Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Slif-ers!

Hope you're spending some quality time with your family and friends, and taking the best of the season! Eat well, sleep tight, and have fun!

That being said, my friends were AWESOME this year! My very first All-Clad pan!!! I can't wait to break it in tomorrow! I'm thinking freshly made sausages for breakfast...



What cool culinary gifts did you get this year?

culinary events: vancouver christmas market

An interesting happened to Vancouver after the Olympics - people started getting the idea that Vancouver is an actual city with denizenry who like to have fun! It's been almost a year since the five-ring-circus closed down, and suddenly there have been more and more fun events occuring in town. One of the more recent ones is the Vancouver Christmas Market.

Designed to emulate a small Bavarian town in the midst of the festive season, the Christmas Market features stalls selling Bavarian food and other items. A large tent by the entrance showcases a wide array of beautiful hand-crafted Christmas decorations. Closer to the theatre-side is a children's mini-market with handpainting, chocolate-making, and wooden toys, as well as a chance to meet the Market's mascots. All of this is centred around a gazebo featuring music from traditional bands, to something more offbeat-yet-infinitely-Vancouver like a Japanese drum band. The entertainment schedule is available on their website. As this is Bavaria, several "warming festive refreshment" stations are located throughout the area.

quick update on the delay

Hey Slif-ers!

Sorry about the sudden halt in posts. I've had a wacky run over the last few weeks of being sick, weather issues as well as doing a final excise of the virus that's been messing with my desktop for the last few months.

I'm aiming to living up to the "Daily" name of this blog again by Wednesday or Thursday. Until then, thanks for your patience!

Head Slif

happy thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American family, friends and readers!

bread company (kelowna)

After dropping my parents off at the airport, I was now free to explore the Okanagan to my heart's content. First step? Find some breakfast! We were driving around downtown Kelowna after our dinner at Raudz and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little shop called The Bread Company. I'm an absolute sucker for breads so I knew I had to hit them up.

The other great thing about Kelowna? Pay street parking doesn't start until 9 AM! Outstanding.

I went inside and found myself staring at a huge menu of pastries, hot and cold breakfast items, a number of lunch sandwiches and of course, a bread menu. As I had a big day of driving to look forward to so I didn't want anything too protein heavy, and I absolutely love pancakes so I asked the counter clerk for a recommendation. She immediately encouraged me to get the banana-walnut pancakes. Who am I to argue?

tantalus / mission hill wineries (kelowna)

Just a head's up, I didn't actually eat at the following wineries, but I thought it would complete the whole package to at least mention them, and the reasons they stood out for me.

Tantalus Vineyard


Tantalus Vineyard was one of my favourite visits of the whole trip - not for the reason you would think too! Hidden away in the hills of Kelowna's wine country, it's frighteningly easy to drive past the winery and not realize it's there. We actually ended up driving past it 3 times before we finally figured out this little dirtroad was the entrance! My GPS was absolutely no help as it didn't recognize that civilization existed in this part of town. Epic. Fail.

gray monk winery (okanagan centre)

There was quite the whirlwind of winery visits throughout the next few days, though very few that were memorable in the culinary sense. What did strike me was the environment and the surroundings I was in.


Gray Monk is located north of Kelowna in Okanagan Centre. It's located on top of a small mountain requiring a drive through a rugged 2-lane road. How rugged? At one point, I was looking eye-to-eye with 3 young deer grazing on the side of the road. The area is a bit more provincial, and definitely residential. I was surprised at all the houses at such close proximity though - I couldn't imagine listening to all those airguns going off constantly at all hours of the day. The visitor centre is 2 floors, the top holding the main tasting area and shop, while the bottom is where their offices and restaurant are located.

quail's gate winery - part ii (west kelowna)

Continuing on from yesterday's post of the Old Vines Restaurant at the Quail's Gate Winery in West Kelowna, here's what my parents ordered for lunch.

quail's gate winery - part i (west kelowna)

The Old Vines Restaurant at Quail's Gate Winery was our next winery meal. Quail's Gate is one of the more famous wineries in the Okanagan, and is located in Westbank, across the lake. The Old Vines is also one of the few winery restaurants that is open year-round. They've won awards and commendations from across North America, and so here we were to see what the hype's all about.


