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  • Yesterday’s lunch at Laksa King was a bowl of laksa, a bowl of mohinga (Fernando got a picture of it), and an order of roti canai

    → 7:52 AM, Nov 4   •  restaurant, mastodon
  • Rachael won an overnight stay prize pack from VanMuralFest and the Robson BIA. Finishing our downtown adventure with a nice breakfast at Forage.

    → 10:17 AM, Oct 17   •  Vancouver, restaurant, mastodon
  • Checked in at 1931 Gallery Bistro. Halloumi galette for her, Peking duck eggs benny for me. Also first time at a #restaurant in 4 months.

    → 12:28 PM, Jul 26   •  restaurant, checkin
  • Straight & Marrow is going into the old Bistro Wagon Rouge space, Scout Magazine

    Looking forward to trying this new place. Bistro was pretty classic French bistro, the updated room looks spectacular.

    → 11:46 AM, Jul 15   •  Vancouver, restaurant, Scout Magazine
  • First meal at Lucky Noodle

    Just came back from my first meal at Lucky Noodle, which is a Hunan-style Chinese restaurant at 3377 Kingsway (a couple of blocks east of Joyce).

    I heard about it from reading Fernando’s blog review about it, plus Roland saw the same thing and has been wanting to try it.

    We missed Roland this time, but Rachael and I were joined by Mark and Andrea.

    We followed Fernando’s recommendations, but with only 4 of us had to order less.

    The “code” we remembered from the menu numbers was B, I, L, #73, #37, #64. The dishes were (not in the same order):

    • Squid & Chinese Mushroom Hot Plate
    • Lamb with Cumin
    • Boiled Chicken with Special Sauce
    • Grilled Green Peppers
    • Chopped Potatoes with Chili Oil
    • Chinese Bacon with Bamboo Shoots

    The bacon was house made Hunan style - smoky & spicy.

    We also had some rice on the side, to cool our mouths from the very spicy dishes.

    The meal was great, and we’ll definitely be back to try other dishes.



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    → 9:25 PM, Jun 30   •  Vancouver, Food, Chinese, restaurant, Hunan, Blog
  • Tickets to a restaurant /via @eastgate

    Next is a fascinating Chicago restaurant that serves a single, fixed menu that changes every three months. You don’t make reservations; you buy tickets. The current menu is titled “Tour of Thailand.” It’s full of fascinating ideas.

    …

    By selling tickets instead of taking reservations, for example, Next builds service into the charge and gets rid of tipping. Everyone is on salary, and servers and cooks both receive the service charge dividends.

    via markbernstein.org

    If you click through to Mark Bernstein's full post, you can read his description and reaction to the current Tour of Thailand menu at Next Restaurant (I'm linking to the FAQ, since the "home page" is literally just an invitation to create an account and buy tickets; and they're currently sold out).

    The food is fascinating, but I'm even more fascinated by the model of selling tickets.

    In Vancouver, you might check out the Irish Heather Long Table Series. I really should talk to Sean about switching to using Eventbrite directly, so people can self serve, and he can spend less time wrangling tickets.

    What happens when you start having more ticket buyers than space? That is, people who go to every event you put on? Do you get to be wilder, even more creative? Or do you just cater to the audience that you have? Sounds kind of like the concerns of a music artist.

    I've only done mass food delivery once. I got Mark Busse, Ben Garfinkel and the Industrial Brand gang (pre-Foodists) plus Robert Scales and myself to prepare / cook / serve 150 people for the Northern Voice 2007 pre-dinner / party. With live slide presentation of Lee & Sachi's world travel. Anyway, that was a crazy / fun experience, from which I learned many things, including that delivering food to 150 people without professional prep facilities is HARD.

    I've thought a lot about getting involved with a restaurant/cafe/food enterprise. But I've done it before (dishpig / prep cook a long time ago), and it's a LOT OF WORK. Which is mainly filled with uncertainty, since you have to lose a lot of money waiting for people to show up, then hope they like what you make, and rinse and repeat.

    A ticket / event based food experience is a different ball game. KickStarter for restaurants?

    → 2:03 PM, Aug 23   •  Personal, cooking, Food, restaurant, KickStarter, Industrial Brand, Irish Heather, Long Table Series, Next Restaurant, Northern Voice, nv07, Blog
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