jamiemaw

Do you know what cut/s of Kobe beef they are using in their burgers?

Dr. John Nightingale of the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, in his speech recently delivered at the C Sustainability Luncheon, grabbed our attention with two statistics: 1. Globally, 90% of the animals over 6 feet long that inhabit our oceans have disappeared. 2. At least 50% of the seafood consumed in British Columbia is consumed in restaurants. Even I could connect those dots: The consumer has the power to strongly influence change and the collaborative of chefs has the power to influence the consumer, the distributor and the fishers. By the way here's the menu for the C Sustainability Luncheon (Post # 4) held earlier this month, proof indeed that local, sustainable ingredients (including live-caught salmon--it's all about the love) often taste better than bedraggled offshore specimens. I hope that we can replicate the success (both educational and culinary) of this luncheon in other centres, particularly London. Anyway, here's the thread that that began the discussion.

balex, The source of the list is a composite of the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Ocean Science Centre/Monterrey Aquarium lists of Red/Flashing Amber/Green. Take it for what you will, there's also a dollop of what I believe that you might--in your country--call 'received wisdom' included. And yes, Thai- and Vietnamese-farmed shrimp (and prawns) are an ugly scab indeed. For further information you might care to dial in the Vancouver Forum, where sustainability is a topic of frequent and fervent discussion: there are several threads there that speak to both salmon farming, the sustainability of our coastal seafood resources and precisely what a modern cod-piece might look like. Cheers, J. PS: Off your shores, where is the best research being undertaken, analyzed and written about? From over here, it all appears to be in The Guardian.

Superb topic, Andy. Although there are obvious discrepencies between our oceans, here's a list--local to British Columbia but with some generic bycatches: RED LIGHT: DO NOT EAT Caviar (Sturgeon), Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish), Cod (Atlantic), Hake/surimi (fake crab meat), Haddock (Atlantic), Halibut (Atlantic) Hoki (Atlantic, New Zealand), King Crab, Monkfish, Orange roughy* Pollock (Alaska, Atlantic), Rockfish, including red snapper Prawns (imported, especially 'Thai tiger'), Salmon (farmed or Atlantic), Sharks and skate, Shrimp (imported), Sturgeon Swordfish, Tuna (Bluefin), Turbot (Arrowtooth flounder) Eulachon, Grouper, Abalone YELLOW LIGHT: ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS/BE CAUTIOUS Dolphin-fish (mahi-mahi), Lingcod, Lobster (Atlantic), Octopus (Atlantic), Prawns (US farmed or wild), Rainbow trout (farmed), Salmon (wild--especially Northern Coho--Pacific), Scallops, Shrimp (domestic, trawl-caught), Sole, Snow Crab, Squid (Atlantic), Tuna (Yellowfin or skipjack). GREEN LIGHT: GOOD TO GO: Anchovies, Clams, Catfish (farmed), Dogfish, Dungeness crab, Halibut (Pacific) Herring (Pacific), Mackeral, Mussels, Octopus (Paciifc), Oysters (except pregnant women), Pacific black cod (sablefish) Prawns (trap-caught Pacific), Rock lobster (Australian and Hawaiian-deep sea farmed), Sardines, Squid (Pacific), Tilapia (farmed), Tuna (albacore), Uni (sea urchin).

What kind of coffee does Wawa serve?

Chief clue: If The Subway Poster Boy operates under the pretense of both losing weight and tucking his foot-long into his sock you shuld run immediately in the opposite direction, Ling. On the other hand, the meatballs, as you might have gathered by now, are probably superfluous. As always in tuna salad, Keith Talent and Johnny Wadd.

The overfishing of toothfish (Patagonian and other) was accelerated in the 80s off the coastline of South America when it was rebranded as 'Chilean Sea Bass'. Here we would now loudly remonstrate a restaurant or fishmonger still deigning to serve it--there's just no excuse. I think I'm right in saying that European sea bass is also threatened. Swordfish is too, and good of you to 'fess up; it's a real re-education for all of us to become more concious, and then conscientious. A Sustainability Luncheon that we recently convened in Vancouver proved that local, sustainable seafood products are often better than long distance stuff anyway. Hopefully, consumers leading the charge can assist in re-educating suppliers as well. Canada's shame lies in the rapacious overfishing of the Atlantic Cod; not only was it fished out (to an extent where it might not ever recover) but its supporting biomass was too.

