Ah, the benefits of being a freelance writer. A couple of nights ago, Susanne and I had the opportunity to sit down with Tejpal of 1234Pens.com, John Chow of John Chow dot Com and his wife, Sarah, and have a fine three-hour dining experience at India Gate Restaurant in Downtown Vancouver. We were invited by part-owner Gurmeet S. Gupta, who told us that India Gate has been at its current location (616 Robson Street) for thirty years. Needless to say, the neighbourhood has changed quite a bit since they first opened, especially in recent years with all the new condo developments.

I don’t eat Indian food very often, but I have to say that what I ate at India Gate was simply superb. John wanted to make the dishes as spicy as possible, but I didn’t want the flaming mouth to drown out the subtle flavours of the various spices. We asked Gurmeet to create a surprise menu for us that would showcase the best that India Gate had to offer. He certainly delivered.

Before I get to the food itself, here is an interior shot of the restaurant, which is actually quite a bit bigger than I expected based on how it looks from the outside.

It’s pretty casual in there, complete with a TV mounted in the corner so that diners can take in the Vancouver Canucks game (Luongo and crew beat the LA Kings that night 4-2) while sampling some of the best Indian food this city has to offer. That says a lot, considering that Vancouver is home to a lot of great restaurants, spanning just about every kind of ethnic cuisine imaginable. And this includes some really greasy Chinese food.

Vegetable Pakora

We started out with this dish which consists of spinach and onion dipped in mild spiced batter and fried, served with mint chutney. If you like deep fried soft shelled crab, you’ll like pakora. Despite being fried, it was actually quite light and airy, while the dipping sauce added just a touch of sweetness.

Meat Samosa

Take two crisp patties and stuff them with minced beef and you’ve yourself a meat samosa. This is one of the most common things you’ll find on an East Indian menu.

Mango Lassi

While some people may consider this a “girly” drink, I’m secure enough about my masculinity to enjoy this very tasty yogurt smoothie-like beverage. It’s almost like a milkshake.

Garlic Nan

All this time, I thought that it was spelled with two A’s, but I guess I’ve been wrong. Nan is similar to roti or pita bread in many ways, and it is commonly used to accompany just about any dish. It’s great for dipping in the various sauces, and this garlic version added a little bit of flavour, but not too much.

Vegetable Biryani

Biryani takes rice and cooks it with vegetables (or meat), garnishes it with coconut and almonds, and then tops it off with papadum (a lentil-based wafer-like cracker) and chutney. I would have liked to get the lamb or chicken version, but with more dishes on the way, I can see why Gurmeet got us the vegetable version.

Tandoori Mixed Grill

I’m a meat lover, so this was my favorite dish of the night. We got a wide assortment of meat, served on a sizzling platter. I especially enjoyed the chicken tandoori, while the lamb tikka and sheekh kabob were quite good as well.

Lamb Korma

Think of it as the Indian take on Irish stew (or maybe it’s the other way around). Tender chunks of boneless lamb served with ground coconut, almonds, and a thick sauce.

Butter Chicken

Also known as Murg Makhani, butter chicken — according to Gurmeet — is easily one of the most popular East Indian dishes served around these parts, and I’d have to agree. It’s just as common as burger and fries. That said, the butter chicken served at India Gate was top notch with soft, succulent, moist pieces of chicken served with fresh tomatoes and cream. It was so good, we asked for seconds.

Pillau Rice

We had to counter all the protein and sauces found in the other dishes with something a little lighter and the pillau rice filled that need perfectly. Indian and Chinese food aren’t all that different, in this respect.

Kheer

Onto dessert. For the first of two desserts that we had, we got kheer, which is a rice cooked with milk and served cold with almonds. You could say that it’s similar to rice pudding, but thinner in consistency, of course. If you like almond milk, chances are that you’ll like kheer.

Gulab Jaman

And you wonder where Tim Horton’s got their idea for timbits. I prefered this over the kheer, but I think it’s largely because I like English-style bread pudding and the gulab jaman was similar. The warm milk balls were served with sugar syrup and flavored with rose water. Very nice.

All in all, I had a great experience at India Gate Restaurant and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for good Indian food in Vancouver. Want to try it yourself? Gurmeet gave four $20 gift certificates to John, and John in turn is giving them away to a few lucky readers. Check out how you can get some free food over at John’s post about India Gate.

Today is a very special day. Not just for me. Not just for the blogosphere. But for the entire world as we know it. This is not an exaggeration, because… drum roll please… Beyond the Rhetoric turns one year old today. The first post welcomed you into the blogging mind of, well, me, and now that 365 days have past, a lot has changed.

For starters, I recently abandoned the sinking ship known as QuickBlog by GoDaddy and jumped on the rising star we call Wordpress. Since then, I’ve installed a number of fun plug-ins, grown the community through MyBlogLog, and made a few blogging buddies along the way, going out for dot com pho on a weekly basis.

I’ve been writing for much more than one year, but this blog has received more attention than any of my self-branded products in the past. Yes, even more than the Geocities-hosted legend known as Now That’s Entertainment. I think RSS has a lot to do with it.

Obviously, I didn’t do all of this on my own. I got to know people like the chest-kicking Ed Lau, self-proclaimed dot com mentor Stephen Fung, the Malta-bound Darren Barefoot, the very pink Kumiko Suzuki and the root of all evil John Chow. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It is all about you, all of you, my growing readership… it is because of you that I’m still here, now blogging on a daily basis. Thank you. Like seriously. Thank you.

