September 30, 2006 Archives

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.

I've been listening a lot of the Moshi Moshi International compilation. Moshi Moshi is an UK-based label with a lot of really sweet and sour independent music with artists naming their songs with such inspired titles as "Just Because I Liked You In The Summertime (It Doesn't Mean I Want You To Be Mine)" or, my favourite "I've Got The Password To Your Shell Account" ("put my compsci skills to work // engineered your logon word").

Also, from the other side of the planet, Nan Quan Ma Ma, a boys + one girl band from Taiwan. The first two songs on the album I have (Color Palette) is a one-two punch. I catch only parts of the lyrics, b/c my Chinese is highly incompetent, more incompetent than other self-incompetent-thinking people might think. So, 01-Tonight is evocative of a first date, both participants hopeful, with soft tropical overtones. 02-Talk To Her is a bit more subtle is evocative of some sort of malaise between the participants, period of adjustment in their level of communication (or, that there's a secret). Some of the other tracks really turn me off as boringly generic Chinese pop, however.

Seemed like the McGill pool started to play music *underwater* this semester (which is, turning the balance so that you can only hear the music clearly when your head's underwater). I think it was Emily Haines' new album this Tuesday!