flowbee

I just went to Save-On at Metrotown. Selection was so-so. But I did find enough for a present. Got doubles so that I could try some too. Opened up one sauce tonight to go with our homemade yakitori: Tiger Sauce. It's got the neato tiger on the label. Pretty good! Almost sweet 'n sour type sauce. Very mild, but still tasty. I'll have to try Lougheed Save-On to see if they have more

Hope this hasn't been asked already upthread, but where in Vancouver (or surrounding area) can I find the biggest, most exotic selection of hot sauces? Stuff like "Ass Kickin", "Fear Itself", "Denzel's", etc. It's going to be a gift (although I'll probably scoop up a few bottles for myself). There was this great hot sauce specialty store in Toronto, which also carried various infused olive oils. I got some ultra-spicy peanuts there for my brother-in-law, and he loved them! The nuts were called "Acid Rain". Anybody know of a hot sauce specialty store around here?

i love blue cheese on steak...i wonder if anyone would serve a blue cheese burger?

interesting... when we had it on W. 4th, the girl there said to shake up our bottle to get it all mixed up, but because it's carbonated we have to wait a few minutes for it to settle before opening, or else it would spray everywhere.

LordBalthazar, if i remember correctly, we were there with a bunch of friends, some of whom parked in the hotel parking lot and one of the servers there said "yeah, it's fine to park there". It's a Howard Johnsons now...I miss "Biltmore"

touché! i don't disagree with you in the least i'm open to anything, and i don't reject trying anything based on concept alone. but if i taste something and don't like it...it's certainly fair to say so, right? but as always, ymmv the drink was carbonated AND salty...plus watery in consistency. furthest thing from mango lassi and YOP that i can think of. the product is actually produced locally, which i thought was strange because the girl at the counter said that it's from Persia. i really tried to enjoy it with my meal...but it was way beyond "palate cleansing".

we ate at a similar place on West 4th...i think it had the same name too. probably a chain. anyways, we tried this "yoghurt" drink but we were expecting sweet yoghurt, not SALTY yoghurt! ugggghhh, we could only drink 1/4 of the bottle. bleaaach! on the other hand, the food was quite nice. we had the ground meat kabobs. we liked how they cooked the kabobs to order. the saffron rice was a nice touch too, although i think most of it is food colouring with a hint of saffron

May or may not be related to this labour shortage issue: I have a distant relative that worked as a line cook at places like C and Rugby, and he said that the majority of kitchen staff get paid minimum wage. This was even after going to cooking school and stuff. I got the impression that the reason was that if the cook didn't like it, they could leave and there would be a lineup of 20 people waiting to take his place. Is this accurate? Is it even true? He told me this at least a couple years ago, so maybe the tide has shifted...

i'm not an expert nor a farmer, so i may be wrong...but i don't think you can get free range chickens BIG because they're free range. the reason conventional (factory farm) chickens are so large is because they're plumped up on purpose (and hence really fatty) with a combination of drugs, injections, special feed, etc. Free range birds get a lot of exercise and get fed better food so they turn out smaller and leaner -- but tastier! that's my non-expert opinion, informed by eating both kinds of birds and watching a few disturbing documentaries on chicken farming. btw, my family likes buying whole free range birds from this place near Bridgeport and Sweden Way in Richmond, it's behind the Home Depot/Futureshop area... I've seen them at Chinese markets as well, they come whole with the feet and head still attached, wrapped in a dodgy plastic bag...and they do look a bit scrawny... we cook it "bak jam guy" style: dunk into boiling water, turn off the heat and cover. let cook until the blood's all gone. serve with a dipping sauce made with chopped ginger, salt and oil.

last fall i tried these new apples at GI. they were called "mutsu"...they were heavenly! gosh tasted the best in sept/oct... by dec/jan they were tasting mealy one of my favourite snack/meals is to buy some ready-to-eat sausages, some crusty bread and beer and just sit down on the couch and munch and drink. my favourite ready-to-eat sausages from GI are the double-smoked polish (or were they hungarian?) sausages. i know landjaeger are getting really popular, and i see them everywhere, but i much prefer the richer taste of the double-smoked. that specialty cheese/sausage shop at GI is crazy! i can never decide what to get! any other sausage-heads out there who can recommend some other types of sausage?

Recharge your taco high by visiting The Great Taco Hunt. Soooo jealous of SoCal right now

I wandered over to Chilo's just now and had a taco. It was just the wife there today. She said they opened "around 2". Looks like eatvancouver just missed them lax hours...how mexican can you get?

lol, I should totally wear a bandage around my head next time I go to an AYCE...sorta like how japanese people tie a thing around their head when they're really concentrating on something (according to the movies and anime i've seen). We can call it the AYCE Gluttony Bandage.

