Regional Tasting Lounge will host a charity event (Thursday, January 21) to help raise funds to support Rose Charities Canada’s efforts in sending and organizing volunteers to help the victims of the devastating Haiti earthquake.

The night will feature special guests, Vancouver-based photographer Tallulah and fellow journalist Robert Staley, who will be sharing their photos and stories from their life-changing Haiti trip last year.  During the event, Rose Charities Canada will also speak about their current and upcoming efforts will be.

The benefit night will include:

This event will include:
- Complimentary drink upon arrival
- Photo gallery and presentation
- Gourmet canapés served throughout the evening
- Silent auction items and door prizes
- Special pricing for select bar items

Ticket Price: $45 (majority of ticket cost will go to Rose Charities Canada)
100% of proceeds from the silent auction and bar purchase will go to the organization.

Tickets can be purchased by contacting Alain Canuel at r.tl directly: 604.638.1550

Local foodists are observant and have noticed the lack of ingenuity on some restaurant menus.  We posed the question “What are you tired of seeing on a menu” and received lots of great quality feedback.

Restaurants take note – here’s what your customers are saying:

Mine’s – pricey edamame and sliders (I had cheap sliders at Regal Beagle like 5 years ago)

Overpriced nachos. $17 – seriously??????

I’d toss in craptastic nachos into that list. Mushy chips, process cheese, uneven topping distro, always the same, etc.

Tired of seeing on a menu? Hate that anything that resembles a jam is now called a chutney!

Garlic mashed potatoes, yam fries

Got to agree on the edamame. Mine would be “gourmet” chicken wings. I used to work in the industry, I know what they cost!

Seared scallop, lightly dressed…. Gotta have a new way to deal with scallop…

Pretencious carpaccios and “gourmet” grilled cheese sandwiches

So tired of seeing salads having dressings with more calories then multiple burgers!

What I’m tired of seeing on menus is bruscetta and overpriced tiny bowls of olives.

Especially overpriced edamame! & yam fries! & butternut squash anything!

Totally in agreement with ready made sliders…as 4 what i hate seeing on menus how about all the stuff not MADE ON SITE…

All if not most of these have been on menus for years.  Are they really that popular and high in demand?
What makes me notice a restaurant’s originality is their very unique spin on a regular menu item…and that place is well known for it.

Restaurants, try to make a standard dish really your own (and make it good)…..where people would not want to to go anywhere else and be enticed to make reservations, come sit at your table and order that special something something.

So what were your favourite dining experiences of 2009? Here’s some memorable meals of the past year.

@Johnathon V – Offal Dinner; Pied A Terre, Tru; Chicago, Carnivino; Las Vegas & an epic dinner shindig for my studio @pourhouse_van

@jencthornton – the new thai house in North Vancouver, excellent service and great food

@CharlesAndSteph – best restaurants of 09! Coast, Sanafir, Horizons, SIP & Lux

@nursecourtenay – gotta be Chambar!!

And what were this foodie’s favourite food of the year? Tons!
Pretty much all of my meals in Italy
Wine and pasta at Pourhouse
Coast’s seafood dishes
All of my meals at Latitude
Cibo’s divine gnocchi
Au Petit Chavignol’s fondue
Irish Heather’s Long Table Series
Brunch at Crave
Finch’s Tea & Coffee House’s sandwiches
Ganache’s cakes
Drinks at George
Burritos at Salsa and Agave
Nostalgic french food at Cafe Salade de Fruits
Phnom Penh’s fried chicken
Any Dim Sum place in Richmond
and the best?
…..
dinners, potlucks, and laughs with my very kitchen capable friends

Wish you all a very good delicious 2010

Back in August we mentioned about the looming HST that will be implemented in July 2010. There has been some rumblings and effort in fighting it but the big guys are coming in big time. The Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association and the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association are going full force in pressuring the government to exempt the restaurant industry from the HST with an all encompassing campaign, No Meal Tax.

In short the BC government will be combining the taxes (PST and GST) into the Harmonization Tax (HST). This tax of 12% will be applied to all goods and services. This means adding an extra 7% to the existing 5% to your bill. This will be applied to the coffee and muffin you get in the morning…. to your dinner in Gastown… to that late night pizza after some Granville Street club hopping.

This major collaborative campaign includes the online headquarters, NoMealTax.ca. This central website enables people to have their voices heard by providing comments, signing up for the petition, and getting the latest information about HST and the campaign. Consumers can also show their support by following them on Twitter (@nomealtax) or Facebook.

