Recently in Food Category

This is the first time that I try this family recipe on my own. I don't know its origin, but it's something that my family has been doing since I was a child. I presume that it may be Chinese, but there isn't anything distinctively Chinese about it.

In a bowl, prepare some ground beef by separating it with very very little water. Add salt, pepper and some chopped green onions. Then add the eggs, and something like 50mL of milk for taste. Mix everything together, and fry it in a pan as seen on the picture.

For quantities, I had about a fist of ground beef for four large eggs.

The Montreal food restaurant site Métro Boulot Resto that I am running with my friend Jen is now back up again. It was a long month of fumbling... In the meanwhile, MBR celebrated its first anniversary, just shy of a month ago.

A chain restaurant operating throughout China and also Overseas, but based in Beijing, Quanjude (全聚德) is probably one of the most places to go for Peking Duck.

Last time that I went to Asia, I invited friends to a Greek restaurant on Prince-Arthur, as something suitable for large groups, but also as something likely not to be found in Asia.

This week has serendipitously one of cheese. Last weekend, I asked my parents to buy me a cheddar from Costco for macaroni and cheese. It was not the greatest cheese, but it did the work for a rich and delicious macaroni and cheese.

I had some grated Parmigiano Reggiano from PA, which I got for my various pasta dishes of the week, and which can presumably be kept for a month or two without (seemingly) going bad.

The next cheese was a new discovery, something called the Bleubry (see photo above), a Quebec cheese produced by La Maison Alexis Portneuf, that makes various kinds of cheese sold under an interesting branding scheme. It's a bloomy rind blue-veined cheese, extremely rich, and I ate 1/4 of it (w/o bread) in five minutes. On the same run, I had many pieces of a truly excellent cheese called the Champfleury, a washed rind made by Agropur, no less.

Then, on Friday, we went to the Fromagerie Hamel, an excellent cheese shop (and producer) in Marché Jean-Talon (Mentioning this to a colleague, I was told there is a better, although more expensive, place on Bernard called Fromagerie Yannick - they have "closets" to hold their cheeses, I heard). At Hamel, I had a Brie de Meaux, that is usually in the refrigerated counter seen in the last photo. I usually dislike Brie, because I always associate it with the infect Agropur kind sold in mainstream supermarkets, which surface constantly has a smell of plastic wrap. But each bite of this Brie de Meaux, in particular, sold to you wrapped in specially designed-for-cheese wrapping paper, tasted of creamy milk. It was a big hit with my friends too.

I then took a chance on the nearest inexpensive-looking cheese, a Saint-Guillaume. From what I found on the Internets, St-Guillaume may be the fromagerie, rather than the cheese itself, and the cheese is perhaps a cheddar. In any case, the piece that I bought turned out to be a fresh cheese, the kind you put in poutine, but instead of being in curds, came as a block.

Finally, not cheese this time, but rather saucisson! Saucisson sec is my péché mignon. Every time my relatives come to visit from France (my aunt who just arrived yesterday is no exception), they smuggle a saucisson or two for me, because you may not find the same quality in Quebec. Oh, how wrong I was! In fact, I limited my search to mainstream supermarkets, when I should've looked at Montreal's public markets. This land produces the best French stuff in the world outside of France (and sometimes better than, if you consider places like bakery Première Moisson), and we arguably make cheese on par with France's. Why wouldn't a decent saucisson?

By definition, it is to be hard and firm when you feel it, with a thick salpeter-laden white powder covering it, and a strong meat aroma. They were to be found at Cochons tout ronds, an artisan charcuterie all the way from Île-de-la-Madeleine. It took samples of saucisson freshly cut above the counter filled with saucissons of all size, to convince me that you don't need to go all the way to France (or Hong Kong - scroll down) to get good saucisson that tastes exactly like the real thing. I got mine "ménage", which is the cute way of saying "ordinaire" (as in pain ménage).

After going on an (expensive) cheese-buying spree on Saturday (at Costco, no less), I completed my groceries at the week at P.A. Supermarché on Parc. I already have relatively vasts amounts of meat in the freezer, that I have not been using, because I don't have the vegetable for accompanying. So, I went and filled my basket with only fruits and vegetable! Except for that pack of German rye flour crackers, this is what I got (most of which was on special - by how much, I dunno):

• Bananas (~1kg): $1.26
• Wasa Crackers: $2.39
• Zucchini (3): $0.95
• Organic cauliflower (1): $1.69
• Yukon potatoes (5lbs): $1.99
• Sunkist oranges (8): $1.20
• Green pepper (1): $0.36
• Bluberries (1/2 pint): $1.69
• Red pepper (1): $0.41
• Italian tomatoes (4): $1.12

Total: $13.06

That's enough plants for the whole week, I think...

I had the brilliant idea to get beets at the supermarket, thinking that I could pull something Eastern European. But what do you do, when your roots (ha-ha) are elsewhere and that there is no such tradition for this in your family, besides your parents? Improvise. Just imagine what the Eastern European would be doing, and that would be imagining them cutting some beets, boiling them in water and broth with onions. Then, after simmering the thing for a couple of hours, get a bowl of it, and throw / mix in some sour cream.

Verdict? Not that great.

This was a restaurant called La Shangrila that we went to in Lachine, corner of Notre-Dame and 25e Avenue. It's owned by Nepalese people (judging from the flags that they have inside). Check out this eclectic menu.

3-4 servings. First, get a pouch of LLK's "Lemon chicken" blend from any regular Chinese grocery store (it's appx $1.50), five pieces of boneless chicken thighs, one orange, one egg and some corn starch. Follow the instructions on the pouch, and add half-slices of an orange to the stir-fry.

Waiting in line at Supermarché PA, Avenue du Parc, can be long and frustrating, but never boring with a camera...

I have 210$ (actually approximately $150, considering that I need to buy a bus pass) to live with for the next two weeks. This is because of my feeling that living on credit is the worse thing that can happen to someone in terms of personal finances. Therefore, once I got my pay yesterday, I paid my cellphone bill, and rent, and set money aside for mutual funds (markets in Asia went down), and had early Christmas gifts (unconscious of what I was doing, as it was Buy Nothing Day, and I was trying hard to be observant for once).

So, I am left with about $10/day. I guess that a lot of the money goes into restaurants, and spendings for outings.

The funnest part of living downtown is probably doing the supermarket. Because I am living to eat, every trip to the local grocery story (Supermarché PA slowly imposed itself as a personal favourite) is like a voyage to the land of wonders. I understand that savings are usually made on big extravagant purchases (on a latest iPod, say) than on stuff like groceries, and it is the nature of extravagant purchases to be unpredictable... In any case, I am a bargain hunter. Last week, I found that pineapples were 2$/each, which seems unbelievably low (but then, I never bought a pineapple myself before), and that Emmental cheese was noticeably cheaper than its usual supermarket price (for bargains on cheese, and not just the Kraft kind, go to Costco!).

Another favourite buy is bread from Première Moisson. Not just any kind, because a baguette is markedly more expensive there (proportional to its quality, we'd all agree on that), but rather the "carré blanc" variety. Sold at PA, but only sliced at actual bakery locations. The carré blanc is $2.65, a competitive price against commercial white breads of the POM, Weston brands, not as large, from the volume point of view, but it is surely heavier, denser (and of greater quality, arguably). It is a lot cheaper than the $3-4 breads of multi-grain omega-3 whatever types.

And then, I definitely like the instant noodles + Chinese vegetable + egg / Chinese cold cut meat combo. A portion of roasted pork for $5 in Chinatown can be good for three individual meals, including a lunch.

Speaking of lunch (and breakfast), packing your own is probably the single most valuable money saver. How about a pair of toasts for around $1, when you can get the whole loaf for just 2 or 3 times that price, and a trivial amount for spread?

