Jeff Hamada - Booooooom (one of the best sites on the internet says VancouverSlop, Technorati and everyone)

Guu (Gastown)
My favourite of all the izakaya joints in Vancouver. Fantastic service and probably the best quality Japanese cuisine you'll find at this price. I always get the Tuna Tataki, Ebi May, and I like their verision of Okonomiyaki.

Tandoori Kona (Richmond)
This is my favourite spot for Indian food. Great quality butter chicken and very flavourful curry. Ridiculously cheap lunch specials, too. If you're ever in the area, it's worth it.

Nuba (Downtown location)
If you're looking for a Lebanese spot this is it. One of the best falafelsI've had in the city. I recommend the toasted deluxe!

Burger Heaven
This lunch at Burger Heaven reminded me of my times in the suburbs in the 90s. Old cartoon art that looks like Garfield or Marvin, low rider trucks and some folks with some truly suburban hair cuts.

I only had a short amount of time to chow, so I kept my order simple, a bacon, mushroom, cheddar burger with fries/wedges (13 bucks) and a bottomless pop. I am one of those kids that takes full advantage of the bottomless pop and I usually have at least two or three refills during my sitting. The service was on point even though the place was busy and the atmosphere was interesting (hanging plants, old photos of customers, old cartoon art, and media accolades framed on the wall).

The burger was one of the sloppiest ever. Stacked with mushrooms, dripping with cheddar and two slabs of bacon hanging off of it, this burger guaranteed a stain on my pants. Taste wise the burger was juicy and flavourful. Not quite exploding with flavour but really damn good. It ranks high on my list of burgers, perhaps in the top three (better than Veras). The wedges weren't that great but you can upgrade to yam fries if you want. The problem is how often do you make trips to New West? I make an occasional trip to go antique/vintage shopping and next time I will grab a burger after and then some maple soft serve ice cream at this other spot that I forget the name of.

Burger Heaven
77 10th St
New Westminster, BC



Matt

Kalamata
I find there are many pitfalls with Greek food. The meat is too dry, the potatoes are not crispy enough, the rice is just bland or it is just not worth the price tag. I like many have stood in line for Stephos and walked out stating that was a great meal/great deal. I like many have also walked two doors down to Takis and said screw the line up at Stephos.

I needed a new Greek joint and I have tried many but always walked away unhappy until now. Kalamata was recommended to me by a friend that was hit and miss with previous recommendations. This time it was a hit. We ordered the beef souvlaki and the garlic prawns. The meals come with a nice sized Greek salad. I substituted mine for a green salad but regreted it because the raspberry dressing was weird and the Greek salad was way better.

The prawns were garlicky as described, actually really garlicky. Bring some gum or breath mints cause you will be representing halitosis when you leave. The rice was super flavourful, potatoes were great and the beef was tasty and moist.

Service was a little slow but the food was great. The price was on par with most Greek Restaurants at about 15 dollars per dish. Best Greek food in town? I wouldn't say that but it is a new fav.

Kalamata
388 West Broadway
Vancouver BC



Matt

Vancouver Slop in collaboration with Take 5 Café™ is giving away five 20 dollar gift certificates redeemable at any Take 5 Café™. All you have to do is submit a photo of yourself eating or drinking (you can hide your face if you want to or be as creative as you want) to Vancouverslop@gmail.com. The photos will be placed on Vancouver Slop and the five winners will be selected on November 20^th 2009 by Take 5 Café™. The last day to submit your photos is November 15^th

Take 5 Café™ has seven different locations in Vancouver and Burnaby, so you’ll have plenty of options when redeeming your gift cards. Enjoy custom roasted coffee, quality panini, soup, pasta and more at your local Take 5 Café™

Get your photos in and check out
www.take5cafe.com
Twitter: take5cafebc

We managed to work it out with the Irish Heather and have a Vancouver Slop Long Table dinner. We have a few spots left, so if you are interested in having some pig with us then send me an e-mail and hopefully we have a seat for you.

