger with tamarind palm sugar sauce and rillettes of pork and rabbit.
My mission was to grab the leaf and place the contents in my mouth, not my lap. Mission accomplished!
Then it was papaya salad, or as they say in Thailand, "Som tam." Almost a meal in itself, the base of the salad is shredded green papaya, which I initially thought were rice noodles. Som tam literally means "sour pounded;" lime juice is pounded in the mortar with other ingredients of the dressing.
Thai food is based on a harmony of its ingredients; the salad's sour lime, hot chili, salty anchovy and the sweet palm sugar provides complexity and balance. It was the spiciest dish of the evening. I thought it was medium hot, but Chef Keattivanichvily said he had toned down the heat for North American palates. What was really amazing was how the wine's beautiful lychee and rose flavour was amplified by the salad as it cooled down the chili heat.
Next was a Khao tang tod, homemade rice crackers with lots of crunch to dip into a minced pork coconut milk Panang curry. This thick cool dip made a refreshing change of pace after the spicy salad.
The main feature was a jungle red curry, kaeng pa, with B.C. prawns fresh from the Steveston docks. In it was a wonderful assortment including Thai eggplant, holy Thai basil, with tiny leaves and an enchanting flavour, plus tiny branches of fresh green peppercorns, along with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and crunchy crispy salami for an extra surprise. And if that wasn't enough, there was global rice, with grains from Thailand, Egypt, Italy, Africa and India.
As a feast finale, Keattivanichvily served a sweet, baked pudding, made of taro root and coconut with Gudrun's toffee sauce along with deep fried shallots. Sweet yet savoury, a fitting end to an exotic evening where each course had hidden treasures.
Tickets are $65 a person for the five courses including a shared bottle of Gewurtraminer for two. Available at Gudrun Tasting Room, 150-3500 Moncton Street (604-272-1991).
Eric Hanson is a life-long Richmond resident and a retired teacher and wine educator.
