Urban Bites by The Ridge

I had a tasty marlin special ($13) served with a tangy cherry tomato and basil salsa, and on top of a nice rice dish at this great little counter service place a couple of doors down from the Ridge. I also had a very pleasing four-layer mocha pecan torte for dessert that was made in-house! A great find. I love it when people show me places that I don't already know about. It wasn't exactly hidden (I see movies at the Ridge fairly often) but I never would have expected this quality of food from glancing at the place in passing - it looks more like a soup and sandwiches and coffee place. Urban Bites is geared towards take-out and delivery, but is a very nice place to grab a bite before a movie.

Guilty Pleasure? All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet

I'm a sucker for a buffet. It's not something I'm proud of. And calling it a guilty pleasure is almost overstating it...because it's only really pleasing in a very tight window of time (not a bay window, more like a peephole) - between the time that I actually decide to go to a buffet restaurant and roughly two and a half minutes into actually eating the first plate of food. This includes the time travelling over to the buffet restaurant, anticipating the experience, the initial general survey of all the items to strategize, and the first selection of the high priority items. Generally, it's all downhill from there. There are small pockets of pleasure thereafter. Sometimes the staff will bring out an exciting premium item partway through, and you are actually one of the first people there, and you still are capable of eating more. Like scoring an oyster motoyaki at Urban Buffet (966 Homer St., near Yaletown) before that crazy family of four over there swoops in and hoards the entire platter of them. That's a high point. Also, just getting to the dessert, and putting together a plate of those is another peak. Notice, that none of the real pleasure of a buffet comes from actually eating anything. It's all conceptual. It's good to have an understanding of this. I'm a buffet pro now. I've learned that you just can't sample everything, and it's easy to load up and then not have room for something important. So I always survey first. I've also learned that the food is much better if you don't load up your plate. Must be something to do with mixing all the flavours together, so you wind up having a big indistinguishable pile of lukewarm food. So I'll get just a few items, and spread them out on my plate. Focus. Breathe. Go get another plate later, if you can do it. I'll do a dry plate of two or three items, and then do more saucy things. But pace yourself!

Another reason these things are a "guilty" pleasure is that there are so many great Chinese restaurants in Vancouver with authentic food, that it's really silly to go to a Chinese buffet. Being Chinese myself means that I'm really sensitive to subtle differences in food quality and chef skill, and I also know the difference between what real Chinese food is, and what that white guy wielding his fork over at the other table is putting on top of his plate of rice drowned in soy sauce. Actually, one of the neat things about Vancouver is how almost everyone is Chinese food savvy in this town, so you don't really get too many of those westernized, fakey Chinese food places. It's much easier to find a "chicken ball" say, in Ottawa, or in any major city in the States, than it is here. But people love them and there's nothing wrong with that, so you can find one if you want one (often on a "special combo" sheet that the restaurant makes, meant for the non-Chinese patrons). So the Chinese buffet experience here is actually a notch up from other cities. But, you still have to be careful.

Yesterday, I went to Grand Buffet on Kingsway, in Burnaby (about half a kilometre East of Metrotown). And I have done this in the past, but these experiences always seem rosier in my memory. Granted, it was cheap, as buffets go. I think it was $13 per person, including the soft drink fountain, and tea. But in terms of the cooking, I think they've gone downhill. Half the items were just not something I wanted to eat - overcooked or greasy (often times a problem with oil temperature when frying). Service was great. Our dirty plates went away relatively quickly (which has been a problem in the past, making the place feel a bit...well, dirty). And there is a lot to choose from, including sushi, salad, dim sum items (a sure bet - difficult to screw up), several soups (also a safe choice), Chinese items including crab legs, shrimp, oysters, and things like fries and fried chicken. And there were several things that I did enjoy. They kept their fried sesame balls filled with sweet bean paste in the hot dish area, so they were all warm and toasty and crispy. This is my absolute favourite item. For me, it's almost worth going just for those. But there were just too many disappointing ones. Mushy, overcooked crab legs in a not so tasty sauce, weird-tasting egg tart, greasy fish patty, tasteless oyster on the half-shell with black bean sauce, bad tuna sashimi. Okay, yes, you're probably thinking - what do you expect for $13 and unlimited quantity?. But I swear it was better before. I left, feeling a bit ill, partly (as usual) from overeating, but also I just got an overall "bleaccchh" reaction to the whole thing. It was a Thursday night, so maybe their weekend chef is different. Or perhaps I've come to expect a little more having gone to Urban Buffet downtown. It costs more, but they have dry, fried spicy salt crab legs that are tasty, and peking duck skin, a nice salad bar, roast meats, small bowls of zaru soba, and coffee (again, I'm not that picky about coffee, so I can drink this stuff), and they are really clean and tidy feeling. I still come out of it feeling a bit off, but I keep getting better at not overdoing it. I think I will yet again succumb to the lure of the buffet in the future. But I'll be sticking to Urban Buffet. If only they would keep their sesame balls warm.

