I am off to Vancouver this week and will report back.

For those of you that have never been, Vancouver is like a calmer, less polluted version of Hong Kong. They have newspapers in Chinese and 2 Chinese TV stations when I was last there. They also have a huge Asian population – mainly chinese.

I have had some good meals there although I am not in favour of their version of “fusion” cooking. I prefer the Aussie version.

In terms of wine, the local icewine is fantastic and they have various types from pinot noir to cabernet sauvignon. They also have the German versions from Muller Thergau to Riesling. I shall bring back a couple of bottles for the monthly competition.

Vancouver was where I had a pot of tea with one tea leaf. Yes, I was in a chinese restaurant and was served very very weak tea. When I investigated, I found a single tea leaf in the pot. I also had lobster thermidor which turned out to be shrimps. So its not all roses here.

The famous local delicacy is “smoke salmon” which is not what we considered to be smoke salmon here. I shall write up a piece on this sometime.

The local beer in Granville Island is very good. They also have a great market in Granville Island.

Eddie