Weekend Musings (20-Mar-2010)

By the time you read this, Suanne, Arkensen, Nanzaro and I would have been cruising down the I-5 on the way to Oregon. We are going for a short spring break vacation. We have scheduled a few posts to release while we are away but we might not be able to answer emails or approve some of the comments in a timely manner.

When we are back we will bring you reports of the food cart scenes of Portland and also a report from the factory of the newly crowned best cheddar cheese in the world.

The Eight Great Treasures of Chinese Cuisine

The project is very much on execution right now. The Eight Great Treasures of Chinese Cuisine (8GTCC for short) is a series of dinners organized by chowtimes focusing on the eight main Chinese cuisines.

Back in January, Suanne and I wanted to embark on an exploration in learning about the Eight Great Traditions of Chinese Cuisine. We are just intrigued by the differences between these distinct regional cuisines — we want to do a series on them over a period of time.

The Eight Great Traditions of Chinese Cuisine are defined as follows (with the 4 major ones marked with ***):

• Anhui
• Cantonese ***
• Fujian
• Hunan
• Jiangsu (Huaiyang) ***
• Shandong ***
• Sichuan ***
• Zhejiang

We would love to engage chowtimes readers in this journey with us. As you know, the traditional way to enjoy Chinese food is to have it banquet style. We are thinking of organizing something along these lines:

• We meet once a month on a Saturday. Each month, we will focus on one of the eight regional cuisine
• We will organize a few tables (ten to a table) with a multi-course dinner.
• A 8GTCC team members will research about the cuisine and share with everyone prior to the dinner
• We will learn about the region, the ingredients, the cooking techniques, famous dishes, the people, etc.

After all, I am of the opinion that Vancouver is home to the best authentic Chinese restaurants in North America. I think we can even go as far as saying Vancouver is home to the best authentic Chinese restaurants outside of China.

It will be a great time to learn, meet fellow foodies and most important of all, enjoy the best each of the regional cuisines has to offer. When I first brought this idea up, the response were overwhelming beyond my expectations. I received over 40 responses! Hang on first — don’t send me anymore requests. We will be announcing the details very shortly to announce the details.

This is a project that Suanne and I know we cannot do on our own. We have assembled a team of very capable volunteers. I had not discussed how much I can reveal who they are but I can tell you their pseudonyms. They are fmed, LotusRapper, Keev, DylanK, and Joe.

Last week, the team had a meeting and we have completed the plans on how we are moving forwards. And it is a great team too. I was awed by the collective body of knowledge and research capability we have in all these people. Gosh, if we really pushes it, this team could even write an authoritative book on the 8GTCC. I am not kidding. Just look at the comments generated by them over the last few days in chowtimes and you will see. I can’t wait for you all to meet the team. I think you will be amazed with them as I was.

For Suanne and I, we are in for the learning and is willing to let the use of chowtimes as a rallying point for everyone interested in learning the finer points of Chinese Cuisine. The first cuisine had been selected and the team is hammering away in producing a comprehensive write-up of that cuisine. Members of the team will take turns providing the leadership in each cuisine. The first one will be led by fmed who had done more than expected in compiling even the framework on the way forward.

This is going to be so exciting. I hope you all will find it so too and join us in this exploration.

A Couple Of Other Things

I met a most amazing chef last week. There were so much common energy between us that we generated quite a lot of ideas in doing some pretty innovative activities that we know will delight not only foodies out there but also those who enjoys cooking too. We will let the ideas incubate for a little longer but at the rate things are going, I am pretty excited about it that I just gotta say it out loud. Like the 8GTCC, we might need volunteers to help pull this off.

The other thing is my buddy, Rey, had some Kopi Luwak brought in. As you might know, Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world and get this … it is made from the droppings of the civet cat. LOL! The real Kopi Luwak costs up to $500 a pound but the one that Rey has is cheaper, way cheaper. He wants to share this with chowtimes readers but we don’t know … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musings (27-Feb-2010): Announcing Restaurant Explorer

What a week for Canada!

After two weeks of sports, I am getting a bit fatigued from being glued to the sports event day after day. I am just glad that it is coming to an end — and to a high note too! We all woke up this morning having topped the Gold medal standing for the first time. If all expectations goes according to plan, we will even stretch the Gold medal lead.

Which leads me to think that Canada should abandon the American way of determining the medal leaderboard by taking into account the number of medals won. We should follow the rest of the world is ranking it by medal types.

Whatever it is, we are at the verge of attaining the most Gold won in BOTH summer and winter Olympics.

