Ducky

Melted honey, warm bourbon and some orange zest. A killer glaze. Also if you can get hold of a hypodermic needle from your local doctor - inject the ham as deep as you can in a number of places with a little bourbon - before you put it into a hot oven for glazing. I first tasted this at a friends home in Arkansas many years ago and this method has become a firm favourite in my circle of friends.

Here's my stupid question: Friends of ours just brought us a whole damn wheel of Parmesan Cheese from Italy. It is roughly the same size as the wheels on our SUV and will take us forever to eat. What is the best way to keep it in the interim? It would take up too much room in the refrigerator. Can it be frozen? How about the wine cellar - which we keep at 55 degrees F? Any thoughts?

Singapore's Changi airport has some great restaurants. A brilliant Chinese restaurant in the old terminal for example - and a very good Sushi bar one level up. London Heathrow has a very fine stand in the concourse that serves smoked salmon, crab, prawns and champagne. Terminal A or possibly B in Frankfurt has a brilliant fine dining restaurant somewhere on the top floor. I was introduced to this by an insider - as it is very diffciult to find - though it is open to the public and has splendid views of the runways. Just ask around Cathay Pacific's Business Lounge at Chep Lep Kok in Hong Kong is very hard too beat if you have the magic card to get in. Great wine selction and finger food gratis. There was a Wolfgang Puck at O'Hare the last time I was there - doing very nice little snacks and a decent wine selection.

Many thanks for these helpful posts.

We are spending five days in Savannah beginning the end of next week and would appreciate any leads to restaurants and bars that combine good local atmosphere with good local food. These do not need to be "fine dining" restaurants - though they might be - but should in any case be establishments to which locals would go for good, honest and authentic southern cuisine. Restaurants within a 50 mile radius of Savannah would also be of interest. We have wheels and are prepared to travel.

Chef Koo: Others have made the point but there is nothing dishonest about a pizza sous-chef leaving his employer and setting up shop across the street - no more than a mechanic who leaves his employer to set up a garage across the street or a lawyer who leaves a law firm to join a competitor. This is the very nature of free enterprise.

In Hong Kong, in the mid 1980's, a story appeared in the South China Morning Post that may be appropriate in this thread. An English solicitor (working in Hong Kong), his wife and their terrier spent a long Sunday afternoon walking in the hills in the New Territories behind Kowloon - as English expatriates in Hong Kong are wont to do. On the way back to their home on Hong Kong island that evening they stopped for dinner at a small restaurant on the Kowloon side. Mr. & Mrs Solicitor ordered their meals by pointing at the English translations on the Chinese menu - there being no commonality of language between Mr & Mrs S. and either their server or anyone else in the restaurant in which they had chosen to dine. The terrier was thirsty, and Mr. S, in full mime mode after ordering the menu, got the waiters attention and alternately pointed at the terrier - and then his own mouth - intending to convey the notion that the dog was thirsty. The waiter, ever solicitous, nodded his understanding and beckoned the terrier to follow him into the kitchen for some water. Mr & Mrs S. meanwhile got stuck into their frosty Tsingtao's. As is often the case in Hong Kong, Mr. & Mrs. S had a long and splendid dinner, consuming far too much food and drink. When they went to pay the cheque and inquired after their dog .... well, and no surprises here, it turned out that they had consumed their dog at some point between the steamed garoupa and the water convolvulus sauteed in garlic. Now this tale has since assumed the status of an urban legend in Hong Kong - but I can attest to reading the original article in the SCMP when it first appeared - although, it has to be said, the SCMP has about the same reporting standards as our very own "Province".

This is a brilliant thread - which I discovered too late to participate. One question: Are there some conclusions about braising of general application that could be made after all these experiments? Or is the conclusion that the vagaries of equipment, cuts of meat and method make it difficult to formulate any conclusions of general application?

This may be more east than south - but we have had many excellent meals at the Bacchus Bistro at the Chaberton winery in Langley. The kitchen has been consistently good on our visits. The mussels, the duck - infact just about everything on the menu is always perfect. Of course this is French country cooking with nothing shi shi or Yaletown about it - as will be immediately evident from faux French countryside ambience. Just simple food expertly prepared. I did hear just a few days ago that the owners have sold the vineyard and the business - but that the kitchen would remain unchanged for the time being. Very well worth a visit.

In the early 1970's I think it was we had an NDP premier, Mr. Barrett, who went on a fact finding mission to Europe and was so impressed with people eating and drinking al fresco, that upon his return immediate legislative steps were taken to liberalize the liquor laws with a view to encouraging outdoor dining and drinking. This must surely be a milestone and a bellwether - and perhaps more than any other one thing helped this town to shake up the very stuffy fine dining scene that was then part of its Scots/Presbytarian past. The same Mr. Barrett outlawed pay toilets in BC - and for these two initiatives alone he derves to be richly remembered.