Samosa Garden. I remember back when they didn't do buffet, and the food was really good. We've been there a couple times for the buffet and it's fine. They definitely tone down the hotness though We always leave stuffed--I guess that's the point of buffet (There's a korean restaurant, Da Rae Oak, right next door to Samosa Garden. Not buffet, but pretty good korean food a la carte.)

i'm so glad you guys had good experiences there. now, i just wish they'd make tripa tacos

A few ppl in this thread mentioned The Reef on Main, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I love Caribbean food, and my favourite dish has to be goat curry roti. So I ordered an Ackee & Saltfish and a Goat Roti to go. Can't have Caribbean food without sauces! Flowshe got these sauces for me when she went to St. Lucia for a work trip. I'm still figuring out what to do with the "Green Seasoning". I love passion fruit bubble tea and stuff, but the passion fruit sauce I find kinda weird on food. The "West Indian Hot Sauce" is a mustard-based sauce similar the Grace brand "Caribbean Style Hot Pepper Sauce" that you can find at Superstore. The Barons is a little thicker than the Grace brand. These kinds of mustard-based hot sauces taste awesome on pizza! The "Frootsy Hot Pepper Sauce" is a papaya-based sauce, so it's a little more fruity/sweet, but not overly so. It packs quite a punch, like the other ones. Too bad I've never seen Frootsy brand for sale in Vancouver. Well, here's the roti cut open...I don't like The Reef's style of roti. I much prefer the classic roti with the ground chickpea layered inside. This stuff was quite thick and reminded me of gingerbread(!?). The goat curry itself was kinda salty as well...probably a bit too salty for my taste. I've already carved off a 1/2 lb pile of dry roti...too much roti, not enough curry I try the Frootsy sauce to see if it can make the roti taste better...it's ok. The mustard-based sauce rocks with goat curry though. But still, the saltiness is getting to me. So I turn to the Ackee & Saltfish. It's quite tasty, albeit on the salty side as well. You really need to eat a lot of rice with it to balance out the saltiness (I guess that's why it's called "saltfish"?). The ackee is good, although it was my first time trying ackee so I don't know if it's the same kind of canned ackee you can buy at Superstore or what. The pieces of ackee remind me of micro-sized durian pieces. The dish is good, just not enough rice to go with all the salty ackee & saltfish. I've finished my beer already! This stuff is salty! I'm in no hurry to go back to The Reef. On the whole it was too salty, and I really didn't dig the way they do the roti. I suppose some of their other dishes might be quite good, but I'll probably be returning to Jamaican Pizza Jerk on Commercial for my next crucial Caribbean food fix (they serve calalloo there...Flowshe's favourite!). I certainly miss Roti Bistro on W. 4th and Nice 'n Spicy on Broadway though... Can't wait for Caribbean Days festival in North Van! Next Caribbean restaurant on my list: Taste Nice in Surrey?

flowbee's kim phung visit Gotta love that "open" sign. It screams out "we've got hot food for your hungry belly!" We've been to Kim Phung a few times, and have been happy about the food every time. That's "flowshe" opening the door. We order 3 things: pho, bun bo hue (spicy pork feet noodle soup) and the beef stew. We get a dish of the accoutrements, which includes shredded banana blossom to go into the bun bo hue. It's usually a good sign that the bun bo hue will at least be satisfactory, if the restaurant goes to the trouble of providing shredded banana blossom. There was also some other shredded stuff that looked like green shredded banana blossom, but I don't think it was...might've been shredded cabbage?? Not sure... Yay, I got pork blood! Yum. It's pretty good for restaurant bun bo hue. I can tell that it's not just pho soup with chili oil added (some lazy places do that). My mother-in-law's bun bo hue is still the best though Pho comes and right away something doesn't look right. The broth is really dark. It's supposed to be clear (or close to it). The look on flowshe's face is not good We taste it, and it's a bit heavy on the star anise flavour. My guess is that it's the bottom-of-the-pot broth. Ah well, still tastes ok. Disaster averted. Lucky I didn't have to bring it up with the staff...I don't deal with confrontation very well, especially in restaurants. Beef stew time! It's not bad here. The soup part is "watery", which is the style. It's got some beef tendon in it as well, so that was a nice surprise. The beef brisket is juicy and tender. It tastes very good dipped into the black pepper/lemon paste. The bread is the same kind of french bread you get at most banh mi places. The stew could've been a little more richer tasting, but it was acceptable. All in all a good visit. Will probably go again next time a pho craving hits...

