February 1 – 29, 2012

Executive Chef Frank Pabst’s eighth annual Unsung Heroes Festival takes pride of place at Vancouver’s multiple award-winning Blue Water Cafe throughout the month of February.

Chef Pabst, who has won many culinary distinctions, has long been a champion of the sustainable fisheries movement. He created the Unsung Heroes Festival specifically to draw attention to the diversity of formerly under-utilized species. His concept is simple: Avoid species that are over-fished, or fished in ways that damage ocean beds or cause unnecessary by-catch, by introducing diners to new experiences and flavours using species found in abundance.

Since then, the Festival has become ‘wildly popular’ at Blue Water Cafe, as avid diners seek out new dishes, as well as returning favourites from Unsung Heroes past.

“Eight years ago, this was quite a radical concept,” Pabst says. “But now our guests are well-informed as to just how delicious and nutritional some of these lesser-known seafoods can be. I’m delighted that we’ve been able to introduce them into the mainstream.”

Again this year, 10% of proceeds will be donated to the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise sustainable seafood program, of which Blue Water Cafe is a founding member.

 

Unsung Heroes Menu

recommended as sharing plates for the table

Jellyfish
stir fried with pork jowl, lotus root, chili and green onions
hoisin sauce and pea shoot salad  10.50

Periwinkles
sea snails poached in a kombu seaweed broth
served chilled in their shells, nori shoyu vinaigrette  9.50

Herring
celery salad with preserved watermelon, walnuts, fuji apples, watercress  9.50

Herring Roe
taramasalata with herring roe, grilled flat bread, citrus marinated olives  10.50

Seaweed
kaiso sunomono, mixed seaweed salad with tosa-zu sauce and ginger  7.50

Anchovy
marinated white anchovies, pearl barley, cilantro chimichurri
parmesan, romaine lettuce  9.50

Geoduck
mirugai sashimi with karashi sumiso  15.50

Sea Cucumber
smoked potato and shiitake mushroom chowder
with sautéed sea cucumber and grilled scallions  10.50

Mackerel
broiled with sesame seeds, pickled sunchokes
kabayaki sauce with orange and long pepper  9.50

Octopus
charred octopus, swiss chard, chorizo, white bean purée, romesco sauce  11.50

Sardine
pan fried in a blanket
stuffed with pine nut gremolata, broccolini, harissa sauce  9.50

Red Sea Urchin
red sea urchin trifle, avocado cream, nori seaweed nest, yuzu sake purée
peruvian gooseberries, ponzu jelly  12.50