So how this would affect us? Here’s some numbers:

1. Economic analysis indicates this will lead to a 7.5% drop in restaurant sales
2. The potential drop in sales equates to $750 million loss in BC within 1 year of the HST introduction
3. BC restaurant and food services employs 173,000 people – more than the agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and oil and gas sectors COMBINED
4. According to a recent survey, nearly 25% of us have a direct connection to the food industry (ie via employment, have immediate family and/or owns business in this sector)

As foodies, food and wine lovers, coffee drinkers, restaurateurs and/or staff it’s time to speak out! Let us know what you think and head over to NoMealTax.ca to show your support.

It seems like every where you go, at home and at work, someone has caught the flu or unfortunately H1N1. Some are wary of taking the shots or medication and its possible side effects. However, there are many natural remedies to boost your immune system, enable you to recover faster and make you feel healthier. And some of these you may find are already part of your daily meals.

Vitamin C – boosts immune system and increase the number of white blood cells

Garlic – decreases de growth of the virus

Ginger Tea – is antiviral and helps break up mucus and congestion

Chilli Peppers – acts as a natural decongestant and expectorant

Apple and dark grape juice – works against congestion and runny nose

Yogurt – fights infection

Lemon – helps promote health by quickly alkalinizing the body

Elderberry – strengthens the immune system and blocks the flu virus from sticking to our cells

Green Tea – kills viruses and stimulates the immune system to fight off flu infections, especially when used daily

I recently caught up with Colin Leach & Kelci Hind, proprietors of The Silk Road and asked them a few questions about how they got their start, what every kitchen should have, hot food trends and they also share a favourite recipe for our readers. These two are some skilled folks, not only offering fine spices, herbs and other seasoning necessities, they also create all their own spice blends and rubs by hand in what must be fragrantly awesome small batches. I love a Canadian small business finding niches in the market…find them online at http://www.silkroadspices.ca/

Have you two always been interested in cooking? Or did you rock the ramen noodles in University?

Colin: A little of both, I guess. I still love ramen noodles, only now I put things like miso, chick peas and vegetables in them. Or curry paste.

I got interested in cooking by watching The Urban Peasant (Vancouver!) in university. He taught me to get a good knife and a good pan and learn how to improvise. He was never about following recipes exactly.

Kelci: I’ve been baking since I was a kid, but my cooking repertoire consisted of about 10 dishes until I was in my mid-twenties. I grew up in a meat and potatoes family, so it took me a long time to get out of my comfort zone and be a bit more adventurous with ingredients. Indian cuisine was a revelation for me, and the love affair with spices soon followed.

What inspired you to start Silk Road?

A couple of things. On the practical side, we wanted to fill a niche – for a single place that people can go for every spice under the sun, even if they live somewhere rural. As it stands now, you have to go to 10 different places to get this stuff, depending on whether you’re cooking Indian, Mexican, Thai or whatever. And people in smaller towns often have no access to those things at all.

On a more visceral side, we really just love spices. The colours, the smells, the textures, and of course the flavours. And the blending. It’s like mixing pigments for a fresco or combining strange ingredients for a perfume. It’s fun.

What annoys you most about typical generically produced/store bought spices?

They are incredibly overpriced and all the blends contain way too much salt (not to mention MSG). Plus most stores don’t stock anything outside of the basics. And you have to question the freshness of anything mass-produced that is sitting on supermarket shelves.

What sets you apart from them?

We have better quality, better freshness, better selection and better prices. And we’re really knowledgeable about our products. There’s tons of information on our website, and we’re happy to answer customer questions about spices, whether it be how to use them, what they taste like, or what spices go well with different types of food.

What are the absolute pantry essentials every cook should have?

For spices, there are 10 or 15 things you have to have. Coarse or kosher salt, black peppercorns, cayenne pepper, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, ancho chiles, garlic powder. That’s 16. With those basic building blocks, you can do almost anything, including spice blends like chili powder and simple curry powders.

Any new trends you’ve spotted for cooking ingredients?

Fennel pollen is the biggest one lately, since it only became available in North America recently. It’s a really neat spice with a totally unusual flavour and the ability to enhance almost anything.

But in a broader context, there’s an encouraging trend towards embracing high-quality spices and things that used to be pretty uncommon. We’re seeing a lot of people buying whole dried chiles, citrus zest, vanilla beans – the kind of things that used to be reserved for “fancy” kitchens or chefs.

People are so much more knowledgeable about food now. The Food Network, food blogs and celebrity chefs have sparked a bit of a food revolution, and now the average home cook is willing to try adventurous recipes. And they want good ingredients. If you’ve gone out and spent a bunch of money on good meat and vegetables, it doesn’t make sense to cook them with stale or sub-par spices. We’re so happy that people are catching on to that, and we think that using good spices and making more spice blends at home could definitely become a big trend.

Do you have a favourite place to eat in Vancouver?

The Reef, Go Fish, Gyoza King, and for spices, you can’t do any better than Vij’s.

