I’m slowly working my way through the various restaurants on Main Street – I’ve got a backlog, technically, I just don’t have a good photo to go with it, which I think is key. If you’ve ever seen Jeffery’s food posts, you’ll understand what I mean – he’s set the standard. We can say something is yummy, but it’s better if we can show how yummy it looks too.

Three weeks back, Burgoo opened it’s third (I’m pretty sure it’s third) location on Main – it used to be a Subway, so automatically it’s a step up for the neighbourhood. I went with my best gal and two friends visiting from Calgary and it was fantastic – not exactly what I expected. The sign says “comfort food”, which always registers as cheese and carbs. They did have mac and cheese on the menu, but I went for the butter chicken. Surprise! It was delicious, but not the creamy variety we usually associate with the dish. Served on a wood plank (cuz they’s hot!) and add a side of herb biscuits… fantastic.

The group also enjoyed an opener fondue – cheese, fruit, bread… glah. I also have a picture of another dish, eaten by one of the visiting friends, but I can’t remember what it was and it’s not on their online menu. But it looks like a chowder. I’ll say chowder.

As a bonus, Kristin Kreuk was having dinner on the patio, which thrilled the pair of Calgarians to no end.

Funny story…

So, we had dinner, Kristin Kreuk is there. Giggles all round. We leave before her and her group, and cross the street for gelato. Yum. As we’re sitting and eating our desert, the Kristin Kreuk Krew come in for some iced confections as well. Polite smiles. Fair play. She dances to the cheesy pop on the radio a bit, and Calgarians applaud. A little forward. They leave. We leave. We get in car and drive, and that’s when we pass her and beau (ok, alleged beau) who are walking. So, they must live in the DON’T ALL STARE! Sure enough, they look at us all looking at them. OK, kind of creepy now.

The next day, I’m leaving a mom and pop shop and who’s coming in? Kristin Kreuk. Awkward.

But, I can confirm that Kristin Kreuk lives in Mount Pleasant. S’true.

Kristin, I’m harmless, I swear.

They also have salsa and meat per kilogram for to go.

The food was delish… but it would’ve been nice to have more $1 tastes and less $4 meals.

Photo by Buzz Bishop

Update: I, er, should have at least noted Jeffery’s July 14 post describing these melons in their natural environment.

My fairly good friend and local media personality Buzz Bishop had an interesting post regarding Urban Fare’s square watermelons, imported from Japan.

Buzz was seriously irked by the mere idea of an exotic melon from Japan, for various reasons, and his commentators took some specific umbrage at the potential carbon footprint of these transoceanic melons.

Now, I’m not defending the idea of square melons per se (they’re a novelty, and a pricey one, for sure) but I do like recycling, so I’ve reproduced my comment on the fuel required for shipping these things below.
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So you’re thinking that not only are you not eating enough fruit these days, you’re not spending enough on fruit either.  Well have no fear thanks to Japanese fruit growing methods you can now spend $99 on a watermelon.  Even better knews, you can make a house out of them because they’re stackable and square.

Surely Wikipedia can explain this [wp]:

In Japan, farmers of the Zentsuji region found a way to grow cubic watermelons, by growing the fruits in glass boxes and letting them naturally assume the shape of the receptacle. The square shape is designed to make the melons easier to stack and store, but the square watermelons are often more than double the price of normal ones. Pyramid shaped watermelons have also been developed.

These were spotted at Urban Fare in Coal Harbour, making me feel uneasy about doing my grocery shopping there.  I guess I should probably start comparison shopping, maybe $24 for a box of Corn Flakes isn’t the Item of the Week deal I thought it was.

I’ll admit that when I think of Japanese food my mind tends to go to sushi first, often over looking the soup-noodle combination that is the ramen.  As with a lot of other Asian flavours Vancouver is a great city for getting top drawer ramen and of the multiple noodle places in town it’s always been Kintaro Ramen that’s had the people lining up outside of it.  In fact trying to get into Kintaro will either require arriving shortly after opening or a lengthy wait on the Denman Street sidewalk.

