jamiemaw
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Posts posted by jamiemaw
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Travel Advisory-->Whistler
There was a lot to like at Whistler this weekend, especially down at Creekside where, outside Dusty's , beer, bluegrass, bikinis and a lot of pork products announced the controlled burn of the Canadian National BBQ Championships. I’m not sure who sanctions these events, but ‘Memphis Myron’ Mixon went whole hog and the self-annoited ‘Baron of BBQ’ Paul Kirk demo’ed the basics to an appreciative and largely well-behaved crowd.
On Sunday, the Farmer's Market went full steam in the breezeway below the Chateau. Pemberton potatoes, carrots and golden beets, and the first, early tomatoes, provenance unknown. And scads of prepared products, including pies, condiments and the ever ubiquitous honeys one associates with summer at the mountain. Make a beeline.
We found some pleasant surprises in two new restaurants--more about them in a minute.
Whistler has become a little moribund over the past few seasons dining wise. Successful operators are holding onto their leases (although Jayde will be taken back over by Pasqual of Les Deux Gros ), but that was made more difficult this year by a combination of our strengthening currency, early snowfall and discounts at Colorado and California ski resorts, and the torpid speed (according to several operators we spoke with) that Intrawest, the owners of Whistler/Blackcomb, reacted to the market downturn; it seems their package discount program didn’t cut in until February. Traffic, for the first time in many seasons, was way off, in some fine dining rooms by as much as 20 per cent, about the difference between relative comfort and survival. A couple of major restaurants are reportedly for sale. Locals were also reportedly less apparent, perhaps put off by the US-dollar denominated pricing. Late seatings disappeared in some restaurants. Perhaps in reaction, we saw evidence of some summer bargains, including a dozen oysters for $9.99 at the Bearfoot Bistro Champagne Bar
So it was interesting to see one gutsy play, a small (55 indoor seats, 18 patio), prettily designed room with a terrific wine bar called Apres . It's operated by former Hong Kong shipping executive Chris Cheney and his partner Julia McKinnell, a National Post journalist. The room was designed by David Eaton of Coast Architectural, a guy swiftly gaining a reputation for elegant but functional spaces. And there was something else at work in the room, a sort of unforced intimacy--a couple of families cheek by fowl with good looking deauces. Tourists and locals. Reassuringly, there’s not a stuffed moose head or pair of crossed snowshoes in sight.
Both proprietors have a strong interest in wines, especially those that deliver value. They’ve invested in CO2 injection technology (Bermar ‘La Verre de Vin') that replaces the air in their 40-bottle by-the-glass (or flights) selections, thus ensuring a fresh pour each time. The wine list is strongly Cascadian and is encouragingly priced.
Chef Lindsay Petit’s Quebec-influenced menu crosses over several boundaries but is cogent and clean. A rillette of duck confit was cool and unctuous, napped with apricot and pink peppercorn preserve ($12). A steak mignonette ($28) was crusted with black peppercorns and served with a béarnaise as ethereal as Keith’s wit (I wish there had been more--bearnaise that is), a wonderful watercress salad and very good pommes frites. Other good dishes: Angus beef tartar ($14); Dungeness crab and mango salad ($15, neatly paired with a Fess Parker Viognier at $12); and a nightly foie gras special ($20), that might include a foie gras parfait. Desserts were well made, although a lemon flan would have been heightened with a bit of zest. We liked this place a lot, and in addition to the attention to its food and wine programs, for another reason--you can hear yourself think and it offers an adult alternative (as does its late-night menu) to Whistler's discos. Apres is located at 4338 Main Street, across from the Summit Lodge. We’ll be back for more shortly, but in the interim, you can visit their website here
The Four Seasons opened their new 240+ room Whistler property less than two months ago. It’s lovely, especially given the constrained site. The stream, pools and landscaping that run through its centre provide something ironically difficult to find indoors at the mountain: peace, even tranquility.
Edel Forristal, who was seconded from the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver to head up F&B, has done a remarkable job in a remarkably short period of time. Modern, interconnecting public rooms include a long lean bar and lounge warmed with wooden ceilings and leather, and the main dining room, called Fifty Two 80 that gently bends through chicanes of banquettes and white linen-topped tables out to a long heated patio with comfortable teak furniture. Elegant but unpretentious.
