2009-11-25 - North Shore News
By: Deana Lancaster
Feenie stages a CCC comeback
Rob Feenie is gearing up for this weekend's Canadian Culinary Championships.
As the last man standing in the Vancouver edition of Gold Medal Plates -- a sell-out fundraiser for Canadian athletes held back on Oct. 23 -- he's once again proved his worth as one of the province's top chefs. And beginning on Friday he'll have the chance to take the country's top honours at the Canadian Culinary Championships.
It's been some ride.
The last time he competed in the regional contest, late in 2007, he was (to put it delicately) between jobs. In the midst of a cyclone of gossip and speculation, he had left the restaurants that made him famous, Lumiere and the eponymous Feenie's, and he had not yet stuck the landing as the food concept architect at Cactus Club.
But despite not having a commercial kitchen to prep in, or a brigade of cooks and apprentices to help him, Feenie still took part.
"I committed to it, and I wanted to do it," he said last week, over a glass of wine at the Cactus Club in the Village at Park Royal. The night before the big event, he braised mini short ribs at home in his own kitchen, then constructed his dishes on site in the kitchen at the Westin Bayshore for a sold-out crowd of 200 plus the judges. He didn't make the top three.
This time out, it was an entirely different story. He had the help of 13 of the chain's Red Seal chefs helping him plan his entry and prep the dishes. It was a four-day process to finish the dish, which included sorbet made from parsnip, pear and pineapple (to match flavours in his chosen wine, the Road 13 Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne); a press? of Polderside Farms' duck meat confited sous-vide to fork tenderness; and a boudin blanc made of pressed chicken enriched with foie gras. It was finished with fig jam and a soy truffle vinaigrette.
"Any one of the chefs could have won this," said Feenie, of the contest that also included James Walt of Araxi, Pino Posteraro of Cioppino's, Dale MacKay of Lumiere and other talented local chefs.
"I was hoping we would be top four or five. Fourth would have been pretty good for Cactus. If there's one thing I'm proud of it's this: we were up against the best restaurants in the city, and that we could pull together our resources and win . . . I don't think anyone had that expectation. I'm proud of us, I'm proud for the guys."
It sounds like a new Rob Feenie, who admits, "I'm a lot nicer now. I'm learning you really do catch more bees with honey." At Cactus Club he is often working with younger, less experienced staff, and he says he's learning to be a better teacher from watching his wife Michelle with their three children.
"She's going to think I'm crazy with this analogy, but the way she is with our kids, how nurturing and how patient. I'm learning from her."
And in turn, the staff at all 20 Cactus Club Cafes are learning from him. The restaurants recently rolled out several new Rob Feenie "signature dishes," including butternut squash ravioli with saut?ed jumbo prawns, sake-soy marinated sablefish, and a generously portioned hunter chicken served with button, portabello, shiitake and crimini mushroom veal demi-glace, green beans, and herb fingerling potatoes.