Truth be told: Where've you eaten lately? (Part 2)

[Andrew Morrison]

On the contrary, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the simple reason that people have a tendency not to show up. You might be true to your word and bond, but others? Not so much. Why do you think places like the Bins, Vij's, and Wild Rice don't take reservations in the first place?

It sucks for the owners, sure, to see potential revenue get tossed down the toilet because someone decided to stay home to watch Auld get peppered. A change of heart is costly, and just imagine the waiters chagrin when he/she watches the other sections fill up while their phantom party of 12 is 15/25/45 minutes late without so much as a phone call. I know that when I walk in to work to find my section will see no other tables during the course of the evening beyond a party of 12 coming in at 7pm (my shift starts at 5pm), I get nervous, cross my fingers, and hope to hell they show up. I'd venture 40% of the time they get their numbers wrong and only 8 to 10 people actually make it; 55% of the time they all do; while 5% of the time they are a no show.

Is $200 too much to protect their business? No. Is $400 unbelievable? No again (especailly for a table of 12). Sometimes no shows swerve me to consider suggesting to ownership/managment that customers be subjected to a retinal scan that provides their home address so that I can egg their house when I finally get sent home after making zero ducats.

I'm not defending Wild Rice so much as giving you a bit of smelling salts. They don't take reservations because Vancouver is awash with people who make reso's and either don't show on time, without the stated number of people, or simply don't show up at all.

We've talked about this phenomenon in a few other threads before, but seeing Wild Rice get sullied for being sensible (remember the waiterblog dinner when so many eGulleters failed to show?), it gets my back up just a little.

Remember that deposits are the only weapon in a restaurants arsenal, and they are only used under special circumstances, like when people try to make reservations at restaurants that don't take reservations.

I can certainly understand the Mastercard/Visa thing if they actually took reservations as a matter of course.

I would say, though, that $200 is way out of line ($400 - unbelievable).

That's too bad. I really like the food and vibe at Wild Rice.

Brenda, so do I, and I hope you're able to look beyond this silly business to enjoy it again and again.

Edited December 31, 2005 by Andrew Morrison (log)

[kurtisk]

Well said, Andrew, well said.

No restaurant wants to have to take deposits and I know it seems absurd to some people, but at our place alone we have gone ahead and taken parties of 12 in the past (a third of our room), made sure the table was ready to go, given a good 30min. chance for people to show up (after turning away dozens), and by the time a no-show becomes obvious, the walk-in traffic dissipates for the evening, resulting in (on average) $700-1200 lost revenue.

This is unbelievably common, talk to any restauranter you know. Giant corporate places can (sometimes) swallow the loss, but smaller indie places like us really take a beating over those who don't show.

Is it safe to assume that those who don't want to leave a CC# aren't fully planning on attending? Otherwise, who cares about leaving it in the first place? I don't know of any place in town who would charge you if you cancelled in advance. But if people don't want to put anything at stake toward themselves showing up, then why do they expect that a restaurant would happily swallow the loss instead of them? Seems like a bit of a double standard.

I dunno. There seems to be no great answer. Like Andrew said, we've gone over this before and I'm wasting my time typing this as it'll most likely be wiped from the eG record, but it's relevant to the points brought up in this thread, so here we are.

I can guarantee that no one does it for sport or to be malicious. Maybe it's a factor of how it's handled. In talking with many industry colleagues over the last couple years or so, it seems we're all still trying to find the best solution for everyone.

k.

Edited December 31, 2005 by kurtisk (log)

[Daddy-A]

[host]

This discussion is a non-starter in a REGIONAL forum. There are many threads that discuss this very topic over in General Food Topics. I'd find those threads for you, but I haven't even had my first coffee this morning.

Please, keep the discussion in this thread on the topic at hand: Where've you eaten lately?

A.

[/host]

[teamboom]

Yesterday my boyfriend and I had lunch at Samurai on Davie.

Their lunch bento box specials are such a great deal at $6.95 (I had salmon teriyaki, spicy agedashi tofu, rice, tempura, spicy tuna cone, salad, miso soup).

