Thanks to my time spent as a computer science student at the University of Waterloo in the late ’80s, I’ve had access to the Internet for about 20 years now, going back to well before the Web existed and when pretty much the only people online were scientists, students, and hardcore computer geeks. As such, I tend to be a little pedantic about terms related to the Internet being used incorrectly, like when newcomers back in the day would refer to Usenet newsgroups as “message boards” or “chat rooms”.

Therefore, I need to give the National Post’s Gina Mallet a slap on the wrist for her incorrect use of the word “blogger” in her review column this week. She goes on about how she uses the “blogosphere” to do research on restaurants to review, yet all of the quotes she uses from “bloggers” to make her point are actually taken from posts on Chowhound, which is a forum, not a blog. Ergo, the people she quotes aren’t bloggers. Well, maybe they have blogs elsewhere, but on Chowhound, they’re, uh, “Chowhounds”. Or maybe “Chowhounders”? Whatever you want to call them, they’re not bloggers.

Geeky nit-picking aside, the article itself is a bit odd, as Mallet visits four restaurants - Eight Wine Bar, beerbistro, KiWe Kitchen and Tundra - but only reviews two of them. She leaves beerbistro before even sitting down due to being given a lousy table (I think I know the one she’s talking about, and I can’t say that I blame her), and she attends a dinner at Tundra on a personal invite from the general manager, so she makes the proper ethical choice of giving an unrated - but still positive - overview of the meal.

As for the other two places, she enjoys the food at Eight but hates the atmosphere, and has just the opposite reaction to KiWe Kitchen:

The moment we enter the charming but empty candlelit bar, I smell uncertainty. [...] Service is brisk. Cocktails are pushed, but the wine list has few and not very good wines by the glass. The cooking shows that chef Aldo Lanzilotta (formerly of Teatro) has ambitions that exceed his kitchen’s competence. Forest mushroom ravioli ($12) sounds great but it’s tough outside and mushy inside. Seared tuna on fennel cream and savoy cabbage is more false advertising. I can’t believe any chef would stuff ravioli with lobster and white beans ($21). Lobster’s texture is its taste — but the texture is lost in the white bean mash.

Also in the Post:

• Brian Hutchinson profiles chef Rob Feenie, the former king of Vancouver’s fine dining scene who left his restaurants, Lumiere and Feenie’s, over a falling out with his investors, and who is now the “food concept architect” for casual dining chain Cactus Club Cafe.
• Zosia Bielski reports on the scuttled plans for a high-end restaurant perched next to the tracks on the train bridge at Summerhill.
• Jason Chow visits Japanese shop Sanko, where they’re celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, and tries yuzu, a citrus fruit common in Japan but still rare over here.
• Margaret Swaine highlights some pricey bottles from the Vintages Classics Collection, and also reviews a few things from last weekend’s regular Vintages release.
• Alison Broverman visits Rising Chefs, a kid-friendly cooking school in Scarborough.
• Bonnie Stern gets heart smart with three low-fat and low-cholesterol recipes.

Over in the Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates gives Eight Wine Bar a more thorough review than Gina Mallet. Or more accurately, you could say that she gives it two reviews - one based on her amazing first visit:

Five-spice oxtail ravioli also get a bold rethink, thanks to their cinnamon undertone and the clever match of chewy king mushrooms with al dente pasta. Even insalata caprese, the most-often botched item on tables today, gets invigorated by using charred tomatoes which have (somewhat) more flavour than raw tomatoes because (a) water loss due to charring intensifies flavour and (b) charring caramelizes sugars in the tomato, which sweetens it. Even roast chicken gets more taste traction than usual: It’s perfectly cooked, moist and plump, with crisp skin. For dessert that evening, there is more eloquently revisioned comfort food. Deep dark brownies slathered with caramel sauce, and oozing butter tarts with drunken raisins in short crust.

…and one based on her atrocious second one:

Blinis - tiny pancakes that are traditionally served freshly risen like little clouds, straight from the pan - are served cold and … flat. The $24 barely seared sliced tuna sits in a bath of soy-ginger sauce so strong and acrid that all tuna taste is obscured. Lobster Caesar for $35 is slightly overcooked chunks of cold lobster atop pedestrian Caesar salad, which, in turn, sits on an inexplicably greasy piece of mystery toast. If so-called pan-seared black cod has actually been seared, we can’t tell because the fish arrives drowned in a bowl of mediocre fish stock with shreds of overcooked carrots.

Also in the Globe:

• Beppi Crosariol reviews some (mostly) reasonably priced wines from California.
• Tenille Bonoguore suggests that the departure of Susur Lee marks the end of high-end tasting menus in Toronto. (I guess someone had better inform Splendido and Perigee).
• Zach Feldberg aims some well-deserved snark and sarcasm towards the “Toronto à la cart” online survey recently launched on the City’s website to solicit carefully coached feedback on the idea of expanding Toronto’s street food beyond hot dogs. Because taking promising new initiatives and then micro-managing them into oblivion is what our municipal government does best.
• Lucy Waverman cooks up some seasonal dishes for early spring.
• In the Travel section, Janet Forman explores the rapidly growing gastronomic scene in Scandinavia; Carrie Kierstead eats some very, very fresh octopus in Korea; and in an article that doesn’t appear to be online, Mark Wigmore takes a brewpub crawl in Victoria, BC.
• Also not online, except for Globe Insider subscribers, is Don Gillmor’s excellent essay on cookbooks, as inspired by Liz Driver’s new 1000+ page tome Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825-1949.

In the Toronto Star, Amy Pataki heads out of town to Langdon Hall, a swank inn and restaurant that regularly gets rave reviews from those who make the trip to Cambridge. Aside from a few complaints about the service, Pataki happily joins the chorus of praise:

[Chef Jonathan] Gushue says Toronto diners are adventurous, ordering his pig’s tail terrine, frog leg ravioli, and escargot. For them, he garnishes plates with purple daikon sprouts and aged sbrinz cheese (think Parmesan, but less nutty), and concocts amuse-bouches like ginger jelly layered with diced melon, tiny honey mushrooms and hazelnut cream.

The sophistication is there at lunch, albeit simplified. Lightly pickled beets surround a mound of pristine greens ($14); the horseradish is incorporated into a cream dressing. Flat-iron steak ($29) is too fatty for my taste - that’s Snake River Farms Wagyu beef for you - but properly chewy. With it comes a high-end take on steak house fried mushrooms and, even better, a stiff crepe folded around melting brie and mustard.

Also in the Star:

• Gord Stimmell optimistically recommends five wines for patio sipping.
• Mark Bittman’s syndicated column tells us that fermented black beans aren’t nearly as frightening as they may sound.
• In the Travel section, Richard Ouzounian runs down his six favourite sushi spots in Vancouver.