London Day 1 - Dinner at St John

We arrived in London from Paris on October 21^st via the Eurostar train to celebrate a very special 7^th anniversary with an 8 night stay at The Savoy Hotel.  I booked dinner at St John Restaurant months in advance and we were joined by very dear, close friends, Brian from Madrid and Phil from Victoria.  St John Restuarant ( www.stjohnrestaurant.com , 26 St John Street, London, 020 3301 8069) is owned by Fergus Henderson and his wife who started the ‘nose to tail’ food trend in 1994, with specialties like roasted bone marrow, veal sweetbreads and ox heart.  It was a bit of an ordeal to find the restaurant then an even greater ordeal once we were there!

We arrived a few minutes late after navigating a huge smoker crowd outside, and a huge bar crowd inside before getting to the restaurant entrance which lead us to a smoking hot (temperature) dining room.  All of the staff, dressed in white to appear as butchers, are super professional and knowledgeable.  Our server told us about some interesting specials, we ordered the house Bordeaux and chose our starters.  Our starters consisted of the special squash soup, grilled sardines, crispy pigs ears and calf brains on braised chicory.  Each were prepared using simple techniques and were all fabulous.  The sardines were deboned and grilled with a simple vinaigrette to allow the flavour of the sardine to shine through.  The squash soup topped with tiny croutons, one of the few vegetarian starters, was one of the most flavourful vegetarian soups I have ever tried.  The crispy pigs ears were the type of dish you could serve to anyone who loves deep fried food and they would love it, as long as they didn’t know what they were actually eating. Similarly, the lamb brains I ordered were prepared in the traditional grenoblaise style with lemons, capers and olive oil.  Similar to sweetbreads, although not breaded, the texture and flavour were even more delicate than sweetbreads.

Our main courses were more disappointing.  The grouse I ordered exceeded my expectations, with a side of grouse foie gras on toast and mashed potatoes.  The grouse itself was cooked medium rare, tender and gamey as I expected.  However, the other main courses did not meet expectations.  The middlewhite (pork chop) was quite thin and exceedingly fatty.  Both Jeff and Brian ordered the braised hare with swede (chard), but were disappointed with the gamey flavour, portion sizes and lack of tenderness.  We expected the hare to be fall off the bone tender but it was a bit of a challenge to eat.  As we approached the end of our main courses one of us had an issue with a rock hard hare bone which resulted in an abrupt end to our dinner.  I had looked forward to dinner at St John since 2009, but was disappointed by our collective experience.  That being said, it was a real treat to meet our dear friend Brian on this very special evening in London.

Paris Day 5 - Dinner at Quai 21

On Sunday October 16 we spent the day strolling through the non-touristy 19th Arrondissement residential area of Paris.  We had a nice picnic lunch on this sunny, warm mid-October day, in the Butte Chaumont Park (a lovely man-made park in Paris).  The park is very popular with Parisians who want to jog, stroll and picnic - it's also a great spot for tourists like us!

Sunday and Monday are the days when many Paris restaurants and shops are closed.  Our first 2 restaurant choices on the left bank of the Seine were closed. It was getting late and we were hungry after our light lunch and long walk around Butte Chaumont that afternoon. We were getting antsy to find a place to eat and decided to have dinner at the next funky restaurant we saw in the next block (thanks for the advice Trish). We spotted this restaurant that immediately reminded us of Bin 941 in Vancouver, BC (http://www.bin941.com/) , although much quieter! Quai 21 (21 Quai des Grands Augustins, 75006 Paris, 33 1 43 26 08 57) specializes in Tartines and Au Gratin Potatoes (scalloped potatoes).

Our server was amazing and could have been the twin sister of my friend Carmen Paulke from BC Transmission. She got us settled at our table with three fingers each of pastis to calm our nerves and quell our appetities (excellent value for 3.50E each). To start I ordered warm goat cheese salad and Jeff ordered the marinated salmon salad; the latter came as huge thin slices of gravlax covering a plate of dressed salad greens. For our mains Jeff enjoyed duck breast while I sampled 3 styles of tartines. Tartines are toasted slices of baguette topped with greens, melted cheese and charcutterie, again simple country style food from France. We enjoyed a 2007 Bordeaux with dinner and the total came to 60E, another outstanding value and fun location.  Quai 21 is the only restaurant in Paris that earned the honour of two meals during our 9 days in Paris!  You know it has to be both good and fun!

Paris - Lunch - Day 4

On Saturday morning (Paris day #4) we went for a walk around ‘Les Halles’ the old market of Paris for over 800 years called ‘the Belly of Paris’. In the late 60’s the government decided to move the market from the heart of the city to relieve traffic congestion from the market. The area continues to attract locals and tourists to the restaurants and cafes that fill the streets around the current site which is now a huge underground shopping centre. I had my heart set on lunch at the famous ‘Tour de Montlhery - Chez Denis’ (5 Rue Prouvaires, 75001 Paris, tele 01 42 36 21 82). This restaurant has been serving the market butchers for over 100 years. Even after the Les Halles market moved to Rungis in 1969, this bistro continues to be going strong with their emphasis on meat, particularly offal. Unfortunately, they are only open Monday to Friday from morning until 0500.


We asked a local foie gras vendor for his recommendation and he directed us across the street to ‘Le Gros Minet’ (1 Rue Prouvaires, 75001 Paris, tele 01 42 33 02 62), a small tavern style restaurant just a few doors down from Chez Denis. The restaurant is run by a husband and wife team who has apparently been in this spot for decades! The ambiance was amazing with old photos and postcards stuck to the wall in between bric a brac that had been acquired over the years. Just based on the atmosphere this is a place you would stop in for a bite to eat or a drink if you lived in the neighborhood.

