Rosi's Bistro on West Saanich
This is a small restaurant in a strip mall across from the Med Grill. The decor is very Brick, 1980's and our table was wobbly. The bread is bad. But the pasta is great! Wine by the bottle is very affordable. The food is not so affordable. Overall a mixed bag.
We dined with our 17 month old and fortunately we came equipped with a booster seat as they did not have wither a high chair or a booster. On the other hand the staff was helpful and amenable to our requests for an extra plate and that sort of thing.
On entry do not expect much. The interior, as I said, is very basic. That said there are signs they are trying, but they need a bit of help and, I suspect, some money.
The menu is fairly large and printed on basic white paper. Also not inspiring. Even higher quality paper, without typos and stains would have helped. I am always a bit suspicious of larger menus too, though the limited selection of ingredients was reassuring to me. On the bright side there were several vegetarian options, though nothing vegan jumped out at me.
They brought us bread, it was from a bag. Not good, even if they tried to dress it up with balsamic and oil in shakers for your use. This is the type of bread that will be covered in mold before it gets hard or crusty and is dry even when at it's freshest.
We started with the bruscetta sampler. For twelve dollars we got three squares of the bag bread with our choice of topping from about a half a dozen options. We won't say more about the bread. The toppings were okay. Good flavour combinations and fresh ingredients.
The main courses are what saved this place. I had the baked cheese manicotti. One manicotti roll was the perfect portion and it seemed to be fresh pasta. The marinara sauce was yummy and they had used generous but not ridiculous cheese on top, which created the lovely crusty, gooey, cheesy topping I had truly be searching for. A few more seconds in the oven would have ensured the proper creaminess in the ricotta filling which was a bit pasty due to that lack. Again though, flavour was good and my portion was just right. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio with dinner which was a nice glass with the dish and a generous enough pour that I could sip through appetizer and dinner. My husband had a scallop and pancetta bowtie pasta that he was very happy with. His portion was generous and he was pleased by the amount of scallop (five big ones)and pancetta. He didn't finish his and took home a doggie bag that he enjoyed later. The one thing was that those main courses were pricey at fifteen and nineteen dollars respectively this was not the budget conscious meal that the decor suggests.
So, overall, I would say go to Rosi's, skip and bread items, and go straight to the mains. The portions are generous enough to fill you up and it would keep the bill in check. And expect to feel you eaten in someone's kitchen, not the dining room.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Growing Wheat on Vancouver Island
Eat Magazine has an interesting article in this month's issue about growing wheat on Vancouver Island. Actually they will be covering this over this and the next two issues. I experimented with growing wheat in 2008 and did not find it particularly useful project.
There is something romantic about being able to buy bread that has been made from locally grown wheat. You can buy local wheat at For Good Measure Bulk Food in Cadboro Bay for a price of $3.30 to $4.40 a kilo - a lot more than the less than $10 I pay for 10 kg. It is not only expensive, growing it locally is not a good use of the land.
You can buy bread made with local wheat at Fol Epi, True Grain in Cowichan Bay, The Roost and Wildfire bakery.
The problem with wheat is that does not produce a lot per acre, one should expect to harvest about 2.5 tonnes per acre. This is not unreasonable in areas where the land can not be readily used for other crops - such as on the prairies. On Vancouver Island this does not make sense.
An acre on the Saanich peninsula could produce the following:
Growing wheat on this land makes no sense for best use of the land, the farmer's business or food security. We have land here that con do so much more.
In the distant past wheat was grown here because we did not have the transportation infrastructure to move the wheat around as easily as today. To move back to growing wheat means moving backwards in how we use the land.
Wheat stores well and transports well, you can move it in bulk by train. Tomatoes, apples, berries and other fresh crops do not travel nearly as well and require trucks. Each kilo of wheat that is grown here displaces the potential of close to eight kilos of produce. Each train car load of wheat we grow here means we need about 20 semi trailer loads of produce to be trucked here from elsewhere. This means local wheat has an interesting impact of CO2 emissions through the loss of local land for other local production.