Melt butter, and mix in flour and milk. Then, mix into some cooked macaroni. Then, throw in your four kinds of cheeses (mine were a Rosenborg, Jarlsberg, Coulommiers, and Parmesan), and gratin with grated Parmesan.

I really liked recipes on Karen's "Cooking for Undergraduates" series, having again tried her linguine carbonara recipe a couple of weeks back, one of those dishes that are easier than they seem. Not with actual fresh Parmigiano Reggiano.

Yesterday night, I made a borscht based on the family recipe:

We always made this beet-based soup, and forgot the origin of it (such that for the longest time, I thought it was Chinese, or French, as my father learned to cook from the family's cook). Having it was especially heartwarming, as November sank in. Typically, we did it with beets, carrots, leeks, potatoes, and a big beef marrow with the meat and cartilage around it. The idea of the soup came from the fact that I did not know how to use the tomatoes in the bottom drawer, thus my recipe would contain a number of tomatoes. Because PA was out of beef shank, I had to substitute it with a chicken carcass. In the end, the choice of meat did not influence the taste so much, as I think the leeks (and shallots that I added, in order to emulate my roommate Emilie's own vegetable soup recipe) contributed the most to the aroma, while beets and carrots gave the sweet taste to it (meat basically provides the msg-ish taste, I think).

Now, I've been thinking all day about making macaroni and cheese, to consume the ham leftovers in the fridge (sounds like a common thread, doesn't it?). It would be: butter + flour + milk, for a white sauce, and parmesan for the gratin. I just need to get macaroni, and actually some more ham...

I have wonton noodles in the fridge too, and I could make a variant of the za jiang mein.

Now, what do you do with a bunch of old smelly cheeses (Rosenborg Danish Blue, Jarsberg, Le Rustique Coulommiers), that does derive from three-cheeses pasta?

Edit (2008-07-14): Last week, I tried bringing my friends to Restaurant Congee, just to find that it has closed for good, it seems! Just after a few months of existence - quel dommage!

Edit (2008-02-03): 豐衣粥食 is actually the Chinese name of this place.

After the singing contest last week, we got a bunch of cards for free dessert at this congee restaurant in Brossard. The name in Chinese is perhaps a little more meaningful, evocative, but I cannot read it. My mother said that she saw ads for this particular restaurant in Toronto - so we might assume that it is part of some pan-Canadian chain.

So, yes, there is a congee place in Montreal, and it is in the suburb of Brossard, where a fairly large Chinese/Asian community lives. The menu indicates countless possibilities of congee combinations, more than I've ever seen in Chinatown for the very least. The said congee restaurant might be in a boring strip mall, but the interior of it is certainly not bad, with its redwood and clean environment (we thought it might've opened recently, as the strip mall sign does not include them yet).

On an entirely different register, we went to Chinese restaurant Mr Ma, an expensive joint for business types, on street level of Montreal's business quarter landmark Place Ville-Marie. I've been seeing Mr Ma since forever, but only very recently knew that 1- Mr Ma indeed existed (and he is not an elderly cook, but rather the owner), and that 2- my uncle Bernard worked with him when both were of student age and had part-time jobs at Montreal's only Mr Sub in the late 70s.

I often discarded Mr Ma as being in the same category of Piment Rouge, as Chinese food for White People (namely a fest of General Tao-ish cuisine, and an orgy of sweet and sour flavours, over the more diverse, complex sets of flavours and aromas of Chinese cuisine. Both places happen to serve so-called "Szechuan" cuisine. I am not an expert, but my usual suspiciousness tells me that it is nothing like what's eaten in China's Sichuan province, where food is indeed really spicy, but characterized by the unabashed addition of dried chili pepper, and the use of the numbing type of Sichuan pepper (a flavour called "ma la"), a definitely acquired taste.

It was not wrong to associate Mr Ma with Piment Rouge, since both were formerly acquainted (and I cannot remember whether what I was told was told around the family table, or read in a newspaper). Last week, at Julie and Colin's wedding reception, Piment Rouge did the catering, and I was hugely surprised that they could do good authentic-ish (anything not Soup and Noodles - even if it's ideologically wrong / trashfoodingly good) Chinese food which included a lotus leaf-wrapped chicken with medicinal herbs.

Now for Mr Ma, same biases from a food snob, and cultural imperialist such as myself. But again, I discounted the fact that the chefs, being Chinese, presumably could make Chinese food for Chinese palates. He told us that it was Chinese food with Western influences (therefore, a CBC like myself n'y voit que du feu).

Pictures ahead:

Famed poutine place on Rachel, on the north-west corner of Parc Lafontaine (next to bike shop, facing a police station), La Banquise serves twenty-something variants of the Quebec delicacy (and adopted by the rest of Canada, even found in expat areas of HK and China). I had a poutine with merguez sausages, while my guest, content with poutine served at Montreal Chinatown's L2 bubble tea cafe (!), took the original (fries, gravy, cheese curds). There you go for your Canadian/Quebecer-Chinese take on poutine! (When's the char siu poutine for? - eww)

I liken La Banquise to Crif Dogs, a place in East Village, NYC, that I visited in February and that serves hot dogs fried with a bacon wrap, as they are both late-night fast food joints with a specialty "dish" (La Banquise is in fact open 24 hours).

You wouldn't know how good a Camembert and Ham sandwich can be until you've been to La Croissanterie Figaro. Not typically the type of place I can go to normally, not being a resident of the Mile End, since Figaro is on the corner of Hutchison and Fairmount, actually at Outremont's border. The bread was good, but not so much the butter (which tasted like margarine). Has quite a terrasse, and is pleasant on a mild evening of August, such as tonight. (I'd put it in Metro Boulot Resto, but it's far from any metro, actually)

You will probably have to lineup for around an hour on the Sunday morning brunch rush hour, but the wait will be definitely worth it. We went to L'Avenue du Plateau, otherwise known simply as "L'Avenue", last week, and discovered that none of the five attending people went there before, despite its reputation as a premiere breakfast place on Avenue Mont-Royal on the Plateau.

While waiting outside, we were greeted by loud electronic music by a folk named Michael Meyer, on a compilation prepared by Londonian party venue Fabrik. The place is definitely for twenty/thirtysomething hipsters. Walls were decorated with various graffitis, customers seated in large comfy upholstered chairs.

After waiting for an hour, we ordered. Three of us had omelettes, each of which are prepared with four eggs, unknown (but indecent) amounts of animal fat, and a choice of filling. They were a delight, but made me wish of eating congee for the rest of the week.

922 avenue du Mont Royal Est, around 15-20$ per person, taxes and tips included.

Photos here below:

Ms. Charlie Fidelman of the Montreal Gazette wrote an article (archived) on us (www.metroboulotresto.com) for their "Montreal from A to Z" series, under the letter "F", for Food.

I also went around the Plateau / Petite-Patrie / Parc-Ext area this morning to add pictures to a bunch of stations (special thanks to Mary for the camera!).

The metro to Laval is opening next Saturday, so I'll grab on to the occasion to launch this:

http://www.metroboulotresto.com/

For all transit system geeks who happen to be foodies (or foodies who happen to travel by metro), this is your ultimate destination for restaurant reviews! It's a reimplementation of xanawu's restaurant page (who will also be a main contributor of this site - once she gets back from HK, I suppose). We will be adding stations profiles eventually, but for now, please take a look and drop us a line if you have comments/suggestions/questions! (The site is also bilingual English/French, if you click on the sub-headers.)

With tempura batter.

Went to Lu Mama, the new "in" place in the Concordia area it seems. Was told about it in two separate occasions in the past two weeks or so, and it opened just three or four weeks ago.

