Paella is an illegal breakfast food.
I know this because my mother-in-law has equipped me with a thorough understanding of what is and is not permissible when it comes to the first meal of the day.
During my first stay with my in-laws in the U.K. many years ago, I sauntered into the kitchen one morning and began to extract ham, cheese, and salami from a drawer in the fridge.
“Do you have any grainy mustard?” I asked, thinking nothing of the seemingly innocuous question.
“For what?” my mother-in-law queried, aghast. “Surely not for breakfast!”
You see, according to her, breakfast is the meal through which one eases into the day. It is meant to be a gentle and inoffensive repast designed to sate the waking appetite, not assault the bleary taste buds.
To be clear, my mother-in-law is a worldly, travelled and decidedly open-minded individual and I get along with her swimmingly. On her position about breakfast, however, she is firm.
Accordingly, over the years, my breakfast choices have become something of a running joke between us. I will periodically report back to her on my deviant behaviour, confessing to early morning meals of grilled salmon with nori, pickled daikon and miso soup, or grilled, herb-stuffed sardines with a drizzle of olive oil.
I am pleased to report that I now have another dish to add to my systematic affront to my mother-in-law’s sensibilities: El Paella de Patron, an item featured on the menu of the newly opened BLVD Bistro on Queensbury Avenue in North Vancouver.
The restaurant, which is owned and operated by the folks who brought us S’Wich Café just a few doors down, is a breakfast joint, open daily from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
And while you can find a few dishes of a more traditional, conservative nature on their menu (French toast, bacon and eggs), the spirit of their fare seems to be rooted in creativity and innovation, boldly challenging conventional notions about what constitutes breakfast.
On my recent visit to BLVD with my wife, DJ, I found myself nodding my head in appreciation of the restaurant’s brazen and unapologetic approach to breakfast. Here, good food is good food, the clock be damned!
My paella, which was delicious and worked brilliantly as my first meal of the day, featured saffron-scented rice with tangy Spanish chorizo sausage, strips of spiced free range chicken meat, cubes of tender and wonderfully fatty smoked pork belly, and green peas, all topped with a fried egg. The yolk of the egg was perfectly soft, so when I broke into it, it oozed atop the rice and created a thick, binding sauce.
BLVD is a small restaurant, so the atmosphere is intimate. DJ and I were able to get a close look at a number of other dishes being enjoyed by fellow patrons at surrounding tables.
One such dish was an unlikely combination of fluffy golden pancakes and a mountain of pulled pork. This is a thing, now, I believe, as I have seen the dish in two other restaurants since my breakfast at BLVD. Pulled pork and pancakes is this year’s fried chicken and waffles, apparently, and if the lip-smacking appreciation and throaty “mmms” of my neighbour were any indication, the pairing works. I suspect I’ll need to go back for that, if only to further torment my mother-in-law.
DJ selected two poached, free-range eggs, grilled, oregano-scented tomatoes, and savoury potato bread pudding from the build-it-yourself, mix-and-match menu, which permits diners to create a custom breakfast using a number of key ingredients featured on other dishes.
The savoury potato bread pudding is a novel in-house specialty that also serves as the base layer for BLVD’s various Eggs Benedict options. The pudding, which arrives as a firm rectangle having been sliced from a larger bread pan, is dense and filling, tender and moist on the inside and nicely browned and crisp on the top.
The bread pudding served as a great mop for the perfectly cooked poached eggs. It is worth noting that BLVD is committed to sourcing local, ethical suppliers for their ingredients. In addition to free-range eggs and chicken, I noted that the menu features sausages from Two Rivers Specialty Meats and steak from Cache Creek Natural Beef.
Other menu items that push the creative agenda include the Beautiful Buddhist (smoked tofu with mushrooms, kale, tomatoes, garlic and onions with tahini-miso almond milk emulsion) and Macadamia Nut Banana Pancakes, featuring toasted coconut and coconut cream syrup.
I am not proud to say this, but living in the artisan coffee epicenter of Canada, I have become an unbearable coffee snob. My palate is so accustomed to the delights of single origin beans that I now find mass produced java to be pedestrian and insipid. Given its clear investment in top quality ingredients and creative cooking, I feel like BLVD’s coffee is a let down. I don’t presume to speak for everyone’s taste, but for me, coffee is the one area for improvement in
BLVD’s otherwise exceptional breakfast offering.
Our meal was $34 before gratuity. BLVD Bistro is located at 636 Queensbury Ave. 604-973-0133
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. Contact: [email protected].