The next milestone? How about ten years? 100 RSS subscribers? Technorati rating of under 1000? Official dot com mogul status?

Just a quick reminder that there are less then 48 hours left in the Nintendo Wii contest, brought to you by John Chow dot Com and 1234 Pens. Yes, you can win a Wii for free (frii?).

Click here for full contest details.

To enter the Root Of All Evil Nintendo Wii contest, just make a post in your blog about it. Link to me using the anchor text “make money online,” link to www.1234Pens.com using “promotional pens,” and link to this blog post.

Tossing in an extra link to Beyond the Rhetoric with the anchor text “freelance writing” would be highly appreciated as well (though not necessary for entry).

As much as it is important to keep track of the world of politics and social issues, news programs on television know that these issues don’t bring in the same level of viewership as the latest celebrity scandal or the latest stupid goof by Dubya caught on tape. I saw this clip on Leno last night and it motivated me to find on the original on jibjab.com. Check it out: it’s hilarious (and insightful).

Bloggers were once on the fringe of society. They were those strange people that had their heads buried in their CRT monitors all day, ranting and raving about their everyday misfortunes. It was unfiltered, unabashed, and completely uncensored. They didn’t care if readers disagreed with them. They didn’t care if it hurt their RSS subscriptions or Alexa rankings. These days, blogging is quite the different exercise.

Now bloggers are those “normal” people who have their eyes buried in their LCD monitors all day, happily telling one another that they are making good posts, commenting on celebrity gossip and how to make money online. Maybe they’re blogging from a MacBook, sipping on a latte at the local Starbucks. Yes, things have changed. It went from dark and insightful to overly bright and cheerful.

It’s ironic, really, because blogging used to be an emotionally charged event that gave us a deep look into the blogger’s soul. Today, with the advent of Google Adsense and the proliferation of affiliate marketing, blogging has become a business like any other. I’m not saying that monetizing your blog is a bad idea — I’m just as guilty of trying to make a buck to two off of my blog as anyone else — but when the money-making aspect takes precedent over personal expression and the entertainment of your readers, something has gone horribly wrong. Like Lemmy-wrong.

I’ve been accused of being a pessimist, seeing the worst of things out there and not believing in the power of positive thinking. I beg to differ. I feel that I am a realist, because when there are millions and millions of blogs out there, only a very small percentage ever become a Darren Rowse or a John Chow. Or even a Darren Barefoot. It’s not that you shouldn’t try — you will never succeed if you don’t put in the effort — but you shouldn’t go in with an expectation for success either.

Emo music is known for being very emotionally charged, angry at the world, slitting their wrists to feel alive. Tickle Me Emo from Mad TV depicts this lifestyle quite well. The way blogging is going now, it seems to be the polar opposite. Instead of being unrealistically negative, the comments I find on many blogs — John Chow’s in particular — can be overly positive. Seeing short comments like “Great post!” or “Another fantastic entry, John” is nothing out of the ordinary. Is this a bad thing? I’m not sure. But I get the same gut reaction to that as I do to the annoying person who is over-the-top positive all the time.

Has blogging become the anti-emo? Chime in with your thoughts below.

Akeelah and the Bee received a lot of critical acclaim when it first came out last year, but I never actually got around to watching it while it was still in theatres. So, a couple of nights ago, I happened to have a little bit of free time, so Susanne suggested that I curl up with her and the DVD version of Akeelah and the Bee to see what all the hub-bub was all about. It wasn’t nearly as kitchy as Little Miss Sunshine, but it offered a great story that actually captivated my interest for the entirety of its 112 minute running time. Who would have known that a spelling bee could be so intriguing?

Well, it’s not so much the spelling bee itself that makes the movie what it is, but rather the intimate interaction between Akeelah Anderson (played wonderfully by the young Keke Palmer) and Dr. Joshua Larabee (portrayed by the legendary Laurence Fishburne). It’s sort of like Karate Kid, except with word games instead of “wax on, wax off” exercises. Dr. Larabee takes Akeelah under his wing, coaching her through to the National Spelling Bee.

It’s a “black” movie, but it’s not about gangbanging and hustlin’ (though there are gang members in the movie… Crabman from My Name is Earl plays gang-leader Derrick-T). Akeelah goes to Crenshaw Middle School in one of the most notorious L.A. neighbourhoods, and she belongs to a single-mother family. She’s a total brainiac, but she doesn’t want to stick out from the crowd. It is through Dr. Larabee that Akeelah learns to be comfortable with who she is. It’s heartwarming, it’s touching, and it’s inspiring. You can’t help but feel empowered by Fishburne’s presence, and you can’t help but root on little Akeelah as she strives for success.

A couple of things that I thought were a little strange were 1) Akeelah befriends a Hispanic boy who goes to Woodland Hills, a school otherwise occupied by well-to-do white people and 2) the only Asian representation was a Chinese father bent on his child’s success at any cost and the son, who looked much more Indonesian or Laotian than Chinese.

If you enjoy movies like Dead Poets Society, you’ll like Akeelah and the Bee. Even I didn’t know a lot of words little Akeelah was spelling…. though I do know how to spell “synecdoche.” (Ironically, the Firefox built-in spell checker does not.)

FOUR STARS OUT OF FIVE