It has been almost 11 months since I returned home from NYC which makes this post long overdue. 3 months before I set out for New York City I had made a dinner reservation at the restaurant of my favorite chef, Eric Ripert. Le Bernardin   at the time of my visit was ranked number 1 in New York and number 17 in the world for french inspired seafood.  I hit the reserve button and got the confirmation email and instantly had butterflies. It was all I could think about for days. Eric Ripert is a bit of a personal hero of mine, sharing the same philosophies. in life and intense love of good food, but aside from that I had never at that point been to a place quite so upscale, quite so polished or so fantastic. My best friend and I who were traveling together had the dinner reservation booked for the Thursday of our trip. I had purchased a dress , made sure I was hungry despite the food tour we had been on earlier that day , and with child like anticipation we approached ...

In my opinion you have to eat certain things when in New York City. You have to eat pizza (you also have to call it a "slice" when you order). You have to eat a large pretzel, which I have had my fill of forever and did not eat on this trip and you have to eat a pastrami sandwich.  I love pastrami, a Rueben Sandwich is possibly one of my favourite things in the world. The pastrami sandwich in New York is one of the great joys in my life when ever I am there.  We were on the way back from High Line Park and waiting for our tour of SOHO to start and had about an hour to kill so we asked one of the locals in the shops where a good place to eat would be. They pointed us about a block over to Amelias diner . This is a typical diner. long bar with round stools. Decor of bright orange and wood tabled booths. Looked like every diner in the 60s you have every seen on TV. You are blasted by the smell of coffee and bacon when you walk in. We were seated and I was blown away by ...

The biggest dilemma for true Foodies is often where to go for dinner. This dilemma is worse when you are trying to plan a date night in a city that is not your home.  D and I are no different. Deciding where to sit  down with clean palates and empty stomachs is one of the great joys of being a foodie and every once in a while D and I go just a little overboard. It is one of my favourite Foodie adventures. We set out in the morning for the few hour drive it takes us to get to Victoria . Checked into our hotel and headed out in search of food . It was the goal to see how many places we could get too in the one night we had . Our first stop was The Churchill  a belly up to the bar pub with a huge range of beer. I am fairly new to the beer drinking world and dont know much about beer. I had a pale ale that was full of citrus and hops. Sharp on my tongue and cut thirst. I dont know my beers but I know I liked that. We split a fish taco to have a look at how they do fo...

If most people leave their heart in San Francisco, I am certain I left my stomach in New York City and I mean that in the best way possible.   I have a special relationship with the City after spending 3 years of my early adulthood living on Long Island NY and I was no stranger to the culinary wonders that awaited me when I adventured there for a girls week holiday.  After  a very long day of travel my friends and I finally made it to our hotel at about 9pm on the first day of our trip. Flight from Toronto had been delayed and put a pin in our original plan to go to a karaoke bar after finding dinner of some sort. We were tired and starving in a city with too many choices when you are that tired and hungry. We did the only natural thing we could, head to the big shiny watering hole across the street called " The Smith" We were right downtown in Manhattan on 27th and Broadway so the restaurant was hopping at 9 pm on a Monday night. We were greeted with warm service ...

I have recently made the decision to embark on an eating lifestyle that I have done in the past and I know makes me feel better in my body and in my life. I am also a die hard foodie and these two things do not always work very well together. If you have ever had any sort of dietary restriction and you love food then you know how daunting it can be to look at a menu and see it as more of an algebra equation as you try to figure out what to eat. I promise you , when those orders go to the kitchen, it can make a chef''s life a nightmare if you are not competent at the way you order. So to give a little context, in my world I have opted to go into a low carb high dietary fat eating style.  Also known as Ketogenic due to the process it begins in your body of using stored body fat for energy. I wont get too in depth in my reasoning except to say there is excellent evidence to support this way of eating in the fight against cancer and other body ailments that I am genetically v...

Super Mario's Bar and Lounge is the most recent incarnation of this little nook hidden in plain sight in Willow Point B.C. , about 15 minutes south of Campbell River.  Last week when Chef D and I were scratching our brains trying to decide where to eat we lit upon the idea to check out Super Mario's again as the first time was a really good vibe. This little lounge is tucked between a liquor store and the entrance to a drive through with a supermarket on the other side in the middle of a busy strip mall. It does not look like much from the outside but when you walk in the atmosphere is that of a lazy supper lounge. On this day particularly they had a Rod Steward concert playing on the TVs and we were the only people in the lounge. Round booths lined the outside perimeter of the room in a semi circle all facing the small stage which local bands play on the weekend. The whimsical ambiance was topped off by the stone pizza over behind the bar, long since retired of its o...

Recently I went rogue on Chef D and went to visit a girlfriend of mine in Prince Rupert B.C.  I was thrilled for the mini vacation into a part of the province that I had not been to before, but above that, Prince Rupert sits right on the ocean and is renowned for its seafood. I really love seafood. I have a secret to confess, I am on the quest for the perfect seafood chowder. I mean really on a quest. If a place has it on the menu I have to add it to my meal somehow. Its almost compulsive at this point. So my girlfriend knows this of me and she already had a plan in place for us when I arrived. She had earmarked three places with chowder that she insisted I try to see if maybe the perfect chowder resides in the little fishing town. On my first morning there we set off walking down the many many MANY hills into a part of Prince Rupert called Cow Bay.  True to its name indeed! There are cow prints and small cow figures around wherever you look, acutally It gave a charm t...

I hate complainers. Really truly, I dislike people that complain every day of their lives, send food back at restaurants and make a scene. Well, at Gowlland Harbour resort on Quadra Island BC last Sunday night, we, the foodies were complainers. The scene was beautiful, Gowlland has an excellent venue in Quathiaski Cove right on the water. You travel down a goat trail driveway surrounded by trees giving it the feeling of a grove. The cabins are nestled separately around the main building which contains the restaurant. This was not our first visit to Gowlland, but it was our first visit there alone where we could eat in our “style”. My first thought walking in was that it was very quiet, 7 pm and only a few tables full. This in itself was not a big deal, it was Sunday and Quadra is a small place. Service was friendly and eager to take our drink order, this was all good. We had been looking at the menu on line and had a relative idea as to what we were going to eat. Starte...