Spotlight IndependEats: TAIWANfest x DVBIA Food Tour
1:00 pm – 2:45 pm | Sep 3rd
Annex
Fancy yourself a foodie? Downtown Vancouver, with its countless restaurants filled with flavours from across the globe, might be one of the best places to find yourself when you are hungry. A self-guided food tour, Spotlight IndependEats guides you through local restaurants that you can visit over the TAIWANfest weekend with dishes reminiscent of themes from this year, The Stories of Independence!
If you take a close look at your favourite dish, you might uncover stories about where it comes from and the histories and connections that shape its flavours, textures, and scents. Whether it be the story of how a spice travelled across the world 400 years ago, or the tale of immigrants bringing flavours of home to their new home, food is filled with so much more than meets the eye. Each restaurant presented on Spotlight IndependEats has a “spotlight” dish or range of dishes, with a short description about how the dish links to the themes of The Stories of Independence.
The Spotlight IndependEats food tour is in partnership with the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA), which supports thousands of businesses in the Downtown Vancouver area and helps contribute to keeping the area vibrant. Alongside the variety of food options available to you at TAIWANfest, go ahead and explore what the restaurants of downtown have to offer!
Presented with:
Bubble Waffle
The bubble waffle is a popular street snack from Hong Kong that may have originated in the city after World War II. Small independent street vendors would sell bubble waffles, which were easily made from commonly-available ingredients, to make a living, despite the fact that they often had fierce competition and that the authorities sometimes tried to shut them down.
French-North African Cuisine
What do some of the items on offer here—tagine, harissa, and couscous—have in common? They all have North African origins, including from Morocco, Algeria, or Tunisia. These dishes have become extremely popular in these countries’ ex-colonizer, France, especially due to a long history of migration between North Africa and France.
Seafood
Seafood has always been a part of the history and livelihoods of people in Taiwan, the Pacific Northwest, and Southeast Asia. In the Pacific Northwest, seafood is still constantly being developed into new dishes, whether they draw on its history in the area or other cultures by adding Japanese flavours like miso or yuzu or being inspired by British fish and chips.
Pho noodle soup
Pho is an ubiquitous part of Vietnamese cuisine which first became popular during the French colonial period, with some attributing this to the increased popularity of beef in the French era. Regardless, pho has taken many forms in Vietnam’s recent history as individuals seek to adapt to their circumstances, while also spreading across the world due to migration.
Birriamen
A fusion of two dishes from immigrant cultures widely popular up and down the West, birriamen is a fusion dish inspired by Mexican birria, a type of soup or stew, and Japanese ramen. This kind of fusion seems only possible in the West Coast culinary scene, with its creativity and openness to the tastes and textures of other cultures.
Morel Mushroom Risotto
The honeycomb-looking morel mushroom is extremely difficult to grow commercially and still mostly needs to be picked by hand by humans in the wild. Foraging for wild mushrooms symbolizes a more organic relationship with the Earth and the freedom of growing in the wild. Morel mushrooms perhaps represent the epitome of farm-to-table cuisine.
Vindaloo
Vindaloo is a dish from Goa, a part of India that was colonized by Portugal, and is based on a Portuguese dish and its Portuguese name: carne de vinha d’alhos. It was adapted into Indian cuisine and variants of the dish are now globally popular as well, particularly in the United Kingdom due to significant levels of immigration from South Asia.
Gaeng Mussamun
(Massaman Curry)
Massaman curry is a Thai curry built on centuries of trade and cultural interaction between Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Persia. It brings together spices and ingredients, like Thai lemongrass or cloves from the Malay Archipelago, from across the ocean to create a rich, fusion dish that Thailand has made one of its most popular dishes.
Spotlight
Banh Mi Sandwich
Banh Mi Sandwich
The baguette might be a symbol of France, but when the baguette went to Vietnam, it became a proud, iconic part of Vietnamese cuisine in the form of a banh mi—the baguette sandwich. Originally filled with the more-expensive cold cuts or cheeses, the banh mi morphed into a staple dish that helped to sustain many Vietnamese.
All images used above are sourced from the restaurants’ website and/or social media.
