Vancouver Lee

Even though I haven't accumulated three more restaurants in the roughly 24 hours since I last posted, I just HAD to post where I ate lunch today. Lunch today was courtesy of the Air Canada Flight Kitchen at the airport. I was attending an event that Air Canada put on for it's most frequent flyers (of which, sadly, I am one of), and lunch was catered by the same people who make the in-flight meals. Everyone got a selection of roast beef, chicken or salmon, served by one of the Flight Attendant instructors in full Air Canada uniform (at least he didn't pull the trays out of a rolling metal cart). I had the overcooked and tough roast beef, and had a bite of my neighbour's overcooked and tough salmon. Rice noodles, a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing and one slice of roasted zucchini filled out the plate. It was even served on a little plastic tray, but at least we got a real knife. It just wasn't the same without having my knees crushed up against the seat in front of me and watching a movie on a screen the size of a paperback. Fortunately, dinner saved the day. I took the group of frequent flyers to the HSG for dinner and to enjoy Neil's hospitality. The HSG never disappoints - top notch food with no pretension. I snuck in early for an appetizer (as for some reason I wasn't very full after my lunch ). The Black and Blue Ahi Tuna was great - who knew I liked cajun spices? My official appetizer was Oven roasted tomato soup that was rich and flavourful. My main was a Grilled Wild salmon filet with a red pepper and shrimp risotto. There was a brochette of garlic prawns alongside, as well. Dessert was a tasting plate with biscotti, creme brule, a star anise fruit and a chocolate-covered strawberry. Terrific meal, and even better given that Neil's kitchen was feeding a room of 25 people plus a Friday night rush out front. Two thumbs up.

Glad to hear the story has a happy ending. It would be quite ironic to see your name listed in the STD on Bitterwaitress.com.

Last three meals (happily, not a single visit to Denny's or Smitty's among them): Tuesday night was dinner at the RainCity Grill. My dining companions and I all tried the "6 Spoons" appetizer (which I found most disappointing) and I had duck as a main. It was excellent, and was accompanied by a 2002 Burrowing Owl Merlot (my companion was having venison). Great service, BTW. Today's lunch was a spur-of-the-moment trip to Da Francesco's for pizza. I just love the vibe in this place, what with all the really old Italian men wearing suits and socializing with each other. Very "Old World". I was also amazed to see that tourists have discovered this place. There were two tables of people who had "not from around here" written all over them. I felt a pang of guilt that perhaps we've made the life of the old guy who waits the tables a little to busy for his liking..... Dinner tonight was Ocean 6 Seventeen. I was entertaining an executive in my company who had flown in from head office today to meet with a client tomorrow, and I thought it would be a good place to go to get a good meal and to give him a flavour for what Vancouver is all about. The weather was perfect, and the food was amazing. We started by sharing an endive and proscuitto salad and an order of fantastic tuna and mushroom spring rolls. My guest had the lemongrass halibut special (and reported it was terrific) and I had the venison special. Perfectly cooked and tender slices of venison accompanied by roasted beets stuffed with raspberry and goat cheese. Wow. I'll be making those at home sometime soon....

Indeed, the Flatiron steak looks fabulous, and for only $10 it's a great deal.

I just checked out Bitterwaitress.com - Is there any way to search the STD for Vancouver entries?

I don't, and the idea of scuba diving gives me the heebie-jeebies, so I don't see myself strapping on fins and a tank, no matter how worthy the cause. However, I did have exactly the same thought you did, about compiling a photographic exploration of the subject. I may just do that......

You are correct - I have not yet had the opportunity to read the Guardian studies (my pesky day job got in the way yesterday), and I should not have been so flippant in my comment that the study was "probably" biased. My approach to these things is to assume they are biased unless proven otherwise, and I should have made that assumption more clear. The fact that the study was carried out by "qualified bioligists from two accredited universities and published by the Royal Society" doesn't mean that the study is accurate, however in all fairness I should withold judgement until I have read it myself. And re your point about farmed salmon not being significantly less expensive than wild, my thin knowledge of the specifc topic at hand is revealed. I agree, I may well retract that statement once I become better educated about it. And better educated I shall become, I can promise you that.