One last rant: at Grand Buffet, there is an ice cream freezer and an ice cream scoop well with constantly running water, yet there was still LOTS of contamination of flavours. Little blobs of chocolate and strawberry ice cream in the vanilla ice cream, etc. It was enough to make me want to hold an impromptu seminar in scoop rinsing on the spot. But I never saw the perpetrators. Maybe next time I'll stake out the ice cream station until I can pounce on a contaminator. Oh wait, I don't want there to be a next time...bleah. I suspect I swear to never do the Chinese Buffet thing again EVERY TIME I GO, but I can never seem remember that part of the experience...

Best buffet of all time for me? Boma, the African buffet at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in Walt Disney World. So I know it really is possible for me to enjoy a buffet experience from start to finish, and end up with a happy, warm feeling (of course, it probably cost us about $35 each person with the exchange, before tax and tip). If you're ever at Disneyworld in Orlando, it's probably my favourite restaurant there. Here's the menu.

For Black Licorice Fans

The flavour of black licorice is one of those things - you either love it or hate it. There is no in between. I love it, but it was an acquired taste. I don't think I liked it at all during my childhood. Today I discovered a highly addictive candy. Haribo's Sali-Kritz. Haribo is a German candy company, and I found these flat, little, multi-coloured, diamond-shaped nuggets packaged in a 200 g bag (imported - packaging was written all in German) in a little candy/magazine/cigarettes store underneath the Main St. skytrain station. They are little candy-coated black licorice candies that are just a little bit salty. The different colours of candy coating have different subtle fruity flavours. Here's a picture I found of them on the web. I've been looking for an English language name for them on the web, but haven't found much about them at all. Well, I found one website that gave the calorie count (355 for 100 g), and recommended that they be limited in any calorie-reduced diet. My local Sugar Mountain (on Denman St.) closed down, but they probably carried this candy when they were open. I couldn't stop eating them today. I kept looking at the ingredients to see if there was some sort of narcotic added to it that made me want to keep eating them. They're crunchy on the outside, and chewy in the middle. I think that nice bit of saltiness really makes the candy. The man at the store today told me that I would get hooked on them when I asked about them. I didn't really believe him at the time. But he was right. I wonder what a patch for them would be like...

Psssst...secret warehouse location...bring cash...

I got the tip from a friend. I head over. Enter in the alley...in a warehouse district...Pandora St...East Van... Hmmmm...seedy criminal meeting place? Secret agent lair? Drug deal drop-off point? No, none of the above! Check out the Gourmet Warehouse! It's like mining foodie gold! You're driving through a dingy alley in a warehouse district, you park, then you walk in (Look! Shiny stuff!) and you see this place swarming with food geeks browsing through lots of shelves of fancy condiments, and trendy cooking implements. Apparently, it's not that much of a secret. There were plenty of people in there on Saturday afternoon. Definitely a fun little place to check out. One could spend a lot of money there (don't worry, you can bring credit too - the image of showing up with a briefcase of cash just seemed to fit the scene better). I'm usually anti-trendy, but there was a nice mix of items. For example, they had a $4.99 large mortar and pestle, as well as more artful $30 - $40 ones. They had a $3.50 little bottle of balsamic vinegar and the range up to a $50 bottle that came in a nice little cardboard tube (I was thinking - hey, that's would be a fun gift idea). There was bakeware, frozen items, blocks of good quality chocolate, nuts and spices. Why hasn't anyone mentioned this place to me before?