So is the seafood-driven menu, a model of neatly restrained ambition. The menu is short and to the point. At lunch we enjoyed a devilled Dungeness crab dish that was deliciously reminiscent of San Francisco seafood houses. Housemade breads, especially their version of flatbread, were well executed, and the other details (glassware, service etc.), as you might expect at a Four Seasons, were impeccably polished. The Filipino bartender was credit to her profession. What we hadn’t expected though were the very reasonable prices. I’ll post portions of the menu shortly and report back on some of the dinner items.
Jordan Sturdy of North Arm Farms demonstrated his superb produce at his mother Martha’s beautiful ranch in the pan of the Pemberton Valley Saturday night. The event was the media merger of the year: Sarah Reeder, western editor of Fashion magazine married Vancouver magazine food writer (and food stylist/consultant) Murray Bancroft . Beautiful evening, lovely ceremony, and extreme bocce before dinner. Stafford Lumley and crew from Rodney's delivered fresh oysters from a tent (fiitingly, his brand new daughter is named Pearl), followed by shots of chilled gazpacho that David Hawksworth of West had brought. James Walt of Araxi sent out lots of canapés.
The main event took place under the open roof of the old mill building, with 140 of us seated at two long, white-napped trestle tables. The menu:
North Arm Farm golden beet and orange blossom salad; mixed wild greens and edible flower salad
North Arm Farm fingerling potatoes with fresh basil
Wild Skeena salmon with mint and sheep’s feta with Tribetto La Chamiza Chardonnay (Argentina)
Little Island Farm spit-roasted lamb with pomegranate and herb sauce with Domaine Espiets 2001 Cotes du Rhone (best served at cellar temperature)
In addition to Lumley, Hawksworth and Walt, The Smoking Dog's Jean-Claude Ramond was never far from the spit, swabbing the whole lamb and later, grilling chops and tenders for the ravenous crowd. We kept our forks for the cake, toasted the bride and groom with sparklers of Blue Mountain and then danced ‘til the last bus left.
Jamie
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What--no 'specially foraged' mushrooms and Nanaimo Bars?
Jamie
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These long-anticipated openings have a downside in the potentiual for anticlimax--especially amongst culinary trainspotters like us.
Maybe they would be better off putting a large banner across their buildings, like the new Cactus Club in Yaletown, stating: "OPENING SOONER OR LATER".
Jamie
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It' a shame that both Lift and Go Fish are running well behind--they've missed a good part of this blazing summer in what are going to be seasonally-challenged locations. I too wasted a trip to Go Fish only to draw the Old Maid card--they hadn't even mapped the location on the pavement where it's being installed.
As for Chambar, the tiling in the kitchen is taking place right now (I'm trying to convince my daughters to leave university and become tilesetters--in incredibly short supply right now), with kitchen equipment being installed later this week. Hopefully they'll be able to fire it by next weekend or so--soft opening to follow. But for safety's sake, I'd arrange your birthday celebration after mid-month.I suspect it will be well worth waiting for.
By the way Arne, if I look half as good as you do when I turn 28 (my birthday's next month), I'll be thrilled.
Cheers,
Jamie
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Canadianintexas,
You're right--Scottsdale Highlands closed a month ago. My daughter, who attends ASU, will be crushed.
Jamie
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Canadianintexs,
Interesting post and it underscores that some of the elements that have made Earls, Joey's, Saltlik and The Cactus Club such hits in Canada were missing from their Dallas foray:
1. Great real estate selection with daytime footfall (ie.e office/retail) traffic and convenience for dinner drive-to's.
2. Critical Mass. Earls is the acknowledged concept leader in distribution efficiency (ie.e one consolidated delivery per store per day). But that efficiency requires a population of stores in a concentrated area.
3. Brand ID, which they apparently didn't carry out in Dallas. That brand ID ius so strong in Canada that many consumers are actually aware of their high service standards, organic produce program and excellent wine lists.
4. A labour pool that responds to their excellent training programs.
For these reasons, Joey's Washington expansion seemingly has a much stronger likelihood for success.
