A New Saturday Ritual?

A newly discovered Saturday lunch favourite on Main Street is Ogenki Sushi.

While not as charming of an ambiance as Dream Sushi across the street (see Dreaming of Sushi), the quality of food makes it worth siting on uncomfortable tables and dealing with close by screaming children or cellular yacking customers.

They may not have a wide variety of fancy rolls, but those they have are tasty and nicely presented.

On another occasion, I ordered their Salmon and Tuna Don and ended up with a bowl of rice the size of a large salad bowl you serve at a dinner for 6, covered with over a dozen of extremely large, fresh tasting slices of fish.

Sorry Dream Sushi, Ogenki opens earlier and has better food.

Ogenki Sushi

4342 Main Street

Vancouver, BC

www.ogenkisushi.com 

Cheap Buffet Lunch Downtown

I have been looking at this buffet lunch offer for the past three months. At last the stars aligned where I was (a) in town; (b) in the office; (c) free for lunch; (d) have colleagues who are free to join me; (e) rain was light and (f) had my camera on me.

For $10.95 ($12.27 after taxes), you can have all you can eat at this little deli on Pender Street. I won't claim that their food was exceptional, but the variety was impressive, the layout appetizing, and the place had little line-ups. What more would you ask for from a quick buffet lunch during workdays.

We had an option of over 12 salads and cold appetizers which were laid out in nice Tagine pots. Then there were close to 20 hot food platters to choose from.

 
Despite two servings, i did not end up trying all the options. The dishes had a Mediterranean/Persian feel to them, but options outside that area were available such as roast beef, pasta, corn, and butter chicken.

The Humus had too much garlic, the artichoke salad was too spicy, the roast beef rubbery and the chicken lacked taste.

On the other hand, the Tabouleh was not bad, the Falafels tasted fresh, the Greek Lasagna was nice and the Kafta was very well prepared.

And with a pet pigeon roaming around the restaurant, it felt like you were indulging on a buffet picnic. I will go back.

Marcello's Market & Deli

1078 West Pender Street

Vancouver, BC

 www.marcellos.ca

Follow The Blog, Win Cookies!

Yes, nine months' anniversary easy contest. Follow the blog publicly (see the "Follow" button on the top right hand side on the blog) and I will send you a jar of cookies no matter where you are.

The cookies are for every new public follower throughout the month of May.

And for my current followers, don't be left out, get your significant other, sons, daughters, cousins, cats to join and the cookies are yours to enjoy!

Why am I doing that? This is what the marketing world refers to as "gamefication" - the blog is a game, and generating traffic is the score. 

The graph below shows how monthly traffic has been building for the blog and I want that line to keep growing as opposed to flattening out. The more followers, the more word of mouth, the more traffic.

Where is this traffic coming from? The whole world. The map below (which is accessible on the blog for anyone interested) shows, via the orange dots, where the visitors are coming from. Cliche, I know, but a picture is worth 1000 words.

And yes, the "comments" function may be activated soon. We are in the process of conducting an assessment on the pros, cons and the time involved to handle comments. 

Meanwhile, here are the most popular entries to-date based on traffic. It is fascinating how much the somerville kitchen renovations intrigued readers. 

Lebanese Feast 

Re-Opening of somerville kitchen Contest 

New Cabinets and Chinese Food Night 

Lunch With Big Lou 

Transition of somerville kitchen 

Enjoy. Follow the blog, win the cookies. Thank you all for your support from me and the cats.

This Is What I Call Team Building

Sunny Wednesday afternoon was capitalized on at the office by a spontaneous team building event - all of us head over to Granville Island for the Granville Island Brewery Tour. For $9.75 a person and 3 4 oz tasters, how can you go wrong. 

The tour itself was swift, then we all sat down as the hostess brought us one beer at a time to sample. The nice thing about this tour is you can lounge as long as you want in the brewery during the sampling process. You can even bring your own food to enjoy with the samples.

