Woah, did I just read that? Yup, I did. In her feature this week, Kristen McKenzie of 24hrs newspaper starts explaining how to properly secure a patio table before suddenly, awesomely, segueing to deliver genuine, heartfelt, and totally sincere advice for especially classy restaurant patrons looking to tastefully score with the staff without looking too desperate…

The staff tend to be attractive, and since they want tips, they’re usually exceedingly friendly. It’s easy to mistake this for sexual attraction, and while the occasional hookup can occur, its best to err on the side of caution. After all, you don’t want to become known as that creep whom management keeps an eye out for. Over-the-top flirtation could also lead to getting kicked out – or worse – banishment.

DO keep your hands to yourself. Regardless of how interested your server seems about how your day went, any touching or grabbing is a big no-no.

DO keep it PG. A little flirting here or there never hurts, but once the conversation starts resembling a scene out of Sex and the City, it’s time to step back.

DO discreetly leave your number behind on a napkin if you’re interested but DON’T loudly demand your server’s digits while holding out your cellphone.

Add more honey.

Damn, girl. Make a note, servers. Her name is Kristen McKenzie. Check your reservation books between 3pm and 5pm, and good luck to you.

PS. The title of the article, “The Fine Etiquette of Eating Out”, must be a case of the planets aligning so perfectly on the editor’s desk that it forced the unintended hilarity…

Metro’s Anya Levykh goes nuts for Market in the Shangri-La, saying she’s finally found the restaurant to cater her wedding. Oh, honey…

Gourmet gives us eight great Vancouver izakayas. No Gyoza King?

MSNBC covers the Canadian Culinary Championships in their business section (?). They’re loving winner Hayato Okamitsu in his hometown of Calgary. The National Post profiles silver medalist chef Frank Pabst of Vancouver’s Blue Water Cafe.

A writer for Australia’s “The Age” gets a culinary tour of Vancouver, courtesy of Tourism BC. I love how they steer visitors to Blood Alley instead of Joe Fortes.

Judith Lane goes in search of “under the radar” restaurant personalities in the Georgia Straight.

In the Westender, I review Market by Jean-Georges in the new Shangri-La hotel and then go hunting for fish and chips with the kids at Mr. Pickwicks.

Deana Lancaster sniffs out the best best dining deals in the North Shore News.

In the Vancouver Sun, Gillian Shaw writes a puff piece on Umberto’s Tuscan cooking retreat. The two reader comments on this story include “Why is this newsworthy, and I think the Umberto must have dropped a little cashola to the editors to run this fluff piece. C’mon – have some ethics and stop producing this gratuitous slop! Shame on you….” and “How much did Menghi pay for this advertisement?” Ouch. If they’re right, I’m afraid they still have some work to do in paying down parent company Canwest Global’s $3.9 billion debt, which is threatening to steer the media bohemoth into bankruptcy.

Tim Pawsey likes the new Gastown diner Deacon’s Corner in the Vancouver Courier (my review is here).

Fiona Morrow writes up delicious Redbro in the Globe and Mail, and Alexandra Gill subjects herself to Joey’s Wine Room and the new Earl’s (much braver than I).

In the new issue of Vancouver Magazine, Michael Harris does diners (reader email: “I hate to say it, but this made me miss Jamie Maw!”).

Boneta’s Mark Brand lobbies City Council hard for an extension of Vancouver’s liquor serving hours, where ears are deaf and extraordinarily dumb. The Tyee does a superb job covering the meeting:

Councillors got snappy near the end of the 17-speaker list. Especially when speaker Mike Mitton posed the scenario of Councillor Heather Deal “going out to Bar None with her girls” where “someone would yell “COUGAR!” At that point, the entire standing-room only chamber erupted into howls…

Snap. Maybe it’s not so hot a plan to insult someone while asking them to do your business a favour…

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Andrew Morrison is a west coast boy who studied history and classics at the Universities of Cape Town and Toronto after an adolescence spent riding skateboards and working in restaurants. He is the editor of Scout Magazine, the weekly food and restaurant columnist for the Westender newspaper, a contributor to Vancouver and Western Living magazines, and a proud board member of the Chef’s Table Society of BC. He lives and works by the beach in Vancouver.

