Mooshmouse

I've seen the mont blanc flavour in the supermarket aisles but, for the life of me, can't figure out what that's supposed to taste like. What is mont blanc flavour, anyway?

Here's a link to another discussion on Food-related Insults.

Since starting this thread, I've made a jaunt to T&T and picked up a batch of Moto Moto Yama teriyaki nori (seaweed, soy sauce, sugar, chili powder). It's Taiwanese and comes in individual plastic-wrapped packets of about 5 or 6 sheets each. The only reason I chose this brand over all the others available is that it's sold in a plastic jar for ease of storage... that in addition to the fact that it's not a 100-sheet package and I wanted to sample it before buying a metric tonne of nori. Needless to say, however, it's not lasting very long and I'll have to stock up again soon. Thanks for all the tips! I'll be sure to provide a flavour report on my next package.

As promised, jayhay, here's a link to my rundown of our Dining Out For Life dinner at The Pear Tree. A stellar evening, indeed!

It comes as no big surprise that I've been a big fan of The Pear Tree since my first visit about a year after it opened. Ian and I are probably there every three to four months or so, especially since we converted my Aunt and Uncle to The Pear Tree converts as their go-to special-occasion restaurant. It was our second visit back since the renovations had been completed, and Ian and I are both certainly impressed by the room’s clean lines and warm simplicity. Mind you, I'm clearly biased by my affection for the Jaegers' Wall 'O Wine. One of the new design details that I most appreciate is the inclusion of sound-absorbing soft surfaces. With front and back walls upholstered from banquette to ceiling and carpeted floors, the noise level is kept perfectly muffled and sets the stage for a relaxing dining experience. The room was about half full when our group was seated; two tables left while Ian and I waited for the rest of the rabblerousers in our party to show up. I attribute the "lack of busyness" to the fact that our reservation was for 8:00 p.m.... a rather late hour for dining by Burnaby standards. Thank goodness for that, though, because it looked as though the rather conservative young couple sitting next to us were wholly mortified by the comments emanating from our group of heathens that was dining beside them. :shifty: Service at The Pear Tree hovers on a level somewhere between, say, Cru and West: friendly, crisp, attentive and not too officious. Stephanie Jaeger does a superb job of running FOH. Before dinner, Ian quaffed a Heineken and I sipped on a glass of Blue Mountain Sparkling. Lobster Cappuccino with Dashi Custard and Fresh Atlantic Lobster Foam Classic Flamed Tomato and Gin Soup Duck Terrine served with Warm Brioche Toasts What you can't see in the Lobster Cappuccino are the enormous chunks of sweet lobster meat waiting to surprise me at the bottom of the cup. Heavenly. And pictured in the foreground of the Terrine are toasts made with some of the best damn restaurant brioche that I've ever tasted. Outrageously light and sweet with a sprinkling of fleur de sel on top that enhances the bread’s sweetness. Red-wine Braised Lamb Shank with Seared Scallops and Roasted Pear Risotto Queen Charlotte Island (?) Halibut with Melted Leeks served on Smoked Ham Hock Risotto Nicola Valley 'AAA' Beef Tenderloin with Stilton Polenta, Onion Confit, Wilted Spinach and a Cinzano Shallot Jus Pea Shoots and Matchstick Pears The Lamb Shank is probably my favourite thing on The Pear Tree's regular menu. It and the Beef Tenderloin are so brilliantly prepared that a knife is hardly needed to cut into the meat. Given the depth and boldness of these flavours however, I was pleasantly surprised by the lightness and subtlety of the halibut. The sous vide cooking process left the halibut achingly tender, moreso than any halibut I've ever tasted. Very deftly paired with the smoky creaminess of the ham hock risotto. Truly, a standout dish. Pea shoots and matchstick pears are almost indiscernibly dressed with a vinaigrette and served as an accompaniment for each main course. Wine pairing with the halibut was a bottle of Chateau de Sancerre, and the tenderloin and lamb were matched with a Feudi di San Gregorio Piano di Montegergine TaurasiDocg Riserva. Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée crowned with a Brandy Snap (?) Tête de Moîne Cheese served with Rosemary Pecan Crisps Chocolate Ganache with Caramel Fleur de Sel Ice Cream Lemon Tart topped with Crack Sugar Missing here is a photo of Ian's serving of Stilton cheese as he took his first bite about three seconds after the plate was set down in front of him. The Crème Brûlée is, indeed, stellar: lush and smooth with flecks of vanilla-bean goodness a'plenty. We all groaned a collective groan as our tastes of the remarkably dense dark chocolate ganache melted in our mouths. However, the Caramel Fleur de Sel Ice Cream on the dessert menu was a bit of a miss for me; truthfully, it was an odd sort of good taste as the flavour of the fleur de sel was a bit too overpowering for my liking. Once again, another excellent evening at The Pear Tree; the consistency of both front- and back-of-house crews never cease to impress me. With their sleek, elegant renovation, Scott and Stephanie Jaeger have successfully achieved what many have tried to accomplish and failed: making a good thing even better.

