Ferry good food at Horseshoe Bay restaurant
Time drops to its knees and crawls uphill when you’re waiting for a ferry, right? Well, if you’re twiddling thumbs at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, know there is more to a meal than the well-trodden path to Troll’s.
At Olive and Anchor you’ll find something more elevated and family friendly. It’s a little bit Earls, a little bit English pub and a smaller bit Korean with bibimbap and Korean fried chicken wings on the menu.
“I wanted a pub feel without shying away from the family-oriented crowd,” says Rick Kim, who runs the place with his wife and chef Lisa. She makes everything from scratch except the mayo, says Kim.
Olive and Anchor opened in 2011 and attracts both locals and ferry traffic, some 450 to 600 a day in the summer months. They saw a niche for locals who begrudgingly cross the Lion’s Gate bridge to dine out.
And when a restaurant needs renovating, who you gonna call? Lots call the award-winning Craig Stanghetta (Kissa Tanto, Bao Bei, Meat & Bread, Revolver Cafe, Ask for Luigi, Homer Street Cafe, Botanist at the Fairmont Pacific Rim) and so did Kim.
“I wanted an English pub feeling,” he says.
The interior is a literal interpretation of that, but the grey-green exterior with black awnings has great details (like the graceful mermaid carving placed above the entrance, a la ship’s figurehead).
About Lisa: She worked some good restaurants in the city (Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, Le Crocodile), went to cooking school twice, once to train as a chef and again to train as a pastry chef. Rick worked at Ya Ya’s Oyster
Bar as a kid, in the same location, when his father was part owner. He washed dishes. He went on to take hospitality training in Switzerland and worked at the Metropolitan Hotel downtown. Lisa was chef at Ya Ya’s for a couple of years before they rebranded to Olive and Anchor; Olive is their daughter’s name.
I went for lunch and duly noted some wheelers: the ferry people with suitcases. And I gotta say, the nicely plated Korean fried chicken wings ($14.50) were a great intro. It glistened with Korean sweet chili glaze and had a sprinkle of crushed cashews and sesame seeds. Crab cake ($12) had heft with a high proportion of crab. A side of apple fennel salad and cucumber sesame aioli sauce came in with trilling notes.
Fish and chips at another table looked tempting, with what looked like a delicately crispy batter. They buy fresh cod, filet it in-house and use a tempura batter. The seafood is 90 per cent Ocean Wise.
My husband’s Anchor burger ($18) with smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, pickle, red onion and a grainy mustard mayo between a brioche bun (from Swiss Bakery) shows exactly why burgers rule; the side of kennebec fries were very good, but had too many small bits.
Chef Lisa changed up traditional Korean bibimbap ($24), cutting the vegetables chunky and large (bok choy, zucchini, pickled cucumbers, mushrooms) for more crunch and mixing them. I usually love bibimbap. I didn’t love this one. The fried egg topper was very oily and crispy on the edges and, yes, the veg were crispy but I prefer a finer cut, neater bibimbap. The bulgogi beef (marinated three days) was delicious, but there was precious little of it and not enough rice for my liking. Kim said when Koreans order, they’re critical as well. I’d say changing it is a no-brainer.
The smoked salmon, cream cheese and red onion flatbread is a customer favourite.
“We buy fresh dough from Swiss Bakery and grill it to order.”
Since Christmas is in the horizon, let me tell you about the brandy raisin bread pudding. The proof is in this pudding: Over the Christmas season, customers go nuts and order them boxed for dinners and gifts.
“We pumped out 500 last year in one oven,” Kim says. (The boxed desserts are $28 and feed six to eight people. “In my family, it’s more like four,” he says.)
With his business admin degree, I’m guessing Kim has sights on expanding.
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of pursuing something, but it won’t be another Olive and Anchor. Ideally, I’d like to have my staff branch out and put people in charge of different places. We are creating a culture where they can stay in this industry and have a career.
“When you are in a village setting, where your kids go to school and clients are their parents, I stop selling. I start sharing.”
I note on the menu that bottles of wine are 25 per cent off on Mondays and Tuesdays.