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One or twice a week Scout poses 60 questions to a local who has made life in BC that much more interesting. They pick and choose which ones they’d prefer to answer, with a minimum response rate of 20. A Rorschach test, for sure…

Jamie Maw has spent the last year on sabbatical, but if his answers to all 60 of our questions are any indication, he’s revving up for more. Jamie will be inducted into the BC Restaurant Hall of Fame on March 30th at the new Convention Centre. He’ll join Chefs’ Table Society co-founder Sid Cross, and fellow directors Thomas Haas and Scott Jaeger at the podium. You pretty much know the rest–food editor of Vancouver magazine since the Crimean War and many places elsewhere in print and other media. In 2008, Jamie was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by Vancouver magazine. He was the founding editor of The Eating + Drinking Guide to British Columbia and co-editor of the bestselling cookbook, Vancouver Cooks.

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Scout Q&A

Three things about your neighbourhood that make you want to live there: Well, we live a few blocks north of ForMiCa (Fourth Avenue between Milestones + Capers), chiefly because Jason is the barman at Quattro, we can almost stick our toes in the bay without getting out of bed, and there are only two Starbucks within a one-kilometre radius. I regularly commute to Kelowna, where the reasons are essentially identical, except the barman is Hank and it’s a lake.

The thing that you eat that is bad for you that you will never stop eating: Cold cuts, which food snots now call charcuterie, which of course is baloney.

Default drink of choice: I forget. Seriously though, I’m switching teams as Official Brand Ambassador because Heineken have been unstintingly frugal with logo-wear and green patio umbrellas recently, and the fine folks at Grolsch gave me a lovely pen for Christmas and promise a lifetime supply of shapely salad dressing bottles.

Drink you’ll never have again: Anything tinctured Curaçao blue.

The one place you’d move to: Buenos Aires.

Favourite wine varietal: Lager, chased with Malbec (see above), if the company’s any good.

The person you can imitate: Michael Caine.

One thing you’d like to change about Vancouver: Excerable table manners, i.e. the dreaded Kitsilano ‘droop and scoop’.

Bartender who could sell you anything: David Wolowidnyk at West and Mark Brand at Boneta. David should name a drink after himself; no doubt it would tatse great but ordering it could double as a useful sobriety test.

Cheap place for dinner: Phnom Penh

Book you’re reading: ‘The Young Stalin’, by Simon Sebag-Montefiore. It’s about a highly successful bank robber.

Last place traveled: Los Angeles—to be a judge on Hell’s Kitchen last week.

Biggest fear: Charity Dinners, or anywhere excess cash flow is caught chasing social validation. Remember excess cash flow?

Cliches that you use too often: ‘You are an unmitigated and indeed unnecessary paroxysm of delight, dear heart.’ ‘Life should be of a seamless sensuality interrupted only by brief bouts of commerce.’ ‘Tip Top’. ‘Well done’. Etcetera. ‘Etcetera’.

Dead film actor you wish was still making pictures: Michael Caine

Best sneaker in the world: The aptly named Bernie Madoff.

Place in BC that you love escaping to: K-Town.

Under what circumstances would you join the army: Only if Rob Feenie were made Chief Menu Architect and Pamela Anderson redesigned the summer uniforms.

Your paternal grandfather’s personal story: Head of Pepsi Cola in Quebec between the wars—pretty solid branding there.

Best bar stool in the city: I suffer stools gladly. Even after that last, compelling salmonella attack—the bane of all food writers. So the short answer is the stool next to the love of my life, if not counter intuitive bi-valves just yet.

Dumbest purchase ever: A warmish beer on the evening of August 30th, 1979. I learned a good deal from this bitter experience and have worked tirelessly never to repeat it.

What are you proud of: Our daughters; the love of my life; our lovely, lively friends.

The thing that makes you the angriest: False sense of entitlement. I’ve always preferred benevolent dictators.

Saddest thing about Vancouver: Gangs that can’t shoot straight; the homeless.

Most challenging part of owning a business: Changing drill bits at minus 25 degrees.

Best fine dining restaurant in the city: I can only be candid in my silence. But take faith: There are many more good ones out there than there are good food writers.

Your nickname growing up: Jim-Bob and other Scottish diminutives.

Talent you wish you possessed: I often wish I could write. Especially after reading the John Updike retrospective in The New Yorker this week.

