fud

I'm confused. Are you saying that you can decide with friends to eat somewhere and not have one person phone the restaurant? I do apologise for being a little vague in my last statement. What i mean is if I am asked to call a place to book a table for a group, I ensure that >I< am one of the people eating there. I wanted to make it clear that I'm not a dining broker where I call like 30 places and book for "other people".

Well the least I can say is that the reso's I make are for places I will personally dine at. Therefore the absolute worst we can do is 2 people. The issues - I believe - are in regards to having to reduce or increase reso's for friends. The problem with the theory on making reso's for yourself of course are that if you want to dine with friends you need to have one person make the reservation. In normal days that is easy since there's no risk of not being able to find any table at all during the dining week. It just seems like there might be a better way (as suggested by others - like increasing the dineout period) besides avoiding dineout entirely or keeping it to oneself and a significant other in order to avoid time conflicts. I wish I could say "hey I'm eating at Hammy's on this night at this time, you guys book too!" and leave em at it - and somehow we all get a table together. Boy that would be nice

Raisin Rye from Savoury Island Pie Company Hands down the best rye i've had.

Sandy and I shortlisted this $15 but we had too many booked to fit it in. But it is indian food so it depends on tastes: Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant $15 1440 Kingsway (Knight St.) Vancouver BC V5N-2R5 604-874-5060 Fax: 604-874-5061, 604-951-4522 [Link] Mind you I have never been so I can't attest to it.

Oh no!! I am saying - Say a group of 8 of us as a superset choose 5 restaurants to eat at. I will book tables for 4-6 at 5 restaurants and then try to "fill" the seats with my available group of people. Since everyone's schedules vary and since dining times/reservations are on a first come first served it's a big juggle in a short time. The idea is that I am playing the statistics that a pool of 8 people should be able to fill say two tables for 4, and 3 tables for 6 (obvsiously many people are dining at more than one of these places). The risk of course is I may end up with more people wanting a reservation than I booked a table for. OR less people meaning I have to reduce my reservation size thereby causing a real headache with the restaurant since it means a totally different table. All in all it still sucks. [edit] I just had a thought. If I could tap into opentable I could setup a system wherein my friends all register with me with the dates/times they like and places they want to eat at, my program would optimize the dining sizes and then automatically contact open table to book. Oooh maybe I can sell it [/edit]

I thought this was what it was about myself. Getting people to try new things and giving new diners (one's who really think that going out to eat is a novel idea) an opportunity to take that plunge at high end places where normally they wouldn't. The result? You open some eyes, you show new diners how amazing food can be and that it isn't just about sustenance. It's about the love affair with food and sharing that love affair with others who havn't discovered it. Amen.

^ Stuffed chicken wings with sticky rice. I've died and gone to heaven! I need to try to make these! I have to agree with achiu and canuckle - chicken in HK is so much tastier. Looking at these pictures brings me back to Bo jai Fan with chicken in it where the chicken is so juicy and flavourful. I'm not sure what it is about chicken's in HK...

After some dicussion and VETOing from both sides we settled on: - Parkside - Joe Fortes - Beach House - Il Giardano - C 3/5 of these will be for the first time. SO excited! I faxed Lumiere "just in case" but no response.

- More beef tongue for sure. It's really good stuff. - I want to see common comfort foods completely redefined. This is really vague because I havn't a clue how to change them

^ I am really liking this idea of non-alcoholic pairings. Imagine if the dish was like a lemon tart paried with lime cordial or something. Heh. I'm sure it would make for a challenge for many resteraunt staff. Do I pair the kiwi juice with the pear-pork belly? I have the problem of becoming very very drunk after 1-2 glasses and then I break out in rashes. I like wine but I prefer to drink it in the privacy of someone's or my own home so they can privately laugh at me. [edit] Or the safe haven of a cooking class with fellow egulleters [/edit]

^ I know I'm going to get flamed for this but... What is the best way to handle reservations when you have 6 people with varying schedules trying to go to a list of places but of course as you call the places book up and you end up wildy shuffling things around. The only way I manage this is to book for say 4-5 people at every restaurant and then deal with trying to fill those seats. In some cases I may call back and try to increase or reduce the reso. This has got to be a pain in the butt for the restaurants but I can't find a better way to do it. If I got every reso I wanted at the time I wanted this would not be an issue but this is also reality and stuff like that doesn't happen! Also does OpenTable handle this for you? So if i log in and change a reso, it just deals with it? That's pretty slick.