By the way, to be fair, Earls has one location in Denver and two in Scottsdale--at Scottsdale Road and Camelback, and up on Pima. The latter location had a near-death experience several years ago when an entrance ramp to the freeway threatened to bisect their patio. But business has recovered.
Interestingly, it's The Keg that is making spectacular inroads in the States, especially in Texas where they are expanding quickly.
I think that your general point is well taken, that Earls has probably run dry for top quality expansion opportunities/locations in Western Canada, and so is developing new brands such as Publik and OPM, which as well as sounding lke opium, could also mean "other people's money."
Interstingly, when we host visiting food media and industry types from abroad (ie. frequently), most insist on visiting Earls and The Cactus Club. That's because they do a lot of things very well, and with The Keg and PF Chang's, number amongst the very top concept restaurant chains in the world.
Cheers,
Jamie
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Another book to add to the list is a local one I just finished by Eve Johnson formerly of The Sun who'spublished a collection of her columns in a book of essays called "Eating My Words".Eating My Words--An Appetite for Life by Mimi Sheraton
Thank you for pointing this out, Keith. I can't believe the gall of Ms. Sheraton in ripping off the title.
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Gee Keith,
Mahalo very much. But what, for heaven's sake, is the world coming to? One week you're up in the Okanagan seemingly enjoying the wines(if not the Scottish servings), and the next you're in Hawaii, of all places. Did you forget that you HATE the beach? Or had you become re-enamoured after watching that terrific summer replacement, North Shore ?
Colour me confused.
So I ask--where will it all end?
Right about here.
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Thanks for the heads up. I'll look forward to Steven's reviews.
By the way, given the forum that you host I should mention that Chris Stearns, the superb young barman at Lumiere Restaurant in Vancouver is currently writing two books on cocktails, one a history, the other a recipe book. He has been researching in New York and elsewhere--both are due out next year. I'll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Jamie
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What issue JAZ? Couldn't find it in the June-July.
By the way, it's rather amusing when Ms. Shearton disses Le Cirque, in its original location, now home to Cafe Boulud:
"Eighteen months later, I safely slipped past Sirio, Vergnes and the effusively corny, croupier-like maitre d', Joseph, eagle-eyed for celebrities but blind to unprepossessing interlopers. In the course of about six visits, I was subjected not only to meals that ranged from very good to merely passable, with a watery sauce on the house's famed spaghetti primavera (snobbishly off the menu and so ordered only by the in crowd), duck that tasted of stale grease, lamb delivered well done when ordered rare, overslting of everything and grainy souffles.
"The real travesties were the service and general treatment: seating us at cramped corner tables near the kitchen door; even though many others were available; keeping early arriving guests at the bar until our party was complete . . ."
Sheraton reduced Le Cirque to one star in 1977.
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Too many plane rides this summer (albeit with vast rewards at the other end), have seen my not inconsiderable nose buried in some very good books:
1. The Accidental Connoisseur--An Irreverant Journey Through the Wine World
by Lawrence Osburne. Brit wit Osburne takes the piss out of some of the big names of the international wine business, but with a sharp sabre and a sense of irony rather more elevated than Alanis Morissette's--so that they (including Robert Mondavi) never see it coming. A terrific read and it confirms everything you always suspected about the wine world--i.e. that, with startling similarities to the fashion and automobile worlds, hype and the colusion of the wine press and producers have elevated many brands (and their price tags) well past their rightful place.
2. Eating My Words--An Appetite for Life by Mimi Sheraton. Famed NY Times, Vanity Fair and Conde Nast Traveler reviewer and food writer speaks to her struggles with obesity, controversy and developing an operating modus for fair reviewing. Like many New Yorkers, there's a vestigial, patronizing tone but tempered here with insights and incites, and she can namedrop faster than a Howe Street promoter, but hey, she did meet many of the greats, and created many more.
3. Sirio: The Story of My Life and Le Cirque by Sirio Maccioni. Part biopic, part window into what passes for aristocratic society in America. It's a very good, well told raggazzo to riches tale with lots of glamour but with the anchor that this man knows the real glamour is found around his family's table on Sunday afternoons. Engagingly told, with anice paternal tone; recipes.
