Wednesday, April 05, 2006


Before restaurant reviewers in Vancouver started trying to imitate A.J. Liebling we had the Vancouver Sun's Alex MacGillivray. He was a meat and potatoes man who was big enough that I don't think he could have ever entered a restaurant incognito. I liked his short, to the point reviews. He sounded very personal because he would start his reviews with, "Your agent sat down and.....I always had the impression the review was just for me. As far as I can tell MacGillivray always wrote about the food and the wines except once. He went to the Kilimanjaro Restaurant, that used to be on Water Street in Gastown, and never mentioned the food. He wrote enthusiastically about Sarita the belly dancer. I suspect that A. J. Liebling might have skipped dinner, too.