Gas Price Rant #14 Trimac trucking delivers more bad gas pains · Monday June 9, 2008 by colin newell
Victoria B.C. area gas prices rise to $144.9 this morning.
I am stunned.
Repeating what a relative told me on the weekend… he is an insider in the Petroleum distribution industry…
“On lower Vancouver Island, Trimac Trucking brings in the Gas and Diesel to all the stations… they are a one source supply for fuel in the Victoria area… It is a monopoly. There is an electronic system called Viper that auto-dials all the local gas stations with a digitally synthesized voice stating what the gas price will be that day…“
Trimac is simply the trucking company that delivers the goods… no more or less.
The product distributor calls the entire shot… hence the instant message and hence the simultaneous price increases.
Yesterday I noticed that the price of a Mexican avocado doubled to $1.89
That is one of the signs that we could be in for very hard times.
Meantime, gas and oil producers, their executives and investors will be living like Kings.
Dining in Victoria as good as it gets #1 · Monday May 26, 2008 by colin newell
To describe the restaurant, Brasserie L`ecole as unpretentious is like pontificating on the genuinely modest nature of the Dali Lama.
Shut up and eat already.
This is one of the reasons I find Eat magazine so amusing – whenever it appears on the stands that is.
They gush and genuflect on restaurants like Brasserie L`ecole, Cafe Brio and Zambri’s…
And others. They back slap. They self reward and worship.
It is a veritable love fest.
But I digress.
Brasserie L`ecole is a great restaurant with some amazing pluses, twists and turns in what should be a stuffy and boring French restaurant.
Starters: It appears that guests can order 2 glasses of wine from virtually any bottle in their cellar. Name one other restaurant in Victoria where this is an option?
We go for the Steak-Frites… Steak perfectly prepared served with a bassinet of skinny Belgian fries, anointed with salt, baptized with truffle oil and parmasan.
Expect to book 2 weeks in advance for a good seating during the dinner hour(s).
In this 1st in a marathon of local restaurant reviews, diner Colin Newell hopes to educate, entertain and reveal some of Victoria’s gems. Bon Appetit!
Food on the table #2 · Tuesday May 20, 2008 by colin newell
Our Monday to Friday morning coffee circle is an enigma.
Imagine one or two tables pushed together at the Finnerty Express (our UVic hang-out) at 10:00AM.
Ironically, I show up with coffee brewed in my lab and healthful treats that I baked in my kitchen. The only redeeming thing is that my posse (entourage and extended coffee family) are a combination of retired and semi-retired faculty and working professional stiffs – that buy stuff in this hallowed campus canteen.
It is a pretty modest affair; mugs of whisker scalding black coffee and Texas sized multi-grain bran muffins share the formica with dentine Necrotizing rice-crispy squares, carrot cake, green tea, lattes and cappuccinos. Each personality at the coffee table is pretty much matched to his beverage (and snack) of choice.
Topics of conversation run the circuit from World conflict, pestilence, plagues, pleasures, local politics and politics abroad.
Todays topic (one of several actually considering the number of times we change direction per minute!) was food portions in Canadian restaurants versus the ones in American restaurants.
Before I transcribe our findings today, let me start with this snippet I picked up this evening via BoingBoing.Nets link to lileks.com as James riffs on Disney World…
Dinner was large. The portions are huge. They might as well put the plate down and say “here’s more than you can possibly eat, and here’s nine potatoes on the side. Would you like another gallon of high fructose corn syrup? Okay, well, don’t forget to leave room for six pies.” There’s something a bit sad about seeing childless adult Disney fans, lanyards spattered with pins, eating slabs of prime rib thick as a Tolstoi novel, the chairs about to splinter from their enormous fundaments. On the other hand, what gives them happiness? Food and Disney. This is the happiest place on earth after all – even though there seems to be a subset of Disney nerds who appear immune to the very thing they’ve come to experience.
Wow. Yea. Wish I could think and write like that.
One of our cafe crewmen recently returned from a motorcycle trip to Washington state – the interior of which (Yakima, Walla Walla, Ellensburg, Wenatchee) appeared to have been sucked into a surreal black hole and spat out by a David Lynch novella — dusty roadhouses where middle aged dance girls sport feather boas, drink tequila fizz, disappearing into back rooms with muscle shirted men – smokes rolled in sleeves James Dean style while men with alarming big white teeth tend bar…
My kind of place.
And the adjacent eatery might as well have been named The Terminal Diner for its artery clogging, indigestion inducing and gastric lavage promoting coterie of all things Too Much Food!
Order the Pork chops? You get 4 6 ounce chops with 2 baked potatoes and enough rice pilaf to feed a family of five.
Dessert? Their 7-layer cake is $4.95 and is a whopping 10 gravity-defying inches high and 3 inches wide.
I would go on… but I have lost my appetite for words.
Point being – Our brothers and sisters to the South eat way too much stuff… and we are quickly falling into their size grande shoes.
Thankfully, there are still a few eateries (fancy and not so…) in Victoria where you can come away feeling somewhat peckish. Oh yea… and if there is anyone out there that can explain the disparity between Canadian and American portions… please dish me up some opinions!
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Red Fish Blue Fish Seafood in Victoria B.C. Canada · Sunday May 18, 2008 by colin newell
Victoria B.C. Canada is ground zero for Fish and Chip shops.
And let me clarify that…
Fish and Chip shops that serve Halibut or Salmon or Cod.
We can dismiss pretty much any place in England because the fish they serve is awful .
Red Fish Blue Fish has an interesting concept: They are Ocean Wise
What is Ocean Wise?
Ocean Wise is a Vancouver Aquarium conservation program, created to help restaurants and their customers make environmentally friendly seafood choices.
The Ocean Wise label on a menu item assures you that item is a good choice for our oceans. British Columbia is known for its fresh, high quality seafood and Red fish Blue Fish is proud to be 100% Ocean Wise when it comes to the seafood they serve.
I used to think that I was Ocean wise living next to an ocean and all…
Maybe now I will just settle on Ocean savvy. Yea. I think that will do.
Check the menu. And then look at the competition over at Barb`s Place Yea. 24$ for 2 Pieces of Halibut and a drink at Barb’s – $17.50 at Red Fish Blue Fish.
That is a car payment! Red Fish Blue Fish is not only affordable – it also offers a killer view of our working harbor (Seaplanes and all…)
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