We went to a dinner party at our friends 100+ year old house with new kitted out kitchen and were excited to try something new, Japanese okonomiyaki. This grilled pancake, ala whoever is making them, gets embellished upon with many ‘toppings’ including: pork, scallops, octopus, dried shrimp, dried white fish, smoked oysters, diced cheddar cheese, tenkasu (tempura bits), nori strips, corn niblets, julienned carrots, spinach, scallions or Japanese pickled ginger.

The savoury pancake batter is made with shredded cabbage, flour, eggs, dashi, grated nagaimo (Japanese mountain yam), this yam is ooey gooey and makes the ingredients stick.

When the batter is on the two flat iron grills, we add our toppings, “get in there everybody, do what ever you want”, so we made 8 different ones! D subconsciously made a ‘pizza’ one with cheese and pork. The best tasting one was the hostess’ who went over the top with toppings, the Asahi gave her the freedom to, “Go big or go home”, is her advice.

It dawned on me that everyone’s toppings were quite telling of their personalities. First there was an over-thought lean one with barely any toppings with one featured ingredient -the architect. Then there was a perfectly balanced veg and seafood pancake, ingredients evenly spaced, a mix of colours -the foodie yoga teacher. The male web developer made a pizza. And the artist trapped in the graphic designers body went overboard with a mountain of flavour, claiming the beer made her do it. What would Jung say?

Sharing okonomiyaki was a fantastic and inclusive social approach to eating, the tenets of old Japanese eating culture bring us back to the family and friends, that made us all very happy.

Edward Koh: When he’s not re-feuling planes he’s making wine, gardening, cooking up a storm, or telling crazy stories. Let’s face it, Edward is a man of many talents.

Justin Davey: A master of mixing music, he’s got a lot to learn when it comes to mixing ingredients.

Dennis Wan: Gets creative with the dish he brings to the table and likes to think out of the box.

Angela Wan: Food obsessed designer, a grocery store tourist and loves to have dinner parties.

These lines were part of our intro script for the Food Network’s Family Cook-off show that aired last night. Families went head-to-head  battling a ticking clock to prepare homestyle dishes before chef judges Anthony Sedlak and Trish Magwood, hosted by the lovely and gorgeous Kim D’eon with a live audience to cheer us on. The film set was erected at Leg in Boot Square in False Creek with scenic marina, sailboats and glassy high-rise backdrop, very Vancouver.

Anthony Sedlak, Trish Magwood & host Kim D'eon

Talk about having stage fright! Somebody give me a sedative or couple shots of tequila or something! Edward, or Steady Eddie as Anthony Sedlak deemed him, might have been a little nervous too, did he really burn the first round of garlic bread or was it to test the oven, even I don’t know. But he pulled through nicely and later seemed cool in front of the camera, hugging and holding his grandson Justin, darkened shades on, nurse betty tattoo showing. Nice capture camera man! Edwards fav line is…”You have to cook with lurv.”. And his tumeric rubbed seared sable fish and garlic bread was lurved by the judges all right. Here is a gorgeous photo of their Seafood Slam.

Steady Eddie & Justin's Seafood Slam

Justin looked good on camera, strapping young hapa cooking up mussels + lobster with lemongrass infused coconut sauce. A natural in front of the camera for sure. Justin has been enjoying the fruits of grandpa’s foodie labour all his young life and has now cooked with him for the first time, and on tv! You didn’t reveal your tat to the tatted up chef Sedlak but that probably wouldn’t have been appropriate?

Steady Eddie & Justin

There was friendly jibbing going across the work stations with the orange team, team Wimbush from Montreal and across Canada, lovely ladies who can do anything from scratch! Aimée, which I think headed up this team is a foodie extraordinaire, her site is simplebites.net. I should have snatched a taste of their Revolutionary Ravioli when no one was looking, ok unlikely, will have to make it from the recipe instead. And the Wimbush’s desert looked finger licking good, check out the Tasty Trifle.