Interesting post, Hugh. (Playing devils advocate here......) How do you know the results are not biased? Agreed. However.... As I see it, the benefits include the fact that lower cost fish encourages more people to eat healthier diets, which in turns leads to lower health care cost, longer lives and therefore more economic output from people, etc. Doing accurate cost/benefit analysis is very complex and, I suspect, probably not as anti-fish farming as one might expect. No, it doesn't seem like scare mongering, but I'll bet media reports of that study you mention would end up being a lot more sensational. Are the numbers biased? I have no idea. My guess is probably, depending on how it was funded and how the study was conducted. But I do agree with you that there is cause for concern. My brain hurts. I'm going to bed.

OK, perhaps the killer bees example was a little inflammatory. My point was that there is a long list of supposed calamities that were imminently going to befall mankind, according to the most serious and learned scientists, and they were often wrong. I have a bit of a quibble about "severely threatened" (in that I don't know enough to agree wholeheartedly with such a bold statement), but in general I wouldn't disagree with your statements. And therin lies the dilema. What actions do we take? There is a long body of evidence that shows we have no idea how to manage something as complex as our natural environment. And when we try, we invariably screw it up in unexpected ways. We can generally change one variable in the environment in the short run, but there are *always* unintended consequences, and they can be worse than the original problem. See Hugh's post above about how attempts to eradicate a parasite ended up wiping out all marine life instead. I would argue that we have little choice but to wait until we have reliable and accurate science before we take action. I'm currently reading a fascinating book about how the US Parks Service tried to manage the population of different species of animals in Yellowstone Park to try and get the park back to the state it was in prior to the public beginning to use the area (the book is here is anyone is interested). With the best of intentions and the blessing of the best scientists available, unwittingly one species after another was brought to the brink of eradication in an attempt to restore the population of a different, almost-eradicated species. It is a textbook case of the Law of Unintended Consequences, and a cautionary tale to anyone who claims to know how to restore the population of any species, fish or fowl, on this planet. I am not arguing that we should do nothing. Far from it - I think we've been doing nothing for too long. But what should we do? All actions carry costs, and those costs need to be VERY carefully considered and thought out before we as a society decide they are worth incurring. You mention education - I couldn't agree more that we desperately need more education on these topics. Our media has proven itself woefully lacking in it's ability to convey the facts of such a nuanced and complex debate to the public, so events like the one you are helping organize are a great place to start. My argument is that we need a lot more education before we start taking action. There is a great quote in the appendices of Crichton's book: "There is no difference in outcomes between greed and incompetence". Doing the wrong thing very often leads to a result just as bad as doing nothing. Something to think about, at least. No, I haven't read any reports to that end, and I am not arguing that everything is fine in our oceans. I'm saying that a lack of evidence that fish stocks are healthy does not by itself prove that fish stocks are unhealthy. My gut says there is a problem here, and I certainly make choices as a consumer to the best of my ability based on what I know about the issues, but I think it's a bad idea to make sweeping public policy decisions based on how little we know today. I will certainly do so, Jamie. Thanks for the links. I'm eagerly looking forward to the C event. You are to be commended for organizing this, Jamie.

I would do anything to entertain Joie's cutie-patootie! He gave me a flower, showed me how to make a candle "dance", shared his gummi candies with me, sat on my lap, and told me he wanted me to sleep over at his place. What a hot date. ←

As I re-read what I posted above, it occurs to me that the important thing isn't that the data may be unreliable. The point is that if we're going to make policy decisions (like banning salmon farming or implementing the Kyoto accord) that will incur large costs for our society, they need to be made based upon science that is reliable and accurate, and not biased or politicized. Are our fish stocks depleted? Perhaps (certainly the Atlantic Cod is, and I'm sure others are, too). But before we do and make sweeping policy decisions, we need to understand what's going on a lot better. I'll shut up now.