4. Italian Easy by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. The owner/chefs of London's excellent River Cafe extol fresh and seasonal, no better captured than in this straighforward, nicely designed cook book. Useful gift.
All of these are available at Barabara-jo's Books to Cooks in Yaletown. Out-of-town Gulleteers can order at +604-688-6755 or toll free at 1-866-688-6744 or by fax at +604-688-6759. Lots more on her website here
Happy reading,
Jamie
3.
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A couple of glitches have slowed the proeedings, not the least was building around FNC's Opening Soon camera crews. Looks like about the end of the first week of August--or so.
Jamie
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PS--
Here's alittle mini-review and the contact points:
En
Moved up the block into larger premises. Fresh menus roll out weekly; find superb cut fish and innovation in the prepared meals. But wait, there are also snowy white tablecloths, candles and classical music. Chef Yami Yamagishi serves up blowtorch-seared salmon carpaccio, oysters in an ethereal mascarpone and even duck breast. One of the best wine and sake cards of any Japanese restaurant in the city. 2686 Granville St., 604-730-0330. $$-$$$
Your $100 US budget should fit just about right.
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En on South Granville (near 10th) provides a casually elegant (there's a sense of occasion about it) Japanese dining experience with a particularly smart wine and sake list.
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an outstanding eveing a month or so ago at Cru and a very poor meal during my one visit upstairs to Catch
Mmmm. Cru's Control, no doubt.
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From the maelstrom of press releases this week, I thought I'd post this one as I know there are a lot of Cru fans in our forum:
NEW AT CRU
Inspired by their recent trips abroad, Chef Dana Reinhardt and Sous-chef Guy Leggat have made some exciting upgrades to the Cru dinner menu.
Dana did a whirlwind culinary tour of New Zealand, then worked with Michael Noble at Catch restaurant in Calgary. Last month, Guy worked with the Michelin-starred Gordon Ramsay in London, England.
The recent menu changes reflect the summer season as well as the excitement and experience gained by Dana and Guy in their travels.
Have a look at the new menu at Cru
Cru Restaurant
1459 West Broadway, Vancouver, V6H 1H6
Phone 604-677-4111
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while seattle is a nice enough place with some good food to be had, its just not even in the same leaugue as van.
It would be a bad idea to digress too far to discuss which is the better dining city—Vancouver or Seattle (or Portland, for that matter)—even if culinary chauvinism has become almost as strong a growth industry as the food service business itself.
Perhaps it’s more interesting to look more closely at the cities’ culinary divergence, especially given that we share a common climate, common produce and ingredients, access to local wines of increasing quality, and emerging scrums of talented, well-trained local chefs. And yet in some Seattle-area restaurants you know straightaway that you are eating there and not in Vancouver, and vice versa.
I have many fine memories of dining in Seattle, from the poverty of university days when we used to hang at Jake O’Shaughnessy’s, Henry’s off Broadway, or some of the bars in Pioneer Square. Seattle had a much more elevated bar culture (see below) and we liked the rollick and roll. Later, fine dining and places like Wild Ginger captured our imagination. And of course, when Kerry Sear jumped from Vancouver's Four Seasons to the Georgian Room at the (then) Four Seasons Olympic, we all piled down to see what was going on. Maybe it was just being out of town, but we always found Seattle a vibrant city in which to eat, drink and, hopefully, sleep with Mary.
I think there are several, largely economic items that describe the difference in culinary style. First, Seattle did not suffer the draconian liquor legislation that emasculated Vancouver’s independent dining scene between World War I and the early 60s, that allowed hotel restaurants and private clubs to flourish and independent restaurants to wither away. After WW II, there were only diners and coffee shops in Vancouver, or lavish fine dining rooms in the downtown hotels. Ironically, it was the teetotal WAC Bennett who reversed the legislation, but it took a while for independent restaurateurs like Erwin Dobelli (The William Tell in its original Richards Street location) and Hy Aisenstat (everywhere else) to gain traction in the market. Seattle, as far as I can tell, never missed a step.
