20 Talking Points
1.One of the Beyond Robson bloggers reviews The Flying Tiger.
2. Watch Urban Rush today at 1am, 7am and noon to see The Flying Tiger’s chef, Tina Fineza, in action.
3. A few days earlier, the same fellow fell for Lucky Diner.
4. Lucky Diner gets a brand new website.! Dig on the menu format.
5. Joe Mallozzi has a less than stellar DOV exprerience at Aurora Bistro.
6. Mailbag: “Lyon, France – Chef Scott Jaeger, supported by apprentice Brody White, both of the Pear Tree Restaurant in Burnaby, competed for Canada on January 24 in the culinary competition of a lifetime – the prestigious Bocuse d’Or, 2007 (ed. note: cool website!). They were awarded seventh place finish overall in the world. The competition was won by France. Denmark was second and Switzerland third.” Congratulations, chef Jaeger et al.
7. Grande mocha frappa show me your boobinos. Money quote: “’If I’m going to pay $4 for a cup of coffee’ said one male customer, ‘I’m not going to get served by a guy.’” In the words of Vinnie Barbarino, this shit is “wicked retarded”.
8. Slate.com writer Bryan Curtis goes out for dinner with Mr and Mrs Zagat (yeah, those Zagats).
9. Also this week in Slate.com, Mike Steinberger asks if any bottle of wine should be worth $700. Money quote: “What a nose — hazelnut, oatmeal, sweet white fruit, smoke, spice, and a touch of nutmeg. Stirring nose. Ripe, spicy, sublime, succulent grapefruit, pear. Perfect balance. Holy shit.”
10. Did you know that Alex Kapranos, the front man for edgy-ish band Franz Ferdinand, was once an apprentice chef? The polymath has even penned a book on his adventures in food while touring with the band (fittingly called “Sound Bites“). Read his Gothamist interview here or last week’s Q&A in The Washington Post.
11. Remember when Russian former spy Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated by the Kremlin (shh!) not too long ago? Yeah, he was served polonium-210 spiked tea at a London restaurant, and died miserably (but defiantly) a few days later. The waiter’s fate? Ditto, but slower.
12. Arab news reports that a Saudi has become a waiter. Have they finally reached their true The Hubbert Peak?
13. Update! Fozlu Miah, the UK chef who stabbed a waiter, is still on the run.
14. A young Texan gets all uppity about ageism in restaurants. Money quote: “I’ll just have water with a lemon, please.” Cry me a river.
15. For the love of God, please just shut the fuck up about this. It won’t happen. Money quote: “Instead of speaking to servers, diners at uWink order using a table-top touchscreen that doubles as a video-game console. (The most popular games so far? Trivia and Truth or Dare, Bushnell says.) Runners bring food to the tables, and a floating cruise director-type is around to answer questions and facilitate multitable team games.” Again, wicked retarded.
16. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Michael Bauer discovers the cocktail. Nail on the head quote: “So many restaurants have developed specialty drinks that it’s becoming nearly as important as sampling an appetizer.”
17. In a moment of abject clarity, the Denver Post’s Tucker Shaw recommends taking advantage of the sommelier. Money quote: “Know what color you want. This is an easy one.” Double plus good.
18. Did you ever want to work in the kitchen on the Titanic?
19. This is total bullshit. Free Daniel Robinson!
20. Vessel, the Seattle bar our own Jamie Boudreau left Lumiere to help build, gets in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