The winery grounds slope downhill (it's a mountain after all) and as-is seemingly tradition, gives a gorgeous view of Lake Okanagan. Sadly the day we visited, the much-promised rain clouds had arrived, but we got lucky and had a few dry hours to walk the vineyard.

cedar creek winery (kelowna)

My participation in this particular Okanagan trip was quite last minute. My parents had planned it out for themselves, and I just tagged along as my employment status took an unexpected turn a week before. This was the first time I'd gone on a trip in years without planning out the culinary stops, let alone allowing someone else to do it for me. I will admit, I was more apprehensive than relaxed about the whole scenario. Actually, until I arrived in Kelowna and met my parents at the Cedar Creek Winery, I had no previous knowledge of their dining plans, nor would it have mattered as my knowledge of the Okanagan was practically nil.


The Cedar Creek Winery is located 15 minutes out of downtown Kelowna, through a beautiful winding road, heading up to wine country. Their Terrace Restaurant dining area offers a breathtaking view over Lake Okanagan, and on beautiful sunny days, such as this, you can choose to dine al fresco on the patio. It was actually predicted to rain all weekend, but we were fortunate enough to stay a few steps ahead of clouds.

raudz (kelowna)

It's finally here - the first part of my Okanagan road-trip! This would represent my first "real" trip to the Okanagan in close to 15 years, and the first one which I drove myself. I had a family road-trip back the early-90s when there was NOTHING here except fruit orchards. I then came back about 6 years ago for the Knox Mountain Hillclimb race with some friends, but we were in and out in a day - not long enough for me to see anything. I will say this though, the drive on the Coquihalla was far more scenic back then.

The Coquihalla Highway's been expanded to 4 lanes, which significantly cuts the drive to the Okanagan shorter, but it also dramatically increases the boredom factor. That being said, I'm pretty impressed that I got to the outskirts of Westbank within 4 hours - first time I got the TSX up above 150 kph :-)

The Okanagan Valley is a unique microclimate zone - surrounded by mountains, lined with the massive Lake Okanagan (home of Ogopogo), and also home to Canada's only desert. Seriously. A real desert. With rattlesnakes and other pointy hurty stuff. It's this mix of climates that creates the perfect environment for fruit and vegetable farms - growing essentially everything under the sun.

Pick your own apple, cherry, pear and peach farms are everywhere, along with one of Canada's highest concentrations of wineries. This is about as locavore as it gets. Every grocery store/roadside fruit stand (of which there are plenty) is located a literal stone's throw away from the actual tree that produced what you're buying!

dinner - pollo al diavolo / "the devil's chicken"

I got a ridiculously good deal on some organic whole chickens a few weeks ago (from T&T Supermarket no less!) and I stocked up. I haven't had too much past experience roasting a whole chicken, so I decided to play around with some more recipes this time.


I found a recipe from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano that fit the bill called "pollo al diavolo" aka "The Devil's Chicken." It's a whole roasted chicken glazed halfway with a mustard/spice mixture for a hit of tongue-wagging heat and flavour. Perfect for a chilly fall eve. There's a lot of play available with this recipe since you can pretty much put whatever spice you want in there depending on the desired effect.

food cart madness - fasttrac fusion

So I'm driving north on Cambie, heading to the happiest place on earth (Whole Foods), when I notice a conspicuous silver cart hanging out on 49th Ave, just outside the Langara Canada Line exit. I make a borderline Stig-like right turn into the first street I pass and park.


One of the supreme tenets of the food industry has always been location, location, location. Langara College, hidden away in a residential area bordered by a golf course, has never been a focus of cheap eats, even though within its walls hides an untapped market of hungry and extremely budget-conscious eaters. Main Street's East Indian market is a few minutes walk, but the selection is limited. Oakridge Centre mall is a train stop away, but if you're between classes, that may not be an option. So in comes Fasttrac Fusion trying to fill a need.

update: isaac & agatha (richmond)

This is a follow-up to my initial review which you can find here.

A friend of mine called me up for lunch last Saturday, and I always use that as a reason to go eat Filipino food. He and I grew up together, and it's just one of those things that links our friendship. That, and he's also the guy who got me started with this whole love-of-cooking business. After I moved back to Vancouver after 4 years of living off dining hall food in Boston during university, he showed me quick-and-easy pasta, as well as the wonders of the George Foreman grill. Yes, I'm admitting to owning one.

farmers market saturday

The true sign that fall is here? The Trout Lake Farmers Market shuts down for another season.


