Cooking Keller - Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Wanting to test out my new USA Pans that I ordered, i leafed thru Thomas Keller's Ad-hoc at Home, and discovered the double chocolate chunk cookie recipe.  My traditional chocolate chip cookies are simply "chipit" based cookies. 

The chosen recipe calls upon a 55% sweet chocolate and a 70% sweet chocolate both of which I picked up from the Gourmet warehouse.

Dimsum at Rainflower Restaurant (粵之醉海鮮酒家)in Richmond

This morning we decided to head down to Richmond to have some dimsum before dropping a relative off at the airport.  As we headed out fairly early we were not overly concerned that we would have trouble finding a table.  Richmond has an abundance of dimsum eateries and we generally make a habit of trying a different restaurant each time.

From the outside the restaurant looks kinda dingy and run down and being right by the Skytrain tracks the building is partially blocked by a pillar.

Lunch at Nimby Burger in Kitsilano

After reading about Nimby Burger in last summer's Georgia Straight where it was rated one of the better burger joints in Vancouver we decided to give it a go at lunch, after reading reviews where Nimby Burger is compared to In-N-Out Burger and also the fact that they are only open during the summer we decided to give it a go.  Our usual lunchtime burger place is Fatburger or Vera's.

 Located at the corner of Cornwall and Yew it was a tiny almost "drive-thru" type eatery where there was not a whole lot in the way of available seating.  Thankfully the beach is right across the street and with the nice warm and being a weekday we can overlook this minor annoyance.

Blueberry Cookies

Seeing as blueberry season is finally upon us today was most definitely a baking day.  After several trips to the Gourmet Warehouse to get items (more on that later) I finally got around to baking some cookies.  Having tried a cookie from Momofuku Milk Bar in New York (thank you Elaine) and by luck stumbling across one the cookie recipes I decided to give it a shot.

The cookie I would be attempting, and attempting being the key word is a blueberry cookie with milk crumbs, ok first question WTF are milk crumbs.....

Espresso Adventures

At the request of Yas, I have decided to blog also about some of the other things that interest me, today after a very heated debate about the merits of a Baratza Vario coffee grinder I have decided to blog about espresso.  I have just finished 3 shots of espresso in the last 20 mins or so and I think that is about the limit of which I can handle for today.

Lunch at Anducci's Italian Kitchen

On June 25, I went out for lunch on a lazy Saturday with a friend.  Since he was in the mood for pasta we decided to hit up Anducci's Italian Kitchen located on Cameron Street in Burnaby.  Having been there several times I figured it was a fairly safe bet for lunch.  Having frequented Anducci's over the past decade it was one of the spots that could compete with Anton's for having a decent tasting pasta in a large portion at a reasonable price.

I was quite surprised that there were only 2 other occupied tables when we entered at right around noon, the decor has not changed much and it is a fairly casual sort of place, it has been almost 2 years since I last visited.

Wedding Banquet at Fortune House Seafood Restaurant

On Saturday, June 18 2011 we celebrated J&A's wedding banquet at the Fortune House Seafood Restaurant located at Metrotown in Burnaby (2199A-4700 Kingsway).  This being my first time going to this restaurant for any type of meal I did not know what to expect.  My wife having visited this establishment before had some preconceptions but kept them to herself as it was a number of years ago.  My ratings are in black, hers are in red.

If you were to visit the mall on a weekend, you would be hard pressed to miss the long lineup of people queued out the door and as such I was quite excited to give it a go.  Upon entering it is a decent sized restaurant with space for about 25 tables, with a fair bit of space to move around.  On closer inspection our first observation was dirty cutlery/dishes/glasses, for first impressions this is a definite no-no as smudges of leftover food, lipstick and what not make you go eww !

Anyhow, after getting that resolved we were onto dinner. Menu attached below, notice all the staples of the traditional Chinese banquet are included.  The order on the menu is not always the same as the order the food shows up but that is not unexpected either.