chef koo

eat on the way home? you mean you finish a pound and a half in the time it takes you to get home? a pound and a half...

i had a friend who now lives in ireland tell me that the local chinese restaurant serves stirfried bangers. here in vancouver with very few exceptions you get the same white washer version of chinese food. but the more i thought about it it kinda made sense to me. they may not be authentic in regards to the recipes. but in actual fact the principals i find are being more strictly adhered to than the top of the line chinese restaurants. they use what they have. local things that they get at the grocery. i remember an episode of iron chef where the challenger was a chinese chef who read a book by some other chinese chef who said that you should only use local igredients with the exception of tofu and pork. so in that sense aren't these white washed places actually the more authentic chinese?

woops. 3 i meant. damn, 4600 covers a night.

i think i mremember talkinjg to a few people who claimed that earls on marine in west vancouver was the busiest restaurant in all of greater vancouver. a friend of mine used to work at joe fortes where they regularily had over 600 covers a night. someone who i just met who had worked at the marina grill in north vancouver said that they have a 200 seat dining room and they easily have 23 seatings. does anyone have any exact numbers?

couldn't agree more. i'm the exact same. at work i prefer to not listen to any music. but i won't make a fuss if the other staff want t olisten to music. the norm is rock and roll. the only time i like listening to music at work is after the shift when we're cleaning

you actually like durian?

i'm not too sure what everyone's so excited about. i've always found the food served at the night market to be crap. only reason i go is because ther's nothing to do on a saturday night. personally i find the one downtown much more entertaining. it's a bit dirtier but i think the foods much better there.

if it was me i'd dump it. it's easier and it sounds like you've got stock to spare so no big deal

no worries. i trust your opinion. but you're right. in my title i was refering to pasta. so i'm assuming that one day while someone was making some lagana and forgot to leaven it and decided to boil it?

you've all noticed that thread about fusion cuisine and the posts about how pasta came from china. i've heard this story from many people. i've also heard that pasta was around during the roman times long before marco polo went traveling. i'm sure there are a few food experts that can settle this. problem being is that the ones who say the italians invented pasta are the italians. i think we need a less biased opinion or one that we at least trust Admin note: Posts #39-42 may not necessarily "flow" within the context of this thread since four threads all relating to this topic were merged from three different forums.

for meat i use pork for suace i usually use soy, sugar, and chili oil for veg i use onions, bell peppers, and some times walnuts lettuc i use iceberg and to dip hoissin is a must

i think this is what's been missing for me. i've always been under the impression that you're supposed to braise whatever you're going to eat with the mole. i saw it ahppned on a "cook's tour" episode where he goes to mexico. they braised a whole turkey in the mole. i didn't realize that mole poblano was a sauce you put on top of stuff

Definitely agree. "Fusion" was always there and always will be: just read a history of ancient Roman cuisine to see how far back that can go (and it probably goes even further back than that). On the other hand, do whatever you like just as long as it isn't forced and done just for the sake of showing how wildly creative a chef can be. If it works tastewise, it's fine by me. Psss... BTW the Chinese have nothing to do with spaghetti: fresh pasta was known since the Roman times and it's the Arabs that imported dried pasta to Sicily ← what i mean is that you can label a restaurant's menu as being stereotypically "fusion". and they're everywhere. of course all cuisine is evolving but i think there's a difference when it progresses naturally and out of curiosity as opposed to when the driving force behind it is money and looking for a market

calling appetizers tapas. doesn't matter if it's tapas or not. if it'll sell, it'll be called tapas. fruit salsa and fish. ditto on the creme brulee. we have one at work and it's a bitch to make. fusion cuisine as a whole (fusion cuisine is my nemesis) the way menus are written. now a days instead of having appetizers, entrees and desserts, we have sharing, "palate wetter", "to begin". in stead of entrees we have "from the land", "from the sea", or protiens. and if it's really trendy than you'll also have carbs. restaurants that have meshed fine dining with casual hi volume dining. honestly every restaurant is like this now. fancy pants menu, 200 covers a night, and a kitchen crew of 5, and prep done up to the point of simply reheating, pretty faced hostess, nicley dressed waiters/waitress who multi tasks as a wanna be sommelier. wine bars. wierd shaped plates

anyone know a good wine for fried chicken?

