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This is Burnaby’s best appetizer – COVID-19 takeout edition

I shut down the Bite. Me. blog for a few weeks because, well, so many restaurants have been shutting down and people are staying home instead of eating out.
joey burnaby lettuce wraps
The Joey Burnaby lettuce wraps. Joey photo

I shut down the Bite. Me. blog for a few weeks because, well, so many restaurants have been shutting down and people are staying home instead of eating out.

But I’m firing things back up because Burnaby restaurants are adjusting to COVID-19 by now offering more delivery and takeout options.

So I’m writing about my absolute favourite appetizer in Burnaby and how you can actually get a good deal on it right now and maintain proper COVID-19 protocols. (As always, I am not being compensated by the restaurant by writing about it. They don’t even know I am writing about it.)

It’s the lettuce wraps at Joey Burnaby on Lougheed Highway in the Brentwood area. They are divine and highly addictive. I have they pretty much every time I go to Joey.

They key, of course, is the mound of ice-cold and crunchy iceberg lettuce – a veg that has been unfairly maligned over the years by people trying to convince us that weedy lettuces somehow taste better. They don’t. They are bitter and only for food snobs.

Crunchy iceberg lettuce is an amazing vessel for what goes in it, a melange of vegetables, crispy noodles, peanuts, cilantro and a sweet-and-spicy hoisin oyster sauce. I then add shrimp too it, although you can also add chicken or both.

Then you just shovel some of those goodies into a piece of the lettuce, roll it up and enjoy. I also add a side of Joey’s French fries because they are also my favourite. The two shouldn’t go well together, but they do.

As an incentive, Joey is taking 20% off curbside pickup and 10% off if you use DoorDash delivery.

Stay safe everyone, but also eat well and support local businesses as much as you can.

Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.