To stay on topic, I always thought that the beds at the Hyde Park were rather more comfortable than the cooking--in all its many incarnations. I understand why sea bass is such a popular restaurant dish--it's forgiving even in the hands of novitiates, holds well and is naturally unctuous. For these reasons it's also been a popular catering (event) entree. So my question is this: What's the level of recognition of the endangerment of this species in the UK? And, same question, regards Russian caviar, bluefin, local species etc. I've read several articles of interest in The Guardian, but are these issues on the civilian radar yet? Perhaps this deserves a new thread, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

Although I realize that your luncheon was some time ago, Andy, are these types of ingredients still widely available on English menus, i.e. Chilean sea bass or Russian caviar?

Of course there is a charge to the consumer, not a direct $3.00 for butter charge, but surely someone as knowledgeable as Mr. Maw can't believe that the cost of the butter isn't factored into food cost and therefore menu prices at Raincity and West. ← Well, I suppose there will always be butter consumptives (Last Tango in South Granville?) such as me who would cheerfully take advantage of both restaurateurs and the unwitting butter subsidy of Atkins-inclined dining patrons. And, apparently, so does Chef Wyles. We enjoy it--recklessly and unashamedly--in vast quantity (occasionally eating up to $9 worth! ), although I would prefer to think that Jack Evrensel doesn't bury $150 of tabletop butter every night. After all, isn't that honour reserved for California chardonnay?

I am very confident that whatever was in the bottle was not a refill from WaWa, nor a Slurpee from 7-11. My friend from college came to town way back in the day and he do thought it was the single dumbest name he ever heard. Florida raised wife gets a kick out of it, but as as Ellen Cho said, I guess I was used to it and never gave the name much thought until out of towners kept cracking up at the name. ← Wawa does not = boo hoo. "Wawa", apparently, is a Lenni Lenape (indigenous peoples') word for the Canada Goose that was/is found in the Delaware Valley. Or maybe that does mean boo hoo after all, especially if you've ever had to clean up after one. Sorry to give you the bird, Jamie

New York Times culture editor Sam Sifton visits the PNW with a quest to eat salmon, with visits to Vancouver (Granville Island, C Restaurant) and Mayne Island. "For dinner that night, we made our way to C, Rob Clark's steel and glass temple to contemporary seafood cooking on Howe Street, which is often mentioned when people get around to talking about Vancouver's best restaurants. Certainly it is fancy food, or at any rate expensive and dressed up as fancy: unbelievably flavorful Pacific sardines wrapped in double-smoked bacon and roasted crisp, for example, with rye berries, maple syrup and a grainy mustard vinaigrette; or "octopus bacon" wrapped around a Kagan Bay scallop, wi th a foie gras croquette, spinach and veal stock reduced to near blackness. These were delicious, but made me think of brawny outdoorsmen wearing black tie and patent leather slippers. You know that poor scallop was uncomfortable." Curiously, he calls spring salmon 'king' (with an explanation) here for the benefit of his American readership, misses C's sutainability program wholesale and makes a few factual slips, but it's kind of a fun piece. He also manages to use the word 'maw' twice in the same article, something that I have managed to avoid for almost 20 years. Here's the complete article.

Ah, much is explained. Up here, 7-11 dawgs are crap--reflux on a foam bun and with those nasty packaged condiments that're impossible to open when you've been drinking. So we open the mustard on the floor--one good stomp will do it and delights the graveyard shift guy. We actually buy our dawgs from the sidewalk vendors; everybody's got a favourite, but they're all a pretty strong salute to pork particle theory/encased meat physics. I promise to give Wawa another try, at 3 am on my way home from The Guard House, when (as above) I'll definitely be starving.

