by Sean Orr | Is Canada Ignoring Signs of a Coming Economic Collapse? I feel like I’ve been yelling at a brick wall for the past 7 years…

Funny/not funny: Muslim man: My workplace quip made me a terror suspect. “What’s wrong with saying ‘Bomb’ on an airplane?”

Something stinks: Delta councillor ‘horrified’ with port’s view on farmland. They hate it. They hate the smell. And they hate that it’s not a parking lot filled with shipping containers from China.

Y is for Yawn: Open letter to the Baby Boomers from Generation Y. I thought we were called Generation Next. Anyways, whatever. I mean, who cares?

Ho vs. Hooker: Vancouver billionaire guilty of confining woman. Oh I see, it’s just a “bad date” for an otherwise decent gentleman. Meanwhile, bad dates for dozens of women in the DTES and up north remain unsolved or could have been solved earlier. Shame.

Police tactics making Victoria unsafe for homeless people. Good to see Jamie Graham using the skills he picked up here in Vancouver.

Who let grandpa on the computer again? Editorial: Anti-sugar crusaders should just butt out. The mixed metaphor in the headline just adds to the article’s sense of angry dementia.

Yes, they were from Surrey: “Intoxicated” bus riders arrested after alcohol stolen from North Vancouver restaurant. I guess that’s one thing chain restaurants are good for.

Bonus: The Man who Lived on his Bike

Polaboy LED illuminated picture frame | Price available “upon request” (that means we can’t afford it) | Via

Two Chefs And A Table is located at 305 Alexander Street | 778- 233-1303 | www.twochefsandatable.com

The GOODS from Two Chefs And A Table

Vancouver, BC | This year, Two Chefs and a Table is offering two great ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day: a four-course menu in the Founders Lounge at the Cultch or a five-course themed feast in the Two Chefs’ Gastown bistro. The Founders Lounge is offering two seatings for the special Valentine’s dinner, a pre-show seating beginning between 5:30 and 6:15 which will have guests finished and ready to enjoy Nina Arsenault’s critically acclaimed “The Silicone Diaries” at 8pm. The second seating will begin between 8:15 and 8:45pm. Either way, the cozy surroundings of the Founders Lounge offer a perfect place for an intimate dinner highlighted by classic entrees from the romance countries: the classic Italian Salmon Aqua Pazza and the Coq au Vin, a signature of French cuisine. The rich Chocolate Pot de Crème with Bourbon strawberries dessert makes sure that Valentine’s Day chocolate requirement is met.

The four-course meal is $39 per person or $60 with paired selections. Call 604-340-3445 to reserve.

The five-course Valentine’s menu at the Bistro is built of dishes inspired great romantic destinations like Paris, Rome and New York and each regional course is paired with a wine selection from the same country. It’s a sumptuous collection of dishes that’s perfect for this special occasion.

Even though the dishes reflect cities across four continents, they’re made true to the Two Chefs local, seasonal and sustainable philosophy. Ingredients like local Pemberton Beef and Kusshi Oysters are featured along with seasonal specialties like local wild mushrooms and beets.

The Two Chefs Valentine’s Day menu cost $75 per person (tax and gratuity not included) and reservations are strongly recommended. Call 778-233-1303 or email info@twochefsandatable.com to reserve.

About Two Chefs And A Table

With one eye on the wonders of its spectacular setting and the other turned to the bustle and cosmopolitan energy of the city, Vancouverites have shaped a unique lifestyle that includes indoor and outdoor pursuits. Then menu concept at Two Chefs and a Table mirrors this balance, combining techniques from classic French cuisine with superb locally ingredients and influences from Vancouver’s broad cultural mosaic.

Two Chefs and a Table creates food to satisfy all sides of this fantastic city: from the casual to the classy, the sporty to the serious, with dishes which span lusty simple tastes and textures to more complex preparations—always delivered with flair, passion and precision.

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by Andrew Morrison | Robert Belcham and Tom Doughty, the owner/sommelier duo behind the two Campagnolo restaurants, are opening a Chinese BBQ restaurant called Fat Dragon in the heart of the Downtown Eastside (566 Powell).

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Joining them as a first time owner is Ted Anderson, long the chef at Refuel and now at Campagnolo Roma out on East Hastings (always nice to see that happen). The concept is interesting – Chinese food with a Southern US “lick of smoke” – and I’m sure they’ll nail it (the menu reads fantastic, and we’ll get to that soon), but let’s be honest; the thing that will define The Fat Dragon won’t be its food, but rather its location, at least in its first couple of years.

