Eating to Oblivion

The Gateaux and I have just returned from our annual vacation to Vancouver, where we did little other than eat everything in sight. Without going into excruciating detail right this minute, I will say that we covered the gamut from dim sum to sushi to a seven course tasting menu to Greek to Mexican to family dinner at home.

I will note that Vancouver has incredibly good food, but the dining trends seem to run a few years behind New York and L.A., and when they fall for a trend, they really commit. So it's gotten easy to find Japanese "tapas" with things like foie gras nigiri, tempura "fish and chips" and mango-spicy tuna rolls (all delicious, by the way), it's getting harder and harder to find nice traditional sushi. And our formerly cheap vacation has been rather undermined by the decline of the U.S. dollar, so you're paying top price for those bits of rice and fish. Even the local bars tend to tart things up in a foodie sort of way. Not that it's bad that there's all this attention to good eating, but it did make me long a bit for a plain old burger or steak.