Lon admiring the bar

  

Pate

 

Warm Gizzard Salad



We walked in at noon to find 2 ladies having some wine before lunch, very quiet for Saturday lunch. While the wife/owner spoke very little English we just loved the feel of the room and the menu selections. While the prix fixe menu was very reasonably priced at 18E for 3 courses we opted for 3 courses from the a la carte menu.

Jeff ordered a ‘gezier salad’ consisting of warm sautéed chicken gizzards served over fresh salad greens with a simple dressing. The combination sounds very odd, but was outstanding, so much so he barely shared any with me! My simple hearty Breton pate was also excellent, served with cornichons and excellent French mustard, but was overshadowed by Jeff’s salad.

Our mains were duck breast with french fried potatoes (just look at those fries!) and boudin noir with mashed potatos, roasted apple, tapenade and mustard. Both of these were prepared in a very traditional french country style with no extra seasoning or sauces. This allowed the flavour of tasty (albeit a bit tough) duck breast and blood sausage shine through. Simply delicious. By this time the restaurant was packed with Parisians’.

We ended the meal with coffee ice cream chocolate cake and espresso. An excellent Brittany coast country lunch in the heart of the 1st only 2 blocks from the Louvre! All of this for 60E for 2 including a pichet of rose, tax and tip.

Paris - Lunch Day 2 - La Tour d'Argent

On our second day in Paris we walked from the Opera Garnier, past the Louvre, along the right bank of the Seine to Ile de Cite (the home of Notre Dame Cathedral) across the bridge to Ile St-Louis, then it started to rain.  We were on our way for lunch at La Tour d’Argent (www.latourdargent.com , 15 quai de la Tournelle Paris 75005, 1.43.54.23.31) on the left bank opposite Ile St-Louis.  The owners claim that the restaurant has operated on the same location since 1582, that’s right, they have been serving dinner here for 429 years.  It had been a 3 star Michelin restaurant until 1996 and is currently has 1 Michelin star.

I made this lunch reservation months in advance based on the popularity of the restaurant, particularly at lunch when they offer a 3 course meal for 69E, which is inexpensive considering the starters range in price from 49-210E, mains courses from 70-140E, with desserts are all priced at 24E.  This would easily be the most expensive restaurant I have ever eaten at.

The greeting by the maitre’d was the first and only snooty treatment we received from someone in Paris.  It was clear to us that we were less than welcome in ‘his’ restaurant.  We were sent off to waiting room for over 30 minutes while they prepared our table.  Other were greeted at the door and immediately escorted to the elevator that takes you to the restaurant on the top floor of the building overlooking the Seine.  We were the second people to arrive for lunch at noon sharp, however by the time we were escorted to the restaurant there were at least 2 dozen people seated.  Our persistence paid off, we would be seated for lunch.  The surroundings were outstanding, the view over the city was gorgeous, the room decorated impeccably and the staff operate with surgical precision.

While we may have glanced at the a la carte menu we were quickly drawn back to reality of the prix fixe menu which is what we were there to indulge in.  After being some tiny canapés we ordered our lunch.  I started with their famous pike quenelles.  In this dish comprised of creamed pike that is mixed with eggs and poached in cream sauce and finished under a broiler (salamander).  The result is a heavenly dish of silky smooth poached pike in a rich buttery sauce.

Pike Quenelles

Cold Poached Salmon

Jeff ordered the cold poached salmon which arrives looking like a piece of art.  They poach a perfectly shaped side of salmon that has a thin layer of spinach topped with aspic and garnished with micro greens and a drizzle of green sauce.  The presentation is like nothing either of us has ever seen before.

For our main course we decided to both have the Canette de Vendee (duck breast).  A dish that was prepared to perfection.  At no point did I ever consider the need for seasoning since it was all, quite honestly, perfect.

Jeff's Dessert

Chocolate Tartlette

Dessert and coffee were again incredible.  Especially the ice cream and figs that Jeff ordered.  As you can see this dessert was both gorgeous and delicious.

My dessert was a chocolate tartlette, I barely recall how good mine was since I was so taken by Jeff’s dessert.   By the time we had finished our espresso, chocolate truffles and cookies we realized we had been at lunch for 2 ½ hours.  The bill for lunch for two including two very small, but expensive glasses of white wine was almost 200E.  Which is very inexpensive compared to the people dining around us.  One table of note was a lady in her late 40’s who sat alone at a table for 6.  Although her presence was inconspicuous through our meal Jeff noted that the bottle of wine she was drinking was a 1961 vintage Bordeaux, which would have easily cost 8,000-10,000E.  There is clearly no shortage of wealth in Paris!

Paris - Dinner Day 1 - Les Diables au Thym

On October 12 we left Dresden Germany for Paris France, with our lost luggage, on Lufthansa via Munich.  The structure, organization and discipline of German society was very interesting to see.  I saw it manifested in the timeliness and cleanliness of services and public areas.  Trains leave exactly on time, not 30 seconds early or late.  There is no gum or garbage anywhere, and the streets and sidewalks are swept nightly.  Rules are posted everywhere that people are expected to follow, and they do.  It is clear to me why Germany is such an economic powerhouse.  Now we are on our way to Paris, then London, were things were not nearly as structured or organized as in Germany!

My birthday dinner in Paris was at Les Diables au Thym “Devils Time” (www.lesdiablesauthym.com , 35 Rue Berger Paris 75009, 01 47 70 77 09) a restaurant recommend by my dear friend Trish Saltys.  We walked from our hotel beside the Opera Garnier to this 24 seat right bank restaurant just off of Rue Faubourg-Montmartre.   Our server was fabulous, he was fast, efficient, funny and really knew how to upsell!  He suggested the Kathmandu cocktails to start (pink peppercorn infused vodka topped with champagne), then recommended a bottle of wine called ‘Les Couilles d'ânes rouge’ which he told us translated to ‘Donkey’s Balls’, we assumed he was just kidding, who in their right mind would give their wine a name like that.  With the power of the internet in our hands we confirmed the translation was indeed correct!  This soft, smooth 2006 Malbec was a great pairing for our dinner.