Here's a link to a discussion on horse meat purveyors and recipes in the Vancouver, British Columbia and Western Canada forum. I was fortunate enough to try cavallo for the first time at the home of a fellow eGulleter last spring. Like most people, I was horrified and dead set against the thought of ever letting a morsel of horse meat pass my lips; however, once I surmounted all my mental hurdles, I was a convert after the first bite. Part of the aforementioned discussion is my post about my first taste of horse meat and a photo of the dish in question. Seared Horse Tenderloin over arugula and cherry tomatoes Edited to rectify a formatting inconsistency.

And balimbing in the Philippines. Ripe starfruit are usually rather juicy with a slightly tart/tangy flavour; however, a Google search reveals that there exists a variety called honey starfruit that's rather sweet and fragrant (source).

The Vancouver Courier Friday, March 24 edition Modern izakaya meets West Coast tapas – Tim Pawsey discovers that "Vancouver's love affair with izakaya continues to bloom" at 1215, the new home of Master Chef Takahiro Toyoshige (Shige). The Georgia Straight Thursday, March 23 edition Golden Plate Awards: 2006 Readers' choice of best restaurants in Vancouver Golden Plate Awards: Good restaurant service gets back to basics – Angela Murrills "spoke to several restaurateurs who agreed across the board that personality and attitude are what matters. If servers can bring those to the table, that’s 90 percent of the game." Golden Plate Awards: Plotting the future of food – "In 10 years’ time, or 20, who knows how the Vancouver food scene will have developed. The big question is whether chefs will be more technicians than cooks." (Angela Murrills) Golden Plate Awards: Japanese just like home – "As editor and publisher of Oops Japanese Magazine, which targets Japanese students living and working in Vancouver, [Tomoko] Yagi is plugged in to the expat community’s hot spots. According to her, izakaya are where it’s at." (Carolyn Ali) Golden Plate Awards: Digging up divine dishes in Veggie City – "As anyone paying close attention to these things will know, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has just named Vancouver Canada’s most vegetarian-friendly city for the second straight year. Finding actual vegetarian restaurants... is a minimal amount of work. Nonvegetarian restaurants with veggie options are also a no-brainer." (Matthew Burrows) Golden Plate Awards: Chow down on Chinese best – Stephen Wong lists his top ten favourite dishes and where best to find them. Golden Plate Awards: Food critics share secrets – Angela Murrills sheds some light on the collective decisionmaking process for the Critics' Picks awards. Golden Plate Critics' Picks: 2006 Critic's [sic] choices of best restaurants in Vancouver The Westender Thursday, March 23 edition (Lifestyles section) Glutton for punishment? Come join us in the kitchen – "If Hurricane Olympic blew into town tomorrow, we'd get flattened. I'm not kidding. Thousands of kitchen vacancies are on the immediate horizon (11,500 tourism jobs are forecasted to be available by 2015), and we're going to need the whole gamut, from line cooks to pastry chefs, if we hope to weather the coming storm." (Andrew Morrison) Foodie Q&A: Dubrulle kingpin says 'no' to burgers – Profile of Michael F. Nenes, educator and Assistant Vice President (Culinary Arts) for Education Management Corporation, owners of the Art Institute of Vancouver's Dubrulle School of Culinary Arts. My Brilliant Career – Rob Feenie offers some insight on his culinary education. The Globe and Mail Friday, March 24 edition Chiles, chocolate and more – "There once was a time, not many moons ago, when an authentic Mexican mole sauce was almost impossible to find in Vancouver. Oh, how the chilies have changed. In the past year or so, at least half a dozen Mexican and Latin-inspired eateries have opened in these formerly bland parts." (Alexandra Gill)

Been missing your reviews lately Mooshmouse...can we expect one this time? ← Thanks for that! Am off to a kids' birthday party with the rest of the Mouse family. With any luck, photos will appear sometime late tonight or tomorrow. Cheers!