There is something romantic about being able to buy bread that has been made from locally grown wheat. You can buy local wheat at For Good Measure Bulk Food in Cadboro Bay for a price of $3.30 to $4.40 a kilo - a lot more than the less than $10 I pay for 10 kg. It is not only expensive, growing it locally is not a good use of the land.
You can buy bread made with local wheat at Fol Epi, True Grain in Cowichan Bay, The Roost and Wildfire bakery.
The problem with wheat is that does not produce a lot per acre, one should expect to harvest about 2.5 tonnes per acre. This is not unreasonable in areas where the land can not be readily used for other crops - such as on the prairies. On Vancouver Island this does not make sense.
An acre on the Saanich peninsula could produce the following:
- 20 tonnes of tomatoes
- 12 tonnes of strawberries
- 20 tonnes of apples
- 3 tonnes of grapes
- 25 tonnes of carrots
Growing wheat on this land makes no sense for best use of the land, the farmer's business or food security. We have land here that con do so much more.
In the distant past wheat was grown here because we did not have the transportation infrastructure to move the wheat around as easily as today. To move back to growing wheat means moving backwards in how we use the land.
Wheat stores well and transports well, you can move it in bulk by train. Tomatoes, apples, berries and other fresh crops do not travel nearly as well and require trucks. Each kilo of wheat that is grown here displaces the potential of close to eight kilos of produce. Each train car load of wheat we grow here means we need about 20 semi trailer loads of produce to be trucked here from elsewhere. This means local wheat has an interesting impact of CO2 emissions through the loss of local land for other local production.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Not Really about Good Food
There has been an ongoing rumour that McDonalds does not use Canadian beef, or at least uses a lot of beef that comes from rain forest deforestation. This is not true at all. Mcdonalds is one of the single biggest purchasers of beef in Canada. They buy 29 000 000 kilos of beef each year.
There seems to a desire out there to believe that McDonalds is some horrible corporate citizen because they are such a big corporation. Certainly the food they sell is hardly good for you, but so then is a burger and fries and a mom and pop greasy spoon. In many ways McDonalds is better than most fast food restaurants - they make it easy to know the nutritional information for their products
The internet rumour continues on and on, new people keep perpetuating it. It seems there is visceral hatred of such a successful fast food operation. Because McDonalds is the biggest, somehow they must be evil.
I have no love for McDonalds but I impressed with how they run their business. They make a product that is consistent globally. In fact their Big Mac has been used as a measure of how well currencies compare in values. Normally currencies are evaluated using the relative cost of a basket of goods to arrive at what is called Purchase Price Parity. In 1988 the Economist started with the idea of the Big Mac index as a joke, but it turns out to be a very good measure of PPP. McDonalds can make the same Big Mac in 120 countries.
Consistency is important to the company. Not long ago I bought a quarter pounder in Tsawwassen on the way to the ferry. Once I was in the line up I found the burger to be cold, the cheese was unmelted and there was a lack of condiments. I phoned the restaurant and they offered to replace it. I explained I was in the line for the ferry and could not get it. They said they would have a credit for me for a new burger whenever I came through again. About five months later I was going through the drive through and said I had this credit. With no fuss they either found the note of the credit or just gave it to me.
I have also seen what the company can do for teenagers interested in learning to be leaders of teams of people. They allow 15 year olds to be promoted to shift supervisors if they show a desire and ability. I am hard pressed to think of many other venues where a high school kid can get some real responsibility in their lives.
I know the downsides of the food. I have watched Morgan Spurlock's movie Super Size Me and I loved it. I let my kids watch it and they took to heart the message that fast food is not good for you. But at the end of the day there are times when I am on the road and do not have the time to stop to eat somewhere. It is at moments like that I get the McDonalds food.
There is a place for McDonalds and their food.
