Ducky

Feel free to spill the beans. So far, the only thing you've offered in this thread is that you "prefer Le Petit Saigon" over Bao Chao. ← I must apologize, sanresho, if occasionally the information contained in my posts is not up to your exacting disclosure standards. I shall try to not let this happen again. The best Pho? I have a recipe which originated with Prof. Tien Huu, who ran a very fine Vietnamese restaurant in Munich for 40 years or so - and I make this regularly. If you PM me I will be happy to share this recipe with you. It makes for the best Pho I have had outside of Vietnam. There are three commercial Pho places here that I like: Kim Phung, Petit Saigon and the little white wooden house on the south side of Kingsway in Burnaby - the name of which always escapes me. That said, I think the Pho scene in Vancouver suffers from the relentless competition to keep prices low. I mean how much artistry can you afford to put into a bowl of soup that sells for $6.00? I would like to see someone take the folks at Kim Phung, put them in some nice and clean premises and get them to focus on high quality ingredients and then have them raise their prices to cover these increased costs. That would result in an awesome Pho. We were in Berlin not long ago and had a stunning Pho Tai at a middle-market Vietnamese restaurant right on the Savigny-platz. It cost Euro 12 (about $15) for a modest size bowl of Pho - but it had a depth of flavour that was outrageous. I have vented about this in other threads - but Vietnamese cuisine in Vancouver suffers from the same low end price competitiveness as Greek cuisine. Indeed I have a killer business plan for a high-end restaurant serving fine Vietnamese and Greek food (two seperate rooms -with a shared kitchen) called "Hanoi - Athens" - but have too many other things on my plate to seriously think about trying to get this off the ground at the moment.

I have a friend who insists on going there from time to time. I have always found the Pho uninteresting - and everything else average. There are certainly better bets for Vietnamese food.

We recently spent a few days behind the tweed curtain - where we ate very well indeed. I can only echo everything said elsewhere about the Brasserie L'Ecole. We ate there three nights in a row - and thought it first rate. Tight menu. Excellent kitchen. Thoughtful and attentive service. Comfortable room. No bullshit whatsoever. Just the way we like it. In the process we discovered the Winchester (Saanich Peninsula) Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Now this is a very small producer - and I fear my wife's copious consumption of this fine wine will make it even more difficult to find in future. To make matters worse, my wife insisted on stopping at the vineyard on the way to the ferry and bought pretty much the rest of their stock. The owners thought some more could be found at Liberty in Vancouver ...but if I know my wife she will be there when these guys open tomorrow. But to food: we also managed one night at the Rosemeade. Yes it was very good - and rather more ambituous food. Dishes such as "a duo of Dungeness crab ravioli and fried soft shell crab on minted green pea mash, preserved lemon and chili oil" and "a duo of grilled chop of suckling pig and braised wild boar belly on a shallot and apple tart tatin" and "morel crusted alberta bison tenderloin on yukon gold potato griddle cakes with rye whisky jus" were brilliantly conceived and expertly executed. Full marks to the kitchen. The service was rather amateurish by contrast - and needs work all around. The Rosemeade dining room is superb but has one stunning and unforgiveable flaw: most every guest gets kneecapped by thoughtlessly designed table legs that have an abundance of sharp edges wherever you choose to put your knees. That said, after the second bottle of Winchester watching people silently scream with pain as they sat down became a rather juvenile pastime for us. Almost like dinner theatre. The Temple, Paprika Bistro and Zambri's I would also highly recommend from previous visits. I believe others have already written extensively about these in the linked threads.

Many thanks for all the helpful replies.

Does anyone have a reliable source for fresh horseradish? The sort of place where, if you have already planned the menu, you can just nip down and be sure they will have some?

A few years ago I was stuck in Hanoi on business. Three weeks in a Korean-owned luxury hotel on the northern fringes of the place. A frightening prospect. One morning, seriously handicapped from the bad sake consumed the night before, I was channel surfing - and there was The Urban Peasant preparing a Salmon Omlette - with Vietnamese subtitles. It was a bit of home. A bit of nostalgia. And for a moment I was a little bit proud. For the next couple of weeks this show became a bright beacon of sorts in the cold, dreary and dark landscape of Hanoi in February. I laughed and cried with the man. I wiped the mustard off his beard. I made excuses not to meet clients when he was on the air. In short I bonded with the man. Full respect old son!

