DINER: First Look Inside The “No. 1 Noodle House” Pop-Up In The Old Boneta Address

The much anticipated No. 1 Noodle House pop-up restaurant at 1 West Cordova opened its doors tonight for their soft opening. Scout broke the news of its imminence a month ago. Some context:

Restaurateur Mark Brand (Save On Meats, Boneta, etc.) has joined forces with first timers Tyrell Shaw, Lindsay Lapierre, Matt MacDougall, and Alex Usow (his Sharks + Hammers, Sea Monstr Sushi partner) to open No. 1 Noodle House in the old 1 West Cordova address (the original Boneta spot at Carrall and Cordova in Gastown).

It’s basically a big ramen joint. They’ve been researching the hell out of broths and are now onto noodles (heading to LA on a ramen spree next week). The menu will be small – just three ramens (soy, pork, maybe chicken), fried chicken wings, bao buns, salads and Banh Mi sandwiches – with a small beer, sake and spirits component.

The place will be geared towards the chefs who work on the line all night and then don’t have many options for food and drink when they clock out. No. 1 Noodle House might stay open until as late as 4am, with a capacity for 75-90 people. Guest chefs will also regularly moonlight to create specialty dishes of their own.

Right now, the concept is for a 7 month pop-up, which Brand describes as a “business incubator”. If it works, they might stay or move somewhere else. Opening day is scheduled for late April or early May.

Items on the very short lunch and dinner menus include bowls of ramen ($9.50), banh mi sammy’s ($7.50), bao buns with fried chicken and kimchi ($7.50), and pork spring rolls ($7.75). Nothing is over $10. The room looks rough and ready, with communal picnic tables fronting the giant hood vent (complete with stenciled cobras emerging from ramen bowls) and all of the mirrors that used to hang from the ceiling back in the Boneta days now decorating the walls. Take a look for yourselves over the weekend and let us know what you think.

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SEEN IN VANCOUVER #436: Save On Meats Replacing Stolen Sign With Food Campaign

A couple of weeks ago a group calling themselves the Anti-Gentrification Front stole Save On Meats’ sidewalk sign, posed with it by throwing up peace signs (absurdly, as above) and sent the picture to Mark Brand as if they were putting him on notice. It was a silly bit of business, really, and it would be oh so easy to leave it at that and pay the insurance man. Alas, I don’t think that’s what Brand has in mind.

“The team was bummed. We say bummed because it was an inanimate sheet of plywood,” he writes tonight via email. “Nobody was hurt (feelings aside) but threats were hurled. Serious threats against the venue, and therefore against employees, people who work day in and out for their community.” In the morning, it appears as if he and “the team” will be responding, not with threats of their own, but with a laugh at the Anti-Gentrification Front’s posturing and a new campaign to help feed the women of the Rainier Hotel.

After an amazing week of media, emails and neighbourhood love a call was made. This piece of plywood was shaped to feed the community we love. For every picture (instagram @saveonmeats), tweet (@saveonmeats) and Facebook share with the sign we will provide breakfast to one resident at the recently underfunded Rainier Hotel. Yes, this is meant to spread the word and leverage media. It’s meant to show people that we will not be intimidated or bullied, nor have we ever been in the dozens of attacks in our 26+ months here.

Here’s the short version: misguided folk steal sign and hurl threats. We rebuild sign with donation and work within our community. People help said community with two clicks on their mobile device and show support.

Save On Meats: 1 Jackasses: 0

And…it’s a ton of fun to take pictures with.

EVERYTHING SEEN IN VANCOUVER

DINER: Big Ramen Pop-Up “No. 1 Noodle House” Destined For Original Boneta Space

by Andrew Morrison | Restaurateur Mark Brand (Save On Meats, Boneta, etc.) has joined forces with first timers Tyrell Shaw, Lindsay Lapierre, Matt MacDougall, and Alex Usow (his Sharks + Hammers, Sea Monstr Sushi partner) to open No. 1 Noodle House in the old 1 West Cordova address (the original Boneta spot at Carrall and Cordova in Gastown).

