Last Sunday I was fortunate to meet cookbook Author and Chef Lisa Ahier at a small invite only brunch during her Vancouver visit. She was here to participate in Chefs for Oceans the previous night at the Pacific Insitute of Culinary Arts.
I happened to have had the book in my collection since it came out months back. The Sobo Cookbook includes over 100 of the restaurant’s all-time favourite recipes–recipes that have fed surfers, hungry locals, curious visitors and die-hard foodies alike.
For brunch, Lisa made one of her recipes from the book, Spot Prawn Benny on home-made biscuits with salmon bacon, spinach, heirloom tomatoes, and hollandaise and it was delicious.
Sobo has since become a destination restaurant in Tofino, having outgrown its food truck beginnings, with visitors making the pilgrimage to the west coast of Vancouver Island just to taste chef Lisa Ahier’s cooking–which is, to use Tofino slang, simply “killer”. The restaurant’s menu focuses on locally-sourced, seasonally-inspired ingredients from family-owned producers. The dishes are shaped by Lisa’s Tex Mex and Southwestern culinary roots, and her experience gained across several US states, including her stint as executive chef of Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas.
The book is available at Books to Cooks in Vancouver or online here You can also tweet Lisa @chef_lisa
By: Richard Wolak