I wouldn’t pretend to have a detailed knowledge of the ethnography of Seattle, but clearly Vancouver’s culinary diversity has benefited its restaurants. The wave of Indian immigrants (and Ugandan-Indian refugees) to South Vancouver in the 60s and 70s spurred a large number of Indian restaurants; several of their more evolved offspring are now amongst the best on the continent. So too the wave of Chinese immigration, especially between Expo 86 and the turnover of Hong Kong in 1997, much of it fuelled by the Business Immigration Program. Suddenly, Chinese dining in Vancouver took off, with many top chefs moving here. Although that has relaxed, Vancouver and Richmond remain peppered with excellent Chinese rooms. Smaller waves of Japanese, Vietnamese and Cambodian immigration also occurred; today there are more than 250 Japanese restaurants in the Vancouver Yellow Pages and the children of many of those restaurateurs are starting ramen and izakaya joints. More recently, the exodus of professionals from Seoul has sponsored a lot new Korean restaurants, many of which are located (not so curiously) near better schools.
During the 90s, it’s my (perhaps mistaken) impression that Seattle was riding the tsunami of the tech boom, and that immigration was largely coming from elsewhere in the US and less so from offshore. I remember the chat at downtown hotel bars during the 90s—everybody there was there to see Microsoft or a Microsoft supplier. Of course when the tech-wreck inevitably occurred, the restaurant scene seemed to implode too. Restaurants that were a tough ticket when they first opened (Belltown’s Fandango and Jeremiah Tower’s Stars leap to mind), were easy walk-ins just a year later.
Vancouver has also benefited from a low dollar, attracting the film business, tourism (especially the cruise industry), and ‘early retirees’. Each has benefitted the restaurant industry. Seattle at the time was concentrating on public works--its museum, music and professional sports facilities are light years ahead of Vancouver's.
In my parents’ generation, a conscious effort was made in Vancouver to limit urban sprawl and freeway-dependant transportation systems. Now, downtown core areas that combine residential and commercial uses (most obvious in the West End, False Creek, The Granville Slopes and South Granville and more recently, Yaletown and Coal Harbour), have also fuelled concentrated pods of restaurants along arterials and side streets. The recent mixed-use development style of downtown condo towers have also seen new restaurant start-ups in podium spaces, even if developers are reluctant to accept the covenant of new operators. The spaces, designed largely for retail use, typically reflect that. But concentration of population increases restaurant opportunity and eventually competition—and quality. Eating out becomes an every night occurrence, and not limited to celebratory or destination dining—a car need not be involved. Seattle seems to lag in that planning model, at least if its crowded freeways are any indication. It’s just a shame that Vancouver has lost a lot of its population of character and heritage buildings.
One final point: service. In American restaurants there’s a different style, also partially driven by economics. In an American fine dining room, there may be as many as six or seven service staff approaching your table; the division of labour is more fractured. In Canadian fine dining restaurants, the style is to have about half that many. Not all of this difference can be accounted for by the substantially higher minimum wage in Canada; it’s just the way it is.
Several years ago we thought it would be both amusing and interesting to co-author an article with a Seatlle food writer. The mission would be to compare and contrast six different categories of dining in the two cities--PNW, Italian, French, Japanese, CFD-concept, and Chinese. Then we'd see who came out on top. It never pulled off, but perhaps its time to re-examine the idea.
In closing, allow me to ask why, if there are so darn many great restaurants in Seattle, why is it so darn hard to find a decent cup of coffee? I'm just kidding of course, but I would put Vancouver's Cafe Artigiano at the head of the line any day of the week.
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Thank you Andy, for allowing us a glimpse of our own backyards through your eyes.
I was interviewing an Irishman names Peter O'Connor yesterday. He lives in Dublin but roams the world promoting Baileys Irish Cream whose sales are skyrocketing. Interestingly, and just like the fact there are Messrs. Haagen and Dazs, there was/is no Mr. or Ms. Bailey, despite a "signature" on each bottle. Perhaps that explains why there is no apostrophe in the name.
He pronounced the Wedgewood Hotel one of the very top properties he has ever stayed in. He was ecstatic, the way Irishmen can be. And I beleieve he became rather fond of the town as well--he took a glass of La Frenz on an oceanside terrace and asked why anyone would ever leave this place.
