Ten years smoke-free!

29 January 2012 by pat.

Every year, Betty, Lyne and I get together as close to Jan. 20th as we can to celebrate not smoking. Betty quit 25 years ago; Lyne, 9; I quit 10 years ago. We like to celebrate at Rodney’s Oyster House on King West near Spadina.  We were a week late this year, but we celebrated last night. I was the slowpoke (I think I got there at 6:58 for our 7pm reservation).

First up,  some bread and butter (and a beer, of course).

I love caraway rye bread. Those little bundles of essential oil of caraway exploding in the mouth are heavenly. Goes really well with smoked meat sandwiches (and it’s not so easy in this city to find a smoked meat sandwich on caraway rye).

The bread was followed by a dozen oysters, four each of three different types (Mystics, Sandy Necks, and Cotuits, if I recall correctly). They were tasty, offered different taste profiles, and tasted like having more, so we got another dozen — this time, 3 each of 4 different types. I should have written the names down. I’m pretty sure we had more Cotuits and Mystics.

As we thought back on previous meals at Rodney’s, Cristo came by, we asked for something on the menu that they were out of, and then Betty asked for something that wasn’t on the menu  – smelt. They had some! We got a plate of about 10 of them, and munched them down so quickly that there were only two left by the time I thought to get a photo. They’re small enough that you can crunch them, bones and all (hey, it’s a natural source of calcium). Delicious sweet little fish.

Following that, we decided to try the two different cooked ways they prepare oysters: Rockefeller and pan fried. One of each for each of us.

I haven’t had oysters Rockefeller in a long time. How long? Well, since going to Bumpkins, which means +/- 2 years ~1991. I enjoyed it again, the licorice flavour of the Pernod, the spinach and cheese and warm, spreading oyster taste, and I enjoyed the pan fried oyster, which had the same rich creamy mouth feel and taste that I remember from an oyster po-boy I had in New Orleans at Siggraph ‘96. Delicious. I really could live on seafood!

Following that, Cristos dropped by to help us figure out what to get next. He’s not had a cigarette in 4 days, and the three of us cheered him on, and told him he should make it permanent, offering all our suggestions and hints for how to quit.

It was dessert time. Lyne ordered the cake — a type of spice cake with a layer of sliced flambéed bananas, served with a smear of caramel and whipped mascarpone.

I had a taste, and it was delicious, nicely spiced. But, not being much of a sweets person, for dessert I ordered… two more oysters Rockefeller!

End of the night, we all headed out and caught our streetcars home. Yet another great celebratory meal.

 

 

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Campagnolo on Dundas West

15 December 2011 by pat.

Betty, Sandy and I take each other out for dinner for our birthdays. Saturday night was Betty’s turn. As usual with us, she had no idea where she was going — after the spa. Because we spaaaaaahed first and got our Bodies Blitzed. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I took the waters (repeatedly). Sandy & Betty chose interesting body scrubs, and Betty got a facial as well. We floated like balloons back to Sandy’s, where we shared a bottle of Mumm’s Napa champagne. Nice! Not too dry, not too sweet. We approve. Then we bundled up against the wind, and headed out for a 20 minute walk.

Over near the corner of Palmerston and Dundas West stands a restaurant that En Route Magazine listed as one of the top ten new restaurants in Canada this past year: Campagnolo.

We arrived fairly early for a Saturday night dinner, and the restaurant was about 3/4 full. It’s an open space, with a small bar that people can sit at and eat, and an open kitchen.

Our coats were taken, we were seated, and given three menus.

Immediate triage reaction: what has to be decided first? We chose the cocktail menu, and each had a different cocktail. Very flavourful, all very different. There was a Hendrick’s gin-based cocktail. One that seemed margarita-like. One with a peaty smoky scotch as the base. And we then sat back to figure out what to have for appetizers.

Our first appetizer up was bread: gougeres and herbed butter.

It was quickly followed by warm spiced olives, which we immediately fell in love with and devoured. What a difference in taste from cold or room-temperature olives! Of course, we’ve had hot olives as an ingredient in other dishes (like pasta puttanesca) but this was the first time having them on their own, enjoying the heated flavours, the herbs (rosemary, thyme, chili peppers, preserved/salty orange peel)… yum.

Then came (I think it was next) a gorgeous steak tartare. Sorry, no picture. We fell on it and devoured it. What can I say? We were hungry. Creamy, smooth, proper level of herbing and spicing. It came with a truffle aioli. That’s really sinful. It’s really awesome. It’s better than chocolate, and I can think of naughty ways to serve it. Yes, I’ll eat my red meat raw like this. I’ll even do it every week, if you’ll pay for it!

It was followed by a hot appetizer: sweetbreads and braised artichokes. Darling little artichoke hearts and stems on, and crispy fried pieces of sweetbreads. Sitting on little dollops of a regular aioli. Gorgeous. The flavours — warm creamy slightly liver-like flavour of sweetbreads, inside a crunchy fried casing, and then matched with the almost not quite bitter and mild artichokes. Wonderful pairing, beautiful presentation.