Then I made a roast chicken with carrots and potatoes for dinner, complete with a baguette from GI.

yumyum.

[fud]

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.

[gingerfreak]

Okay..more than 3, but I've been lazy about posting.

Last Friday before Christmas, late lunch/early dinner at Central. *Trying* to be healthy, it was salads for each. He had the cobb and I had the hot seafood. Both very nice, and we each had a couple of rounds of drinks - my partner had the tequini (after a many-year hiatus he can finally drink tequila again!) and I had the silver bullet, which if I remember correctly had scotch in it.

On Christmas Eve, in the madness of shopping downtown we stopped at the Templeton. He had the Big Ass brekkie and loved it but for the hell of it decided to try "veggie bacon". He WILL NOT be repeating the experiement. I had the grilled veggie sandwich with gruyere cheese. Good food, great atmosphere.

We don't make a big deal out of Christmas at all for the 2 of us, so dinner consisted of shrimp and veggies with dip, several cheeses, including a fabulous aged cheddar, and the famous rainforest crisps. Accompaniment was a bottle of grenache shiraz and a movie "Team America: World Police". Ahhh, the holiday spirit Oh, and though we don't do much for Christmas per se, I do feel a weird compulsion to bake the usual goodies, so baked some almond spice butter cookies to rave reviews.

For brunch on boxing day it was back to Central (I'm right around the corner so it's definitely becoming a neighbourhood haunt). My partner had the Big Ass breakfast (are we seeing a theme here?) which further entrenched his love of Central and especially their portion sizes. I was torn between the french toast and being healthy and opted for healthy, going for the egg white omelet, accompanied by the ginger tea. And I really love the spelt bread they use there.

Last Tuesday we did lunch at Cassis - I had the coq au vin, which I quite enjoyed - the chicken very tender and the broth nice and warming on a rainy day. My only complaint is it could have used more pancetta. My partner had the mushroom-truffle-goat cheese pizza and thought it amazing. Service was a bit rough, but not bad at all, considering the waitress was obviously new. AFter that we dashed across the street for a few drinks at Yaggers. Love the atmosphere there, and though it was completely dead on a Tuesday afternoon, I could see it being lots of fun. Great drink list too, although my past issues with jagermeister leave it rather limited for me . I'll be really interested to watch their progress there.

This past Friday it was just drinks with friends at George. I know a lot of people aren't crazy about its yaletown-ness, but it is what it is. If you can accept that (and get there early enough), it's very enjoyable. LOVE the design there, and was particularly impressed with the drinks. So nice to see mixed drinks aren't just sugar bombs.

Finally, for NYE, it was our first time at Lumiere. I can't say anything about it that hasn't been said better by many others here, so will simply say that it was an absolutely lovely experience, in terms of food and service. We were home before midnight and rang in the new year with cognac and scotch

[Ling]

Last week, I had dinner with some friends at Felico's in Richmond. We had a bottle of red wine and started with the calamari and fried oysters. For my main, I ordered the lamb souvlaki, rare, and that's how it arrived. However, my friends ordered steaks and souvlaki dishes--all rare or medium rare--and every plate came well-done to the point where the meat was kind of tough. (We weren't a large party...only six of us that night.) Also, we had to ask for the bill three times over the span of 35 minutes before we received it. The server was nice enough to do separate checks for us, though. The restaurant wasn't too busy...maybe half full, but there only seemed to be two servers working and they seemed to have too many tables to wait on!

I also made dinner for the guy I've been dating last week. I'll post the pictures soon in the "Meals from Granville Island" thread soon. Appetizers were pate choux filled with goat cheese and Parm Reg mousse, salmon tartare (from the Bouchon cookbook), pan-seared pheasant, swiss chard, fig, and foie gras (from The French Laundry, though I subbed pheasant for squab), and I made a caramel apple pie, and served it with Haagen Daaz ice-cream. (And we had green tea ice-cream after that.) We drank a bottle of red, which I didn't care for very much. I also drank a bottle of Sauternes all by myself.