Check out this massive golden beet I found! Lots of apples around, some late-season tomatoes, beets, and piles upon piles of squash were to be had. With Halloween a week away, the sweet smell of pumpkin pie should be filling the air.

food cart madness - fresh local wild

One of my rules is that I will not visit, let alone review, an establishment that has been open less than a month. I just consider it fair to give the staff time to get into a comfortable groove, and adjust the food as needed. It always leads to a better experience for all involved... or consequently, they close down before then...

I'm about to break that rule.


Fresh Local Wild is the latest food truck to wind its way into downtown Vancouver. It's based on bringing local sustainable and seasonable food to our streets, at an affordable price. The man in charge is Chef Josh Wolfe, formerly of the Glowbal Group's flagship Coast Restaurant on Alberni, which brings some hefty credentials. He and his partners launched Fresh Local Wild only yesterday, but the local Twitter-verse is already abuzz with their arrival.

dinner - scrumptious short rib with beet greens and couscous

I love short ribs.

Actually... I'm downright obsessed by it. There's just something about a properly braised short rib - fork-tender, fall-apart gorgeously-unctuous meat? I could eat that forever. Wagyu beef so tender you can cut it with a spoon? I've had it. It was good. But I DREAM of short ribs.

Ask any of the folks I lived with in university about my quest for the BBQ short ribs at B.B. Wolf's. They will roll their eyes in bemused recognition.

I usually make pulled pork with short ribs. There's so many things you can make with them in that form. I can make a sandwich, make a ragu, deep-fry it, or my personal favourite, put it all into a bucket and eat it as-is with a spoon. This time though, they didn't finish braising until 3 AM, so I left them whole, tossed them into the fridge and went to bed. The next day - it was time to play.

phnom penh (chinatown)

Vancouver doesn't have too many places deemed a "beloved institution." On the higher-end of the culinary scale, there's Bishop's, and Vij's. Then you have the Elbow Room and the Lamplighter, more known for quick and easy chow, holding fort on the other side.


Tucked away in a quiet street in Chinatown, surrounded by the telltale signs of unnecessary gentrification, Phnom Penh has been venerated by all that have passed through its doors. Serving up Vietnamese and Cambodian specialties for 20 or so years, there is a constant line-up weaving out the doors any day of the week. The faces you see in line represent every demographic Vancouver has to offer, speaking volumes of the old adage "if you build it, they will come."

food coma at refuel (w 4th)

My cousins and god-daughter are in town from the Philippines this week so that necessitated a fried chicken run to, in my opinion, one of the finest tables in town - refuel on West 4th.

Full disclosure, I staged a few times at refuel, and I also worked a week at their sister restaurant, Campagnolo after graduating from Northwest Culinary. Regardless, I was already a semi-regular at refuel long before then. Everyone's got to have that one place where everyone knows your name right?

It was nice to see the kitchen crew again - Chefs Jane and Nate were always super nice and supportive of me when I worked with them. I'd never felt more welcome and at-ease in a kitchen. Had life gone in another direction, I would've followed Chef Jane to any kitchen she went. Amazing leaders/mentors are hard to find, and when you do, don't let go.

So - where's the food porn you may ask? None. I don't take any pictures when I'm at refuel because quite honestly, I'm there to enjoy the food and company. You will probably never see a formal review of refuel from me. Just take my highest encouragement to go and try them out and have the best fried chicken you may EVER have.

No. Seriously. EVER. I have stats to back up my claim.

I was just looking for a semi-light dinner - maybe an arugula salad and lingcod -- but between all the leftovers from everyone, and my current obsession, roasted golden and red beets being on the menu -- well... what can I say but it was very satisfying night.

What happened next? I'm not sure... except that I woke up from my food coma at 11 AM the next day with the world in a slight haze...

That's a d*mn fine way to start a day-off if there ever was.

refuel's located on 1944 West 4th in Kitsilano. Go check them out, and say Russell sent ya.

strawberry cones (richmond)

Pizza.

