Eat Streets: The hidden gem of Burnaby Heights
If food lovers in the Lower Mainland know Burnaby Heights, it’s probably because of Anton’s, a pasta restaurant at 4260 Hastings St. that’s renowned for its giant portions and lineups to get in.
But there’s a lot more culinary fare to the Hastings shopping street. In the 4000-, 4100- and 4200-blocks of Hastings alone, there are 39 restaurants and grocery outlets, 41 if you count each of the three storefronts in the Coiffi’s Meat Market and Deli empire.
“The Heights is a hidden gem, has been for years,” said David Wiebe, standing in the 4100-block on a sunny Tuesday. “The locals all know it, people grew up around here certainly know what it’s about. There’s always been great restaurants and a lot of little niche food places to hit.”
Cathy Aikenhead knew there were a lot of Greek and Italian restaurants in Burnaby Heights when she moved there from east Vancouver eight years ago. But she and husband Ian were pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of restaurants.
“We have a huge Asian community here, which really surprised us when we moved here,” she said. “The little sushi bar Kilala (4789 Hastings St.) is run by a lovely family. And we have that Mexican restaurant Sabrosito (4421 Hastings St.), which used to be Don Oso’s. I love the quesadillas there, and the tacos. I think it’s $3.75 for a taco. I mean, you can’t beat that.
“Then there all the pho, Vietnamese and ramen places (such as Quan Chen at 4280 Hastings St.). There’s a Thai place (Siam Le Biem Thai, 4217 Hastings St.), and there’s Sopra Sotto (4022 Hastings St.), the pizzeria.”
The diversity of the restaurants reflects the neighbourhood.
“We’re very close to Confederation Park,” said Aikenhead. “On a nice day, there are so many families (there), you can hear 10 to 15 different languages in 10 minutes. It’s just a fantastic destination for picnics, and has sport fields and everything else there.”
Lena Truong speaks four languages — English, Lao, Cantonese and Mandarin. Her family’s small restaurant, Triple Coconut Tree (4126 Hastings St.), has been selling a delicious mix of Vietnamese and Lao cuisine, which comes from their ethnic background — her father is Vietnamese, her mother is from Laos.
But they recently transitioned to a Laotian menu, and rebranding as Bi Chai.
“In Lao, it means happiness,” she explains. “Because food makes people happy.”
Asked what the difference is between Lao and Vietnamese cuisine, Truong said: “They have a lot of similarities, but they also have a lot of dishes that just stand out on their own. Lao food is a little bit closer to Thai food, but not quite. Lao food focuses more on sour and savoury and a lot of herbs, and a lot of natural spices.”
One of their specialties is the Saap Saap Laos Spread, which includes Lao beef jerky, lemon-grass chicken, grilled pork, lao sausage, papaya salad, sticky rice, mixed vegetables, crisp pork skin, vegetable spring rolls, a hard-boiled egg, soup of the day and jeow mak len, which Truong describes as “Lao salsa.”
With the rebranding of the restaurant, five members of the Truong family have come together for the relaunch, including brother Calvin, who runs four restaurants in Winnipeg.
“My family’s been in the restaurant industry for 30 years,” said Calvin Truong. “I grew up inside of the restaurant, literally upstairs.”
Mother Rebecca does the cooking and father Paul says he does a bit of everything. Paul is the true linguist in the family: He can speak eight languages — Vietnamese, Lao, Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochow, Thai, English and French.
Lena Truong said Burnaby Heights has been a good fit for new restaurants like Bi Chai.
“It’s been really good in the last five years, it’s transitioned a lot of newer restaurants,” she said. “There’s a lot of variety now, whereas back in the day, there wasn’t, there was Anton’s, and a few little staples. But it’s switched over, there’s a lot of great restaurants around here.”
It’s a fun street to walk around, with all sorts of businesses, from barber shops to bakeries, hookah lounges to jewelry stores.
“We’ve got a shoe repair guy, super-friendly,” said Aikenhead. “There aren’t too many neighbourhoods with a shoe-repair place any longer. And he sells Canadian-made moccasins from Quebec.”
Burnaby Heights retains its old-school character, in spite of a lot of construction up-and-down Hastings Street. Perhaps it’s because the new construction is lowrise, three- or four-storey buildings as opposed to the highrise towers of downtown Vancouver.
Or maybe it’s because there are still a lot of long-standing businesses like Coiffi’s, which started off in the 1980s as a deli and meat store and now takes up much of the southside of the 4100-block of Hastings Street.
“We have three stores (on the block), a meat department, deli and kitchen,” said Rino Coiffi outside 4156 Hastings St. “Then we have a food service division in Lake City, by Lougheed mall.”
The aisles of the grocery department are packed with goods, and customers.
“We carry specialty stuff, we import all our own products from Italy or Europe,” says Coiffi. “We tend to buy only the best and sell the best. We try to stay away from mediocrity.”
Coiffi’s is down the street from one of the area’s gems, a little neon girl that has been swinging over the sidewalk since 1957. With her golden neon hair, rose neon dress, white neon legs and blue neon slippers, she’s one of the most charming pop culture landmarks in the Lower Mainland.
The sign originally read “Helen’s,” for Helen’s Children’s Wear. When Helen’s closed in 2006, it was repurposed and now reads “Heights.”
Another classic neon sign was recently restored and resurrected across the street, a 1940s blue-and-white eagle that used to advertise Eagle Ford.
The blend of old and new helps give Burnaby Heights its personality. It has a slower pace and seems friendlier than other shopping areas, even in Burnaby. It even has free one-hour parking for goodness sake.
“Even though we’ve got the megalopolis of Brentwood just to the south, this remains very, very rooted, grounded,” said Aikenhead. “This is the family place, and it’s walkable.”
Related
Source: vancouversun.com