Kloom

whenever i am in calgary, i go to the istanbul restaurant in inglewood in the charming eastern edge of the city. istanbul is a turkish restaurant.

Well, I was at Rare tonight. Tuesday night. Raining. More than half full. Terrific meal.

Culinary resarch is what I should say to the Customs Officer at YVR upon my return, should I be asked for the reasons why I was in Vienna. No, not quite. Here on business. Tonight, I ate at the Goldene Zeiten (see: www.goldenezeiten.at), considered Vienna's top Chinese Restaurant and where Susur Lee of Toronto will cook for a week starting next week. The room was lovely, but it was basically Chinese served to look like food one gets in high-end European cuisine restaurants. Certainly not the way high end Chinese is served in places such as Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Richmond.

My last three dinners out: Gasthaus Ubl (Vienna, Austria) last night. This is one of the great traditional gasthaus restaurants of Vienna. Cioppino's four nights ago. Restaurant Aux Charpentiers, 6th Arrondisement, Paris, about 9 nights ago. My last three lunches out: Don Don Noodle Cafe on Cambie two days ago, Joe's Grill on 4th Avenue five days agoand Bistro Sakana in Yaletown about a full week ago.

Apologies if Northern Dynasty in the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond already mentioned, but they offer very good xiao long bao. Ba Guo Bu Yi used to have fabulous such dumplings but the owner returned to Beijing, despite the great success of her restaurant. There is a hole in the wall Shanghaiese restaurant on Main towards about 37th Avenue on west side of Main. Not sure they are still there as I was there about a year ago, but it is uncompromisingly Shanghaiese, run by a young women not long immigrated from Shanghai. Perhaps someone can mention the name and status of this hidden gem.

Gosh, I should know the answer to your question regarding the website update, but I don't. I will bring it up at the restaurant today regarding website. Very likely Gastropod will open this Saturday November 25 but definitely next week. Do call 604 7305579 to confirm. Initially, we will open only for dinners--until 11 pm, by the way.

Bread is another one of those weak areas in the lower mainland. Good bread can be had but where they are found is few and far between. It is not an option in large swaths of our local geography. Near where I live, Antonino's on 4th used to make terrific Italian breads but since moving to Granville Street, he has told me he has cut down considerably bread making in favour of sandwiches and muffins. The same problem for finding good croissants. They can be had but one needs to make a commitment to go to a place like Senses to find them. The same problem is true for finding a good brioche, a bread which does not keep at all and required eating within half a day of purchase. Lastly, where can one buy unsalted bread, the pride of Tuscan bakeries?

Lol, I am not making any assumptions about her or any so-called food critic to deliver altruism to the public. I am merely suggesting that there is a certain appeal to her opinion precisely because her personality shines through, whether we happen to like her character traits (from what we can make of it through words on newsprint) or not. Does her opinion have an effect on a restaurant? I am sure it must to some degree difficult to quantify. And I do not agree with the view that she is not really a restaurant critic. Not to present an apologia of her merits or demerits as a restaurant critic, but whether we think of her as worthy of restaurant critic status, she is the Globe and Mail's restaurant critic for our region. And should ever the Globe and Mail decide Jeffrey Simpson as the next Vancouver restaurant critic, then Simpson will be a restaurant critic. And of course, the cognoscenti will weigh that for what it is worth, as they should.

I am one of the two partners of Gastropod, a new restaurant soon to open at 1938 West Fourth in Vancouver, in between Cypress and Maple. We are just going through inspections now, but expect to open within the next two weeks, possibly sooner. I wanted to reply to someone who posted earlier about Gastropod being a 'clever' (or, possibly not) conflation of the words Gastronomy and iPod. There was never any thought given to the iPod. I thought of the name and after much discussion, including Pied Bleu (too French, difficult to pronounce, and possibly obscure come reference) and other gems, Gastropod was agreed upon. I thought Gastropod would be a nice cross between new English and French (Gastropode) and a reference to Paris' famous Restaurant Escargot as well as London's St John where periwinkles are on offer. It suggested food away from Steak, Lamb chops and Salmon, although we do have all three meats offered only not in the usual way. Anyhow, I think you know what I mean. The room is a quaint 42 seats and 7 seats at the bar. None of this cube chair and globe lamps with piped in 'House' music. Bar chairs have backs and seating on banquettes. Table will have linen. Service will be assured. There will be 7 appetizers, 7 mains and 7 desserts, all made in house (all pastries, ice cream and pasta, for instance, made in house) and any combination of the 3 categories for $42.50. The Chef is Angus An, a young chef who just returned from working in some high profile London restaurants. In Canada, he worked at Montreal's Toque. The room is beautiful, the kitchen brigade is top notch, the prices are reasonable. Our aim is for a new type of neighbourhood bistro. We look forward to our neighbour Fuel opening up as well. Hope to see you at Gastropod soon.

Why did someone start a thread on Gill some well respected food critics on this thread have queried, and not on them? Obviously, the association with the Globe and Mail gives her clout, deserved or not. But, I think people read her not because they necessarily trust her qualifications as a food critic but for the reason that her personality shines through in her written entries. For example, her very cruel cut-up of Connor Butler may not be without some worthy points but when she warned Butler to pay heed to westsider tastes (aesthetic tastes, moreover), her classist roots shone through (that she is, as someone point out, from Etobicoke, makes all the more sense therefore--ie petit bourgeois ambitions) and turned her slag into content that regularly consumes the readers of London newspapers, from The Telegraph to News of the World. Afterall, in many ways, Butler was an easy target for Gill, someone who obviously refuses to discard his straw hat for a toque when photographed. Her aim was to cut him down to size before all other considerations, and that aspect of her review transcended whatever criticisms she held about the restaurant and which I found the most troubling, however appealing to read.

A genuine discovery is the prosaically named Szechwan Restaurant (sic) on Saba Road in Richmond. The website is: www.szechwanrestaurant.ca The place is virtually hidden from view as the windows are entirely covered up and is located at the eastern end of Saba about a block from #3 Road. Inside, one enters a veritable museum world of the Qing Dynasty. In my view, it is one of the best Chinese restaurants in the Lower Mainland. The owner is from Beijing and he told me he wanted to bring good Chinese food to the Vancouver area. When I replied somewhat incredulously that there are already good Chinese restaurants, he qualified further, adding that he wanted to bring good non-Cantonese to the Vancouver area. The pickled fish soup is to die for.