Brian Jessel Cabriolet Charity Event

On Saturday evening my wife and I attended the Brian Jessel Cabriolet Charity event in Burnaby at the Brian Jessel Show room.  This was a very high class event with the all of Vancouver's upper society attending.  I am still wondering what the hell I was doing there.

As it turns out, my wife's company is very large and it was one of the corporate sponsors of the event. This as a result, provided my wife and I free tickets to attend an event we would never had been able to afford.

The event was catered by some of Vancouver's finest restaurants, such Vij's, C, NU, Odoul's, Joey's, Joe Fortes, Elixir, Player's Chop House as well Market By Jean George just to name a few.  It was great to see Vikram Vij and Robert Clark both on site fully immersed in their craft and being their usual self's entertaining and mingling with the guests.  Each restaurant and or Chef  had an offering of Hors D'oeuvres, canapes or Amuse- gueule ( which literally means means 'gob amuser' but is translated more delicately as 'palate pleaser').

Players Chop house had a large variety of fresh oysters and the standard accompaniments which were fresh and delicious.  Vikram offered a Lamb curry over rice as well as a Vegetarian curry which was a little on the salty side but delicious as usual. Robert Clark offered a Vegetrain Salad and Pork Rillette on crostini. The Rillette was a little on the dense side but the flavor was superb.  Joey's offered a piece of Albacore tuna on crostini that was ultra fresh with clean flavors, it was superb for a Hors D'oeurve.

Finally, Jay Leno was the entertainment for the evening and went on stage around 10 pm.  At this point, my wife and I had been there since approximately 7:30 pm (let me remind you that the event had an open bar) and we were both  a bit on the tipsy side by the time he hit the stage.  Once Jay Leno made his way to the stage, I was unusually surprised by how short he was.  Jay Leno has to be no more than 5"5 or 5"6. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home and I was only able to snap the photo of Jay with my Blackberry.

I must say the event as an absolute great experience for our first time.  The food and entertainment were spectacular and there was an open bar, what more do you need.  Great food, Great entertainment and Free Booze.


Anti Chef

A day in the Life In Van City

Welcome to my first Blog post. The intent of this Blog is to fulfill a need inside me that was lost when I stopped working in the Hospitality Industry (what i call retiring from being a Chef).

As a Chef on the Vancouver restaurant and Hotel scene for almost 15 years, I had finally reached a point in my life where I had lost the passion for the industry. Just to clarify, I had not, nor have I ever lost the passion for cooking. What I had lost was the taste for working 80-100 hours a week, never having weekends or holidays off and working for an ungrateful owner that paid you peanuts to keep his restaurant running like a well oiled machine.

It was about this time that my wife and I had gotten married and after working one of those particularly long days, I had an epiphany in which I realized that the actual life of a Chef was not as glamorous as the Food Network was portraying it and that I was starting to "HATE" what I did for a living.

I had to make a very tough decision, I had spent my entire adult (and adolescent) life in the hospitality industry. I had limited skills outside in the real world and now I was considering making a transition into a world I knew nothing about. I eventually made that transition, and found a Monday to Friday job in Sales in which surprisingly, I am very good at.

When I made the transition, I never realized the skills I learned as Chef actually made me a very well rounded individual with skills that were desirable in a world I was initially so frightened of.

I plan on showing you many different aspects of the Hospitality industry along with my own personal culinary adventures.

Some of the things you can expect are:

• In's and Out's of the Hospitality Industry
• Reviews of Restaurants, Hotels, Airlines and other modes of transportation
  
• Recipes and Recipes Reviews
• Product Reviews
• Interviews with Industry Insiders
• Previous and Current experiences with Culinary Underworld
  

And I cannot forget, my complete Guide to Social Misfitting.




Anti Chef