It’s basically a big ramen joint. They’ve been researching the hell out of broths and are now onto noodles (heading to LA on a ramen spree next week). The menu will be small – just three ramens (soy, pork, maybe chicken), fried chicken wings, bao buns, salads and Banh Mi sandwiches – with a small beer, sake and spirits component.

The place will be geared towards the chefs who work on the line all night and then don’t have many options for food and drink when they clock out. No. 1 Noodle House might stay open until as late as 4am, with a capacity for 75-90 people. Guest chefs will also regularly moonlight to create specialty dishes of their own.

Right now, the concept is for a 7 month pop-up, which Brand describes as a “business incubator”. If it works, they might stay or move somewhere else. Opening day is scheduled for late April or early May.

ALL ANTICIPATED OPENINGS

CITY BRIEFS: Annual TED Conference To Leave Long Beach For Vancouver In 2014

TED is moving to Vancouver, perhaps permanently. Since its beginnings in 1984, the annual technology/design conference – best known for its fascinating “talks” and interviews – has been based in Long Beach, California. The news that it is upping sticks and moving north to our fair shore (with its 2000 or so delegates) comes as a happy surprise.

Mark Brand says it best above as he walks on stage: Wow.

In 2014, TED will celebrate our 30th anniversary. And to mark this spectacular event, we’re planning something very special. We are moving our annual West Coast conference from Long Beach, California, to Vancouver, Canada. From March 17 to March 21, 2014, TED will be held in this great city, which boasts a thriving spirit of innovation as well as stunning views — the harbor and mountains in the same scenic vistas.

Read the good news here.

DINER: Mark Brand’s “Portside” Pub To Be Unveiled In Gastown Tonight (SEE INSIDE)

by Andrew Morrison | Mark Brand’s much anticipated new Gastown pub, Portside, is set to open this evening at 7 Alexander Street. There will be a media preview starting at 7pm and then the doors open at 1opm. Rich Hope will be the first local musician to take the stage, and then a couple of DJs will take over. I was in late last night to sneak a peek and raise the first glass of Champagne (Brand having sabred the first bottle with a short order fry-flipper). Everything that needed to be in place looked to be in place, including a ceiling-suspended clawfoot bathtub with four taps dispensing whisky, a drop down screen for hockey games, a keg room with a custom-made door locked by a spinning wheel (nautical-style), high top tables planked with either Douglas Fir or reclaimed floorboards from an old Jazz club in Yaletown, and more beer taps than I cared to count. The coolest thing? Several former Waldorf staffers are on the clock, including – I’m told – all the nice folks who always worked the door.

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Andrew Morrison lives and works in Vancouver as editor-in-chief of Scout, and Culinary Referee & Judge at the Canadian Culinary Championships. He also contributes regularly to a wide range of publications, radio programs, and television shows on local food, culture and travel; collects inexpensive things; and enjoys rare birds, skateboards, cocktails, shoes, good pastas, many songs, and the smell of camp fires.

DINER: Mark Brand Picks Up New Gastown Digs For 120 Seat Craft Beer Bar “Portside”

by Andrew Morrison | Gastown restaurateur/entrepreneur Mark Brand (see also Save On Meats, The Diamond, Sharks + Hammers, Boneta, Catalog Gallery) has picked up the liquor primary space formerly known as Post Modern at 7 Alexander Street (next to Chill Winston). We’ll be sharing all the details once all of his ducks are aligned, but in the meantime you can start looking forward to a three level, 24 tap craft beer bar and live music venue called Portside. It will see some 120 seats and a standing capacity for about 240 people, with a pronounced Halifaxian vibe (the managerial staff being east coast ex-pats). It will be managed by Newfoundland import Andrew Flynn, most recently of Chinatown’s East of Main. Brand says his ultimate goal with the place is to make it “the friendliest pub in Vancouver”. If all goes according to plan, construction will begin in January. We’ll be taking a look inside and detailing the food concept in the coming days, so stay tuned.