Wimbush's Revolutionary Ravioli

Wimbush's Tasty Trifle

Then it came to my bro Dennis and I, our turn at battle honey for the desert half. For our Tropical Rolls + Lassie Dennis calmly assembled his ingredients for the mango+ginger lassie topped with roasted pistacios while responding cheerfully to Kim D’eon’s questions, while I, feeling very cold and excited started rolling up the nutella+banana spring rolls. Yes we actually make this food at home all the time, so no problemo right? We pulled it off without a hitch, even got to add rum to the honey butter drizzle.  (mmm, think I’m going to whip some this very moment.)

Dennis & Angela's Tropical Rolls

Thanks to all the people involved in letting us showcase our wanna-be-a-chef talents on tv. Margaret Gallagher(CBC Radio 1) who introduced me to Meribeth Deen(Force Four Entertainment), my awesome family and friends(this is like the oscars), cool host and hot judges!

“Cook with Lurv” -Steady Eddie

Compliments of the chef! Bet you’d never guess that this lovely dish was fish gonands, swimming in a citrus sesame ponzu sauce, with its pale creamy lobes all delicate like. They had the mildest of sea flavours and quite plesant. Dean washed his down with beer really fast, I think it was a mind over matter moment.

Let’s say these gonads were not from a Black Cod but from a different fish, the infamous Puffer Fish, called Fugu in Japan, you may get very sick and probably die from strong neurotoxins (luckily Homer did not).

A pinch of the white powder form, about the amount found in one prime-sized tiger fugu is enough to kill more than 30 people. The estimated lethal dose for an adult, a mere one to two milligrams, could be put on a pinhead. Wow! Don’t eat Fugu gonads!

All fish have the pair of reproductive organs and some are hermaphrodites (that’s handy). So where are these reproductive blobs located in a fish you might want to know, they’re at the top of the gut cavity, just below the fish’s backbone:

Another delicious gonad that some people like to eat and others fake pleasure is uni. Yes folks, you didn’t know you were eating both male and female urchin gonads?

I dove for urchin in the Mediterranean once, opened them up on the beach and ate the salty narrow ‘roe’ fresh as can be, didn’t like them, still don’t but I pretended that I like them and that it was all so adventurous of me, haha.

Ok, on to other seafood now…

crab fry vid

On this nights menu we had having beef and pork Satay with fixins, ketupat(pressed rice), cucumber, onions and a fiery peanut sauce. I’ll tell you that cooking your satay on a charcoal fire is far superior than the bbq, imparting a natural smokiness.

Grandpa Eddie(while sipping on homebrew) also fried up some chicken wings that were marinated in a ‘secret’ powder brought back from Singapore, I think it has blachan in it, giving it a slight not quite recognizable stinky but good dimension.

Mr Creative, my bro, tossed together a watercress and red pepper salad with fish sauce, it was so mouthwatering, we were going back for more.

We both had the Croque monsieur $6.00-Baked ham, gruyere and béchamel sandwich and glorious coffee. Love this place.

For our one night in Seattle we decided to check out Le Pichet for dinner recommended by several of our buddies. I’m a big fan of the rustic neighbourhood French bistro with its low lit wood heavy interiors and long bar seating for dinner or drinks, attracting a somewhat mixed bag of diners. I also kinda like sitting closer to people unlike in most western restos where personal space is expected.

True to my expected ordering and eating ways I went for the confit while the man had steak frites. There was liver in my dish, what a nice surprise, guess i didn’t read the menu fully. The frites were fresh and crispy, steak was topped with a tad of mushrooms, yum. Wine, yes, we had a French one.

As we ate we reminisced of the French restaurants we experience in Vietnam, quaint little places in Hanoi and Saigon, filled with French speaking tourists, expats and some locals. Clicking of wine glasses, food that made you relax and go ahhhh, some times there would be a faint smell of after diner cigarette smoke(long gone in Vancouver restaurants) and the chatter in different languages, mostly French.

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Guanajuato City, Mexico