In France food menus are labeled with Entrees and Plates, were entrees are starters or appetizers, and plates are main courses, what we would typically call entrees.  To start Jeff ordered the ‘Foie gras de canard cuit en terrine’ which was a perfect slab of silky smooth foie gras topped with some flaky fleur de sel.  I ordered the ‘boudin noir aux pommes’, a thick slice of blood sausage served with gingerbread and roasted apple, another delicious rich entrée.

Stuffed Rabbit Saddle

We both love rabbit and decided to have the stuffed saddle of rabbit for our main course.  The rabbit saddle (boneless loin of rabbit) was stuffed with a delicious combination of dark rabbit meat, shallots and fresh herbs; then served with wild mushrooms and cannellini beans.  This dish looked and tasted great except that it was overcooked.  Rabbit is not very forgiving when it comes to being overcooked!

For dessert I ordered a delicious Chestnut Mille-feuille while Jeff had a selection of French cheeses like Forme d’Ambert, Morbier and Brie (all available from fine cheese shops in Vancouver and Victoria).  Dinner at Les Diables au Thyme was a great start to our first trip to Paris and my birthday celebration.

Dresden, Germany

European take away food is so much different and healthier than in North America.

Take Away Sandwiches

Lunch on our first day in Dresden was at Cosel Palais (http://www.coselpalais-dresden.de/ , an der Frauenkirche 12  Dresden, 351 4 96 24 44) just off the main square in Dresden, the capital of the Saxony, with my business associate Mike Hoche from Vancouver. Mike was in Germany for a family reunion and was able to join us for a couple days in Dresden. After a starters of cauliflower soup and game consomme we were treated to a main course of Rinderzunge (warm beef tongue with dauphine potatoes, peas and carrots), including one beer each the total was 20E per person, delicious and great value. A great start to our trip to Dresden Germany.

On Tuesday we started the day off with some clothes shopping courtesy of Lufthansa who lost one of our bags packed with the clothes and shoes we needed for dinner that evening. We then arrived at the VW factory ‘Die Glaserne Manufactur’ for our personal tour of the factory where our car was built (this is like a Mecca experience for men who love cars). If you don’t know anything about the factory or the car follow this link (http://www.glaesernemanufaktur.de/) and at the very least look through the photos of the factory. It is like no other manufacturing site I have ever toured in my career.

Following our tour we enjoyed lunch at Restaurant Lesage at the VW Glass Factory. Jeff and Mike had the duck breast with spinach risotto and shitake mushrooms while I ordered the chicken with cauliflower and broccoli puree, and confit spring rolls. Quite the lunch for a car factory (better than GM would do for you in Detroit).

Our last dinner in Dresden was not a gourmet feast, but rather a hearty European Country dinner at a German-Czech restaurant called : Wenzel Prager Biersstuben (www.wenzel-bierstuben.de) . We ordered great local beers, 2 or 3 each and hearty fare. Mike had the dumplings stuffed with smoked pork served on sauerkraut with fried onions and gravy, while Jeff ordered the rolled pork chop with 2 types of dumplings (bacon and potato) served with delicious braised red cabbage.

I optd for the non-vegan special ‘Karlstein Platter’, comprised of roast beef, roast pork and smoked pork (aka ham) served with sauerkraut, braised red cabbage, and 3 types of dumplings, this was an outrageous amount of food!

We ended the night at a small local (smoky) bar for a beer before Jeff and I left for Paris in the morning, while our friend Mike travelled to his grandmothers ancestral home in Poland, we clearly know who would be enjoying better food on Oct 12!





Gazpacho

If I had more time at home I would spend considerably more time outside growing a great vegetable garden. I love to prepare and share fresh picked local veggies and what better place than from your own back (or front) yard. Since I spend a great deal of time traveling for work it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a vegetable garden. I do grow some low maintenance winter squash and kale, but my real passion is for heirloom tomatoes. Over 10 years ago I started to grow them in a plastic Home Depot greenhouse using tomato starts from local Metchosin farm stands. Since then I have collected my own seeds, enlarged my greenhouse and I get started on my own seedlings every January.

Delicious raw ingredients

By September we are swimming in 6-10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. What do we do with this great abundance of tomatoes? Well, almost every day we have tomato salad, we share them with friends and family, they get frozen whole, we make tomato sauce for pizza or pasta, and I make gazpacho. To me gazpacho captures the essence of summer. Colourful heirloom tomatoes from my greenhouse; cucumbers, garlic, shallots, and peppers from my favorite local farmers; all swimming in organic tomato juice and topped off with the best olive oil from Tuscan Kitchen on Broad Street. It is so very delicious!

In early September I made a great batch of gazpacho for a Saturday night dinner party. I gathered a great selection of tomatoes: Aunt Rubies German Green, White Ghost (actually yellow), Black from Tula (dark mahogany), Green Zebras and Peach Zebras.

The tomatoes were chopped into 1/4 inch dice, then were joined by fuzzy cucumbers and shallots from Windwhipped Farm, garlic from Sea Bluff Farm and peppers from the Wulff’s. It looks so beautiful in a big chrome bowl before adding the tomato juice, but after a day of resting in the fridge it looks even better in our bowls!

