VanEats

While we were in Cancun last November (eating a lot of Americanized bad Mexican food with our nieces and nephew hence no mention here!), I finally got around to reading Kitchen Confidential.

I certainly don't condone Bourdain's drug laden past, but I do salute his unabashed lust for life and his unbridled enthusiasm for food. I bet we could get along and have fun because of our mutual love of food.

My friend Alvin, his son and I ate lunch today at Legendary Noodle (4191 Main Street (at 26th), 604 879-8758) which is a Beijing Chinese style dumpling and noodle house.

In 2001 and 2002, Alvin spent several months in Beijing and based on that experience, he tells me that this restaurant compares favorably with noodle and dumpling houses there.

One more thing: Because we are too exhausted from entertaining, baking and getting ready for Swing Out Northwest 2002, we will be enjoying the Christmas Eve dinner at Zizanie (1607 West 7th Avenue, 604 738 7387).

For $20 per person, you get a buffet of their tasty French Canadian food and live entertainment starting at 7p.m. and ending at about 10 or 11.

We are on vacation! Updates will be irregular until January 3, 2003.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Season's Greetings!

We wish all of our readers and their families happiness, prosperity and good food in the coming year!

Today, Larry Wong lent us a copy of the "Fabulous Chinese Cook Book" written by Vancouverite Harry Kam Long in 1965.

It really is fabulous both for the great recipes and for its glimpse back at the Vancouver Chinese food scene circa 1965. Today we take it for granted that we can get 99% of the ingredients needed for authentic Chinese food; back then this was a lot more difficult.

This excerpt from the foreward is very telling:

We believe that the "Fabulous Chinese Cookbook" is the book which you have been waiting and searchng for.

Bo bay mon, a tradional seven course Vietnamese Beef dinner (including beef congee, beef salad and a marinated beef main course), looks like fun for beef lovers! Ordeal by beef (via the new New York blog, Gawker) makes it sound gruesome but I bet that it could be good if done right! If you have tried it, let us know what you think and where we can order this in Vancouver!

For our Winter Warm-up, we usually expect up to 50 people. This year's menu included some old favourites like smoky caramelized onion bites, brown sugar shortbread, and ginger apricot pound cake. As well as new dishes such as warm goat cheese spread and hot spinach artichoke dip.

One of our readers, Paul Williams, is looking for the name of the restaurant (also info about it) that replaced the Stinking Rose in Burnaby. If anybody knows, please let us know!

This has been converted into a story. Please check out our Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2003 details story.