The other day, I received an email from my buddy, Rob, informing me that this was Passion for Pork Week in Vancouver. What, exactly, that meant I had no idea, but I knew that if pork was the central theme, then the gang at Campagnolo Restaurant were the people to see. I texted owner, Tom Doughty, to let him know we were coming. He gave Chef Ted Anderson the heads up and – well, we ended up sitting down a spectacular meal. Actually, I hesitate to call it a meal since “feast” would have been much more appropriate. Rob and his wife, Hillary, ended up bringing home leftovers equal to the amount of food the four of us ate for dinner…
To be honest, I didn’t think we’d ordered THAT much, but there were certain items we just had to have. Add in a few specials, a couple of surprises from the kitchen and…
In addition, we had some marinated olives, a Stoney Paradise tomato salad (so sweet, they almost taste like candy), and a little something from the kitchen: some wonderful Buffalo Mozzarella.
Next up, the salumi platter. We decided to go large so that we could try a wider variety of cured meats…
Alas memory fails me on the details of the various offerings but, suffice it to say, it was one of the high points of the night. Next time, I could just come back and eat that.
From there, we moved on to pizzas: a simple but excellent Margherita, and –
We then moved on to an enormous portion of the tasty house lasagna which was followed by our main:
Yes, we were stuffed. But when have you known me to miss dessert? Keeping with the running theme, we ordered all three dessert selections:
Wow. What a feast. Camp never disappoints.
If you’re in Vancouver, check them out:
Campagnolo Restaurant
1020 Main Street Vancouver, BC V6A 2W1 2W1
(604) 484-6018
A big thank you to Tom Doughty, Chef Ted Anderson, Chef Rob Belcham, and the rest of the gang at Campagnolo/Campagnolo Roma/Fat Dragon.
Our trip down Stargate Atlantis memory lane continues with…
THIS MORTAL COIL (410)
I can’t recall a time I was more frustrating writing (and rewriting and re-rewriting) a script than this one. On the surface, it seems like a straightforward enough story: our characters get into trouble but it turns out they’re not our characters, however they enlist the help of our characters who end up getting killed at episode’s end. Except, it turns out, they’re not our characters. It was one of those episodes that required a lot of explaining – which is something I’m averse to doing because I feel it slows things down. I prefer to assume the audience is smart enough to piece it together. According to Paul, however, I tend to assume way too much and, as a result, I kept receiving notes to “explain this” and “clarify that”. The challenge, of course, was not in explaining and clarifying but in doing so in a way that was concise and entertaining. How successful I was in the end is questionable since I tend to be my own worst critic and the frustration I experienced working on this script lingers. Still, the episode has its highlights, among them some very nice character moments.
It was great having Torri return as Weir(ish) – although this, sadly, would mark her final appearance on the show. Even though the assumption is that Elizabeth was killed by Oberoth (this was done to extinguish any hope for a successful rescue op since it would have been something that would have weighed on Sheppard moving forward), I never imagined she was actually dead. In my mind, Oberoth respected Elizabeth too much – and found her far too useful – to simply kill her. The plan was to have the team uncover the real Elizabeth, in stasis somewhere, in a future episode – something we never got the chance to do.
One of my favorite moments comes at the end of the episode – or, more accurately, after the episode has ended. McKay finally succeeds in tracking every Aurora class replicator vessel in the galaxy. As he and Sheppard look on, we see the ships flash up on the star map. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. Six in all. “That’s not so bad,”says McKay. “I guess the wraith have really taken a toll.” Suddenly, another eight BEEPS and the corresponding ships appear onscreen. Then, another fifteen leaves McKay and Sheppard staring, aghast. I was very specific that I wanted to fade out on an ominous sting, wait a beat, and then hear another eleven BEEPS punctuated by Rodney’s “Oh, crap.”
While Teal’c ending up at a reading of the Vagina Monologues was my favorite SG-1 ending, this was my favorite Atlantis ending.
Been a bit under the weather, but as usual your food pics make me hungry.
Not sure how I missed listening to the Noah talk– but really, Akemi makes perfect sense so not sure why you are frustrated. And for the record, unless you are privy to some info I have never read, Noah took his family and their spouses, not friends. Did you know there are many stories of the great flood in other religions and other regions.
Interesting (and Rob Ballard, surely Daniel Jackson’s cousin, lol) nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/ax/frame.html
@Joe at Campagnolo:
Okay I’m officially jealous.
I’ll be visiting Vancouver the first week of October, and while I typically avoid Italian restaurants, I’ll have to give Campagnolo a try. The reason I avoid Italian restaurants is because I travel to Italy twice a year and the varieties of Italian food found in the western hemisphere usually don’t measure up to what I’ve had in Milan.
Campagnolo looks to be the exception to break my rule though.
On This Mortal Coil:
I think you pulled off the right balance between explanation and action.
I was expecting that all of the duplicate members (Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon) would be killed leaving only replicated Weir (ala the original timeline Daniel joining with the alternate timeline Carter, O’Neill, and Teal’c in Moebius II). But you slipped me a curve ball with replicated Weir dying too.
I was surprised that the replicators killed replicated Sheppard rather than capturing him (yes I know it tidies up things, but capturing him seemed more logical). I know that the replicators were wiping out humans to deny the Wraith their food supply, but Sheppard was an intelligence asset.
@Tam Dixon:
Thanks for the Nashville suggestions; I showed the picture-parking ticket section to my wife since she’ll be doing the sightseeing…I’ll just be standing on a booth or sitting in conference paper presentations.