I'm looking forward to reading the OK Valley posts, and perhaps some more detailed thoughts about David Hawksworth's and Michael Knowlson's opinions on the differences between operating a restaurant in the UK and Canada.
Perhaps C is an acquired taste, a place that requires a few visits. I had one of the very best lunches of my life there last summer, and continue to enjoy the spirit, adventure and ethic of their program.
I posted a travelogue regarding a journey on the Orient Express. Although not completely food-centric, it mentions a number of London restaurants as well as the food aboard.
Hurry back friend.
Jamie
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True story, Barolo.
jbonne,
Post the perfect storm of tourism/hospitality meltdown following 9/11, publishing quickly followed suit. Concurrently, many print publications were also investing heavily in their e-platforms. I am speculating here, but would surmise that Zagat was not immune--something had to go, and that was Vancouver and Portland (and perhaps others), two smaller markets, albeit ones culinarily punching well above their weight.
No matter your thoughts about Zagat (certainly many know the brand and like the convenient format), the local edition was a credit to Tim Pawsey, a fair-minded and very experienced food and wine writer who compiled and edited the Vancouver/BC editions (three, I believe) since their inception. Perhaps they'll be back when things settle down, or in anticipation of the Olympics.
In the interim, out-of-town visitors can access The British Columbia Eating + Drinking Guide--the 2004 edition is sold out, however 2005 edition will be out shortly. Secondly, eGulleteers are welcome to access the "Where the Bites Are" summer edition of Vancouver Magazine, as well as the annual Restaurant Awards results, compiled from 30 food media and industry experts, here Vancouver Magazine. Both are dependable resources and comprise restaurants that we would cheerfully recommend to friends and vistors.
The $10 you save should be immediatly invested in some pints of the excellent new Okanagan Springs Helles, which I had the good fortune to sample on Saturday evening, alongside some excellent rose (L'Hortus de Bergerie) from Marquis Wine Cellars.
Hope this assists,
Jamie
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The only reason he didn't Andy--as a leftist Labourite member of the House of Lords--is that they were typically in a considerable twist.
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edm
Welcome to Vancouver and to these hallowed halls.
i worked in France. I'm a "maudit francais"!Or perhaps a mouche du coche?
For those of you unfamiliar with the parable, it refers to the French fly which, by biting the horse's rump, convinces himself that he's the one pulling the wagon.
As someone who eats out abroad with frequency, I think it's a fatuous game to compare a supposed lack of passion and integrity in this city (or in restaurant to restaurant within the city) with that available elsewhere. Having eaten my way through seven European cities and a fair bit of countryside this summer (and as a pretty regular commuter), I can assure you of several things:
1. For its mid-market size, Vancouver enjoys a disproportionate diversity and profusion of restaurants per capita. I would challenge anyone to find the former in a city of similar size in Europe.
2. Value on the plate compares favourably with all of the countries that we visited, with the exception of Estonia (where I met the beet, in all its many forms, at least twice a day), which was roughly equal. Your example of a $25 chicken breast is an interesting one--on the cusp of being too expensive, even in a fine dining room here. But consider London, where that same breast, at the currency equivalent of 10 pounds Sterling, would be an outright bargain, and in a fine dining room, impossible to find. But if you want to taste delicious chicken, get yourself to Villa del Lupo, Cioppino's Enoteca for lunch, or Bacchus on a Sunday evening. By Euro standards, all offer exceptional value when they flip you the bird.
3. I enjoyed your notes on your visit to southern Vancouver Island, where a number of engaging rooms have been hatched in the last three years. Victoria is recently rich in these characterful restaurants with cooking attentive to the seasons and the personality of the proprietor (who is also doing the cooking), indelibly stamped on the premises. Good on them. But with rents now hitting the $30 per square foot range, Vancouver suffers rents 30-40% higher than Victoria but with entree prices of barely 10% more; that should tell you why it is difficult now to make a living from a single 50-seater here. Only low interest rates have enabled recent start-ups. Thus the absence of neighbourhood restaurants in favour of Double Happy Dry Cleaners in the podiums of condo towers. Restaurants remain an almost-instant barometer of the economy, and higher volumes in casual circumstances will, for better or worse, likely continue to be the order of the day. I like it, but for an outsider's perception, take a look at Andy Lynes' engaging thread on this board.