There seems to a desire out there to believe that McDonalds is some horrible corporate citizen because they are such a big corporation. Certainly the food they sell is hardly good for you, but so then is a burger and fries and a mom and pop greasy spoon. In many ways McDonalds is better than most fast food restaurants - they make it easy to know the nutritional information for their products
The internet rumour continues on and on, new people keep perpetuating it. It seems there is visceral hatred of such a successful fast food operation. Because McDonalds is the biggest, somehow they must be evil.
I have no love for McDonalds but I impressed with how they run their business. They make a product that is consistent globally. In fact their Big Mac has been used as a measure of how well currencies compare in values. Normally currencies are evaluated using the relative cost of a basket of goods to arrive at what is called Purchase Price Parity. In 1988 the Economist started with the idea of the Big Mac index as a joke, but it turns out to be a very good measure of PPP. McDonalds can make the same Big Mac in 120 countries.
Consistency is important to the company. Not long ago I bought a quarter pounder in Tsawwassen on the way to the ferry. Once I was in the line up I found the burger to be cold, the cheese was unmelted and there was a lack of condiments. I phoned the restaurant and they offered to replace it. I explained I was in the line for the ferry and could not get it. They said they would have a credit for me for a new burger whenever I came through again. About five months later I was going through the drive through and said I had this credit. With no fuss they either found the note of the credit or just gave it to me.
I have also seen what the company can do for teenagers interested in learning to be leaders of teams of people. They allow 15 year olds to be promoted to shift supervisors if they show a desire and ability. I am hard pressed to think of many other venues where a high school kid can get some real responsibility in their lives.
I know the downsides of the food. I have watched Morgan Spurlock's movie Super Size Me and I loved it. I let my kids watch it and they took to heart the message that fast food is not good for you. But at the end of the day there are times when I am on the road and do not have the time to stop to eat somewhere. It is at moments like that I get the McDonalds food.
There is a place for McDonalds and their food.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Cariboo Potato - The Libertarian's Potato
The Tyee has an interesting article about the Cariboo Potato. The Cariboo is a potato native to the area it is named for and has worked well there for generations as a small scale potato. It is not a great potato for mechanized harvesting and therefore the Canadian government banned it. Yes, the government decided what could be grown and what could not.
There is a sub-text in the article that this old variety of potato is a slap in the face of capitalism, but really it is a slap in the face for top down government interference. In a free enterprise system no one would be stopping anyone from growing something.
Starting in the 1920s and escaltign wildly during World War 2 and then going on for decades the governments in Canada intervened in a huge number of aspects of of our day to day lives. We had prohibition of alcohol, which was lifted, and of marijuana. What you grew had to sold through marketing boards, many of which still survive today. Transportation of fruits and vegetables around the province was restricted. In general the government was looking for more and more places to regulate our lives.
This interference was first attacked by the hippies in the late 1960s and then by the free market libertarians in the 1980s, but we still have vestiges of the insanity around us in our food system.
Many organic growers can not sell what they want to produce because they can not afford to buy the 'right' to produce the product regulated by a marketing board - eggs, cheese and milk fall under this.
Growing interesting high quality niche varieties is not possible on the praries because everything has to be sold through the Canada Wheat Board. If you go to Alberta and buy a bushel of wheat from a grower, you are breaking the law.
There are more examples out there I could name, but suffice it to say that I am glad to see the Cariboo Potato is alive and well and fighting the oppressive government system.
There is a sub-text in the article that this old variety of potato is a slap in the face of capitalism, but really it is a slap in the face for top down government interference. In a free enterprise system no one would be stopping anyone from growing something.
Starting in the 1920s and escaltign wildly during World War 2 and then going on for decades the governments in Canada intervened in a huge number of aspects of of our day to day lives. We had prohibition of alcohol, which was lifted, and of marijuana. What you grew had to sold through marketing boards, many of which still survive today. Transportation of fruits and vegetables around the province was restricted. In general the government was looking for more and more places to regulate our lives.
This interference was first attacked by the hippies in the late 1960s and then by the free market libertarians in the 1980s, but we still have vestiges of the insanity around us in our food system.