Sunday was a big birthday luncheon at his house. His family's cooks made the food and served it buffet style (all Chinese stuff...the best thing was this marinated crunchy cartilege). I made a three-layer pecan butter cake with pecan dacquoise, Valrhona Amaretto mousse, and it was covered with Amaretto cream cheese frosting, and topped with more crumbled dacquoise on top. Also brought over a tray of cream puffs I made the morning of...those were filled with coconut cream.

Today we watched King Kong and ate lunch at the Silvercity food court. I had the BLT chicken salad with honey mustard dressing at Burger King. This was my first-ever fast food salad...and it will most likely be my last. Lots of shredded iceberg lettuce, orange cheese, limp bacon bits, some grilled chicken. I washed it down with 7-11. He had a Junior Whopper and then two beef tacos and a beef burrito at Taco Bell.

At night, we went to Pacific Crab & Co. with our friend and our friend's girlfriend. I had eaten dinner already at home, so I just had oysters (Kumamotos, Mary Point, Royal Miyagi, and Malpeques.) Malpeques are my favourite! The others had yam fries, seafood chowder, and over 70 oysters. They stuck to the Mary Point and Royal Miyagi b/c they were on special for a buck each. And then we said good-bye...he's out of the country for the next 6 weeks. Oh well.

Edited January 3, 2006 by Ling (log)

[fud]

Appetizers were pate choux filled with goat cheese and Parm Reg mousse, salmon tartare (from the Bouchon cookbook), pan-seared pheasant, swiss chard, fig, and foie gras (from The French Laundry, though I subbed pheasant for squab), and I made a caramel apple pie, and served it with Haagen Daaz ice-cream. (And we had green tea ice-cream after that.)

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!

[canucklehead]

Spent the holidays in HK - and went to alot of local places. I will be updating the post over the next couple of days in the Chinese Food Thread:

Canuck in HK

Edited January 4, 2006 by canucklehead (log)

[Ling]

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!

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Thanks...here's a link to the pictures from the dinner:

dinner pics!

I would've liked to have done a more involved dessert than caramel apple pie...but it's his favourite, so that's what I did.

[BCinBC]

Happy New Year all. Whew the holidays are finally behind us, and fun as they were, it is almost nice to be back to normal life.

Dec 23 - Kingston Bar & Grill

Met up with a bunch of friends, some of whom I have not seen for way too long. We drank a lot of beer, and I had a sausage & mushroom pizza which was actually quite good. Thin crust. Then a lot of beer. Then we went to Skybar and the evening spiralled out of control. I don't know if I like the Kingston yet as I really did love the old RAT and the space is very much upscaled, but the pizza was good.

Dec 24 - Sun Sui Wah (Main)

Ah nothing is better for the ole hangover than dim sum with the in-laws. My BIL, who was out on the previous night's extraveganza, did not make it (but he felt guilty enough to invite us over for eggs benny the next morning). Despite, we had a really great little feast on the perennial favourites - plus there was an item that I'd never had before: It was like darn tarts (egg custard tarts) but with mango custard and real slivers of mango. My FIL liked them so much I ordered some for him to take home for tea later.

Dec 27 - Victoria

Dinner with Mom at the Japanese place at the water end of Chinastreet (Fisgard Ave). Some good sashimi, but cooked stuff was not that good. Washed down with Kirin.

Afterwards N & I met up with Daddy-A and "J" who happened to be in town as well. No food, but a bottle of La Frenz Montage 02 at Canoe. I really love this wine. As for the space, the waterfront is nice and decor also pretty good (big open areas and huge cedar columns). The company of course was excellent.

Dec 28 - still in Vic

Another round of dim sum, this time at Golden City as Don Mee was too full. Too bad too.

The trip's food highlight was our family dinner at Rosemeade for 8 adults plus a 4 year old. First of all, it truly is a weird location buried in Esquimalt. We turned left on Lampson, and I told N to keep an eye out for the Old English Inn as I peered through the orange sodium-lamp lighting searching for a sign of life. And there it was! A dramatic drive through the gate up to the beautiful property, park and a short walk to the back entrance, and you will see for yourself why this place is one of the best new restaurants in Canada. Just from the decor and room feel alone. The room is gorgeous with the stone and dark wood trim everywhere.