Lu Mama is the new occupant of the location that used to house Arirang, the Korean restaurant that had a fabulous Bi Bim Bap. Lu Mama is branded as "Asian fusion", and also, I don't know if I was told that, or saw it on a sign outside, as a Taiwanese-style restaurant. Indeed, it was "fusion", but in the sense that it served several types of dishes from all over Asia, from Japanese-style Curry to Chinese-style cold noodles. I think that the Taiwanese rice was the most noteworthy dish. The ingredients list was identical to La Maison Du Nord's famed pork sandwich, substitute the flat crispy bread for sticky rice (there is a variant on the menu with regular rice too), and namely pork fat, shredded pork and fresh coriander; with a soy'ed egg. Nothing special there, but you're talking to the same person who raves about Northern-style dumplings. XD

From recounts of friends, I preconceived Lu Mama as the type of upscale fusion restaurants they have in Asian metropolises where they sell you overpriced non-authentic, but still very good, Japanese-style food (it has raw fish). But no, none of that. Except for the Japanese menu that is as usual more expensive, the Chinese items on the menu were at prices more than reasonable, and a surer bet.

The chicken popcorn was had by the two groups of people who recommended the place, and we had it too. It was perhaps a rebranding of something I seemed to have had a million times at various bubble tea places, namely bite-size chicken (in mystery spice mix - I suspect ramen noodles soup base) fried with basil leaves.

The mussels grilled with cheese is also a novelty in Montreal, and not bad at all. I suspect that it is mayo mixed with something sour, but the taste is so familiar that I must've had this stuff (w/ or w/o the mussels) before somewhere. It is the closest that it gets to HK-style sai chaan grilled cheese langoustine.

The Taiwanese with garlic looked like an interesting pick for a next visit.

With the dim lights and lit tri-dimensional screens between tables, the setting is a tad intimate and perhaps upscale/intimidating. An entree, main meal (not Japanese) and dessert comes to 15$/person, all included.

Lu Mama is located on Ste-Catherine, near St-Marc. It's across the street from the Soupe et Nouilles with the little Nissin boy logo.

(Was told by Chris DeWolf, who had a chat with the owner (a twentysomething), that the restaurant was family-run, and that the mother runs the kitchen, thus the name of the restaurant.)

A second branch of the Chinese cafe Magic Idea opened in the heart of Montreal's Chinatown West. It is as trendy as the one in Chinatown, and goes by its acronym of "MI". Instead of the single telly that the original Magic Idea had, this one sported at least four, plus screens behind the bar. On both occasions I went, the staff didn't know about the wireless Internet code, although I was the only folk in the place to be accompanied with a laptop. The cafe was very empty at 8PM, but was rapidly filled with large bunches of young people (I give them not more than my cousin's age, who's turning 17) who seemed to be using MI as a meetup point before Friday night clubbing.

The food was your typical subpar Chinese eatery type. I had a fried pork chop; while the spark of sesame seed on the rice was eye-catching, the pork itself didn't have the fried crisp I expected, and the meat tasted like it stayed in the freezer for way too long. T's General Tao's (the ideologically evil Chinese food) was also a little soggy. Portions are small and basically ask you to order for another set of fried items if you wanted a full meal. I wanted an osmanthus tea (桂花茶), but they didn't have it, unlike the place right across, the classic Tapioca Cafe, and ordered the Oolong tea instead.

10$/person; the new Magic Idea is on de Maisonneuve, a few steps east from St-Mathieu, on the north side of the street (15 seconds from the St-Mathieu exit of Guy-Concordia metro).

It's a restaurant serving "Peruvian and International" on St-Hubert, a few steps north from Jean-Talon on the east side. Can't miss it. My colleague described the restaurant (actually it's a pair, very close by - the joke being that they probably share the same interconnected underground kitchen or something) as "le moins pire des quatres" in the area. Did not think it was bad, nor that it was overwhelmingly good, but it more for lack of references, as my specialty is apparently for oriental food instead. The South American genre is still very exotic, but I like to discover that it isn't just about peppers or corn-based elements.

We wanted to save cash, so went straight for the appetizers. But as we saw the other guests' orders (mound of shredded stuff, with a brochette of shrimp stuck into it) we soon felt deep regret. The shrimp soup was quite peculiar, being milk-based with shrimp juice, and rice and shrimp of varying sizes swimming around a semi-boiled egg buoy. The appetizers were cheese gratin shrimp and snails (not exactly special), and some potatoes topped with cheese that didn't look so much like your typical North American cheese (it was rather fluid and varying from gray to green in color). In the Latino-American food, I still vastly prefer when it's tamales or pupusas.

It's a Northern invasion! Well, as emigration from the Chinese Mainland accelerates, so does the increase in restaurants specializing in Northern Chinese food in a town near you.

Yesterday, we went and tried this restaurant on St-Mathieu between De Maisonneuve and Lincoln, apparently opened by people from Shanxi. Her colleagues mentioned that their pork sandwich was not to be missed, and it was so very true: how can anything with pork fat be bad when the appetite's in its right mind? The sandwich was made between slices of Chinese-style pancakes (probably oil-fried, but I'm not sure), and contained ground pork, bits of pork skin and fat, and fresh coriander ($5). I had the lamb soup ($4), which was really a sour-tasting broth with rectangular slices of old mutton meat patrolling the bottom of a deep narrow bowl (fresh coriander floating at the surface, probably to diffuse the foul smell of lamb fat). Also, they had fresh hand-made dumplings ($6 for a 18 bite-size ones) either made with shrimp, or with beef (no pork?). A tad expensive for dumplings on the world market, but it is as right as you get in Montreal, Canada. It's a must-try, if you are exploring the diversity of Chinese cuisine. Don't expect General Tao chicken or ethnic cuisine served with Western fancy.

I was also recently told of a place making real xiao long bao with soup in Montreal. Unfortunately, the place burnt down a couple of weeks ago. It was apparently on Ste-Catherine, a few houses west of St-Mathieu. "Sadness", indeed.

It's even more sad, because adding up clues from colleagues and friends alike, it was confirmed in a Mirror article that it was that restaurant opened by a former waiter at the Beijing Restaurant (京都) in Chinatown, who we knew growing up. I guess he saved up and opened a restaurant there a couple of years ago. I ate there last year out of pure luck with petronia, and he even recognized me, I think. (Also ironic that the only known xiao long bao place in this city was opened by a Cantonese guy, right?)

It was well worth the lineup of more than an hour and a half for a group of seven people, as we were given the "VIP" room, serviced with individual hot pots. The experience of the hot pot is generally defined by the single communal basin where all participants throw and intermix their meat and vegetable. The lineup disappeared soon after 8PM.

I wouldn't say that it was an overwhelmingly better, or special hot pot (it wasn't), but then, it's all about the wrapping: waiters in that green uniform, floor boss in "traditional" "Mongolian" outfit, various weapons of lesser destruction hanging on the walls, and the feel of a modern-looking restaurant in Chinatown. I can't give up the fact that this same place was previously the permanently empty Cactus Cafe. My friends thought the old staff overlapped with the new one, and I speculate that the ownership also might.

It is an all-you-eat scheme for around $16 (haven't had the reflex to memorize the rather simple menu), and you will typically only be able to eat two plates full. Dessert and drinks (strawberry kool-aid, and soya milk) were also all-you-can-eat. I repeat for any Chinese restaurant: don't wear clean clothes. XD

Then, after flirting with the uber-full Xiao Fei Yang, we settled for hot pot at Yu Hang, a rather new non-Cantonese Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of Chinatown (400 Rene-Levesque W). Were told that it was a Sichuan-style hot pot, but then, I don't know how to distinguish between types of hot pot. I suppose that the fact that one half of the pot was filled with dried chili peppers made it more Sichuanese. *g* At $15 a person, the all-you-can-eat hot pot, and not on the regular menu (apparently), it is one hell of a good deal (better than, say, overpriced shabu shabu joints in Chinatown).