mine actually happened yesterday. and it wasn't so much a deception but it was definately funny. this one guy was telling one of the cooks in the kitchen (who happened to be taiwanese) that he couldn't understand his accent. he was was being a dick about it. so the taiwanese guy while the other guy is making some orders takes some paper out of the printer and slides it up his chef whites. he then takes his lighter and lights it up. about 15 seconds later the guy looks up from his work wide eyed, quickly looks behind him and runs for the sink. the whole kitchen is laughing their asses off. myself included

and le's not forget the tail. i thought it was an unsophisticated part of the chicken so i always ate it in secret. but when i saw my teacher at school go for it, i'm now out of the closet.

stew it with cabbage. just dumpit in a pot with cabbage and veal stock and simmer until the pork belly is tender. you can add mushrooms and onions and whatever

how about cow sphincter. i'd say just look in the larousse and look for a cut that was used 100 years ago and now long forgotten. we get our steak from trimpac. they sell it as flat iron

the steak is marinated in oil garlic rosemary and thyme overnight. then it's grilled. rest it for about 5 minutes and slice. people love it. we sell it as a part of the prix fixe menu. the other option for second course is grilled swordfish. the steak out sells the fish by a huge amount. about 3:1 i'd say.

apparently hangar is popping up every where now. it's definatley the next big thing in vancouver. i think we should give credit where credit is due and make sure that HSG is always remembered as the place that started it. and everyone else are a bunch of bandwagon jumping punks. bu seriously i've heard about it going on to menus at alot of places all over town. way to go niel. you started a trend.

Chef koo, as much as I consider Larousse Gastronomique a great reference for French cuisine, I cannot help feel the urge to rip the book apart whenever I look up anything Italian in it. Most of the entries are superficial and sometimes downright wrong. There's better references for Italian cuisine out there, starting with Marcella Hazan's books. My comment on the anchovies in the sauce is only limited to the classical Neapolitan recipe, not to pizza in general, since this is a dish that has changed as it moved. If you want to read a thorough article on pizza Napoletana, with a few recipes, have a look at this one from Wine News magazine. There's a lot of info and both classical recipes (look at the Pizza Margherita Extra DOC one, ) and newer ones. ← my true desire is to know the correct approach to classic neopolitan pizza. so if i'm wrong i want to know. although i'm reluctant to part with the anchovies... damn that made the sauce. that was a great article

i remember one of my old chefs telling me about the timing in which you use your potatoes. if i remember correctly he said that during this time of year potatoes are stored in huge containers and shipped out. the older ones have a higher starch content so they brown quicker. thus forcing people to shorten cooking time. i don't know if this is true or not but if it is maybe you have to just put up with it.

beautiful pictures. where is that? i would love to have a brick oven like that in my backyard

As a Neapolitan myself I would really like to have a few words with your teacher , quite a lot there I don't agree upon. Definitely not. Neapolitan pizza crust is just flour, water, salt and yeast (eventually sourdough). All the pizzerias I personally know in Naples use such a dough with slight changes in water percentages and rising times, which are usually quite long. No oil, milk, soy flour or stuff like that. And since there's no oil in there it is not a focaccia dough. Absolutely agree on this one. Especially when baking in a home oven that takes longer than the traditional wood fired brick oven. It's important to spread the sauce really thin though. This is the first time I hear such a thing. In Naples you don't even use a sauce per se, just chopped canned tomatoes. I personally find it makes little sense: if I'm topping my pizza with grilled vegetables or meats I wouldn't really like to taste anchovies there. I'll leave those, toppings are really a matter of choice. I agree on the raw onion thing though. Yes and no. A nice drizzle of olive oil before the pizza goes into the oven is a must, but too much makes the pizza heavy. I have to admit that this is one of those sentences I've learned to dread. Unless his mom was a "pizzaiola" (pizza baker) then I'm pretty sure there's plenty of better pizzas around. The "like mom didi it" concept is something many Italians believe in, at times with a reason. But remaining stuck with that is IMO a great limit in extending your gastronomic horizons. Definitely count me in on this one, I just bought a special pizza flour last week and was waiting for a good chance to use it. I'll be making the dough tonight so that I can bake on Friday. ← hmmm. i don't know who to believe now. although i'm not italian myself but i'm pretty confident about the anchovie thing. i've seen and have been told by so many people. i don't mean that the anchovie should be a main ingredient but it should be used as a seasoning. this is the way i've been taught. i even looked it up in my larousse. but then aain larousse is a french reference and i know how the french and italians get along when it comes to food.