All Entries in the "Uncategorized" Category

Weekend Musings (06-Mar-2010)

With the Olympics over, it’s back to business.

Like some of the restaurant businesses who reported a dip during the Olympics, chowtimes’ traffic too dropped by 10-15%. We are back to record setting territory again. I hope that the restaurant business is back to their normal levels too — particularly those on Denman and the Broadway corridor which I know were impacted.

Chowtimes Featured on EAT Magazine

It was December last year when Pam Durkin from the EAT magazine wrote to us with some questions for chowtimes. It was so long ago that I had completely forgotten about this until I was alerted recently of the write up on the magazine.

The EAT magazine is a Victoria based, province wide magazine that focuses on the culinary scene here in BC. It is not on sale but is distributed free and has over 100,000 readers province wide.

He he he … I don’t know that part about being a “self-proclaimed foodie” but nevertheless it was kind of cool seeing the chowtimes name on print. You can read the entire article on page 14 here.

Spring Break — Discovery of Portland’s Food Carts

Time sure flies this year isn’t it? We barely have much of a winter this year and now we are into spring already. No, I am NOT complaining.

Suanne and I were wondering if we wanted to do anything during the spring break.

Portland Food Carts (Credit seattlest.com)

We remember Charlene was telling us how amazed she was with the food carts in Portland. We had been to Portland before but that was pre-chowtimes days where we could not care less about food carts. Charles was saying that there are sites where there are something like 20 food carts.

THAT … sounds like the description of heaven to Suanne and I. Wow … that also sounds like a working holiday too. LOL!

Yeah … we are like 99.99% sure we are heading that way for our Spring Break.

But we don’t know much about the food carts in Portland. For those of you who had been there before, could you share a bit more about it with us. We would particularly like to have recommendation of the bigger sites, the must-try food, locations … any tips at all.

It is my dream that Vancouver one day will develop its own food cart culture.

Oh … Dine Around Seattle is happening throughout the month of March too. Dine Around Seattle is like our Dine Out Vancouver with prix-fixe dinner at $30. The timing could not have been more perfect!

Lots of Peppers!

Suanne had been a busy girl last week. Look at this!

I asked Suanne to help populate the Chowtimes Restaurant Explorer which is a rendition of a Google Map of the restaurants we had visited before. I told her to just take her own time and populate like 4-5 a day.

She went on to populate 40-50 a day! So now the Restaurant Explorer is looking all good. Suanne has still some way to go.

It goes without saying the densest area is Richmond.

Taste and Learn — Filipino Cuisine

By the time this is posted, 8 Chowtimes readers will be having lunch in Goto King with Rey, Suanne and I. Am looking forward to it … free food … and we get to learn a bit too. I wish we could accommodate more people (had to turn away some, sorry) but seating was limited.

I am just glad that we could host something like this. I know it is kind of unprecedented and people will be wondering what’s the catch. No catch! There are really people on this planet who loves food and is willing to share. We hope to do more things like this in future … not just eating, but learning too.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Eat well!

Ba Le Around The World

So I am curious right?

I never knew that there are so much story behind the humble Banh Mi from Ba Le. I was only interested to see for myself the new expensive oven that Ba Le installed recently but in the process, I learn that a lot of people have so much to say/share about it.

Banh Mi Unstacked -- Illustration from the NYT

This makes me WANT to someday go to Saigon and eat at the original Ba Le and see for myself how the real Banh Mi is really like. As much as Vancouverites love our very own Banh Mi from Ba Le, I have a feeling that the folks in Vietnam will laugh at our own version. See what I mean below … LOL!

Happy Chinese New Year

Suanne, Arkensen, Nanzaro and I wish all our Chinese readers a very Happy Chinese New Year of the Tiger! This year’s Chinese New Year coincides with Valentine’s Day on February 14th.

We also want to wish our Korean and Vietnamese friends, a Happy New Year too.

May each day of your new year be lit up with good health, happiness, success and all that you wish for.

Wishing all … SAM SEUNG SIH SIHNG … that you will achieve all the desires of your heart!

Astonishing Coffee Mugs

A friend of mine sent me an email of some very interesting coffee mugs. They are from the Fancesco Mugnai blog. I am sure some of you would find it equally amazing too.

Enjoy!

There are more … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Chowtimes.com Turns Four

Time flies.

It had been four years now. Suanne and I said Hello World on January 5th, 2006. Looking back on all this time, chowtimes.com had changed a lot. So had Suanne and I.

image from wordle.net

2009 had been a year of tremendous growth for the site. Last year, we had managed to doubled the traffic from the previous 3 years combined. Some of you will remember that chowtimes.com disappeared from the blogosphere in May 2009. That was when we were kicked out (without warning!) by our cheap hosting company for having too much traffic. So we were forced offline for 8 days while we migrated the entire blog (49GB and 39,000 files). And during the 8 days, Google thought that we no longer existed and dropped us entirely from their indexes. Our readership plummeted  and we were back to square one. Long story short, it took 6 months for the traffic to recover entirely.

Suanne and I enjoyed blogging a lot. Often it also felt like a real second job with deadlines and projects. What we enjoyed most is the interactions we had with our readers. In the process, we had learned a lot not just about food and in many other ways. If there is just ONE thing that we are thankful for, it is all the great friends we had made along the way.

Suanne and I tell ourselves that we will one day wake up and decide that we will do something else. Nothing in this world is permanent. But that day is still way beyond the horizon.

For this 4th anniversary of chowtimes.com, Suanne and I want to say a big thank you for all the support each of you have given us … fully realizing that without your support, chowtimes.com would not have been where we are today. Please continue to give us your feedback on how we can improve.

Anyway, I thought I pull together some lists (I love lists!) of the happenings on chowtimes.com: More on following page. Click here to continue reading

It is the Night of Our Dear Saviour’s Birth …

Suanne, Nanzaro, Arkensen and I wishes everyone a blessed Christmas and a simple message that …

Is This Fake? Amazing TGI Friday Prestwich Crew Cocktail Tricks

What do you think? There is no way in the world anyone could do tricks like this but still, it is so fun to watch. Amazing!