Montreal is a world city, because it now has a xiao fei yang. As far as I know, HK chains don't bother coming to Mtl, and one Taiwanese bubble tea chain appeared for the time of a summer (2003). We did not eat there tonight, but still attempted to get a seat. How did Cactus, one of the three bubble tea places in Chinatown, become this very nice and very Chinese-nice (there isn't another single Chinese-nice place in all of Montreal) is a question I can't exactly answer. I think of its opening as the tipping point for Mainlander dominance over the Chinese gastronomical landscape in Montreal (I am going to die if some restaurant chains like Din Tai Fung or Crystal Jade Palace, respectively Taiwanese and HKese, opened here). Upon climbing the stairs, you couldn't help but think that you were in China (complete with crowds and crowds of people that you only see in the summer, and almost exclusively Mandarin-speaking). Mind you, the tenants before Cactus (Chinese buffet "Nanjing"), I remember, also enjoyed large numbers of patrons at their beginnings. We will be finding the time in the next month to try it out.

While most, if not all, Chinese restaurants in Montreal are sort of family businesses, this Xiao Fei Yang is a serious corporative operation, competing in style with your usual family restaurant chain, like St-Hubert, but catering to the growing Chinese population. The heaters are electric and integrated into the tables; the decor is elaborate, yet very typical of Chinese restaurants in Asia or in other world cities (with folkloric items hanging on the walls - seemingly not innocently chosen); the staff dressed in non-generic restaurant uniforms. To say the least, very frighteningly Chinese for a city like Montreal (and I'm raving about it without having actually eaten the food - must say a lot about how shocked I am). Corner of Clark and De La Gauchetiere.

(Edit: Here's an actual review after going to Xiao Fei Yang.)

Chez Doval is an otherwise perfectly good place to try Portuguese food in Montreal (and Jano's, aka the place you go to when the Schwartz lineup is too full, and your stomach, too empty, is not bad either). We went there for our office's Christmas dinner this year, where I got the grilled grouper. For some reason, grouper is not my fish of choice on the grill.

Went back tonight with S. You are first served a metal plate with one compartment with butter cups, and the other with a number of small black and green olives, and a basket filled with two gigantic Portuguese bread.

She had grilled squid as appetizer, which size could've well made it a main dish. The squid was served in slices, and had absorbed all of the grill's smoking taste that was expected. I had a chicken noodles soup, with the noodles being rice grain-sized stars, and the chicken, being what looked like real chicken stock (I won't bet my wallet on it, but the bits of chicken made it look like it didn't come from the can). I also had garlic shrimp, which was puny in size (six pieces), but was soaked in some interesting sauce that had tomatoes, and maybe some wine or porto (one review says it's butter).

For the main dish, S got a Portuguese-style steak, which was basically steak with a fried egg on top of it. XD It was a very good steak, she thought. I was intrigued by the "pork and clams" from the meat section. I was expecting to get something grilled, but I realize now that I had "scallops" in mind when thinking of "clams", the former being more easily grilled than the latter. It was reminiscent of the Chinese vinegared pork, or "khoh zhu yok", by the strength of its taste, and its appearance (dark undifferentiated pieces of meat and fried potato cubes in a thick sauce). The sauce, filling the bottom of a round dish containing the mound of pork/potatoes/four clams, was certainly wine-based, and too salty. I did not ask what this "pork and clams" was, so I only have myself to blame. The grilled chicken that the neighboring table had sure looked good after my third peck at the pork/potatoes.

For dessert, we were too full. However, they had at least natas, from what I can remember of last time. Got out of there for a little less than $30 a person. Just don't take the pork and clams. If you stay with the grilled meat and seafood, and are with a bunch of friends, it should be a food-sharing extravaganza.

After work, I bussed down to Chinatown to pick up dinner for tonight. In about less than an hour, I walked around the quarter, and here's a summary of what I found out, or found was worth blogging about.

Cured duck leg

Cured duck leg hangs at the window of Sun Sing Lung, on De La Gauchetière, below Keung Kee restaurant, near Clark and St-Urbain. It sells for $9 a pound, and the leg piece I had cost $3.45. Cured duck leg, also called "air-dried duck leg" (or "lap ap pei" in Cantonese) is typically cooked in the rice cooker, so that the juices are absorbed by the rice. In restaurants, the rice cooker is substituted with an earthenware pot, and Chinese bacon, salted eggs and Chinese lap cheung may be added as well. This is generally called "lap mei faan", which is loosely translated as tasty rice. It is indeed very tasty.

HK-style milk tea

HK-style milk tea is a metaphor for its namesake: it is a very strong Chinese tea, mixed with evaporated milk, like the Brits do. The concoction should be as bitter as coffee, and yet keeps the smoothness of its lactic parent. Authentic milk tea can't be gotten anywhere (at least in Montreal), because not all Chinese restaurants keep strong tea, let alone evaporated milk. In Chinatown, there are two places that I know which serves the real thing, both being two of Chinatown's "cha chaan teng", or tea eateries: the Unnamed Eatery Under Kam Fung (on St-Urbain, below René-Lévesque, and facing Complexe Guy-Favreau), and Legend ("Lai Tsing") on De La Gauchetière, between Clark and St-Urbain. Milk tea at bubble tea places like L2 and Magic Idea are too diluted to be considered HK-style milk tea.

Chinese BBQ (to go)

It's meat, after all, and not really the kind that you soak up with saline water or gelatin to increase its weight. "Siu yok" is roasted pork. The best cut arguably traverse the ribs, as it is leanest (as you get real meat, you also get a lot of real lard). Two rib bones should be enough to feed 3-4 hungry people, and I got mine for $9.50 at Restaurant Hong Kong, on the east side of St-Laurent, below De La Gauchetière, in that cavern-like shopping mall. Other tenants there have changed hands at least three or four times each since my childhood, from fishmonger to Korean restaurants, while Restaurant Hong Kong stood there for over fifteen years. They are especially good for their char siu (Barbecued pork filet, and a semi-fat piece is good - for $5 a strip). Either have it chopped up in front of you, if you're planning to eat it the same night, or not, if you wish to eat it another day and preserve the meat's moisture (can be frozen and thawed in a bowl of hot instant noodles). For the same day, the best is to not heat it up in the oven, such that the pieces' don't become dry and gelatinous.

Generally, people prefer to eat it on rice with veggies, but it can also be served in noodles, or in a stir fry (where siu yok loses its crunch, and char siu, its flavour, however). My father thinks that the Chinese meat place under Kam Fung restaurant is also great for its siu yok, but not the rest.

Chinese green vegetable

You can buy Chinese greens, or "choy", about anywhere. "Bok choy", or White Vegetable, can mean a lot of things. It typically points to the Chinese cabbage, or Nappa, which is the same that is used by Koreans for kimchi. The variety pictured here is a lot different, but also called "bok choy", and more specifically "Shanghai baby bok choy". They are bulb-shaped, bright green upon cooking and bite-sized (the ones slightly bigger ones drop the "baby").

Prices vary depending on the season, and they now currently fetch for $2.69/lbs, a big pack for four people costs $4.25. I like going to the grocery store "Wing Cheong Hong" that opened in '05 on Clark, in the Ruby Rouge shopping mall, and with a door on the street too, because they are the only grocery store in Chinatown with a vegetable counter. The vegetable counter is just a table in the front store where the employees open up boxes of vegetable and pack them in transparent plastic bags in front of customers. It's a common practice in supermarkets in Asia and in Chinese Canadian supermarkets, like T&T and Hawai, but the concept still doesn't register with many older grocery stores.