Many organic growers can not sell what they want to produce because they can not afford to buy the 'right' to produce the product regulated by a marketing board - eggs, cheese and milk fall under this.
Growing interesting high quality niche varieties is not possible on the praries because everything has to be sold through the Canada Wheat Board. If you go to Alberta and buy a bushel of wheat from a grower, you are breaking the law.
There are more examples out there I could name, but suffice it to say that I am glad to see the Cariboo Potato is alive and well and fighting the oppressive government system.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
CR-FAIR October 15 food security roundtable at Community Council
The next CR-FAIR, the Capital Region Food and Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable, will be held at the Community Council office on October 15th from 11am to 1pm.
Meeting details:
When: Thursday 15 October, 11:00am to 1:00pm
Where: Community Council, 3948 Quadra Street - Map
Community Council office: 2-3948 Quadra Street (Located across from Lumberworld. If driving, please enter driveway at the foot of Reynolds Street and park in front of the brown building. Our office is in the white building at the end of the parking lot. Please enter the door at the front of the white building, not the beige side door. For accessible entrance, please go to the beige side door and ring the doorbell. Someone will come to let you in.)
Please RSVP to mkr@communitycouncil.ca.
Food security roundtable meetings are an informal forum for networking and exchange of information on issues and projects related to food security and sustainable food systems, and usually last 1 to 1.5 hours.
We look forward to seeing you on the 15th. Check out this and other food-related events on the new CR-FAIR regional food events calendar:
http://www.communitycouncil.ca/crfair_nl/crfair_nl_events.html.
The next CR-FAIR, the Capital Region Food and Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable, will be held at the Community Council office on October 15th from 11am to 1pm.
Meeting details:
When: Thursday 15 October, 11:00am to 1:00pm
Where: Community Council, 3948 Quadra Street - Map
Community Council office: 2-3948 Quadra Street (Located across from Lumberworld. If driving, please enter driveway at the foot of Reynolds Street and park in front of the brown building. Our office is in the white building at the end of the parking lot. Please enter the door at the front of the white building, not the beige side door. For accessible entrance, please go to the beige side door and ring the doorbell. Someone will come to let you in.)
Please RSVP to mkr@communitycouncil.ca.
Food security roundtable meetings are an informal forum for networking and exchange of information on issues and projects related to food security and sustainable food systems, and usually last 1 to 1.5 hours.
We look forward to seeing you on the 15th. Check out this and other food-related events on the new CR-FAIR regional food events calendar:
http://www.communitycouncil.ca/crfair_nl/crfair_nl_events.html.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Camille's
Sheila was very nice to me for my birthday, she took me to Camille's for dinner.
I have been interested and intrigued about Camille's for some years now, I had an office above them back in 2004. The restaurant is located in the basement of a Bastion Square building, it is a warren of small rooms hidden away down a discrete staircase at the southeast corner of the square. Other than a small sign at the top of the stairs there is nothing to indicate that one of Victoria's best restaurants is right there.
Both Sheila and I have been wanting to go to Camille's for some time but not had the chance to do so. Finally we have been there for a meal and it is as good as we had hoped it would be.
Camille's chef David Mincey focuses on using a lot of locally sourced food on their menu. The chef seems to have a close relationship with his suppliers. What was also wonderful is that the waiter was very knowledgeable about all of the food and willing to spend time talking to us about the food. If he was not a sommelier, he certainly seemed to be have the skills to be one.
I had the pan seared scallops as a starter. I wish I could make scallops at home, but I can not hit that sweet zone of perfection, I have a nasty habit of getting something more hockey puck like than perfect.
My main course was the beef tenderloin. The beef they use is from Ranchland's Natural Beef of the Nicola Valley. This ranch is run by former BC Liberal MLA Dave Chutter. Dave is an amazingly reserved man with a vision of how a better world will work, it shows in the beef that he raises. Dave even won an award from the SPCA for how he looks after his cattle. It is nice to have this personal connection with your food. Anyway, it was amazing, it melted in my mouth.