Monday, August 1st. Watch for it as I hear it's going to be a very soft (i.e. no publicity, no launch party) opening. As for "push backs", I like the sign that Cactus Club puts on their under-construction locations "Opening Sooner or Later".

It wasn't the Canada Goose that first drew me in to a Wawa (which actually means Canada Goose in a local indigenous dialect and which we cheerfully export to you specifically to befoul your lawns), it was my enthusiastic Pennsylvanian colleaugue offering up 'a local tradition.' No, my problem with Wawa is simply this: It was a wasted meal, right in the vortex of superior sandwich opportunities. In fact I would offer that Philadelphia is the epicentre of North American sandwich making, many of which are mentioned in this thread and on Holly's excellent web site. I ordered as instructed--"an Italian"--one of the 35 million hoagies that Wawa sells every year. It was a construct of average, deli-case quality meats. The "homestyle" roast beef did not replicate anything that I would serve in my home. The buns were proforma for a chain--I suppose I expected something more upper crust as we were verging on Grace Kelly territory. I also found the ATM-like computerized ordering process rather off-putting (and I was sober), seeing as the sandwich-maker was two feet away. So, in short, why Wawa when you can find much better at DiNic, John's, Sarcone's, et al? In fact, as I type this message, I am looking fondly at a picture of us wolfing cheese steaks in South Philly last summer. A character served them to us, another thing I didn't find at the Wawa commisary. Car food is an interesting topic, seeing as North America revolves around them. I believe that's why Italian and German cars, while wondrously engineered, can't seem to get the drink holder thing right. My colleague did not redeem himself at dinner. He took us to the Guard House in Gladwyne. Although the martinis were sturdy, the food approached the nadir of Ike and Mamie-era country club menus; my lamb chops had the unmistakeable mealiness of steam. Again, a wasted opportunity--Philadelphia is rife with wonderful restaurants and may just be the most undersung dining city on the continent. Even if business didn't take me there fairly frequently, I'd go just to admire the buildings and the food. Compared to New York, I like its relatively more intimate size and feel. In fact, I'd go so far as to parrot W.C. Fields. Now, if only you had a hockey team . . .

Remember how fashionable it became--sometime in the 80s--for Chinese delivery chop shops to post the international symbol for NO MSG on their menus. In fact they needed every bit of help they could get, especially from the cheap afterburner effect (ramen speed?) of Gourmet Powder. Now I demand it by name.

I yellow-brick-roaded myself at Il Giardino last night. Note to self: Must ask who bakes their excellent bread.

It may not be as crazy as you think, Matt. Of course my first response to your question is that quite a few people can afford to spend the dough, otherwise companies such as Lactantia wouldn't survive. My own 'lifestyle' (such as it is) can occasionally support higher prices for butter (especially when eaten in its raw state in small quantities), Matt, and so, when you think about it, can yours. I should mention though that you can buy Lanctatia's convenient 4 x 113 gram sticks of butter from $4.39 if you know where to look. That's because you routinely spend much more on Extra Virgin Olive Oil--in fact often more than $40 per pound. Of course, just as you don't necessarily cook with EVOO, nor do we always cook with expensive butters--both are typically reserved for eating with crusty bread--to enjoy their flavours to the fullest. But I would maintain that Lactantia makes a quality product and that their garlic-composed version is an excellent 911 agent--I carry it in my toolkit. That being said, we enjoy Foothills too. The quality, artisanal butters used at Raincity and West are other examples of defining taste; although they are relatively expensive for the restaurant there is no charge to the consumer. For several reasons that elevates my mood. Jamie

