paul mitchell

......keep them coming - I love coleslaw - great ideas.

At my last job there was this chocolate cake that the pastry chef hated but it sold like mad - the chef would not allow him to take it off - it had a side of warm callebaut chocolate - I as a server would describe it as this "gravy boat" of chocolate - people could not say no - so I guess my advice is that as a server it is nice to have a gimmick to sell desserts - like Keller's coffee and doughnuts.

Tojo's. Can you say "California Roll"? Eigensinn Farm. Spago.

Black Hills just also released a first ever bottling of Chardonnay (06).

.....I work in the Sonora Room at Burrowing Owl in FOH - Chef B. has been there since last March and Chef Henry came for a bit of a stint as the "eyes and ears" of Chef B. morsoe than "running the kitchen" - our Restaurant Chef Chris Van Hooydonk has that honour alongside Rob Cordonier (Pastry Chef) and a brigade of very talented up and coming cooks. We're closed for the next month but re-opening on Valentines. Shameless plug, but the deal they have going from the 15th of Feb thru March 19th is amazing - I actually thought of sub letting my OK Falls condo and moving in for the month - $125pp for room, breakfast and a 3 course dinner (actually five with amuse and mignardise) or $145pp for same with a lift ticket each to Mt. Baldy. Check out the Guesthouse online at www.bovine.ca

Out of interest just took a look at the Parkside DOV menu on their website - I can't believe they have the balls to put at the bottom of the page that hot water and lemon is $1.25 - what spoiled brats - if you think people are going to be cheap than go Lumiere's way and not do DOV - just don't insult them - tasteless actually.

thanks team!

I can appreciate that the Owner of the Indain Foods store here in town doesn't want to give out his Dal "family recipe" without me signing up for his Sunday cooking class for $40 - I brought him my Food TV recipe today and let him have a look over so I could buy the ingredients at his store - basically, he scoffed at the recipe and wasn't much help after that. Anyone out there know how to give lentils that necessary love that turns them into Dal?

Working in the front of house for the last 18 years I have seen some pretty funny shit with new cooks on their first day - case in point: esteemed US restaurant I was working at - Chef only hired CIA graduates so he could work them - they'd show up for their interview in their whites and he'd basically tell them that they were entering the military - so the kid would come on his first day - he'd start cutting chili peppers for 3 hours or so - Chef would then tell 'em that they could go for a piss, smoke, whatever for ten minutes - kid would come back to prep and start cutting the peppers again - then we'd fucking watch - everyone in the whole place watching - sure enough....he'd start wincing - looking around and then tugging at his crotch - it was like a 80% success rate - so the kid would be dying and then everyone would cheer and clap and Chef would go over and say, "Welcome to what cooking is really about...and the funny thing is that we don't even use chili's on the menu!" - hilarious.

In my pairing tonight I included a 97 Iniskillin Meritage which I found to be more merlot driven - lighter in style but so much more interesting on the finish - I always think of the origional meritages which are Opus One and Joseph Phelp's Insignia - those wines are so fruit foward, imposing and big to start with but with paltry finish - when I taste a quality wine from Bourdeaux - such as the '82 Margaux of which I decanted six bottles in the spring ala butler in Whistler, I understand that the French see wine as a recipe - the same as their food - Americans want bigness - in their food, their trucks and their wine. I felt that the Iniskillin tonight was about balance - who cares if I what I paired with the first two courses was Black Hills Alibi and then Kettle Valley Adra Station Chardonnay - this meritage stood it's ground with the albacore / fava bean main and the lamb / cassoulet - you don't have to be big to be good. ......and I'm always one to promote great BC wines - I love our whites but am always dissapointed with our reds - save 10 to 15 of them - tonight I cracked a bottle of Calliope Cab 02 and revelled in the luscious fruit bomb it is - one of my guests from New York commented on the "dill" in it - I got excited and asked if she figured any eucalyptus - she said no but we can always hope.

Feedbag you and others will be happy to know that my buddy Dorian Christie (of Acme sushi fame in Nanaimo) is now holding fort at Tough City Sushi - actually it is his first day on friday and this lucky F$%$@$ finally gets out of camp at Clayoquot Wilderness Resorts after 28....15+ hour days in a row!

