FROM CANADA WITH FOOD, FRIENDSHIP
Guest chefs showcase our cuisine, in program at Mexican resort
Let ignorance build walls, wisdom tears them down. That’s the basis for a four-year relationship between El Dorado Royale resort in the Mayan Riviera and Canadian chefs.
Every month for one week, notable Canadian chefs are invited to the resort to give its culinary team and the tourists a taste of Canada. It’s been going on for four years with no sign of stopping.
The Canadian chefs host dinners, barbecues, cooking demos and joint dinners feting guests and showing kitchen staff how Canada cooks. Canadian Beef is one of the sponsors, so food events all have a meaty bias.
In April, guest chef was Nick Liu from Toronto, who rocks the city with his culinary wizardry, and I was there to experience some of the chefs without borders program.
Liu had flown to Mexico shortly after feeding the talent at the 2017 Juno Awards, and went to work right away, cooking for a beach barbecue at El Dorado Royale, the first of several events.
I met up with Liu and Jose Sagrero, chef at Fuentes, the highend Mexican restaurant at El Dorado Royale and host chef, to discuss their experience. This wasn’t their first collaboration.
“Dude! That’s awesome,” Sagrero said upon hearing of Liu at the Junos.
“We’ve become very good friends and talk all through the year,” says Liu. “We’ve talked about how two things really create bonds, and that’s music and food. They’re similar arts.”
Ostensibly, Liu is there sharing his version of Canadian cuisine (and standout beef ) but he’s soaking in a lot about Mexican food as well.
“Jose takes me out to such amazing places — for breakfast tacos, late-night tacos and I really got the feel for local food,” says Liu. “We get to see each other’s style of cooking. I’ve got to see all the Mexican products they grow here on site.”
“My boys (kitchen staff) get a rare glimpse of the world out there,” Sagrero explains. “It gives them a hunger to learn, as well as pride in what they’re doing. We talk a lot about this.”
Earlier, in February, Vancouver’s Joel Watanabe, of the sizzling hot Kissa Tanto and Bao Bei restaurants, was guest chef.
“The guy’s a beast. He’s awesome,” Sagrero says. His cooks now understand Canadian cuisine is as varied as its demography.
“Joel’s style of cooking was a mix of Italian and Asian. It was beautiful.”
As for Watanabe, he found Sagrero “lovable.”
“He’s down-to-earth, super-energetic and super-positive. I love Mexican people, and have an affinity for them. I lived there once,” he says. “It’s great to see our commonality, and it’s important.”
Tod Perrin of Mallard Cottage in St. John’s, N.L., and Victor Barry of Piano Piano in Toronto were also guest chefs this year. (Two more B.C. chefs — Alex Hon, sous chef at West restaurant, and Nick Nutting of Wolf in the Fog in Tofino — will feature later this year.)
Liu’s cuisine is typically Canadian, that is part of the mosaic of immigrant influences.
“My parents were Hakka, basically from India and Jamaica, places that don’t have Chinese food, so they created it using local spices.”
His Toronto restaurant DaiLo serves “new Asian” food.
“Ancient favourites, augmented by Liu’s signature flair and updated to suit the western palate and modern demand for local and sustainable ingredients,” declares the restaurant website.
“He taught me how to make a fantastic foie gras in a zip-lock,” Sagrero laughs. “We don’t really use those techniques here (sous vide). And I’ve seen how he keeps things fresh, balanced and not heavily starched.”
On Liu’s second night at the resort, he geared into demo mode and cooked a three-course meal for guests, starting with a beef dumpling, calling it “the type of food I make — Asian mixed with a little French background.”
He followed that with an Asian style beef carpaccio.
“Slice it very thin and smush it just a bit so it gets a little thinner,” he demonstrated. He added pickled chiles, coriander and some dried chiles. “I’d add dwarf peaches back home but here I’ll use tomatillos and finish it with ponzu sauce with yuzu juice. Beef is always best when it’s warmed a bit to bring out the flavour and to slightly melt the fat.”
Then Liu killed it with a luscious Korean bulgogi short rib dish. He quickly deep-fried an egg yolk.
“I’m dropping it in hot oil to get a beautiful spherical crusted yolk. There’s nothing sexier than a soft egg yolk, drizzled over everything, making a sauce bearing its sweet juices,” he said.
For dessert, Liu plated up Asian pear poached in sake and blueberry syrup, garnished with blueberries, Szechuan peppercorn and Chantilly cream.
“In Toronto, I use something called Saskatoon berries,” he said. “It’s very Canadian.”
Jackson Family Wines pulls out the stops, providing wines for the all the Canadian culinary events.
For a beach burger barbecue the next day, Liu and Fuentes made hundreds of bao burgers (burger meat in steamed rice buns) and regular burgers. On the last day of their visit, guest chefs produce a tasting menu dinner with wine pairings.
I did learn something about Canadian beef — unlike beef from other countries, Canadian product can be tracked for origin and cattle are identified by radio frequency.
Many of the high-end restaurants in Mexico like Pujol, considered the best in Mexico City, cook with Canadian beef.
“It’s awesome,” says Sagrero. “It’s beautiful because it’s more marbled with bigger flavour and the quality’s much better.”
He says the next stage in the culinary series is for the chef swap to work two ways.
“We’d like to take it to the next level. When Canadian chefs come here, our kitchen would go to Canada. We were talking about doing a collaboration, doing Mexican baos with Mexican flavours like nopal, chorizo, and tongue. We’d take our Mexican products and use as many unique ingredients as we can. Hopefully, we’ll make it to Vancouver.”