We ordered drinks (me a Stella, others had martinis, scotch and there was one Manhattan) and we were served amuses - my memory is a bit vague but a tiny chive quiche? with balsamic reduction I believe. My Mom can't eat vinegar but one mention and the servers quickly replaced hers with a non-sauced one.

For my appetizer I had oysters baked on the half shell in a gratin with a blood orange sauce. Excellent richness combined with the gratin, while retaining the oysters' flavour and texture. Enough acid in the sauce but not too much. Delicious and very well done. Others had sweetbreads, green salads, white been and bacon soup, and foie gras.

My main was the lamb cheeks in a 4 hour braise with parsnips 3 ways (chips, roasted and a cheesy mash). So rich, beautiful texture just barely protesting to being pulled apart. There were 5 or 6 cheeks and I could not finish the plate. I also tried N's scallops, which were huge, tender and seared with a perfect translucent stipe in the middle. Other selections were the Alberta tenderloin, venison loin and pancetta wrapped chicken breast.

We had a couple dessert taster plates and some truffles (chocolate) to finish.

All dishes were reported winners. I chose a bottle of Yalumba Viognier and the Nota Bene (can't remember if it was 02 or 03, have they released this yet?). The Nota Bene was predictably very well received, so we ordered another one. One great thing about the Island I've found is that they are definitely not short of "rare" or harder to find vintages, and the markup is generally quite reasonable (in the 100% range) when compared to Vancouver. The Yalumba was $34 or so and the NB was $75 per bottle. (The La Frenz was $44 at Canoe.)

My nephew, who is very well behaved, seemed to really enjoy his specialy-ordered alfredo penne, and he absolutely loved the bread. He ate at least 4 slices. Also, the service was excellent. Unfortunately I can't remember our waiter's name, but my Uncle kept mistakenly calling him "Eric".

In the end the bill I believe came in at somewhere around $80 pp - not even counting my nephew. A truly incredible bargain.

Dec 29 - Brentwood Bay Lodge

Brunch in the pub as the restaurant was not open, it was alright. I had poached eggs (which were too hard for my tastes, but otherwise they were gorgeous eggs) with sausages and toast, N had maple infused oatmeal - which again was too sweet for my tastes, however the oatmeal itself was a nice consistency and would have been great if they turned the sweetness level a couple notches below "candy". Others had blueberry pancakes and more oatmeal.

The main restaurant room is also spectacular, with the huge windows overlooking the bay (where I grew up), and wood trim finishing out everything. This is another place where I can't understand how they survive, but I really hope they do as they have done an excellent job restoring this property. I would love to try this restaurant though, and it is now on my "list".

Dec 30-Jan 2 - San Francisco

Trip report here. Nob Hill Cafe, Cafe Divine, Rue Lepic, Gold Mountain, and of course room service at the Fairmont. Okay so I lied above, it would be nice to have a few more days in SF.

[canucklehead]

...The trip's food highlight was our family dinner at Rosemeade for 8 adults plus a 4 year old. First of all, it truly is a weird location buried in Esquimalt...

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Glad to hear that the Rosemeade lives up to its hype. I am definitely going to check it out next time I am on the Island.

Thanks for the great write-up

[sugar plum]

Just before Christmas, myself and a friend "indulged" in the early prix fixe menu at West. It lived up to all expectations but the highlight was dessert! The chocolate caramel pot de cremes are to die for...a definate hit. I could have polished off about three more pots!

Last night, I headed to Il Giardino with a few co-workers. We arrived early for a 7:30pm sitting. Little did we know that we would be soon surrounded by many loud and obnoxious hockey fans celebrating (or continuing to celebrate) Canada's junior win against Russia. I had no idea it was such a big game (maybe everyone is trying to catch up after last year's televised hockey fast?). Anyways, it lead to a very noisy meal for us. We enjoyed the gnocchi, roasted pheasant and a shrimp dish. As we were diving into our dessert of cheesecake and a raspberry chocolate ganache tart, the waiter served us complimentary glasses of a California dessert wine and informed us that our desserts were on the house! Wonderful service, food and atmosphere. I hope there are still availibilities during DOV as I will be returning to Il Giardino soon.