PS. What’s in a name? “Portside” comes from Portside Park (the original name of nearby Crab Park).

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Andrew Morrison lives and works in Vancouver as editor-in-chief of Scout, food columnist at the Westender, and National Referee & Judge at the Canadian Culinary Championships. He also contributes regularly to a wide range of publications, radio programs, and television shows on local food, culture and travel; collects inexpensive things; and enjoys rare birds, skateboards, cocktails, shoes, good pastas, many songs, and the smell of camp fires.

SEEN IN VANCOUVER #417: New Sandwich Tokens Go On Sale Today At Save On Meats

Save On Meats’ new sandwich tokens go on sale today for $2.25 each. Hats off to the peeps at Odette Visual for making the superb super-short clip above. Nice work all around.

EVERYTHING SEEN IN VANCOUVER

VANCOUVER DETAIL #277: Brass Elephants Wrapping Up The Foot Rail At “The Diamond”

It gets pretty dark in The Diamond (6 Powell St. in Gastown) and there’s often drinking involved, so don’t blame yourself for missing these brass elephant youths wrapping their trunks around the bar’s foot rail. I’d never seen them until very recently. Owners Mark Brand and Josh Pape found the set of proboscideans at a liquidation auction held in memory of a defunct Port Moddy pub. You’d think the set would be a one of a kind in Vancouver, and for a while they thought it to be. Lo, the exact same one holds the toes of tourist tipplers at the Old Spaghetti Factory just a few doors west on Water Street. Are there others?

Bonus: this is now your default alibi for staring at bar floors.

EVERYTHING SEEN IN VANCOUVER

Seen In Vancouver #336: “Beggars Banquet” Comes Fleetingly To The Old Boneta Space

Gastown’s newest pop-up market, The Beggars Banquet, opened up tonight in the old Boneta space at 1 West Cordova. Check it out from 11am to 6pm tomorrow (Saturday). The Found and The Freed were well represented, as were Union Wood & Supply Co. and Cocolico (among several other locally spun bits of awesomeness). Score clothing, unique housewares, furniture, books, trinkets and all manner of curiosities.

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11- 6pm | Saturday, January 21 | Boneta 1 West Cordova | $2 Admission

EVERYTHING SEEN IN VANCOUVER

DINER: The Highly Anticipated New Vision Of “Boneta” Softly Opens Off Water Street

The new Boneta had a soft friends and family tonight (without food). Opening night proper is Friday. I couldn’t stay long this evening, but I accidentally slipped on a glass of Red Truck IPA and took a few shots on the way down. It looks lovely, and it’s especially comforting to once again be able to sip at the same wooden bar of old. The look is a little Spartan, which isn’t entirely out of character. We should expect the walls to be dressed with Boneta’s original Charles Forsberg works shortly and then I suppose we’ll know the full vibe. Plus I suspect there’ll be lots of people in there, and I’m told that lends something to any atmosphere. I wouldn’t mind a gilt framed mirror or two on the ceiling, but you can’t always get what you want (the old location is keeping those). A proper dogpile is in store for Mark, Neil, Jason et al when they unlock their doors for the first time tomorrow. We wish them the very best of luck in surviving the bumrush.

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A Tale Of Two Bonetas: News Of The Old & A Look Inside The New

by Andrew Morrison | I’m no sad sack but the truth of it is that this summer has sucked for me personally. It began with my hockey team losing (and my city subsequently being attacked by hordes of degenerate assholes), my leg getting broken in an office accident and then, most recently, my father – who I loved very much – went ahead and died without me knowing that he was the least bit ill. There have been some silver linings, but on the whole it has been what the Queen once succinctly called an “annus horribilis” (which I can assure you has nothing to do with Freddie Mercury or butt sex).

