Road Trip! Crawling Downtown Kelowna

Thanks to Dean’s parents purchasing a timeshare north of Kelowna airport back in the day with a lease that lasts until just this side of forever, we visit Kelowna pretty often. It’s a sprawling city, that in various parts looks like the Langley Bypass, has lots of green space, advertising billboards, a gorgeous lake, farms, golf courses and world class wineries. Dean lived here for a year in 1993. The downtown had parts that were kind of old and busted, but with the arrival of the Okanagan Grand Resort and Casino and Prospera Place a number of years ago, things have come back to life downtown, and there has been a noticeable renaissance in the restaurant scene. We came up to Kelowna for a friend’s wedding, and made a weekend of it. The rain was threatening on and off the Saturday of our visit, so our tentative golf plans were out. We got a late start to the day, but we were on the dot when happy hour started at 3 pm at the first of four locations on this crawl.

Micro Bar & Bites  1500 Water Street

We checked a number of menus around the downtown area and settled on the welcoming Micro. Micro is an offshoot of Raudz Regional Table,  according to our friendly server Kieran. The continental “breakfast” at our hotel was decided not awesome, so we were hungry and ready to eat by the time happy hour rolled around. The bar area had that craft-y look with a massive stack of limes and lemons for garnishes and very trendy lighting with antique bulbs hung at different heights throughout the restaurant.  We do like to sit at the bar to watch the bartender’s technique, and chat with them – we learn something every time we do.  Dean chose the Earl Grey Old Fashioned (Buffalo Trace bourbon, Angostura bitters, Earl Grey infused syrup). The Earl grey was quite subtle – would have liked it a bit more noticeable in the flavour. Lisa was somewhat hesitant, but eventually chose The Good Neighbour (Flor de Caña 7 year aged rum, Cinnamon Syrup, Lime, Grapefruit, Old Fashioned bitters). The cinnamon was well balanced (and not like a mouthful of cinnamon hearts as was initially feared). Their Happy Hour food list offers 5 menu items for $5. We ordered some popcorn, which was freshly popped in a giant pot (as I mentioned we arrived right on the stroke of 3 pm) and tossed with rendered duck fat and seasoned with rosemary and sea salt.

A lovely melange of local sherry marinated mushrooms and crusty bread and a hunk of aged gouda from Smits & Co.(w) in Chilliwack got our meal started. The best dish (unfortunately not one of the $5 specials) was the Escalivada with seared scallops and prawns with red pepper, eggplant, parsley & shallots. The scallops were perfectly crusted and not overdone or chewy. Micro was fairly quiet during our visit but we were admittedly quite early, and it was arguably our favourite stop on the crawl. We have learned from previous experience not to go crazy at the first venue, so that making it to stop #3 remains a possibility. We hit the street, and the rain had stopped and we sauntered down Bernard to the next venue that caught our eye.

Bacaro Kitchen & Drink  231 Bernard Street

Bacaro is a narrow, modern lounge at the end of Bernard street (one of the main drags in downtown Kelowna) near the famous ‘sails’ sculpture. It would be at home in Vancouver’s West End. The cocktails are craft though the food menu is perhaps a bit more straightforward than some places we have visited. Lisa spotted a sparkling wine from her new favourite winery in West Kelowna called the Hatch. We have visited the Hatch twice, and they didn’t have their sparkling Octobubble Brut Rose available for tasting, so this was her chance. Octobubble is made from Gamay Noir grapes in the traditional sparkling method and was nice and dry, and most importantly for Lisa, does not smell or taste like strawberries! (It’s a long story, but there is strawberry trauma in her past). Regular VanCityCrawl readers know Dean is a sucker for barrel-aged cocktails, so it came to no one’s surprise that he had the barrel-aged Paper Plane (Old Grand Dad Bourbon, Aperol, House made Amaro, lemon).

For food we ordered the Lamb meatballs (meatballs are enjoying a revival currently, and we are seeing them on menus everywhere) and the Crispy Fingerlings. That is a fancy $10 version of French fries with green onions, herbs and sea salt, but they hit the spot on a cool-ish late summer day. The lamb was served with chevre, sultana raisins and a chili-mint pistou sauce (think pesto, without pine nuts, or chimichurri). They were very good, and we almost missed getting a photo, hence the extreme close-up on the last remaining meatball below. Nothing to complain about here at all – slight edge to Micro for our taste, but if they are full if and when you go, Bacaro has lots to offer.