Not having a deep fryer is a good thing. Maybe you could give some parameters of what style of place you are working in and some sort of theme you may be running on - maybe even break your cover and say what island it is - then I assure you the sleuths on here will be giving you all the suggestions.

What is Canadian Food? - Seal flipper. Where do you eat it? - Igloo in nunavut. ***verified by a tru Canadian.

I'd suggest Apres on Main Street (www.apresrestaurant.com) - along with having 40 plus wines by the glass they focus mostly on BC and Pacific Northwest wines - also they have a mix and match 3 course dinner special on right now for $33.

If I might add my quip......James Barber was the first guy to be cooking anything eloquent in BC - as simple as his techniques may seem he was essentially the first "foodie" in Vancouver and may I say that the man deserves serious, as I think the lingo goes, "props". He had the best tv food show called the "Urban Peasant" which started in the mid 80's and I watched him all the time - he's who taught me how to cook - and also how to woo the ladies as we all know a way to a womans heart is through her stomach! Of course, he was the ladies man of ladies men outside of the stockbrokers in the 80's - now chilling in the Cowichan Valley - being a great guy supporting a bevy of causes - he's got a cooking class / dinner with a freind of his I think this weekend in which they're attempting cassoulet and a few other courses over a wine filled evening. Let me take a bit of Barber's introduction to his 1989 cookbook that I just found in my mother's books: "Good food doesn't have to be complicated, or expensive. Most of all, it doesn't have to be perfect - food is to eat, not to be photographed....This book is not a gourmet manual - it's a book mainly of pleasure, a collection of things I've eaten, cooked an enjoyed in half the countries of the world. Most of it is simple, peasant food, using simple ingredients. It's a book of grandma food, complete with all the long rambling stories that go so well with comfortable relaxed cooking." As a kid I watched his show after school religiously - if anyone has watched Michael Smith's "Cooking WIthout a Recipe" you've got to know that James started that - he made it seem not too serious - a little of this, a bunch of that - for me his deal was to just get in the kitchen and cook - just get in there with your favorite people and with a smidge of technique it's going to be all starry eyed. My mom helped me, but Barber taught me how to cook - he was always so nonchalant - the uncle that you always hoped would be yours.

"Nothing in life is as exhilarating as to be shot at without result" - Churchill Viva Mexi Cali!!!!!!!

Jason - you take things way too seriously...the quick post is rather quite astonishing! - and Jason, my horizons are broad - but, I still will stick up for the little guy who hopes to eek out a living - Mexi Cali, a place where I've gone and felt good about spending my cash, however cheap, and enjoyed every hungover moment of it.

....just check out www.eatvancouver.net - I see they send their reviewers out to the creme de la creme of restaurant hotspots and then ridicule the small independent ones - I will fight to the death for Mexi Cali!

....Take a walk down at Lighthouse Park in West Van and then dinner at Beach Side Cafe in Ambelside.

Well at least Mexi Cali is better than the dry burgers at Vera's without enough bread to the bun!

....might want to check out Triskell restaurant at 3-220 Island Highway in Parksville as well for resonably priced french bistro food.

....plus at $5 for there lunch special it cannot be beat in Vancouver for cheap good homemade food - those mexi fries are imported from Mexico if your wondering!

Was at the Grand Opening of Morgan's in Creekside a couple of weeks ago - gorgeous building and room that must have cost a fortune - seems they are trying to go completely organic and follow in the Rimrock's game theme - I stopped in yesterday to take a look at their menu - the cheapest entree was a $36 duck breast and when I saw the 24 ounce bison porterhouse at a cool $85 I laughed - it reminded me of my walk on the Coal Harbour Sea Wall on a sunny Sunday afternoon and checking out the six people eating lunch at Lift wondering where everyone else was!

Kim: Don't watch "Waiting" - I watched it for you and hopefully I will be the last person ever to have that honor - it is cheesy and completely ridiculous - and for the people that thought it was a blast, ask them first if they smoked considerable weed beforehand.

....I had thought I'd heard it all.....does this mean someone would be silly enough to eat a Portugese-Man-of-War?