Sheila had a five course tasting menu, she also had a wine pairing with each course. She enjoyed all of her courses, but the wines were adequate but not stunning.
I ordered a bottle of 1998 Chateau de Ferrand St Emiillon Grand Cru on the recommendation of the waiter. This was an inspired choice, it worked perfectly with my beef. It is the sort of wine that is so much better than a typical wine that makes a decent red wine feel like cooking wine. Sheila tried some of the wine and then had trouble going back to her BC red wine that came with her tasting menu.
The unfortunate truth is that BC can not make a stellar red wine.
We still had much of a bottle of wine left when the main course was done so we asked for a cheese plate, they do not have one on the menu but the waiter worked with the kitchen staff to come up with one for us. The cheese plate a nice selection of Vancouver Island and Saltspring cheeses along with some fresh berries.
All in all it was a wonderful experience and I would love to return when we can afford it.
I have been interested and intrigued about Camille's for some years now, I had an office above them back in 2004. The restaurant is located in the basement of a Bastion Square building, it is a warren of small rooms hidden away down a discrete staircase at the southeast corner of the square. Other than a small sign at the top of the stairs there is nothing to indicate that one of Victoria's best restaurants is right there.
Both Sheila and I have been wanting to go to Camille's for some time but not had the chance to do so. Finally we have been there for a meal and it is as good as we had hoped it would be.
Camille's chef David Mincey focuses on using a lot of locally sourced food on their menu. The chef seems to have a close relationship with his suppliers. What was also wonderful is that the waiter was very knowledgeable about all of the food and willing to spend time talking to us about the food. If he was not a sommelier, he certainly seemed to be have the skills to be one.
I had the pan seared scallops as a starter. I wish I could make scallops at home, but I can not hit that sweet zone of perfection, I have a nasty habit of getting something more hockey puck like than perfect.
My main course was the beef tenderloin. The beef they use is from Ranchland's Natural Beef of the Nicola Valley. This ranch is run by former BC Liberal MLA Dave Chutter. Dave is an amazingly reserved man with a vision of how a better world will work, it shows in the beef that he raises. Dave even won an award from the SPCA for how he looks after his cattle. It is nice to have this personal connection with your food. Anyway, it was amazing, it melted in my mouth.
Sheila had a five course tasting menu, she also had a wine pairing with each course. She enjoyed all of her courses, but the wines were adequate but not stunning.
I ordered a bottle of 1998 Chateau de Ferrand St Emiillon Grand Cru on the recommendation of the waiter. This was an inspired choice, it worked perfectly with my beef. It is the sort of wine that is so much better than a typical wine that makes a decent red wine feel like cooking wine. Sheila tried some of the wine and then had trouble going back to her BC red wine that came with her tasting menu.
The unfortunate truth is that BC can not make a stellar red wine.
We still had much of a bottle of wine left when the main course was done so we asked for a cheese plate, they do not have one on the menu but the waiter worked with the kitchen staff to come up with one for us. The cheese plate a nice selection of Vancouver Island and Saltspring cheeses along with some fresh berries.
All in all it was a wonderful experience and I would love to return when we can afford it.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Canadian Wine Industry is in the Economist
The Economist has the Canadian Wine Industry in an article in this week's paper. The article is not a great one for the industry, the tone is dismissive of Canadian wines. The idea of Canadian wine does make most of the world shake their heads in disbelief.
In Canada we have moved from making the worst of plonks with subsidized grapes to being able to making drinkable wines, though most of our wines are uninspired and bland. At the end of the day in Canada we have few locations that can grow reasonable grape volumes per acre. We crop at 3.8 to 4.3 tonnes per acre in our best regions. South of us in Oregon the same grapes crop at close to 5 tonnes per acre. They are getting 25% more grapes per acre and therefore can have cheaper grapes.
