Bluhouse Market and Cafe harks back to a simpler time when food shops offered seasonal, locally sourced provisions to their customers rather than 20 aisles of mass-produced goods hailing from every corner of the globe.
Walking into Bluhouse one recent weekday mid-morning with my wife DJ and the newest addition to the Dagenais clan, Baby N, I felt like I could have been an early settler in the Old West.
The interior design of Bluhouse, a hybrid cafe and food mart, is farmhouse chic, with matte blue wooden chairs, exposed beams, and knotted tables.
The room, which has only been around since late summer of last year, still feels a little austere in its early days, with its minimalist decor and wide open space, but simple shelving units and displays throughout the cafe hold select foods and sundries for sale, and help establish Bluhouse’s identity as a purveyor of local, organic goods.
I like the idea of walking into a small community market like this and letting the available ingredients dictate what I cook and eat. Such an approach to shopping would certainly ensure that my meals were made from fresh and seasonal produce.
Instead, I (and most other people) tend to identify the most immediate meal craving and then promptly source the items necessary to realize it. We rarely encounter an obstacle in this undertaking.
Right now, at the local big box, I could buy a pineapple, for example, as well as strawberries, figs, bananas and all manner of other things from abroad that wouldn’t withstand a single Canadian winter.
Of course, the trade off to shopping at a small, seasonally driven market is that I must resign myself to the fact that every whim and appetite I conjure cannot be instantly sated.
That said, it is clearly not Bluhouse’s ambition to displace the nearest supermarket, but rather to support local suppliers and remind us of the importance of good quality ingredients that we can feel good about buying.
Indeed, one would be hard pressed to fill multiple shopping bags with food from this market, as available goods are limited to a few carefully selected items, including farm fresh milk, eggs and butter, produce like yams and bell peppers, and staples like organic sugar, cheese, pasta and pulses.
As Bluhouse co-owner Jennifer McCarthy says, “There is pretty much a story behind every ingredient.”
One such storied ingredient is milk from the Farm House Cheese Shoppe, a whole, pasteurized but unhomogenized artisanal milk produced in small batches in Agassiz. The milk, which is not stripped bare of the nutrients and faintly sweet richness that made this dairy product appealing to humans in the first place, yields a frothy and delicious latte, the best I have had in recent memory.
In addition to coffee, which is supplied by North Shore cult superstar roaster Moja Coffee, the cafe side of the Bluhouse business is as equally thoughtful and reserved in its offerings as its market cousin, featuring a small menu of house-made smoothies, sweet and savoury crepes, and various baked goods from sources such as Gretchen’s Here and Now Bakery, another organically-minded local business.
DJ and I shared a bowl of the featured soup, a silken, surprisingly successful combination of celery and cashews, served with a wedge of hearty, crusty bread and organic butter. Soup offerings change regularly and support the cafe’s commitment to largely vegetarian cuisine.
Next up were crepes, made to order on classic French crepe griddles. The crepes are made of organic buckwheat flour and consequently do not resemble the fluffy and decadent French-style crepes that employ lighter, bleached white flour.
However, Bluhouse’s denser, chewier, versions make for a heartier meal and are reasonably priced, starting at just $5 and working their way up based on ingredients. DJ tried the Sweet Sin crepe, a large buckwheat circle folded over cinnamon, maple syrup and fromage frais.
With one of the aforementioned lattes, the crepe was a satisfying sweet treat, though a touch more time on the griddle might have better melted the slightly crystalline cinnamon sugar it contained.
My crepe, a savoury creation called The Cove, was stuffed with salmon (from what I could discern, the only non-vegetarian item available in the cafe), herbed cheese, and lightly dressed greens. The crepe was generously filled with its well-proven winning combination of ingredients and had a nice golden finish, lending it a crisp exterior to balance its creamy interior.
Bluhouse has a lovely patio out back that I will be keen to check out in the warmer months.
Our meal of soup, two crepes and two lattes was $35 after gratuity.
Bluhouse Market and Cafe is located at 4342 Gallant Avenue in Deep Cove. facebook.com/bluhousecafe
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On Jan. 16, Dine Out Vancouver kicked off another year of value-priced menus in favourite Greater Vancouver restaurants.
The two-week promotion, which wraps up on Feb. 1, is designed to make dining accessible to locals during the typically cash-strapped post-holiday season.
Many North Shore restaurants participate in the initiative, respecting the $18, $28, or $38 set menu price limits. Visit dineoutvancouver.com for more details.
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. Contact: [email protected].