GO CANADA GO

Restaurant Explorer

Ryan made a great suggestion. He asked the chowtimes has a Google Map of all the restaurants we had visited before. This idea was first done by Matt on VancouverSlop which was adopted by CBC’s website (Matt is a genius in these sort of things!).

So here is our implementation of our idea. You can get to the Chowtimes Restaurant Explorer by clicking on the Restaurant Explorer link at the top of the page. I made that link with a RED background for now just to show you guys it’s there.

The page is still under construction — and it will be while before we retroactively populate all our old restaurant visits. There is, after all, over 400 Metro Vancouver restaurants to go through. Don’t hold your breath!

This this what we have implemented:

• A 1-liner description of the restaurant
• Picture(s) of the food we tried
• Address and phone number of the restaurant

The other features are standard Google Map functionality which we have little to no control over … like “Get directions”. This interface of this embedded Google Map does not behave exactly like if you got to http://maps.google.com … so this is a bit more clunkier and sadly harder to navigate.

But please have a look at the Restaurant Explorer and let me know what you think. ANY feedback is very much appreciated. We just want to build something that is of use to you readers.

Thanks a lot to Ryan for this suggestion. [Sorry Ryan, we still have not found a way to make this fit a 1024 x 768 screen -- which we know represents a sizeable 17% of our visitors].

Hope you like it.

Chowtimes Mentioned on Jennifer 8 Lee’s Blog!

OK. it was just a little mention on Jennifer 8 Lee’s blog … a small mention, no link juice for chowtimes.com but still it is a big deal to Suanne and I.

Jennifer 8 Lee is who we want to be when we grow up — not that we will want to at this time. Fancy being invited to speak on a TED conference one day where Suanne speaks on her Underground Restaurant venture. That would be a day right, Suanne? LOL!

We felt so honored!

Delicious Flags

To close off this week’s musings, here is a series of national food made in the image of its respective national flags. It is from a chain email we received from Minoo which we find very interesting. Look over this and let me know if you agree that the food is a fair representation of the food you normally find in the country.

From Australia, the Australian Meat Pie which is a favourite and common take away snack.

Brazil. OK we see lime and maybe banana leaf at the background. What is the diamond shape part made of? Pineapple? This one we stumped us. That shows how little we know about Brazil (or for that matter South American) food.

The only thing I can think of at the mention of Brazilian food is beef …. mmmm … churrasco! I am sure Brazilian Cuisine is way more than that.

China. This is kind of odd. Firstly the Star Fruit. We did not realize that the star fruit is native to China (not that we know where it is from).

Then the background … it seems like Bak Kwa (Suanne’s recipe here) but we thought it is more South East Asian than it is China. Any one can help?

Viva la Francai! The French flag is represented by Blue Cheese, Brie (which is also the name of a French province) and grapes.

Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization … home of the Olives and Feta Cheese.

India, the land of diverse spices and intense tastes is presented by saffron colored curry, shredded coconut and spinach. The Ashoka Chakra in the middle is represented by … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musing (20-Feb-2010)

It was just a struggle juggling between work, the Olympics and chowtimes. I am intense when coming to doing work. I expect nothing short of the best I can give in everything I do.

I came to the realization that I cannot do everything. I need to prioritize what is important and what is urgent … something got to give.

Sorry guys … chowtimes.com got to give way to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. LOL!  So, you will see lighter chowtimes postings from next week. It is time to play.

I took a day off work this week to go enjoy the Olympics. We went to watch a Men’s Hockey game (Sweden vs Belarus). Sorry no pictures because I left the camera elsewhere because I was not sure if they would allow long lens into the stadium. It is one of minor hockey games and so the stadium was not particularly packed. I can imagine the electricity in the stadium had this been a Canada game.

After the game, we roamed the area around Robson Square. We had never seen such festivities in Vancouver before. Everyone was so friendly and cheerful.

The lines were horrendous everywhere. With so many things happening at the same time, there is no way one could see everything. Half the fun was just being there. Sigh, I wish I had the luxury of just taking two weeks off work and be at all these venues everyday.

We caught a few shows but generally just people watching. The weather was just wonderful — bad for the ski hills but certainly the best one could hope for a winter Olympics. At the rate the weather is going, this is going to be one heck of an Olympics.

Suanne does not want to wait in line for hours for ANYTHING at all. Even the line to get into the Olympics superstore is unbelievably long and the people are all do cheerfully and patiently waiting in line. We were saying to ourselves that if we were forced to wait so long, we would also be caught up with spending hundreds of dollars for the Olympics merchandise. Boy, The Bay is making a killing during the Olympics.