What’s next for Silk Road? World domination?

We’ll settle for Western-Canadian domination. A shop in Calgary in the next 6 months, and if all goes well, we’d like to expand to Vancouver in a couple of years.

Can you share a favourite recipe that you are rocking in your home kitchen?

This recipe is one we make a lot. It’s a slow-cooked pork dish from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Easy, spicy and full of unusual flavours. It’s basically like a Mexican pulled pork: you can serve it on rice or make sandwiches out of it. This particular recipe is adapted somewhat from one by Robert Rodriguez, who loves this dish so much that it featured prominently in his movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

Puerco Pibil

Preheat oven to 325°

Ingredients:

4-5 lbs pork butt (this is a shoulder roast, available from any good butcher)

5 tbsp annatto seeds

1 tbsp black peppercorns

2 tsp cumin seeds

½ tsp whole cloves

8 allspice berries

3 dried habanero chiles

8 cloves garlic

2 tbsp salt

½ cup orange juice

½ cup white vinegar

Juice of 2 lemons and 3 limes

2 ounces tequila

Grind spices and chiles to a powder in a spice or coffee grinder. Whiz together spices, salt, garlic and liquids in a blender.

Two cautions:

1. Annatto is a natural dye, so don’t get any on your clothes and wipe up any spills quickly.
2. Be very careful when working with habanero chiles. Don’t touch them any more than you have to. And then wash your hands. Seriously.

Cut the pork into rough 3” cubes and put it in a large zip-lock bag. Pour in the marinade. Marinate at least 4 hours (overnight is best). Put the whole lot in a slow cooker and cook for 8-10 hours on low. When cooked, remove the pork to a large plate and shred with 2 forks, removing any remaining fat.

Pour liquid into a saucepan and reduce on the stove by about half. Add shredded pork, stir and heat through. Serve on Mexican rice with sliced raw onions and peppers.

If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can use the oven. Line a large glass baking pan with foil. Pour in meat and liquid and seal the whole pan with foil. Bake for 4 hours at 325°F. Line the bottom of the oven with foil to catch any drips.

LaStella, Osoyoos

The Confession

When it hits you, there’s no turning back. You lose control, start acting crazy and will do anything to be part of that special someone’s days and nights. This fall, after spending some time with the fine folks from LaStella and Le Vieux Pin wineries during their grape harvest, I knew I had found my special “someone”.“He” wasn’t just one tall, dark and handsome man, but an entire crew of passionate people living the dream and working in an amazing industry. There’s no denying I fell fast and hard for their fun-loving, hardworking ways. And there’s absolutely no doubt that my infatuation with them and their wine is growing by the minute. My crush on the crush isn’t going away. It’s here to stay.

Ten Reasons Why I’m Crushing on Le Vieux Pin and LaStella Wineries

1. The Wine

More than just great legs, beautiful noses and rich bodies, the wines produced by LaStella and Le Vieux Pin aren’t just one-night-stands, but life-long companions. From LaStella’s Maestoso Merlot to Le Vieux Pin’s Belle Pinot Noir, these wines are vibrant, complex and intelligent – wines you want to spend some time with, get to know.

2. The Winemakers

Part crazy artists, part mad scientists, and part intuitive farmers, LaStella’s Daniel Bontorin and Le Vieux Pin’s James Cambridge concoct and mastermind the award-winning wines that have been getting their prospective wineries so much buzz. They’re charming. They’re handsome. They’re crush-worthy.

Rasoul, Daniel, Helper, James

3a. The Proprietors

Owned by longtime wine connoisseurs, Sean and Saeedeh Salem, this husband and wife team makes wine ‘they dream of drinking’. For them, the winery is a way of life, a legacy for generations to come. From the vineyards to the office, their passion and tireless effort is contagious and inspiring.

Sean picking grapes.

3b. The Director

With a keen palate and an eerie sixth gastronomic-sense, Rasoul Salehi embraces wine and food. For him, wine is a total sensory experience that ‘tickles and excites all the senses – something special that’s meant to be shared.’ The pulse of LaStella and Le Vieux Pin, he stays ahead of the wine industry curve by employing cutting edge techniques and constantly raising the production bar.

4. Hands-On Approach

Thousands of back-breaking labour hours go into each bottle of wine. All grapes are hand picked and hand sorted to preserve the grapes’ quality and to ensure a premium product. The premium vintages are even de-stemmed by hand. The proprietors, the winemakers, the pickers and the sorters endure extreme weather and up to 20 hour work days to get the grape from the field to the bottle.

Crew sorting grapes.

5. The Multilingual Team

From the winery director to the sorters and pickers, at any given time, crew members mingle in Farsi, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. LaStella and Le Vieux Pin are multi-cultural havens where cultural gaps are bridged and cross-cultural friendships are molded over a common love of wine.

