HKDave

I just wandered by the Denman location with the vague idea of trying it out... but was frightened off by the a) absolute lack of customers, b) the 'all you can eat for 6.99 (in 30 min)' sign, and c) fact that apparently for Islamic reasons they don't use pork - so good luck if you like back bacon, or most kinds of salami, on your pizza. Plus it turns out these are the guys that litter my building with flyers all the time. I fear this is not the solution to our deep dish needs, but it will take a braver soul than I to find out.

Delilah's still exists, now on Comox St. The William Tell still exists, still run by Mr. Erwin Dobeil, now in the Coast Georgian Court Hotel. It's still good, although culinary fashions have moved on. Amazing to think that at one time, that was arguably Vancouver's classiest restaurant. Neil, Papillotte was a block or two down from Ontario, I think @ Manitoba, on the NE corner. The same building is still there, it's an outdoor store now.

You don't need a special tagine pot. You're basically making a stew, so anything that would work for a stew would work for a tagine. I use a plain cast iron frypan with a Pyrex lid.

You're thinking of Tosi. It's still there, and the owner is as weird as ever. But he has the best Grana Padano in town.

Glady's, on 4th Ave. Its original incarnation on the north side of the street dated from the '60s. Arguably Vancouver's best breakfasts, and great sandwiches (anyone remember the B.E.L.T.C.H. - bacon, egg, lettuce, tomato and cheese?). The first restaurant where I was a bona fide regular. It lives on, in a distant way, at Paul's Omlettery on Granville. Paul is an ex-Gladoid and still has many of the old faves on his menu.

Those were the early days of gweilo experiencing authentic Cantonese cooking in Vancouver... was that the late 60's / early 70's? There were at least 4 great little restaurants in that same alley off Hastings: the Green Door, the Red Door, the Orange Door and the Grill Door - which I think was also red, but it had a steel grill and was called Grill to differentiate it from the other Red Door. They all had no English signs so they aquired the name of their door colour. They all served old-school Cantonese home cooking, and at least in the case of the Green Door, seemed to exist partially as a cover for the gambling going on in the front room. The food was similar enough from one 'Door' the another that if one place was full, you just went to another, but my family were always Green Door loyalists. I remember the woman server there always making my brother and I finish our watery soup (which came free with the meal, and which we both didn't like) by insisting "Chinese soup good for boys". We were both terrified of her. The Green Door people later opened a real restaurant called 'Dai Kee' a block away on Main St in the old Barrett Hardware location. The Orange Door people opened a place on Hastings in Burnaby. For the last couple of decades, all you can get in that alley are drugs.

The china that Keller was involved in designing was the 'Point' and 'Checks' lines, made by Raynaud Limoges. In addition to Bergdorf, they are supposedly available from at Gump's in San Francisco http://www.gumps.com (can't find them on their site) tel 800 766 7628, and Atkinsons in Canada http://www.atkinsonsofvancouver.com/mfg/ra.../mfgraynaud.htm

Umm, I trust we know that Caesar salad is generally considered to have originated in Mexico (Tijuana to be specific), not Italy? The restaurateur who came up with it was of Italian descent, however. More info than you need here: http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SaladHistory.htm and here: http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/caesar.htm

I also hit Phats today. Hmmm. It's decent Montreal style smoke meat, likely the best in Vancouver, but it's not going to eliminate my need for an annual trip to Schwartz.

The classic procedure is: - soak in milk (or water) overnight - poach in a court bouillon or light stock for 20 min, cool - remove the sinew and membrane - roll in cheesecloth and weight - then finish, usually by slicing, often flouring/breading, and saute. Re removing the membrane, I would say if you can remove it, do. If the membrane is too thin to remove without damaging the product, leave it. If you're weighting and pressing, you can 're-form' the big piece even if it came apart. Re pressing, this is supposedly done to improve the texture, it's in all the classic recipes, and it's the only way I've ever done it. I'm just now reading Fergus Henderson's (excellent) 'The Whole Breast', and he doesn't bother - his method is just rinse, poach 2 1/2 min, cool, de-membrane and saute the little nodules. I like the sound of this approach, and will try it next time. Re poaching before searing, this does seem universal, although times vary from a couple of minutes to 20 min. I cooled it out of the poaching liquid - not sure if that makes a difference, but I think it would be better dry for saute. Re searing, you can saute at medium heat and take it all the way in the pan, or sear for 1-2 min and finish for 5 min in the oven - a good approach if you want to make a pan sauce.