Yah, that’s Sandy doing the peace sign.

Based on the order of my photos, I think this is when our bottle of wine arrived, a Primitivo Manduria from southern Italy. Sandy made a delicious selection.

Presentation for the next appetizer was superb, as well: a lengthwise slice of a marrow beef bone dressed with a plum and oxtail marmelade. Served with some crostinis for us to scoop the bubbling marrow onto.  The marrow was perfect — still quivery, had that totally unctuous texture. The jam contributed sweet and meat to the dish, giving it a contrast that enabled us to fully appreciate the beautifully braised oxtail contrasting with the light-tasting and rich marrow, and the plum providing some acid and sweetness to cut through the other flavours. Can it get any better than this?

Oh yes, for now we’re on to our mains.

I never order lasagne in a good restaurant. Just… I just don’t. But I decided I would. They called it “Nonna’s lasagne.” And I’ve eaten so much pasta with wonderful meats in the last two months… what would they do with lasagne?

 

Many thin layers of homemade pasta. I counted at least ten. It was light, it had a meat and tomato sauce, a little cheese — this wasn’t your standard North American overstuffed heavy lasagne. No bechamel sauce! It was wonderful. It tasted of real tomatoes and meat and pasta. I loved it.

Sandy chose the pappardelle with rabbit and chanterelle mushrooms (of course we all tasted each other’s dishes)! Perfectly braised (by this point, I’ve come to expect that they know how to slow cook meat, country style).

Betty got the lamb shank, which came with perfectly caramelized cubes of potato and pork belly. Oh yes, this was a meat-eater’s dish. And it was perfect. The deep rich flavours of the lamb shank paired with the lighter pork belly (I never thought I’d refer to pork belly as a lighter flavour) and the potato cubes. Awesomeness incarnate.

In case you want to accuse us of not eating our greens, we did order a dish of brussels sprouts with peccorino cheese and pine nuts. Absolutely delicious — a bit of a cream sauce in the dish to give additional moisture. We totally emptied the dish.

Our absolutely delightful server asked us if we’d be staying for dessert. Alas, we were all fed up. He was adorable. I hope you get to sit at one of his tables. I should have written his name down. Sometimes I #fail. He sat beside Sandy so I could take this shot.

Serious line-up at the front when we exited: this place is somewhere people come back to. It’s been open a year and a couple of weeks, and is full.

We walked back toward Sandy’s, where we had left our wet bathing suits and such, and passed by a Portuguese bakery that we had seen going the other way. Aaaaaah! It’s still open!!! It’s reputed to have the best custard tarts in the city! We must stop at Caldense Bakery.

We do. We buy a selection of items, and return to Sandy’s — we can share dessert with Damir, who loves a nice sweet at the end of the night. We have coconut macaroons, pumpkin squash tarts, custard tarts, and some orange cupcake-like things.

Woh. Full-o-meter has pegged. Happy birthday, Betty: really enjoyed celebrating it with you!

 

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First customer at Ascari Enoteca!

26 November 2011 by pat.

Yup, I was the first one in the door last evening when Ascari Enoteca opened, corner of Queen St. East and Caroline Ave.

They don’t have their liquor license yet — they will in time for Tuesday’s Grand Opening — but I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

They’ve done nice things with the space: it’s completely unrecognizable from two incarnations ago when it was Lou’s Variety, and the only thing I recognize from when Ben had his gallery here is the depth of the window ledges. Muted colours and grey tables made me think of menswear fabrics; open steel kitchen, so you can see what’s going on.

First, I had a Chinotto to drink. Sort of like a bitters without the alcohol.

Very pleasant to sip while I read through the menu. Lots of choices. Lots of things I want to try. I have a hard time nailing it down to two dishes. Finally decide on the Crostini alla Toscana and the Cavatelli.

The crostini arrive, and they are gorgeous to behold. They’re also really tasty. A very smooth chicken liver paté — not even a hint of bitterness — served on a crusty toast with some caramelized onions on top, and a fried sage leaf topping it all off, sprinkled with sea salt.  It was really good, one of the better liver patés I’ve had in a restaurant. The presentation was novel, and the flavours worked together perfectly.

That is followed by the cavatelli. They make their pasta in-house, and it’s delicious. There’s a little bit of black truffle in the pasta, which is cooked to the point that it has some resistance against the teeth. The cavatelli comes with confit of duck, brussels sprouts, and chanterelle mushrooms. Freshly ground pepper on top, and that’s it. Simple, beautiful ingredients. It is quite a large serving of pasta. I didn’t have room for dessert.

Crazy, I know, but I decided to have an espresso at the end of dinner (hmm, maybe that’s why I was up so late). Beautiful cup, perfect crema, smooth flavour.

Total bill was about $42.00. I’ll be back.

 

 

 

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F’Amelia Restaurant: I’ll be back

18 November 2011 by pat.

F’Amelia opened almost two months ago on Amelia Street in Old Cabbagetown. Near the corner of Parliament Street, it’s a short trip by TTC from home (would be even shorter by bike, but it was chilly and windy today). I’ve been following the restaurant’s Twitter account since they opened, and they’ve been following mine, and we’ve chatted about food, ingredients, and local birds (they have a collection of bird feeders out back).

