The Gourmet Warehouse

1340 E Hastings St, Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Gourmet Warehouse, at 1340 E Hastings Street in Vancouver, is one of the few retail addresses in western Canada where a serious cook can walk in and leave with dried chiles, Mexican oregano, and epazote in the same basket. For anyone working with Mexican technique in this part of the country, that matters. Dried chiles are not interchangeable with fresh, and they are not interchangeable with one another: an ancho (the dried poblano) brings a different body and heat register than a guajillo (the dried mirasol), and neither can be approximated by anything on a standard supermarket shelf. Mexican oregano — Lippia graveolens — is a separate plant from Mediterranean oregano and carries a more assertive, slightly citric character that holds its own in mole, adobo, and long-cooked braises. Epazote, pungent and irreplaceable in black bean cookery and in certain Oaxacan moles, is rarely found outside specialist sources. The Gourmet Warehouse stocks all three. For cooks in Vancouver and across British Columbia, it functions as a reliable anchor point in a supply network that can otherwise require considerable improvisation. Check gourmetwarehouse.ca before making the journey, particularly for epazote, which moves in and out of stock.