BTW I am not paying for you.

vancouverslop@gmail.com

Update: It seemed like everyone had a great time. There is something about breaking bread with 50 people on one long table that feels great. Good food and good company.

Deserts is one of my favorite lunch spots. I actually heard the owner say that I am one of her regulars. I've always wanted to be a regular, kinda like Norm in Cheers. (speaking of Norm from Cheers, why didn't they ever show his wife's face? That always bothered me.) There are two typical lunches that I normally order. One is the Chef Special which is two types of curries on a bed of rice with a half pita, for $6.50. On my extra hungry days I tend to add an extra samosa (great sauce that goes with it) which after taxes is an extra dollar. The second lunch choice is a Felafel with Tabbouleh salad for $7.75 (if you want just the felafel by itself it's $5.50). The felafel is solid isn't as good an Nuba's but it's a close second in my opinion. I never thought I would like Tabbouleh since I don't like parsley, but I really enjoy the Tabbouleh at Deserts. Maybe I do like parsley, it's a mystery that will never be solved.

I usually like to take pics of who I am eating with, since I was eating alone I took a picture of the samosa.

On a totally unrelated topic, I was at the Irish Heather's Long Table Series today for their turkey dinner (which was very tasty by the way) and I happened to sit beside another guy named Vince. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a long table series just for people named Vince? Actually that would be a very impractical and the novelty would wear off quick. At any rate here's a bonus pic for the Vince I met today.




Deserts
905 Commercial Dr.
Vancouver, BC V5L 3W8
Tel: (604) 251-4171



Love,

Vince

We went to Social for a friend's birthday. It was my second time eating dinner there, the first also being for a birthday, and heard the chef had since changed; a new menu is always exciting. The atmosphere in the dining room of Social is nice; dark with moderate lighting, red walls, wooden columns, high, engraved ceilings and lots of seating (big tables and comfy seats good for dinner parties), it's also a fairly quiet atmosphere, which is good for chatting. They also have a lounge area downstairs. First up: free goods. These are always a nice touch, and a nice surprise. The server brought out starter veggies and chips, served in a mini clay pot with yogurt dip; really cute. My one suggestion would be to leave the chips out on the plate, they get soggy sitting in the dip. Next came an amuse bouche of beet puree with salmon, served atop of crispy bread and some sort of flavoured oil, it was really tasty; nice little treat. Bread with butter was served, and although some of the guests complained that the bread was too salty, I love almost all breads and didn't really notice this.

Up next: appetizers. We started with the Crispy Plate for $9, the birthday girl loves anything crispy, and this plate promised to deliver - chicken, fries, potato chips, and bread, accompanied with a dip. It's rare that you can say this, but it was too deep fried, it made you feel unhealthy eating it (not that deep fry is healthy, but this was something else). The chicken was all crisp and no meat, and the taste of deep fry was overwhelming, you couldn't really distingish one bite from the other. As for the dip, it was of the yogurt variety, which I didn't think matched the deep fried items in taste or texture. Pulled Beef Poutine for $9 was next. I love poutine, and this one was pretty good; the cheese, beef and fries were in good proportion to eachother. If anything, and that's cause I'm picky, the beef could have been a bit more shredded, some of the beef bites were pretty big, and it would have been nice to get some fry, cheese and beef in every bite.

Finally, the mains. I went with the Local Chicken with carrot puree, crispy dophinoise potato, new baby corn, glazed salsify and jus for $15. Quite the description, right? (I had to look up salsify, and for those of you who are interested, and it is a a purple-flowered, composite plant, whose root has an oyster-like flavor and is used as a culinary vegetable; it is also called oyster plant, vegetable oyster). The presentation was lovely and seasonal, the colours of fall. The meal itself was okay, nothing spectacular, but not bad....could have used a bit more juiciness in the chicken and a bit less savoury of a jus. Other mains that were ordered included the $20 Pan Seared Wild Salmon Salmon with local nugget potatoes, beets in different textures and celery foam, the $26 Queen Charlotte Halibut with clams, green onions, cauliflower stems, puree spinach and clam foam. Again, the presentation on both these dishes was amazing, beautiful colours and textures. I can't comment on the taste, but I do have to add that the flavour/smell of the clam foam was too much for the girl who ordered it, and she switched it up for the AAA Ribeye....