BNA Brewing Co.   1250 Ellis Street

The craft brewery scene has absolutely exploded in Vancouver in the past 2-3 years, and Kelowna is starting to catch that trend as well. Tree Brewing has been producing some great brews in the Okanagan for over 2 decades and recently opened their Beer Institute alongside the Okanagan Grand Hotel. The newcomer on the scene is BNA (so named, since the building originally housed tobacco drying operations of the British North American Tobacco Company). BNA brews their own beer on site (mostly pale ales and IPAs) and serves flights and sleeves and growler fills are available right next door to the restaurant. Its a cool space inside with lots of exposed beams, huge chandeliers and TVs everywhere which was convenient as Canada was playing the Czech Republic on opening night of the World Cup of Hockey when we visited. There is also a separate upstairs room that would make for a great space for private parties. Dean stuck with a cocktail, ordering The Butcher (bacon and BNA beer Old Fashioned with smoked maple ice) while Lisa ordered a beer flight (their Pale Ale, IPA and her favourite the Blood Sugar Hops Magik ISA (stands for India Session Ale – hops forward, and usually below 5% ABV).

The BNA food menu was quite eclectic, featuring Italian, Indian and Asian fusion dishes. There was not a lot of pub food other than a burger and fries, and even the wings were Vietnamese style. They have put a fair bit of thought into this menu, taking their cues from local and seasonally available fare, and even make their bread, pasta and sauces in house. The most creative dishes of the night were the Smoked Brisket Wontons which were fashioned into grilled mini tacos and stuffed with avocado mousse, charred corn salsa, shredded carrots, feta and hot sauce.  Our other dish was a must-order, the steamed pork buns with smoked porchetta, pickled cucumber and mustard seed mayonnaise. We are still searching for a pork bun as perfect as the ones we had at Redd in Napa valley’s Michelin Star Mecca, Yountville this spring. Until we are able to visit David Chang’s Momofuku, the search will continue. BNA’s buns were warm and soft, nicely spiced, and visually appealing with the graininess of the mustard seed dressing. If Dean still lived in Kelowna, he would no doubt be at BNA often. There was nothing remotely like BNA in Kelowna in 1993.

Ok, typically one of our crawls is made up of three restaurants, but with our early start, a pause for a free VIP tasting at Sandhill winery’s new downtown tasting room, with a promo card we had from a prior Kelowna trip, and a little time, we decided we had room for one more stop.

Waterfront Wines  118o Sunset Drive

A veteran in the area, Waterfront Wines was on the leading edge of downtown Kelowna’s food scene renaissance. WW is located a short walk from the Grand and a few steps beyond the other famous Robert Reid local sculpture Rhapsody, though most people just call it the Dolphin fountain. (There are no dolphins in Lake Okanagan. Because it’s a lake. Another paradox: though the building is technically located on the waterfront, you can’t see the water from within Waterfront Wines. Discuss.)  Anyway, once you get past the hostess who needs a bit of an attitude adjustment, Waterfront Wines is worth a visit. You don’t get named best Okanagan restaurant by Vancouver Magazine 8 years in a row by accident. We sat at the bar, and chatted with our bartender/server. Though Waterfront Wines was doing it long before the farm-to-table trend really caught on, it makes total sense to source ingredients from local farms in such an agriculturally rich region as the Okanagan valley.

Drinks first – Dean had the Backhand of Bourbon (Bulleit bourbon, Backhand of God Stout, lemon, maple syrup, egg white, Angostura bitters) while Lisa  was ready for a glass of wine, and chose the Orofino Scout Vineyard Syrah from the Similkameen valley. The cocktail was beautifully presented in a flip glass, with drops of the bitters ‘combed’ across the top of the egg white foam. The Syrah had a deep earthy note reminiscent of mushrooms, and made for a perfect pairing with the dishes we ordered: first was the rich and velvety Duck Foie Gras (not local; it comes from the famous Brome Lake Duck Farm in Quebec), and the wonderful Steak Tartare with fried onion twists, fresh herbs, dots of mayonnaise, herb emulsion and grilled toast points. You could think of these as the main course of our crawl.

Waterfront Wines was a satisfying finish to our culinary adventure outside Vancouver. Some other greats in the area include the brand new Oak + Cru at the Grand (they did it right, opening up the back of the restaurant to a lakefront patio, and a Cactus Club vibe)  and The Curious Cafe featuring Bar Norcino on weekends. Add to that the great restaurants like Old Vines at Quail’s Gate winery, and many other wineries with bistros and restaurants, and you will find that if you haven’t visited Kelowna in a while, it has clearly come up a long way in the culinary realm.

Dean & Lisa Elbe
September 17, 2016