Anyone know what happened to Les and Ruby, the couple that ran Hombres? Hombres was Vancouver's best Mexican restaurant, originally in Gastown opposite the back of Army and Navy, and later on Hastings in Burnaby. I still miss it...

I'd be willing bet $500 that nobody from Hope has ever eaten at Bis Moreno. I suggest using Whistler in future metaphors. ← Careful... I took my gf from Hope there when it was Etoile... is that worth $250?

Bingo. Some restaurants maintained their standards and used DOV to showcase what they can do to an audience of potential new customers (and, yes, a few tap-water-sipping bridge and tunnellers that probably won't come back until next DOV). Others used the combination of their good names and DOV pricing to cram as many bums into the seats as they could, and cut food costs and service standards to maintain their margins. Said it before: I'll be going back to the former, not to the latter. I think this is the catch-22 Andrew is talking about: a resto can successfully use DOV for promotion, or for short-term profit, but it's not easy for a restaurant to use DOV for both. Do you want to cater to the foodies, or try to make money off the water-sippers?

It would not be wise not to display a shiny new eG tattoo to staff at the Heather. eGullet is a little hobby for us, but for the staff at the Heather, their jobs pay their rent and put food on their tables. Comments made in this thread were taken personally. I'm known as an eGulletter at the Heather, and haven't had any trouble, other than some good-natured verbal abuse which I am happy to return. Ask the kitchen where they keep the 'flavour extraction machine', and see if you can make it out the door in one piece Your mileage may vary. Significantly.

I've been there 3 times since this all started. The Heather doing just fine. If anything, their business is up. I supposed Sean is available for photographs, but nobody asked him for one while I was there. The only people that mentioned eGullet there (besides Sean) were the staff, who read this thread.

A dated but good starting point is the late Jane Grigson's "Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery" or "The Art of Making Sausages, Pates, and Other Charcuterie (aka 'The Art of Charcuterie')" - all of which, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I think are different editions of the same book. The first is still in print and is available from Amazon last time I looked. The second sells for about $40 used if you can find it. Also check out John Kinsella's "Professional Charcuterie : Sausage Making, Curing, Terrines, and Pâtés". Just made my first fresh sausage this week.... much easier than I thought.

Neil, I didn't know about that place on Commercial. Did you make a positive sighting there? I'm trying to avoid a wild bus chase....

I have, but ordering food across the border is often problematic (unless you know a Canadian mail order source?). Plus many US companies won't export, because of the previous problem.

Thanks for the suggestions. Hmmm, if corn grits are indeed the same as polenta (which makes sense, now that I think about it), then corn grits will be easier than I thought. What am I going to make with them? Cheese grits for a homesick Southern friend is the first thing that springs to mind. But they're pretty good on their own as breakfast mush. Hominy grits might be more difficult. I checked Que Pasa's website and they don't list hominy grits, and besides, Richmond might as well be Mars to a non-driver like me. I have received two other suggestions: Los Dos Amigos Market 1371 E 41st, and Los Gierreros Mex. Foods 3317 Kingsway. Anyone know anything about either?

Does anyone know a place in Van. that sells grits - regular corn and/or hominy? Attempted edit to correct spelling 'ingredient' but it seems once it's in the title, it's there forever....

No need for me to go into details, Deborah has said it well. This is what a DOV meal should be. Parkside didn't cut corners - 4 solid options each for app, main and dessert on a $25 menu. No $35 menu. No extra 10-tops of water drinkers wedged into the corners. Faultless service and perfectly - perfectly - cooked food. Risotto as an app? That's not easy to do. They did it well. The message to me was 'Our service and food are always this good, even when we're slammed and running a prix fixe menu. We can cook like this in our sleep. Why don't you come back after DOV and try our real menu? It's even better'. That's what I though DOV was for. Some restaurants treated DOV like this, West and Parkside being the first to spring to mind. Others used DOV to get warm bodies into their seats at a slow time of year, and then stayed understaffed and cut their food costs to maintain margins. Maybe that works for them... but I won't be going back to those places. I certainly will be back to Parkside. I wish I could cook like that.

