The SoBo Cookbook

Book excerpt: Sobo (Sophisticated Bohemian) started out in 2003 as a purple food truck in the parking lot behind a surf shop, way before food trucks were cool. Despite its remoteness, it attracted rave reviews from food media across North America, with the likes of Saveur magazine calling it: "perhaps the most exciting lunch stand in North America". The back of the staff's t-shirts read: "Quite possibly the second best thing you can do in a parking lot"--and that same fun, authentic West Coast vibe weaves throughout the stories and recipes in this book. Sobo has since become a destination restaurant, 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 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.