Cooking SH baby bok choy well is art. Prepare about a garlic clove per person. I prefer finely chopping my garlic, as I think the flavour releases more evenly. You must heat up a fair amount of oil in a wok. The oil's the key to cooking good bok choy: the vegetable must be crunchy, yet cooked. The hot cooking oil rapidly transfers its heat to the vegetable, cooking it quickly and thoroughly. If the oil's not hot enough, then it extends the cooking for too long, and the choy become soggy. The other requirement is for vigorous stirring, or otherwise, the vegetable won't cook evenly, and you will end up with the inside of your bok choy left uncooked. Throw in the chopped garlic on the nearly-smoking cooking oil, but don't let it brown, or you will be stuck with a bitter garlic aftertaste. Then, throw in full baby bok choy, and fry while stirring well, until you get the consistency that you want (slightly more raw is better, because it will cook some more at rest, in the presentation vessel).

A particularly tasty article on cured meats in the special Holidays issue of The Economist.

We had prosciutto for the Christmas dinner, in its routine cantaloupe-wrapper usual presentation. I also really like prosciutto in my sandwich bought at the Italian bakery outside my workplace. The last saucisson I had was probably in July 2005, in HK. Quebec-made saucisson are typically too sour, which is probably a consequence of some food regulation asking for saucissons marketed here to be lower than a certain pH, in order to protect the consumer from pathogens (but it's really the type of topic I'd want to do investigative blog-reporting). Would really want to try out authentic European-style sausage. At the same time, artisanal Chinese-style preserved hams, salted duck and sausages are also very tempting (I haven't seen a salted duck in Montreal for a while - perhaps they never existed in the first place, or are just available, err, frozen? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of curing...).

However, French saucisson is the single type of preserved meat which I am the most fond of. I remembered having some in a butter-filled sandwich at a branch of a sandwich chain on Les Champs-Élysées in 1992 (that was before Subway's invaded the world with its insipid, soggy, pinkish, pre-cut meats), but usually, it comes smuggled in the luggage of a visiting relative. It is at its best when perfectly dry, with a fair dotting of fat peas, and the casing covered with a thick white coat of mold. Well, if I didn't want to go to Asia so badly, I'd certainly be going to France to burn some Euros on marketplace and bistro food.

So, after looking up scallops in Wikipedia (because I've been used to calling them with their French name - pétoncles - and seeing them in their Chinese form - dried), I realized that sauteed in butter was some hell of a good idea for preparing scallops. So tonight, I rounded up together a few other ingredients worthy of participating in this wedding party, namely, spaghettis to make up the bulk of the dish, spinach for my good health, shrimp, just bicauze, garlic (a must in anything simili-Mediterranean), white table wine, quite some butter, et puis, black peppercorn brought back by Wee from Borneo.

It must've been the first time (it's a season of firsts, see cookies & "muffins") I used pepper not in its ground form, even if I've seen it in, like, everywhere. The peppercorn released a flavour not unlike the definition of spring, upon being crushed between my molars, hidden between the softened spinach leaves. The butter, wine and garlic are the inseparable trio of the mix, providing the aroma that goes so classically well with pasta and seafood. A bit of lemon wouldn't have been out of place right here.

Indeed, the scallops weren't bad at all with butter; the best part being when I threw the half-thawed scallops and shrimp over the sizzling mixture of garlic, peppercorn, butter and white wine. Fortunately, the spinach did not stain the whole dish green. Very satisfying, after an otherwise crappy day caused by lack of sleep. Quand l'appétit va, tout va!

I cooked ingredients in separate batches of water, to insure the best taste possible, and indirectly, the best presentation I can afford. First, the vegetable; then the noodles and seafood; and finally the soup base in a smaller volume of water to maximize the taste, and not fill over your bowl (which happened on the first two tries). The picture doesn't pay respect to the relative quality in presentation I was able to achieve, which is probably the most refined it gets for me when it comes to noodles (I employ the mix and dump tactic, usually).

Nonetheless, gulped it in the time it took to say it, between two goals by the Habs in that magnificent, Stanley Cup hopes-boosting victory against the Eastern Conference-leading Buffalo Sabres. Seriously, we won four in a row now, and are five points within the top spot in the East!

Korean grocery store indeed sells a brand of frozen Japanese ramen (with shoyu seasoning). Three small packs for $4.29 (and how Chinese-made noodles, fresh or not, will always be cheaper, perhaps even better).

Cooked them along with extra ingredients from my mother's seafood and pork chop suey, as well as the 10th of a can of bamboo shoots. The pork could've been better not being seasoned for stir fry, and the addition of something green would've improved the aesthetics. I give myself a 8/10 over this meal cooked and consumed in less than 30 minutes. Cheers.

... is probably the one you make in the comfort of your home. Otherwise, you may head to Isakaya, Avenue du Parc, between Sherbrooke and Milton, and ask for the Japanese menu.

There are two choices of soup base for your ramen noodles: either shoyu (soya sauce) or miso (fermented beans). I look miso, while Wee had the shoyu. The obligatory piece of meat was laughable, but the rest of the ingredients made up for it quite well. It was surely the best bowl of Japanese noodles I ate in Montreal, hands down, because it was so complete compared with others I had from Japanese menus all around (Katsura, Sakura...). Of course, the piece of meat (tiny like a piece of char siu, freshly thawed from the freezer preserve) was far from the large, round thin slice of fatty pork, which I think is the norm (surely, the preparation of ramen noodles depends from a region to the other - and also, fatty pork in thin slices is perhaps not as readily in Mtl). The other components of the soup are as ordinary as it gets: (lots of) sprouted beans, a bunch of surprisingly green crisp for being in boiling soup spinach, bamboo shoots, sesame seeds floating around, scallions, a quarter of carrot... ok, it's not as impressive when you enumerate the ingredients like this.

Noodles on the Japanese menu is a bit more affordable, given that you ordinarily can't get out of Isakaya for less than $35. And we did, for $25/person, all included with sushi. $10.95 for a bowl of ramen noodles. Alas, no tonkotsu soup. Could be the next culinary experimentation?

--

I bought enoki mushrooms over the weekend at Marché Hawai, Montreal's only decent size Asian supermarket (T&T still kicks its ass, both hands tied up, inside its back pocket). By proxy, my mother is going to cook sukiyaki. So, i said, well, try using sliced beef, the fried tofu, and then add those fat noodles and baby bak choy at the end. Add scallions, ginger slices, and sake or Chinese wine if you can find any.

Met up with Simon, and had food in the neighborhood. I was totally out of ideas, so previously decided to fetch out my valuable web resources. First, I checked MontrealFood.com, and Googled out An Endless Banquet (more specifically, its food guide), quite a ref in Montreal-based food blogs. Finally shortlisted Chez Jose, and La Chilenita, both of which served empanadas and were within the same area within the Duluth/St-Laurent/Prince-Arthur/St-Denis quarter; by chance, La Chilenita's kitchen was closed by 6PM, and we grabbed some empanadas to go on the way to Chez Jose.

The empanadas at Chez Jose were definitely inferior. This year's Mirror Best of Montreal voted them the best for soup, but the soup du jour was, perhaps homemade-tasting, but slightly on the bland site (potatoes and turnip based, with what seems like broccoli, etc.). They have a tomato and blue cheese (hm?) soup on Thursday, and seafood soup on weekends.

I took my "Chilenita" empanada from La Chilenita (beef and onions, and other vegetable, w/ a piece of hard-boiled egg) home to eat. The empanada from Chez Jose was not well-heated and its skin, way too thick. On the other hand, the empanada from La Chilenita was very good, its skin, quite thin enough, and the filling, quite tasty.

Made an affogato just fifteen minutes ago. Never heard of it before two weeks ago (I still keep calling it afrogado, adofrago, etc), but is like the infamous ice cream ball in a coffee (which I've been familiar with since early childhood... or was it ice cream in hot choco?), it's another arranged marriage of dairy fats and coffee. We have an espresso machine, and after having this afternoon's cappuccino, I remembered about Astrael's affogato post, and vaguely planned to buy ice cream. So, got myself some Quebon/Breyers vanilla sort (apparently, Breyers splits its branding image with Quebon for the vanilla flavour - I'm sure it just means Quebon has a license to make Breyers ice cream in Quebec).