The trend you wish you never followed, but did: Mutton chop sideburns in the early 70s. I do recall having to be more respectful of the upper reaches of the nubility. Mind you, when you’re 19 but look like Sir John A. Macdonald, anything remotely nubile would scatter fairly quickly. Fortunately, most of us shave now, even if The Globe still wanes and waxes.

Musical instrument you long to play: Actually, I’d like to play that annoying alpenhorn on the Ricola cough drop ads—on foggy days from the Lions Gate Bridge.

Sport you gave up: Rugby, Extreme Curling

Foreign politician you most admire: Carla Bruni

The game you’re best at: Attentively ignoring my peer-demo extol their golf exploits

Best gallery in the city: The VAG/No. 5 Orange

Somewhere within an hour of Vancouver that is worth checking out: Pasley Island.

The number of fist fights you’ve been in: Countless (see No. 31, above); my right hand is essentially shattered, now held together by baling wire, which might explain this slow response tonight.

The scariest situation you’ve ever been in: Please see No. 38 ‘Cougar Night at the Hotel Eldorado’, immediately below.

Three things of no value that you will keep until you die:

Badges of Honour:

1. Several binders of letters from outraged restaurateurs, chefs, bus girls, neo-Nazi food punks et al, neatly divided into sections such as ‘Cease and Desist’, ‘Semi-Literate’, ‘Shocked and Appalled’, ‘Pre-Postal’ and my favourite category, ‘Post Nuclear—Over to You VPD!’—should I publish some of the better ones?
2. A T-shirt custom made for Friday (Cougar) nights at the Hotel Eldorado Bar in Kelowna that reads ‘I’m Broke and I’m Hung Like a Hamster’;
3. My fab collection of Duco cigarette lighters that just might reinvigorate The Festival of Light.

Local person you admire most: Shell Busey narrowly over Dr. Art Blister. I find Shell’s tips and techniques on home improvements and product referrals invaluable. Perhaps on second thought though, Vicki Gabereau, Barbara-jo McIntosh and Shannon Belkin, three of the wittiest observers and dining chums around.

The thing you’re ashamed of: Remaining chaste until I was 15.

Best concert experience ever: Long John Baldrey in our old barn—back when a thrill was a thrill, even in Paradise.

Aspect of your personality you wish you could change: Micro Management, a trait common to Virgos. I attend a weekly MM 12-Step program now, but it quickly morphed into a 96–step program.

How you waste time at work: Pretty much standard issue—drinking, petty thuggery, researching gout cures on the internet.

The thing you wished people cared more about: Offal.

The dish you’re most proud of: People tell me that my truffled scalloped potatoes are eerily reminiscent of the first time they made love properly.

The thing that makes you the most nervous: Nervous people. Decaffeinated coffee. They are not mutually exclusive.

Town you were born in: Vancouver. With the fuselage of an Airbus, they called me ‘The Miracle on the Fraser’. I was the better part of 11 pounds (‘turkey for four!’ shouted Linda Meinhardt), then Dad took me straight up to get my driver’s license but didn’t actually speak to me for several years.

Old television shows you can tolerate re-runs of: Leave it to Beaver, Californication (Season 1), The Red Shoe Diaries—sorry, but I’m sensing a theme here, Ward.

First memory: Age three, crossing Canada on ‘The Canadian’ streamliner with Dad.

Quality you admire most in yourself: Unusually shapely calves.

Album that first made you love music: Dionne Warwick helped me find my inner San Jose. More love: Ive Mendes – ‘Baby Please Don’t Go.’

Default junk food of choice: Curbside hot dogs. With snappy skins like Ive’s drummer.

The career path you considered but never followed: Advertising. ‘Mad Men’ hasn’t helped—January Jones please copy.

The one country that you have no interest in ever visiting: Mississauga.

Your top 3 films of all time: ‘Burnt by the Sun’, ‘La Grande Bouffe’, and ‘Willing Coeds 13’—they finally got it right.

The first three things you do every morning: Four, actually: Morning ablutions, check oxygen bottles, NYT, then French press coffee of a viscosity admiring the La Brea tar pits.

The thing you’re addicted to: Recently retired lingerie models, and for that matter, recently retired lingerie.