Why is this?

Well, but why, if this is a concern, would you post things you consider to be proprietary or private on a public forum such as this? Surely by posting recipies on eGullet you are putting these into the public domain. Your reward is knowing that your creations are being enjoyed by others. There is some satisfaction to be derived from this - I imagine. But, as a part of this, you must also accept that unscrupulous persons will exploit your recipies for their own gain - simply because you made these accessible to them - and because they can. To claim anything else is a bit like the pop star (I honestly forget her name) whose photographs recently ended up in Penthouse - and who was horrified when an interviewer suggested to her that men might use those photographs to "pleasure themselves". You make your bed - you sleep in it.

Well, here's the thing about IP rights: they apply to everyone irrespective of perceived "level." Danielle Steel's copyrights -- or mine for that matter -- are just as valid as Philip Roth's. ← So who get's to decide who is Haute enough for protection ? Whole new can of worms. ← Why the new Department of Haute Cuisine of course. Part of Homeland Security I think.

That would be a start. You would also need the usual FBI warnings against piracy that you have on your videos and DVD's. These should be printed prominently on your menu. I would also urge you to get each diner to sign a disclaimer to the effect that they will not attempt to recreate any dish that they order. It would of course be sensible to have a Notary Public on hand to legalize the disclaimer.

They work incredibly well - and are far easier to clean.

This is an important point. We need to eat to live. Only the most narcissistic of chefs could seriously maintain his creations should have some sort of protection as intellectual property. Good God, are our heads that far up our collective bums? Someone also made the art/craft distinction upthread. Articulating what that distinction is will of course open an enormous can of worms - but I think that most thinking people have a sense for the difference. The preparation of food will for me always be a craft - not an art - and as such not a proper subject for intellectual property protection. I suppose reasonable men could differ on this point. Actually, I take that back: reasonable men could not differ on this.

But here we have real artistry being ripped off and not attributed, and that's wrong. ← I agree with the sentiment behind this statement - but always have difficulty with arguments that ultimately rely on moral positions taken by one party or the other. Perhaps this is because I have such notoriously loose morals myself. I guess the real question is whether the current lack of legal protection for culinary creativity is just fine, or whether this should be changed and if so, how? I personally think that any move in this latter direction falls into the "too hard" basket. It is not worth the effort and would result in all manner of absurdities. The law is already enough of an ass.

Well we see this a little differently. When I copy a cookbook and publish it as my own I am in the same position as if I copy John Grisham and publish this as my own. This is both plagiarism and violation of copyright. I am plagiarising the writer - and violating his copyright in the intellectual property that comprises the printed media. The law recognizes violation of copyright in the case of printed media. However the law does not recognize violations of culinary creativity. If Chef A cooks a Coq au Vin, and Chef B deconstructs this and cooks it himself, this violates nothing unless Chef B "passes off" his Coq au Vin as having been prepared by Chef A. This also illustrates the essential difference between passing off and plagiarism: In the case of the former you are passing off your own as being someone elses - while in the latter you are claiming someone elses as your own. In theory the law should reflect social policy. In the past, certainly, intellectual property law largely ignored culinary creativity - presumeably on the basis that in our society culinary imitation is a good thing. How else, after all, do people learn to cook? I think this is a good thing. Any other approach leads to absurd results. If I copy the serve of a particular tennis pro - should this be actionable? If my mechanic tunes my Ferrari by copying the technique of the factory's master mechanic - should this be actionable? At my wife's hair salon the hairdresser often has a page from a glossy magazine on his dresser table and slavishly copies a particular look. Should this be actionable? I personally think there are far too many lawyers in the world already - and I used to be one as well. I would hate to give these guys any excuse to proliferate by litigating culinary creativity.