The quickest and most obvious test to determine if an ethnic restaurant is good is whether or not the clientel can draw in the people its food is meant to represent.  Don’t trust an English Pub filled with French people drinking wine, a burger joint filled with Lululemon clad fashion models or an Asian place where the only customers are German tourists, at least if authenticity is important to you.  Kintaro Ramen has always had a strong Asian clientele and thus for ramen novices such as myself it’s got an initial bit of credibility that other places don’t have.

Opened just down Denman Street by Daiji Mastubara the owner/chef of Kintaro [evv], Motomachi Shokudo lacks the simple Asian kitchen feel of Kintaro but is every bit as good.  The food tends to be lighter, focused more on healthy alternatives rather than the somewhat heavy and fatty meat of Kintaro. 

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*Note: Goldfish Pacific Kitchen seems to be reaching out to bloggers and food writers with offers of a $50 gift certificate in exchange for a restaurant review.  I took them up on this offer, and this is the meal that I ate.  Ideally you trust that I wouldn’t lie about a restaurant for $50, if you don’t well I have a long boring counter argument ready.

I’d always gotten the feeling that for the most part dinning in Yaletown was a bit of a trade off between style and substance.  Places and the food they serve can often feel more like they’re meant to be seen, not eaten and the prices don’t exactly go along way to making them welcoming.  Add to that Yaletown’s classically terrible parking situation and the fact that after about seven at night the Paris Hilton wannabes of Vancouver flood the area and you’d have a hard time convincing me that there were many reasonably priced places to eat offering really great food.

There are exceptions of course, for lunch I do like to eat at Phat [mbv],  but I was honestly surprised by Goldfish Pacific Kitchen [gfpk].  It manages to solve all of my Yaletown dining complaints by being reasonably priced, offering free lunch time valet parking and most importantly really good food.

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Oops, that should be EAT! Vancouver, my bad.

May 23-25 at BC Place Stadium. It’s a festival of food, and I really, really like food.

Former chef Anthony Bourdain is famous around foodie circles both for his books, the most notable being Kitchen Confidential, and the niche he’s carved for himself as a travel food journalist with his show No Reservations which is shown on the Travel Channel down in the States. The most talked about shtick on the show is when Bourdain will eat something stomach turning, presenting audiences with a reality television version of the monkey brains scene from Temple of Doom.

Vancouver seems an odd destination for the show, since it’s neither one of the major food capitals of the world nor a place where one is likely to find something quite so unusual as a cobra heart like he ate in Vietnam. Still our city was one of the destinations for the show on this season, and while you won’t find it on Canadian television thanks to YouTube we can watch the episode online (for now).

I’ve said before that having outsiders come to Vancouver is a great way to get a new perspective on the city, and see just how much other people appreciate what we have there. Granted some of the eating that he does in the episode is way beyond a lot of people’s pocket books (mine included) but it’s still a great indication of what we have in our city.

The first three parts of the episode after the jump.

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It’s meetup time again, and after months and months of no getting together the Metroblogging Vancouver crew want you to come on out.  All of our bloggers and you the readers are invited, as we come together to drink, chat and drink. 

Will our adventures be blogable?  Will we have Flickr ready poses all worked out?  I say yes and again yes.  Our special guest for the evening will be Metroblogging co-founder Sean Bonner whose in Vancouver for a few days.

This Tuesday May 20th come down to the Library Square Pub at 7:30 pm and partake in the fun.  If you can please RSVP in the comments.  Metbloggers please check the authors’ forums or email me to confirm that you can make it.

Here’s the quick recap: NY Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee wrote a book about Chinese food, and picked Zen Cuisine in Richmond as the best Chinese restaurant outside of China.

The reviews have been fast and furious since then, and so has the business. Along with some friends, we went there to try things out.

We had Tasting Menu A. I shall not review each dish, except to say that the meal started with a mango ravioli amuse-bouche, and ended with a red bean mousse as the dessert. The dishes in between ranged from perfectly-prepared straight takes on traditional dishes (salted chicken) to revelatory dishes (double boiled soup in young coconut) I had never imagined.

The service was trying hard, and had high-class moments (our server was very good about explaining each of the dishes, and I for one like that sort of thing), but on the other hand two different people at our table had drink-order problems. I was still happy. You’ll have to ask Ron and Ernie if they agree.

It’s not cheap, but it’s good enough that I will be back, and as often as I can justify the price. And I plan to come up with some pretty ludicrous justifications.