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To those who do not know yet, last Friday was   the opening ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. During the next two weeks, in addition to my regular food/restaurant blog posts, I will try to do photo essays of the city, specially of the Downtown Vancouver/Yaletown area and probably some of the other installations across town. Sorry, no Cypress or Whistler… I mean, you can watch the sport events themselves in TV and news you might not necessarily see the rest that Vancouver has to offer. And that brings the topic of this post…

In the last week or so, I have been receiving emails asking for suggestions on places to eat, things they have to try, restaurant they should visit and so on. And it goes all ways, some for cheap, something they should spare no expense and so on. The commonality of the request is the Downtown/Yaletown area of town. I tried my best answering those emails but, as explained in my response, in my opinion, Yaletown is full of expensive restaurants where the focus is not always in good food. Instead, I suggested expand a little bit more. Based on the couple of emails I have replied, I thought I should compile what I have written and put it in a post.

Update: The topic of price gouging has popped up in the comments section. I thought I should include some links here, as a caveat emptor for out of town customers. I love Vancouver but despise that restaurant owners is taking advantage of the Olympics to obtain additional revenues.

  • An article in The Globe and Mail from Alexandra Gill, the newspaper’s food critic.
  • A site maintaining a naughty or nice list of restaurants.
  • An article (and video) from CTV.


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Feel free to call me a !@#$%!@#$ teaser bastard. Go ahead, I have really thick skin! :P

As mentioned yesterday, DougieDog offers some interesting mix of hot dogs. Kimchi in a hot dog? Guacamole? Oh, wait, we sort had fun about similar ideas in the past, it was matter of a place actually offering it here in Vancouver – something that DougieDog has in a way achieved. However, the question is whether they have one that goes head to head against the #1 dog (pun intended) in hot dog terms in Vancouver: JapaDog. And, yes, they do: Tokyo Dog - Japanese Mayo, Okonomiyaki Sauce, Bonito Flakes, Nori Flakes.. So, here goes it goes, JapaDog Terimayo vs. DougieDog Tokyo Dog!

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The Meaning of Popularity

by KimHo on January 10, 2010 · 6 comments under: British Columbia,Comments,Random

Ah, new year… Just in case, if you missed it, once again, Happy New Year! Of course, before the new year, there is the end of year, time where different media starts writing articles on the top X for different categories. Top news, events, etc. Of course, this being a food, mostly restaurant, related blog, my main point of interest would be exactly that, restaurants. So, just to follow trend, here is my top 10 restaurants…

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Salumi Challenge

by KimHo on December 30, 2009 · 4 comments under: Comments,Random,Restaurant,Travel

Some time ago, fellow blogger Sherman visited Salumi, a well known deli in Seattle, and his post was received in a negative way. In an unfortunate way, Sherman’s recent post of Finch’s revived that topic which resulted in further negative feedback.

I have met Sherman personally for some time, consider him a friend, and have learned how he assesses a restaurant. We have agreed a lot of times (something we both think is scary) and, every single time we disagree, we understand why we disagreed. Because of this, it is safe for me to say that I can trust his judgment most of the time.

So why I bring this up? In a couple of weeks, I will be travelling to SeaTac for other reasons and, on my way back to Vancouver, I will try to stop at Salumi to confirm/deny Sherman’s originally thoughts. One of the main points of contention was that of the sampled sandwich, i.e., instead of being made to order, it was already pre-made. So, my challenge to you is the following: Which sandwich I should order? At almost $10 a sandwich, I am willing to buy at most two (most likely eat half and half on the spot and bring home the rest). In the Salumi post, two sandwiches were mentioned: mole salami and fresh mozzarella. Are these two an accurate representation? If not, what are your thoughts? Deadline for this post will be Jan 17th!

Update – Just came back from my trip. Yup, I “cheated” on the date! Salumi post coming soon, hehehehe.