Gazpacho

Central Oregon Thai

By virtue of my profession as a management consultant I have the pleasure of spending some of my time travelling to see clients away from my home in Victoria, BC. In late August I spent a week visiting a client just outside of Roseburg, Oregon - population 21,000. The town of Dillard/Winston is a small forest industry town just off of Interstate-5 in central Oregon. Small resource sector towns like this are typically known for their home style cooking, one or two chain restaurants and the compulsory greasy spoons. On my second day I noticed a sign for Hello Thai Cuisine (273 SW Main Street Winston, OR – 541-679-5897 – www.hello-thai.com ), I decided to pass on the 6 inch Subway sub and take a chance on Hello Thai.

I arrived at 11:45 am to a 30 cover restaurant with only 1 customer having the daily $6.90 lunch special; which today was sweet and sour pork with rice, this was not what I had in mind! The pleasant Thai server brought me some ice water while I reviewed the menu. That’s when I noticed the specialty dishes and the list of 15 lunch specials that were totally different than the daily single plate special. Now this was encouraging. I decided to have egg rolls to start followed by the Pad Kee Mao. I was thrilled with my whole lunch. The egg rolls were stuffed full of fresh vegetables, were perfectly deep fried and not in the least bit greasy. Then came the Chicken Pad Kee Mao. I was served a big plate of chicken and wide egg noodles tossed with onions, peppers, thai basil and mushrooms. The dish had just the right amount of spiciness that I offset with hot Thai ginger tea.



Thai Egg Rolls



Pad Kee Mao at Hello Thai

I had discovered a gem in Winston. I was not the only person to discover Hello Thai, by 12:15 the restaurant was packed with local business people, foresters and a couple colorful locals (who ordered the sweet and sour pork special). I spent the next few days with my client raving about the great little Thai restaurant serving the quality of food you would find in Vancouver or San Fransisco. If you happen to be driving I-5 in Oregon you need to take the 15 minute detour to enjoy some of the best Thai food and service on the West Coast!

Dim Sum in Victoria, BC

Well it has been quite some time since I have provided a blog update but I am back on track now! I don’t have a lot of photos to share from lunch today but I promise more in the future. We are blessed in Victoria when it comes to the quality of dim sum available, we have 3-4 great restaurants that have their own specialties and all produce great quality. Today we were having lunch at Golden City Seafood Restaurant (705 Fisgard Street Victoria BC, 250-386-8404) which is one of our two favourite dim sum restaurants.

Dim sum restaurants comes in two forms: cart service or menu ordered, each with their advantages. Golden City is based on the menu ordered service where you need to choose from 64 menu items, many of them with obscure names like: Ha Gow, Shanghai Dumpling or Pan Fried Meat Postickers; which leave the novice wondering what they are ordering. Other menu items like: Prawn Rice Rolls, Steamed Chicken Buns or Chicken Feet with Black Bean Sauce; are much more obvious! As a seasoned veteran I am happy to order off the menu, but I know it can be intimidating for the uninitiated. The menu can also lead to a lack of adventure based on the menu item description, for example, we enjoyed dim sum for over 10 years before discovering Stir Fried Daikon Cake with XO Sauce. It wasn’t until we saw some being served to another table that we decided to try a dish that is now one of our favourites. One we would order today!

When we arrived at Golden City the one and only cart swung by our table. Our regular server, a lovely Chinese lady with a huge smile always dressed in a traditional red dress, told us today they had neither the Prawn Stuffed Eggplant or the Deep Fried Prawn Rolls that we almost always order, so instead we took two other dishes: Deep Fried Spring Rolls and Deep Fried Taro Root Dumplings with Curry Chicken. As with many deep fried dim sum dishes, they are amazing right from the kitchen but lose their flavour as the cool down. So we quickly finished them off before ordering from the menu!

From their extensive menu we ordered an additional eight dishes, which turned out to be far too much for 3 of us. Prawn Dumpling (Ha Gow), steamed spareribs with garlic black bean sauce, stir fried daikon cake with XO sauce, pan fried chive dumplings, steamed prawn and chive dumpling, steamed prawn and cilantro dumpling, pan fried sticky rice, and bean curd roll with enoki mushrooms.

One of the most popular dishes in any dim sum restaurant is Ha Gow, there are no strange ingredients (shrimp, garlic in clear rice wrap) and it presents very well with four small dumplings. I use it as a leading indicator of the quality of the restaurant, if the Ha Gow isn’t good, odds are the rest of the order will be worse! At Golden City they are always excellent!



Pan Fried Chive Dumplings



Today we ordered both the steamed and the pan fried chive dumplings, which are prepared with shrimp, chives and of course garlic. The kitchen did not have any steamed chive dumplings today so they substituted a second order of pan fried instead. As you can see from the photo they look, and taste delicious, with a nice crispy rice wrap enveloping the inside.

One of our other favourite dishes which is not always available, even by special order, is the stir fried fried daikon cake with XO sauce. It was here at Golden City that we disciovered this amazing dish that is worth a try if you have the opportunity. The daikon cake is quite mild for a radish cake, but the XO sauce carries a bit of kick with some hot peppers. Unfortunalety for me, the cognac lover, there isn’t any cognac in this dish, but the Chinese spicy concoction makes this dish and many others, a real special treat, just like XO cognac.

Stir Fried Daikon Cake with XO Sauce

By the end of lunch we packed up 2 containers with our leftovers and headed off to the airport for a trip to Central Oregon where I discovered a gem of a Thai restaurant in the tiny town of Winston Oregon, just off of I-5.

Bison and Morel Mushrooms

Anyone who lives on the Westcoast knows about the abundance of wild mushrooms, no not the psychedelic type that teenagers and hippies harvest, I’m referring to delicious gourmet mushrooms like chanterelles and morels. While most mushrooms are harvested in the fall, the morel is the exception that shows up in the spring and early summer.