Keith, you're just bitter because Chatters didn't make the cut this year.

The Cookshop & Cookschool at City Square offers monthly hands-on sushi classes and occasionally features sessions on other components of Japanese cooking. Their sushi classes are usually sold out in advance, so I'd recommend checking their online schedule and booking early.

Suburban underrepresentation notwithstanding, I'll be supporting one of my favourite non-Vancouver restaurants by dining at The Pear Tree tomorrow evening.

The Vancouver Courier Friday, March 17 edition Smoky lovin' celebs, Canucks goin' to the Dawg's – Spicy street vendor Aree Rakkiat doles out the works at her celebrated West Broadway hotdog stand. (Michael Kissinger)

The Vancouver Courier Friday, March 17 edition Contests showcase young culinary talents – Industry up-and-comers recently strutted their stuff at The Fetzer Great Beginnings Appetizer Challenge and the Quady Dessert Competition. (Tim Pawsey) Tim Pawsey declares that, "dollar for dollar, [Delilah's] puts some of the best food on the plate anywhere-particularly the large dinner ($38), which competes well with many a more high-profile room."

You know the drill, Abra: ask and ye shall receive!

The Globe and Mail Friday, March 17 edition West Van's adult-only cool – Alexandra Gill tags the Ocean Club successful in "filling a void and attracting all ages, given that tonight's clientele ranges from about 25 to 65..." but won't be rushing back any time soon.

The Vancouver Courier Wednesday, March 15 edition Frenzied wine fest's ups and downs – Tim Pawsey runs through some of the standout bottles from last week's event. The Georgia Straight Thursday, March 16 edition Best Eating: Bottled water creates fountain of bad ideas – "Vancouverites who drink bottled water are idiots," says Frank Tester, "an outspoken tap-water advocate and associate social work professor at UBC, whose research interests range from the Arctic environment to trade with Africa." (Pietra Woolley) Best Eating: Movable feast heralds the Persian New Year – "[T]he Persian New Year is a movable feast that follows the vernal equinox, this year occurring on Monday (March 20) at 10:25:35 a.m. Like most celebrations, it centres on friends, food, and symbols." (Angela Murrills) Uncorked: Township 7 tastes like seventh heaven – "Meandering through a dozen bottles in [Township 7's] present lineup revealed there wasn’t a dud among them. These wines are simply excellent." (Jurgen Gothe) Food of the Week: Saveur – Tickets are still available for Stephane Meyer's Kettle Valley Winery dinner on Tuesday, March 21. (Angela Murrills) Drink of the Week: St. Peter's Honey Porter (Jurgen Gothe) At the Checkout: Mehzabin Patel and Rajwinder Sandhu (Carolyn Ali) Straight Goods: Major buzz – Mipkuzola, a bresaola-type dried meat made from wild Arctic musk ox, is available exclusively at Hills Foods in Coquitlam. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Ink it in – Over 180 restaurants are participating in Dining Out For Life on Thursday, March 23 by donating 25% of food proceeds to A Loving Spoonful and Friends For Life. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Wanna be a chef – RSVP now to attend Northwest Culinary Academy's Open House on Thursday, March 23. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Fine friends[sic] – The annual Blue Mountain and Friends Reception is being held on March 27 at the Pan Pacific Hotel with proceeds benefitting the B.C. Firefighters Burn Fund. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Chipper chow – Good2Go adds two more locations to the tally of Lower Mainland's HMR shops. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: In the pink – "On until month’s end, the inaugural Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival is encouraging picnicking under canopies of pink and white blossoms." (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Thai on the fly – East-side Thai-Away Express is the latest addition to Thai Away Home's family of restaurants. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills)

Filipinos eat pretty much everything mentioned on this thread. This is certainly due in some part to the Chinese influence that has been incorporated into our cuisine; however, there are indigenous recipes that incorporate many of these "weird foods".

Ian's knee-jerk response seemed to be more liquid rather than solid. Oban 12- or 14-year-old scotch. Mount Gay rum and tonic. Stinky-feet blue cheese. Big, musty, dusty cab sauvs. Mouthsuckingly dry dark chocolate in the 75% to 80% range. Sashimi, sushi and sashimi. In that order. Oddly enough, as he gets older, he likes his meat less rare. And, as I get older, I like my meat more rare. Go figure. And he'll pass on the "weird" food too. That's my department.

