makanmakan

It's Jimmy's Tap House, slated to open in early March. Read more about it in the February 10 edition of The Daily CityFood. ← Thanks, Joie! I'm most excited about the prospects of being able to buy a bottle of decent wine to sip on during those late evenings at work!

H Mart is the name of the store. Apparently, there is also going to be an Asian food court in it as well...Chinese, Japanese and Korean food. Good news for us that work in the block! It is looking close to being done but I'm not sure when the actual date is. I will report back as soon as they solidify it! Also, in the previous Kiwi Pie Co. location on Robson, there is a ton of reno action going on. There is a sushi place going in there. Edited to add: there is also a taphouse and beer and wine store going into where Voda used to be (in the Westin Grand). Can't recall the exact name though, but they seem to be working hard on the renos.

We spent the weekend in Kamloops to ski/board Sun Peaks this weekend. What a gorgeous weekend of sunny skies and powdery slopes. Who'd have thought that we'd also have great food there as well! Saturday night, we went to Ric's Grill downtown Kamloops. We shared the french onion soup and spinach salad to start. Both were good. My main was a chilli espresso tenderloin with a mushroom and red wine reduction over it. His was pasta which was not bad. My god, that hunk of beef is probably the most tender I'd ever had! The rub was delicious on it and the steak pretty much melted in my mouth. If i remember correctly, it was Sterling Silver beef, from Alberta. While on our way to Ric's Grill, we had walked by an interesting place called Paradiso and decided to try it on Sunday night. It's a tapas and fondue restaurant that is very warm and cozy inside. I can't wait to go back and try out more of their menu! All the tables have an induction stovetop in the middle of it and all the fondues are prepared at your table. We started with a classic swiss fondue. They brought out a bain marie, with some Mission Hill Chardonnay, lemon juice and some garlic in the pyrex bowl. As soon as that got hot, she brought out a huge bowl of shredded gruyere and emmenthal and added some into the hot bowl. After mixing up the concoction, she poured a little kirsch into it and then brought us a big plate of bread and green apples. Delicious! For our main, we decided to do a broth fondue. We had the Pot Chaud, which was a spicy veg broth with soy, ginger and chili sauce. It was brought out cold to the table in a small Le Creuset pot and heated up at the table. The smell was incredible as it was slowly heating up. Then a plate of chicken breast pieces, prawns, and teriyaki sirloin was brought out along with a plate of veggies. We also ordered a lobster tail. Everything was so good and the broth was smelling better and better! So, we asked for spoons and feasted on the broth after all the goodies were gone. Dessert....how could we resist the call of melted dark chocolate. Again, melted at the table with cream. A plate of rice krispy squares, brownies, grapes, bananas and fresh pineapple came with it. This was one of our most fun dinners we've ever had. Too bad there's no fondue restaurants in town. Guess we'll have to do this at home! Other meals up there were diner breakfasts, pizza by the slice on the mountain, and chilli at a day lodge on the mountain. Oh, we also found a very cool little coffee shop called Zack's. Great tea selection, great chocolate cake, good coffee and an awesome little candy store next to it!

Thanks for all the input. She's decided on Fiction for the night....and the kind folks have given us the run of the whole restaurant! This will by my first time at Fiction.....looking forward to it!

Yum! Kueh Lapis was loved by my sister and I when we were kids. We always ate it layer by layer....I think it's mandatory when you're a kid! When I have the rare opportunity to have it now, I still eat it that way....old habits die hard. Thanks for the list, Zuke and Moosh. My mouth is watering....heh!

^^ Lorna, that is my favourite dessert there! Thanks for the tips and the tart looked divine! I'll have to try that soon.

Thanks, Greg! Lee, yum! Did ya by chance bring your camera and have pics for us?!! See you both on Monday!

yikes!

thanks for the recap, greg! are you normally in the monday class as well? if so, i'll have to search you out next week and say hi! the chicken sounds absolutely divine. my friend picked up an extra recipe list for me so i'll have to try and do it at home. i'm secretly glad you guys didn't do the baguette as i'm dying to learn how to make one! my friend told me that apparently we will make that in an upcoming class. could you share a quick run down on the olive oil tutorial that chef tony gave you guys? thanks!

It's a little store in the food court of Pacific Plaza mall. It's right at Cambie and Garden City, you enter from along Cambie. The owners are from Indonesia and they do have a fair selection of kuehs. HTH! ← oooooh! do you know what kinds of kuehs they have?

Actually, last night it was neither....we did a foccacia. ← so....do we get a recap?!!

wow, that was an incredible tutorial, OG! Thanks for that! It brought me right back to my diving experiences in this chilly and gorgeous ocean of ours. There's nothing like it! Time to get my drysuit back on!