"Scientists" have been warning us for decades about one thing or another, and a great many of these dire warnings turn out to be false. I remember being scared to death as a little kid reading my Dad's newspaper about how killer bees were about to invade from Mexico - that turned out to be wrong. "Scientists" in the 70's said that we would completely run out of oil by 2000 - that turned out to be wrong, too. "Scientists" have been claiming for many years that our climate is getting warmer (indeed that our climate has never been hotter) - well, the data that much of these studies are based on has been shown to be false, and the claim that the planet has never been hotter is just plain wrong. Perhaps the most eggregious example is the horrific field of eugenics. At the time, "scientists" and institutions no less venerable than the Carneige and Rockefeller Foundations, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Associations, and the US National Research Council claimed that the human gene pool was deteriorating because the "right" people weren't reproducing enough and the "wrong" people were reproducing too much (forgive me if my one sentence summary doesn't completele capture the sickening truth perfectly). Despite all the "scientists" who backed this theory, it turned out to be based on faulty research and was completely wrong. I'm not trying to shout you down, Jamie, I'm just saying that I think we should be very very sceptical of claims made when they are backed up by anyone whose justification is "scientists say that ....". Which scientists? Who funded them, and was the funding blind and open-ended? Were the studies themselves double-blind? Were they directly observable or computer simulations? What is the margin for error in the simulations? Don't get me wrong - I'm a total believer in science, and think that science will ultimately provide the means to solving most of the majojr issues of our time. I just think that the way we fund science today politicises it, and that inevitably distorts the results. I have absolutely no idea what the actual global depletion figure actually is. Absolutely none. And I don't believe that either side of the debate knows for sure, either. If we could substantiate with statistical certainty that the figure was more than 50%, absolutely I'd think it was serious. In fact, I'd think it was serious at a much lower number than 50%. What to do about it would be a whole other issue entirely - again, I don't think we understand enough about our enviroment to manage our way to rectifying it. Between the law of unintended consequences and our demonstrable failure at managing natural systems (look no further than Yellowstone Park and our attempts to manage the animal population there), I believe it is folly to think that we can manipulate the natural world to achieve a desired outcome. I wish that we could, I just haven't seen any evidence that we know how. I wish I could, Jamie. But I just don't have any faith in the conclusions of "reliable organizations". Everyone has a bias, even government ministries, and unless the scientists in the field are a) unaware of who funds them, and b) "double-blind" i.e. seperated into groups between those that collect the data and those that analyse it, it is well documented that bias inevitably creeps into scientific results. In many ways I wish I never read State of Fear, as that book is what led me down this road to being a serious skeptic. All I believe now is that I believe very little of what I read. Intuitavely (<---spelling?) I suspect that we are probably overfishing, and doing things like releasing Atlantic salmon into the Pacific ocean is harmful. Are these issues to be concerned about? Yes. Should we be studying them and trying to learn more about the issue? Absolutely. Do we have enough data today on which to base conclusions? I don't believe we do. Do we have enough knowledge and understanding of our environment to determine appropriate policies? Absolutely not, IMHO. Sorry for the long rant - I hope you didn't interpret this as a flaming. I'm enjoying the discussion quite a bit.

Burger Club this month was at Brown's on Lonsdale in North Van. In attendence were Peppyre, Daddy-A and Mrs Daddy-A, Editor@Waiterblog and Mrs. Editor@Waiterblog, the Mooshmouse family, Ling and myself. Before I get to the food, let me just say that Burger Club continues to set new highs in entertainment value. No doubt, photos to follow. The Burger? Good, but a little thin for my liking. I had the Hollywood, and doubling up the patties would have made this burger go from good to great. Excellent sauce (both in terms of taste and quantity), a good soft bun, and proper cheese. For the first time tonight I tried tomato and lettuce on my burger, and was most impressed. The bad news is that I've now invalidated all the previous burger reference points I have. Guess I'll just have to re-trace my steps and eat more burgers.... The highlight of the meal was the fries - Very thin, perfectly cooked and salty. Worth the drive to North Van for the fries alone.

In line at the Dollar Store? Buying almost-rotten vegetables for $0.99 a bunch? I dunno....I just hope they never find me.