For an affogato, first prepare some of the darkest possible espresso coffee and put it in the refrigerator for an hour or two in advance - freezer is ok, but better keep an eye on it. When the coffee has chilled, scoop out some ice cream in a plate with sides. Using a small spoon, try to coat the ice cream with coffee, and watch. At first, it may seem like it all drips down on the plate surface, but actually, what remains on the ice cream solidifies and gives a more of less thick crust to it. Coffee ice cream is miles ahead my favourite kind, so this recipe is a treat to me (my mother thought it tasted like bad ice cream you left in the freezer for too long). Other foodpics: 1 | 2 | 3.

We love salmon, me and my brother, but my father hates it. My mom is okay with it, but dislike it sweet. Basically wanted/managed to alienate everyone's stomach (and mine, afterwards) with some salmon fillet served with a wine+butter sauce, mustard/brown sugar gratin. It was, how can I put it, a clash of flavours. The wine and butter sauce by itself would've been nice, say with some herbs. A little less wine would've been nice too (flavour diluted too much). It's basically melted butter, to which you added some table white wine, brought to boiling point and simmered for a while. Herbs like celery salt, bay leaves and very little cumin (couldn't find cinnamon) were added, and poured over the uncooked salmon, which was immediately put into the oven, pre-heated to 350C. A mix of various mustards we had in the fridge ("ultra-hot homemade", one with seeds, regular Dijon) were mixed together over a 1/4 cup of brown sugar (the resulting mix homogenates surprisingly well, into what's reminiscent of a honey/mustard dip for McNuggets). After cooking the salmon for ~20 minutes, I poured the fake McNuggets dip over the salmon, and top-broiled it for 5-10 mins. Served with rice.

We had oysters from Caraquet, NB. $15 from Cosco, for 18 of them... After the wine&cheese, an oysters fest with friends is in order (bourgeois reflexes kicking in). Who's up for it?

The Greek-style salad was more satisfying than the salmon. It's quite simple to make too. Take some iceberg lettuce ($0.99 at Adonis), a couple of diced tomatoes (not really affordable at this time of year), an onion in half-rings, and feta cheese (1/4 lbs is enough). When waiting for other dishes to cook, mix the lettuce, tomatoes, onions together; douse with an olive oil and vinegar (I took my mother's Xeres vinegar, although a regular white wine vinegar would've worked perfectly); sprinkle with feta cheese (the Greek variety, that is more solid than creamy), and chill before serving.

So yeah. When you have high expectations for food (or for anything), you face the possibility of disappointment. To be fair, the food at Keur Fatou (St-Viateur, south side, between Clark and St-Urbain) was not bad - pretty good in fact - but it was their portion, and perhaps the catering to a bouche fine market?

The decor was attractive, in warm "African" colors (like a previous Ubuntu color palette perhaps; more red, I mean). I walk in front of it every day when I get off of my bus on St-Urbain and St-Viateur, and have always been fascinated with how it'd be to sit by one of the vitrines on those short knee-height chairs/coussins (the location was probably that of some fabrics shop in a previous reincarnation). If the restaurant wasn't so empty, being the only guests from 7:30 til 8, and if there were more people walking on St-Viateur, then it'd probably made the sitting experience more worthwhile.

It was an oral menu, and we were given the choice between chicken on rice, veal on couscous, and fish on rice. The portions were minimalistic, but very tasty. In the veal dish I selected, I had a few pieces of what seemed to be manioc. I always imagined manioc to be practically equal to sweet potato, and since I had manioc before sweet potato in this life, I basically hadn't paid attention to the former, as I were closer to the age of 5 than 15, and have thus overwritten memories of it with that of the latter. Nonetheless, yes, manioc, it's a sort of lightly sweet white fibrous tuberous root.

There was a small salad w/ exotic anonymous dressing, a plate of fruits with 6 pieces of cantaloupe, 5 slices of banana, etc, and then a half-glass of mint tea (4 oz, I think), slightly sweetened with a strong composed mint flavour. Don't know how to describe the dinner as a whole. It was good, yet not enough? $16 per person, tips/tax included, and we agreed that Les Delices was a better deal.

Well, I'll be damned. I called my grandmother up, and she said she didn't get them in Toronto, but rather in a ginseng farm around Toronto! :O

My grandmother was in Toronto not long ago and got sugar-coated almonds w/ ginseng flakes! The conception of this delicacy was probably the result of some happy mix-up (oops, was that the sesame seed jar?). Nonetheless, I am particularly fond of ginseng's bitter taste, usually in a chicken soup or a ginseng-based herbal tea. Almonds, I like; and sugar-coated almonds, I like even more. The resulting bitter-sweet candy is then simply the week's best edible novelty.

Went with Wee to a Korean BBQ/restaurant, a semi-block away from Metro Snowdon (which would be contributed towards this metro/resto map of Montreal). The lady told us that this place opened over a year ago already, but have been trying the all-you-can-eat concept for two months only. Of course, it wasn't surprising that the ownership is Cantonese Chinese, for it's an all-you-can eat.

While Wee didn't mind, I didn't think the meat tasted perfectly fresh. But with an iron stomach (usually) and an advertised price of $15, I only minded for about five minutes. We stayed for more than an hour and a half. Not only the meat could be refilled, but you could also eat your heart's desire of Korean entrees, and drinks. While the social value of the all-you-can-eat and the as-long-as-you-want-to-hangout aren't to be neglected in one's appreciation of a restaurant, the food definitely makes or breaks a place. The rice was too dry, and had amalgamated centres (signs of standing there for a while after cooking), the kimchi was not always crisp, and the meat had some fridge taste (unless it was a subtle Korean-style marinade - but I doubt it).

Small shallow bowls littered the table after the lady served us all of the appetizers and meats at once. But I was in a rather good mood, so it was pretty comical instead of pretty awkward.

The chilled sweetened chrysanthemum tea (with cubes of ice that don't have a bubble in them? how can it be?) is a hit throughout the restaurant, as the nice lady ran across the length of the restaurant to refill demanding glasses. Soothes the throat after all this salty grilled meat and sour condiments. No, really, chilled sweetened chrysanthemum tea can be as good as that.

One thing to remember is to never wear clean clothes to a Korean BBQ... $20 per person for an all-included meal. 5248, Queen-Mary (towards the West from the metro - not to be confused with another one up the slope). Name of the restaurant in French is an anonymous "Les Nouilles", but in Chinese, it's 大韓燒毀, or roughly "Great Korean Grill".

Never mind, I got over it. Made muffin cakes (a bit flat) and the cookies are going to the oven soon.

As for the "muffin", not enough flour, and comparatively one egg that shouldn't have been, would seem to be the problem. I had assumed (wrong) that 250g is a cup, which is true for water, but not for a powder. My muffins are more like rounded, high crepes. XD

It was my grandfather's birthday in Chinese calendar, exactly on Mid-Autumn, which is (still) tonight. For the occasion, my father made a full chicken stuffed with a mixture of sticky rice and its own meat, and usual condiments (mushrooms, I think, but I did not take note). I barely saw the chicken, b/c I didn't eat it live, as it came out of the oven. The rice was soaked with the chicken's juices, which was also kept together with the solidified meat/blood of the chicken (it isn't as bad as it sounds).

No, instead I visited Tania after work, and she made improvised strudels. I have been on a last sprint over the book I got from Karen, Jeffrey Steingarten's "The Man Who Ate Everything" (to be properly reviewed at a later time). In every chapter, the man just raves about a particular topic of gastronomy, from things as banal as mashed potatoes, or shattering preconceptions over the presumed goodness of raw veggies. One of the recent chapters I went through was about fruitcakes, which I love to hate. I, like a lot of people, it would seem, cannot stand some elements of fruitcake, whether it be the dryness of it, or the unusual taste of the candied fruits (perhaps I am confusing it with the Italian cakes that people also eat during the Holidays).