[eugene]

Last week, I had dinner with some friends at Felico's in Richmond. We had a bottle of red wine and started with the calamari and fried oysters. For my main, I ordered the lamb souvlaki, rare, and that's how it arrived. However, my friends ordered steaks and souvlaki dishes--all rare or medium rare--and every plate came well-done to the point where the meat was kind of tough. (We weren't a large party...only six of us that night.) Also, we had to ask for the bill three times over the span of 35 minutes before we received it. The server was nice enough to do separate checks for us, though. The restaurant wasn't too busy...maybe half full, but there only seemed to be two servers working and they seemed to have too many tables to wait on!

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I think this one is totally your fault. Why would you go to a white people's restaurants in Richmond But also, I try avoiding restaurants where a double murder has been committed ! Such as Felico’s. Anyhoo, try Mad Greek (8180 Westminster), I find them to be much better than Felicos.

[Ling]

^It was my friend who made the reservation! I didn't choose the restaurant... The few of us who've been to Mad Greek before agreed that Mad Greek was better. (Portions are much bigger there too.)

[~cayenne~]

Anyhoo, try Mad Greek (8180 Westminster), I find them to be much better than Felicos.

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They've moved a few blocks west on Westminster Highway to a new location.

[eugene]

Anyhoo, try Mad Greek (8180 Westminster), I find them to be much better than Felicos.

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They've moved a few blocks west on Westminster Highway to a new location.

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Well arent we just so up to date Mr. Smartypants

[~cayenne~]

Anyhoo, try Mad Greek (8180 Westminster), I find them to be much better than Felicos.

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They've moved a few blocks west on Westminster Highway to a new location.

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Well arent we just so up to date Mr. Smartypants

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[Zucchini Mama]

I haven't eaten out for quite a while, but managed to go three places in as many weeks. My son's taking a class on South Dunbar, so all three are from that area.

1) Kokopelli Café: They've got good sandwiches served on funky square plates with salad and giant olives. This is a godsend for moms with small children because there's a play area and also great baking made freshly every day. I had a mocha creme caramel there that was dark, rich, and creamy. I've only seen them there that one time. One of my guilty pleasures is their chocolate "fairy" or "wizard" cupcakes with cold buttercream icing. It's that birthday cupcake hit.

2) Lucky Star Sechuan Cuisine: This place has been open for four months. My heart sank when I saw it had the regular Canadian Chinese items on about half the menu, but I had an okay kung pow chicken. It was a lunch special under $6. The decor is simple, cream and black, but the CD they were playing was quite bizarre: loud crickets interspersed with Chinese music, then the sound of fire or water, then back to the music. It was a bit surreal, but hey I like surreal.

3) Masala Greek and Indian Fusion: Normally I would run screaming from fusion like this, but it was cold and rainy and I was up for an adventure. I ordered lamb curry, since lamb is central to both cuisines. The lamb was very tasty and tender, served in a thick tomato-based sauce in a balti dish. The fusion part was that it was served on the same kind of rice you'd see on a plate in a Greek Taverna (with frozen peas, corn and carrots added). The waitress and the owner/chef (who is Punjabi, by the way) are both colorful and chatty, and I spent an entertaining few minutes talking to the owner about his chai. Olga the waitress says a woman comes every morning to get a thermos full of his masal chai made extra strong. "Next time you come, you tell me you like it extra strong," she says.

Today I also loaded up on blood oranges and organic pomegranates at Stong's and bought fish for supper at the new Longhouse fish store, which so far I've been very impressed with.

Zuke

Edited January 13, 2006 by Zucchini Mama (log)

[Ling]

Last Saturday

Dinner at Senhor Rooster's, which I wrote about already. The Coles Notes version: I liked the piri-piri sauce the best, split the lamb rack and the cornish game hen, finished with the blueberries flambeed tableside, and the flan.