Morels are found in areas affected by forest fires in the previous 1-2 years, and are unmistakable given their sponge-like appearance, ranging in colour from black to yellow-brown and can grow to be 4-6” in height. I was thrilled to find a local mushroom forager at the Metchosin Farmers Market with fresh morels from Quesnel BC. I bought myself 1 pound of mushrooms for $16 and started planning dinner for Sunday and Monday. Tonight we would enjoy an appetizer from our local market!

In addition to the morels I bought some fava beans, DiMaggio onions and a fresh baked baguette. I started by sautéing the onion in some pernod butter, then added a half pound of sliced morels, which were cooked until softened, about 7 minutes (this is important when cooking fresh morels since they can cause an upset stomach if eaten raw). Whipping cream was added and reduced, followed by the prepared fava beans with their brilliant bright green colour.

We grilled slices of baguette, rubbed the toasted crostini with garlic, topped each with the mushroom sauté and finished them with fresh chopped tarragon. What a delightful way to start dinner.

Our Sunday dinner continued with bison striploin and local veggies. The bison striploins were grilled for barely 6 minutes for medium rare, and were dressed with only olive oil, salt and pepper to let the flavor of the young bison shine through. Served alongside were oven braised baby fennel and DiMaggio onions, sautéed rainbow chard and smashed german gold new potatoes. While I was tempted to prepare a sauce for this dinner I decided to let the flavours of the local bounty stand on their own. Now we are ready for a full and busy week of work!

TIGBG: Goes to Au Pied de Cochon, Montreal

This is Gonna Be Good: BrookLen Goes to Au Pied de Cochon, Montreal

Cooking at Home

I really enjoyed our four fabulous days in Montreal with the great variety of food and wine the city has to offer. At the same time I missed cooking! In preparation for Thursday night dinner I picked up my weekly meat and veggie box from Alex and Virginie at Wind Whipped Farm (http://www.windwhippedfarm.com/) . They are an amazing couple who have partnered with other local farmers who supply lamb, chicken and pork for the meat portion of the box program. The variety and quality of the veggies are always excellent. Dinner started with grilled hearts of romaine then the main course featured a smoked chicken from Stillmeadow Farm (http://www.stillmeadowfarm.ca/).

The grilled hearts of romaine were topped with oven roasted roma tomatoes from Glanford Greenhouses, croutons and Caesar salad dressing, heavy on anchovies and capers. Grilled romaine is always a nice start to a summer BBQ menu!

This beautiful local organic chicken was rotiserried on low heat while we smoked it with cherry wood chips. Wind Whipped Farm provided first of season red beets, served on top of their wilted greens, steamed new purple potatoes, and a sauté of baby zucchini, snow peas and DiMaggio onion tops.


We are so lucky to have so many great people providing top quality local ingredients for our table. They are all passionate about local, sustainable food supply for local residents and restaurants. In the coming weeks I will share with you some of these great local restaurants and their amazing food!

Montreal Day 4 - Monday July 11

I managed to get myself out of the room and down to the hotel gym at on Monday morning.  When someone consumes as much pork, foie gras and seafood as I had at APDC you need to do something to burn off the calories!  One hour and 500 calories later, I was lucky if I was 10% of the way to offsetting my caloric intake of the past 2 days.  Would I do it again you ask?  Well at least once per year!

On our last full day in Montreal we set our sights on some more clothes shopping on Rue St Catherines looking for good prices on the stylish clothes you see all of the locals wearing.  French Canadians have a sense of style that you don’t see in the rest of the country.  It does not seem to matter whether they are young or old, short or tall, skinny or heavy set.  They have a sense of style!  We were hoping to find a bit of that for ourselves before heading home.

On the way we stopped at a small restaurant in the office district just off St Catherines.  We spotted a pizza place that was 90% full at 1145 with men in business attire, women taking a break from a shopping trip downtown, and other local office workers.  Add to that the wood fired oven we were sold on having a couple pizzas to get us through the afternoon.  We managed to get a table near the door at ‘Il Focolaio’ (1223 Carre Phillips, 514-879-1045, www.ilfocolaio.ca) and within minutes the place was packed without a seat to be found.  Since building a wood fired cob oven in the summer of 2010 we are always looking for places to try and compare to what we are doing at home.  While they were quite good, I have to say I am happy with my home made pizzas which will be featured in the next couple weeks on my blog.

Later in the afternoon we dropped into the Plateau Lounge at our hotel, W Montreal.  As one would expect a lounge is almost empty on Monday at 1630.  We had an amazing cocktail called a ‘Cote d’Artagnan’ which consisted of cognac, whiskey, sweet vermouth and maple syrop with twists of lemon and orange.  I will share the drink recipe if/when I can convince the hotel to share it with me!  We asked the bartender for restaurant recommendations for Monday night, a night that most Montreal restaurants are closed.  She recommended ‘F-Bar’, a Portuguese restaurant at Place des Artes.  After a quick review of their website I was hopeful that we had stumbled upon another great Montreal restaurant.

We skipped making a reservation and walked over to Place des Artes where we came across two very modern restaurants along the waterpark.  Both were brand new glass and steel buildings (we should have taken pictures) that were no more than 16 feet wide, with 12 foot ceilings and seemed to stretch forever from the front door, through the bar, the dining area, then to the kitchen at the very end.  We were in for a really pleasant surprise!

The restaurant was busy but not overcrowded for 1800 on a Monday night.  The hostess brought us to a great table beside the bar where Jeff and Phil could see at least half of the dishes being served to other patrons, since I was facing the window I didn’t have the advantage of seeing the amazing dishes being ushered to one table and the next.  After the first 5 minutes of watching plates pass by Jeff knew exactly what he was having for a starter and the main was obvious from the menu.