Nato are fermented soy beans. They're whole beans that are fermented and come out all sticky and gooey. You're supposed to stir it up with chopsticks before you eat it, to increase the amount of gooey sticky threads. An acquired taste I almost like it...I buy it frozen in little individual serving-sized trays from Asian markets.

lol@buffet postings competitive eating in polite society? re: Tomokasu I usually groan (inside) at the mention of AYCE japanese whenever out-of-town friends come in. But I put on a brave face and went to Tomokasu last year, and it was actually not too bad. Impressive selection of fish for an AYCE....we even had geoduck etc. But truth be told, I'd still rather pay the same (maybe a little more) and get better quality at Shiro, Toshi, Ajisai or even my friendly neighbourhood Takara-Bune. I've had way too much Granville Sushi...not even Tomokasu can convert me to an AYCE-lover.

I second Burgers Etc!

Not sure if this has been mentioned already in other threads, but there's a phrase in cantonese which is "bun dahn" which means (according to my crappy chinese) "stupid egg". And it's used just the way it sounds: "you stupid egg!" Commonly used by parents referring to their children. And my wife used to get insulted as a kid about her face being "like a bun behw", which is a vietnamese snack that's a flat circle of rice flour steamed with a sort of split pea/bean mixture on top. Not sure if that insult is really common, or if it was just a thing with her family in particular...so maybe don't share it with your vietnamese friends...

I adore Christoffel Blond! I've only just started drinking and appreciating beer in the last couple years or so, and I'm still figuring out what I like and don't like, but I definitely like the taste of Christoffel Blond! Does anybody have any recommendations on other similar-tasting beers that are less expensive? Ones available in western Canada maybe? I tried a 6-pack of Pilsner Urquell once...i found it to be ok...perhaps a little too much sharp bitterness for my taste. I'm liking Hoegaarden more and more...

i LOVE korean nori! one of my fave easy meals is to cook up some pork and eat it with korean rice and nori. eat a bite of pork and rice, then eat some nori wrapped around a bit of rice out of your bowl. you lay the piece of nori on your rice, then use your chopsticks to pick up a hunk of rice using the nori. delicious! here's a quick recipe: sliced pork (marinated with chopped garlic and bit of sesame oil) sliced zuccini julienned carrots korean "kochujang" (spicy red paste) stir fry the carrots and zuccini until about 3/4 done. set aside. stir fry the pork until done, smear in a couple tablespoons of kochujang and a splash of soy sauce and add the veggies back in and mix it around for a minute then serve! if you want to go full-on korean, wash up some lettuce leaves, put a hunk of rice into your lettuce "cup" and add some pork and extra kochujang or even ssamjang and eat! whenever i make this, i MUST have that seaweed with it. and also kimchi, of course (i love the kimchi from Han Ah Reum supermarket on North Rd near Lougheed--yes, in Coquitlam. it's very delicious and fresh-tasting. sometimes you can find little raw clams in there...yum!) last time i bought korean seaweed was at Hyundai market on Kingsway, just 1/2 block east of Safeway, between Joyce and Boundary. they had this crab flavoured seaweed, as well as a spicy seaweed. i bought a regular, a spicy and a crab in the same brand to compare, and frankly i couldn't taste any crab flavour...we preferred the regular one.

i was lucky enough to have my first raw oyster experience last year at Joe Fortes. it was a work party thing, so luckily i didn't have to pay one of my work mates is a huge oyster fanatic and he ordered a selection so i could try a variety and see the differences. i had some big fat oysters that i'm more familiar with (eg. chinese deep fried oysters), and they were so...meaty. i definitely prefered the small/medium sized ones (some japanese-sounding name...maybe "kumamoto"?). they had imho a better flavour and more depth, whereas the big suckers are more like ONE BIG MEATY NOTE. i wish i could afford to eat there more often. i've eaten oysters a few more times since then. once at some place in downtown Calgary (can't remember the name) which apparently gets stuff flown in every day. however, this was around boxing day weekend, so we were eating older stock, but it was still really good...but more expensive than on the west coast to be sure. next, i ate them at The Boathouse in new west (wife's work party thing) and was disappointed...i guess i ordered wrong. i got these really miniscule oysters that were smaller than clams! what a tease! then most recently i had them at another work party at Lift. very nice. especially cuz half the table didn't like seafood and me and this other guy are gulping them down like crazy. and they had this nice wheat ale on tap...that was a good night but after eating oysters at all these places, i feel that they haven't measured up to my first experience at Joe Fortes...the shucking skill (ie. no bits of shell whatsoever), the presentation -- just great!

i know it sounds weird, but it's good. it's mostly cartilage (no bone) with a bit of meat. i must stop message boarding at work