Johnny took us out for lunch today to a fabulous new Mexican restaurant on Columbia Street in New Westminster. It’s called El Santo, and it’s very hip–with a menu very different from your regular Mexican fare (which I do, in all honesty, love…but this food is much lighter and fresher). The idea is that they marry “modern West Coast ingredients with traditional, though lesser-known, Mexican favourites,” and the results are very good indeed. In fact, my only hesitation in making this my new favourite restaurant is that they offer only a couple of vegetarian dishes (one of which is vegan). Both are excellent, but even the soups, which are largely vegetable, have meat broths (either chicken or pork). It seems a bit odd that a hip, new West Coast place would offer so few vegetarian options, but their menu seems to be evolving, so we’ll have to check back in a few weeks. In the meantime, I had the Verduras Tacos (two small soft corn tortillas with roast cauliflower, sikil pak, mango salsa) with Pappas Bravas and Jamie had the Verduras Torta (a kind of small, hollowed-out sandwich of poblano peppers, zucchini, sweet onion, tomato, oaxaca cheese) with Papas Bravas and Pickled Vegetables….

James made dinner this evening–a super spicy soup (originally from The Globe and Mail’s Gusto Magazine, which no longer exists). It’s very delicious and surprisingly healthy…considering James (of the just-another-little-stick-of-butter school of cooking) made it! I actually found a link to the recipe here!!

And he even used LIGHT coconut milk (with no prompting from me!!). The result was absolutely delicious…and so hot and peppery that the dogs didn’t even beg for tastes. Oh, and he used baby kale, so there was no need to blanch it!