In any case, the chapter made me think of making dessert again. I have *said* that I'd try my grandmother's recipe for cakes. Now, I've read about cookie (thanks to the chapter on box recipes) and fruitcakes recipes, and it makes for even more material to push me to get my act together.

The problem is probably that I don't have so much of an urge to make dessert. Our household doesn't typically make dessert. Only my grandmother (dad's mom) does, and the rest of my father's side (but they live in France). If I made dessert, it'd be useless - therefore, without the urge, or the sweet tooth (today, I went to buy myself an overpriced slab of Lindt 70% cacao during the lunch break), dessert would end up in the garbage can. So no.

OTOH, Tania had frozen Pillsbury croissants dough, and some apples. The dough started as a mess. From dough pieces the size of a large egg, she flattened them with a bit of flour, and closed the sides back over a right amount of apples fleshly cut. A little bit of cinnamon sprinkled on the top, and you've got one of those super easy recipes fresh out of the oven in less than 30 minutes.

I was walking on St-Viateur after missing the 55, and stopped at Chocolaterie Geneviève Grandbois. There was an undecisive chocolate newbie in front of me in the two-people queue up. I was however already sold on the hot chocolate drink offering.

Judging from the sign at the door (a recto-verso "hot chocolate is served / hot chocolate is out") and from the small coffee thermos they serve it from, I think that only small quantities are made on a daily basis.

Surely, hot chocolate sold by a chocolate shop must be great - and it was. Not the syrupy sort of richness or sweetness, but rather what fine chocolate made into a drink would taste as. Sipping it on my way to the stop for the 80 Du Parc was heaven. And I don't know what it was, but by the time the bus reached the Georges-Etienne Cartier statue, I was almost in trance, admiring the usual unperceivable slope before Avenue des Pins that gives the Plateau Mont-Royal its appelation of "plateau". I think it must've been the single best hot chocolate I had in my life until now.

I kept the flyer for their collection of chocolate by the piece, which includes exotic choices that contain fleur de sel, hot pepper, and lemon.

$2.75 + tx for the tiny (4 to 6 oz) of chocopleasure.

Went to eat at the Uighur Restaurant in Chinatown with Wee tonight. The yan rou chuan (lamb skewers) are best spicy, and their usual self, which is very excellent (especially the fat pieces), but the other dish was sort of, well, bloating. It was a large dish of a chicken stew with potatoes, red peppers and a mix of spicy sauce reminiscent of the curry prepared in the southeast, quite a bit further away from the steppes of Central Asia.

Speaking of Southeast, it appeared that I once asked him what Malaysian cuisine was (other than the laksa noodles, which I first recognized in HK, at a restaurant between Wan Chai and Admiralty). And this would be a link to vast amounts of food pics.

Some of it reminds me of that festive evening at that special hawker centre on the Esplanade in S'pore, b/c it is after all in the same geographical area. I have yet to find anything Malaysian or Indonesian at a reasonable price in Mtl (the only place is trendy Nonya), but I have not looked very hard, nor asked a lot of people. You find elements of these regional cuisines in Indian, Sri Lankan (I know there are quite a few in Mtl - C-d-N and Parc-Extension, especially), or Indochinese, or Chinese cuisine. Hmm.

Merci Monsieur Sylvestre!

Just came back from a very satisfying meal at Les Délices de l'île Maurice, a restaurant which serves food from Mauritius, a former British and French colony on a tiny island near Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. In order to discourage myself from going, I kept on reading these reviews saying that despite the superb atmosphere you would find, the food and service would disappoint you. But neither was the case. I tend to think that people who've heard about it thought it would of that brand of fancy expensive ethnic restaurant (in that case, they should go to Le Piton de la Fournaise instead :P).

After sitting down for five minutes, the waited brought in a plate of fried mystery vegetable, which was probably a mix of onions, potatoes and eggplant. The totally interesting part was that the restaurant doesn't have a written menu, anywhere! And the waiter or chef himself would just come to your table to tell you the menu! So, either it's a peculiarity of the house, or the chef improvises what's on the menu every night, or both! For entree, more fried stuff, just chicken. There were various herbal marinades (I'm guessing that one's diluted relish) on the table to dip your fried stuff. Came also, a tomato-based potage with coriander, and what S recognized as cracked corn.

The main dish was perhaps more remarkable. She had a saffron shrimp (heaps of them, yellowed by the saffron's teint, and perhaps a bit of turmeric too), and I had what looked like pot-cooked quails. I first heard "civet" (de cailles), and was, like, zomg, cats! But nevermind, quails are as good, especially simmered in what looked closely to a Chinese way of serving it, in a dark soya-looking sauce base, with peppercorns, cloves, and sprouted beans. White rice and salad on the side.

One of the reviews I read singled out the white rice as a reason to damn the chef, as if, savory rice would make sense with such savor-rich sauces each dish contain (always a combination of meat du jour - clams, shrimp, mussels, beef, chicken, lamb, etc, and a flavour, like curry, saffron, etc.).

Skipped the dessert (not sure if any was offered by the house), and paid only a ridiculous $13 per person, taxes/tips included, for a full-course meal. Did I mention it was a BYOW?

Bonus stage: as we left the restaurant, the chef picks a chat with us at the door, and invites us back in for a coffee. However, his coffee was 0% coffee, and 100% plum-flavoured rum. XD

272, Avenue Hickson, Verdun (metro De L'Église). The walk back to the metro on Wellington makes the infrequent Verdun visitor wonder if he was warped to a whole different city. Old 1950s-looking shop vitrines and sidewalk widths are probably in cause.

For some reason, have failed to blog about the birthday dinner of last week. I am turning 26, phew, so decided to have my friends over, for a dinner format that has actually not been done yet among ourselves (b/c we either have potluck + dancing parties at Tania's, or party's at Ced's with way too many people such that the host doesn't even know all guests beforehand!).

We took a lot of pictures with my camera, not of which came from my initiative. Sabina and Tania brought wine, Talal, chocolates (truffles, did not dare touch them yet), Alex, DVDs (did not end up watching), and Sayena + boyfriend Nick, wine from the Greek island of Cephalonia/Kefalonia from which Nick's family comes from. The place where we usually get our smoked salmon (cut in front of you from the fish! which is stored in a smoking cabin in the backstore!), on Victoria close to Van Horne, steps from Metro Plamondon, was closed due to Jewish holiday (but aren't the owners Greek? Greek Jews perhaps?), so I instead got "old-fashioned" smoked cooked salmon for my guests, from Délices de la Mer at Marché Jean-Talon, where my brother's childhood friend Mathieu works. I made my tomato & chick pea salad. The labneh mix with oven-baked pita bread slices was a hit, although Talal pointed out rightly that the proper way of doing it would've been with crushed dried mint, rather than fresh shredded mint.

Main dish was a leg of lamb, perfectly garlicky. To prepare it, I made slits in the meat, where I inserted whole branches of rosemary with crushed garlic. I bypassed the wine or beef broth. I added coarse salt to cover the fatty surface of the piece of meat. Cooked it for 30 minutes at 425C, and another hour for 375C. Microwaved veggies for decoration, and the health factor.

Any hope of healthiness would be destroyed by the time of the cheese platter. That day, I went to Fromagerie Hamel at Jean-Talon, and got a couple of cheese. I took a St-Agur (for Wee, his favourite), a goat crottin made in France but aged here in Quebec, a Maître Jules, and a 4-year old Cheddar. My father got a Spanish cheese from the Pyrenees that is made of ewe's milk, I think, but we forgot to open it.