We only got the Vancouver 2010 mittens from elsewhere. They are a must have item and perhaps the cheapest at $10 only.

These mittens are a brilliant image of Canada broadcasted throughout the world. You just gotta have them. They are easier to get these days. At one point when the stock ran out, people were selling this on eBay at a wildly inflated price.

We had dinner at Denman. We could see now what the news reports mean that business is down.

Everyone is converging to the area around Robson Square and only parts of Robson street. Further down the road at Robson and Denman it was really quiet for a Friday night that it felt weird. You can even get street parking easily here.

We felt bad for the businesses. But if you want to have a dinner around that area, this is the best time to go as it is not packed at all.

I had no idea how popular the Olympic flames were. Hoards of people … all cheerful despite all the jostling and all. It would have been brilliant if the chainlink fence were not there but we all know why they are there.

I hope the flames will continue to burn even after the Olympics as a lasting legacy for the city.

If you had not been out to the city for the games, drop all your plans this weekend. Go and enjoy the Olympics while it is still here.

Go Canada Go!!

Changing gears …

RICE FIELDS OF JAPAN.

My friend at work sent me another series of interesting food related picture that I want to share with you.

Look ordinary enough, but watch as the rice grows…

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan, but this is no alien creation…

Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colour rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the  paddy fields.

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

Weekend Musings (13-Feb-2010)

It was quite an exciting week for me, to say the least.

It’s just having one excitement after another that is leaving me quite breathless — an totally drained at the end of each day. I have a feeling that this is gonna be this way for the next two weeks or so.

Some of you who follows me on Twitter, would know that I had my own 15 minutes of fame during the week. Firstly, my family and I was interview by the NHK (Japan Broadcasting) as part of their Olympic coverage. Then I had a 1-on-1 interview with the Chef Dan who is Director of Culinary Innovation of McDonalds. It was a very interesting meeting in which I took the opportunity to ask some hard hitting questions. I’ll blog about it soon.

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

It’s finally here! Wohoo!

It felt like just yesterday that the city erupted when we heard the very words “… is awarded to the city of … Vank-koo-var”.

We went to see the Opening Ceremony Dress Rehearsal on Monday. It was one of our most memorable experience and came away feeling great pride of being Canadian. That being a Dress Rehearsal, some elements of the ceremony was still top secret at that time.

We sat glued to the TV last night watching the Opening Ceremony and enjoying delivery from Bo Laksa’s. Vancouver 2010 got off quite badly. Suanne and I was totally shocked to hear of the Georgian luger who was killed just hours before the Opening Ceremony. Our heart goes to the family, team and the entire Olympic community. I think VANOC and IOC responded so appropriately to this tragic event within a few short hours but they must do everything to prevent another tragedy like this.

There was also a couple of miscues during the Opening Ceremony. Firstly,I could not understand how the First Nation chiefs could ever be late in welcoming the world. Then the cauldron glitch had to happen. And it had to rain too. Well, it is all in a day’s work.

Still at the end of the day, I ended up feeling proud being Canadian.

Eight Great Traditions of Chinese Cuisine

It is progressing … slowly and steady. We have a team now discussing on how to do this. Some very good ideas had been put on the table but we know there are still some ways to go.

I wanted to let everyone know that the planning team consists of FMED, KEEV and JOE. I am just glad that they had so enthusiastically pitched in with their knowledge and time because I know I can’t do it all by myself.

But we have a problem. None of us reads Chinese! We seriously need a volunteer who does to complement the team. Is there anyone out there who would want to help … and be part of the team of this exciting project? Just send me an email (ben@chowtimes.com).

There Is Such a Thing As a Free Lunch

Believe it or not. Someone contacted us offering to give Chowtimes readers a free lunch. First question in my mind was “what’s the catch?”

Just in case you think it is coming from a restaurant, no … it is not. This is coming from a regular guy and a truly committed foodie who simply wants to share what he has gotten.

At this time, it will be a … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musings (06-Feb-2010)

My writing is seriously backlogged.

Suanne and I had a lot of good eating lately and am so excited to write about them but I simply had no time to sit down with a good stretch of time to write. You see, I am a slow writer. I take about 30 minutes to gather my thoughts and determine the story line. Processing the pictures is laborious but necessary process. Processing picture is the easy part (but downright boring) but even that takes up another 30 minutes or so. Then the writing — if I am on the roll, 1 hour max — if not, it takes up to 2 hours.

Oh that does not include responding to emails everyday, planning, and what nots. This blog is consuming our lives.  Help!!

