lauraf

You'll do great Laura! I entered the class pretty green. My knife was SO blunt too! My god did I butcher that first tomato. They even help you learn how to properly sharpen your knives. You will quickly discover just how laid back and unhostile the environment is. And the helpers are wonderful...you just wisper to them stuff like 'uhh what the hell is Chiffonade?' and they secretly show you to protect your pride P.S. I found a beginners glossary of cooking terms (as you can see from the site name I truly am the eGullet Geek for the vancouver chapter) ← Okay, I'm not THAT bad! Though bake blind is a new terminology to me . . .

Okay, I did it! I'm in for the January start. Promise now not to laugh at my knife skills. I'm so bad I don't even have an inkling what I am doing wrong.

Who else is signed up for the January course? I'm thinking of signing up . . . do I dare? You'll laugh at my profound ineptitude . . .

Moosh, the last time I was there a year ago they still were very accommodating of cigar smokers - and Little Frog, several of them were women, so you'll fit right in!

Laura, In a bid to keep the peace, Mum used to roast extra drumsticks so that our turkeys loooked as though they'd wandered in from the Love Canal. But a more recent solutions for the stuffing dilemma? Two turkeys. One for dinner, one for sandwiches. From the latter, decant the extra stuffing into two bowls, yes, one for extra that night, and one (well hidden), for the sandwiches. ← Jamie: There are some who argue - in fact, I think a food columnist from Vancouver Magazine once did - that the turkey should not be stuffed, but rather dressing should be prepared ins a separate casserole and basted with turkey drippings. I LOVE the stuffing from inside the bird, and like to use all the drippings for a mean gravy - again, always fearful of the second most cruel disappointment at Thanksgiving - NOT ENOUGH GRAVY.

Why is it, that every Thanksgiving dinner I have ever been to or hosted, there is NEVER ENOUGH STUFFING? It's cruel.

I heard a lot of industry people go to Fiction.

We welcomed our new publisher to Vancouver last night with a dinner at Bogart's. When they first opened up, the food was quite middling, but I must tell you, their food is now fabulous! Nothing terribly exotic, but good, clean cooking and wide menu choices. I had a chicken breast stuffed with chevre served with a savoury bread pudding and green beans. Others raved about the seared Ahi Tuna with avocado and citrus sauce, the Baby Back Ribs, and the Tenderloin. The appies are great nibblers, - prawn & scallop cake, tuna carpaccio, steak frittes, garlic/lime calamari - and are half-price from 3-7pm Monday-Friday, plus martinis are only $5 all night. This will be my hockey bar. (Disclosure: I work with them. But they really are very good.)

Well to be honest, once was for drinks and light snacks, once for brunch, once a late night nosh after the football game. So really we only had a real dinner there four times in two weeks. That sounds better, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

If they got rid of the Guyere soup, the world would suddenly become a more dismal place. But I agree that having specials is good! Right now I'm still working through the menu so I don't mind not having them just yet ← And likely the rest of the normal people in the city are also working their way through the very lovely menu of a brand new place, unlike us who are clearly obsessive-compulsive freaks with addictive tendencies. I doubt many people are lobbying for specials already! Ignore me, Leonard, really.

When every other meal is at the same restaurant, they better introduce something to keep the streak alive. I recall on my opening night a customer asked if we had a special sheet ! My response was it was his first visit and my first night so everything was special ! ← Well, we likely won't maintain our recent dining habits as we are running out of money! But while keeping favourites on a menu is great - damn you Sean Sherwood, for eliminating the roast turkey sandwich! - and certainly if Nu got rid of their Gruyere soup, the marrow bones, or 'signature' items like the chicken wings I'd be disappointed, but new items to keep a menu fresh is something I welcome at our regular haunts.

Question for the Nu team: Granted, my husband and I have been to Nu, oh, I'd say, seven times in the past two weeks - yes, it's that good and the parking is sweet - plus I'm reading about everyone else's experiences here. Anyway, I am feeling an overfamiliarity with the menu, which is not exactly a bad thing because everything we've had has been dreamy and I think I could eat there for the rest of my life, but wondering if daily specials will be introduced, seasonal tasting menus, a different menu for lunch vs. dinner? And question to the masses: is it necessary for restaurants to offer specials/seasonal menus/frequent changes to keep regulars coming back?