3. It's not hard to find the kind of brand extension in Europe that grows out a successful 2 or 3 macaron. Michel Rostang, as just one example, has one eponymous haute cuisine 2-star restaurant (with an a la carte 65 Euro pigeon, the price of the entire tasting menus at West, Bis Moreno, Diva or Lumiere), but his empire is based on a foundation of less expensive pret a manger bistros spotted around Paris. Although they're naturally less connected to his "passion" they allow it to stay in business and his hard-working daughter to wear Chanel. He should be congratulated, by the way, because in an era of rapidly disappearing haute cuisine in Europe, he has found a way to survive, even if the pigeons won't.
4. Having recently worked alongside 50 BC chefs in the compilation of a local cookbook, I would have a lot of trouble denying them the virtues of integrity and passion. Quite the opposite is true, in fact--they enjoy an extraordinary commitment to their staffs and their ingredients, to the point that several forage for fresh products themselves, and all share a passionate interest in their suppliers' wares.
5. The wine list at Cru is a modern model of skillful choice and education for the patron and has been widely recognized as such. There remains ample reason that France and other European wine producing countries continue to lose marketshare, not for lack of passion or terroir, pehaps, but for their collective (and often arrogant, to their ultimate peril) ignorance of their customer.
6. I agree with you on one point, that the lack of local, tough apprenticeships and training disallow the disciplined foundations necessary to understand the complexities of ingredient procurement, management and cooking. In cooking, many chefs have told me, there is no replacement for the learning that comes from performing the same series of tasks repetitively. Unfortunately, without these foundations, many younger chefs offer up their insecurity on crowded plates with confusing flavours--failed Home Ec experiments. And I agree with stovetop's question--there are many other exemplars than West and Lumiere for quality dining experiences in this city. But those two chefs do have the foundations: David Hawksworth through his extensive training with the likes of Bruno Loubet, Marco Pierre White and others in the UK, and Rob Feenie during his legthy training with Michel Jacob and at the-then three star Au Crocodile in Strasbourg. But we should equally respect the sushi masters, the wok-men, the curry kings, the dessert divas and the extrordinarily high quality of service (thanks Earls!) that we enjoy here. On a good day in Europe this trip, we found laconic service. On other days it was by turns snotty, imperious, condescending or merely aloof. Interestingly, the best service by a long shot was at the Writers' Club in Moscow, where the waiters were charming and helpful but also understand the true meaning of hard currency.
7. I disagree with your notion that "criticising is the first step to improvement." Instead I would argue that self-criticism with knowledge is the first step to improvement, especially if a little wisdom is retrieved from the side of the road, along the way.
In closing, I'm still curious about what disappointed you at West and Lumiere--and where you cook now. And here's an open invitation. When the Chefs' Table (the group of chefs responsible for the compilation of the cookbook and each dedicated to local ingredients) convenes in September--would you like to come along and share your thoughts?
I hope that you won't find these remarks heavy-handed--they're certainly not intended that way, but rather to question and to engage you in the discusion that you sought. By the way, when I satred cooking professionally (if you can call what I was doing cooking) at the age of 16, which was more than a week and a half ago, the dining landscape here was as bald as the lone prairie.
Now it is not, and I wouldn't trade its soul and provenance for any other in the world.
Happy Bastille Day, and again, welcome aboard,
Jamie
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EDM,
Where did you train professionally in France? And where do you cook now?
And please share with us what disappointed you when you dined at West and Lumiere?
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Apparently, on sunny days, Vancouverites would rather queue for an al fresco table than dine inside.
Andy,
I think it would be useful if you would inform your readers, especially your British ones, that Vancouver leads the world in restaurant patio heater technology. It is just one reason that we were awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics. The other reason remains the attractive and welcoming local citizenry.