I have a pretty complicated hierarchy of tastes and preferences. Sometimes, a 99c slice hits the spot. Othertimes, all I want is Naples style which I will gladly drive hours and pay $20 or more for.

Along the same lines, I have palate issues with certain Japanese interpretations of western cuisine, specifically French desserts and Italian food. The desserts I will get into in a future post. As for Italian food, it's practically inedible for me. Really puffy and doughy pizza dough, overly sweet and syrupy tomato sauce... and this is from a few different experiences - not a one time thing.

I do understand that some of the best and authentic Italian cuisine can indeed be found in Japan. There's something about the meticulousness of Japanese hands that can recreate the intricacies of Italian pasta... and Italian nonnas. But we're not talking about that here. We're talking about fast food.

food cart madness - roaming dragon

Roaming Dragon was the first alternative food truck running in the city - they were doing private catering gigs, as well as stationed at the Kitsilano farmers market. When the now-infamous City of Vancouver food-truck lottery came about, they were the only operation who actually met all the set-criteria and were ready to go.

Of course, they weren't one of the lucky 17 to get a spot.

Being the brilliant business minds they are, they bought one of the spots - and everyone was better for it.

sorry about the post delay

Hey Slif-ers, sorry for the delay in posts. I was at a close friend's Chinese wedding all day yesterday, in a food coma for most of today, and now, my desktop has gone down with a case of the sniffles.

Posting to hopefully resume by tomorrow evening if I can this annoying bastard exorcised. A few things to look forward to this week?

• Roaming Dragon food truck
  
• Strawberry Cones pizza in Aberdeen Centre
  
• Beard Papa's cheesecake stick
  
• And maybe, just maybe, the first part of the long-awaited Okanagan trip will show by this weekend
  

thanksgiving detox lunch - panzanella salad

So after an evening of Thanksgiving turkey fat, whiskey-laced whipped cream, and far too much pumpkin and pecan pie - I needed to detox.

Nothing too drastic, but I wanted some veg in my system. Nothing quite so boring as a spinach salad of course, so I looked at the remnants of yesterday's farmers market trip, and came up with a panzanella salad.

farmer's market saturday

Is there anything better on Thanksgiving weekend than to visit the farmer's market? Cloudy fall day, the ground still fresh from an early morning rain - but dry and cool enough for a comfortable walk around Trout Lake.


Squash are everywhere! I still have some freaky gimongous ones I picked up at Keremeos on the way home from the Okanagan so I took a pass, but I did pick up a sugar pumpkin. Going to try and make pumpkin pie from scratch :-)

happy (canadian) thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hope you get to spend this weekend with your family having some awesome food, and just chilling out.

I thought it apropos to post this educational video, featuring Vancouver's favourite daughter Cobie Smulders, explaining the origins of Canadian Thanksgiving.

phillips seafood (baltimore inner harbour)

I was in Baltimore in September for my college roommate, Vijay's aka Hungry Globetrotter wedding. It was my first Indian wedding, so I was pretty psyched for it (oddly enough, I live in Vancouver but don't really have any Indian friends).

The fun part of travelling coast-to-coast is leaving Vancouver at 6 AM PST, and arriving at the hotel just shy of 9 PM EST. Good times. I don't hate air-travel (anymore), but I do hate lost time/productivity and being stuck behind neophytes who don't know how to navigate airport security.

Plus this leg took me through Chicago O'Hare - high on my list of no-likey airports (it's a technical term I assure you). On the bright side, I did get a chance to visit the airport version of the famous Billy Goat Tavern and got to try an Italian beef sandwich. Didn't get a picture though as my hands were completely greased up by it - in a good way! ... ... ... Wait... is it even possible to refer to a sandwich as greased up in a bad way?

If the Billy Goat doesn't ring a bell, watch this and it might rejog your memory... if you're over 30. Under-30, I got nothin' for ya.

I'm infamous for exhaustively researching dining options of every city I find myself in. This time though, I knew that I would be doing wedding events all weekend long, so I didn't bother... and even if I did, I probably would've just rented a car and driven to Bryan Voltaggio's Volt, which is about an hour east of the city.

isaac & agatha (richmond)

You know what my favourite food trend is?

It's not locavorism or ocean sustainability, though both are practices that I pride myself in practicing as much as I humanly can - as you should too. It's not the proliferation of $10+ desserts. It sure as hell is not smearing sauce on a plate (so let me get this straight... thick mucky sauce is a good thing now?)

