Hidden, tasty gems of the Okanagan by DARCY NYBO Contributor

From Osoyoos to Vernon, the Okanagan valley is packed with restaurants of every size, flavour and price range. Among this vast array are a few hidden gems and this is only a tasty sampling.

Best of India

The “Best of India” in Oliver is an unassuming family-run restaurant. Table tops have colourful tidbits of information on India visible under a glass cover.

The tea is hot and sweet and owners Jaswinder Sidhu and his wife Mandeep have been a fixture in Oliver for as long as most can remember.

What hasn’t changed is the obvious pride that goes into every dish.

Best of Indian is open for lunch and dinner and serves the regular Indian vegetarian, meat and vegetables dishes as well as tasty appetizers like samosas, pakora, and of course eight types of Indian breads.

They are best known for their butter chicken in a creamy nut sauce. The bright orange entrée is served with fragrant rice, fresh garden vegetables and naan bread topped off with slices of raw ginger, so prepare yourself for a burst of flavour.

Another favourite is the palak paneer, a creamy spinach dish that tastes so good it’s hard to believe its good for you. For those unfamiliar with paneer, it is the most common Persian and South Asian cheese. It is an unaged, acid-set, non-melting farmer cheese made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice or other food acid. When blended properly with spices, spinach and yoghurt it creates a multi-textured dish you can really wrap your mouth around. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Some crunchy candy coated fennel seeds are provided at the end of every meal to help aid in digestion and are also help calm down flatulence.

Pepper Club

In Penticton, Matt Deacon-Evans is changing things up at the Pepper Club (formerly Jose’s Pepper Club Café) to bring more subtle flavours into a restaurant known for spices.

Everything in this restaurant is made with a certain personal touch – even the bar snacks. The nuts are hand roasted on premises and the olives are marinated in a mixture of roof grown rosemary, fruits, herbs, garlic and olive oil.

The restaurant serves “Big Salads” – a take on an old Seinfeld episode; however, these big salads are nothing to laugh at. The ensalada deacos is a meal in itself with lightly seared Ahi tuna with mild Cajun spice, served atop a salad of avocado, olives, tomato, scallions and mixed wild greens. All this is piled atop a grilled pita. It’s served with a spicy miso dressing and avocado dip.

Chef Deacon-Evans is most fond of his new classic Italian chicken jardino. The vegetables are so yummy you may forget the chicken on your plate. Well, almost. You have to hear how the chicken is done.

The preparation of this dish takes much longer than the actual cooking. The chicken is marinated for two days in a bed of fresh restaurant roof-top grown herbs, along with pepper and olive oil. The chicken is seared on both sides and then the vegetables are added. The entire dish then goes into the oven to marry all the flavours. The result is a full meal that will make you wonder if you have room for desert, but room you must find.

The in-season, field berry cheesecake served with a lemon curd sauce is a little slice of heaven. Forget the diet, and bite into this decadent mixture of cream and mascarpone cheeses. You won’t be disappointed.

Red Lotus

Heading north, in Kelowna check out one of its newest restaurants. The Red Lotus is located up from the sails on Bernard Avenue. Owner June Tram has completely renovated the premises to create an oasis of colour and Asian flavour in a Vietnamese restaurant, sans for the most part, MSG.

The lemongrass chicken (#22 on the menu) is served on a bed of crisp lettuce and garnished with julienned carrots. The flavour of the lemon grass is infused into all parts of this dish, and, although the restaurant is new, this dish is already a popular item.

The most fun items on this menu are the grilled wrapped dishes or Do Nuong Bang Trang Rau Song (not to be confused with Led Zepplins ‘Immigrant Song’).

You’re not supposed to play with your food, but with this dish you’re expected to custom-order and make your own culinary masterpiece, kept snug inside a see-through rice wrap.

The dish can be ordered with most types of meat, shrimp or salmon. Other ingredients include vermicelli, lettuce, bean sprouts, cucumbers, pickled carrots and mint leaves. First, you take the rice paper and soak it for about 30 seconds in the water bowl provided. Once it softens, place it on your plate. Add a slice or two of meat, some vermicelli and veggies to taste. Don’t forgot to add one mint leaf to the mixture, as it gives extra zing, and quiet honestly, without the mint, just doesn’t taste as good.

The rice paper is rather elastic and can be gently pulled around the ingredients and rolled into a cone. Your new masterpiece is then dipped into a special dipping sauce and is ready for your first bite. The great thing about this dish is because of the way the ingredients are layered and added, no two bites taste the same. Subsequently each new wrap you make with be slightly different than the others.

The Red Lotus also has combination dinners, vermicelli bowls, rice plates and beef noodle soups. There’s a little something here for even the most timid of culinary explorers from salmon rolls to the summer salad with mangos.