Boohoo, you're out for one night - I'm out for the whole seminar w/ my herniated disks and am trying - really trying - to live vicarously through all posting egullet attendees - so please, keep up the posting and keep me entertained/enthused for the next seminar - doesn't start until May 9th! But makanmakan, I sympathize with missing a class when you've signed up for the whole shooting match and are paying for it . . . would the Academy let you sit in on the next seminar's baguette evening - if there is a consistent schedule for each class? ← i know....let me whine though...lol. when i talked to marla today, she said that if i felt better tomorrow, i can come to the tuesday class, but it's not looking good. i could manage it if i had an oxygen tank with me though! (bad asthma flare up due to chest cold) i'm hoping that between lee and anne and another friend of mine, i can leach notes from them and learn. how's your back doing, btw?

No class for me tonight as i'm couch bound with a nasty flu. Lee and Anne, I'll have to live vicariously through you guys for this class. Damn, I really wanted to make a baguette. *pout*

stovetop, that was food prose at it's best! beautiful, i could almost smell the ocean, feel the breezey cool air and taste the oysters. thank you! oyster guy, next time i'm in whistler, i am so coming in for a oyster 101! i have oyster opening issues...lol. lorna, great pics, sounds and looks like you had fun!

thanks to all that's thrown in suggestions, so far. shebeen and curious sound great! for some reason, she's nixed the alibi room. i might have to talk her into that as it is a great space.....now, hopefully they've fixed all their plumbing problems! as far as a minimum spent per person, it shouldn't be a problem as it's a big group of drink happy people! looking forward to more..... cheers!

had to read this thread to see what the hilights were for all! we'll be there tonight with our bells on! *edited to add that sadly, we had to cancel tonight.

A friend of mine is having a big 4-0 birthday bash and still hasn't come up with a location yet. So here I am, putting the word out to see if any of the brilliant gulleters can come up with any suggestions! Here are some of her needs, in her own words. My goal is: -- fits 70 people without being in each others armpits if ya know what i mean -- ambience (i;m sure you know what i mean) -- booze with a little tapas ...no sit down dinner. Some tables and couches might help though...): -- full bar at decent prices (i've learned to ask what their bar prices are....) including tequila and kettle one vodka for martinis -- ability to DJ myself -- truly a private function (ie not cordoned off by a curtain or something ridiculous like that) -- and the big kicker NO ROOM RENTAL FEE. I am willing to pay up to $500 if the space is pretty decent and feels right. For some places FREE is difficult to do on a saturday night , ie Feb 18th -- also my dream was somewhere downtown Thoughts??? Thanks, muchly.

^^ yayy!!! gbp, here i come!! i've now renamed that seafood linguine "crack pasta". i had such a strong craving for it all day that i had to do a take out for dinner tonight, and it was just as good as it was last night.

we used a mixture of medium and aged cheddar for this version. thanks! heh, leftovers?!!! i wish!!!!

here are some of the pics! this was such a fun class and i got to work with lee! when i sat down and saw what we were going to be making, i was very excited. oh mac and cheese.....so good! first, the beet salad. so yummy with bites of toasted cumin and fennel seeds in the vinaigrette. this was devoured with a glass of the gazela vino verde. this was my first glass of vino verde and i am hooked. clean, fresh, zippy and just plain yummy! next up was the mac'n'cheese. as barolo said, it was a more "adult" version. tony did share with us his trick of adding some boddington's beer when making this at home. i am so doing that! the salmon rillette was such a fun dish to make. the end result was delicious and so pretty looking! we started with poaching the salmon...... then the salmon was chilled and poaching liquid reduced to a syrup. then the salmon was flaked with the syrup and mire poix mixture to make the bottom layer. the next layer was a guacamole, then topped with a sour cream and horseradish mixture. then we molded this into a ring to make it oh, so fancy looking! we had this last course with a glass of talus chardonnay.

we had an awesome dinner here last night! i had the linguine to start with (due to your review) and fine myself craving for it this morning! it was delicious. the pasta was perfectly al dente, the seafood fresh and the sauce simple and so savoury and tasty. the bf had the soup and it was very nice as well, but i loved my pasta more! we both had the veal and hands down, one of the best veal dishes we've ever had. rich marsala and mushroom sauce, the veal was practically melt in your mouth. so good. i had the tiramisu (i know, so cliche, but a craving needed to be filled) and he had the orange cake. both were good, simple and clean flavoured. i actually liked the fact that the desserts were on the small side as i have a bad habit of eating all of my dessert! we had a bottle of the mission hill five vineyards merlot, which was very reasonably priced. all in all, we had a really lovely evening of attentive and warm service and gorgeous food in a huge but cozy room. we will definitely be back!

great thread idea! my votes go to andrey of parkside, the folks at all the guus, vikram vij, tojo, thomas haas and the folks at ganache! i'm sure i'll have more to add later!

i'm not sure if she still does catering, but i had a fabulous evening of food thanks to Marta Pan of Pan-O-Pan.

You are pretty observant. C consulted with Ballet BC to improve their service and acheive that "well oiled machine" you experienced. Here's a quote from their news release: ← very impressive indeed. i did notice that dishes were served at the same time regardless of size of table. also, there was probaly never more than a minute after finishing my dish that it was cleared away. although the room was packed, i never felt overwhelmed. i also noticed that they (the servers) all helped each other out and worked the whole room. also, the hostesses and host up front were friendly and very welcoming. never once did i feel like i was in a snooty room.