Monthly Archives: March 2009

The Great Food Revolution: A Citizen’s Guide to Eating in the 21st Century – review of part 3 and 4

Posted on by bruleeblog

Part three and four of the Great Food Revolution was broadcast on the CBC yesterday.

First of all, I have to say I’m ticked off at the CBC’s contest. They changed the contest question for the 2nd week. But the 1st week’s answer was in the 2nd week’s episodes! How on earth was anyone supposed to enter last week?!

The 3rd part of this was “24 Hours, 24 Million Meals: Feeding New York,” and followed some of the many suppliers, vendors, servers, cooks, etc. who feed NYC every day. I liked that this episode had a more focused topic, even though it jumped from person to person. From fishmongers to truffle hunters to feeding the poor, they covered quite a bit. And wow, a 20 million banana shipment! It’s hard to even fully comprehend that many bananas in one place at one moment. Oh and look, there’s the answer to last week’s contest question.

The 4th part was “Food of the Future,” and like the 1st part of this series touched on a number of different subjects related to future trends, rather than focusing a bit more on certain topics. Like that other episode, to me it felt like there wasn’t enough depth and detail dedicated to each item and instead they were just touched on like a quick news story rather than a feature.

My thoughts while watching this part:

  • Did not realize there was molecular gastronomy research being done in Vancouver.
  • Mmm jellyfish.
  • Oh lordy, they’re talking about food bloggers! And Chowhound!

All in all, not a bad series. But the promotion (and cross-promotion) could have been done much, much better.

Link time!

Posted on by bruleeblog

The Blue Pear sent around an e-mail saying that they will be offering a new “Baby Blue Pear” 3-course meal option (soup or salad, main course and dessert chosen from their 5-course menu). And, it’s only available for 5-6 pm reservations and Sunday evenings. No price was listed. (Edited to add: Price is $59, thanks to a post on Chowhound.)

Canadian TV food personality and cookbook author Laura Calder got a James Beard Foundation Awards nomination!

The Guardian’s Jay Rayner reviews the new Pot Noodle (instant ramen) flavour – doner kebab. Ew.

Serious Eats started an interesting series on reducing food costs and cooking meals with a friend (and using the results for later meals).

Choosy Beggars wrote about 5 ways to enjoy unwelcome beer.

Liane Faulder wrote about the Wecan Food Basket Society. Sounds like a fantastic idea that I would love to participate in, but their hours are all during the work day and there’s no way I could get to the locations which close at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., or even drop off my order during their opening hours.

The West Michigan Whitecaps recently unveiled their new stadium menu, featuring a 4489 calorie, 1.66 pound burger. Can we all say heart attack?

And finally, a bit of promo on my part – the Serious Eats pizza blog, Slice, linked to my Famoso post.

Restoran 77, Malaysia – curry fish head

Posted on by bruleeblog
Restoran 77

Restoran 77

Restoran 77 was one of the few non-hawker places we ate at while in Malaysia. And as the sign says, we were there for the curry fish head.

curry fish head with okra

curry fish head with okra

Not to say that we didn’t eat other things too. We had quite a few dishes actually, but the fish head was the one that stuck in my head. Tender, flaky bits of fish and okra, stewed in a curry sauce. The okra was a tiny bit slimy, but otherwise this dish was fantastic. I wish there had been more fish though. Especially since my grandmother ate half the dish before the rest of us could have a taste. (That’s her hand in the photo below, stealing more fish.)

our meal

our meal

Let’s see, we also had fried rice, tofu, some sort of vegetable that I can’t remember but from the looks of it is probably gai lan, and something in a clay stew pot that I also cannot remember – possibly chicken. Oh, and fresh orange juice served in beer glasses.

Restoran 77
77-D Gurney Drive (a.k.a. Persiaran Gurney)
Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

Cod and tomato chowder

Posted on by bruleeblog
Cod and tomato chowder

Cod and tomato chowder

I’m inherently lazy, and soups are just so easy to make that I can’t seem to stop.

This was dinner last night – hearty vegetables and a great flavoured soup made this a healthy and satisfying meal.

This recipe is from Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite cookbook. All the recipes in there look fantastic; my only criticism of it so far is the way the graphic designer laid out the recipes. Each paragraph starts off with a part of the sentence in bold, large and coloured font, and my eye kept skipping over it as if it was a sub-head. It’s easy to miss important instructions that way, like when to add the tomatoes. Took me three times to read the recipe before I realized my missing tomatoes was written in that fancy coloured text.
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