Downtown—and Chicken Satay Noodle Soup

While wandering downtown and exploring the Arts Centre, an artisans’ collective, the open air craft market, and some of the souvenir shops, I discovered the Sampan House. It advertised satay chicken noodle soup.

Well, I’m closer to Vietnam than I would be in Saskatchewan, so I figured I’d better try this version of my favourite soup. So we stopped there for lunch. It was a curry-and-peanutty-garlicky broth with fat, fresh rice noodles, and a bit of kick. I’ve always tried to re-discover my favourite chicken satay noodle soup from Vancouver, and this wasn’t as thick, but the flavour notes were certainly there.

With a full belly, my jetlag caught up with me, and we were ready to head back home, but not before I checked out the menu offerings at a restaurant that claimed to be the best restaurant in New Zealand—Le Bon Bolli. It included a downstairs brasserie and an upstairs silver service restaurant.

The menu items on the silver service menu looked intriguing, but also a little pretentious and pricey: particularly the sorbet list for between courses, which included a raw prawn and scallop ice, and a beef tea with cognac sorbet. I would be curious to try those particular things, or I might try to make them myself someday, but they weren’t enough to convince me that I wanted to go for the silver service experience.

However, I wanted one of everything on the Brasserie menu. Many terrines and rillettes and hams and cheeses. Mental note: we must come back for dinner.