Service wise, they were on it and the food came quickly...almost too quickly, the table was a bit crowded at times, some of the plates could have been cleared faster.

As an aside, their Deli Sandwiches are really good, and huge.

D

So.Cial at Le Magasin
332 Water Street
Gastown, Vancouver BC
http://www.socialatlemagasin.com/index.htm

Here's a post about soup after Matt posts about soup not being a meal. I'm not a big soup guy (I think I had too many bad Chunky Soup lunches), but I happen to go to Pane Vero one day and had their split pea and ham soup with a sandwich ($8). The sandwich is pretty typical but the soup was off the hook. Man thinking about that damn soup is making me hungry right now. I ended up going back to Pane Vero for a second time and I managed to get the same soup again, this time I just got the soup no sandwich (it comes with a great jalapeno cheese bun) $4.25.

Well I went back to Pane Vero yet again this time I got Country Chicken Barley soup.
Soup again was delicious. This time I spent an extra $1.25 to get an extra jalapeno cheese bun. I guess it's my way to make it more of a meal.

On a side note my brother is the biggest Seinfeld nerd when I think of that clip with Bania telling Jerry to go to Mendy's it always reminds me of him. When my brother was in New York he took a picture with a black and white cookie.



I'm going to try to avoid piggy backing off Matt's posts next time.


Love,

Vince


Pane Vero
952 Commercial Dr
Vancouver, BC V5L 3W7
panevero.com

My super foodie buddy and I took a trip to the UBC to check out the apple fest. Surprisingly, the place was super busy, mostly families but there were a few cute packs of girls. It seemed like a place where you could meet a really healthy girl with good teeth(an apple a day keeps the Dr away).

Admission was 2 bucks and the grounds will filled with tents selling all things apple, apple pie, apple cider, dried apples, caramel and candy apples, and of course bags of apples. It felt like a little bit of apple overdose, remember apple seeds have a little bit of poison in them (one of those things I learned from GI JOE). I bought a bag of dried apple chips (5 bucks) which were super and we got a pair of tickets for the apple tasting tent. There was also some beef chili that was stewed out of a modified jeep.

The apple tasting tent was fun but a little chaotic. People walking all different directions trying to get their fingers on some samples. My favourites included the senshu, yoko, and the Topaz. They also had the a new cross apple there named the SPA 493 created in Summerland, BC, I love the apple's clinical name and I am sure it will get some regular name once they have established that it is marketable.

We cut the tasting short to run to the parking lot to make sure we could buy a bag of the Topaz apples (6 bucks). They are amazing, and I have been sharing a few with friends and they all agree.

What is your favourite apple?

I generally dislike any apple that is waxed, the size of a softball, or is soft and mushy like a Macintosh. I prefer red apples to green or yellow ones. My perfect apple is red, fits in my palm nicely, firm, has a crisp bite, slightly chilled, extremely flavourful and a little tart. I found my new favourite apple, the Topaz (from Keremeos) at the UBC Apple Fest.

Here is some info on the Topaz.
Originating in the Czech Republic in 1984, this apple is a cross of Rubin (Lord Lambourne and Golden Delicious) X Vanda (Jolana and Lord Lambourne). The tree is resistant to mildew.

It is harvested in mid - October around Red Delicious time and will store until April in a cool dry place.

You can't but them in stores because there is only one orchard in BC, but if you get a chance to try this Cadillac of apples, please do.
Matt