Tonight we each decided to order different appies and mains, share…  maybe but not for sure…

For starters we ordered the pea soup featured on the menu and their website, the mackerel that we saw going to another table, and the charcuterie platter.  I had the charcuterie platter with 3-4 slices each of salami, prosciutto, capicolla, chorizo, brawn (jellied pig head), rabbit/sweetbread terrine as well as a bowl of pickled gherkins, radishes, mushrooms and pearl onions.  I have ordered many charcuterie platters before and have often felt ripped off by the portions, not so at F bar, where the platter was delicious and generous.  Phil ordered the pea soup which I had assumed was a hot pea soup.  He kindly offered to share but I kindly refused.  It wasn’t until our flight home that he told us it was a refreshing cold pea soup with crispy bacon and fresh mint foam, now I wish I’d taken him up on his offer. 

As much as we both enjoyed our starters, nothing could compare to Jeff’s mackerel.  Two fillets of mackerel served on 3 sauces (almond, coco bean and chorizo/pepper).  I could have eaten 3 orders alone!  Simply amazing.

For our mains we ordered the lamb burger, cod (morue) and Magret duck breast.  Again Jeff scored on his choice of mains, the magret duck breast.  The duck was served in round stainless tin on top of new potatoes, olives, DiMaggio onions, mushrooms, strips of guanciale and tarragon.  The duck breast, although not overly large, was seared to rare perfection.  What an incredible dinner.

The lamb burger with salad and fries was Phil’s choice.  He was thrilled to bite into his burger on a home-made Portuguese bun to find it cooked medium rare, the way all burgers should be served (if you trust the chef).  It was served on top of a nice slow roasted slice of onion and topped with a cucumber-mint raita, not something you’d expect on a burger but it really worked with the lamb burger.  The fries looked well prepared but were a bit soft (they needed to be eaten first, but Phil was far too eager to try the lamb), not nearly as good as everything else at F bar.

My black cod was also served in a stainless metal tin like the duck but with a much simpler presentation.  The seared black cod was just barely cooked through, as I like it, layered atop mashed potatos and braised fennel.  The mashed potatoes were a very complex preparation of ‘sardine parmentier’ which consists of mashed yellow potatoes, sardines, grainy Dijon mustard and cream.  An amazing combination that I will try at home after making a batch of APDC mashed potatoes!

Dinner at F bar was a great way to wrap-up our trip to Montreal.  The total bill including a couple good local beer, a nice bottle of Portuguese white wine, tip and tax was $220.  F bar and her sister restaurant ‘Ferreira Café’ on Rue Peel are strong recommendations for anyone travelling to Montreal.  Now it is time to pack all our new clothes, amaro, pastis and chocolate from ‘Chocolats de Chloe’.  I did not provide a review of Chocolats de Chloe (546 Rue Duluth Est, 514-849-5550, www.leschocolatsdechloe.com) but if you like chocolate you’ll love this shop that only uses Valrhona, my favourite chocolate, in everything she makes. 

Montreal Day 3 – Sunday July 10 - Tete de Cochon

Late Sunday morning we ventured back on the Metro to the Plateau to find a place for a light lunch.  We disembarked at Station Sherbrooke and started looking for restaurants along Rue St Denis. 

On a morning such as this, where I do not have a dining destination in mind, I follow a set routine that helps me find a restaurant of my liking.  First of all I watch for the number of people on the terrace or in the restaurant to gauge whether or not the locals have already determined that this is a decent place to eat.  If a place is busy I try to determine if it is simply full of tourists or favoured by locals. (I remember our first visit to a dim sum restaurant in San Francisco over 10 years ago, we were looking for a table for 2 and after scanning the restaurant we noticed 99% of the customers were Chinese.  I knew it was going to be an amazing dim sum experience).  Secondly, I scan for what is/was on diners plates, does it look interesting, appetizing and fresh or not.  If the restaurant passes the first two steps then I will look at the menu.  If the menu is on a chalk board or printed daily, then again I think there is a higher likelihood of success.  I typically steer clear of restaurants with plasticized menus that have frayed edges from years of over handling, a good sign that nothing changes from year to year or season to season.  Of course the menu items themselves are the final deciding factor for me.  Interesting ingredients, fresh seasonal produce, unique meats all are a great sign that the owner and chef care about good food.

This Sunday morning after walking both sides of first 2 blocks of St Denis from Rue Roy to Rue Duluth we chose to have lunch at Bistro Fruits Folie (3817 Rue St Denis, 514-840-9011).  The fresh fruit that adorned some of the plates on the terrace lead me to believe this would be a good choice.  We sat at a table inside for some relief from the muggy Montreal summer morning.  The menu selection was quite extensive covering 3 pages of breakfast, plus 4 pages for lunch.  Jeff ordered the Clubhouse Gigantique sandwich which was served with the same sides as mine, a generous portion of frites and salad.  I ordered a croque-madame sandwich. Their version substitutes the usual ham for chicken and excludes the usual fried egg on top.  Phil had the eggs benedict which came with a generous serving of fresh ripe fruit.  Although neither the lunch nor the patrons were as eclectic as the day before at Le Barbare, it is worth a visit especially if you have a terrace table where you can watch the Montreal day pass by.  Total bill for 3 with tax and tip was $50.

I’m glad we had a light lunch and continued to walk around the Plateau and Vieu Port (Old Montreal) to burn off some calories in advance of our second dinner at APDC at 2000h.  This is a dinner we have been looking forward to for the past year, in fact, when Sarah-Jane made our dinner reservations in March she pre-ordered our main course to ensure that we had one of the two that are served each night.

Sunday night we arrived right on time and were seated at a big table at the very back of the restaurant. Unfortunately the combination of our table location, the hot humid weather and a malfunctioning air conditioner made for an uncomfortably warm dinner which was only briefly offset by the feature cocktail a maple syrup mojito.  After cooling off with our cocktails we ordered some appetizers and our meaty main courses.  While Saturday night was mainly focused on seafood, tonight we all decided to focus on the mainstay of Martin Picard’s mecca for foodies: cochon (pig) and foie gras.