Beyond friends and family, I’ve only been able to count on a few things in the last couple of weeks (even the Westfalia’s brakes failed while going down a mountain the other day). One of them has been Gastown’s Boneta, which – since the day it opened in 2007 – I’ve counted as my “local”. As I assume most of our readers are well aware, it closed this past weekend and will re-open in its new location around the corner in the Water Street Garage in a little over a week or so (crossed fingers).

If we lived in an age bereft of cell phones, Boneta would likely be my wife’s first phone call were I to ever go AWOL (granted, were she to ever disappear, I’d call their first as well). Though I often take meetings in one of its corners, I’ve done my best to maintain it as a work-free environment. It’s where I go out first when I don’t have to review restaurants and the point from which I jump off when I do. To my shame I almost never order anything to eat (save for their outstanding poutine). It’s not that I don’t like the food, it’s just that I’ve always preferred to bend elbows there instead. Beer has always just sort of tasted better at its wood than anywhere else.

After receiving the news about my Dad and coming home from the Okanagan to get sauced with my brother last week, Boneta was the one place I could trust to sequester us somewhere quiet and then leave us alone (though recharging our glasses when needed). We flirted with the limits of Serving It Right by way of whiskey and lager, and it may have gotten messy. The last time I cried in a restaurant I was a busboy some 20 years ago, busily slicing open my finger instead of a loaf of bread. I would have been horrified to find myself blubbering at any other table, but at one of Boneta’s it seemed OK.

Luongo, my office equipment and my Dad might let me down, but the original Boneta never did. I’ve loved it dearly through its nearly messy divorce, its chef change and the recent, tragic passing of one of its staff members whose company and character I and many, many others thoroughly enjoyed. It was a place of tremendous comfort, playing host to some of my highest highs and lowest lows, seeing me laugh Sapporo out of my nose on one night and then blow involuntary snot bubbles of profound sadness the next.

Why the gravitational, near emotional attachment? I don’t know, really. Perhaps it’s because a part of me thinks it stands for something. When it opened at 1 West Cordova in 2007, it was the fourth restaurant at that address in as many years. It was a different landscape back then. Gastown was nowhere near as popular as it is today. If it weren’t for Boneta, I doubt very much that Emad Yacoub would be angling to expand his Glowbal empire nearby or that his nephew, Yaletown impresario Peter Girges (he of the terrifying “100 Days” in the Opus Hotel), would have just secured the lease next door in the old Pig & Whistle space. Boneta, to me at least, was always the little restaurant that could, not only begetting such gems as  The Diamond, Sea Monstr Sushi, and the restoration of Save On Meats, but also showing other first time restaurateurs that pretty much anything is possible if you kept your shit tight and your customers happy.

What could take its place? I’ve wondered that for quite a while. With the likes of Yacoub and Girges now testing the waters in these parts, it would be natural to fear that their assured successes would herald next the arrival of something truly hideous, a den of honest to goodness douchery selling sparkling as Champagne and American chuck as Kobe beef to corporate roid freaks high on expense accounts and speed-spiked Red Bull. I hope to hell not, but no matter. As a chef once told me when comparing the $8 million price tag of David Aisenstat’s Shore Club to the less than $100,000 spent to launch Boneta, “For eight million, I would have preferred 80 Bonetas.” True that. I suppose, among other things, I enjoyed the original because it had a surplus of soul and character, two things that take no notice of how deep anyone’s pockets are and can’t be sold or bought. Both – phew – can be transferred, as amply evidenced by the successful move of The Irish Heather across Carrall St. a few years ago.

I was back up in the Okanagan staying in Naramata with my friends Michael and Heidi this past weekend when the restaurant held its last service. I knew full well that I was going to miss it. Michael was going down for it so I give him a lift to Penticton’s little airport. After parking the car, he surprised me with a plane ticket. “It’s yours if you want to join me,” he said. I couldn’t do it and said so in what must have been the most pathetic mumble I’ve ever conjured, and being a good friend he totally understood (pretty much the most generous guy ever). It took me all of five minutes for me to regret turning down his kind offer. I later heard that it was a fantastic time.

