Epilogue (10 months later)

It's been 10 months since my last post. It doesn't mean that I haven't been trying out new restaurants, but rather, I have just been lazy in logging them.  Partly because I feel quite "fobbish" to be taking photos every time a dish arrives at the table; partly because I oftentimes get too anxious/hungry and forget to take photos; but mostly because I've reached my 25 restaurant goal, and just don't feel like maintaining it.  It is a never-ending task.

I don't think blogging should feel like a chore. It should be something that I enjoy (I am still trying to figure that out)...and to dread having to document it is just not the right mentality.  On one end, I feel like I need to push myself a bit, though this thought disappears rather quickly.  However, at the same time, I am constantly reminded of again by my coworkers who are always on some sort of "30 day challenge".  Maybe blogging is something that I can be persistent on (since I've failed my life long goal to lose weight aka not persistent), or maybe I should just let it be. Maybe. 

So I have all these food photos in my phone, I download them onto my computer into a folder. Then what?  I decided to log into my blog tonight. I looked at the 30 posts I've written last year, and a smile naturally appears on my face.  It is a good feeling. It is a happy feeling. It is an accomplishment.

I think what I really dread is not so much logging the restaurants, but rather, the thought of having to write and comment on it. I've always disliked writing essays,  or even paragraphs.  If you know me personally, you'll know that I'm a very fact-based person.  Maybe it's from having spent most of my highschool/university life documenting test results, and writing lab reports - short, precise, and to the point.

So after many moments of indecisiveness, I've decided.
I want to document the restaurants I've visited. So to make this happen, I am committed to (lulu/landmark lingo) keeping the blog alive.  And to achieve this, I am declaring (another lulu/landmark lingo) that I will upload photos with minimal text.  This will reduce the stress of having to write.  Picture in itself is worth a thousand words.  Good luck, Ganbare, 加油.

Tasting Journey X - World's Weirdest Pop-Up Restaurant

The World's Weirdest Pop-Up Restaurant is an event hosted by Bob Blumer as a pre-ramp to his new TV show on the Food Network, World's Weirdest Restaurant.  The show, airing on April 4th 2012, is a 13-episode series where Bob goes around the world trying out unique restaurants.
This event took place in Waldorf Hotel, located in East Vancouver on E. Hastings (near Clark Ave.).  You get the picture.  I have never been to the Waldorf Hotel.  It looks fairly run down, and is a place where I would probably equate a backpacker hotel to.  I'm not sure why this hotel was selected for the event, however, Asmin did mention that a lot of the youngsters come here to drink on weekends.  Maybe this place offers cheap drinks?

 

The World's Weirdest Pop-Up Restaurant event offered a 4-course meal where these individual dishes relate somewhat to Bob's top four restaurants during his filming.  Prior to serving the dish, we were given a 5min sneak preview of the restaurant and an explanation of how the dish relates to it...

First Course - Monkey See, Monkey Do
This dish was inspired by an izakaya in northern Japan where all servers were real monkeys!  The monkeys were trained to serve, to respond to customers such as requests for beer, towel...etc, and to also hand over the bill.  The dish consisted of chicken karaage's that were crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.  And to further tie the dish to this restaurant, Bob also dressed himself in a monkey suit, ha!  I'm not too sure what the hygiene restrictions in Japan is, but I'm sure this monkey play will not meet our health & hygiene requirement for restaurants in Vancouver.

Second Course - Blind Feeding the Blind
This dish was inspired by a restaurant in New York where everyone ate in darkness!  The owner of the restaurant was a visual artist/dancer and was very much into relating to senses of hearing and feeling.  All customers at that restaurant must be blind-folded prior to entering.  A server would then guide them to their seat, and everyone would then complete the full meal in blind fold.  No explanation of the dishes were given.  At the end of the night, when all the food has been consumed, the chief then comes out and declares the ingredients that went into each of the dish.  It was very interesting to see how people's perception of taste changes when visually impaired.  So to tie-in the concept of this restaurant, we were all blind-folded as well.  The dish consisted of a slice of baguette, some type of cream soup, and 2 fried balls made of mayo and seafood.  I don't recall exactly what they were, but I just remembered that I was not able to tell what they were.  They were tasty though.