The appetizers tonight included a seasonal treat, deep fried zucchini blossoms with aioli.  I just love to order these at restaurants when they are in season, I have always wanted to try making them at home but deep fat frying is so much easier in a restaurant kitchen than at home. 

What APDC meal would be complete without a serving of foie gras.  We have tried so many of their foie gras specialties to date but there is always something new to try.  It may take us another 2 years to have tried them all but we have yet to come across one we haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. 

Tonight we ordered the ‘Terrine Foie Gras’ a simple ¼ pound serving of foie gras terrine served with apple/maple jelly and perfectly toasted croutons.  The terrine did not last very long, but even in the short 10 minutes it took to finish we noticed the flavour improve as the terrine warmed to room temperature which at that point must have been 35C.

Once again the temptation was too great and Phil ordered the side of poutine.  If you are going to have poutine anywhere in Montreal, you might as well have it at APDC!

In keeping with the Loire Valley wine theme started on Saturday night we enjoyed a red wine Clos Cristal from the Saumur-Champigny appellation, a lighter bodied wine with an earthy richness that would go well with our ‘piece de resistance’ for dinner, ‘Tete Cochon pour deux’,or the ‘Pig's Head for Two’.

The creative mind of Martin Picard and his commitment to nose-to-tail dining is on par with Fergus Henderson from St John in London England.  The pig head is first brined, then cooked sous vide in duck fat, then it awaits the final stage of roasting in the wood fired oven prior to serving.  The final presentation as you can see is totally over the top!

The roasted pig head is placed atop a thick layer of APDC mashed potatoes, the mouth filled with sautéed vegetables, then joined on the plate by a steamed lobster (thankfully a female with roe), seared scallops and a bowl of sauce.  The crowning glory is a steak knife stuck in the top of the cracked skull to give you access to… you guessed it, the brain! 



ouch



The next 45 minutes were a real adventure in dining for us, and apparently disturbing for some APDC patrons at tables around us (a couple and their 2 children opted to leave the restaurant before our main course arrived for fear it would give their 7 and 10 year old boys nightmares!).  Gorka and Jessica, our servers, challenged us to eat everything, seriously, everything on the pig head.  I was surprised by the amount of meat on the pig head, but of course there is Jeff reminds me, otherwise there would be no such thing as headcheese or brawn!  The skin was a rich mahogany, tender in some places, crispy in others.  The meat from the cheeks, tongue and other parts of the head were delicious and juicy, either from the fat around it or the duck fat it was confited in.  While we did not eat much of the fat from the head, we did go as far as trying some, though not all, of the brain.  We both opted to not go so far as to eat an eyeball, some things are even too much for Jeff and me (there is a story about a fish eyeball that may someday rear its ugly head again, but that is for another time).  I have opted to not post the ‘after’ photos of the pig head but I am happy to email them to anyone that may be so inclined!  Gorka scored our pig head effort at 7.5 out of 10, not bad for our first time!

After all that description of the ‘Tete de Cochon’ it is difficult to describe the ‘Happy Porkchop’ that Phil ordered.  It was served on the bone topped with sautéed shallots and mushrooms and surrounded by one of their amazing rich sauces.  I normally would have tried some but I was too caught up eating the head from Phil’s happy pig!

We ended the night with a Calvados toast (or three) to APDC’s amazing staff.  A great way to end an amazing meal!

On our way out the door we spotted the main course for our next trip to Montreal.  Three daring people were seated at the front window of APDC and were eating a roast leg of veal.  Seriously, two joints (tibia and fibia) from a trimmed leg of veal.  We may need an extra person or two to join us for that massive dinner.  Any takers? 

Montreal Day 2 - Saturday July 09

On Saturday morning we caught up on our sleep after the Thursday/Friday red-eye flights and corresponding lack of sleep.  We headed to the Plateau area for coffee, lunch and shopping.  I am convinced the only way to get around Montreal is by Metro (subway) and bus service.  The service is cheap if you buy daily ($8) or 3 day passes ($16) which gives you full access to the entire system, information is available on their website (www.stm.info).  We took the Orange line Metro from Square Victoria to Mont Royal, stopped at the tourist info booth at the Metro station to get a recommendation on an excellent café for espresso drinks.  The young man at the info booth referred to a new tiny café ‘Flocon Espresso’ (781 Mont Royal Est, 514-903-9994, http://www.floconespresso.com/).   The café had a total of 12 seats inside and 4 outside, but size doesn’t matter…. especially when it comes to good coffee.  We enjoyed our café americano’s and decided to find a place for lunch as it was approaching noon.   While we have tried many good bistros and restaurants on the plateau I wanted to try something new so we wandered up (and down) Rue St Denis and finally came across a really funky looking, busy café ‘Le Barbare’ (4670 Rue St Denis, Montreal, 514-288-8377).  We took a table towards the back of this very eclectic café and quickly got past a perceived language barrier to choose from their rather extensive printed menu, but opted for the weekend brunch specials on the chalkboard. 