Of course, the best was saved for the end, a delicious strawberry shortcake made with the freshest Chantilly cream. I don't know if it's just canned cream (I guess they would not dare do this), but it wasn't the same as the over-sweet creams of wedding cakes I promptly discard. No, it was light as a cloud, and had just a hint of sweetness.

On Friday, Nhi, Wee's Vietnamese friend, took us to Ong Ca Can, a Viet restaurant on Ste-Catherine, which also serves anything but Pho (the other one being "Harmonie d'Asie"; finally got the name right). It's another joint which our family had been to before - but a long time ago, when before the restaurant renovated to sort of become upscale-ish chic ethnic restaurant (like Nonya, Montreal's ever-nomadic Indonesian restaurant, say).

I don't remember the food so much, because we haven't been since I was in my early teens. Sweet barbecued meats wrapped in wine leaves and pork tripes are probably a specialty (and the only thing we had, which I remember having there before). For entree, we had a Vietnamese-style salad, which uses white radish and carrots as a base, and which also contained sliced pork ears. They served us individual bowls of soup, which was a cloudy egg soup for the boys, and Vietnamese congee for the ladies. It looked nothing like the congee they serve on that other restaurant on Jean-Talon close to Parc, because the one at Ong Ca Can looked like it did not contain any of the 'ugly meat', like pork stomach, blood sausage (which is sorta yummy, in a tofu kind of way) and other unidentified animal parts, but only had ground beef. Boring, isn't it? I am forgetting about other items, because the bill did add up to $30 a person.

From McGill, I walked through the ghetto, and took the 80 Du Parc from Milton to Rachel (less than 5 mins ride, could've walked it). I walked on Rachel toward St-Laurent.

First stop was a random Portuguese eatery on Rachel corner of Clark, I think (in the heart of Montreal's Portuguesa Quartier), and got myself a pork chop sandwich served in Portuguese bread w/ hot spices ($3.50). It was so random, that the restaurant did not have a proper sign. They also served steak ($15), and had full chicken cooked on the grill that's good for take-out.

The second stop was on St-Laurent, just a few steps north from Rachel. Was a nice-looking bakery, with a generic French-sounding name, but which was in fact (probably) owned by people of Portuguese descent, where I got myself a nata for $1.15. Natas are the proper ancestors of the HK Egg Tart. It is somewhat more wet than a HK Egg Tart, its crust not being as sandy, but more of a flaky caramelized texture rendered wet (not sure if voluntarily) by the custard. The top is broiled, unlike HK egg tarts. I gulped it down w/o tasting anything after the first bite (it happened in two bites, basically).

Third stop was Epicerie Andes, where I had pupusas twice. Wanted to fall again for the deliciously simple Central American dish, but went for something different, #22 on the menu. What was it? It was a plantain, served with a red bean sauce, and sour cream. I had in mind a dessert, but in fact, the red bean mixture was salty, and the plantain quite neutral (surely, I think, plantains != bananas, and everyone except myself would know that). Quite surprising. I was intrigued by the preceding patrons' choice, which was something called "tamal" (plural: tamales). It's like a Latino American version of the Chinese zongzi or rice dumplings, but made with corn flour, and made of a combination of meats and vegetables, depending of the style (Columbian, and Salvadorean were among the national types on sale at Andes). I bought one for takeout, and will probably have it frozen, or eaten tomorrow at lunchtime.

Then, I walked to Mont-Royal, and took the 55 St-Laurent up to Little Italy. Bought myself a copy of Asian Wave, an Asian-Canadian magazine (Chinese-Canadian, if we consider that it's bilingual - Chinese Trad, and English) that I knew about, but didn't realize was so full of contents on food!

After that 15 minutes at Multimags Petite Italie, I went to Jean-Talon market. Took pics of a sunflower with honeybees sniffing away like drug addicts, unfazed by my presence. Got myself a medium cup of ice cream (flavours: matcha and ginger) at Havre-aux-Glaces. Was tempted by the Quebec-made raw milk cheese, which name evades me, that Qui-Lait-Crû (excuse the spelling) was giving away. Met up with parents shortly after. Kept walking around, between the buffalo meat and arabic deserts stands. My mother got a basket of fried calamari. We met an old friend of my brother's, who was working at the fishmonger Delices de la Mer (which also sold varieties of Western-style preserved fish). Expectedly, I went to Premiere Moisson, and got myself a Baguette Au Levain (we have leftover cheese - so I'm only going to buy new cheese next week).

Stopped by the coffee shop for a double espresso allongé, but it made me extremely sleepy for the next hour (I wanted to try Caffe Italia, per many people's advice).

Then, went back downtown to meet friends for food (Trois Brasseurs, but I only had a Blanche) for Tony Jaa's Protector, probably one of the most plot-less pretext for showing off martial arts mastery. And mastery, it was, especially that one-shot scene at the fake multi-floors restaurant / bordello. For some reason, the gangsterness of that scene's environment was reminiscent of Red Steel. The rest was just pretty blissfully hahaha stupid, but we had good laughs and hurt for the bad guys whose asses Tony Jaa kept kicking on. Finished the night at McLean's Pub, where we saw the Alouettes do quite ok in the first half (later at home, I heard that they collapsed, lost the game 36-20, fwa).

Tomorrow, shit, nothing at all, except finishing the books I have, I hope. Duck Lo Mein for lunch, and BBQ for dinner, my mom says.

Hmm, I am out of luck. Of the 2000 bracelets that have been drawn, I am in the last 100 to getting my turn. Just in case I'd need to wait, I already brought with me that empty bottle I got when I took home spruce beer at Emile Bertrand snack bar, down the slope from Bell Centre, past the rows of condos. Alas, the place was closed, either for vacation, or simply b/c it was the weekend.

In the homemade spruce beer, I recognize the "Marco" spruce beer brand from various places, so I suspect it could be available at select places.

I am now at the McLennan Library, buying hockey tickets online, instead. Much more efficient that way. From the conversations overheard, it would seem that people are still obsessed about Sidney Crosby, and are willing to fork out many Lizzies to see the miserable Penguins (we hope they stay that way for a few more years - otherwise, who's going to crumble in the cellar of the Eastern Conf?). I want to see all three Canadian teams from the West, b/c they come only once every three years now, b/c of the new NHL. So far, so good. I got two for Calgary (mid-October), and have locked on to two more for Edmonton (start of November). I'm getting ticks from the cheapest section possible, and if "A" is the frontmost row, then I far overestimated the interest people would have for these tickets, b/c Admission just assigned A1 and A2 to me. *g*

Now off for the Plateau, where I'll be picking up something quick. Later, will be meeting my parents at the Jean-Talon market, after they eat at generic Vietnamese restaurant, Beaubien/St-Denis. There are nice cafes over there. Will need to indulge in a espresso w/ Italian pastry.

Went to try out Fusion Sushi, that conveyor belt place discovered by thericebowl. The lady said that they opened some two months ago, which was prior to the last time I walked past it to get a computer component from a shop nearby. At that time, I didn't think it had the conveyor belt, and was a rather anonymous Japanese restaurant (which, for some reason, I subconsciously believed that it was owned by Cantonese people - and it was - but then, what's the proportion of Asian restaurants actually owned by Cantonese-speaking people?).

The sushi was pretty ordinary. Not bad, but just very ordinary. Many of the makis we had lacked tightness. There was a selection of those mixed makis, like California, spicy salmon, soft-shell crab, and tempura shrimp. They didn't use tempura flakes, but rather puffed rice. For some reason, I thought that the quality is decent, given that it was a conveyor belt sushi, b/c Genki Sushi, the Asian chain of conveyor belt sushi, made me used to sub-par sushi (with pre-cut fish, and machine-produced rice balls - which wasn't the case at Fusion).

The patronage was extremely fobby. Fobby Taiwanese facing us, fobby Mainlandese on one side, fobby HKese on the other, and us, the odd ethnic Chinese Malaysia