Burrito Bros. Taco Co. 2209 West 1st Avenue 604-736-8222 Burrito Bros. Kitsilano I’d been aquiver recently, thinking that a quality taco emporium might be moving into the neighbourhood. Gord Martin hasn’t delivered on the fish tacos promise at Go Fish!, and frequent trips to Mexico remind me just how much I miss them. In Manzanillo, the taqueria stand at the end of our dusty road turns out handsome breakfast tortillas of pulled pork and hot sauce, served with a pint of fresh grapefruit juice, for one American dollar. Key to quality burritos and tacos is the quality of the tortilla itself. In Mexico, one person feeds hot-off-the-press tortillas to the person stuffing them—with pork, fish, beef or chicken. They are thin and pliant without being spongy. Unfortunately, the tortillas at Burrito Bros. are a letdown—their taste and texture being identical to the supermarket versions churned out by large-scale manufacturers and bereft of that fresh, slightly toasty corn taste that's a hallmark of Mexican cuisine. We ordered an early afternoon ‘Taco Trio’ ($6.99), with sides of sour cream (again, supermarket quality only, and heavily over-salted guacamole--$.99 each). With a Coke, the tab, including taxes, was $12.60. The Taco Trio (soft version) arrived 14 minutes after we placed our order—too long in my opinion. They comprised ‘Mexi Beef’ (spiced ground beef), ‘Fajita Steak’ (chopped sirloin with vegetables) and ‘Baja Fish’ (small pieces of breaded cod with salsa crema). The fish and steak versions were passable, slightly elevated with the routine hot sauces provided—Tabasco, Frank’s Red Hot and Tapatío picante. Missed opportunity there—why not provide some more interesting smoked chipotle versions—or housemade condiments? The ground beef version—a mush of angrily-spiced but characterless meat, was a write-off. The menu also features burritos, burrito bowls (an oxymoron waiting to happen), and ‘Quesa-Dealios’—jack cheese, jalapenos, salsa and sour cream. There’s a short Mexican beer list that numbers the usual victims and glasses of 1516 are available for $4.70; margaritas are $4.91, or $6.40 for a double. Breakfast burritos are $6.99, but beware the bait-and-switch pricing; sides such as the aforementioned guac and sour cream are additional. The salsa verde was average, and, although fresh tasting, a trifle mild for our taste. Burrito Bros. occupies a popular corner (adjacent to Adesso) near 1st and Yew in beautiful downtown Kitsilano, where walk-in traffic is a necessity because parking is tricky, especially at this time of the year. Complimentary sombreros are available to sun-challenged patio patrons. There are about 30 seats inside and half a dozen tables on the patio. The restaurant appears to have been decorated—from menu boards to faux-Mexican movie posters—entirely by Chalkstar.com. And perhaps that summarizes my disappointment with this restaurant —the closer you get the less autentico it gets--it’s as trite as a lime in a bottle of breakfast beer and equally as false. It has every appearance of a small-footprint concept-restaurant chain in waiting but doesn't achieve the ‘do one thing very well’ that other practitioners execute upon; it certainly didn’t revive my latent love for quality Mexican cooking, or even its Tex-Mex equivalent. How to improve? 1. Make regulation 6.5” tortillas by hand, in-house with fresh maze flour. Tortilla presses cost next to nothing. Make the tortilla station an eye-contact point and brand it. 2. Drill down on the fillings. Brown the ground beef before spicing. 3. Up the ante on the fillings—they seemed frugally portion-controlled to the extreme; Mexican taquerias are famously ‘free-pour’. 4. Add some interesting condiments, such as Dan-T’s smoky chipotle hot sauces, or create some interesting housemade condiments. Get some quality sour cream such as Avalon or Blackwell Dairies. 5. Ask the chef to taste his own cooking—the guacamole, otherwise well-made, could melt snow. 6. Get some spoons to convey the sides to the tacos—Burrito Bros. only offered knives and forks. 7. Hasten the food delivery time by at least 5 minutes. When we were there the restaurant was busy but hardly slammed and there was an abundance of service staff dawdling near the pass. 8. Add a quality, cabbagey cole slaw to the menu. 9. Serve soft drinks in a glass, with ice and lime. 10. Hang some garlands of smoked dried peppers over the pass; use them in the cooking.