Biggest hope: Free beer, but as they say, only on days ending with the letter Y. But who, as they say, are ‘they’?

Luckiest moment of your life: Filling out this questionnaire.

Favourite book as a child: Stuart Little. The youngest Stalin.

Our weekly distillation of who wrote what about food and drink in this week’s city print…

Alexandra Gill gets a drink poured for her by Chambar’s Wendy McGuinness before waxing glowingly on DB Bistro in the Globe and Mail:

I roll up for my first visit on a snowy Sunday night and the place is packed. Everyone on the floor – from the timid hostess who isn’t quite sure what to do with our coats to the restless manager who circles the room anxiously rubbing his hands – looks jumpy and nervous.

And they haven’t even recognized me yet.

If they had, I sincerely doubt that the woman seated beside me would still be waving a bill holder in the air as she tries to catch her waiter’s attention. Or that we would have to wait this long to order drinks.

We’re still waiting, quite thirstily, when executive chef Stephane Istel pops out of the kitchen and looks over. He probably spied me on the video monitor. (Mais oui, there are hidden cameras in the dining room with a view of every table so the cooks know when to start prepping the next course.)

Et voilà, the whole atmosphere changes. The reinforcements swoop in. The cocktails (spicy Bloody “Bulls” stirred with veal stock) arrive promptly. And the woman beside us has her credit card processed, tout de suite.

C’est la vie.

A most amusing story.

A Texas writer stays at the Wedgewood, dines at Bacchus, and leaves a great big puddle with her opening para:

Some say that the best city in the world is Vancouver. It’s beautiful, clean, green and hip. It gets nice and cold, but rarely snows. You can go from boating to golfing to snow skiing within hours. It has unbelievable scenery and trendy arts, clothing and music scenes. It’s also the starting point for thousands of cruises each year. Vancouver is worth a vacation of its own but throw in the winter Olympic Games 2010 and you’ve got a Destination!

In a different piece, she heads over to The Wick outside Tofino, where the gushing continues with good ‘ol Charles McDiarmid, the coolest hotelier I’ve ever met, playing along pitch perfectly.

Over dinner, McDairmid tells us about the best travelers – “Italians and Texans are the best groups to host. They travel to have a good time and they never forget they’re on a vacation.” While The Wick provides the ultimate in romance, comfort and attention to detail, McDiarmid’s eyebrow arches as he smiles and says, “Nature is still in charge here.” Thank goodness.

Oh Charlie, you devil.

In the Westender, I review Railtown’s new diner, Deacon’s Corner. It’s good. Go.

From Saltaire in West Van to the glory of James Beard House? Apparently so. Vancouver-schooled and trained Derek Myers, now plating in Bermuda, has been invited to cook at the JBH in New York.

In the Vancouver Sun, Mia Stainsby loves the food at Whistler’s Araxi. Not so much the stuff out front.

The service isn’t at the level of sister restaurant West, not surprising in a town dependent on a fairly transient, young staff, but one wishes for better when you’re paying for it.

From the normally generous Mia, that’s an ouch. Also in the Sun was a review of the Richmond location of Browns that I actually missed in the print edition. Happily, the link was sent in by a long-time reader. The subject line read “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Anya Levykh reviews Lumiere in Metro and kicks Rob Feenie in the balls.

Under the former direction of Chef Rob Feenie, it used to be one of the priciest menus in the city, in a room that smacked of nouveau institutional chill. The food was wildly inventive and often amazing, but untended farmland tends to go fallow, and the lack of presence of the main draw (Feenie himself) led to a slump in food and service. Fast-forward to today, and you have a hot New York chef (Daniel Boulud) stepping in and creating a menu that is now put out by an even hotter team.

Untended farmland tends to go fallow. And the Amish man said snap. For Feenie, however, the adoration quickly returns with some puffery in the Calgary Herald.

The Courier’s Tim Pawsey goes to San Francisco and drinks a lot of Zinfandel. Tim is awesome.

Former enRoute food writer Chris Johns and his girlfriend go from spending $300 to $50 a week on food with the help of some of Canada’s top chefs.

High end restaurateurs, meet your new customer: the Globe charts new rules for the bourgeoisie.

And finally, here’s a chef who doesn’t get enough press. Koji Zenimaru, the oddball funny man who runs the crazed kitchen at Kingyo in the West End, gets some profile action. If this guy spoke English, he’d be a star.