I will try to check in on comments while I’m there and I’ll let you know my thoughts on the Loveless Cafe.
As usual, the pics are making me drool. If civilization survives the next few months, and all the various volcanoes fail to trigger a global ice age, I may have to plan a drive out west. Not just to eat in Vancouver of course, but as long as I drive to the Pacific, I may as well slip across the border. And maybe come home via the Transcanadian highway.
Mortal Coil was a bit of a depressing episode, what with the presumed death of our replicant dopplegangers. The biggest downside is that this is a deriviative idea from SG-1, which is the main reason it lost some of its punch. But yes, the ending was a great payoff, and set up very nicely exactly how bad a strategic situation our heroes are in. Maybe not my favorite episode ending, but I’d have to think awhile to come across one that tops it. Thanks for the post, and hope the weekend sees your Snow Monkeys on the rebound.
This Mortal Coil was interesing. “I prefer to assume the audience is smart enough to piece it together.” I wasn’t. (But that is not unusual.) I got real lost, so I just started watching at all the pretty actors. Two Ronons. Thank you! Two Sheppards. Thank you! My mind started wandering. Hey, where was Carter? Why is Ronon wearing his gun in jail? The two teams meeting was fun though.
The food looks great!
Grilled (yes!) beef (yes!) tongue (noooo!)
Yum~~desserts, thank you!
I think you did great with the explanations in the episode, it was a really interesting one. I was really upset by the replicated Team’s death’s though as they had the same memories and feelings as our Team did. I sometimes choose to believe they didn’t die, the repilcators just took them back and planned on making use of them somewhere.
AnneTeldy & lil sis: How are you both doing today? I hope Anne had a good night. We are still praying for you.
Das: I’m so glad you able to stop the car and that you are ok. Hopefully, they will get the car fixed but…it’s going to take a while to get your confidence back with it. 🙁
Alisa Russell: I would love to give a “back and forth” on religion with you! Do you have a twitter account? If so, send me a DM. My twitter name is “Jertam”. We have a lot of fun debating Biblical stories. Sadly, one of the clergy we would debate points with moved to Virginia. Our loss is their gain. He (Mark) traveled the world studying scripture and had his own church in Kosovo for a while. Mark has a very open mind. Which was amazing because he is Church of Christ. I grew up in a very strict Christian setting (fundamental Baptist). The Church of Christ makes the Fundamental Baptists seem foot loose! I find all religions and Christian dominations fascinating. Anyway, feel free to drop a line on Twitter or Facebook (Tammy Dixon).
JeffW: I’m glad your wife was warned. Hubby looked up the companies and the one in Nashville is owned by the same company as in Memphis. It’s surprising that both cities are letting this company screw over tourists! Me thinks some council members must be getting something in return.
Mr. M.: The food looks sensational! I don’t remember that episode well. I’ll watch it again today and add to the comments later. Have a great day!!
Lovely food. Question, is there a standard for the consistency of polenta? I like mine thick enough to slice, but I’ve had it be globby like pudding.
Anne Teldy and sis, you are in my thoughts. Hang in there.
The Vagina Monologues ending, really? :-S “This Mortal Coil” had an ending that made me laugh, for sure. But the other one was just painful to watch. Imo, of course.
I don’t know why it’s been so hard for me to keep up on your blogs. It’s not like I’m working or anything. : ( Actually I’m amazed at how much I’m working to try to get work. Thanks for your note on the FB page. Just a lot of STUFF going on. It’s like I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading the blog. But I’m going to try going forward, and then I’ll work back and see what’s been going on. Later… After I watch The Mob Boss and write a review for Fox about it. It’s coming on Monday.
Mortal Coil: This one gave me the “heebie jeebies”. I’ve had dreams where I’m in a familiar place and everyone/everything is different. Is that just me? Oh, ok, awkward….. Is this the episode that J. F. cut his eyebrow for real and the make-up team had to disguise the injury? If so, they did a great job. I couldn’t tell that he was injured. Anyway, it was an entertaining show. I refuse to believe the doubles are dead though. I think they were given a replicator gun and survived to fight on other worlds. That is my story and I’m sticking to it.
Oh and P. S. I loved the ending! All those little dots….
The beep ending was great. Making nightmares out of cutesy, digitized bloops. I have something deep and flattering to say about that, I’m just too lazy to craft a suitable comment.
“The plan was to have the team uncover the real Elizabeth, in stasis somewhere, in a future episode – something we never got the chance to do.”
Awww man, that would have been awesome. 🙁
I loved the ending on this episode. So dark and ominous. beep-beep-epepepepepepep! “Oh crap!” You realy should have added one more beep after those two words. I can just immagine that beep right afterwords haunting and vivid…..
I was glad how balanced this episode turned out. But my favs in sga were ‘The Siege’ and ‘Be All My Sins Remembered.’ They still don’t live up in comparrison to “Resurgance” and “Deliverance” and the later half of SGUs second season.
@ Joe AND JeffW: I’m planning to book our next trip to YVR tomorrow. Perhaps we can all meet at Campagnolo the first week of October!
Jeff, you can contact me privately via Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. I use my real name (Gilder McC…) and “baterista9” on both.
One note, Joe. Husband & I are not the gourmands that you and your usual companions are. At Campagnolo, we’ll stick with the less-adventurous dishes. At least my digestive issues have been eliminated!
I liked this episode. I think “Oh shit” would have been funnier, although I’m not sure about the censorship on those words. : )