Keith Talent

To my mind, diner denotes a rural setting rather than urban. Trucks out front. The kind of place that you appreciate the romanticized ideal of far more than the greasy dirty reality of it.

Okay - Now my head is spinning, If there are no beets in the borscht, what the hell is in there? If you say bitter melon, I'm heading out for a bowl right now, because this I've got to see. There are very few things I'll refuse to eat. Bitter melon is one of them. Memo to the people of northern asia it's called "BITTER MELON". Not super sweet and jucy melon, no the key identifying feature is the fact it is bitter. ANd not pleasantly bitter like when your maid makes you a perfect G&T, It's like chewing on viatmin C bitter. I have no idea how a culture that got so much right with their food managed to screw some things up so badly.

Worst advice I've ever been given; *Check out Enron stock, their quarterly results are fantastic. *stick with the HK version of borcht. *Have kids, they make your life richer *No those pants don't make you ass look fat.

My wifes hairdresser says we're a couple of Hongers. Now, not only is that racially offensive and semi witless, it could well be true. Only I suspect it's a term that only the affected demographic could use. Kinda like Chris Rock and the N word; Funny is he says it, bigotted asshole if I say it. Anyway, I'm taking a pass on La Amigo (French/spanish mashup, with some gender confusion, it's like I named it.) The whole spagetthi O's on toast thing focused through a chinese prism is just too odd for me. I suspect it's a comfort food issue, didn't eat it in my youth, sure as hell not starting now.

This the place on Alexandera between Maks noodles and Seto Sushi? If so, please explain. We've always been fascinated by the chinese propreitors serving westernized food to a chinese clientele in a mexican motif. Talk about fusion. Why Amigo? And what should I eat there. I'll admit to being a big sissy and being afraid to try it. I'd gladly give it a go if someone explained the concept, and gave a few ordering principles to follow. And being that it's full disclosure day, I'll admit to thinking that HK style western food is horrible. So no baked spagethi with portugese chicken. And we ate next door to the place last night at the Honmyi (sp?) cafe. Bills itself as a pan asian bistro. Typical attempts everything, master of nothing, yet we continue to return. Always busy, cheap. We refer to it as "Chinese Earls" because that's what it resembles inside, and certainly seems to fill that niche with the asian populace.

Well said canucklehead. But my objection is that they add nothing to the city, with the exception of very nice produce available 7 days a week.

Thanks for some focus. I think if this thread were about a new branch of a chain of restuarants rather than a supermarket, the discussion would be different. Generic yuppie psuedo-greens in their german SUV's buying organic bottled water isn't really that interesting.

Screw Whole Foods. Those hippy crisps they sell (for like eight bucks a small packet) aren't even made with real hippies. More like the stuff hippies are made of; Soy and tofu. I approached them with a plan to bag a few real hippies. I was either going to cruise up to Tofino, or maybe into Oliver during fruit picking season. Hold up a bag of oregano and a hacky sack, ask who wants to hang out. Bam! Whole Foods can now advertise "NOW WITH MORE REAL HIPPIES" on the packaging. Sadly their lack of vision caused them to decline. They claimed becuase it was impossible to determine if a hippy was fresh by smelling it, I think they were afraid of pissing off the vegans.

I think those round circles are alfalfa or some other grain, south of town, south of the river.

So what is that they are growing?

Educate an ignorant. Where is Alexis Creek? I thought I had a pretty good handle on my geography.

How could someone be needed to fill in, when the section is only a month old? What the hel? Is it common in media to start a new job, then promptly dissappear for a spell? I always knew I entered the wrong field.

The Globe is superb. Or at least superb-ish. You can see superb from where the Globe stands. Alexa Gill has been doing a fantastic job with the restaurant reviews. And I don't know if this is meaningful or not, but her reviews have been moving closer and closer to the front of the Seven Days section. My estimation of her jumped considerably after last weeks feature "10 great patios". I kept waiting for the inevitable Bridges nomination, to her credit she left it off. Bravo. They do occasionally print reviews by some Maw character. I mostly just skip over those.

Duh. You don't flash yours. you flash Jamies, or Arnies in a pinch.

Forgive my ignorance, but is snapper not a rock fish and therefore should only be served one way: Done?

And did Paul Martin appear in an uncomfortably snug flight suit behind a banner reading "Mission Accomplished"? That would have been excellent.

Only the Canadian Navy would name a ship after a city 2000 miles away from the nearest ocean.

There are a number of local members that need to be put on suicide watch. Take their shoe laces and belts away, because when certain members realize that this board isn't powerful enough to ensure the success of a local business, bodies will swing from shower rods, mark my words. Anyway, it's too bad. Maybe we're not quite as sophisticated a food city as we'd all like to beleive when Pango contiunues to thrive and DaFrancescos goes tits up.