My point is that unless there is a breach of a legal right - there will be no legal remedy for the person being "plagarized". The concept of "plagarism" implies the breach of a legal right - for which there is a legal remedy. If this is not the case, this is not plagarism - but merely imitation or "research". Think about it: How absurd would things be if culinary style and presentation were granted legal protection. Who would judge this? Who would enforce this? Think of the idiotic lawsuits? And where would we draw the line on this kind of thing? If I tell a fine original joke at dinner, and one of my guests repeats this the following day with great success, do I sue him? Rightly or wrongly (I think rightly) culinary creativity is not protected under intellectual property rules except to the extent genuinely proprietary formulae are involved (eg. eleven secret herbs and spices or the Coca Cola formula etc). Under the circumstances there is also no ethical issue involved in copying someone elses culinary creation - or if there is, it is one so minor as to not warrant any legal recognition.

To plagiarize is, per Merriam-Webster or most any other dictionary, to steal and pass off the ideas of another as one's own. It is fraud. ← No - not on your facts. If I copy someones particularly successful wardrobe am I committing satorial plagiarism? Perhaps - but so what? Does the person whose wardrobe I shamelessly copied have any legal remedies for my satorial plagiarism? No. Is this fraud? No. "Passing off" (to which you refer) is not fraud - but rather a legal concept designed to prevent one person from misrepresenting his or her goods or services as having some association or connection with those of another when in fact they do not. So if Chef A copies a dish of Chef B, Chef A could only be credibly accused of passing off if, at the very least, he holds out his dish as having been created by Chef B - when in fact it was not. Even if Chef A does hold out that his dish is one concocted by Chef B (when it was not) Chef B would still not have a proper passing off claim against Chef A unless Chef B could also demonstrate that he has suffered a financial loss because Chef A passed off his concoctions as being those of Chef B. All of this is of course highly implausible on the facts you have provided. So this is not fraud. It is not passing off. It is perhaps rather simply an example of the old saw that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". All first year law students learn the Latin maxim "des minimis non curat lex" - or "the law does not concern itself with trifles". And that is as it should be.

And wasn't it Kierkegaard who remarked "If you steal from one source it's plagarism - but if you steal from several it's research."

We are hosting a dinner for some senior Norwegian oil executives next week. Discrete inquiries by my secretary have revealed that the Chairman's favouite dish is a Lutefisk Pie. Does anyone have any idea what this is? If so can you point me to a recipe?

I think Pan has it largely right. It makes little sense to sugarcoat in a forum such as this. What is the point in that? And everyone ought to be a little more robust and not constantly get their knickers in a twist about every little critcism. That said, we owe it to each other to try to be fair and truthful in our comments. I too take no particular view of the Rare review. It does seem to me though that the more a restauranteur chooses to play to an on-line community such as this in the manner that the owners of Rare have chosen to do - the more they should gird their loins for commentary of all kinds. EGullet is and should remain a broad church that encourages a diversity of views - not sycophancy. The mantra is "eat chew discuss" - not "eat chew brown-nose".

Well...if you don't know B.C. and are contemplating only 3 days in the Okanagan, 3 days in Whistler and 4 days Vancouver and Vancouver Island - then yes 3 days in Whistler are too much - relatively speaking. I mean there really is not that much to do in Whistler for 3 days in mid-summer (despite what the Tourist Board will have you believe) - and 4 days for Vancouver and Vancouver Island is ridiculously brief. So yes, I would cut down Whistler to 1 day (or skip it altogether) and add the extra days to your Vancouver and Vancouver Island stay.

There's something terribly arbitary about these polls. Like an uninformed vote is arguably a greater travesty in the democratic process than no vote at all. Surely this exercise could only be potentially meaningful if the votes are from discerning diners who have repeatedly (or at least more than once) eaten at all the eligble restaurants in each category in which they are voting. And how likely is that. Whatever.

I have a good friend who is devoted to all things Tibetan and she swears by the Lhasa Moon Tibetan Cookbook. I have been the beneficiary of her cooking from this book - and it was always tasty - and certainly far better than anything I ever ate in Tibet.

I think this was incorrectly reported. The place at 4th and Vine was doing a brisk trade an hour or so ago.

I gather the rather faux Irish place on Broadway (just east of Alma) will be pushing the boat out a bit.

Yes, Merlin is right: Dock 503 is the place. A really very exceptional little place right on the water with superb food. It's the kind of restaurant I wish we had in Vancouver. Check out the website Merlin mentions for details.