McDonalds and the Vancouver 2010 Olympics

Suanne and I are so excited. McDonalds is arranging media credentials for us and also a 1-on-1 interview with someone who is known as the Most Powerful Chef in America. He he he … that is from the standpoint that more people eat his food than any other chef. I am talking about Dan Coudreaut, the Director of Culinary Innovation from Illinois. I really hope to be able to also see McDonalds operations in the Games Village and the Media Center. Exciting times!

We had never done these sort of things before. We are really in for the learning and for fun. I think Chef Dan is going to be shocked with some of the dumb questions that we are going to throw at him.

I need your help! I was hoping that you could help me identify some of the things you want to know about McDonalds, no matter how silly it may be. You can either send me an email (ben@chowtimes.com) or just comment on this post.

Bo Laksa King Doing Delivery

Last week I went to Bo’s for lunch. I love Bo’s Laksa and do think he has no peers in this area. Talking to him, I point-blankly told him I am selfish and hopes that he does not open a restaurant or go too big. I am afraid that quality will suffer if he gets too big and does not personally make the laksa anymore. He laughed but was serious in telling me that quality is always his #1 priority.

Bo told me that he is expanding his business. He is starting to do home delivery … today, this very day. This is only for DINNER unfortunately. He said he had rented a kitchen and will be operating out of that kitchen each night. The laksa place will be run by his wife while he will be manning the kitchen.

He also has a website up and running (http://www.bolaksaking.com). The delivery menu is much … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musings (23-Jan-2010)

We had wanted to eat light the past week. We were doing OK except we ended up having heavy dinners on two nights. Back to square one. Below are what we had last week which we will be blogging about next week. Can you guess what they are?

There is going to be a lot more musings this week. Got lots on my mind that I want to unload for chowtimes readers.

12B Underground Kitchen

All plans are pretty much set. Dinner is confirmed for 31-Jan. That is a Sunday night. We might have three more places available pending confirmation. If any of you want to be put on the standby list, send me an email at ben@chowtimes.com. This is one dinner Suanne and I look so much forward to.

Chef Todd is a big boy now. He was featured in the papers last week. And then at the same time, he told me that the “donation” is now $65 instead of $50. Wasn’t too happy at all.

Anyway, for those of you who do not know of Chef Todd and the 12B Underground Kitchen, you can read of my experience here.

The Eight Great Traditions of Chinese Cuisine

It is still very much on our radar.

We just did not have time to get going on this project which I mentioned on the post here. I know I need to get some plans going or else this is going to turn cold … if not already. LOL!

We did go to the Richmond Public Library to get some books about Chinese cuisine. This makes for good weekend reading. Frankly, one can only learn so much from books. It is learning from the experts that makes the most difference. Some of you had sent me emails volunteering to help — I’ll call on you soon!

I just wanted to let you know I am serious about this project.

ben@chowtimes.com a Spammer?

Oh yeah. It seems that our emails sent from our @chowtimes.com account ended on spam folders of many email clients. I don’t know what is the best way around this but to ask you to check your spam folder and unspam/unjunk us. I think you only need to do it once and we’re OK.

Chowtimes.com Outages

We had been getting a lot of outages last week. This seems to be getting worse as the traffic on the site grows. Last month we had 173,000 pageviews. This month we are on track to surpass 196,000 pageviews. Also I have a lot of “stuff” on the site which makes it heavier than most WordPress blogs.

This somewhat worries me to tell the truth. We were kicked out by our old hosting company last year because we had too much traffic and overloaded the servers. Our hosting plan today is still cheap — just $13 a month. We are seriously thinking of proactively moving to a dedicated plan if the traffic growth continues.

At the meantime, sorry for all the outages. The outages are usually fixed within 30 to 120 minutes.

That’s it for today folks. Looks like it’s going to be another gorgeous day in Vancouver today.

Have a good weekend, eat well and enjoy this Coca-Cola viral video below.

Weekend Musings (16-Jan-2010)

What a week!

It had been a really hectic week for me. Sometimes I feel that running this blog is like a second job. I really do. And I think it will only get bigger. He he he … I wish I can do blogging full time because I enjoy it so much. But it is not going to bring the bacon to the table. Wishful thinking.

There are a number of things that I wanted to let you all know. I don’t want to post a lot of non-food information and announcements every other day. I think it will be confusing to you all. So, going forward I am going to post Weekend Musings. This is for me to just let out what is on my mind.

Give me a moment while I get on my soapbox …

The Past Week

Suanne and I enjoyed all the comments made particularly on Ho Yuen. There are a total of 27 comments made, mostly against … More on following page. Click here to continue reading