This is a topic that I know it will not win me any friends; in fact, there are chances I will garner more enemies. However, as they say, keep your friends close but your enemies closer… A couple of months ago, there was the announcement BC will implement a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) replacing the current Goods and Sales Tax (GST) and Provincial Sales Tax (PST). The current GST and PST rates are 5% and 7% and the HST will be 12%. While it sounds like the tax we end up paying is the same, reality is there will be some shifts, i.e., where previously there were no taxes (or not at the same rate), there now will and vice-versa. This being a food blog, I will touch specifically on the topic of restaurants. (And, thanks to shokutsu of Foodosophy to bring this first to my attention).

When implemented in July 1st, 2010 (oddly, in Canada Day), when you go out to eat, your bill will have a 12% tax rather than 5%. Yes, whereas currently you are currently only GST taxed, now you will be hit by an additional 7%. Because of this, there has been a site set up against this issue called , leaded by Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. Local commentator Bill Tieleman has also written about this. Now, I must mention that some parties are not necessarily against the HST; rather the way it will be implemented, i.e., a straight jump from 5% to 12%. Of course, everybody is entitled to their opinion and mine is…

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I might be overstating the obvious here but, just in case… Last month, I mentioned I might start changing my blogging patterns, i.e., rather than posting every weekday, I might alternate. Well, that is not the reason why I have been publishing my posts every other day. Yes, as some of you might have guessed, I have been on a business trip – in this case, a two week business trip! Since I usually have a one week buffer, I only had enough material for one week. But, rather than posting all of them on the same week, I thought it might be better to space them. Where did I go? Well, you will find out Monday! :D

As for today’s post… Well, it is sort of an impromptu post (not to mention how to call it correctly). OK, let me go back a little bit: By the time this post goes up, I should be halfway asleep, almost ready to wake up, prep myself and drive to the airport. I should arrive at Vancouver International sometime in the afternoon and, after dinner, and who knows, write a post for Sunday. Reality is, that is pushing it. So, rather than pushing that option, I chose to write this post which is inspired on a post written by shokutsu on F o o d o s o p h y. Specifically, that of a young lady who did not mix the veggies/meat/egg/add chili paste in a dolsot bibimpap. To quote shokutsu:

I felt like leaning over and saying to her, that’s like eating spaghetti noodles without any tomato sauce, or a hotdog without ketchup and mustard.

Of course, I told him that was a bad analogy but that is beyond the point (just check the comments in the post for my thoughts). However, it just comes to me there are some odd habits that people do without thinking too much about it, yet some of us might cringe. So let’s start with things I know I might make Ms. Manners cringe (and to potential in-laws, yes, my parents did teach me, just that I did not heed that part…):

  1. Fork and knife: Regardless if you do it American or European style, you should hold your fork with your left hand and knife with your right. Depending then on the style, the fork stays on your left hand (European) or can then transfer to the right. While I sometimes do that, more often than not, I ended holding my fork with my right hand and knife on the left during the whole meal.
  2. Eating with hands: Why should I fight with a chicken drumstick?

As for things other people do that makes me cringe…

  1. Holding chopsticks on the lower half of the chopsticks. The best description would that be of holding the chopsticks as if they were holding a pen to write, i.e., the “top” half of the chopstick sticks out and the distance between your hand and the food is minimal. Do you know that requires a lot more force than holding it further back? If you are not sure, check the Law of Levers.
  2. Adding sauces or condiments… BEFORE tasting the food. Some exceptions are OK, like adding catsup to french fries (though I usually add them on a side of the container).

In the end, I believe it is up to you to decide how you eat your food but, c’mon… Anyway, what are your thoughts? Do you have other behaviours/habits that can make you cringe? How about the otherway around? I can think of others but I would like to read your thoughts!

When I started to focus a bit more into food blogging, I chose this domain name because that is what I usually do in a restaurant – the rest, service, ambiance, et al, plays second fiddle to the food. However, after I started blogging, I realized that it might be a bit insensitive – those who are in need of assistance from organizations like the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society (from here on, referred to as Food Bank). Since this is a one year anniversary for me, I thought to visit them to learn more about them and what they do in our community.

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