Last Sunday

lunch

Church's Chicken. Have I mentioned on Egullet how I wish they would make a sandwich using just the fried, battered chicken skin? Anyway, I had all the dark meat in the box, and some fries. (And then I started pilfering the skin from the white meat pieces...)

Last Tuesday

take-out from No. 9 that my sister brought home

Fried rice with shrimp, and a dish of deep-fried shrimp sauteed with minced garlic and jalapeno. It was food. I was hungry.

Tonight

My first course tonight was my little homage to Chef Jeff and his staff at Aurora Bistro, so I thought I'd post the pictures here too. My friend and I love the Hazelmere beet salad with goat cheese at the restaurant, so I tried to make a version for dinner tonight. I'm so disappointed with my pictures though.

Hazelmere farm beets, Meyer lemon and pomegranate vinaigrette, Happy Days goat cheese

Wagyu beef (labelled "Premium Kobe") with mashed potatoes

The mountain of mashed potatoes was actually a good 5" high at least...I have enormous dinner plates, so everything looks dwarfed!

Rum creme brulee, oatmeal spice tuile

Edited January 14, 2006 by Ling (log)

[Chef Fowke]

was that $104.63 for two steaks? Drool...wow! Nice plates!

[kontemporary]

104.63 for 1lb!? that's 50 dollars for an 8oz steak! i remember West had a kobe beef entree (and definitely not over 50) on their menu some months back - i didn't realise kobe beef was THAT expensive.

regardless, the dinner looks beautiful Ling !

[Ling]

Thanks for the kind words!

Yes, it's about $50 for a steak...there are different prices for the different quality. I bought the steaks at Nikuya (2828 E. Hastings) and they had Wagyu for something like $17.50/100 grams, then Kobe, then Premium Kobe, and also Snakeriver Farm Kobe. The marbling was incredible...and the fat had such a pure, round flavour!

I also saw the little strips of Wagyu/Kobe that I've eaten at Octopus Garden and Hapa Izakaya at Nikuya. They sell for somewhere between $2-$5 dollars/100 grams, if I remember correctly. (They are cut from a different part of the cow than the ribeyes.)

104.63 for 1lb!? that's 50 dollars for an 8oz steak! i remember West had a kobe beef entree (and definitely not over 50) on their menu some months back - i didn't realise kobe beef was THAT expensive.

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[Irishgirl]

I can attest that the Snake River Kobe is Excellent! We had some for a function at New Year's. 2 Striploins - $1400.

One of the tenderest and most flavourful pieces of meat I have ever had. They have imported Wagyu from Japan and crossbred them with Angus beef and then raise them in the traditional method....although I highly doubt that they drink Japanese beer.....

THe marbling on your pieces Lorna, look pretty fine. Do you realize that there are (I Think) 13 stages of marbling that they grade Kobe by? I have heard that Snake River never gets a grade higher than a 7 or 8. The actual Japanese stuff must be insane.

P.S. yours looks like about a 5-6 compared to the striploin we had. I highly recommend Snake River.

Edited January 14, 2006 by Irishgirl (log)

[Ling]

I can attest that the Snake River Kobe is Excellent!  We had some for a function at New Year's.  2 Striploins - $1400.

One of the tenderest and most flavourful pieces of meat I have ever had.  They have imported Wagyu from Japan and crossbred them with Angus beef and then raise them in the traditional method....although I highly doubt that they drink Japanese beer.....

THe marbling on your pieces Lorna, look pretty fine.  Do you realize that there are (I Think) 13 stages of marbling that they grade Kobe by?  I have heard that Snake River never gets a grade higher than a 7 or 8.  The actual Japanese stuff must be insane.

P.S. yours looks like about a 5-6 compared to the striploin we had.  I highly recommend Snake River.

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Yes, the meat is awesome, isn't it? I know about the marbling scale...I believe it goes up to 12. My friend, who a few weeks ago bought the same meat (Premium Kobe) as I did told me that the butcher told him that the meat was, in the butcher's opinion, an 8 on the scale. (This might be a bit of an exaggeration...I am more inclined to believe that the marbling is indeed a 5 or a 6, as I too have read that SnakeRiver doesn't get better than an 8.)