I agree that the plot of "State of Fear" is idiotic - in fact, that probably understates it. The book is quite fascinating, however, and the research I've done since finishing it is even more interesting. Crichton's premise in the book is essentialy that a) we know jack about the environment and know even less about how to "manage" it to obtain a desired result, b) virtually all environmental research is (mostly, but not always, unintentionally) biased, and c) changing our behaviour to be more environmentally-friendly is good, but most of the people who scream "global warming is going to melt all the polar ice and flood the earth", "killer bees are coming", or, case in point "don't eat fish", are alarmists. I'll be the first guy to admit that I know virtually nothing about fish farming or the sustainability of fish stocks in our oceans. I don't know who is right, and who is wrong. But anytime I hear someone say things like: "The worldwide fishery has been depleted by as much as 90% in her generation (she looked about 60). Blame the Sushi Generation if you will, but she chooses to eat no fish at all" ...my "hyperbole and bullsh!t" detector goes off. I'll be eagerly awaiting the details about the upcoming Sustainability event. In the meantime, I suggest you read this speech that Crichton gave last year (click the "A speech to the Joint Session AEI-Brookings Institution - January 25, 2004" link to read the speech). It provides some interesting context to the discussion such as the one going on here, and will save you having to wade through the ridiculous plot in "State of Fear".

Back in Ontario, I could hook you up with a guy who spit-roasts pigs for a living. Not a very good living, mind you, judging by the looks of the guy, but I'm sure he's happy. The best part - his name is Floyd Grills. I made him show me his driver's licence to prove it, and sure enough it's true. He grills an awesome pig...I'll try to dig out some photos tonight. edited to add: guess I need to pay more attention to the dates of these threads...

You should petition Barbara Jo not to allow cheese sandwiches in the store to cut down on the financial drain. This is so potentailly bad for me, eating cheese, nice bread and pastries and reading cook books. What an un-holy alliance. ← How about an HSG satellite location right in the middle of the action? ← Is that not the four hoursemen of the Armageddon ? Cheese, Meat, bread and cookbooks ? I recall something like that from the Holy Scriptures. ← Put a well-stocked liquor store there and I'd never have to leave West 2nd for the rest of my life!

You should petition Barbara Jo not to allow cheese sandwiches in the store to cut down on the financial drain. This is so potentailly bad for me, eating cheese, nice bread and pastries and reading cook books. What an un-holy alliance. ← How about an HSG satellite location right in the middle of the action?

Wow, Moosh, that looks incredible!

As the old commercial used to say.... "Where's the beef?" Seriously, that's an awfully thin patty - is that just the photo, Deborah? BTW, I had a lamb burger at HSG today for the first time....

I've been wondering the same thing. I bike past there every few days and it seems like the place has been boarded up forever. <makes mental note never to hire that construction company to work on my house>

At "Chez Vancovuer Lee", we serve an arugula salad with pear, asiago and apricots and a balsamic vinagrette. Select seatings are available, but there is no truth to the rumour we'll be open for Dine Out Vancouver....

Thanks to everyone who posted ideas here. In the end, I decided on drinks at the Flying Beaver followed by dinner at the Hamilton Street Grill. I know the dinner will be great, but I'll post a quick follow up next weekend on our experience at the Flying Beaver...

Oh, they also make a Deep Fried Snickers bar, for those of you who prefer nuts in your chocolate.

About 10 years ago, an accomplished chef and part-time food writer friend of mine told me about Deep Fried Mars Bars. He had never seen then, but had been told they were somewhat of a delicacy overseas. Since then, I have kept my eyes and ears open waiting to find somewhere here in Canada that offered this desert, to no avail. Until, that it, Zucchini Mama posted on Friday that Wing Nuts Wings (4444 Main Street) offered it. I hustled my rapidly expanding butt there just as soon as I could, camera in tow, to satisfy my curiousity. Here it is, fresh out of the fryer: Notice that they dust it with icing sugar. Another view, cracked open to see the gooey centre.... What does it taste like? Interestingly enough, not like a Mars bar at all - more like a chocolate donut. I think you would have to really love fried food to enjoy this desert, but if you like donuts it's worth a try. For only $2.49 (not including tax and any increase in your life insurance premiums), what the hell? I also tried the wings, and quite enjoyed them. I messed up my order and ended up getting plain wings (i.e. no sauce) so it wasn't the best sampling, however the wings were nice and juicy with a crisp exterior, and really really salty. I didn't think I liked salty wings, but I sure do now... The wings are fairly small, but I think I'll give them another try, next time with sauce.