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Andrew Morrison is a west coast boy who studied history and classics at the Universities of Cape Town and Toronto after an adolescence spent riding skateboards and working in restaurants. He is the editor of Scout Magazine, the weekly food and restaurant columnist for the Westender newspaper, a contributor to Vancouver and Western Living magazines, and a proud board member of the Chef’s Table Society of BC. He lives and works by the beach in Vancouver.

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Our weekly distillation of who wrote what about food and drink in this week’s city print…

Alexandra Gill goes head over heels for the new Lumiere in the Globe and Mail. Buried elsewhere in the paper is a not so amusing anecdote about a Newfie waiter being punched in the face by a customer for serving a steak that was “too meaty”. For real.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Market and bar manager Justin Tisdall (the one and only JT) get some ink courtesy of Joanne Sasvari in the Vancouver Sun. Not a review. Also in the Sun is Mia Stainsby’s near perfect review of DB Bistro Moderne next door.

Thomas Tran, executive chef at Don Francesco’s, gets profiled in 24.

I can’t get enough of Foodists.ca, Vancouver’s best food website.

The National Post on the evils of shark fin soup.

Carolyn Ali warms to Charm Modern Thai in the Georgia Straight. It’s the fourth restaurant incarnation in this Yaletown location in three years, so they could probably use the leg up. Also in the Straight (missed from last week) is Pieta Woolley’s lengthy article declaring the “economy won’t devour Vancouver’s upscale eateries”. It’s a fine read, with the following gist: it’s all good. By “upscale” she means Bishop’s, Tojo’s, and Lumiere. It’s the more recent restaurant entries are the ones with targets on their backs. An excerpt:

Back in 2001, Peter Hall was living in San Francisco and watched the dot-com bust decimate Silicon Valley. The area went from jam-packed to ghost town overnight, said Hall, the associate director of SFU’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development. He compared that era to Vancouver’s current economic climate.

“Suddenly, this thing appeared out of nowhere,” Hall told the Straight, noting that most Vancouverites haven’t begun to see the recession yet. But they will. Referring to the Bay Area, Hall said, “The newer restaurants in the leading-edge, gentrifying neighbourhoods took a hit. They weren’t established, and they didn’t have a good client base yet. They shut down very quickly. But Chez Panisse in Berkeley is fine.”

[snip]

The recession will arrive in Vancouver soon, Hall believes, and will hit the city’s employment rate and wallets with gusto. But the patrons of high-end establishments will be last on the chopping block, he noted. Workers who are approaching retirement will postpone leaving their jobs, rather than cut into their luxuries, Hall said. Those who are very comfortable, he explained, won’t change their behaviour. Of the wealthy, only those who live entirely on investments will be forced to modify their spending.

Indeed, SFU economics professor Stephen Easton told the Straight the businesses that will take a hit are those that sell things like multimillion-dollar yachts. Not the lunch business at CinCin.

That last sentence would have more impact if CinCin hadn’t already shut down for lunch. In related news, A&W sales see uptick of 13%.

Rob Feenie’s Tuna Tataki sees some Province action.

In the Courier, Cheryl Rossi pens a piece about Vince Alvaro’s proposed new club on Seymour (in the old A&B Sound location). I thought it rather lame that he referred to Vancouver as a “fishing village”, as if his 6,000 square foot unisex bathroom lounge (with bar) would grant our city entrance into the heralded Metropolis club. No thanks. Money quote from the Department of Bad Timing: “the new establishment will be more upscale and expensive than anything else downtown”. He has plans for a restaurant space next door, too. As to how supremely douchey it will be, I haven’t the foggiest.

Also in the Courier, Tim Pawsey gets giggety over Campagnolo.

As for me this week, it turns out that I still love Gyoza King.

PS. Know any good restaurant managers looking for work?

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Andrew Morrison is a west coast boy who studied history and classics at the Universities of Cape Town and Toronto after an adolescence spent riding skateboards and working in restaurants. He is the editor of Scout Magazine, the weekly food and restaurant columnist for the Westender newspaper, a contributor to Vancouver and Western Living magazines, and a proud board member of the Chef’s Table Society of BC. He lives and works by the beach in Vancouver.

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