And just to show what a man of the people I am, I'm not going to save up until I hit The French Laundry, The Fat Duck and some Mongolian goat herders yurt for an amazing yak milk lassi, no my travels are considerably more pedestrian. (Those of you padding your dining resumes are being duly noted. We know who you are.) Wednesday night, coming home from Seattle after going to the Mariners game (NINE FREAKING DOLLARS FOR A REDHOOK ESB! I am pleased to subsidize the multimillion dollar contracts do nothing athletes get in my own small way.) We stopped at the Milestones in White Rock. Why? My friend that drove informed me his eyes had deteriorated to the point where he didn't like driving on the freeway at night. Uhhh, you could have told me that 300 miles ago and I would hacve driven. Anyway, we had to rush back to the north side of the 49th, before stopping for dinner as he felt far more comfortable driving on familiar freeways. I left that concept unexamined. I had the tuna in shitake lime broth with couscous. Some promo with Fetzer that saw John Ash of Santa Rosa develop menu items. Okay. For sport I was going to get the server to explain to me what the endame floating in the broth were. Too tired, maybe next time. Yesterday for lunch, the most asian spot in the universe. Parker Place Mall food court. Parker Place makes Hong Kong look like Tswassen. Weirdest food court in the city. Nothing makes sense. Everything is similar. Had curry shrimp on rice. ordered a side of deep fried tofu, got a bowl of snow white cream of corn soup. Huge bowl of free soup. Three kernals in the whole thing, tasty super corny. Had so much cornstarch that a skin coagulated on the top that would have supported at least one of my children. Plus it was enough food for a family of four. Families of Chinese looked at me with leering disgust reserved for gluttons. Lunch today was at the food court of the Richmond Market. Totally superb bowl of Laksa. Roti prata on the side. Waaay more food than I need, but I'm in a bad mood. Quit smoking three months ago, I'd literally kill for a cigarette, plus got called into the principals office at pre-school. Seems the Talent children are acting up. How old do you have to be before being accepted to a boarding school? Feenies tonight.

A bit? I feel bad for the poor servers, having to explain to the flat footed nylon windbreaker sporting octegenarian cruise ship passangers from Ohio the always exotic tomato, and it's equally foreign friend, iceberg lettuce. The routine is so dated I'm suprised they don't refer to the tomato as a "love apple" and try to dissuade the clientelle from the popular belief that thier red colour does not in fact make them poisonous contarary to the coventional Elizibeathean wisdom of the day. A bit. Best understatement of the week.

I'd love to see the gastro-pub concept too, but I beleive the key requirement isn't in place here in BC, the engine that drove the fad in the UK, insanely high restaurant prices. How is a gastro pub going to compete with the Bins or Hapa? I think for a grass roots movemet like gastro pubs to gain traction, you need fertile ground, eg. a vulnerable restaurant culture, something we (thankfully) don't have.

I'm headed out right now to pound my fish taco manifesto into the front door like a Latino Martin Luther demanding reformation. Hilights include; * Corn tortilla only, white corn, warmed. *No strawberries, blueberries or mango. I don't care what they do at Sobo, they cook out of a truck in Tofino, the rules are different for them, it doesn't make it right here. *No salmon. No halibut. Unidentified white fish only. Preferably harvested in a manner that leaves the sea bed a barren watery dessert for fifty generations. *No grilling. Fried fish, ONLY. You're on a diet, you shouldn't be out for dinner. Get your fat ass to the gym. And I don't care if you know some freakish scorned by all the other restauranteurs of Mexico place that grills them, they're fried in the streets of Ensenada, fried at the definitive San Diego chain of Rubios. *Three salsas will be available. A red chille based one, a green tomatillo one and a pico de gallo. NO PINEAPPLE. *The taco will be topped with shreded cabbage and a white sauce that is neither mayo nor sour cream, yet strangely resembles both. I demand these points be followed. Or I will heap the scorn on you I currently reserve for Taco Del Mar.

This is the PBS programme I referenced above. The gentleman from UBC seemed to be the most unbiased of all interviewee's. I'd certainly be interested in hearing more of what he had to say. Quick google uncovers the fact that he's only perhaps the most fascinating man on earth. Read NY Times artice to read fact stranger than fiction. Article also cites hims as being quite radical, yet on the PBS doc he was very balanced.

So, which is better, the flatiron or the hanger?

Eat Magazine is that publication from the dark side of the moon, no? For all the luck I ever have locating it it may as well be.