Third Course - Ling Cod a la John
This dish was actually inspired by a restaurant located in Taipei. Though never been, nor tried, I do recall seeing forwarded emails advertising this restaurant a few years back.  The restaurant is called Modern Toilet, and basically served all dishes in bowls shaped as a toilet.  The most popular dish was curry rice.  Just image what it resembled in a toilet bowl! haha...  Rather than serving a curry dish, we had a cod steak served with a tomato-based sauce.  Since Bob is not able to bring back individual toilet bowls for this event, he actually served the tomato-sauce in a life-size porcelain toilet bowl. ha!

Dessert Course - Glazed and Confused
This dish originated from a restaurant in Portland called the Voodoo Doughnut.  This Doughnut shop served all different shapes and sizes of doughnut, with all different types of toppings.  Their signature and most famous is a maple syrup glazed donut served with 2 strips of bacon.  I guess this is the western version of sweet & salty dish? To relate to this restaurant, we were served mouth-size donuts glazed with maple syrup and drizzled with bacon bits.  Not too bad.

Throughout the entire event, filming also took place.  I wonder if I'll be on TV someday?  One of my favourite moment of the night was when Bob explained about the restaurant in Taipei (third course).  Bob Blumer gave a quick explanation about Taiwan being his favourite country to visit.  He said that Taiwan is a small island located just off China;  It is a country, and its relationship with China is kinda like Canada to US.  Well put Bob!! You may have just risked getting yourself on the wrong side with the Chinese, but you probably have just won the heart of all Taiwanese, haha.  Another favourite moment was when he walked to our table and asked Asmin & I what we thought of the karaage's.  It was when I got a good look of his feature and realized that he's actually much older than he appears on TV. I guess that's the miracle of makeup.

The evening was fun and full of laughs. I fully enjoyed it, but it came with a price.  The ticket itself was $45, and we were asked to pay a gratuity, plus tax on gratuity which I found weird.  The evening ended up costing us $55/person.  Though the food was excellent, and the night was fun, it was still expensive.  An expensive price for the experience.  If I do end up getting famous on TV, then maybe it is worth it. ^^

Tasting Journey - Special Edition X

What's Special Edition X? Well, today I attended a dessert making class. It's not exactly trying out new restaurants, but I wanted to blog about it anyway because it still involved tasting food, and to make it even more advanced, learning how to make it!

Today, along with 9 other dessert addicts, we learned to make 4 amazing desserts: tiramisu, panna cotta, flourless chocolate torte, New York cheesecake.  To throw in a bonus, we were also taught how to macerate strawberries into a quick dessert dish.

The instructor, apparently, was an ex-chief of an Italian restaurant located in the Vancouver downtown West-end.  According to the event host, this restaurant makes A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. tiramisu.  Just this dish alone is worth attending the class. The other 3 dishes were all considered added bonus.

As this is not a "formal" cooking class (FYI - rentals for a commercial kitchen classroom costs $600-$800/hr), we were in an old building equipped with ovens and utensils that are probably near my parent's age.  I guess as long as we pack down the techniques, it doesn't really matter how crappy and old the equipment is.  As long as we are able to replicate the dish... as long as...

The class was essentially a demonstration class where the instructor showed us the creation of these dishes step-by-step.  In this short 4-hour session, I continually felt a 懐かしい (click the link if you don't understand Japanese) vibe; a nostalgic reminder of my university days where we spent hours in the laboratory carrying out experiments...It was like being a student all over again, watching the TA demonstrating what to do, and how to properly execute it.

tiramisu

maceration dessert

Being someone who tends to like to improvise (which doesn't usually work in the world of baking), I noted down as much information as my pencil could write.  It has been a long time since I had had to take notes like a student, so I can't really say that my notes were with quality nor whether it included all the necessary details to create the dish.  I guess we will never know until the day, the judgment day, when it comes for me to replicate this dish...

Panna Cotta with topping

flourless chocolate torte

In general, I would say that the 4 dishes all seemed quite straight forward, and has a wide tolerance to variation.  This is merely my analogy from the instructor not calling out exactly how much he added, but rather "more or less", an attitude that I usually carry when I bake (and hence the frequent failure in baking, haha...).  With the magic touch of a chief, the four dishes all turned out quite well.  The only thing was that since most of these required time to set, they did not aesthetically appear presentable.  Nonetheless, the tastes were there, and techniques were learned.