6. The Philosophy

At LaStella and Le Vieux Pin wine is accessible and respected without pretension, a vehicle that brings people together to relish in the simple joys life has to offer – conversation, food, culture, art and music. Innovative and experimental, these young wineries unabashedly take chances and break convention to achieve the finest product.

7. The Setting

At the northernmost tip of the Sonora Desert in the South Okanagan, against backdrops of rugged, caramel-coated mountains reminiscent of Italy and Greece, these wineries conjure European charm and romance.

LaStella

8. The Falcons

Instead of using noise polluting methods like canons to ward off the hoards of European starlings on the hunt for ripened grapes, these wineries employ falcons to scare the starlings and other birds away.

Falcon

9. Innovations

From titanium dioxide-covered vinyl vineyard posts, on-site composting, intentionally low yields, to falcon predators, these wineries rely on a self-coined strategy of “non-interventionism” – a blend of organic and biodynamic methods to produce their award-winning wines.

10. The Architecture

Le Vieux Pin is to Provence as LaStella is to Tuscany. Modeled after a French railway station, Le Vieux Pin feels like a visit to the French countryside. Whereas LaStella epitomizes an Italian Villa with its lookout tower, hand blown Murano glasses and rare blue granite countertops.

Le Vieux Pin

Rena’s Pumpkin Pie

4oz Soft Cream Cheese – 15 to 30 secs in micro
1 tblsp half and half cream
1 tblsp sugar
1 and half cup Thawed Cool Whip
1 Graham Cracker Crust
1 cup Cold Milk
1 can 16 oz. pumpkin
2 pkg vanilla instant pudding – 4 serving
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Ground Ginger
1/4 tsp. Ground Cloves

Directions
Mix cheese with 1 tblsp cream and 1 tblsp sugar in large bowl with wire
whisk until smooth
Gently stir in whipped topping
Spread on crust
Pour 1 cup milk into bowl add pumpkin, pudding mix and spices
Beat with wire whisk until well mixed – will be thick
Spread over cream cheese layer
Refrigerate 4 hours

He’s quite the food photographer too. Still waiting for his dinner invite *hint Mackie hint*

1) Over 20 years of experience in the meat and poultry industry
2) Worked at various well known supermarkets like the former Produce City and currently at Choices Market
3) Customers would purposely ask for her to help them out
4) Other stores and markets have tried to recruit her
5) Her current managers listen and respect her opinions. Pretty much what she says goes…and the occasional food perks and swags she gets are pretty sweet
6) I nicknamed her ‘Big Sister’ (think gansta) because of how much influence she has where she works.

So now I bring her expertise to you all. Here is her breakdown of how to cook a turkey:

Tips:
Preparation
- When marinating the turkey, remember to poke (or stab all over before rubbing the marinate on
- Ideally want to marinate overnight or for at least half a day
- Instead of regular stuffing like Stove Top, can just use vegetables.
- Use a roasting pan or a large casserole dish
- Fill pan/dish with water (inch or so amount), place cooking rack in pan, and ensure the water is below top of rack so you can place the turkey on top without touching the water. This will keep the turkey moist when cooking

Cooking:
Turn Oven to 350

A) With Stuffing:
6-8 lbs = 3 to 3.5 Hours
8-12 lbs = 3.5 to 4.5 Hours
12-16 lbs = 4.5 to 5.5 Hours
16-20 lbs = 5.5 to 6.5 Hours
20-24 lbs = 6.5 to 7 Hours

B) Without Stuffing:
6-8 lbs = 2 to 2.5 Hours
8-12 lbs = 2.5 to 3.5 Hours
12-16 lbs = 3.5 to 4.5 Hours
16-20 lbs = 4.5 to 5.5 Hours
20-24 lbs = 5.5 to 6 Hours

And after your grand Thanksgiving meal, remember to keep the carcass for broths, soups, and congee.

Happy Thanksgiving and Good Eats!

It’s a tiny space, great for take-away or if you can score one of the sweet spots at the bar you can watch all the tacos come out and drool inappropriately.

I just want to swim in the slow cooked, pineapple wafting tacos al pastor or drape myself in a coat of beef asada – is that so wrong? The flavours are authentic and rich, and I can’t wait for the liquor license as a cold beer would pair so heavenly with the pollo con mole.

You can score 4 delish tacos for $9.50, vegetarian and vegan options are available – and with 12 types of tacos available, well, you could just sit and have a long lunch and try them all. Which trust me, you will be tempted to do.

La Taqueria, Pinche Taco Shop (which translates to something funny, but unladylike for such esteemed company) is located at 322 Hastings Street West.

tacos al pastor