Yeah there needs to be more INFO in the site about maximum times or at least people need to be reminded. This brings me to OpenTable. That site is great because it has a little button called "add to outlook" and you as industry folks can control the "meeting duration" as well as add a note that people need to be curteous to others and limit dining to 90 minutes. This is a good idea but I will admit that adding an extra couple of clicks to put in my CC can be annoying when the restaurant books up so quickly. Mashing numbers at a panicked pace can be unnerving. quick quick where's the verification number...put it in!! Time's running out! The problem with this is that most people assume the restuarant is booked full and I'm not about to go there "just in case". Maybe others would? Would the industry be able to handle a month of this nuttyness? I like the idea because cramming it into two weeks seems kinda nuts. I mean I'm going to be eating at 6-10 restaurants in 2 weeks. That is well above my average of like 1-2 per week. I like choice, removing choice removes interested parties. I was going to go to LIFT but they had no choices on their menu making it hard since I liked what they offered and my other didn't. Ok one more question: What happens if someone calls in December to reserve a table during the dineout period? Then on that day they come in and go "oh! we'll go for the dineout!" Also does anyone know how OpenTable works with dineout bookings? Do you guys set a time when it is open for reservations? I was really put off when I found that Lumiers was booked full by 10am the day of the first bookings and I have a sneaking suspicion the OpenTable was taking reso's as 12:01am that previous night.

Using hands is the ONLY way to plate!!

Kurtis/Jeff beware! My building strata wants to have a dineout 'meeting' and Aurora came up I already told them that a table for 20 would be, well, unlikely!

One interesting observation: Butternut squash is in like 30% of the menu's - Butternut Squash Soup - Butternut Squash Ravioli - Butternut Squash risotto I shouldn't have made squash soup a few days ago! I'll be butternutty by the end of this DOV.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Zefferelli's . For a simple bowl of pasta I really like them!

I'm not sure if I want to hug or curse opentable. Lumier - Sold out Gothams -- Sold out C - Available but large tables are sold out This was as of 10am today (the first day of reservations!!)

Wow How many people know where Zeballos is? I think I passed through there on a campign trip on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Link to MAP HERE How much they asking? It does have fairly good access to fresh fish from the geography I think.

Man if a girl made me a dinner like that I had better have a ring ready! Nice job! I got (sorta bought it myself) the French Laundry cookbook for Christmas. The section on sieving and filtering is nuts. I love it!

We had the New Years Dinner at Grouse Mountain at the Altitudes Bistro and had a wonderful time. We started off with two oysters garnished each with cucumber fresca and Xeres vinegar. The vinegar was really nice with a tart finish but I found it really stole the flavour from the oyster. The cucumber fresca was awesome. Refreshing, light and just enough to bring out the sea-flavour of the oyster. I didn't get the type of oysters they were. Second was a roasted pumpkin soup which tasted very much like some butternut soup I made earlier this week. Then we had these marvellous scallops in a pea froth (foam!!) I havn't seen a foam in a restaurant like observatory/altitudes before so it was neat to see that the chef was going for something different. Amuse Bouche/pallette cleanser was a lemon vodka ice treat served in the standard chinese soup spoon. Yumm! I want more. The main was a whole roasted beef tenderloin which was simply perfect. The beef was just past rare and nice and pink inside. The meat itself was fork tender and so soft it made the usage of a 'steak' knife a little overkill. The sauce was wonderful (deglaze was juicey and hinted of a deep rich red wine). There was also a white sauce in a "tadpole" shape which my friends thought was a little strangley too sperm-like but it tasted great. The sweet potato was wonderful. Really good. We had salad after the main which I thought was non traditional but actually a nice way to go for the bosc pear and walnut salad. The shallot / hazelnut dressing was really good. Following this came some triple cream Camembert with these lovely fruit and nut embedded crackers...oh wow i need to find me a source for these. Finish off with an espresso creme brulee. Perfect. I needed the three bean caffein hit and it hit the spot right on. Good call on this dessert. Could't ask for a better finish to the evening. Gave me the energy needed to negotiate 'borrowing' a tray from the waitress (who was absolutely marvellous) and using it for some rather questionable toboganning down the slopes of grouse. A perfect evening all round.

Doesn't Hills Bros carry exotic meats too? Like muskox and whatnot? I think that's the one

^ You guys deserve a break! Too bad because I kinda wanted to have brunch at Aurora on the 1st If we get up from the previous evening's debauchery.

Oh Lorna! You just have to make everything into dessert! Then again toffee bacon is really good...maybe you're onto something I must admit I have never had Kolachy but it certainly looks like it is something I need to try for fear of losing my eGullet decoder ring. I will have to make my way down there in the coming weeks. [edit] I just realized I was quoting an OLD thread! Wow 2004! Oops! [/edit]

Hey Gyoza isn't much of a "settling" place. Ebi Mayo....my god. I need Ebi Mayo But the Tagine at Chambar was wonderful!

^ What they need is an acoustic filter applied to their walls such that high pitched sounds are not magnified but instead gently softened. I wonder if acoustic engineers can do that? Create some kind of bandstop effect by say retexturing walls. I see a business idea coming...