Land costs are also killing us. In the Okanagan land sells for about $50 000 per acre. Not much further south in Washington the land sells for a fraction of the cost. The Okanogan Valley in the US has very little viticulture even though it has better conditions that the BC Okanagan valley.
Outside of our real grape growing regions, the volume of grapes cropped per acre is between 1 and 3 tonnes. At these very low volumes of grapes per acre, a grower on somewhere like Vancouver Island needs about twice as much land as an Oregon grower to provide the same number of grapes. At three tonnes per acre the gross return is only $3000 to $4500 per acre. With the same land you can produce about 10 tonnes of apples and sell this for $6000 wholesale and about $15 000 at the farm gate.
The Economist article raises a whole other issue, in Ontario you can use 70% imported grapes in your wine and still call it an Ontario wine. Ultimately I suspect this means the quality of the wine could be higher and costs be lower, but it does blur the idea of where a wine is from. My sense from the article is that the labels will not make it clear where the imported grapes are from.
The Canadian wine industry survives in large part because our nation applies very high tariff barriers against wines from the rest of the world. We also apply high taxes against our domestic wines. We are paying a lot more for our wine in Canada than we would be if the level of government levies against wine was at a level comparable to many other nations. These high taxes, especially on imported wines, means that making and selling a $20 bottle of wine is a viable business in Canada. The consumers are paying $20 for a wine that would be about $5-$10 in New Zealand, the US, or Australia.
Ulitimately Canadians seem to be happy to have this protectionism so that we can have wine produced in Canada. I am not happy about the way things are and think we should look to the viticulture industry in Germany and emulate it. We can produce wine in Canada that makes economic sense without state intervention. We can make ice wines. We can also produce German white wine grapes are commercial levels instead of wasting time on marginal grapes, especially the red ones.
In Canada we have moved from making the worst of plonks with subsidized grapes to being able to making drinkable wines, though most of our wines are uninspired and bland. At the end of the day in Canada we have few locations that can grow reasonable grape volumes per acre. We crop at 3.8 to 4.3 tonnes per acre in our best regions. South of us in Oregon the same grapes crop at close to 5 tonnes per acre. They are getting 25% more grapes per acre and therefore can have cheaper grapes.
Land costs are also killing us. In the Okanagan land sells for about $50 000 per acre. Not much further south in Washington the land sells for a fraction of the cost. The Okanogan Valley in the US has very little viticulture even though it has better conditions that the BC Okanagan valley.
Outside of our real grape growing regions, the volume of grapes cropped per acre is between 1 and 3 tonnes. At these very low volumes of grapes per acre, a grower on somewhere like Vancouver Island needs about twice as much land as an Oregon grower to provide the same number of grapes. At three tonnes per acre the gross return is only $3000 to $4500 per acre. With the same land you can produce about 10 tonnes of apples and sell this for $6000 wholesale and about $15 000 at the farm gate.
The Economist article raises a whole other issue, in Ontario you can use 70% imported grapes in your wine and still call it an Ontario wine. Ultimately I suspect this means the quality of the wine could be higher and costs be lower, but it does blur the idea of where a wine is from. My sense from the article is that the labels will not make it clear where the imported grapes are from.
The Canadian wine industry survives in large part because our nation applies very high tariff barriers against wines from the rest of the world. We also apply high taxes against our domestic wines. We are paying a lot more for our wine in Canada than we would be if the level of government levies against wine was at a level comparable to many other nations. These high taxes, especially on imported wines, means that making and selling a $20 bottle of wine is a viable business in Canada. The consumers are paying $20 for a wine that would be about $5-$10 in New Zealand, the US, or Australia.
Ulitimately Canadians seem to be happy to have this protectionism so that we can have wine produced in Canada. I am not happy about the way things are and think we should look to the viticulture industry in Germany and emulate it. We can produce wine in Canada that makes economic sense without state intervention. We can make ice wines. We can also produce German white wine grapes are commercial levels instead of wasting time on marginal grapes, especially the red ones.
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