When we were there last weekend, Assistant Manager/Bar Manager Sean Clendenning was keeping things running very smoothly - no qualms at all about the service. Not sure about the sommelier though . . .

At a BC Wine Institute function this summer they announced - I think - that 20% of wine consumed by British Columbians is BC produced. Anyone else recall that?

I never saw the front garden originally - this was our first visit - but what they've done with it is gorgeous. Huge slabs of marble for the tables, everything very clean, serene. Ummm, that's all I can report on, due to the - original subject of this thread - amazing martinis.

I understand there is some connection between the new partners involved in Kei's Dining Lounge and Zest, the newish Japanese restaurant on W. 16th, and Yuji's Tapas on W. 4th. Anyone know more?

We had an outstanding meal on Thursday night, the night after they opened. The spinach veloute with chevre foam was, as Jamie mentioned, outstanding. And while they were only half full, the service didn't miss a beat, and Minna was as ever the charming hostess. We will be back, frequently.

We had a fabulous meal - and excellent 'martinis' at Ch'i on Saturday. It's at Nanaimo and East 2nd, previously uncharted territory for this Kits girl. Man, does it ever look like it belongs in Yaletown (though the rent would be quadruple). Gorgeous open room, beautiful patio with marble tables, Vietnamese-influenced French cooking. Great sharing plates or individual entrees. If you wanted to try something off the beaten path.

Memo, I'm totally with you on this one. Although my egullet posts have typos in them - the font is so dang small on my computer! - I am a spelling freak in my other life and read papers with a red pen in hand. But, I must say, Eat is still way better that City Food on the typographical errors - or at least it seems so to me.