Spotlight IndependEats: TAIWANfest x DVBIA Food Tour
1:00 pm – 2:45 pm | Sep 3rd
Annex
Fancy yourself a foodie? Downtown Vancouver, with its countless restaurants filled with flavours from across the globe, might be one of the best places to find yourself when you are hungry. A self-guided food tour, Spotlight IndependEats guides you through local restaurants that you can visit over the TAIWANfest weekend with dishes reminiscent of themes from this year, The Stories of Independence!
If you take a close look at your favourite dish, you might uncover stories about where it comes from and the histories and connections that shape its flavours, textures, and scents. Whether it be the story of how a spice travelled across the world 400 years ago, or the tale of immigrants bringing flavours of home to their new home, food is filled with so much more than meets the eye. Each restaurant presented on Spotlight IndependEats has a “spotlight” dish or range of dishes, with a short description about how the dish links to the themes of The Stories of Independence.
The Spotlight IndependEats food tour is in partnership with the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA), which supports thousands of businesses in the Downtown Vancouver area and helps contribute to keeping the area vibrant. Alongside the variety of food options available to you at TAIWANfest, go ahead and explore what the restaurants of downtown have to offer!
Presented with:
Bubble Waffle
The bubble waffle is a popular street snack from Hong Kong that may have originated in the city after World War II. Small independent street vendors would sell bubble waffles, which were easily made from commonly-available ingredients, to make a living, despite the fact that they often had fierce competition and that the authorities sometimes tried to shut them down.
French-North African Cuisine
What do some of the items on offer here—tagine, harissa, and couscous—have in common? They all have North African origins, including from Morocco, Algeria, or Tunisia. These dishes have become extremely popular in these countries’ ex-colonizer, France, especially due to a long history of migration between North Africa and France.
Seafood
Seafood has always been a part of the history and livelihoods of people in Taiwan, the Pacific Northwest, and Southeast Asia. In the Pacific Northwest, seafood is still constantly being developed into new dishes, whether they draw on its history in the area or other cultures by adding Japanese flavours like miso or yuzu or being inspired by British fish and chips.
Pho noodle soup
Pho is an ubiquitous part of Vietnamese cuisine which first became popular during the French colonial period, with some attributing this to the increased popularity of beef in the French era. Regardless, pho has taken many forms in Vietnam’s recent history as individuals seek to adapt to their circumstances, while also spreading across the world due to migration.
Birriamen
A fusion of two dishes from immigrant cultures widely popular up and down the West, birriamen is a fusion dish inspired by Mexican birria, a type of soup or stew, and Japanese ramen. This kind of fusion seems only possible in the West Coast culinary scene, with its creativity and openness to the tastes and textures of other cultures.
Morel Mushroom Risotto
The honeycomb-looking morel mushroom is extremely difficult to grow commercially and still mostly needs to be picked by hand by humans in the wild. Foraging for wild mushrooms symbolizes a more organic relationship with the Earth and the freedom of growing in the wild. Morel mushrooms perhaps represent the epitome of farm-to-table cuisine.
Vindaloo
Vindaloo is a dish from Goa, a part of India that was colonized by Portugal, and is based on a Portuguese dish and its Portuguese name: carne de vinha d’alhos. It was adapted into Indian cuisine and variants of the dish are now globally popular as well, particularly in the United Kingdom due to significant levels of immigration from South Asia.
Gaeng Mussamun
(Massaman Curry)
Massaman curry is a Thai curry built on centuries of trade and cultural interaction between Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Persia. It brings together spices and ingredients, like Thai lemongrass or cloves from the Malay Archipelago, from across the ocean to create a rich, fusion dish that Thailand has made one of its most popular dishes.
Spotlight
Banh Mi Sandwich
Banh Mi Sandwich
The baguette might be a symbol of France, but when the baguette went to Vietnam, it became a proud, iconic part of Vietnamese cuisine in the form of a banh mi—the baguette sandwich. Originally filled with the more-expensive cold cuts or cheeses, the banh mi morphed into a staple dish that helped to sustain many Vietnamese.
All images used above are sourced from the restaurants’ website and/or social media.
Join Our Newsletter
For Early Announcements And More
Contact Us
Performance / Vendor / Sponsorship Opportunities