Sandwiched claustrophobically between a pair of cheap suits wearing Chinese made Vancouver 2010 pins, I stir cream from a dirty carafe into my cup of pre-spilled coffee. The lounge's bar looks out into the business district, fragile crystal citadels yearning to pierce through the oppressive grey canvas overhead. Any office windows not yet obscured by megalithic media messages mirror the anxiety of the pre-Olympic plebeians rushing about their lunch hour below. Trolley buses click and spark their way around the city selling civic spirit brought to you by McDonald's and Coca Cola, and the busy floor of Cactus Club Bentall is starting to suffocate me like a corporate cafeteria.
I'll admit: I thought this lunch was going to be a lot worse than it was. I agreed to meet a dear old friend of mine here, who for some reason unbeknownst to me, frequents the local franchise. I might as well also take the opportunity to see how my old chef Rob is doing in his new digs. And, as much as I hate to admit it, Feenie isn't doing too badly at all.
Sure, the service was a little slow to start, but I wasn't a businessman on an expense-account lunch like most of the room seemed to be. Showing up in a leather jacket and toque amidst the lunch rush of the busiest upscale-casual restaurant in town isn't exactly the kind of entrance that's going to command any extra attention from the skin-tight-skirted girls on staff. They didn't curl their hair and load their make-up gun that morning for my sake.
And sure, I thought it was a little hokey that one of the 5 menus they gave me wasted my time with a greeting-card version of Feenie's biography. Apparently he didn't join the booming chain 2 years ago because daddy Sidhu took away his name and his BMW in the divorce settlement, but because he suddenly asked himself, “Why should eating well only be for the rich?” This must not have been a rhetorical question, since the reserve list boasts $3000 magnums of Dom Perignon, a 1982 Chateau Canon for $1200, a 7oz steak for $36 and a fucking $18 club sandwich.
Putting my cynicism and undying hatred for Cactus Club Cafeteria aside, I began to enjoy my conversation with my friend and finally got a moment's time from the server as the rush slowed. I knew she wouldn't have any pertinent information at the ready, so I sent her back to the kitchen to find out where the beef was from, if the chicken was fresh or frozen, and if the Peking Ducks for the aforementioned club sandwich were made in house. She returned 15 minutes later to tell me the beef is Albertan, and the chicken and ducks are from BC. Not the brightest bulb in the vanity, but at least it seems that she could parrot back that their proteins are local. Point: Cactus Club. If I can trust this information, I can no longer hope to vilify them on the basis of careless, purely profit-driven sourcing. Damn it.
The wine list, too, had a great selection of BC wines. And it claimed that they would open any bottle for you as long as you committed to drinking 2 glasses from it. Not too many restaurants can do that... I guess for all the sacrifices they make to push 8 minute entrees out of the kitchen and squeeze in two dozen turns a day, the big-box advantage translates into flexibility by the glass. Point: Cactus Club.
I knew I had to order a signature Feenie dish, and it wasn't going to be the burger (I forgot to ask where they make it and from what kind of beef... I guess I also forgot to care) or any of the seafood dishes that all seemed to have farmed Indonesian tiger prawns (have I mentioned before that these prawn-like shelldwellers are equal parts chemical, antibiotic, and social oppresion?). Since I was once chef du partie of the pasta brigade at Feenie's bistro, I couldn't help but blow $17 on his plate of butternut squash ravioli with white truffle beurre blanc, crispy sage and amaretti. When it arrived, to my surprise, I found myself not entirely revolted. 7 large raviolis came smothered in nicely emulsified butter sauce, each topped with an individual leaf of fried sage. After my first bite, I actually said aloud, “wow, these aren't gross.” The filling was smooth, the pasta was nicely cooked, and the use of truffle was judicious but not sparse. I really enjoyed my first ravioli! Point: Cactus Club.
Unfortunately, like my inaugural sexual experience (sorry Jenna), the dish climaxed early. A couple of bites into the second ravioli, and I realised that the filling was a little too smooth, a little too sweet. Initially pleasing, yes, but so was Full House in the early '90s. Pretty soon, you start to wish it was over a long time ago. It turned out, it wasn't really clever TV at all – it was cutsie trickster twinswaps, firehazard hair and Dave Coulier. This filling had something in it that was once butternut squash, but after the endorphins from all the glucose wore off, it started to resemble little more than sweet, squash flavored, bright orange marscapone cream. And no beurre blanc I've ever made had this kind of balance. Beurre blanc should be reduced wine vinegar and butter, and neither of those things stick to the tip of my tongue like crème anglaise. If I'd ordered the appetizer size, maybe they would have hoodwinked me, but I'd had to chug 4 pints of water by the end of the meal just to keep from candying myself.
On my ensuing urgent dash to the restroom, I couldn't help but stop to ogle the fashion models walking down the runway on a 5 foot tall LCD screen next to the ladies room. I didn't have any trouble ignoring the olympic-flogging sports reel on the LCDs above both urinals in the mens room, but it's harder not to take notice of the several uber-trendy canvases begging for my gaze on the concrete bunker walls on the way back to the table. These are the kind of paintings that look like they might be modern art, but art usually has a message and the only thing Cactus said with these was, “we have so much capital that we can pay way too much for bullshit that doesn't have any substance.” At least the Museum of Modern Ikea chandeliers above the bar serve the purpose of giving the waitresses some soft lighting to check their makeup in.
So as much as I have to concede a point here or there for the most popular girl in town, every moment I spend inside of her I become increasingly convinced that she's more glitz than goods. Not that she's all bad; she's an easy bet for a quick drink on a moment's notice, and she always says yes. But I, for one, could do without all the saccharine. I'd rather pay $17 for handmade ravioli when that money is spent on fresh ingredients and good cooks to make them by scratch, than for shitty modern art and media monarchies trying to convince me to buy more shit while I shake the last dribbles from my willie. When I was a cook at Uncle Rob's namesake, I spent countless hours on my days off perfecting the art of ethereally thin pasta dough. I was taught to add depth and saveur to my cuisine with aromatic spices, seasonings, and love, rather than to trick droves of uneducated palates with endorphin-releasing hollow calories. Call me old-fashioned, but I want to spend my dining resources on quality and craftsmanship, not mass-produced and focus-grouped facades of glamor and pseudo-status. If the success of Cactus Club is an indication of the sophistication and gastronomic education of the dining demographic in this wild-west saloon town, it shows that perhaps we've taken a step closer to understanding the value of local ingredients, but we still care far more about our image than what's actually behind it. For the same prices, without all the glitz, an earnest eatery could easily be providing all-local, all-organic ingredients cooked from scratch with love... and for all the money we've spent on the Olympics, we could be actually creating the greatest city in the world instead of buying time to whore her out on the world stage. I guess Cactus Club and Vancouver are like peas and carrots, after all.
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