Salad Bar Triumph

Okay, I'm trying to eat a little healthier these days. I'd actually like to lose the weight I gained back over Christmas (which can pretty much be traced to the sudden spike in cookie and baked good access that occurs around that time of year. I even baked my gifts this year...). So today, stopping off at the newer food fair in Metrotown Mall on my way home from work, I notice a new salad bar stand. I love salad bars, actually. It was one of those salad by weight places, where I usually wind up getting too excited, and spend a small fortune on a salad (compared to what a fast food meal would cost). In order to get to this salad bar, I first had to pass KFC. I thought to myself "Ohhhh, I love fried chicken." Phew, made it. Next along my path, I see a Greek stand ("calamari!!"). I passed A&W, thinking, "mmm, bacon. I haven't had a teen burger in ages." I then momentarily considered how much more filling a Quizmos sub would be compared to a salad. Even the taco place started to look good. Then, I faced the biggest test - a New York Fries was right next to the salad bar. "Oh...poutine would be so nice!" My internal dialogue started chanting "Poutine! Poutine! Poutine!" Anyways, look here's a blurry photo to show you that I indeed passed the last gate, and got my salad.


Salad Bar Salad 

I ate it, and there go the voices inside my head again "Poutine! Poutine! Poutine!" I just ran out of there!

Cake Art

Okay, I've never actually experienced these in person, but I found this great website for Mike's Amazing Cakes, a custom cake company. Check out the T-bone steak cake made for a vegetarian and the oyster with pearl cake for an oyster eating champion!

You Always Remember Your First Time...Tiramisu and Me

The first time I ever heard of and tasted the dessert, Tiramisu, I was in a little place called The Blue Moon Cafe on West Fourth Avenue, which is long gone. The meal itself was adequate, but the dessert blew my mind. Really, love at first bite. I became infatuated, obsessed. The soft, creamy texture was so pleasing, almost erotic. It was light and airy, yet rich and dreamy. I never had a chance to go back to the restaurant before it closed, but I was, from that moment on, thrown into a quest to relive that experience. I tried tiramisu every time I saw it on a menu. I had people making me homemade tiramisu, or buy it from bakeries for me. I think I might have even tried making it once myself. I looked it up online. I raved about it. I explained what it was to whoever was around who hadn't heard of it before. But alas, it was never like I remembered it. After a couple of years, I gave up the quest, and chalked it all up to that experience being my first time. I decided that it may not be possible for any tiramisu to be as good as it is in my memory of my first time. I still enjoy it from time to time now, but that wee bit of disappointment each time was enough to get me to shy away from it for a while.

My tiramisu quest is a good example of how important the circumstances and conditions surrounding the consumption of food is to the enjoyment of food. And memory of food is important because an experience isn't really significant unless it impacts you enough to be a memory. I've had this discussion with a non-foodie friend of mine. He never really remembers what he eats the way I do, so food really isn't that important to him. Whereas one of my oldest (foodie) friends, and I reminisce repeatedly about meals we've had together, even the ones years and years ago.

I found out during my quest that I'm not the only one who has fallen hard for Tiramisu. Here's just one example of a website from a fan - Tiramisu, Heaven in your Mouth. It's an interesting thing to see on the internet so many people raving about this one dessert. And it's a fairly simple dessert, but there are so many variations, and it's so easy to have a bad one. The main components are marscapone cheese, espresso, coffee liqueur, and ladyfingers. It has a colourful history too. It's said to be named "pick me up" (the literal translation of tirami - su in Italian), because it was a favourite of Venice courtesans who ate it to fortify themselves between amorous encounters. The name has been traced back to a restaurant in Treviso, Italy, called Le Beccherie.

Here's some tiramisu "porn" - some pics of some different presentations.

Try doing it yourself with possibly the very original recipe for Tiramisu, from Le Beccherie.