Fist, a big thank you to Leonard, Edwyn, and Jay, Giovanni and Linda behind the bar for a fantastic introduction to Nu last night. I rarely give detailed food reviews, verbal or written, for three main reasons: 1) I don't make notes, trusting instead my steel-trap memory, a decision that at the time is usually informed by martini consumption, which also leads to significantly dulled recall the next day. 2) I know what I like but make little pretention to know how to review food or decor in a meaningful way and often have little to say except that 'it was good'. 3) am hesitant to broadcast my honest views about establishments which I may inevitably call upon as an advertising account. But! I emerged triumphant last night with notes galore, worthy comments whirling in my head, and a resulting impression that, honestly delivered, I doubt will bias the restaurant against me in any negative way. (Plus, I don't actually work with them anyway.) We decided to forgo our table reservation in favour of the bar, now properly positioned so that, as Giovanni put it, the patrons, rather than the bar staff, get to enjoy the platinum view of False Creek. Indeed, the whole transformation of the room from its previous incarnation was clearly a well-conceived, laborious, but ultimately impressive success. I was poured a beautiful martini while being told about the 'tentacle' problem of the bar - must have been thinking too much about sister restaurant's signature octopus bacon, as I finally realized he was describing the 'technical' problem of repositioning the bar against the expanse of glass facing the water - there is no underground plumbing, so everything, including bar taps, is piped in from above, and even the bottle racks are lazy susans suspended from the ceiling. We were served complimentary sumac-spiced crisps - the 'non-fatal' version of sumac, I was assured, a decision that I assured them would definitely help for repeat business. Keeping Andrew M's recommendation of the Liquid Cheddar Filled Crackers in mind, we ordered that, the Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Wings, Roasted Bone Marrow and the Crimini Mushroom and Brie Pithiviers with Asparagus. The Crackers were the first to arrive, five whimiscal little pockets lined up oozing with aged white cheddar, and topped with a small oblong of thick bacon. Surprising but unpretentious, perfect mouth poppers. Then the Mushroom and Brie Pithiviers - essentially a puff pastry fiiled with crimini mushrooms and melting brie, atop five perfectly cooked spears of green asparagus and drizzled with a creamy mushroom reduction. Without the sauce, it would have been very good but unremarkable - the sauce was an essential component to elevate this beyond standard brie-in-puff-pastry purgatory. When our astute bar staff noticed that my husband had managed to score most of the reduction on his plate and I was not very discreetly swiping his plate with my fork, I was served a side bowl of the deeply flavoured mushroom sauce. I ended up spooning it into my mouth alone - while too rich to serve as a whole bowl of soup, it would make a beautiful amuse bouche on its own in a little espresso cup with a bit of garnish of some sort. My partner insisted on trying the Bone Marrow - two pieces of veal bones with the marrow removed, mixed with - oh dang, forgot to write it down! . . . I remember bread crumbs being part of it . . . and stuffed back in. We used little spoons to scoop out the marrow mixture - intense flavour, thick, fatty mouthfeel. It would have been overwhelming on its own, but was perfectly paired with juliennes of crisp green apple and leaf parsley that cut through the fat and offered a nice acidic counterpart. And if we had a dog, we would have bagged the bones to take home. Finally, the Chicken Wings. Not wings at all, it seemed, but drummettes served with a hands-friendly stripped bone a la rack of lamb. To be honest, by this time I had eaten, let's see, um, cheese with bacon, cheese with mushroom cream sauce, and animal bone fat, so the next combination of cheese and chicken wasn't received with as much salivary glee as if it has been my first course. Nevertheless, the combination of the smooth and tangy goat cheese with the tenderness of the chicken meat and the Basque-region chili-and-vinegar marinade was a winner. Too full to contemplate diving into the main plates, we opted instead to finish off with a light dessert - the lemon tart was our pick. It arrived hand in hand with a complimentary serving of the chocolate mousse - thank you Leonard! - both accompanied with fresh blackberries and a berry compote. Throughout our meal, we watched as the bar staff maintained a smoothly kinetic control over the serious mixology their drinks required. The bar was stocked with fresh fruits (including half a whole watermelon), herbs and syrups to be mixed, muddled and shaken into gold-rimmed glasses. The commitment to taking a serious culinary approach to cocktails was reflected by the fact the drinks were mixed not on a stainless steel counter, but a professional kitchen-sized wooden cutting board. Nice touch. At 8:30pm, the lights went down, the music up, and inside and out it looked and felt like a hip private lounge, serving really, really good food. The lack of signage out front - which at first occurred to me to be an unfinished design component - started to seem like a good thing.

There's a restaurant on the North side of Broadway East of Arbutus, I think it's called Accents. In the years I've been driving Broadway I have yet to see a human being enter or exit. Anyone actually been inside? Eaten there?

yeah, heard that too - SOB! it was really handy when debarking from the B-line to walk home. When I spoke to one of the clerks there, they only got 2 weeks notice and didn't even know where they'll be working afterwards. Now I gotta join the masses at the Arbutus location. Oh well, at least the selection is relatively much better. ← Dude, my office is right above the store - they know me by name. Slow Friday afternoon in ad sales? The VanMag reps are boozin' at the office. We're going to have to call Dial-A-Bottle now.

After I posted a query about Westside/downtown brunch spots, (would indicate the thread HERE but that is beyond my technological savvy - open to an egullet website skills tutorial ) we were referred to Adesso at Yew and 1st. We've been back three times. Their smoked salmon eggs benny is a delight - fresh smoked salmon slices, nicely crisped muffin, tangy, lemony hollandaise, nice pan-fried potatoes. I'm too busy licking the hollandaise off my plate to ask hubby if he likes his omelettes, but since he lets me drag him back there they must be good. And the staff greeted us very graciously despite us arriving in sweatpants the first time!

If you're staying in Shaughnessy, what about the Tomato Cafe on Cambie? Casual, kid friendly, fresh ingredients, lots of variety. Better option that the Milestones/Earls chain-restaurant thing.

Okay, maybe this needs to be a new thread, but since we're talking about local culinary inventions, what's up with the Nanaimo bar? My cousin from Toronto was here, and as we were driving around the city she went - "weird, they named a street after a dessert." I proudly told here that the dessert was named after the island city, but doubted my own words. Is it named after the city? Where'd it orginate anyway?