No, my favourite trend is the sudden discovery and pride that opening a Filipino restaurant can actually be a viable business model. AND it doesn't have to be a dirty dingy hole in the wall (though they have their perks too)!

I recently heard about Isaac & Agatha through the blog-grapevine. It's located on the industrial strip of Bridgeport in Richmond, a bizarre paradox of eating to say the least. The Richmond Summer Night Market is close by, as well as modern Chinese restaurant, Hakka-san, practically a stone's throw away - mixed in with the McSubWendyBucks, cookie cutter office-park cafes, and even, the monolithic "Home of the 99c Rehydrated Breakfast" Ikea cafeteria nearby.

dinner - pulled pork sandwich

As good as it looks :-)


I'm having too much fun emptying out my fridge. This was the last of the pulled pork I made earlier last week, striped zuke, thick-cut heirloom tomato, spinach, Skillet bacon jam, all into whole wheat batard that I baked on Saturday.

One last taste of summer.

I know I promised my review of Roaming Dragon today, but I wasn't able to visit them over the weekend for a follow-up, so I'm going to push it off for next week. Maybe I can make a resolution to visit a new food truck every week? Hmm...

dessert - boozy bread pudding with creme anglaise

So, dessert.

Decided to try my hand at two things I'd never done before: bread pudding, and creme anglaise. I had some leftover pan de sal (Filipino butter rolls), cream that was a few days away from turning, and some eggs. I wanted to use them up. Also, with the extra custard, I could make an anglaise - so no waste!

dinner - red-wine pork ragu pappardelle with summer tomatoes

I love it when a plan comes together.

This was tonight's dinner, a red-wine pulled pork ragu on pappardelle, topped with some late summer cherry heirloom tomatoes that took 5 days to prepare.

I made the chicken and vegetable stocks on Tuesday; marinated the pork on Wednesday; slow-cooked the pork for 5 hours, pulled it, and reduced the jus on Thursday; and put it all together on Saturday. No, I didn't make the pasta myself - that would've been awesome though wouldn't it?

Result? A ragu with such a range of flavour, perfect balance of sweet and tart, and overflowing with sweet sweet porky goodness. I prepared it using Chef Pino Posteraro's signature method: I cooked the dish in 1 pan, boiling the pasta and reducing the sauce all at the same time, essentially like a pilaf, except with pasta. The intense concentration of flavour that goes into the noodle is amazing! Give it a shot if you haven't before! And you gotta use stock and wine, not water of course.

Now, dessert :-)

okanagan - a preview

Here's a little preview of my Okanagan trip. Post and all sorts of yumminess coming soon!

food cart madness - part iv - panda fresh bakery

PanDa Fresh Bakery
Location: David Lam Park, Yaletown

So just to ease your worries that I'm some unstoppable eating freak, I visited the Home & Interior Design Show at the convention centre to get my metabolism back to where it needed to be, before I hit up dessert. That being said, being in that area necessitated a visit to my favourite gelateria, Bella Gelateria. That's a review for another day.

Clutching my cone of delightfully creamy almond gelato, I made my way to the Canada Line, onwards to Yaletown, an area of town that used to house some of the most innovative eats in town, but is now more known for overpriced, lukewarm conceptualized, mediocre restaurants, with a restaurant failure rate that would make your head spin. Don't get me wrong - there's still great food to be had (Cioppino's, Blue Water, Ganache, etc) but I've long since moved on from classifying Yaletown as a true foodie destination. The final nail to the coffin was the arrival of eponymous-local-steakhouse-king The Keg.

With that in mind, I made my way to the former location of LiveCity Yaletown, David Lam Park - now restored back to its former green glory. There sitting at the intersection of Pacific and Drake is a lone retired yellow school bus advertising freshly made croissant creations. A little background - I have notoriously high croissant standards. I will not accept soft, stale, mushy croissants - I want an explosion of crumbs, followed by a ethereal wave of buttery goodness with every bite. Chef Peter Fong's Ganache on Homer stands as some of the best I've ever had.

food cart madness - part iii - csk chinese skewer king

CSK Chinese Skewer King
Location: Southeast corner of Burrard, at Pender

My third stop in... wow... in 45 minutes is CSK Skewer King. Seriously - let's take a look at this, in 45 minutes, I've had a pulled pork sandwich, big glass of iced tea, tiny cup of absolutely disgusting smoothie (the less I say about that, the better), and a slice of pizza. Such is the difficult life that I lead to bring everyone news of the food world.

