Vancouver Lee

Ahhhhh, another fan of the Il Paesano's pie! They were my favourite pizza in Gotham for many years running until Lenny's dethroned it. Next time you get to Toronto, you MUST try Lenny's. It's in a little strip mall on Bloor just East of Islington. I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right - hard water would make a difference. I oil the pan with EVOO to get it crispy, but I wonder what using bottled Spring water, or even distilled water would do...?

I tried the Twassen Ferry Terminal pizza slices this summer.......so-so. A little too greasy for my liking. It's not unlike Mamma Vanelli's.

Yes, I do make pizza at home. I have a well-used pizza stone that helps a great deal. Crank the oven to 550 at least an hour before baking the pie, then let 'er rip. I've been experimenting for years (literally), trying to perfect crust, sauce and cheese. Cheese was easy, that's in the bag. Sauce I haven't tackled yet, and I used canned for the time being. I've found a recipe I like for the crust (along with a pretty complex methodology), but similar to you DameD, it turns out a little too thin to be called perfect. Sigh - such is life. BTW, Salumi Salami makes an awesome pizza topping...

If fans of the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox can have their dreams realized after decades of failure, perhaps there is hope for my dream of decent home-delivered pizza in Vancouver. Just not yet. As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, you'd think I'd have learned not to get my hopes up. When an hour had passed after ordering, my confidence started to waver. The pizza arrived 65 minutes after ordering and was somewhere between warm and very warm. A quick look in the box confirmed my worst fears: The legions of purveyors of Mediocre Vancouver Pizza had yet another member. The pie is exactly the same as at least 10 other Mediocre Vanouver Pizza joints. A cakey crust without the slightest hint of a resistance when you bite into it. Sauce that is red, but is far to sweet to be truly be called tomato. Cheese that is applied so sparingly that my double cheese order merely kept bare crust from being visible in the middle of the pie (as it was on the 2nd regular cheese-only pizza I ordered to use as a reference point). I can point out two positives: the toppings were good (fresh Kalamata olives, and pepperoni that tasted similar to Da Francesco's) and Cokes were cold. So once again my dreams are dashed and I'm left to making my own pizza when I get the craving for a quality slice. Da Francesco's, I beg you, please come back!!!!

It still is. West side of Cambie between 16th and 17th, I believe.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King....I have a dream. I have a dream that one day I'll wake up, go for a walk, and find that a little pizzeria has opened it's doors in my neighbouhood. Not so small that you couldn't stop in for a slice, but not so big that you wouldn't get to know the owner by name and he or she would remember you ("Hey, it's the Triple-Cheese-Olives-Pepperoni-Mushrooms Guy!"). They do take-out and home delivery, and they wouldn't dream of doing any kind of 2-for-1 specials. In my dream the pizza has a thick-but-still-airy crust, chunky toppings that actually have flavour, and the cheese is thick and gooey, but never runny. Oh, and the sauce...the sauce is full of rich tomato flavour with lots of oregano and garlic. I have a dream..... I've tried more than 20 different pizza places in Vancouver in the year-and-half I've lived here, without success, and yet the dream refuses to die. Da Francesco's pizza certinaly fit the bill, but they didn't do home delivery and are now gone. Lombardo's and Incendio's come close, but they don't deliver either and the latter's crust is a little mushy. I have a dream..... So today, while driving along Cambie Street, my dream was reborn. A new little pizzeria has just opened. It's the right size, it's in my neighbourhood, and they deliver. I've had a blissful afternoon thinking of the excitement I'll feel when the telephone rings, signifying the delivery man has arrived at the gate. Dreaming of the smell wafting from the box on the way up the elevator. Dreaming of that first fearful moment when you open the box - did all the cheese stick to the box? Is the cheese so runny that you can no longer see the slices? And then, that moment when you lift the first piece from the pie, all that stringy cheese refusing to let the slice go. I have a dream..... Only 2 more hours to go, and we'll see if my dream is realized, or shattered.

These weren't crinkle cut, but they might have been frozen. They didn't appear to be cut there. ← Hmmm, that's interesting.....my fries today were crinkle-cut and frozen. I guess they serve both kinds.

Deep Fried Mars Bars are available from Wing Nuts Wings on Main. See this thread for my write up and a photo.

