Encounter with a perfect pint, Tim Pawsey photo If there’s one thing the Hired Belly finds hard to resist it’s a decent pint, particularly when it's properly poured, and at the right temperature. I’m sure it’s one of the many very sound traits inherited from my dad—who I still sorely miss. Growing up, beer [...]
Regular visitors will know we’ve recently developed a bit of a thing for sardines. We’ve found some pretty good canned filets, that do just fine for our pissaladierre recipe. But nothing comes close to the fresh caught fish. A heads up: this is the last week for chef Frank Pabst’s Unsung Heroes Festival, [...]
Vancouver’s classiest cocktail salute is back with a vengeance this week. Judging by the weekend pre-show and first day’s activities, it promises to far outshine last year’s inaugural event, which was impressive—even more so considering it was the first run. Where cocktails and bartenders mix, even the most functional of activities is likely [...]
It’s just a couple of weeks until Tales of the Cocktail on Tour rolls into Vancouver, Feb 12-14, to no doubt repeat its highly successful inaugural show from last March. Not familiar with this pretty awesome salute to the wood? Read all about last year's here. This year’s program is greatly expanded. From the 2012 release: [...]
Cutting edge: Haywire and Bartier Scholefield vial samples, Tim Pawsey photo (Edible Canada is now closed. Yesterday we took time out from our pre-holidays deadline whirl, and Zagat Survey wrap-up (hence the lack of posts here), to catch lunch with the Okanagan Crushpad gang and consulting winemaker Alberto Antonini. His best quote [...]
Roasted Berkshire pork sandwich with red cabbage and mustard, Tim Pawsey photo The buzz at the Rosewood Georgia Hotel is mainly all about Hawksworth, and rightly so. But now newly unveiled "little sister" Bel Café, named after chef David Hawksworth's wife Annabel, and which wraps around the corner of Georgia and Howe, is [...]
It’s entirely possible that the impressive Sidecut / Painted Rock 4 x 5 course winemaker dinner (that’ll be four courses each of five plates or accompaniments) that we enjoyed at just concluded Cornucopia entailed the most food we’ve seen at one sitting! Much like the winery with whom they partnered, it's apparent [...]
Great tastes of Tawny Port and Stilton at Vancouver's premier cheese purveyor, Les Amis du Fromage
Two long established wine families have reached across the border to produce a new Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The Stewart family, which owns Quails Gate Winery in Westbank, BC, and the Zepponi family of Sonoma, California, have a history of similar if distant beginnings, in that their forebears settled and started farming at around the [...]
Updated. April 13th, 2012. Here's a pretty solid endorsement of properly handled FAS salmon: Vancouver chefs salute FAS salmon Maybe it's a tipping point. A few things occured to me concerning the winner we picked at last week’s Chef Meets Grape Small Plates Challenge, organised by the BC Wine Institute. First of all, congrats [...]