But enough sturm und drang, I have some good news and then some gooder news.

Yesterday, Mark Brand informed me that he had just signed a two year extension of the lease at 1 West Cordova, meaning that instead of being turned into an Earl’s vodka bar offering breast implants for appetisers, it will become a private function space for all of Brand’s restaurants, including the new Boneta. That’s the good news. The gooder news is that I was just given a tour of the new space and it looks pretty fucking awesome. Before we get to the photos, here’s a refresher course on the move from back when Scout broke the news some thirteen months ago:

…next year, Boneta will close and reopen in a new location just a lob wedge away in a new Gastown development known as The Garage. You know that mysterious courtyard spot (prone to a dozen rumours since it was completed last year) behind L’Abattoir and the original Shebeen, the one that’s all glassed in and brand spanking new? That’s it: 2,222 sqft of prime virgin space with entrances through Gaoler’s Mews, Water St., and Blood Alley.

I checked it out as a temporary “pop-up” gallery in the Spring and hoped against hope that it would be turned into a restaurant once it was finished. It’s one of those unique, totally killer spots that is set back from the street, away from the drifting weekend yahoos and Old Spaghetti Factory tourists. If anyone could make it work, it’s these guys (kudos to Robert Fung of The Salient Group for getting that).

What does it give Boneta that it didn’t have before? An 800 sqft solarium equipped with five sliding doors; floor to ceiling glass and a roof that’s over 30% glass; a U-shaped bar with 12 seats; a year round heated and covered courtyard patio for 12 (think Brix); and brand new everything from electric to A/C.

They’re downsizing the seating capacity a little, from 100+ to 65-75, but I’ll be the last to complain about that as I think intimate is better for the concept than spread out. The artwork – something Boneta is known for – will be making the move, too, as will much of the original room’s motifs (they’re hoping to recycle/reclaim plenty).

From what I understand and saw with my own eyes, not much has changed as far as the vision or layout is concerned. Take a look at both the old and new below, and join me in the short but interminably long wait for the first drinks poured…

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Field Trip #589: How To Deface A Winery And Not Get Arrested…

by Andrew Morrison | I’ve spent the better part of the last few weeks zipping up and down from the Okanagan Valley camping, resort-hopping, eating, sippng and generally taking it easy. In that time I’ve visited dozens of wineries, old and new.

Though I’ve long loved their products, the architecture and design has often left plenty to be desired. The lack of representative style has always irked. More often than not – perhaps out of fear that they won’t be taken seriously – owners tend to produce on a stunted aesthetic that replicates what they see and over-respect in their French, Spanish, Italian and Californian counterparts.

It’s aspirational thinking, and as a consequence we have not a few absurd-looking Italian villa-flavoured Burgundian chateau buildings with Spanish tiled roofs and Napa-inspired tasting rooms painted in seven shades of Tuscan regret. It may be a sad testament to a tremendous lack of self confidence on our part (not to mention taste), but I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to do something different. Read more

DINER: A Letter From Gastown’s “Boneta” On Its Closing And Imminent Resurrection

As many of you know, the end for one of my/your favourite restaurants, Boneta, is nigh. Here’s a note – received while I was on the road a few days back – from co-owner Neil Ingram:

Well friends, the last days of the old Boneta are finally upon us. High hopes, false starts and a furious sense of optimism aside, Aug 20th will be the swansong for 1 W Cordova.

Four years have flown by with your fine company and cheer, so please come down and join us for a last dinner, drink and whirl under the mirrors. We couldn’t have done it without you: well, obviously, but you know what we mean. A piece of Vancouver history had a great last hurrah. Thanks.

Boneta will be back in early September, glittering between Blood Alley and a sky-strewn atrium in the Water Street Garage courtyard.

Our new home is a reflection, refinement and celebration of what we love and believe in, we hope it will become your new home too. Let’s keep our last, best neighborhood just that.

Boneta loves you xoxo

Scout readers can expect a thorough preview of the new digs shortly.

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