A quick note in yesterday's edition of The Daily CityFood that Sean Cousins, formerly of RainCity Grill, is now at the helm of Ocean 6 Seventeen. Jeremy Knightly from the Vancouver Club and Virginia Jensen from the restaurant at Mission Hill Winery round out Chef Cousins's BOH crew. Wonder if this staffing change will have any significant impact on the service issues that people have been kvetching about as of late.

I'm never fond of posting about a bad restaurant experience, especially if I've only been there once. However, I think I've dined out enough to know when bad is bad. To me, good ribs mean meat that's tender and nearly falling off the bone, coated with a deep, rich sauce. The ribs that I had at Cameo were nowhere near that: tough, remarkably overcooked meat covered in something reminiscent of shrimp cocktail. I ate 1 1/2 of the 3 ribs that I was served and that was a stretch. Thank goodness I had some steamed broccoli to tide me over nutritionally. Peppyre's chicken jambalaya was served atop mashed potatoes. Far from traditional, but whatever. I won't comment too much on the taste of this dish since I only sampled one small mouthful, but I do remember that the shrimp sitting atop the jambalaya were far from completely thawed. To top it all off, service was very slow even though we were one of only three occupied tables in the restaurant. Peppyre had to get back to work within an hour, and I believe we waited close to 45 minutes before our lunch was served. Would I go back and give it a second chance? Not likely unless I knew that significant changes had been made in the kitchen. Am I being unfair? No, and you'd say the same if you had the same experience that I did.

If it's not for me to say, don't do it, Lorna. Just don't do it. A couple of us took one for the team and tried it out a few weeks ago on a weekday when, unbeknownst to us, Big Al wasn't in the kitchen. Not good.

The Vancouver Courier Friday, March 10 edition Chocolate to die for – Tim Pawsey indulges at Chocoatl, "which is already luring purists from afar for its immense array of Mexican-inspired, delightfully esoteric tastes, many made with infused ingredients-and all with unbridled passion." Wine of the Week – Taylor's 20-Year-Old Tawny Port (Tim Pawsey) The Georgia Straight Thursday, March 9 edition Best Eating: Wedding balls – Angela Murrills finds that "ncounted hours of work, cost, and effort balance against lots of laughter, the continuance of tradition, and the strengthening of family bonds" in the making of ludoos. Uncorked: Agents ride Yellow Tail into happily ever after – Jurgen Gothe chats with one of Vinterra's "partners in wine", the company that "reps the not-so-secret phenom from Australia known as Yellow Tail." Food of the Week: Scones from Angus Bakery and Café (Angela Murrills) Drink of the Week: Bonny Doon Framboise (Jurgen Gothe) Straight Goods: Celtic kicks – Celebrate all that's Irish at CelticFest Vancouver which runs from March 15 to 19. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: California cooks – "The 10th annual California Wine Fair, an Arts Club Theatre fundraiser, celebrates in high style from March 16 to 30..." (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Wholesome foods – "Eating better is just a click away at the Eat Well Guide." (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Talent showdown[sic] – "A trio of B.C.’s [industry] best snapped up provincial awards at the recent Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival." (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Worth the drive – The two-month-old Citroën Coffee House in North Vancouver is "a cool little spot for a java, or soup and a sandwich." (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) Straight Goods: Ethi-opening on Main – "Assefe Kebede, owner of long-time and hugely popular Nyala, opens a sister operation at 4148 Main Street" in mid-March. (Judith Lane and Angela Murrills) The Westender Thursday, March 9 edition (Lifestyles section) Chilly reception at cool Kits wine bar – Andrew Morrison recounts a tale of an uninspired evening at Vintropolis. The Globe and Mail Friday, March 10 edition Hey, Che, it's a new Century – "The restaurant really is gorgeous. The service is excellent. The kitchen shows promise. And eventually, the people will decide if it succeeds or fails. Somehow, I think Che would approve." (Alexandra Gill)

The Vancouver Courier Wednesday, March 8 edition DinnerWorks makes cooking a no-brainer – Tim Pawsey scopes the lay of the land at Vancouver's Home Meal Replacement "equivalent of U-Brew or U-Vin. Somebody else comes up with the ideas, the planning, the expertise, the kitchen-and even the clean-up. All you have to do is commit the time to prepare some or even all of the meals you might need, say, for a two or four week period."

Today's issue of The Daily CityFood notes that: