VanEats

This New York Times articles documents the emergence of authentic regional Chinese cuisine in Hong Kong. Vancouver's Chinese cuisine scene also has a wide variety of restaurants serving the gamut of Chinese regional cuisines: you name it we have it here: Sichuan, Cantonese, Shanghaiese, Yunnan, etc.

I wonder if the regional cusine here is as authentic as the one now in Hong Kong!

The Boss bakery and restaurant in Chinatown (which was recently refurbished) serves a genre of food that originated in Hong Kong: Western food (like pork chops and spaghetti) served Hong Style as well as normal Hong Kong Chinese food and baked goods. All at an inexpensive price!

Today, for instance, we had two portions of their all-day breakfasts (breakfast "A", I believe) which included a fried pork chop with two eggs, bread or a sweet bun and a Hong Kong style (i.e. with evaporated milk) coffee or tea all for under four bucks per portion.

The American Overseas Dietetic Association has a good overview and introduction to Filipino cuisine written by a Filipino dietician. Check it!

Filipino cuisine is not overly sophisticated or flashy or trendy, but I grew up with it and it has some great down home dishes like adobo and pancit. Reading articles like this makes me miss my Mom's home cooking even more.

A few nights ago I wanted to use up some ripe bananas and didn't feel like using our recipes for banana oatmeal muffins or banana chip muffins. So I found this recipe for banana-nut bread on Epicurious.

Here's sneak peek at one of our future insider stories: Nattalia's Kitchen

See if you can spot the uttapam and name the other Indian breakfast delights that Nattalia was cooking.

Today is VanEats second birthday! Wow two years have gone by so fast. VanEats started on June 10, 2000 but because it's also my brother's birthday on June 11, it's easier for me to remember and so we celebrate VanEats's birthday every year (like last year) on June 11.

The highlight of the last year was definitely our wedding and our honeymoon in Tuscany. And our brief stay in London on our honeymoon was also great.

Here's a photo of Nattalia's delicious uttapam that we mentioned yesterday:

A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of spending a morning cooking up an Indian style breakfast with Nattalia, Toni's mum. Not only is Nattalia a fabulous cook, but she's a great teacher! She taught me how to make uttapam, a savoury pancake often served for breakfast.

Uttapam are made from a similar batter as dosas. Whereas dosas are very thin, crisp crepes filled with various mixtures, uttapam is made with a thicker batter with vegetables and seasonings mixed in.

Ever since I heard Judy Witts glowing praise of the French Laundry and Chef Thomas Keller's philosophy of cooking during our honeymoon in Florence, I have been longing to go to The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley.