food-zen

bye bye food-zen

2008-07-22T17:05:00.002-04:00

... as all three of you who used to read my blog (hi mum!) might have noticed there ain't much happening here any more. I've moved on to supposedly more verdant pastures at Sour Grapes ... I'm now going to attempt to import all my old food-zen posts into my new blog so if you hear someone crying that'll be me.... eventually I'll probably cancel food-zen, or maybe I'll wait to see how long it takes Google to delete the account (my guess is never)...

Xmas in Shanghai (#1)

2006-12-25T04:05:00.000-05:00

What better way to start posting again than by recounting Christmas... warms everyones heart doesn't it? Of course I'm only going to talk about the food as what's more important?

We began on the 23rd of December. Mei, longterm manager and financial controller of one of the organisation I work for had organised a staff dinner. The ayi (the cleaning lady who works at the gallery) had been cooking all day. In fact I think that most of the staff had been cooking all day. Ingrid had made some tasty indonesian curry, clove scented and spicy, as well as some fried rice, complete with peas and pieces of chinese sausage.
I made some meatballs in tomato sauce the night before and brought those. The ayi made fish with a sweet and sour sauce, stir fried frog with dried chilies, delicious shrimp pate put onto slices of lotus root and shallow fried, and a very grandma style beef bone soup with celery, onions and carrots. Mona, my sichuanese co-manager, made some stir fried cucumber (what, of course??) with scrambled egg.
After much giggling and squealing (9 girls and 4 boys = much giggling and squealing) we ended the meal with some fresh fruit and Sean and myself beat a hasty retreat to Pudong and L and M's western Xmas bonanza.
L's grandma had managed to air freight over from Canada a turkey, lasagne, meat balls in sauce, tourtiere, and dessert. The woman is a miracle and the turkey was one of the tastiest I've had, moist and tasty. By the time dessert rolled around I think that I was ready to die. We followed dinner up with a gift exchange: to that effect I'd bought a shiny tea thermos, a bag of handmade peanut candy, and a decorated chamber pot. I think my gifts were the best.

Next... Tiphane, Jean, and the french obsession with dairy based fat.

german style potato salad

2006-07-11T09:48:00.000-04:00

In Shanghai, good potatoes and bacon are hard to come by so you'll probably have a better time with this if you can get some nice waxy or boiling potatoes and some good smoky bacon with just enough fat. 1 large potato is good for 2 people with other dishes and the whole thing is a)easily prepared in advance and b)nice as a part of an uncouth antipasti selection.

for 2 potatoes, boiled in skin and then set aside:
2-3 good slices bacon, cut into small 1/2 inch strips and then fried gently to render all their fat and become nice and crispy. Remove them from the pan and leave the fat. Add 3-4 torn up sage leaves and let them fry a bit then add about 1/4 cup cidre vinegar and enough sugar to make a nice sweet and sour balance. This will depend on your own taste and on how acidic your vinegar is, 1 Tbsp is a good start. Salt the dressing to taste and then pour it over the thickly sliced potatoes which should still be hot pr at least warm. Garnish with more sage leaves.
As a note, you may want to make the dressing in a bowl after frying the bacon as depending on your pan, adding vinegre and heating may a)thoroughly clean your frying pan and b)give your dressing a fine metallic flavour.

Restaurant Anatolien - Montreal

2006-02-03T12:26:00.000-05:00

A quick post from a limited dinner last night. Restaurant Anatolien is located on the ground floor of an apartment building on ave du Parc just south of Jean Talon. Half of the rest is a smoking Turkish men's hang out and the other half is a resto that at 7:00 on a Thrusday night was completely deserted.
Sean opted for a chicken shish kebab with rice and fries .. the doubling of the starch always has a certain smell of fomulaic Greek food about it, for me at least, but, to each their own. I ordered the filet mignon kebab with "Ali Nazik" sauce, described on the menu as a yogurt, eggplant and garlic sauce.. yum yum.
We had a Heiniken each as an appetizer. Sean's arrives and it's well... it's ok. It's grilled chicken thighs marinated in a sort of non-descript red substance. The side salad is that international or salads, iceberg, a bit of tomato, maybe a few other things. I stopped paying attention.
The filet mignon is good. Possibly tenderised, it has that kind of somewhat spongy texture, a bit like a minute steak, but maybe that's just my imagination. The "Ali Nazik" sauce is good without being spectacular, a tatziki and babaganoush bastard child.
The best thing going here is the bread which is really fresh and nice, iranian style flat bread... yummy.
For 60 bucks with tax tip and 4 beers in total, not worth a revisit.

Restaurant Anatolien
Fine Cuisine Turque
7101 Ave du Parc
514-270-3700

Lamb Byriani

2006-01-26T18:05:00.000-05:00

Byriani,
originally uploaded by mook elliott.

Inspired by the New York Times article I chose to honour my entirely non-existant connection with Central Asia by making Byriani. What's more I went looking for Hyberdadi recipies and ended up making my own version. The Central Asian versions just seemed a bit bland. The picture shows the Byriani with yogurt, fried onions, and coriander.

3 Tbsp ghee or oil
1 cinnamon stick, about 4-5 inches
4 green cardamom
4 cloves
1 tsp cumin
2 medium onions sliced
2 blades of mace
3 kg’s lamb leg bone in, cut into chunks about the size of dice, get the butcher to do this
1 “ piece of ginger, chopped
1 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk yogurt
2 cups water
3 cups cubed butternut squash or pumpkin

Heat the ghee in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the spiced until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the onions and fry until dark brown. Add the lamb and salt and cook until the meat has turned colour. Add the yogurt and water and bring to a boil then cover and simmer until the lamb is tender but not falling apart, adding liquid as necessary, about 45 minutes to 1hr 15 minutes, depending on the meat and the size of it’s cut.
Uncover, add the squash and cook vigorously until the sauce is thick and clings to the meat. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3 Tbsp ghee or oil
1 cinnamon stick, same as above
4 green cardamom
4 cloves
1/2 tsp fennel
2 blades mace
2 medium onions sliced
2 cups basmati
1 cup of raisins (or more)
1 cup almonds roughly chopped (or more)
1 tsp saffron + 1 cup hot water
2-3 cups water
salt

In a large pot with a snug fitting lid (a dutch oven would be perfect) heat the ghee on medium and fry the spices for a few seconds until fragrant. Add the onions and cook until dark golden and soft. In the meantime, grind the saffron and soak in hot water for 10 minutes.
Add the rice to the pot and fry, stirring gently until it is well coated with oil. You could even let it brown a bit. Add the raisins, almonds, saffron, and water, along with the lamb. The liquids should cover the rice but not drown it. Season with some salt and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and either put in a 350 F oven for 45 min or cook on very low heat for about 30 minutes. In either case, let the byriani rest for a good 15 minutes, covered, off the heat before serving. It’s also a good idea to check the rice about 3/4 of the way through cooking to make that the rice is cooked.

Serve with yogurt and fresh coriander and fried onions made by frying one large sliced onion in 1 cup oil on low heat, stirring occasionally for about 30-45 minutes, then drain.

I added 1 dried rose bud to the rice before cooking, don’t ask me why but I did. You could add some rose water or maybe orange flour water if you like that kind of thing

Schwartz's 2

2006-01-26T17:49:00.000-05:00

Schwartz's 2,
originally uploaded by mook elliott.

I had never been to Schwartz's, Montreal's legendary Kosher Deli, and since we're leaving in 2 weeks this was a situation I had to remedy before I left. So, passing up Korean black goat soup, here we are, 2 sandwiches with medium-fat smoked meat, 2 fries, 2 sour pickles, 2 black cherry sodas, and 1 cabbage salad later.
As I said to the Mystery Eater afterwards, it's kind of like what hot dog meat would be if it actually grew on a cow: processed and yet still recognizably of animal origin, one machine away from being the crab stick of the beef world.
All snideness aside it WAS really good, and the fries were really really good, and well, nothing beats black cherry soda.
The Lebanese guys next to us ordered a whole plate of meat (a "small" size on the menu) which was just a bit much, probably about half a pound too much.

Chicken Pita

2006-01-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

For 3-4 ppl

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium sized chicken breasts
1 tsp cumin
5 cloves garlic peeled and roughly chopped
salt
1 cup water
1 cup yogurt

1 cup labneh (strained yogurt)
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
salt to taste

Israeli pitas (thick ones)
sliced tomatoes
lettuce
thinly sliced red onions

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-hi heat. Add the chicken breasts and brown on both sides, seasoning well with salt as you cook them. You just want to brown it, not cook it through. When it is browned on both sides add the cumin and garlic and cook for 20 seconds. Add the water and yogurt and reduce the heat to medium. Cover and cook of 5 more minutes or until the chicken is just cooked through. Remove it from the heat and reduce the cooking liquid to about a 1/4 cup, or until much of the visible liquid has evaporated. The yogurt will split early in the cooking, don’t worry.
Cut the chicken up into dice sized cubes and mix it with the reduced sauce. Check the seasonings and adjust.
Mix the labneh and the the garlic, then dilute with water until it is the consistency of thin watery yogurt.
Slit the pitas around half of their circumferance and open them. Stuff the pitas with the lettuce, tomatoes and onions and souse with some sauce. Add chicken and more sauce.
Serve

It’s nice to toast the pitas a bit before stuffing them, especially if they’re less than super fresh.

Feta and tomato sandwich

2006-01-24T18:33:00.000-05:00

A super quick sandwich that is worlds away from ham and cheese (blech)
In between two good slices of whole wheat bread or a nice pita put:

-Sliced feta
-sliced tomatoes
-torn mint
-red onion thinly sliced
-a little bit of salt

Killer for summer. Light and fresh.

tasty buttermilk cake

2006-01-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

6 oz unsweetend chocolate
8 oz softened unsalted butter
1 3/4 c packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

melt the chocolate.
cream the butter and sugar together then add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition.
add the vanilla and chocolate and mix well.
sift together all the dry ingredients and add them in 1/3rds, alternating with the buttermilk.
grease and flour a 10" springform pan, you can line it with parchment if wanted but this is not essential. You can also add some good quality chocolate chips if you like.
bake the cake at 350 for around 45 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Ice this with a good ganache: boil 250 ml of cream and pour over 150 gms of quality dark chocolate that has been chopped. After 5 minutes, mix well and let cool. When cold, beat well with an electric mixer until the ganache is the consistency of whipped cream. Ice the cake only when completely cold.

peanut soup

2006-01-16T18:57:00.000-05:00

Here's a wintery soup, inspired by a peanut soup made by my brother's law teacher from Ghana.

4 Tbsp butter
1 tsp whole cumin seed
1/2 tsp chili flakes (or more if you like)
2 small onions, finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp chopped ginger
1 Tbsp dried shrimp powder
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 Litre chicken stock
14 oz canned chick peas, rinsed well and drained
250 gms natural, smooth peanut butter
1 tsp sugar
salt, lemon juice, hot sauce.

Heat the butter in a 2 L pan and fry the cumin and chili flakes on medium hi heat for a minute. Add the onion and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are nicely browned about 5 minutes or so. Add the shrimp powder, sweet potato, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Add the chick peas and continue cooking on low until the sweet potatoes are fully cooked. Using a wooden spoon, mash some of the potato against the side of the pot if you like. Add the peanut butter and sugar. Stir well and season with salt and lemon juice. Serve with bread, fufu or whatever you want. Hot sauce and more lemon as needed.

note: the shrimp powder was a present from my brothers teacher. You could omit it, or blitz some dried asian shrimp and use those. You could also use a bit of anchovy instead. Also, make sure you use peanut butter that is not emulsified or seasoned. If you do use a sweetened peanut butter then reduce the sugar called for.

schnitzel with green onion mash

2006-01-12T20:55:00.000-05:00

schnitzel,
foodzen.

I doubt that there is anything that improves crap cuts of meat more than a good dose of eggwash and breadcrumbs.

-

For 4 people
4 small pork chops, any boneless cut about the size of a pack of playing cards
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/4 cup italian bread crumbs
5-6 Tbsp butter or olive oil

6 medium yellow fleshed potatoes cut in half
1 1/2 cups yogurt
3 green onions chopped
2 Tbsp butter

1 lemon cut in 1/4's

Start by putting your cleaned but not peele potatoes in salted water to cover. Bring them to a boil and proceed to boil on medium until a knife easily pierces the flesh of the spud but as they boil. Let them boil for a good 5 minutes then get on with the schnitzel.
If the pork chops are a bit fatty then you can cut a bit off but I usually leave most of it on. Put the pork chops between two sheets of SaranWrap and hit them using the broad side of a cleaver, bottom of a saucepan or even a very solid and uncherished coffee mug. They should be about 50% larger. Crush the garlic and add the salt then mix this with the flattened chops and make a small cut into the edge of each schnitzel, this will stop them from curling up as they cook.
Set up one wide bowl and two plates. In the bowl put the egg and milk and mix them well. On the plates put seperately the bread crumbs and the flour. You are going to dip the chops as follows so set yourself up in this order: flour, egg+milk, breadcrumbs. I usually do two and then fry them, but if you had two frying pans you could do all four at once. In either case, check your potatoes to make sure that they are almost ready before you start frying.
When they are heat the butter or oil on medium (only use half if you are frying in two batches) and fry the shnitzels as you are finished breading them. If you feel you have to add more oil then do so. Fry them for about 2 minutes a side or until they are nice and golden on both sides. Make sure you wipe out the pan well between frying batches.
When the potatoes are ready, drain them and smash them using whatever you have at hand. It could be a lovely pricey potato masher, the bottom of a highball glass, or a big fork. Mix in the butter, green onions, and yogurt. Taste the mash, adding salt if needed. You can also add some more butter or yogurt if you think the mash needs it or if you are feeling sinful, and I certainly hope you are.
Serve the schnitzel on top of the mash with a wedge of lemon and a nice salad, endive, tomato or just some tender lettuces.

DSC00594

2006-01-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

DSC00594,
originally uploaded by Jeremy D Gardner.

I think the only word to describe this is Luscious!

thanksgiving magazines

2005-12-04T22:31:00.000-05:00

This is a bit late but I just have to pass comment. If you read food mags and happen to have a copy of 'Food & Wine' magazine for Nov 2005 lying around, have a look at the hand holding the turkey platter.. is it me or is that some wild Photoshop action going on. I think that some of the herbs might have been worked on as well, especially the massive sage leaves in the background. Those suckers are like the size of a drumstick.
In any case it doesn't beat 'Gourmet' 's thanksgiving cover.. I don't know who served whole raw persimmons with their turkey this thanksgiving, anyone?
The future of these magazines is so irrelevant.

India maps Basmati Rice in Bid to protect it from the west

2005-12-04T21:07:00.000-05:00

BELOW TAKEN FROM: www.genet-info.org
-----start quote---
Indian scientists are mapping the DNA of one of the country's basic food
products: basmati rice. Concerned that Western corporations may try to
take out patents on the food, their aim is not to produce genetically
modified rice but to protect one of India's most treasured natural
products from a foreign takeover.

Basmati may be beloved of students because it is easy to cook, but to
connoisseurs, its long grains and natural scent make it one of the
world's most desired varieties of rice. It is one of the Indian
agriculture sector's prime exports.

Already the country has fought off an attempt by an American company to
copyright the name basmati for its own product, a crossing of American
rice and Indian basmati. True basmati rice, by contrast, is a natural
product still grown by highly traditional methods.

The project to prove that basmati rice is quintessentially Indian is a
sign of how GM methods are transforming the agricultural industry. Today,
traditional farmers are trying to fight off what is being called "gene
piracy". Everybody knows basmati rice comes from India, but lawyers are
warning that there is no way of proving it in a court of law. That is
where scientists come in.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Icar) is hoping to
genetically "fingerprint" 72 different varieties of basmati rice that are
grown in different regions of India.

KS Money, chairman of India's Agriculture and Allied Products Export
Authority, told the Indian Express: "It's always better to have records
of our biodiversity and germplasm so that if someone uses our variety and
claims intellectual property rights, we should be able to contest it."

JL Karihaloo, director of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Research,
said: We develop a kind of barcode unique to the variety. In forensics,
DNA fingerprinting is used to identify criminals. The same application
has been developed for plants."

Countries have, in the past, fought off attempts by foreign companies to
copyright the names of their traditional products. France has been
successful in protecting the names of its cheeses and wine-growing
regions. The Czech Republic has had a harder time fighting off the
American Anheuser-Busch brewery's attempt to copyright Budweiser beer,
named after the Czech town of Budweis.

But the Indian DNA mapping is an attempt to patent not the name but the
produce itself.

The Icar hopes to complete mapping DNA of basmati rice within two years.
It has already fingerprinted 42 varieties of chillies, 243 varieties of
bananas, and 30 varieties of mangoes, including India's much sought after
sweet Alphonso mangoes. It is planning to start work on spices.
--------end quote--------

A thorny issue to be sure, and once again the developing world finds itself in a bind. To gain access to the patented products of the West it has to not only respect patent law, but also be fast enough on the gun to patent it's own century old products before global Agro-business does so. Last year Monsanto managed to patent a type of wheat unique to the production of chapatis, essentially holding the survival of millions of people within it's now proprietary rights. What's more, up until the end of the last millennium, the EU disallowed patents on staple foods, a position that it no longer chooses to maintain. There is so much more research to do on this subject and it is an issue that affects us all. No matter where you live, soon Monsanto and friends will quite literally own the food that you eat. By growing staple crops that are owned by such companies, without their consent, you would be breaking the law. We may be able to afford our way around this problem, impoverished Indian farmers who depend on these crops for their very life and livelihood will most likely not.

La Chronique , Montreal

2005-11-27T22:30:00.000-05:00

Montreal: La Chronique

Well to be quite frank I didn’t think that it would be that expensive. When my more affluent friend Nick heard I had made a reservation he looked at me and said “Really? That’s expensive!”. I knew I was into trouble. But, when you're on the sinking ship you might as well have at it, so we each ordered a degustation with wine (145$/person) .. We could have gone either more expensive (degustation with super wine, 195$/person) or lower (degust with no wine, $95). The menu items were in the mid 30’s for mains and high teens for apps. What follows are from my incomplete notes, from a meal a week and a half ago.

-1) Oysters. 2 per person, I don’t remember what the garnishes were but reading the online menu now I see that they are “nature”. They were laid out on a bed of sel gris with a decorative branch. Beautiful presentation, and they were lovely oysters.

-2) Seared tuna with tempura shrimp. Incomplete notes, I remember that umm.. tuna is endangered, even good quality tuna like this.

-3) Sweetbreads with smoked salmon. I’ve had good sweetbreads. And now, I’ve had spectacular sweetbreads. Spectacular sweetbreads with corn and a spectacular creamy curry sauce, texturally a beautiful combination with the smoked salmon which was delicately delicious in it’s own right. (2004 St Joseph, Marsan Blend… a beautiful wine, so well balanced)

-4)Foie gras with wild mushroom risotto and veal jus. Loved the foie. Risotto was toothsome and flavorful, I would have preferred a bit softer. And yes I understand that traditionally risotto should be toothsome. We meet our soon to be friend veal jus (really a demi glace… glace de veau?)

-5) Venison, celery root mash, Wild mushrooms. Again, a beauty of a dish. We are starting to get full now and pretty tipsy.. probably at least 3-4 oz of wine per course. More veal jus. (Toasted Head, Alexander Valley, Cab Sauv.. it’s a big wine, it’s delicious, it’s a bit overpowering)

-6) Onion soup with Tome cheese. I don’t remember much about this dish, it was a big portion, no one could finish it.. well I did, but I just had to. (2002 white rioja)

-7) Chocolate dessert selection. My God this was just tooo much. 4 different mini desserts including: Daquoise, a dense mousse, a very very good brownie cake with caramelized bananas on top.
(Solera Reserva, Lustau(sp?), Sherry.. umm just tooo bloody sweet an cloying. Should have been cold and a half portion. no, should have been a different wine)

It was a lovely if very expensive dinner. I’m tempted to gripe about veal jus but will refrain. I will refrain from saying that I would like something more than 2 servings of veal jus in a row, delicious unctuous veal jus, in a degustation. We all have healthy appetites and felt that there was too much in the way of food and too much in the way of wine. Give me a 110$ price tag, Take away an oz of wine in each serving, 2 oz of the dessert wine AND a different dessert wine, two desserts instead of four and give me a half sized cheese course.
It should be noted that for those of us with a Star Trek or mall fetish, they have a glass sensor controlled door from the dining room to the kitchen.

stir fried cabbage

2005-11-22T18:50:00.000-05:00

Stir fried cabbage

Take 1/4 of a large nappa cabbage and cut into 2”strips, separating the harder white bits from the green leafy bits. Sprinkle with 1 tsp white sugar.
Heat 2 Tbsp peanut oil in a large frying pan on high and add a few whole dried chilies (totally up to you how many. Or at all), frying until they puff a bit and darken in colour, add 2 cloves roughly chopped garlic and stir. Add the harder white cabbage bits and stir often for about 45 seconds to a minute. It should de sizzling quite a bit by now.
Add the cabbage leafy part and stir in about 3/4 tbsp soy and a bit more sugar.
Taste and add more soy / sugar , if necessary.

Frying the chilies is a smoky procedure. Best to open a window when doing this.
Also good with a splash of vinegar in it.

Pork Curry

2005-11-22T18:34:00.000-05:00

Pork and bamboo shoots

2 medium pork chops, bone in, cut into 6 or so pieces each
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp shrimp paste
2 Tbsp peanut oil
1/2 Tbsp sambal olek
1/2 Tbsp Sriracha sauce
1 Tbsp fermented soybean and chili sauce
1/2 to 1 Tbsp Chinese soy
1 Tbsp Thai pickled garlic cloves
2 cups bamboo shoot tip ( mine were in a vac sealed package), cut to manageable size.

Mix the pork and the sugar.
On mediun high, heat the shrimp paste and oil in a heavy bottomed fying pan. When it is sizzling happily, stir well with a wooden spoon to break it apart, then add the sambal and sriracha. Stir fry 20 seconds then turn the heat to high and add the pork, cooking on all sides until well coloured. Add the rest of the ingredients and 1 to 2 cups water. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer 20-30 minutes until tender and the sauce has reduced, the fat should emulsify into the sauce. Add more sugar if you think it needs it. Serve with a simple veg side dish and plain rice.
Have the feeling it would be good with peanuts as well.
I was trying to find an herb to pair with this dish and didn’t want to put coriander (because I use coriander on everything, and still always manage to have a rotten bunch in the fridge).. does anyone have any suggestions..?

Squash Pachadi

2005-11-09T21:14:00.000-05:00

This was sinfully good.. almost dessert.

2 cups hubbard or other squash, cut into 1" cubes
1 Tbsp peanut oil or ghee
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup bio yogurt

Heat the oil and fry the cumin and mustard seeds until they pop and splutter. Add the squash, reduce the heat to low and add the salt and sugar. Cook, covered until the squash is soft but not too mushy. Let cool then add the yogurt and serve.
This is a great side dish with rice... really stellar.

unfortunately

2005-10-16T22:48:00.000-04:00

Blueberry cake (6 portions)

In a 9x12” pan, mix 6-8 cups frozen blueberries with 1-11/2 cups brown sugar and the grated zest of 1/2 a lemon.
In a bowl, combine 2 cups bisquick with 3 Tbsp melted butter and two heaping tbsp of brown sugar. Add enough cold milk to make a wet but stiff dough. You can add some lemon zest as well.
Drop the dough by heaping tablespoon onto the blueberries then bake at 350 until the top is golden, 20 mins to half and hour.
Let cool and serve with ice cream.

Bo

2005-09-26T11:12:00.000-04:00

So right off the bat I love this restaurant. The décor, clean, red and black with a hardwood floor. A bar and a few tables at the front with steps up to a dining area at the back.
There are ten other people in the place when we arrive and, as it turn out, the waiter is Sean’s neighbour from Westmount. We look over the menu and decide on a few appetizers to share and then one main between us. The service is good, even if the waiter seems a bit hesitant to recommend any one dish over another.
After a bit of Sing Tao we embark on our meal.
Scallop tartare with a creamy tobiko dressing comes in a martini glass with some cuke, pickled ginger and small sheets of toasted seasoned nori on the side. On top rests a crispy strip of some deep fried dough. The suggestion is made that we wrap the tartare in the strips of nori “like a Chinese taco”, and although this is a good texture play, the flavour of the seaweed runs all over the tartare, which is a beautiful mix of mayo (Japanese?) and tobiko with some super fresh scallops. Much more to our liking is the crispy chip, the texture play is better than the nori and the flavour is light and slightly rich from the frying. It goes much better with the tartare. So all in all a well made dish, beautifully presented with a difficult accompaniment.
Steamed pork dumplings with Szechwan and chilli vinegar dipping sauces come in a little bamaboo dim sum steamer. Four little soup dumplings (tang bao?) staring out at us. Although I love delicate dumplings, these are overly so. The wrappers are so fragile that any attempt to extract the dumplings from their steamer home results in torn skin and, more unfortunately, spilling of the delicious broth inside. The filling, texturally I find too delicate and in need of more spring. The flavours are good but fragile, and can’t compete with the dipping sauces both of which are based on Chinese black vinegar, one with somewhat thickly julienned ginger, and one we presume to be the Szechwan style. Neither are spicy and are way too similar to be worth offering separately. What really stands out on this plate, and it comes back again, is a salad of shredded nappa cabbage, topped with salsa of ginger and chopped lychee. It took us about 5 minutes to dissect this salad, the lychee being the mystery ingredient, and it is a total winner. If they offered this salad by the bowlful I would be first in line.
Grilled baby squid was unavailable so at the waiters suggestion we settle on the grilled chicken satay with kaffir lime and peanut sauce. The chicken is lightly marinated, perfectly cooked, and rests on some more sexy nappa salad with lychee salsa. A generous moat of thai lime flecked peanut sauce surrounds, rich, not too sweet. I really like this dish. I couldn’t put into words why ans no it’s not just the lychee salsa It’s just a dish that comes together for me, the sum of the parts being more than the whole and all that. Probably also the lack of sweetness that is the bane of so many peanut sauces.
Billing your General Tao chicken as the best in the city takes a bit of balls and although I have to confess that I am not really a General Tao fan. I can count the number of times I’ve eaten it on one hand, but I like to think that maybe I’m just waiting for a revelatory experience. So we order the Tao.
Once again the meat is perfectly cooked and the batter is light. The sauce for me is texturally thin but intensely sweet (maltose?), Sean assures me that sweetness is a Tao trademark but I still find it overpowering. It needs heat to balance it out, and although there is good meaty flavour, the sweetness just blots it out for me. Now if you are a Tao fan this may be exactly what you’re looking for, a prefect blend of high quality ingredients with a nod towards the flavours of the Tao you had as a child. I approach this dish with no golden light cast by nostalgia and that and that may very well be my loss. A small side of steamed chinese veg and one fried rice noodle garnish that is spectacular and unwieldy and that I love, some steamed rice, and there you have it. Am I converted, no. Is it a damn good Tao, you bet, probably just not meant for me
The restaurant is new, and I am sure that some of these issues are just growing pains. I never made it to Soy, the chefs previous venture, but I will definitely be back to Bo, for more food and to try one of their sexy sounding martinis.

56$ for three beers, after tax and before tip.

Glasgow 2 - The babbity bowser

2005-09-20T09:59:00.000-04:00

The Bowser is a gastro pub serving some interesting Scottish fare. We went for a late lunch because we were still jet lagged, arriving at about 3:30 just before the post work Friday rush. A nice room with plenty of natural light off a cobblestone street, grey blue Nordic charm. Patio,, weather permitting.
Two pints of Titanic Sun Deck, a nice mildly acidic refreshing beer, to start. Robin didn’t want to eat too much so I ordered him two apps, Cullen skink to start and a potted hare as a second. I had the cullen skink as well and duck sausage with red wine gravy and mash..
We didn’t really know what to expect with the skink, described as a smoked haddock soup, but it turned out to be an amazing lightly creamed broth with large chunks of smoked haddock and potato floating in it. The broth was ideally smoky, the potatoes were perfectly toothsome and the chunks of haddock were large and tender. Double the portion and send us some bread and this would have been a great lunch, especially considering the fact that what followed was somewhat lacklustre.
The best thing about the duck sausages was everything except the sausages. The mash was hot and flavourful and I’m a sucker for mash. Minus the cullen skink I could live on buttered mash. The red wine gravy was sweet, sour and punched up with rosemary. Chopped onion, leeks, and celery made an appearance for good measure. Not the best gravy on earth but definitely some good stuff. The sausage however.. oh what a let down. Well, to be fair, the portion of two nice sausages was encouraging, the meaty flavour was all winner, but hardly ever have I met a sausage so dry. This sausage had been boiled before noon, possibly a day or two prior, and had sat, probably loosely wrapped, in the fridge. Now, this sausage was definitely in need of grease when it was being made, but the subsequent treatment did it no favours. Had it been freshly cooked it might have had a chance, unfortunately it crashed and burned.
Robins potted hare was a bit better but not what I had expected potted hare to be. Potted whatever, to me, is like a rillette; cooked meat covered in grease. Apparently at the Bowser potting involves copious amounts of aspic. I didn’t really mind. The aspic was garlicky and meaty if a bit more generous than we would have liked. There wasn’t that much meat involved to begin with and, as Robin turned up his nose at the aspic I got to eat what may have been an unfair share. The meat was a wee bit dry, but all in all some good flavours. The baby greens salad that accompanied was unremarkable, as were the cornichons and the chutney that were probably storebought..
The opening sentence of this review was originally: “One of the best meals we had in Glasgow..”, but after I wrote the review out I realised that this was far from true. The meal wasn’t expensive, about 17GBP for all the food. The cullen skink really was a great dish and the atmosphere and setting were pub-like and convivial. The service was crap and my condolences to the waitress because to all evidence someone close to her must have died earlier in the day to judge from her total lack of warmth and enthusiasm. Don’t smile if you can’t, but surly silence, especially in response to a “Thank you” from a customer, kind of dampens your already wet charm.
So go for a pint (which you obviously order at the bar) and get some soup. Or even better, try the upstairs resto (Scottich I think it’s called) a kind of French-scottish fusion resto open for dinner. We had a look at the menu and it looked encouraging, as did the space.. very bistro-y.

Japango, or, ridding the world of those pesky fish

2005-09-14T22:40:00.000-04:00

Probably no more than 16 lucky people at a time can fit into Japango, a tiny japanese resto and sushi bar, hidden away on Elizabeth street in Toronto. The staff are friendly, and the chef right off the bat shows me the nights special : baby crabs, still alive, scurrying around in their tupperware home. They’re served deep fried and he covers his eyes and prays for the customer each time he throws one into the oil. We couldn’t resist. Actually my mum did, preferring the karmically sound route, however Robin and I got to choose our crabs as you would a fish in a Chinese restaurant. Probably more theatrics than gastronomy but no let down, Robins escapes the waitresses chopstick wielding grasp and runs around the floor a bit before being re-captured. Mine attacks me, pinching my finger quite painfully, so I decided we were meant for each other. They reappear later in the meal.
We order some appetizers, a sushi plate (chef’s choice) and some beer. After a brief chat to catch up, and a few sips of beer the apps arrive. Firstly, agehdashi tofu, meltingly soft tofu squares,coated in panko and deep fried. Then served with a bit of japanese soup stock, some soy, some minced green onion , and . Great, and the panko is a nice addition I’ve never encountered before.
Secondly, some griled eggplant. A little more bland, but beautiful and simple, they’re dressed in soy with a few bonito shavings shivering over the grilled and peeled aubergines adding their fishy smokey dimension to the dish.
We get to the main course sushi plate and it looks spectacular. I’m not one for tempura shrinp rolls, but these take the cake, fresh and crispy. And there, clinging onto the shrinp tail are our crustacean friends from the first paragraph. Whole in their shells, they are crunchy with a meltingly soft interior. I will avoid the allusions to terrestrial beasts with exoskeletons but there you have it, crispy deep fried crab minus the batter.
There is less rice in all the sushi than we are used to, and the rice is mildly sweeter, both of which work well with the ultrafresh fish. The salmon is delicious, top of the line, the tuna belly, which I always find overrated is less so here, but I still don’t see what the big deal is. Snapper, imported from Japan, comes with a small piece of shiso on top. Here again is a first for me, but the dosing is just right, shiso the size of a dime, fish, and mildly sweet rice all coming together to equal more than the sum of their parts.
All in all a spectacular meal, although I have more and more problems with sushi from an ethical depopulating the fish world point of view, this remains an outstanding sushi restaurant and at $90 for three people, one of the best quality/price ratios around, so get there before everyone else does and their pricing and location move uptown. Remains to be seen if you can open an ecologically friendly sushi restaurant. Oh and if you’re a regular you get to put your set of chopsticks behind the sushi bar in a little case.

Glasgow restaurants

2005-09-11T20:49:00.000-04:00

We headed out to the restaurant, the Two Fat Ladies, for what turned out to be a spectacular dinner. The guide said that it was amazing seafood in the humblest of surroundings, and although this brought to mind some pretty humble surroundings, it was in fact a nice middle of the road resto, decor wise. The kitchen is at the frot facing the street, so that immediately throws you off guard. The wait staff, two of which were Irish and one of which was from Orkney, were young and charming. We had a bit of a chat and picked our way through the seafood heavy menu. We decided on a 2004 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc to start, a choice that we continued with throughout the meal.
Barbara had a fish soup that turned out to be tomato based and that she said was quite tasty, but we didn’t get to try any. Pat and Robin each had the mussels to start, which was quite a sizeable portion of extremely plump and sweet mussles, some the best I had ever tasted, in a lightl creaamed white wine broth with two big lemon halves for squeezing. I could have done without the lemon as the molluscs were so terribly delicious by themselves, but both Robin and Pat seemed to relish squeezing each portion before popping it into their mouths. The broth was light, creamy and sea sweet although no spoon was provided.
I settled on the prawns with coriander pasta, which turned out to be four beautiful prawns, tender almost to a fault, with a few strands of spaghetti and a pool of clarified butter. The promised coriander was nowhere in sight and the chilies spoken of on the menu were either the blandest chilies I have ever run across or bell pepppers. Some freshly ground black pepper or a squeeze of lemon would not have been amiss here but it was bloody good anyhow. I should mention that throughout the meal we were offered some thickly sliced brown bread, of the type that should be served in Scotland, ie propper bread.
For the mains, both Pat and I had the diver scallops with stornoway black pudding on a leek and bacon cream, She had the apps portion and I had the main size. The scallops were well seared and perfectly cooked, The black pudding was the same size as the scallops and seared as well, leaving a bit of a crust with a tender center. Alternated in a pile this was a tasty game if ever there was one. The whole was placed on top a little pile of leek and smokey bacon which had been stewed up in a thickened cream sauce. The sauce was reduced to a perfectly unctuous consistency and had picked up the smoky flavour or the bacon. This was to me an absolute winner of a dish as the black pudding was really delicious although Pat swore she had had better in Ireland. The rest was flawless, beautifully fresh scallops, sauce rich but again not overpowering.
Robin and Barb opted for the whole baked sole which came with simply a half lemon and some browned butter. Barb picked her way through most of hers and seemed to enjoy it. Robin complained a bit about the texture and when I tried it I had to agree. The flavour was nice and slightly meaty but the texture was a wee bit tough. Not that this could necessarily have been helped. We got complementary sides of beautiful grelot potatoes, small courgette rounds, and carrot wedges, the last being a might bit toothsome.
Heading for dessert I could not turn up a sticky toffee pudding, and glory it was, although not as dense as some would have liked it to be. Fresh raspberries and black curants along with a big pool of creme anglasie finished off the job and I was beyond satisfied. Robin opted for the bailieys and chocolate pot which turned out to be simply a ganache of baileys and chocolate. The texture was a bit strange to me, slightly chewy where I would have preferred creamy, but it in no way hindered the enjoyment of the dish.
The ladies had coffee and then we made as quick an exit as conversaton would allow, hoping that the staff didn’t begrudge us a few more chatty minutes. Definitly one of the highlights of our stay in Glasgow. A pleasure of a restaurant in suitably relaxed surroundings.
(as a note, this review is for Denise who lamented the lack of posts from the UK, thank you for motivating me to write more!)

Roasted cauliflower and garlic soup

2005-09-06T20:17:00.000-04:00

3 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium head cauliflower, roughly broken up into large florets
1 to 2 heads garlic, broken up but not peeled
2 medium onions peeled and roughly chopped
1 L veg or chicken stock
1/2 L milk
salt
250 g old cheddar grated

in a large roasting pan, mix the oil, cauliflower, onion, and a bit of salt. Toss the garlic in a bit of oil and place it in one corner of the pan.
Roast the lot at 400 F for about 20-30 minutes, turning it over as it begins to cook and brown. When the cauliflower and onions are nicely browned, remove the garlic and deglaze with a bit of the stock. Squish out the garlic, disgarding the skins, and put it with the cauliflower and onions,
Puree the vegetables with the stock. Add the milk and the cheese, and heat through to melt the cheese.
Dilute with more milk if necessary and serve with croutons, and oh, maybe some truffle oil if you can.

Fous Dessert and Brulerie aux 4 vents

2005-08-20T10:17:00.000-04:00

Got up too early to pack for my trip. The cafe down the street was closed so we heared up to Marche Jean Talon. On the way we stopped by "Fous Dessert" because their chocolate banana croissants and chausson aux pommes are just too good to pass up. We fought in the car because Sean wanted to eat them right away. Nope, have to wait for the coffee.
Made it to Jean Talon and got some spectacular coffee at "Brulerie aux 4 Vents".. we sat down with our pastries and watched the market come to life, seeing alll the merchants start to set up and the beginning of the Saturday insanity. We saw Steph wandering around doing his shopping for the show on Monday, he sat swith us for 10 minutes to take a break and have a chat, refused our offering of croissants because he'd already eaten two big slices of clafoutis at 6:30 that morning.
All in all a beautiful start to the day...

Kam Fung again

2005-08-19T21:26:00.000-04:00

For my/our weekly hit of yum cha:
steamed veal with pepper.. a new (past 3 months) item, nice and tender.
fried calamari.. delicious, if a bit cold
jiao zi - nice plump fried dumplings
cheung fan with pork and coriander - yummy, much better than the beef.. not as good as char siu or really fresh har cheung
shrimp and coriander steamed dumpling - yummy, the stuffing is nice and sea-fresh-sweet. the wrapper is well made, just falls apart a little, but at least it's not as thick and stodgy as is often the case.
eggpland stuffed with shrimp with black bean sauce - God I love this dish
.... we were ready to go.. but 5 minutes before I had asked for cheung fan chao.. and of course it arrived just as we ordered the shripm and coriander dumplings. I had no choice but to choak it down.. like eating stir fried pork fat (in a good way)
The ladies at Kam Fung are great!

red braised pork belly

2005-08-11T08:45:00.000-04:00

Hong shao rou

Take 3 lbs of pork belly cut into 3 pieces. Boil it from a cold start in a good ammount of cold water for 5 minutes, Drain, rinse and cool until comfortable to handle. Slice the belly into either thick slices (around 3 per block), or into large 2 bite chunks. Brown the belly on all sides then deglaze with 2 cups chicken stock, 4 Tbsp shaoxing, 3 big ginger coins and 1 bunch scallions, both smashed with the flat side of a cleaver 2 star anise, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 1/2 tsp coarse salt., 1 1/2 tbsp light or dark soy.
Braise the belly, covered, for 2 -3 hours (the larger the pieces, the longer the braise) until extremely tender. Optionally reduce the liquid to a desired consistency/intensity/ serve with rice and veg.

You can also make this without stock by using water and upping the soy, it is however, not as unctuous.

This would be great pan browned after being red cooked.

lunch from Au Cyclo

2005-07-17T13:28:00.000-04:00

After I had mentioned the salad rolls it was too late, Steph was hooked... try as I might to suggest alternatives, sandwiches, roti, or anything else, Vietnamese it was to be. So I trudged 5 blocks to Laurier and du Parc to investigate Au Cyclo.
Potted plants lead up to the second floor entrance, the dining room is nice, modern and quite upscale. The charming and beautiful waitress seated me at the bar with a menu and a glass of water, take out was no problem she said but it might take a while. I was on a tight schedule but, after a glance at the menu I knew there was no turning back. Lots of interesting stuff that you don't encounter in your run of the mill soup joints.
I ordered some salad rolls, obviously, and ban xeo (ground mung bean pancake with shrimp). Feling I needed more, I consulted with the server, we had already begun discussing the menu, and I asked her for a recommendations. She steered me towards the chicken with lime leaves and glutinous rice, and I went for it, but truth told I would have gone for almost anything on the menu.
It must have taken about 20 minutes, and I was starting to get really shifty, being late make me extremely nervous, but the food finally arrived. The bag was a little light to be honest. For $40 I was expecting a great slew of food. I got a light white plastic bag with three small take out containers.
After running back down du Parc, I opened my bag of treats. Steph joked that I had gone to Vietnam to get the food, before proceeding to devour everything put in front of him.
The salad rolls were nice and warm, freshly rolled, not rolled at 9 in the morning and forgotten about. Apart from that, nothing really special. The ban xeo was small, but definitly delicious, stuffed full of bean sprouts and a few shrimp, it was a delictely crispy yellow crepe with a soft, slightly runny centre, slightly sweet and a touch oily, in a tasty way.
Now I had been picturing something akin to the chinese dish of sticky rice steamed in leaves with assorted savory fillings, chicken integrated into the rice. What the final dish turned out to be was inch thick disks of sticky rice, the width of a small orange, which had been deep fried until golden and puffed up. It was moderately sweet and chewy enough to stick in your teeth. The chicken was a nice piece of chicken thigh, marinated and cooked (grilled?) with threads of lime leaves sprinkled over top. It was delicious, more so because it was out of the ordinary.
All in all a pretty good meal. Not cheap, but freshly made, from a restaurant that is definitly worth further investigation.

blueberry beer a Cheval Blanc

2005-07-08T10:03:00.000-04:00

After a lovely first film from the Fantasia Festival (www.fantasiafest.com) we went to the Cheval Blanc (on Ontario just east of Berri on the north side) for a pint or 3. The standout was a blueberry beer, a wheat ale with a lovely blueberry aftertaste. No, sorry, it wasn't smurf coloured, although I would have loved that, but if you can imagine the flavour about 1 second after you swallow a mouthful of blueberry pie, that is the flavour you get.
The hot pepper beer had an intense red pepper flavour to it. they managed to capture a really interesting aspect of the pepper and to marry it to beer. The aftertaste was overly bitter and the next pint was a blueberry, once again.

Pork Belly

2005-06-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

For all you gluttons ou there

Pork belly and glass noodle braise (approx 2 large portions)

1 lb lean pork belly in one piece
1 package tofu knots (20 or so), soaked in water until soft
4 coins ginger
1 small can pigeon brand sweet pickled cabbage (including liquid)
1 tsp sugar (rock sugar preferably)
4 Tbsp Chinese soy
water as needed (about 1/2 cup)
2 bunches glass noodles

Gently boil the pork belly in water to cover for 1/2 an hour, remove and slice widthwise into 1” thick dominos. Gently fry the pork belly until it is well browned, draining the fat as it is rendered (you can do what you want with the fat, I throw it out, probably not the most economical thing to do). Add the rest of the ingredients except for the glass noodles. Add enough water to cover the solids half-way. Cover and simmer until the pork belly is extremely tender (around 1 1/2 to 2 hrs). While it cooks add more water as needed. Taste and correct the seasonings if need be.
At this point you can let the braise cool and refrigerate it overnight or…. Soak your glass noodles in warm water until soft. Drain, remove the little strings (if present) and cut two or three times into smaller pieces. Add the noodles to the pork belly and and cook on low heat until the noodles are soft ( a few minutes).
The tofu knots were a new discovery, essentially tofu skin tied in knots and dried, from PRC. You could probably use a firm tofu in place of them, or some other dried tofu.

south indian cabbage

2005-06-22T21:14:00.000-04:00

I love fried cabbage almost as much as I love mustard seed.

South Indian Savoy Cabbage

1 small head savoy cabbage (or 1/2 large head)
1 Tbsp mustard seeds
1 1/2 Tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp mustard seed oil
2 pinches fenugreek seeds
1-2 Tbsp dried yellow mung beans (or lentil of similar size)
2-6 dried red chillies
5-10 curry leaves
2 Tbsp shredded dried coconut
salt and sugar to taste

Remove the core from the cabbage and cut into strips (thick julienne).
Heat a large frying pan on high heat and add the mustard seeds and the two oil. Cover the pan and let the seeds pop. When the popping has subsided, quickly add the fenugreek, mung beans, chillies, and curry leaves. Stir until the chiles are scortched a bit and the mung beans are nicely toasted, around 30-45 seconds. Add the cabbage and reduce the heat to med. Stir –fry the cabbage to colour it a bit, around 2-3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of water, the coconut, salt and sugar to taste. Reduce the heat to low and cover, cooking until all the water has evaporated and the cabbage is al dente, anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on how your cabbage is. Add more water as needed and stir the cabbage from time to time as it cooks. Be careful as the coconut can burn easily.
Check the seasonings and serve.
This is a great, inexpensive side dish, you can add shredded carrots for colour or turmeric if you like.

Neng Myun

2005-06-21T20:26:00.000-04:00

As the hot weather begins again I feel the yearning for cool foods, in both senses of the word. Salads, sandwiches, even burgers, but especially cold soups. Nothing kills a heat wave like an ice cold dinner fresh from the fridge, and few meals are a suited to this temperature as soup.
Shelly, my friend from high school, used to go on and on about this soup her mum made with noodles and ice cubes. For those of you that don't know, Korean mums are some of the worlds best cooks, right up there with Filipino mums and a few other select ethnic groups. You kids are so lucky. Anyhow, I never had the chance to try this soup until two weeks ago. I had attempted to order it on two occasions, only to be brick walled by the language barrier. On both occasions I got cold noodles minus the soup. The waitresses on both occasions explained that they thought cold soup was too wierd for me. So whatever you do make sure you ask, nay, demand, that this be soup, the noodles by themselves come with gochu jang (sweet hot bean paste) and they are just too stodgy (trust me, I have respectfully tried to choke down two bowls of these noodles).

So, if/when you do get Neng Myun, you can expect a vinegared beef broth with ice cubes floating in it, some chewy Korean noodles, a hard boiled egg, and some julienned cuke or daikon, oh , and a few slices of beef. I always ask for hot sauce on the side, with everything.

So far I have only had Neng myun at Restaurant Seoul (5030 Sherbrooke W. & Claremont) but they must be out there somewhere else.. if you find them elsewhere please let me know!

warwick cheese festival pt1

2005-06-20T20:18:00.000-04:00

So after my mandarin class , we headed off to the annual Warwick cheese festival, we being; myself, Val, and Sean. I think we all had these visions of some haut-gastro event; bespecatcled european men with foulards and big noses, nibbling discerningly on artisanal raw milk curds. Well.... when we got to Warwick they were gearing up for the parade.. yes a cheese parade. Actually it seemed like an excuse for the town to party, and everyone was out on their remarkably similar lawn chairs drinking beer in the main street. The parade was pretty much what you would expect, some local industry and shops, some tractors, a marching band, some big horses, and some really cute dwarf ponies drawing their own miniture sized wagon.. to die for. Oh and two giant mascot type swans... I have no clue what the swans were all about, they might have had something to do with the large fiberglass bull that followed, but by then we had lost intrest and were wandering towards the cheese.
We had been told at the cheese factory that there was only junk food available so we hunkered down to a nasty cheese burger and an even nastier poutine. I did discover that vinegar and black pepper make poutine much more interesting, for me at least. We later found the SAQ bistro which kind of pissed us off.
The cheese festival itself was, I guess a little bit of a let down for us, due in large part to the atmosphere. There were however some really interesting products, which we can divide into three categories:
1) alcohol (wine, cidre, beer.. beer was a popular one)
2) cheese (I should hope so)
3) other (fudge, emu and all its derived products, emu eggs are beautiful by the way, and other stuff)

There were two sections, an outside tent and an off season hockey arena, both full of people hawking their products. You had to buy tickets (20 for 5$, this, after the 12$ admission fee) and then trade them in for the product samples. 10 minutes after having been told that 20 would be more than enough, I was back in line for 20 more.
The general atmosphere was pretty raucus. People were pushing and trying to get in line for beer and cheese, the problem being that no lines actually existed so it was pretty much luck of the draw. Most of the stalls were puny, and the people staffing them were chatty and nice, which in these circumstances really didn't speed things up. After 2 hours of josteling for the chance at a toothpick or two of cheese I was, a) cheesed out, b) just fed up. That, and a few really nasty products, and we just traded our tickets in for more beer and stopped. Somewhere between the emu and the nasty cheese we lost Val, so me and Sean just sat in one place, and tried to spot the gay people. For some reason this is always fun.
More posts on products later.. including a cheese I found just beyond nasty, a surprisingly good late harvest wine from (gasp) Laval, and some pictures that Sean was kind enough to take.

Wawel coriander bread

2005-06-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

Another day, another fabulous product. This is bread my grandmother would have loved, she wouldn't have been too sure about the coriander seeds all over the top, but otherwise this bread would have been allright by her. She used to make her own bread, a diffrent generation.
i first found this bread at Bucharest supermarket on Decarie, and then discovered that Wawel (who bake a label into outside of the bread, ensuring you know where the bread is really from) had a concession right outside my boyfriends house. They also have one in the newly renovated Jean Talon market.
Anyhow, this bread is a rye bread, it is a bit wet (actually gran wouldn't have like that) so that the slices stick together a bit, but the flavour is all quality. I mean I could, and have, eaten half a loaf of this bread in one sitting with some mustard and smoked fish.. or just with butter.
This is not french bread in any way, it reeks of northern europe and german or slavic extraction. Germans would probably put caraway on top and make it way more dense, the coriander seeds give it away as eastern european. Anyhow, if you love good bread BUY THIS BREAD.

Nablusi Cheese

2005-06-17T22:34:00.000-04:00

I am a confessed cheese fanatic, and when it comes to cheeses that you can pan fry, well, what could be better than fried cheese I ask you. From the lovely people at Lait D'Antan ( www.laitdantan.com ), purveyors of tons of sexy dairy products, Nablusi cheese, a haloumi studded with kalonji (black onion seeds). This is actually an edible cheese, compared to the haloumi from Phonecia which you have to soak in water before using, so salty it is.
I also, apart from loving cheese, happen to love kalonji, A Bengali friend used to bring me rusk cookies flavoured with this lovely little seed, and if you've ever wondered why your nan bread tasted great and why it had mouse shit in it, well, that wasn't mouse shit it was kalonji. I wouldn't know where to begin describing the taste except to say that it is maybe vaguely celery like.
So take this cheese, slice it, fry it in a bit of olive oil until it turns goldenm then just eat it off the paper towel, or use it as a meat substitute, like a paneer, or a vastly superior tofu. Also nice to serve with a bit of homemade tomato sauce as part of a mezze meal, or just with some sliced tomatoes. You could probably use it raw, but fried is better.
Love this cheese, love these lait d'antan people.

ark land water

2005-06-16T22:21:00.000-04:00

straight from Armenia (probably from an Armenian tap) to you comes Arkland Water. Not only do they have a funky packaging concept... somewhere between Tokyo and Bratislava.. but their water is actually half decent. The carbonation is not overpowering, quite subtle. The taste is slightly minerally, a little salty but in no way unpleasant. It might taste fishy a bit but I couldn't tell because I had just eaten half a smoked herring, so everything tasted fishy. The only real surprise about this water was that it had a nice little chunk of scale in the bottom of the can which I obviously only noticed after I crunched down on it. Why I was tempted to chew my water i don't know.
Cost around $1.25, if you are in montreal and have to try this, you can buy it at Capitol in the Marche Jean Talon.

2 cheeses

2005-04-28T09:50:00.000-04:00

both from "Qui Lait Cru" , a shop in Marché Jean Talon in Montreal which is a great homage to cheese. it is spotless and well staffed with informed if slighlty haughty staff.

Ricotta salata
Pasturised cow’s milk
Italie
$C19.00/kg

A salted pressed ricotta. Greyish white, looks like white halva. Strong but pleasant acidic/vinegar odour. Texture of feta but not as brittle or crumbly, more rubbery. Sticks a little bit to the teeth. Flavour very similar to feta, but not AS intensly salty and goaty. Not as acidic either.
All in all a very nice cheese. Texture is very nice too, not grainy, but breaks apart easily, crumbles in the mouth.
Various recipes suggest using it in salads, grumbles on top of coked veg or on top of pasta... sexy.

Mimolette 18 mois.
Pasturised cow’s milk
France
$C57.00/kg

Bright orange colour , looks like a slice of ultra ripe melon, nice crumbly crust. Hard cheese. Smells of butter and caramel, mild parmesan odour. Delicious cheese, reminds me of a Sardo, but not at all sharp. Richness fills the mouth. Well balanced, not salty. Caramel flavours come as a dominant aftertaste. a little musty, crust is nice en bouche. Rich but not oily. An aged Edam, I just finished reading how the cheese is turned every day while being aged and how "the surface of the cheese is brushed to remove cheese mites which feast on its surface." Tasty.

cabbage rolls

2005-04-27T09:48:00.000-04:00

Cabbage rolls
Supermarché Bucharest
(Decarie north of chemin C.S.L.)
$C 2.25

These were pretty good. They are of a generous size, and consist of a meat and rice filling wrapped n savoy cabbage leaves. When you buy them you get an extra tub of cabbage (saurkraut) that appears to have been cooked with the rolls. It is studded with black pepper and chunks of bacon, and is, for lack of a better word, greasy, but in a good way.
2 per person with some of the extra cabbage was enough for dinner, with a bit of salad and some whole wheat bread. Felt like some nouveau riche peasant.
While on the topic, I always liked the iranian cabbage rolls, stuffed with some split peas, nuts, raisins, maybe a bit of lamb. Turkish cabbage dolmas must be great as well. God only knows if there is a south indian version.

rice cooker pilaf

2005-04-23T19:01:00.000-04:00

3 rice cooker cups of patna or jasmin rice
2 big blades mace
2 tsp turmeric
5-6 cloves
2-3 slices ginger
2 dried chilies
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 cups roasted pistachios (salted are fine, just taste before salting)
2 Tbsp oil (peanut or ghee)
1 can coconut milk (I used this terrible malay brand that looked like chakhoa but was shite)
1 can water
salt
enough water to fill up to at least the 4 cup line.

mix all together in the rice cooker. and cook. Add more water if needed. let rest at least 30 minutes on warm before serving.

steamed eggplant

2005-04-23T18:16:00.000-04:00

The winner from two nights ago. Eggplants have such a meaty texture, I adore them in almost everything. Not crazy about them raw mind you.

Steamed eggplant with hot bean sauce

3 eppglants, roll cut and steamed until soft.
3 Tbsp peanut oil
5 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly sliced
2-3 Tbsp hot soybean with chili
1 Tbsp Chinese rice wine
squirt of ketchup
¼ cup chicken stock or water
sugar to taste

Start steaming the eggplant.
Heat the oil on medium heat, add the garlic. It should bubble moderately. Cook for 2 minutes until fragrant but not browned. Add the hot soybeans with chili, rice wine, ketchup, stock. Cook on med heat for about ten minutes, then taste for sugar and correct if needed. Pour over the egglant, toss and serve. Good to be made a ahead and served room temperature.

dinner at O Thym

2005-04-20T22:50:00.000-04:00

Maisonneuve and Amherst in Montreal.

Restaurants with blackboards always have a certain charm. I love the slight slide towards the informal. The hint that the menu can change at any time, that the chef allows a bit more spontaneity to his food. God knows, he may never change the blackboard, but the illusion is there.
The room is calm, immensely high ceilings, a banquette, muted pale beige and natural wood with a few tasteful pictures. Hard wood floors. The makeover is nice, this place used to be a café that roasted it’s own, used to be a bit grimy, in a charming way.
Upon seating myself, I’m immediately presented with the ‘water menu’. I’m sorry. I just find this a bit farcical. They have turned a bring your own wine restaurant, and decided to make a profit on water. I mean some of these waters are 9$ a bottle. That’s one mean mark up.
The service is good, professional, friendly. I order a 7 up, because I havn’t had one in so long (years), and because the idea of turning down their over priced water and ordering cheap pop gives me a hard on. But hey, props to them if they can find the suckers to pay for the water. I’d be filling up the bottles in the basement.
L shows up, we havn’t seen each other in about a year, and she’s bringing the wine. Later we’ll settle on a really nice 2003 Saumur; she’s brought a selection, so we can choose.
After humming and hawing, (ok L hummed and hawed, I never know what I want. I know what I don’t want and then let the other person order first, which cuts down my choices even more. Then I make a snap decision when they ask me.) we settle on a trio of smoked Quebec seafood for me, and a leek salad for Mlle. For mains we’re going to have the tuna, and for me the confitd ham hock with black berry sauce. But first the apps..
The leeks are nice and crunchy. We are both a little taken back as usually, for leeks in vinaigrette, you cook the shit out of the leeks to make them soft. These leeks are sliced into ½ inch rounds and placed atop a salad. It works well, with a nice vinaigrette and the toothsome leeks.
The trio of smokes seafood consists of: cold smoked scallops, pretty flavourless with a hint of smoke and a texture that is a little more flaccid than delicate, but in no way offensive. Hot smoked salmon, again, a bit less intense than I would have liked and pretty forgettable. Hot smoked mackrel. Now here we have a winner. I don’t know who is crafting this little lovely but they have a winner. The fish is full flavoured, with a creamy layer of fat. Absolute heaven. Probably better than the smoked herring from Normandy, no just different. Must be the mercury that makes it taste so good.
Mains: the tuna is extremely rare, too rare for L, so she sends back. She says the rice is nice, a medly of wild and white. I get to try the tuna at the end and it’s pretty characterless, texture says it may have been frozen and thawed, and the portion is easily over 220 grams. Nice little sauce.
The veg on both plates are really nice. Some golden beets, a little pattypan, green beans and some sautée red cabbage. They are pretty much perfectly cooked, which is rarer than you would think as veg often get the short end of the stick. Kudos to the veg chef.
The confit’s jarret de porc is beautiful as well. Not too much fat, crispy skin. That will be the skin we eat when they succeed in crossing a pig and a chicken and then roast it. The meat is tender and in no way dry or abused. The sauce tastes like a basic demi-glace based sauce, and there are a few what appear to be previously frozen blackberries strategically placed around the plate. Neither of us can finish our protein, but we both finish our veg. More veg please chef!

We haven’t finished our wine but my glass has disappeared. Oh well. I have a crème brulée a l’erable. The texture is beautiful. The top, covered in what was once maple sugar tastes like the outside of a burnt marshmallow. The maple flavour of this maple brulée is strangely absent.
Sumum: L: “ Well, it wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ll be rushing back”. I agree.

leek soubise

2005-04-19T18:19:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that this sauce exists somewhere already, nestled in the pages of some french cooking manual. It is quite intense, and as Sean said could be served as a dip, with chips. Actually what he said was 'this is what guacamole should be'.
Anyhow.. I have no pics.. but picture a creamy jade coloured avocado puree and you get the jist.

2 Tbsp butter
2 med sized leeks, split down the middle, washed, chopped into 1cm thick half moons
(if you have a whole lot of green on your leek, get rid of some)
3 cups homo milk
salt

Melt the butter in a pan big enough to accomodate all the leeks. Add the leeks and cook slowly until they have wilted down a bit. About 10-15 minutes. Add the milk and cook, uncovered and on low heat until the milk has pretty much all evaporated. There can be a bit of milk left but not too much.. this should take about 45 minutes.. I was doing other things.
If you boil too vigorously and the milk separated.. guess what.. it doesn't matter. Just keep reducing until almost all the liquid is gone.
Let the leeks cool, then puree in a blender (you could try a hand blender, might be good enough). Add salt to taste and admit to yourself that this is a pretty damn good puree.

I used this as a sauce for some chicken, just let out with a bit of cream. I will make this again and take pictures, as well as try and find other uses. With pork it would be nice as well.

dim sum, cookies, and dinner

2005-04-17T21:07:00.000-04:00

So, as we do every Sunday, we went for dim sum at the Kam Fung. And I hate to say it, but I think that the food at KF is actually getting better. Today was special as we had our biggest table ever, 9 ppl. Me, Sean, Kylie, Dilliana, Nantha, Stephan, and 3 of Stephan's friends. Sorry girls, I'm horrible with names. Eveything was really good. The fried stuffed taro (wu gok) was especially good; crispy, fresh, the mashed taro being light and the filling as savory as always. Also of note was the bbq pork in rice paper (char siu cheong ?). Ususally the have the beef, and the shrimp, and the doughnut stuffed rice paper.. but rarely the bbq pork. The sweetness of the bbq pork goes nicely with the sweet soy sauce.. but let's face it, I've eaten the cheong fan stuffed with little more than a few coriander leaves and have still ooed and awed over it. Something about the texture of freshly cooked rice noodle just does it for me. It's the same with fresh rice noodles in Bun Bo Hue, they are toothsome in a way that nothing else, except I guess fresh pasta, can be. Doughnut stuffed cheong fan is great too because of the textural diffrence between the fried dough stick an the flacid rice sheet.
Apart fron that the sweet tofu (do fu fa) was great as well. Nice and fresh and hot. This remains an all time favourite.
The deep fried squid was good too, a little bit over fried, but I would rather over fried than have soggy batter. This is the fried squid paradox, getting the batter crispy without overcooking the squid.
So all in all a lovely dim sum, with many people and lots of new friends.

Two days ago I made some really nice cookies. I never, ever, make cookies but I get the feeling that I should as these were so good and were so easy. The basis of this recipe comes from the Dolores Casella book 'A World of Baking', p.146. I give you a modified version.
2 1/2 c sifted flour
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 c butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup dried coconut
1 cup chocolate pistoles cut into bits (or chocolate chips)
1 cup roasted almond butter
2 large eggs
1/4 cup hot water
2 pinches salt
option extra ingredient

Cream the butter and add the sugars. Cream together until light and fluffy and add the eggs. Mix well until fluffy again, then add the nut butter and mix well. Mix the flour, soda, salt and coconut together. Add the flour mixture, alternating with the water. Stir in the choicolate at the end.
Shape into table spoon sized balls on a non stick cookie sheet, flatten with a fork and bake for 10 - 12 minutes at 350. Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.
optional other ingredients would be nuts, extra nut butter, or 3-4 grams of finely ground high grade pot.
These cookies are quite good. I would even say very good for the cookies of someone who is not really a baker and who never makes cookies. But then again what would I know, as I never make cookies.

Dinner tonight was a quick noodle stir fry. I've been wanting to make more recipes from the Fuschia Dunlop book, and was thinking of the Yu Hsing chicken (I don't know why.. probably because it's one of the only recipes I remembered.. and for no apparent reason). SO I bought some chicken breast, and some ginger, and spaghetti (?), and nappa cabbage (?).. and decided to make something entirely diffrent.
2 chicken breasts thinly sliced
1 T chinese rice wine
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 T honey
1 T soy sauce
1/2 to 3/4 a pkg of spaghetti cooked al dente, rinsed under cold water an drained well.
5-6 leaves nappa cappage. hard part sliced thinly, leaves cut roughly
1 med onion sliced
6 cloves garlic chopped finely
3 coins ginger chopped finely
2 T tian jin preserved veg chopped finely
extra soy, black or balsamic viengar

mix the chook breast with the next 3 ingredients and let sit 30 mins or so. heat some oil and fry 1/3 of the garlic/ginger and all of the tianjin for a few seconds then add the chicken and cook, until it is just cooked.. do not cook for 10 minutes.. cook for more like 2-3 minutes max. remove.
heat pan, add some oil and fry another 3rd of the ginger/garlic and then add the onion and the hard part of the nappa cabbage. stir fry and season with a bit of salt and sugar as it is cooking. Put it with the chicken.
Heat more oil and add the final 3rd of the gg. Add the noodles and toss well. seson with soy. Add back the chook and cabbage. toss with some hot sauce and serve.
If I had a wok I could do this in 4 minutes tops... but domestic woks do not cut it for noodles.
BTW the hot sauce I used above was:
heat 3 T oil, add 1 tsp shrimp paste and fry for 30 secs, add 4 cloves garlic roughly chopped, add some Bengali scotch bonnet sauce, and cook out a bit. Add some honey and a few T ketchup and som water and cook out for 5 minutes until it reaches the desired consistency.

ooooo this tires me out all this writing. An BTW, if you ever womder about the 1/4 cup of water in the cookie recipe, and why so many cookie recipe have these little bits of hot water hanging around, see Matt Thorne's article "The Toll House Cookie" about Ruth Graves Wakefield.. fascinating stuff.

patio dining

2005-04-17T08:14:00.000-04:00

summer is finally here and I had my first outdoor meal yeaterday. Eating outside in the Gay Village is so much fun. The food is usually crap, and you get to people watch... we had a great time when this siliconed up, fake baked stripper showed up dressed in pants slit up to the thigh and a silverey sequin bra that barely contained her bust.
We were on the terrace on the corner of Alexandre de Seve and Sainte Catherine, a sprawling block long complex comprising multiple restaurants, a multi level terrace, multiple bars, a hotel and a sauna (of course). All they need is a strip joint. Apparently thses people alsop own the "Drugstore" complex down the street... a smaller scale operation with lots of bars, a great roof top patio and lots of lesbians.
Kylie, a budding virgin when it comes to the Quebec fast food milieu, was coerced into having the Galvaude.. fries+cheese curds+chicken+peas+ gravy.... yummm. I would digress here into the whole subculture of Poutine derived dishes (poutine italienne, smoked meat poutine etc...) The only one worth mentioning is probably the foie gras poutine at the Pied de Cochon, which I have yet to try, but which by the sounds of things is off the scale.
I had the club sandwich.. a gargantuan platter.. but you can't fuck up a club sandwich, and even if you do, enough mayonnaise can hide pretty much anything. Here, they bring the squeeze bottle of mayo to your table.
Sean went for the Rolls Royce burger.. some tarted up thing or other, cheese, bacon.. other stuff.
So we all stuffed ourselves, got a little tipsy on the sangria, caught some of the dissapearing sun.. and anticipated patio action to come.

about drugs

2005-01-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1385987,00.html

spectacular turkish food in Toronto

2005-01-05T22:17:00.001-05:00

I was going to use the title 'turkish delight' for this piece, but how bloody clichéd can you be. I mean titles like that just provoke bleeding nausea no matter how potentially witty. Anyhow.
After a week of festive gorging, my mum found a review in a local paper by Joanne Kates, the primo restaurant reviewer in the city. Now this woman, I respect her reviews. She goes to the restaurants in disguise, none of the 'Look at me, I'm a restaurant reviewer' feed me and kiss my arse for free. But this is irrelevant, her reviews are ususally on the ball. The restaurant is in etobicoke. The resto is in a sort of mini decrepid strip mall, well furnished, comfortable with minimal tchochkes.
4 Mezzé. Imam Bayildi, a poetically named dish (look it up) of incredibly soft whole baked eggplant, stuffed with strips of onions, peppers and other good stuff. Lovely, soft, vegetal and with enough olive oil to make everything just so good.
Red Lentil soup. This was the first dish we had. Nice, with dried mint on top a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and yum, a pretty standard lentil soup. Hardy and tasty.
Lahmacun. Paper thin pita with ground meat garnish. Good, standard stuff, fresh and well made, also known as Armenian pizza.
Meyhane Pilavi. Bulghur pilav with tomatoey sauce and butter. Side garnish of salty cabbage pickle and marinated onions with sumac. Like mexican rice but with bulgur, but well cooked, not toothsome and nasty like in many bulgur dishes.
We also got some hommade thick pita with lovely super garlicky hummus.
I started to realise as we ate on that this is food that grows on you. My brother, who had eaten in Turkey, was adament as to how the food was generally lightly seasoned and he was not lying. It would have been under salted by most peoples standards, and up to this point in the meal was a little bit oily, balanced out by a predominance of vegetables and lots of garlic. All this was about to change.
Firstly, my brother Robin's dish. Manti. Think of mini, handmade, meat tortellini, about the size of small olive. now smother these with super tart strained(?) yogurt, sprinkle with mint and spoon on oh 1/2 a cup of nutty, melted butter. Looking at it you would think that this would be totally overpowering from the grease, and yes, it is very rich, but but it was also delicately flavoured, perfectly cooked and extremely well balanced with the richness and the tart yogurt..
My mum had the Beyti. A thin crèpe, wrapped around a ground beef and lamb filling, served with a bit of tomato sauce over top and sprinkled with ground pistachios. Served with an ultra yogurty garlic to dab on top, just like the manti this was a dish that could have been totally stodgy, but the meat filling was surprisingly light, underseasoned to be sure, but as a whole a delightful dish with some wonderful flavours.
Vaughn, my brothers childhood friend in from London, had the Ali Nazik. Sliced lamb sevrved on a plateful of grilled eggplant purée. Was it the most outstanding dish of the meal? Probably not. Would you be unhappy if this was what you ordered? No, and he wasn't. It was probably also one of the lightest of the dishes we had.
Myself, I would have gladly had any of the dishes above. But, as people made their choices I had been shuttled back and forth across the menu to end up with Adana Kebabi. Simple, ground meat kebabs, served with well buttered rice, a chopped tomato sauce and some side veg. Simple and well done.
Having started out feeling that this food was rather bland, I was, by the end of the meal, thoroughly seduced and barely missed the salt. And we hadn't even had dessert.
We made three choices. Kunefe and Baklava, both based on lovely phyllo (is that hommade?) with lots of butter and pistachios. This is nothing like the crap baklava you buy at the supermarket, this is crispy and light with a mildly sweet syrup. Not sodden and diabetically sweet goopy shite. Keskul is a creamy, milky pudding with almonds, pistachios and coconut sprinkled on top.. mmm it was ok.
Mum had a turkish coffee. The rest of us had apple tea.
Lovely and well worth the drive, almost gets you out of the city.

http://www.anatoliarestaurant.ca/index.shtml

Anatolia Restaurant 5112 Dundas Street West. © 2005 Anatolia Restaurant (416) 207-0596.

spectacular turkish food in Toronto

2005-01-05T22:17:00.000-05:00

I was going to use the title 'turkish delight' for this piece, but how bloody clichéd can you be. I mean titles like that just provoke bleeding nausea no matter how potentially witty. Anyhow.
After a week of festive gorging, my mum found a review in a local paper by Joanne Kates, the primo restaurant reviewer in the city. Now this woman, I respect her reviews. She goes to the restaurants in disguise, none of the 'Look at me, I'm a restaurant reviewer' feed me and kiss my arse for free. Plus her reviews are ususally on the ball. The restaurant is in etobicoke. Think New York. Now think living in Manhattan, and going to dine in New Jersey. This is the Toronto equivalent, i.e. the back of beyond, 1/2 an hour car ride, i.e. this better be bloody good. Well, it was, and I would have driven another 15 minutes, except for the fact that I wasn't driving, mum was.
The dishes:
4 Mezzé. Imam Bayildi, a poetically named dish (look it up) of incredibly soft whole baked eggplant, stuffed with strips of onions, peppers and other good stuff. Lovely, soft, vegetal and with enough olive oil to make everything just so good.
Red Lentil soup. This was the first dish we had. Nice, with dried mint on top a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and yum, a pretty standard lentil soup. Hardy and tasty.
Lahmacun. Paper thin pita with ground meat garnish. Good, standard stuff, also known as Armenian pizza.
Meyhane Pilavi. Bulghur pilav with tomatoey sauce and butter. Side garnish of salty cabbage pickle and marinated onions with sumac. Like mexican rice but with bulgur, but well cooked, not toothsome and nasty like in many bulgur dishes.
We also got some hommade thick pita with lovely super garlicky hummus.
I started to realise as we ate on that this is food that grows on you. My brother, who had eaten in Turkey, was adament as to how the food was underseasoned and he was not lying. It would be under salted by most peoples standards, and up to this point in the meal was a little bit oily, balanced out by a predominance of vegetables and lots of garlic. All this was about to change.
Firstly, my brother Robin's dish. Manti. Think of mini, handmade, meat tortellini, about the size of small olive. now smother these with super tart yogurt, sprinkle with mint and spoon on some nutty, melted butter. Looking at it you would think that this would be totally overpowering from the grease, and yes, it is very rich, but but it was also delicately flavoured, perfectly cooked and extremely well balanced.
My mum had the Beyti. A thin crèpe, wrapped around a ground beef and lamb filling, served with a bit of tomato sauce over top and sprinkled with ground pistachios. Served with an ultra yogurty garlic to dab on top, just like the manti this was a dish that could have been totally stodgy, but the meat filling was surprisingly light, underseasoned to be sure, but as a whole a delightful dish with some wonderful flavours.
Vaughn, my brothers childhood friend in from London, had the Ali Nazik. Sliced lamb sevrved on a plateful of grilled eggplant purée. Was it the most outstanding dish of the meal? Probably not. Would you be unhappy if this was what you ordered? No, and he wasn't. It was probably also one of the lightest of the dishes we had.
Myself, I would have gladly had any of the dishes above. But, as people made their choices I had been shuttled back and forth across the menu to end up with Adana Kebabi. Simple, ground meat kebabs, served with well buttered rice, a chopped tomato sauce and some side veg. Simple and well done.
Having started out feeling that this food was rather bland, I was, by the end of the meal, thoroughly seduced. And we hadn't even had dessert.
We made three choices. Kunefe and Baklava, both based on lovely phyllo (is that hommade?) with lots of butter and pistachios. This is nothing like the crap baklava you buy at the supermarket, this is crispy and light with a mildly sweet syrup. Not sodden and goopy shite. Keskul is a creamy, milky pudding with almonds, pistachios and coconut sprinkled on top.. mmm it was ok.
Mum had a turkish coffee. The rest of us had apple tea.
It should be emphasised that although the food is rich, the pertions are good, and the prices are reasonable, no one felt bloated after all that, full, to be sure, but in no way uncomfortable.
Ahhhh I'm in love.

http://www.anatoliarestaurant.ca/index.shtml

Anatolia Restaurant 5112 Dundas Street West. © 2005 Anatolia Restaurant (416) 207-0596.

Al Quayda and the American Neo-Cons

2004-12-30T09:05:00.000-05:00

From the BBC: The Power of Nightmares

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm

A fascinating look at the origins of American neo-conservative thought, the origins of 20th century radical islamic thought, and how the two are linked and at present co-dependant.

post xmas/ cauliflower scramble

2004-12-26T20:27:00.000-05:00

Christmas was part in honour of my late dad. My dad was a brit and apart from the penchant for warm beer he also loved roast beef. Now no family member is going to argue that we shouldn't have rare roast beef for xmas dinner but we like to think that we're doing it for Dad anyhow.. he probably tell us all to sod off and stop wasting the fat but there you have it.
So we had the whole shebang: 100$ roast, yorkshire pudd, onions and potatoes roasted in drippings, boiled carrots, horseradish, gravy and big bottle of red. Beauty itself.
We start with a smoked salmon app, we finish with the traditional english christmas pudd and then we move onto the quebec raw milk cheeses with Iranian dates, nuts and apples.
Another excuse to roll on the ground and curse God that the Roman Vomitorium has gone out of fashion.
In vengance, tonight we moved towards vegetarian Indian food. Basmati with leftover herbs, hot and sour fusion sambar soup, chick pea curry, and cauliflower and eggs.

Cauliflower and potatoes with scrambled eggs.
-4 eggs
-1/2 a head cauliflower
-2 onions (leftover from xmas.. so all mushy and cooked and soaked in beef fat), chopped.
-2 potatoes (again, leftover, so roasted in beef fat,) cut into rough cubes
pinches turmeric
pinches kala jerra (black cumin)
oil
fresh coriander
1 non stick pan

Heat a bit of oil, and fry the jerry a bit. Add the potatoes, onions, and cauliflower and fry gently until it is well coloured. You can add a bit of water to speed this up, but you have to get it nice and caremilized and the cauliflower has to be cooked to the point of being spoon tender. Add the turmeric and stir it up.
Add the eggs and scramble gently. when the eggs are 2/3 rds cooked add the coriander give a good genly stir and remove from heat. Cover and let the eggs finish cooking by their own heat.
serve with rice and salad, a bit of yogurt.
Resist the urge to lie on the floor and groan, if only out of habit.

la guadeloupe mexicaine (or birthday part 2)

2004-12-26T20:05:00.000-05:00

Having not had enough gluttony for one week, two days after the Pied du Cochon we went out for Mexican food. Me, the boyfriend, and Molester.
Le Guadeloupe Mexicaine is a Mexican resto next to a cigarette factory in working class, east end Montreal. If you don't know montreal you just have to bear in mind one thing. East=French, West=English. Despite their proximity, the two are pretty independant. Many English people who have grown up there have no clue about the French part of the city, and the same goes for the many French. Both are contentedly ignorant and feel justified in being so.
So this restaurant is run by these two big mexican mamas and what I assume to be thier extended family... you probably think that I'm just a racist and because all the staff is mexican I assume that thay're all related. that's life.
Anyhow, the food is great, the portions are massive and the service, although slower than slow is extremely friendly. Plus the fact that the chairs are meant to accomodate 300lb asses and the tables for six are big enough to hold a Medicis banquet for 12.
We go for the margaritas to start. Beautiful, fresh lime juice with a hint of zest, sweet and salty at the same time. These are not nasty lime+tequila+salt and drink. Someone has actually tasted this drink and said "no, wait, too harsh, add some sugar and a bit of love". Cheers, happy birthday.
We share an order of nachos con guacamole, and queso fundido. The queso is getting a bit cold by the time we dig in but it still hits the spot. I mean molten cheese with fried sausage meat which you have to try and sop up with a flour tortilla, fork , hands, face, whatever. It's like all the best parts of a nasty cheap pizza.
The nachos are as always better than sex. Home fried tortilla chips covered with lovely refried beans, then gratineed with cheese and .. wait for it... a dig dollop of guac in the middle. These refritos; I don't even want to think about fat content, about whole families of pigs being slaughtered so that I can have some unctuous lard laden bean purée. No, best not to... just eat the effin beans.
I want the Chile Rellenos con Nogato (?).. a large pepper stuffed with the mexican equivalent of mince meat (meat, raisins, nuts olives etc..) and the whole thing in a white nut sauce... oh and wait, they dip the pepper in batter and deep fry it. Sorry they don;t make it any more. Ok, stuff it with cheese and serve it with a red sauce, its still great. Sloppy, gooey and beautiful.
The boys have molé poblano.. chicken leg in a hommeade chocolate and chile sauce. A bit too sweet for me but the boyfriend love it, The Molester isn't sure; he's not used to strange food and chocolate and meat takes a while to wrap your head around. My mum has fed me mole poblano since I was a kid and her's was always rich and a bit bitter... Diana Kennedy. If your mum makes mole you have to like your mum's the best.. there is no way to do otherwise.
We opt out of dessert and head to the loft party but before doing so we go across the street to buy beer. The Indian man sells us some of the most basic and worst tasting paan I've ever had. Paan in the middle of France montreal.. what were we thinking... the shock should have been enough, no need to try.
Happy birthday again.

au Pied du Cochon

2004-12-26T19:47:00.000-05:00

last weekend for my boyfriends birthday we finally made it to the Pied du Cochon.
The other three had a roquefort, endive, and walnut salad to start. Yummy but standard.
I had the brandade. I have to remember that the apps at this place are the size of mains, but I always choose to forget this because part of the experience is being so totally gluttonous that you have to roll out the front door. The brandade was great, creamy and quite soupy with some leeks, gently cooked to bring out their sweetness, making all the diffrence. Never had brandade with leeks, more people should do this.
Brother in law (aka The Molester) had chicken pot pie. It comes with a deep fried chickens foot sticking out top. The waiter said that you could eat the whole foot as all the bones had been removed and only cartilage remained. Well he lied.
The pie was apparently delicious, and had a big hunk of foie gras in the middle of it. Oh, if you have never heard about this resto, everything, EVERYTHING, has foie gras in it.
Tandy Sr. had rognons de veau (veal kidneys) in a cream sauce with .. you guessed it, more foie gras. He adored. I hate kidneys. I want to like kidneys but to no avail.. it's like eating a meaty, squeaky, piss sponge. I know.. the don't taste like piss. Bullshit; people who eat kidneys just don't mind the taste of piss.. nothing wrong with that.
The wife had the 'Plogue a champlain'. Buckwheat pancake + potatoes + pan fried foie gras... all topped with maple syrup. Sin. Greasy, rich, sweet, and not too large a portion. I've hardly ever seen my boyfriend so happy.. apart from delux dim sum, or recieving spontaneous oral sex, I don't think anything makes him happier than foie gras. If you combined the three and had like a blowjob with foie gras dumplings he'd probably have a coronary.
I had the confit'd lamb shank with a tomato tombée. delicious. undersalted.. but so bloody lovely and moorish that I almost finished it.
No one had dessert except for Tandy Sr. who declared the creme brulee a triumph. We toasted the pirthday with some courvoisier and rolled home to lie prone.

chick pea curry

2004-12-13T20:39:00.001-05:00

OOOOOOooooo I ate too much of this.. it's good but it's quite rich.. you could dilute it even further or use a thinner coconut milk..

1 heaping Tbsp mung dal
1/2 Tbsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin
10 curry leaves
3 dried red chilies
2 onions sliced thinly
4 Tbsp oil
6 -7 canned tomatoes, roughly chopped
2-3 heaping Tbsp Baba's jaffna curry powder
1 1/2 cups thick coconut milk (or a bit less coconut cream)
1 small can chick peas drained and rinsed, half of them crushed up with your hands
2 or 3 lime leaves

Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds, and cumin, and dal. cover the pan and listen for the popping. When they have finished popping add the chilies and curry leaves and cook 30 seconds more. Add the onions and fry on med hi heat until they colour and have softned. Add the curry powder and fry out for for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes and fry on med heat for 10 minutes or so until the paste has thickned. The oil should start to separate by now.
Add the rest of the ingrerdients and add 1 -2 cups of water. season to taste with salt/fish sauce/ soy and stew for 30 minutes or so. This out as you need to adjusting the salt as wanted.

Serve this over noodles or with rice, and garnish with hard boiled eggs cut into 1/4's, deep fried tofu, coriander, blanched green leafy veg. Whatever you do, serve with lots of chili sauce and lime or vinegar.

A good hot sauce: crush green chilies and garlic with a good pinch of salt. Add some finely chopped tomato (a greener tomato is well suited to this), and crush some more. add white vinegar and a bit sugar (not too much), balance for salt.... you can do like me and use a nice dirty mortar and pestle that you used to grind toasted fenugreek seeds.. gives an interesting flavour.

buttermilk "curry" with rice

2004-12-06T23:19:00.000-05:00

After a week of overeating this was a nice break. The buttermilk curdled, which in the end wasn't unpleasant but I might avoid it next time by adding a Tbsp or two of besan (chick pea flour) to the buttermilk, which I have in the recipe... might work :).

grind together:
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp dessicated coconut (or use fresh and double the ammount?)
2 shallots peeled and sliced
pinch salt
1 tsp cumin seeds

4 cups buttermilk
2 Tbsp besan
2 green chilies roughly chopped
2 coins ginger thinly sliced
2 pinches turmeric
2 shallots, peeled and sliced
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds (1/4 tsp toasted and ground, the other 1/4 mixed with the mustard seeds)
2 dried red chilies roughly crushed
5-6 curry leaves
1 small potato peeled and cut into cubes
1 small asian eggplant cut into cubes (or use comprable ammount of other eggplant)
1 Tbsp mung dal (or other small dal)
1 tbsp ghee or oil (maybe a bit more)
salt

In a pan big enough to accomodate the buttermilk, heat half the ghee and briefly fry the green chilies and ginger for a minute. Add the turmeric and about 1/4 cup of water and cook for a few minutes more until the water has almost completely evaporated. Add the besan and cook out a bit then slowly add the buttermilk. give a good stir and transfer to an appropriate sized bowl.
Heat the pan again, on med hi, with the other half of the ghee. Add the mustard seeds and whole fenugreek and when the begin to splutter, cover the pan and wait for the popping to subside. Add the curry leaves and dried chilies and give a good stir. Add the shallots and lower the heat to medium or med low. Cook until the shallots begin to brown around the edges (add more oil if need be). Now add the ground coconut and the toasted fenugreek and cook on med low for a while to bring out the oil and let the whole mix become fragrant. Add the vegetables and then slowly add the buttermilk (let me know if it curdles eh!). season as need be and simmer until the veg and lentils are cooked.. about 20 -30 mins.

I served it with rice, that I had cooked with a few bits of ginger and a bit of oil, and a good helping of yogurt.
This dish was very soupy, but quite tangy and flavourful... a great light dinner when you can't face a big meal.

cod with onions and harissa

2004-12-06T12:04:00.000-05:00

This is a lovely dish based on one that was much less spiced... I tend to like the heat a bit better

1 filet of cod (enough for 4 portions)
2 tbsp harissa
10 or so large plump kalamata olives (or as you want)
zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 large spanich onion sliced thickly
4 Tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
(depending on how spicy your harissa is: 1/4 tsp toated ground cumin, a few gratings of orange peel)

heat 2 Tbsp of the oil and fry the onions over med hi heat with 1/2 the harissa, lemon and orange peel, cumin and salt to taste, until the onions are softened, 3 or 4 minutes. Place 1/2 the onions on the bottom of an ovenproof dish and scatter with 1/2 the olives. Cut the cod into portions and season with salt and pepper. Place them on top of the onions and cover with the other half of the onions and the olives. Mix the rest of the olive oil, harissa, and lemon juice then pour the fish.
Place in a 450 degree oven until the fish is cooked (10-20 minutes). Serve as you will, with some bread, rice or potatoes.

Jolee and the Indian you don't know

2004-12-05T12:23:00.000-05:00

Indian food has, as chinese food, been almost thoroughly bastardised to make it into the occidental palate spectrum. This is a mixed blessing and a terribly interesting story. It make a food acceptable that would otherwise be unacessible while at the same time changing it irreprably. The story of this food, especially in the British context, where Indian food has had a longer history is fascinating. The fact that we eat mostly Bengali takes on Anglo-Indian food is who other ball game.
This brings us to South Indian, and in the case of Jolee, Sri Lankan food. Although they are by no means the same, they're a lot closer than the local delivery Jalfrezi. Both rely heavily on the coconut, as well as mustard seeds and curry leaves.
The mosty fascinating thing for me here is the starches. String Hoppers are little noodle pancakes made from toated rice flour that are steamed and then used to sop up curries and other sauces. Left over string hoppers can be chopped up and fried like noodles or rice (Kottu string hopers), the same trestment is given to roti (like parathas, flaky bread). You have to try stir fried bread bits.. I mean how can that not be good.
What I wanted this time was Puttu. Puttu is the same batter as the string hoppers (toasted rice) but it is steamed in a cylindrical mould and ends up resembling a large irregularly shaped couscous or smaller hardish spatzle. They are a sort or purple grey colour. The waiter is impressed with my choice, if a little unsure of what this white boy wants with Sri Lankan food. In all honesty I find them very filling. The flavour is good, and the texture is a little hard, the lamb curry is spicy and great if a little tough. The mung bean dal is nice and the chick pea curry is really nice... all in all very tasty and for 6$ probably the best lunch deal in the city... on par with Pushaps.
The rest of the menu, the dosas, the samosas, the birianis are at the least competent, at the best.. a flavourful, yummy steal.
To recommend are all the Kottu dishes, the Lamb curry is delicious and heavily spiced, the saag paneer is creamy spinach with bits of paneer stirred through (not the usual fried chunks). The dosas are good too and when stuffed with potato curry and served with sambar on the side, is a nice light lunch. I don't dig the vadas.. oversized falafels arn't for me.
But get lunch, order extra food for friends at home or later for dinner, then sit and have a nice masala tea and enjoy the exotic.

scallops and tartare

2004-12-05T09:53:00.000-05:00

After a hard day of food styling, my boyfriend invited my for a drink. Now considering that recently I've been working a grueling 1 day a week this drink was well deserved. It's one thing to work 10 hrs a day 5 days a week, entirely another to have a week of Moksha yoga ( www.mokshayogamontreal.com ) and relaxation and then suffer an intense 12hr Friday.. especially when artisanal Calvados and Nappa Valley bubbly are involved.
It had been snowing for most of Friday and everything was covered in a disorienting white. We decided to head for Reservoir, a lovely brew pub pub and restaurant on Duluth just east of St Laurent. Now, I was weaned on british beer (gin and tonic as well but that's another story); some people think that beer is a preference, they don't realise that for some people (british and czech mostly) it's actually part of your genetic makeup. So all this is to say that although I do like the beer at Reservoir.. it just isn't flat and warm enough for me, and is ever so slightly too acidic. Be that as it may, I think brewpubs should be encouraged as anything beats the big name national brands (piss water mostly). And Reservoir is just oh so hip, all natural wood and glowing transparent photographs, slightly snobby staff (oh you french from france), and a clientele that just oozes their cool savoir vivre all over the floor. I once, during a slow happy hour, asked for a complete pint (the one I got was about a good two inches shy). What I got was a look of pure loveliness, pure unadulterated cold wet parisian winter I just stepped in dog shit loveliness And no top up. This is atypical though, usually the staff are just really really busy. Courteous but in no way overjoyed at being alive.
What I really love at Reservoir is the food. Lovely little dishes, somewhere between tapas, appetizer and small main course, based for the most part on Quebec and Canadian products. The blackboard is not extensive (5 or 6 choices) and there is a printed menu as well, but that doesn't make it any easier as I want to order them all. We opt for tartare of New Brunswick salmon with confit'd lemon, and scallops baked with cream an pecans. My boyfriend drinks the Scotch Ale (almmost always) which I find a bit too boozy. I go for the pale ale which is damn fine. As we sit at the bar watching other peoples food go out our hunger mounts. Finally... The scallops are delicious little fresh buggers from PEI, I've seen them at the fish market earlier in the week and what they lack in size they make up for in deliciousness. Baked on the half shell in fresh cream and sprinkled with ground pecans (or maybe a pecan breadcrumb mix?) these little devils are bliss. Screw dessert, I want more scallops. This recipe seems so simple that I'm totally sold on trying it myself. The tartare is perfect. Hand cut, and well seasoned with a small salad of greens and fennel shavings. The slighly charred grilled crouton that comes along with is a great rustic accompanyment. Both total winners.
Are the portions small. Yes. Is it priced a little on the high end. Yes. Is it worth it. Beyond all doubt.
Fortified by two pints each and now positively ravenous my mate wants to head for the Pied de Cochon. A gastro-temple of all that is meat, especially foie gras. The boyfriend has been sold on this place ever since our first visit, a carnivores paradise..... we trudge down Duluth and wait in line for 10 minutes only to discover that we're going to have to wait another 45 minutes if we want a seat. We head for L'express as one of us has never been there and well.. if you've never been to L'express and live in Montreal, it's inexcuasble, like having never eaten poutine.
We squeek into l'express, beating a group of cell phone wielding chinese who are defeated by their numerical superiority. The Maitre'd seems to relish exaggerating the wait time, and I love his slightly sadistic streak.... this is not the cool of Reservoir, this is an efficient man who deals with a full dining room on a daily basis.
Again we sit at the bar. Mr Masson the barman is, as always, at the height of his art. Running around, bantering with the clients in a crisp, humerous fashion. He forgets sugar cubes on a saucer and jokes that once again he is trying to save money for the maison. L'express is on a diffrent plane of reality than the rest of the city.. it rejoins a parisian arrondisment somewhere. This is full on theatre, the art of the bistro.
We start with little appero and cheers over a plate of fresh oysters on a bed of ice and seaweed. A bit on the scrawny side but in no way bad. I head for the Salade de pourpier as an apps, a nice pile of fried lardons (bacon cubes) and potato slices, deglazed with vinaigre and dumped on top of fresh purslane. Great flavours, meaty, fatty and beautifully cut with the acidic splash of vinaigre. My chum has the chevre chaud. a classic of warm creamy goats cheese on croutons, a bit of salad and that's all. Simple and exactly what you expect.
The Gwurts is too sweet but that's my poor wine knowledge at work.
We both opt fot he raviolis as mains, seems to be a little bit smaller on the portion side but that, I might be imagining. As a write about these raviolis I'm welling up inside. Little pillows drenched in a lovely veal based butter sauce. It is sin, it is indulgence, it is a must. I could easily eat a double portion but my heart would probably stop. My boyfriend was now solidly sauced. We settle up and head home.
I worked at L'express briefly when I was about 21. There I discovered what monté au beurre meant. Monst sauces were "Deglaze with booze, add veal stock and reduce, add butter and monté". At first I was aghast, the best sauces I had seen up to then were devoid of butter. Stock reductions, infusions and juices but no butter. This was a shocking discovery and quite revealing. People drench things in fat because it tastes good and the sauces at L'express were addictive, I discovered the respect of the cuisine bourgeoise for fat of all kind.

Reservoir
ADDRESS: 9 Duluth (corner St-Laurent)
BEER TANKS ROOM: 9a Duluth
TELEPHONE: 849-7779
CREDIT CARDS: Everything except Amex, but who needs Amex.
HOURS: Mon-Fri noon-3AM; Sat-Sun 11AM-3AM

L’Express
3927 Saint-Denis. Sherbrooke métro—difficult to spot because only sign is in sidewalk
Tel. 845-5333. Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday, 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. (Reservations required Thursday through Sunday, tables usually available without reservation after 2 pm and 10 pm.)

kimchi and clams

2004-11-30T18:34:00.000-05:00

This is inspired by some experimentations with a recipe for Kimchi Tchigae (Kimchi Stew?) which I got from Copeland Marks and equally from Mary Jeeyoug Park and Hae Ok Park's book "Everyday Korean Cooking". The first book is great, I have had it for a few years and have barely cooked from it. The second book is even better as it is a daughter and mother team who have published their own cookbook and not only are the recipes great but I totally admire and respect their efforts (the company is called Hot Pot Publishing but it appears to no longer exist)..... the original recipes had pork in them and, after making it twice I gave it a little twist. As we are in the full swing of shellfish season where I am, the clams are really delicious, got some lovely little ones from New Zealand.. more like fruit than shellfish.

1 to 2 cups kimchi, I used radish, but cabbage or as you want (great way to use up old kimchi)
4-6 cups small clams, rinsed and scrubbed as necessary
1-2 cups water
2 cloves garlic smashed
1 coin ginger cut into strips (as thin as possible)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 Tbsp sesame oil, plus a dash to finish
1 tsp korean red pepper powder
1 large handful sotbean sprouts ( I have very big hands.. if you don't, maybe 2 handfuls :))
2 blocks soft tofu (the kind that comes in tubs with 6 blocks or so to a tub) cut into 6-8 pieces each
soy as needed

It's good to use a sauté pan or wide pan with a nice heavy bottom for this as it is easier to cook the clams.
Heat the sesame oil and add the garlic, ginger, red pepper. Fry out for a minute or so on medium heat, then add the sesame seeds and stir for 30 seconds to a minute to give them a bit of colour. Add the kimchi and fry for a bit, add the water and the potatoes and the tofu and cover the pot. Simmer gently until the potatoes are cooked (mmmmm 15-20 mins?) then add the clams. Be gentle as the tofu is fragile but at the same time try and poke the clams into contact with the cooking liquid (see I said to use a wide pot) as I find this makes them cook all at the same speed. If you have a whole pile of clams sitting on top of one another this is a pain to deal with. Anyhow.. so now cover your pot and turn the heat back up to medium, med-hi . Simmer until the clams have opened and had time to cook a bit.. the original recipe said ten minutes which may imply a bigger clam.. anyhow just cook them until they open and don't look raw anymore, if in doubt take one and test it.
Place the bean sprouts in a big bowl and transfer the clams onto the sprouts. Taste the cooking liquid and adjust with some soy or anything else you think it needs. Drizzle a bit of sesame oil on top and pour this over the clams/sprouts.
this is a light apps, or dinner for two with some rice and side dishes. It's light and hardy at the same time as these are some pretty assertive flavours.