If you thought Salt Tasting Room in Blood Alley was daring back in the day, or really any location remotely worthy of the word in recent years, dinner at Fat Dragon will be – for some – like going to the moon. It’s this section of the DTES around Oppenheimer Park that has been (and still is) considered a bridge too far by restaurateurs, even hungry first-timers with very few funds. There is a community here, and a strong one at that, but it has to face a daily gnarliness that no other neighbourhood in the city has to contend with. I think for most Vancouverites, the idea of dining out hereabouts is repellent, and yet the restaurant, due in under two months, will probably do very well indeed.

A year or two ago I posited in a magazine article that new restaurant development in these parts was on its way. I likened the advance to that of an invading force employing a pincer movement around the most seemingly prohibitive blocks of the DTES. The concentration of the attack was building up eastward pressure from Cambie through to Carrall in Gastown, where dozens of new establishments had opened since 2006. The left pincer was heading down Powell, Alexander, and Cordova (Big Lou’s, Nicli Antica, Cadeaux, etc), while the right pincer was pushing up Keefer through Chinatown to hit Main around Strathcona (The Union, The Keefer, Brixton, etc). The two hooking flanks, I wrote, had already connected on East Hastings at Au Petit Chavignol (2009) and The Waldorf Hotel (2010), effectively enveloping the whole of the DTES with a ring of new eateries (for the military historians out there, remember the Battles of Marathon, Cannae, and The Falaise Gap).

Thus surrounded, the main concentration, what the eminent strategist Von Clauswitz would call the “schwerpunkt”, has been getting ready to burst eastward on Hastings proper for the past year (witness the comings of Wildebeest, Save On Meats, Bitter, Acme Cafe, etc). All that remains to be conquered – to put it indelicately – are the blocks within the ring, at the center of which lies Fat Dragon, with its 12 SROs above.

Fat Dragon owners Robert Belcham, Tom Doughty, and Ted Anderson at Campagnolo Roma on East Hastings

But why assume it will do well? For starters, the folks behind Campagnolo are no slouches. They’ve opened four small businesses in the past five years, with all but one of them opening where (mostly) others were afraid to. 566 Powell may be where angels still fear to tread, but no matter if the West Side is too shit scared to make the trip at first, others will come (I live within the ring, and suspect many of my neighbours are drooling as they read this). Those restaurants that make up the pincers and the schwerpunkt have revealed that much to be true, as not a single one of them has flopped.

Secondly, it’s a solid food concept. I’ve seen the menu, and it has everything from smoked I-San style pork hot links with cucumber and coriander relish to marinated and smoked crispy tofu Bao buns with bean sprout kimchi and holy basil (I won’t reveal anything else just yet, save to say we’ll also see whole fish and pig’s head). Chef Adam Johnson (ex-Pourhouse, Campagnolo) will have a smoker in house, and I imagine he’ll take good advantage of all the markets that are just around the corner (and let’s not forget that the kitchen tag-team of Anderson/Belcham snared Robert the 2009 Chef of the Year title).

In the end, however, it’s all about supply and demand. There are shockingly few restaurants in Vancouver that hybridize Chinese cuisine, pairing it successfully with booze and leaning large on aesthetics, and I think demand for more is considerably high (just try and get a table at Bao Bei during the dinner rush).

Third, the design is going to be pretty awesome. Marc Bricault is on the case (think Vij’s, the recent West redux, Thierry, Campagnolo, Refuel), and he’s making it look like a 1920′s style opium den with a lot of reclaimed fir, grass cloth, and design motifs that gel with the food concept. The old space (previously “The Bakery”, where one could freely buy weed) is long and wide, and will seat some 50 people, with an additional 13 seats at a central bar that is some 18ft wide. The tables are butcher block-style and over-sized to accommodate many dishes (everything is served family style), while the adjoining chairs are wooden and not a little rickety, which again dovetails nicely with the theme. The building dates from just prior to the First World War, and so has solid, fantastic-looking brick bones. Its high, beautifully decrepit ceilings will be criss-crossed with string, from which bulbs will hang, market-style. The clincher? A neon sign – in the form of a fat dragon, natch – will brighten the gloomy frontage. Take a look at what I saw last night…

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A stack of unwanted Telus phonebooks doesn’t impress a fed up, forward-thinking resident of Vancouver.

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