It used to be easy to differentiate between what is a formal or an informal restaurant.  Dress code, tablecloths, service,  and decor were some of the important elements in making that determination.  Price often factored in too.

No more! Especially in Vancouver every place is now strictly informal!

For many years I have been on the panel deciding the Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards with our 25th Anniversary coming up  next year. We used to designate restaurants into best formal and best informal categories. It wasn’t totally semantics but last year because every place indicated they were informal we changed the categories to Upscale Dining & Casual Spot.

Best Upscale Restaurant was defined as “consistently offers the city’s very highest quality dining experience based on exemplary preparations, cooking, ingredient sourcing, desserts, service and wine selection in an accommodating environment where the average entree for one person is over $30, there is a strong  wine/sommelier program and reservations are accepted” .

Best Casual was similarly worded but drink selection substituted for wine, all for a reasonable price under $30 and may or may not have a wine/sommelier program and reservations may or may not be accepted.

Hawksworth cleaned up as Best Upscale, Best New, Chef of the Year and Restaurant of the Year in 2012. L’Abattoir won Best Casual.

Working now on our 2013 Awards we realize that all our Vancouver restaurants are really casual in nature.  What happened to formal and upscale?  Next year we may have to go to a different format completely and judge all restaurants together and separate them only by their geographic neighbourhoods.

It is a new dining era. Some restaurants discourage smart phone use but it’s hard to enforce bans. Tweets and immediately sharing photos of a dining experience on Istagram now is very widely spread.

Where are you in your city’s dining restaurant profiles? Please let everyone know what to expect when dining in your area.

The 14th edition of the Bocuse d’Or cooking competition started by Paul Bocuse in 1987 was held as always in Lyon France at the end of January 2013. Canada placed 9th (best ever finish 4th), USA 7th (best ever 6th) with the gold going to France (their 7th win – one out of every two years!), silver to Denmark and bronze to Japan.

In Canada we have Gold Medal Plates (GMP) www.goldmedalplates.com a culinary competition across Canada to raise funds for the charitable Canadian Olympic Foundation and over the nine years has raised more than 7 million dollars for donation to help Olympic athletes train on their Own the Podium program. All the regional GMP winners then compete in the Canadian Culinary Championships (CCC) to be named best chef in Canada. I am a judge for the Vancouver GMP competiton and I just returned from judging the 2013 CCC with 10 competing chefs this year – all champion regional GMP winners! The CCC is held over several days and has 3 main events on which the results are based:

1. The Wine Matching Challenge

The night before this event each chef is given a bottle of unmarked mystery wine and has 24 hours to shop for and develop a dish that will pair well with that wine all on a limited budget of $500 to serve 400 guests. The wine turned out to be 2010 Norman Hardie pinot noir from Prince Edward County in Ontario. Some chefs found good matches with local duck, cherries and even raspberry-strawberry tuilles in capturing the wine essence but others went to less successful matchings of ling cod and albacore tuna.

2. The Black Box Competition

Every year we have 6 ingredients in the box which each chef opens and then has one hour to prepare 2 dishes. The six catagories with this year’s selection were:

(a) Grain – Red Fife Wheat Flour

(b) Dairy – Goat Gruyere with firm strong flavours

(c) Fruit – Anjou Pear

(d) Vegetable – Black Kale ( or Tuscan Kale) – versatile use raw in a salad, in soups or pastas, sauteed, or my fav deep fried crisp kale chips!

(e) Fish – Northern Divine Sturgeon Caviar

(f) Meat – Bone in shoulder and neck of lamb – shows butchering skills but impossible to braise properly in the one hour time limit!

3. The Grande Finale

A glittering affair of a signature dish of each chef with their choice of Canadian wine for 700 guests.

The winning chef Marc St. Jacques of Toronto’s Auberge du Pommier featured a classy terrine of foie gras with lemon curd on black sesame financier.

Please post for our edification any comments you have on this or even a short note to make us aware of any of your own city or regional culinary competitions.

Longing for the good old days of a simple wine inventory cellar book with hand written entries?

I still cling to that antiquated system somewhat because it was so excitingly hands on and personal but as a computer nut I also like the additional features, valuations and organizational benefits of the many new on line alternatives.

Hard to believe that so many friends of mine now have each individual bottle in their wine cellar barcoded for easy management. Wow are they ever organized! But there are so many different software programs out there it is hard to choose how to even get started.

I really like what Eric LeVine has done with Cellar Tracker (www.cellartracker.com) redesigning to make constant improvements and they also now have posted nearly 4 million tasting notes for references and recommendations. Impressive work indeed!

Please let us know what you recommend as working for you based on your own wine cellar management system. Much appreciated.

Sushi is becoming increasingly popular in Vancouver and almost everywhere else.

A big new 210 seat Miku Restaurant (www.mikurestaurant.com) opened here last week with wrap around patios outside, a magnificent Coal Harbour view and Japanese artist hand painted seafood murals. Owned by Aburi Restaurants Canada this joins their sister restaurant Minami here in Yaletown both featuring seafood. They are bringing an innovative new concept to the Canadian scene with Aburi (sear flamed with a blowtorch) sushi as well as more vegetarian and gluten-free choices. The act of applying fire directly to enhance the natural fish flavours was developed in Japan about a century ago. They are creating their own sauces using non traditional Japanese ingredients (usually soy and wasabi) trying to complement the unique taste of each fish. Some examples include Aburi Hamachi (yellowtail) with avocado sauce, Aburi Hotate (scallop) with cod roe mayo, and Aburi Salmon Oshi Sushi fused with jalapeno. For non fish lovers there is even thin Aburi Chicken cooked on a very hot plate over an open fire grill.

A media friend Mijune Pak has just written up a 3 part feature on Sushi: 1.Rolls (Maki) vs. Nigiri-Zushi (Nigiri); 2.The use of Condiments; and 3.How to Eat it. For those wanting more information on sushi I suggest you read these at www.followmefoodie.com or www.wevancouver.com under their Food & Drink tab.

Join in with your own thoughts on sushi or sashimi and whether you prefer traditional, Aburi style, both or neither.

Just enjoyed a fabulous dinner of some top nebbiolo served blind matched with quality dishes from Piedmont. Is there a better wine and food pairing than sliced fresh white truffle on Acquerello carnaroli risotto funghi with a mature Barolo or Barbaresco?

Top vintages were rarer in the old days with 58, 61, 64, 71, 78, 82 & 85 all memorable. Since the trio of 88, 89 & 90 there has been a pretty good run of better years starting with 96. I tend to prefer the classical balanced often late season vintages like 08, 04, 01, 98 & 96 – and even the colder more tannic years like 06 & 99. Certainly the three Barolo 1996 just tried (Cavallotto Bricco Boschis; Burlotto Monvigliero; and Claudio Alario) showed well that styling and no rush to drink up! Some North Americans often prefer the more forwardly, rounder, richer fruit of warmer vintages like 07, 00, & 97 – and even the over the top hot 03.

With global warming and final classifications still evolving a question can be asked whether the full facing south slopes in both Barolo and Barbaresco are still the best ones? Depends – another story!

Thought provoking comments by Bruno Giacosa’s daughter Bruna in a recent interview reported at www.thedrinksbusiness.com 2013/03/barolo-not-better-than-barbaresco. “It is wrong to suggest that Barolo makes better and more age-worthy wines than Barbaresco. Why do you say Barbaresco is more feminine? Maybe because you think it’s more elegant- and yes, in Barbaresco you find elegance, but you find it in Barolo too.”   Excellent point made!

What are your thoughts today on the old distinctions that used to be made between Barolo vs. Barbaresco? Are they still valid?