Sample 1 - Nut Brown Ale                                               

This turned out to be my favourite. It does not include nuts, but has a nice nutty taste. It is their limited release so stock up.

Sample 2 - Robson Street Hefeweizen

Hefeweizen, with my Anything German bias, is one of my favourite types of beer. Not bad, but have had better Hefeweizens from other breweries. 

Sample 3 - Kitsilano Maple Cream Ale

While I still preferred the Nut Brown Ale, this was definitely a great tasting beer. 

Fun and drinks - so worth taking your out-of-town and in-town friends and relatives to. 

Tour information at gib.ca

Prize Feasting

Congratulations to 'JaG' and 'AD' for winning the Re-opening of somerville kitchen contest. Despite being a Tuesday and a Canucks game night, the winners spent more than three leisurely hours indulging in their Lebanese feast prize.

 

The feasting began with Mezza - an appetizer spread that included: humus, cucumbers and home-made yogurt, loubieh be zeit (vegetarian green beans dish), zucchini salad, fatayer (Lebanese spinach pies), lahm be ajeen (Lebanese meat pies), nabulsi cheese, a variety of pickles and Lebanese olives.

We also partook in fresh lemon picking from somerville kitchen's indoor meyer lemon tree. 

The lemon picked was cut in small pieces and thrown over freshly plucked jardin oregano leaves, sprinkled with salt and served as yet another appetizer.

Jardin also contributed fresh mint to go with the yogurt. 



Fresh (store bought) green almonds were served with salt as a novelty to the winners.

Then came the main meal; Molokhiah. The name means meal of the kings (which is the least one could serve contest winners). The base is chicken/meat broth that is mixed with mashed grilled onions, garlic, cilantro and the mallow leaves. The stew is served over rice, chicken, meat and grilled pita chips. It is topped with your choice of onion-lemon mix or onion-vinegar mix (which you can see at the top of the picture).


More on this meal at  Eid Moubarak with Molokhia.

The feasting was wrapped up with the decadent freshly made Knefeh, served with nothing but the best Shaktea African Dream rooibos. (Details on Knefeh at Christmas Eve)

Thanks to the many who participated in this contest and congratulations again to the winners. Followers, keep an eye on a couple of May contests coming up, with one as early as Thursday!

 

Occupied Kitchen on Election Night

Replacement Chef, capitalizing on my distraction with the election tonight, launched another surprise colonization and put somerville kitchen under siege for one more night (see previous attempt at Occupied somerville kitchen Territories).

The battle ground was fiercest around the fridge. Leftover ham, parsley, rotting tomato, parmesan cheese, half a lemon, butter - all lost the battle and were taken as hostage. The onions fought a severe battle and won, and I am grateful for that given desperately needing them for tomorrow's dinner.

As election results started rolling in, the frying heat in the kitchen intensified. The amount of garlic kidnapped from the new cupboards was used to add a bit of flavour, but not a complete garlic exercise. 

The search for a perfect balance of subtle flavours resulted in the submergence of parsley in lemon juice prior to adding to the mix. 

The perfectionism of the new kitchen regime was impressively demonstrated in the rolling of pasta in the boiling pot.

At the end of the night, a perfectly created pasta dinner was served as election results were confirmed.




And so perfect dinner was that our freshly elected prime minister joined us for dinner.

What To Do With Jardin Rhubarb

What to do with three fresh large rhubarb stalks from le jardin picked up this morning.  Not enough for jam, pies or sauces; no savory recipes that uses rhubarb to be found; but a simple healthy low cholesterol muffins recipe popped up on the internet that turned out delicious.

The recipe is below. In return, if you have a good recipe that uses rhubarb, sweet or savory, please email to eshmun@shaw.ca I have lots more rhubarb growing in le jardin.

The recipe is easy, just mix all those ingredients below, add rhubarb at the end, bake in 400 oven for 25 minutes and enjoy with a cup of Shaktea Vanilla Honeybush tea. 

2 egg whites
2/3 cup skim milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup mashed banana
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2/3 cup chopped fresh rhubarb