You're welcome.

CSK closely resembles any of the innumerous skewer stands at the Richmond Summer Night Market, or at many street markets in Asia. There are a few choices of skewers: the holy trinity of beef, chicken and pork; lamb; tofu; and mixed peppers/mushrooms. Just to continue the tradition of Chinese fast food, there are value combos available for your dining dollar - all at quite reasonable prices, from $5.50+. Each skewer runs $2.50 and is jam-packed.

I decided to go all the way with the pork theme, and they threw the skewer fresh onto the grill for me. That was a nice touch. They asked if I wanted "spicy" and as it was a fairly chilly day, I said yes and they proceeded to shake this magic powder onto it.

As I took my first bite, I took note of how fresh and hot this sucker was, and just how much meat was on the stick. Upon first bite, I got the familiar taste of "super secret recipe MSG spicy powder" (my description not theirs, but isn't it so much fun to say?) in my mouth, which was then replaced by a glorious explosion of pork fat juice. Yes folks, they did not skimp on the pork. There was plenty of meat on here and it was yummy and juicy, unlike the prototypical overcooked dry and stringy souvlakis and hawker stands we generally see.

There was enough meat to keep me quite satiated as a snack, and certainly a combo of 2 with pop and bread would suffice me nicely for lunch. Though next time, I'll ask them to go light on the "super secret recipe MSG spicy powder" (SO much fun to say!).

The fun continues tomorrow with PanDa Fresh Bakery in Yaletown!

food cart madness - part ii - ragazzi pizza co.

Ragazzi Pizza Co.

Location: Northeast corner of Burrard, at Pender

As I savoured my pulled pork sandwich from Re-Up, I was already getting myself ready for the next stop on my little food truck madness tour. Ragazzi Pizza specializes in thin-crust pizza with a rotating variety of daily flavours. For the full menu, check out Ragazzi's site.

food cart madness - part i - re-up

I have an inherent fascination with food trucks. After a visit to the University of Pennsylvania campus back in 1998 and bearing witness to a parking lot filled with gimongous white trucks preparing and selling every cuisine under the sun, I was hooked.

Fast forward 12 years later, and Vancouver finally jumps onto the (fairly literal) bandwagon and opens up a food truck program. Now with all fairness, City Hall had just recovered from the Olympics so to jump onto a program like this was fairly foolhardy and I will give them all the props in the world for making it happen one way or another. That being said, if you want some details on how they completely dropped the ball, give Andrew Morrison of Scout Magazine's take on the situation a read.

Long story short, over 2 months AFTER the program started when we had 1 food truck (Roaming Dragon) show up, (due to them purchasing someone else's license and location) we finally had a few out there hawking their wares. Not quite the 17 vendors expected, but we'll take what we can get.

I decided it was time to check a few of them out:

Re-Up

Location: Vancouver Art Gallery on Hornby side

Specializing in pulled pork sandwiches, Re-Up has become downtown's most popular food cart thus far, experiencing long line-ups everyday. A lot has to do with their sweet prime location, but also because the sandwich is absolutely fantastic!

kelowna

On an Okanagan wine tour with the parents, and trying to fit in as much eats as possible. I've only been out here twice in the past, and they really didn't count (I was too young, and the second trip was a daytrip for more official purposes) so not only am I going out with the parents, but I'm going to take an extra day to hang around the area to see and do more.

Sadly I've been more disappointed with the meals than impressed, but I'll start hitting up farms tomorrow so there's definite promise there.

Details to follow of course.

a rant

A note to all Asian-wannabe chefs.

Stop trying to recreate "authentic" Asian food. You will not win. You will by default whether you like it or not invite the comparisons between what you want $10 for and what you can get for $2 in Chinatown.

And you will lose.

It's as simple as that.

Why? Because the grandma/grandpa cooking in Chinatown with MSG, 40 years of practice and just pure skill is always going to be better than what your wannabe culinary school/FoodTV education/organic-hormone-free vision can churn out.