We had two orders of ‘bene homard-chorizo’ eggs benedict with diced lobster and chorizo sausage and one grilled cheese-bacon sandwich with 3 cheeses and side bacon.  The eggs benedict combination was far to strange for us not to try and we were not disappointed, even while we enjoyed our eggs I kept on trying to find something wrong with the combination of eggs, lobster, chorizo and tangy hollandaise sauce but couldn’t.  The skillet potatoes that were served with all of our lunches were not terribly good, steamed russet potatoes fried in oil and seasoned with rosemary just did not appeal to any of us.  The grilled cheese sandwich made with aged cheddar, mozzarella, goat cheeses and bacon on foccaccia bread was excellent, the cheese flavours complemented one another and the bacon was just right for the sandwich.  In addition to the oily potatoes the sandwich was served with a side of ‘f o lards’ which is quite common in Quebec.  The ‘f o lards’ are beans with pork, I haven’t had much experience eating beans with pork since being a teenager so really can’t judge their quality relative to other restaurants so all I can say is they were beans with pork.  Lunch included brewed coffee which was actually quite good, a pleasant surprise since I usually avoid brewed coffee.  Since I am on vacation and it was after 1100 I decided to enjoy a local cidre rose, very refreshing on a warm sunny afternoon.  Lunch for 3 including tax and tip was a reasonable $60.

Shopping along Rue St Denis

After lunch we did some clothes shopping along Mont Royal and St Denis, then stopped in at Arthur Quentin (3960 Rue St Denis) for a quick browse through the imported French linens, tableware and kitchen goodies.  I maintained control leaving the store with a French cookbook on terrines, a cheese slicer and a great restaurant recommendation from one of their helpful, friendly staff.  Then we needed to get back to the hotel to make it to the Cirque de Soleil show ‘Totem’ at 1700, before heading back to the plateau for the first of 2 amazing dinners at my Montreal Mecca ‘Au Pied de Cochon’.

After our slightly delayed arrival  at ‘Au Pied de Cochon’ (536 Avenue Duluth Est, Montreal, 514-281-1114, www.restaurantaupieddecochon.ca) we were greeted by our favourite server and fellow foodie Sarah-Jane.  We met Sarah-Jane in 2009 and immediately connected based on our interest in food and wine.  We have shared restaurant recommendations with one another, in particular ‘Judas Goat Taberna’ (27 Blood Alley, Vancouver,604-633-1912, www.judasgoat.ca) which has enjoyed a spike in foodie visits based on the number of people Sarah-Jane and I have sent to this tiny Spanish-inspired tapa bar in Downtown Vancouver (a review of Judas Goat at a later date).  Sarah-Jane got us started with glasses of petite-chablis while we decided what we were ordering.  Ordering was fairly easy since we have booked consecutive nights at APDC to have a seafood platter one night and one of Martin Picard’s signature pig dishes on our second night.  Tonight was the night for the seafood platter so we just needed to choose some light starters.  We picked a number of small dishes to share and loved them all.

The ‘Foie Gras Cromesquis’ (2 for $3.50) are pefectly sized morsels of deep fried breaded foie gras.  They are about the size of large marbles (as big as a loonie) and have huge foie gras flavor, once you’ve let them cool for 2 minutes to avoid scalding the inside of your mouth with hot duck liver! 

The marinated smoked sausage (also $3.50) is a nice smoky, briny european weiner that disappeared almost as fast as the foie gras cromesquis.  A half order of ‘house made boudin’ arrived at the same time as the ‘poutine’.  In an effort to keep our calorie and fat intake down we opted to skip the foie gras option for both of these dishes, but if you have room (in your belly) you are well advised to try them both on your next visit. 

The boudin noir, blood sausage, was served on a bed of the PDC mashed potatoes with melt in your mouth baked apple slices and topped with caramelized shallots.  Simply heavenly! 

The poutine, a French Canadian classic, is prepared to perfection by the APDC staff, with big white chunks of Quebec cheese curds nestled into perfectly done French fries (cooked of course in duck fat) and topped with a decadent, beefy gravy.  I could feel the cholesterol building in my arteries as I enjoyed my share of the poutine.  During dinner we enjoyed a couple bottles of French white wine from the Loire Valley produced by Domaine Phillipe Tessier which is not available in any restaurant in BC.  A nice crisp Cheverney that went well with our entire dinner.

After our starters we prepared for the amazing mains.  Jeff and I ordered the ‘Plateau du Plateau’ seafood platter while Phil order the ‘Pied de Cochon farci with Foie Gras’.  We have had both of these dishes on previous visits and tonight was just as amazing as the past.  The seafood platter had an incredible selection of seafood including: razor clams, giant clam, sea urchin, squid, malapeque oysters, whelks, conch, soft shell crab, and scallops. 

Each was prepared in their own special way and generally served in/on their shells.  We were far too busy devouring the amazing selection of seafood to note how each were prepared but some highlights included: malapeque oysters with cubed ocean water aspic, sautéed conch with a lemon vinaigrette, diced razor clams on their shell with chopped walnuts, seared scallops with fresh seawood salad, and big chunks of whelks in a creamy aioli. WOW, what an amazing platter for $95 for 2 people. 

The Pied de Cochon (PDC) farci with seared Foie Gras ($45) was as big and rich as I remember when I ordered it last year.  Phil kindly offered Jeff and I the 150 grams of seared foie gras that topped his wood fired roasted pigs' foot (we would never, ever refuse such a kind selfless offer from anyone!).  This dish is prepared by deboning a large pigs foot from the ankle to the elbow, then stuffing the deboned pig forearm with chunks of pork and foie gras, the stuffed foot is breaded and roasted in a huge wood fired oven while being basted with some secret potion created by Martin Picard to create one of the tastiest preparations of something most people would turn their nose up at, not us!  The stuffed PDC is served on top of the PDC mashed potatoes, a saute of mushrooms, tomatoes and herbs, then finally topped with of seared foie gras.  What was remarkable was that Phil with his 6’6” frame and 30 year old appetite could not quite finish this amazing dish.  He gets full points for trying, and he tried hard!
Needless to say, there was no room for dessert, but we did have room for a couple glasses of Amaro Montenegro which we used to toast Sarah-Jane’s birthday.  She celebrated her birthday barely one hour after the end of our amazing meal.