Bright Lighis .
Home for the Holidays...
Nids Pages

Shopping all
done? All righty
then: some tasty
dining news for
you to digest with
eggnog beside the
old Yule log.

Consume them all now or savour them through-
out the week, being careful of course not to burn up
all those Yule logs before the Big Day, which, as they
say in the land of cliches, is just around she corner.

O90
The Observatory, atop Grouse Mountain, North
Vancouver, 984-0661.

As noted in the Nov. 24 Table Hoppiag, the
Grouse Nest is out and the Observatory is in atop
North Shore’s ever-popular resort ski hill. Grouse’s
itfurbished showpiece dining room was unveiled in a
Nov. 29 grand opening.

About time, roo.

Ar 33, the Nest was getting a touch long in the
dining tooth to be Grouse’s feature restaurant. The
Observatory replaces it with a refreshing combination
of wood and whimsey.

The Henderson Ritter Design upgrade focuses on
the themes of Envisioning and Storytelling, and
grand panoramic Lower Mainland observations of
course.

Large wooden compasses and other observational
structures have replaced the Nest’s tired lamps and
other dated ceiling decor. The storytelling is courtesy
of Grouse’s vault of archival photographs and its rich
heritage of vigorous outdoorsmanship,

The Observatory is part of a $1.1 million Grouse
Mountain resort overhaul that kicked off approxi-
mately Qvo years ago with the renovation of its main
lodge.

Turnout to the opening was a touch sparse —
doubtless due in large part to inclement weather —
but for those in attendance there was much on tie
plate to be impressed by from the repertoire of new
executive chef Dominque Dien.

He replaces long-time Nest chef Jay Lynn, who
has moved on to the Hollyburn Country Club.

The dining Dominator hails originally from
Lyons, France. His resume ranges tar and wide,
beginning at the tender age of 14 when he appren-
uced in the kitchens of Grenoble’s Rostang, a three-
star Michelin restaurant. ;

Other ings of note include Maxim’s in Paris
and Roger Verge’s Moulin de Mougins in Cannes.

Dien was.also the Shah of Iran’s personal chef in
the late 1970s,

More recently he has served in the kitchens of
some of Teronto’s finest hotels: Truffles at the Four
Seasons and Sanssouci in Sutton Place.

See Sampling page &

Wednesday, December 22, 1999 - North Shore News - 15

v

HORTH SHORE NEWS COMMUNITY LIFE

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman .

DOMINIQUE Dien prepares a dish in the kitchen of the new Observatory restaurant atop
Grouse Mountain. Dien is the new executive chef in charge of the mountain's three restau-

rants.

Ghosts of
bygone
Christmas

Dear Santa,

Here [ go, number 47 in
my szrics of letters to you,
although truth be told, I
didn’t write the first five.
How have you been? I guess
the end of the millennium is
keeping you pretty busy
building things with the
number 2,000 on them. Say,
do you have any leftovers
from 1,000? I bet they’d
ferch a pretty good penny on
an Internet auction.

I was sitting the other
day, thinking about
Christmas when I was young.
(Who doesn’t at my age?) I
don’t remember much of
what I got under the tree,
or, with all due respect, in
my stocking but § do
remember a lot of vivid
images.

] lived in an area where
there was snow almost every
Christmas and I remember
looking out the window ar
the cleanest blanket on the
earth that I could imagine.

There was always some-

. thing peaceful about the

snow.

It covered everything in a
uniform coat and the mud,
the potholes, the cracked
sidewalks and the brown
lawns all seemed to blend
into one. To rush out-and
put the first footprints in the
snow was a real treat for me.

LT also remember the
Christmas lights on the
houses. They weren’t all chat
spectacular then, a few

See Memories page 11