You know what will win? If you actually take some initiative and creativity (and it doesn't take much) and create SOMETHING NEW with those same ingredients. Then you know what? You'll have something people CAN'T get for $2 in Chinatown - then at least you'll have a chance.

It's telling that some of the most creative modern Asian food I've had is from food trucks. There guys are playing with flavours and managing to create magic (or at times, not) for under $4 a pop. I don't know what their food costs are, and I don't care. All I care about is getting f*cking tasty food at a decent value.

I don't care that you make your own tofu, or find and kill your own pig somewhere in Upstate New York, or stew your own hoison sauce. If it doesn't taste as good as that stuff I get from the cooler section at T&T (or 99 Ranch for the Americans) - then I'm very literally not buying.

Or maybe... just maybe... cook the same thing and actually make it genuinely TASTE better than what grandma is doing. But good luck with that. Maenam's the only place that can do it right, and that's because Angus has the skills of a Thai grandma with a classical French culinary education to back it up.

And no, this doesn't mean you start stealing recipes from David Chang or Jean-Georges.

Rant - done.

burgoo (main st)

I love comfort food. I was brought up in the Philippines where food is love. It didn't matter how rich or poor you were, as long as you have food on the table for the family - you've got love. Now the Philippines being a particularly poor country, long simmering braises, stews and soups are king. How that juxtaposes with the tropical weather - I never quite figured out - but along for the ride were every single part of that fabled creature, the pig, were usually thrown into the cauldron. Wiki "dinuguan" if you dare.

Burgoo is a small local chain (3 locations strong) that specializes in all manners of stews and soups from around the world. They go out of their way to create a comforting atmosphere - the Main Street location is essentially a log cabin in the middle of student/boheme town. It's quite amusing really. They also have blankets handy for those especially chilly evenings, and the West 10th location has a fireplace. It helps to come by during off-times, but it's very very easy to end up hanging out for an afternoon, nursing a hot drink, and a steaming plate of ratatouille for hours.

The traditional burgoo comes from the great state of Kentucky where "wild" meat usually took the place of beef and pork. I won't go into details, but think Cletus the slack-jawed yokel from The Simpsons and you'll get the rough idea. Now Burgoo does serve a version of burgoo, but nothing quite so provincial. They also have a lamb tagine, butter chicken, beef bourguignon, among many other selections.

I've been to Burgoo enough times to have tried just about every single soup and stew on their menu, and a few sandwiches as well. Unfortunately I can't say necessarily say I've been blown away by anything on the menu. Some of the stews and braises could use a longer simmer to create a thicker, and more flavourful sauce. A lot of the soups are competent, but generally one-note. Not quite out of the can, but for the prices, I do expect more flavour. A lot of them are just too sweet (tomato soup, butternut squash, pea soup...) and could just a tone down. The biscuits are a huge disappointment - more like scones in their thickness and texture, than the crumbly buttery-ness I expect from biscuits.

Now what does keep me coming back - the aforementioned ratatouille is a bowl of steaming vegetables roasted in a rich thick tomato sauce. A great dish to share among friends (a bit too much for 1 person to ingest that much tomato IMHO). It's a great complement to a lot of their stews and mixed in with the weaker sauces, take them to the level where they should be.

The big hot mama on the menu though is their grilled cheese sandwiches. For $12, you get 2 sandwiches cut from a filone loaf, filled with 4 flavourful cheeses (mozza, gruyere, emmenthal, white cheddar), then practically dunked in butter, and grilled. There are moments in your life where you remember every single moment of a food-gasm, and the first time I had the grilled cheese was one of them. I remember every bite, every buttery gush, and I savoured the living f*ck out of it. How vivid is this memory? The first time I had them was over 3 years ago... and I have NEVER ordered them again. The memory of that first bite has kept with me ever since.

How happy was I at that moment? Every single table within 6 feet of me ordered the grilled cheese after watching me pretty much make love to that sandwich. No joke. I have since brought many other people to have this cholesto-nightmare to their absolute joy. It is that f*cking awesome. I have never had another grilled cheese sandwich since, and I doubt I will have another one in a long long time.

So go get your friends, SO, parents, whomever, and get to one of the Burgoo locations this week while it's perfect comfort food weather. I'm done.