! Hashcapades

50 Cities 50 Hashes: Colene Chow at Heirloom Restaurant in Vancouver, BC!

 When people think of Vancouver, they think of snow-capped mountains, beautiful nature, towering trees — a city where you can ski and hit the beach on the same day. Basically a healthy metropolis. So when tasked with planning a Hashcapade, I did a mental inventory of all the hashes in Vancouver and asked friends and family for recommendations. Finally, I settled on something that would represent my health-conscious Vancouver!

Heirloom Restaurant, located on South Granville, is a relatively new vegetarian restaurant that uses organic and fairly traded ingredients. I had eaten there once before and noticed they had a gluten-free hash. What could be more healthy than that?

I gathered up some of my friends and made a reservation for their Sunday brunch. Vancouverites love their brunches and so when we showed up, the restaurant was extremely busy. The restaurant is nicely appointed with wood accents and boasts big windows flooding the space with beautiful light.

Heirloom’s menu is filled with vegetarian takes on breakfast classics, but the most intriguing transformation is a healthy version of what can be a potentially heavy and greasy hash. Our entire crew was up for the hash challenge, so we all ordered the healthy hash on the menu:  Quinoa Hash with organic quinoa and squash slaw, pumpkin seed pesto, over-easy free range eggs and roasted potatoes.

When the hash came out, we were impressed with the presentation — colourful ribbons of squash contrasted with the dark green pumpkin seed pesto. Unfortunately, the eggs were really overdone making the hash not as delicious as we hoped. We agreed that we missed a good runny yolk to cover the hash. While the ‘hash’ in this entree was a combination of quinoa and squash, we did have some potatoes on the plate to make this dish not so far from its usual counterpart.

All in all, my group was happy to get together to enjoy a typical breakfast standard with a healthy Vancouver twist. This Hashcapade definitely taught us how versatile hash can be and how Heirloom is just one example of creativity in your hash.

Eater, reader, and frequent traveler, Colene Chow is a native to Vancouver, BC. A fan of good food and conversation, she is excited to bring friends new and old together to celebrate the deliciousness of hashes! When she isn’t brunching, Colene is a Product Marketing Manager at Adobe with a wanderlust for Portland’s food trucks. Follow her on twitter: @colene and read her blog, Deliciousness.