The technology was begat in 1977 (at the very end of the pre-Arugula Epoch) when the first patio heater was installed on the three table sundeck at Chatter Up!, a small cafe in Richmond (a charm-challenged southern suburb known mainly known for as the local home of Ikea and Vancouver International Airport.) Chatter Up! specialized in the oft-admired regional cuisine of the Hebrides. Unfortunately, the heater's fuel, kerosene, proved to be even more volatile than the proprietor's temper. In particular, one guest's bouffant was badly scorched--the matter was settled out of court. The inventor, F. Morris Chatters, also soon discovered that it would work out better if he were to construct the heaters from a material other than the widely available western red cedar.
The earliest heaters were of the garden variety type. Looking like elongated aluminum toadstools they shared one thing in common with their barbecue brethren--the igniter switches proved useful for precisely three outings. This, in turn, begat a sub-industry in elongated lighters, for which Vancouver is also widely acknowledged as a world leader.
By the 1990s, the technology had changed radically so that heaters could be adjusted so as to more slowly roast one's head while leaving one's extremities frigid. However the propane that fuelled them, stored in small tanks at the base of the units, proved cumbersome and inconvenient. Trunk (boot) explosions were not uncommon.
In 1997, toward the end of the Arugula Epoch proper and with Chatters' patent about to lapse, the technology took a quantum leap forward. Today, eave-mounted units, fuelled by piped-in natural gas, are the norm on restaurant patios around the town. In tandem with power-operated canopies, they provide better ambient heat so that is now possible to actually pick up the tools necessary to negotiate dinner. As a result, more sophisticated cuisine is now available on Vancouver's patios.
Needless to say, smokers' rights have also been honoured with these technological breakthroughs. It is actually easier to smoke in an aircraft lavatory than it is in a public space in Vancouver, except after sex.
In addition to fondling cordless power tools at the Canadian Tire, it remains every red-blooded Vancouver male's fantasy to watch hockey on a plasma TV while outdoors on a restaurant patio. A cleansing ale and a blinding blizzard are welcome accompaniments.
I trust that this will assist you in the compilation of your article.
Yours etc.,
J.D. Maw
don't knock the herring spawnPaul,
Far be it from me to denigrate the herring or its spawn. In fact I ate some very good herring spawn just last week. What a shame that most of it is immediately shipped to Asia after harvest.
Coincidentally, in the forthcoming issue of Van Mag I pay homage to the First Nations peoples and their cuisine--we are in considerable debt to them.
Cheers,
Jamie
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Andy, lovely post, although we expected it given that you are one of the most internationally respected and foremost food and wine journalists currently living on Solway Avenue in Brighton, England. And although we know your fans are legion, please add at least four more at this end--like a good piece of beef, the entire Maw family hung on your every word.
Many of your Canadian readers may not know the extent of your celebrity in the UK and continental Europe, however, and as you are a modest chap, I think I should expalin on your behalf. Fellow Gulleteers, Andy and his co-presenter, Randy Haddock, recently sold out the entire Lower Solway Avenue Activities Centre for their exciting seminar: "Interesting Things to do with Herring Spawn." Writing in the Lower Solway Seniors' Bulletin, Mrs. A. F. Fitzgibbon described the evening as being "absolutely riveting, revelatory in the extreme--if only I'd known this before I turned 80 I might have saved a fortune and had younger looking skin!"
Now Andy, that trifling little three meal, 2000 word warmup you posted has whet our appetites for when you really get eating. Three meals seems hardly worth getting out of bed for, let alone flying over the North Pole. After all, you're a highly trained professional and we hope that in the next post you will behave like one.
Yours etc.
J.D. Maw
Travel Advisory
in Western Canada: Dining
Posted
Keith,
Surely the lesser Talents have now had the chance to compare and contrast the beaches of Oahu with Ocean City. Yet no loin of indigenous-/kayak-/line-caught orca in the latter? I should of thought it was the least we could expect, perhaps draped over the son-of-hibachi?
Re your fingernail concern, have you ever considered a career in industrial detergents?
Finally, in light of the forthcoming Olympics (we should all hope), thank goodness the Grecian formula, err, Gods, still prefer their hemlock straight up. Kind of reminds us of you drinking just-OK wines out of a Nyquil lid.
Much love at home,
Maurice Richard.