We used to live not far fom the Blinde Kuh in Zurich. This started out as a high concept restaurant along the lines that someone already mentioned (i.e. eating in pitch darkness was somehow intended to heighten the experience of taste - though this always struck me as extremely silly). We haven't eaten there in years, but the restaurant still exists and I am reliably informed that it is now doing a brisk trade with teenagers who are able to grope each other in the dark with impunity. From high concept to very low concept.

In France this sort of thing is a common occurrance. The celler is robbed, often only the bad wine disappears, and the insurance company pays. In French there is an expression for this game which loosely translates as "refreshing the cellar". (Perhaps a better Francophile than I can help with this.) I am of course not for a moment suggesting that this ocurred at the BFB. I am rather just describing a phenomenon that, to my understanding, is quite common in the industry.

Yes the fisherman in Steveston seem to be legit - but the guys at Granville Island appear to be imposters. The Seven Seas at 4th and Vine has been a reliable fishmonger over many years - though they are no cheaper than Granville Island.

Last time we were at Go Fish we watched with some astonishment as a reefer truck with a Surrey address on the side pulled up and began delivering boxes of frozen fish to the boats selling fish at the so called "Fisherman's Wharf". So don't think the stuff you buy there is caught by the people that sell it to you. Yet another illusion shattered.

Boston Pizza? Hoz's Pub? Blacks? What have you been smoking?

I see from the sign that the former Les Deux Gros has re-opened as Les Gros - after being the Jade somethingorother for a year or so - and I also heard that Pascal (sp?) is back as owner/chef. Has anyone eaten there?

I have bought these at the Parthenon on West Broadway some time ago - when they had them in bulk. I have also bought them packaged in a sealed plastic pouch at Urban Fare.

I think it is very difficult to say anything definitive in reply on this thread, but as a previous very frequent visitor Down Under my very impressionistic view is that Australian cuisine and the Australian wine industry are both more highly evolved than their counterparts in BC. They have simply been at it much longer - so this stands to reason. I think the Aussies were even ahead of the Californians in exploiting the whole Asian cornucipia in their fusion styles. And of course the Aussies began to pay high respect to their celebrity chefs when we were still eating Calamari at Orestes. This is not a criticism - but IMO it will take another generation or so for our cuisine to really mature - before we produce our Donna Hays and Neil Perrys and have the breadth and depth of good local cuisine that you find in, say, Sydney. Undoubtedly there is some brilliant cooking happening here - but it's early days.

Kedah House is on Fraser Street - just south of 41st Avenue. Be forewarned though that it is often full.

You are right mangez. I neglected to mention the Hainanese Chicken in my previous post on the Cafe D'Lite (thanks also for the corrceted spelling). Everything that comes out of this kitchen appears to be astonishingly good and good value. Another little jewel of a restaurant that deserves mention in this thread is The Kedah House. Very fine and authentic Malaysian food at moderate cost. Just as the Cafe D'Lite is a tiny family run place that serves Singaporean favourites done to perfection and is always packed with Singaporeans - so The Kedah House is tiny and serves excellent Malaysian food to a packed house of Malaysians.

Sushi King is at 63rd (or 62nd) and Granville. You can often find the JAL flight crew getting their sushi fix there before the long flight home - which in itself is an endorsement of sorts. There's also a branch on East Boulevard near 41st. There may be more.

It's difficult to imagine more bang for a small buck than the pho at Kim Phung. However I would rate the Seafood Laksa, (at $7.00) at the Cafe Delite a very close second - and certainly the best I have had on this side of the pond. They also do a brilliant Nasi Lemak with coffee - which, as old south-east Asia hands will tell you, is one of the finer hangover breakfasts. The Sushi King is also a fine example of value for money. Consistently fresh and large portions of sushi at ridiculously low prices - even if this is somewhat artlessly prepared.

In Hanoi, just a few years ago, there used to be a restaurant behind the Sofitel that had a sign in the window advertising a dish called "The Fish That Found Immortality in the Oven". I walked past this sign a dozen time before deciding to give it a whirl with a friend of mine. It turned out to be a large (about 20 inches long) freshwater fish that looked like a carp - which was deepfried only from the gills to the tail, and then served standing up on the plate with its stomach side down. The waiter artfully carved slices off the back end of the fish at our table, while the the uncooked head stared at us with the gills and mouth opening and closing for the entire 30 minutes or so that the damn thing was on our table. The fish was very good though - and I can only hope that it really did find immortality.

As a new member I have 127 to add to the total.