I dropped in at Diner today to try the burger, and they were getting slammed. Fortunately I arrived at 11:45 and the place was empty, but when I left at 12:30, I think every table was full. Heather and Ashley seemed a little frazzled when I arrived, and were running flat out by the time I left. I got the distinct impression that Heather's pretty stressed out these days. I don't envy her one bit. I hesitate to post this, but the burger was a bit of a disappointment. It was burnt, cooked to well done inside, and the bun wasn't exactly stale, but wasn't exactly fresh either. Toppings (onions and tomatoes) were fresh, and Ashley was kind enough to fry up some mushrooms for me, so that was good. I'm not a huge fan of the fries, but that's a quibble. The slaw is pretty good, and this is from someone who doesn't like slaw at all. edited to add: Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Ashley told that she started making the burgers smaller today (starting with mine ) after reading Andrew's review in today's Westender. It was an offhand comment she made, and I got the impression she thought it was a bad thing that the burgers were so big. Some days you just can't win. I didn't want to make any more work for the kitchen so I didn't have the souffle, I chose the cheesecake instead. Yummy. Honest to God, when I finished eating I came close to offering to help them out - bussing some dishes or fetching drinks or something like that. It's amazing how much everyone seems to want Heather to make it. She's a talented, likeable person who we all seem to identify with and is clearly working flat out to make Diner successful. Andrew, nice review in the Westender today. Reading this thread last night and the back-and-forth between you and TFA, I was struck by how high the level of debate is here. Between the many intelligent posters here and you and Jamie in print, this is an awfully literate community. Kudos to you and the rest of the gang.

I've never been...guess I need to rectify that. But I'll go back to La Bodega in the summer for some gaspacho, for sure.

What is a Patty Melt? An open-faced burger? ← Ahh Lee, your in for a treat you Baron of Burgers. On her menu she has a Grilled Ham and Cheese sandwich. She uses fresh bread that she bakes there, stuffs it with cheese and Ham and Grills the whole thing in Butter to a Crispy Golden Crunchy Brown. While awesome as this is I like Hamburger better than Ham so I asked if she could just throw one of her burger patties in there to replace the Ham. A short while later, what they had called a "Patty Melt" was delivered to my table heaping with Fries and Slaw. It was delicious ...... ← Funny you should mention the ham and cheese - that's what I had last week! It was pretty good, but a little overcooked for my taste and a little thin (issues I suspect are due to the much-talked-about growing pains). A burger-grilled cheese combo???? My arteries are shrivelling up just thinking about that! Did she make a wider, thinner patty than the usual ones? The burger I saw was seriously thick, i.e. way to thick to fit well in between two slices of cheese, no matter how much gooey melted cheese there was in between to hold it all together! lol You didn't happen to snap a photo, did you?

What is a Patty Melt? An open-faced burger?

We did both Tapas and Sangria at La Bodega on Saturday night. We showed up at 7pm without a reservation, and they seated us immediately in the back room. Service seemed a touch slow, but they were busy and I suspect the fact that I hadn't eaten since breakfast skewed my perspective somewhat. The service was fine - not fancy, but friendly. We ordered the spanish meatballs, potatoes, paella, chorizo, short rib, gazpacho, and the shrimp. The short rib was a bit brisket-y, but decent. Everything else was good except the gazpacho - it was out of this world. They make it quite sweet, but on a hot summer afternoon I'd walk for hours for a bowl of it.

The kitchen at the Italian Cultural Centre cooks the hot lunches 2 days a week for my son's school. The teachers and the parents who have eaten with the kids all rave about how good it is. I've only eaten one meal there, a wedding chicken dinner last year. For wedding chicken, it was pretty darn good. Not very good in the greater scheme of things mind you, but pretty good for wedding chicken. Dressing up as your favourite Godfather character at the ICC? Sortof like seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Halloween, only without the transsexuals....

"lala quality mit lala service" Clearly a German eGulleter.

You know, Lee, there is a twelve-step program that you can try for stuff like that... ← Yeah, but step one is admitting that you have a problem. What problem?

The Burger Club Express may pull into the Diner station at some point, just not right away. We'll let Diner work out some of the kinks before we descend on them. You say that like it's a bad thing.....

If anyone is going back soon, someone at a different table ordered a burger today, and it looked wonderful. Hand-made patty about an inch and a half thick, lots of cheddar. Someone please order one and post your impressions soon!

It's a plan.

Sorry for the late response, I'm just getting caught up on this thread. Re last week's pizza.....is it verbotten to share the recipe for the dough and the tomato sauce? If not, please post them. And awesome work here, everyone. The food you are preparing looks heavenly. For everyone out there like me who wanted to go this time, but didn't....anyone want to attend the next class? I believe it starts January 23rd and costs $695.

Definately do Cru if they are open for lunch. If not, try Kalamata. It's a family-run Greek place on the south side of Broadway between Yukon and Cambie. Reasonable prices and good hearty food.

That's a classic anti-egullet day, Brian, even better than the McDonalds for breakfast/Quiznos for lunch/Wendy's for dinner day I had last week but was too embarrassed to post about here. Some days it just isn't about the food.

Never happpen. The existing Dayquil/Nyquil cups were plastic so they don't shatter when your shot of medicine knocks you on your ass. Can you imagine the liability lawsuits Riedel would have to defend?

Thanks, Arne, I appreciate it. One blunder was the blueberry muffins. My ancient family recipe that dates back to the Great Depression calls for making them with melted shortening or vegetable oil, presumably because oil or shortneing is cheaper than butter. I didn't think to substitute butter instead, and I thought the muffins suffered for it. I made another batch last night with butter and they were WAY better. Live and learn, I suppose.

No, I suspect it's my memory that's faulty. The Copper Chimney could well have been the name on the menu.