Our default butter at home is Lactantia, made in Victoriaville, Quebec and available at several supermarkets, including Capers and Safeway. We find that a stick of their garlic butter is especially helpful--for 911-ing gravies, or as a quick fuel for grilled baguette at this time of the year. Avalon also supplies a quality product. In the Wine Country we tend to go with Blackwell Dairies' butter (Kamloops) who also make quality ice and sour creams--the latter is terrific with local fish roe--especially salted salmon eggs. The best restaurant butters we've found recently are at West (from a small supplier in Prince George, I think) and at Raincity Grill, from Farm House Cheese Co. in Agassiz. Pet peeves: warm or whipped butter in restaurants, a clear indicator that you're eating in the wrong suburb. Ice cold butter is my preference; if the accompanying bread can't take it it's a signal that you're conversing with an inept baker.

Please see Post # 51 on this thread for menu details. The restaurant is now scheduled to open right around the August long weekend.

Hey, I was a Lancaster bartender for 20 years and never surly. Sort of an uncalled for shot. Also, I love scrapple and Holly is more than right about it. His tourist suggestions are also great. I took some of my friends to Ralph's and they loved it. ← I should have been more specific. There was a bartender at the American Bar and Grill who was (lengendarily) a real beverage Nazi. He was finally let go. The last thing you'd get from him was an uncalled for shot.

I can see someone without much food experience holding such an uninformed opinion of scrapple. It is surprising to hear the same from food professional, even a mere "food editor." In Philadelphia one can find excellent scrapple in all manner of restaurant - ranging from South Philadelphia's Melrose Diner to the five star Four Seasons hotel. Most places in Center City Philadelphia and South Philadelphia that make the effort to serve scrapple prepare it quite well. Fried crisp on the outside, soft inside - a peppery, spicy taste that works perfectly with fried eggs. ← Holly, When in Philadelphia I almost always stay at The Four Seasons—not just because I'm a Canadian loyalist, and despite the fact that you can order scrapple in the Fountain Room. You see for me, scrapple is just too Main Line, I suppose in both senses of the phrase. Seriously though, I’ve been told that the best scrapple—harkening both entomologically and culinarily from 'scraps' of course—is best made from scraped pig’s head. No problem there. Farmboy Pennsylvania Dutch meets hyper-caloric grease-brick. Fine. But would I sully the sheets of the Four Seasons after ingestion? Highly unlikely. No, my real beef with scrapple is that all the really good stuff, like the brains, are usually removed on killing day and served to preferred customers folded into shirred eggs. Wawa. My other problem with scrapple is that it’s simply not the highest and best use of these precincts of the animal—that’s why God invented luncheon meats. Besides (and you really can’t be sure if it’s the cornmeal, or the imputed, wooden-spoon smell of mothbally thrift), but scrapple usually comes off as surly as a Lancaster bartender. Now on Ralph’s we can agree—the waiters are as timeworn as the floors, raspy and rude (well, rudish) to boot, the clams casino at the very apeothesis of their genre. And the roast pepper and anchovy salad, and platters of spaghetti and meatballs are almost as hugely satisfying as they are merely huge. In fact Ralph’s might just be the zenith of full-throttled red sauce eating and, let it be said, has about as much in common with Italian dining as Bobby Clark. Jamie PS--Wasn't trying to pick a scrap. In fact, next time in town, why don't you show me how it's done. You bring the F-16, I'll bring the Taliban cave.

Depending on just how much you dislike them, any scrapple-teria will do, or if you're really in a pinch, a Wawa brings on hysterical crying that reminds of how the chainlet earned its name. Of course scrapple induces acid reflux so intense that they might think a passing F-16 has mistaken their mouths for Taliban caves. This combo should pretty much guarantee that you will never see them again, and that their daughters will never marry.

Ah yes, batter up: the perennial discussion of gossamer-light batter versus the older school heavy thunkers that break rather than bend under downward knife pressure and often render plastic knives completely useless. I would argue that both have their merits (and rights-to life), the latter most especially after a late night. For the lightest batter of all, a visit to Phnom Penh is in order for the squid--evidence perhaps that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. I've often been curious about how Helen's batter (the secret lies in the rice flour plus one other ingredient) would react in the company of the flesh of cod, halibut or even snapper. Certainly a heavyweight fry-up is not for the light of heart, although if you wait half an hour, joy may be taken in not having to gel.