Still laughing at this one... for me it used to be the Cobalt or the Marr, after I was unjustly bounced from the Drake sometime in the mid-80's. They all had the same cutting edge entertainment back in those days, and they never ID'ed me. I wouldn't dream about eating *anything* in any of those places. After that I changed to a different chemical and began destroying brain cells into the wee hours at places like the Gandydancer. Wouldn't dream about eating anything there, either. My tastes have changed somewhat. I've been back in town since December and these days I find myself frequenting the Irish Heather (friendly, fine beer), the Lennox (central location, nicely mixed crowd, and a drunk 19 yr old American sorority girl tried to pick me up there last weekend) and the bar at HSG (good people, stocks my fave obscure brand of gin, and there's always a seat at the bar). And - I know this isn't a favorite of many of the local eG crew - if I'm in the neighbourhood, the bar at Feenie's. I like their menu, and I've been 'looked after' very well there on occasion.

Was that how you asked for it, or is that just poetic licence? ← Of course not! We were faultlessly polite throughout, plus we left a 20% tip. Hell freezing over was just a bit of literary license for how long it took.... we were seated at about 8:05pm, and left close to 11pm. Service was smooth except for the very long pause between main and dessert. I thought they might be waiting for us to lick the sediment out of the bottom of the wine, hence my request to fire the desserts. I didn't want to sound horrendously negative about the place. I'm looking forward to hearing what *Deborah* has to say - maybe I just caught them on an off night. Hard to imagine any kitchen being at their best on a Friday evening during DOV.

First visit to Brix. After a stop at HSG's bar to build up our courage, we made our move. 8pm Friday reservation, seated promptly despite a bit of a crowd at the door, nice deuce. They had obviously wedged in extra tables for DOV, and had a couple of cheapie 10-tops drinking Capilano Springs, both of which turned while we were there. Service was generally good, no staff running, no sense of them being out of control in spite of obviously being slammed. There was a $25 and $35 menu, and apparently no regular menu. We both went for the same app off the $25: pork/veg finger spring roll with hoisin 'glaze' (actually, not glazed, just splotches for dip). Nice presentation, but not very exciting taste, and greasy - as in possibly re-heated? The other app was a green salad (...yawn). We also went for the same main: Elk sirloin, 'Yukon Gold'(definitely not Yukon Gold) mille fuille spuds, port brasied red cabbage (with half of a broken cinnamon stick in my companion's cabbage), maple syrup roasted carrots (the best item of the night, totally yummy), with a truffle oil (I couldn't taste or see any) 'demi glaze' (demiglace?). Decent, but again, not great. The other $25 main option was a 'fresh Dungeness' crab cake that appeared on other tables to be deep fried to a dark brown, and we were both happy we didn't order it. Desserts were better: an apple strudel and a couple of sorbets - great flavour and presentation. Long wait for the desserts despite my request to fire them before hell froze over. My friend started with a 'flight of Reislings' - I know zip about Reisling so all I can say is that she didn't finish them. We chose a bottle of 2001 Chilean Carmenere, $58, for the main, which went well with the elk. This wine has lots of sediment and the sommelier - in this case one of the owners - didn't know this or didn't care so a lot ended up in my glass. Total tab $150 w/tip. Overall? OK, but no reason to go back. I got the feeling that this would be a better place after DOV, because I can't image they get a lot of tapwater-drinking 10-tops normally. Interesting wine list.

Much as I love cast iron for frypans, it's impractical for a wok - too heavy and too slow to heat up. Stainless tends to stick and is not great at heat transfer. Plain steel is best for durability and rapid heat transfer. That's what Asian restaurants use worldwide. There's one situation where you might want to consider a non-stick, and that's if your wok will get very infrequent use and as a result won't be kept seasoned. Otherwise, steel. I suggest get one with a rounded bottom if you have a 'wok burner' element on your stove, or a wok with the smallest practical flat spot on the bottom if you don't. This allow a small amount of oil to concentrate in a small area where food can be stirred in and out of it, which is the objective of stir frying. If the flat spot is big, you might as well use a fry pan. Size the wok to the number of people you'll be cooking for. I use a 12" at home since I'm usually cooking for two.