I was itching to get out today, and decided it was time for a trip over to Riverdale Zoo Farm, and a good opportunity to go to F’Amelia — their menu certainly appealed to me.

I was an early bird at the restaurant, which opens at 5pm (eek, it’s almost dark out at 5 now). Great people. I regret not writing down the name of the manager, because she is adorable and efficient and knowledgeable. I was greeted, seated, and ordered a Negroni while trying to decide what to eat from the menu. And then Todd Vestby, one of the owners, came out and gave me a warm greeting. It’s always nice to meet the face behind the tweets and find out the story of a restaurant. You can find more info on their website. I was lucky — executive chef Maurizio Verga was working tonight, and I had the opportunity to meet him. Everyone was personable, and I felt they all really cared about the place.

I’m going to have to come back with friends to try the Antipasto Misto. I bet it’s a good plate.

Mains are very hard to choose from. Plus they have a special today of a stuffed pasta that includes lemon and raisins and meat, and a few other ingredients that make it sound like a lemony mincemeat (if you’ve ever had a true mincemeat, not one of the ones made solely of fruit). One thing I love about their menu is that they offer all the mains in two sizes. I can choose the smaller one, and maybe have room for other dishes!

Desserts look good. Will I have room?

While I’m sipping my drink, bread arrives. It’s all made in house, and is delicious. I failed miserably at making focaccia twice this year, and here it was, simple and perfect, with some salt and rosemary. Plus a chunk of a good sturdy bread that was tender and almost like a buttermilk biscuit. A drizzle of good olive oil on the plate to dip the bread.

Because I’m a fan of cold water oily sustainable fish, I wanted to try their warm mackerel salad. I’m glad I did, because it was delicious. The fish was firm and fresh, fried from the skin side, so nice crispy skin on top, with some frizzled lettuce greens. Underneath lay ingredients that complemented the fish beautifully. Grilled radicchio was superb, providing charry bitterness against the fish’s richness, and then potatoes and sunchokes to provide sweetness. Highly recommended!

Next came the surprise course! One perfectly seared sweet scallop surmounting a seafood risotto that included shrimp, clams, and impossibly tender squid. Really. I was wondering if I was mistaken, or if it was something else, like some stem of a mushroom that I wasn’t familiar with. The executive chef, ‘Rizio, came out at that time, and I had the opportunity to ask him about it. He cooks his squid sous vide! It gets added to the risotto at the last moment. Very tasty risotto.

Next came my third polenta dish of the last three weeks. I thought the polenta I had at Rosa’s in San Francisco was tasty. This was better. Creamy perfect polenta, with osso buco and marrow butter. There’s rosemary in the polenta, giving it a rich herby perfume that can stand up to the richness of the veal shank. Sometimes polenta has so much cheese in it that the flavour of the corn is lost. Not the case here.

With the stew on top…the brunoise was perfectly cubed. The meat is so perfectly exquisitely rich, tender, braised long enough to be tender, not overcooked (which makes a meat taste dried-out). This dish deserves a revisit. I had the small one: I can see coming back and having the full size. It turns out that Chef Maurizio is from Bergamo, just north of Milan, in the heart of polenta region. He really cares about his polenta, and it shows.

Alas, no room for dessert. However, I’m honoured that Chef Maurizio brought me a glass of his dessert liqueur — similar to a limoncello, yet his own. It was a great way to finish the dinner.

 I sip my after-dinner liqueur, and watch around me as the restaurant starts to fill up. There are couples, families — opposite me, it looks like the grandparents have taken their two well-behaved little grandchildren out for pizza. Staff and customers recognize each other. It’s definitely full of neighbourhood people, and I think that a lot of them are regulars already.

Given the owners, staff, and the food,  I’d be proud to have a restaurant like F’Amelia in my neighbourhood.

 

 

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Another delicious Matt Kantor Little Kitchen feast!

15 November 2011 by pat.

As you might know, Matt Kantor is doing something a bit different this fall, and preparing a series of dinners for about a dozen people. Last night was the first of three for his Meat and Beer week — there will be two more events at Olliffe Butchers this week. And they’re all sold out!

I got there a bit early last evening. Well, a half-hour early, actually. Everyone was busy elsewhere, so I just looked in the window and shot off a few pictures. I like the front window of Olliffe, and the butcher-stamp look of their logo. Nice job, guys.

Great idea to have a display case of charcuterie right by the front window. Everything looks so delicious. I’m going when I’m back up town next Tuesday. I want to see what their Soppresatta and locally-cured Lardo are like. Hmm, maybe some pancetta, too.

Good artwork for a butcher store. Font geek likes the typeface on the butchery diagram.

Aaah! Here comes Matt!

Oops. Yah, we’re seriously early. Please walk around the block a few times and come back at 8, like it said on the email Sunday (Actually, Matt just said “come back at 8.” I’m the one pointing out that it said “Dinner at 8″ on the email).

So I wandered around for a while, took pictures of store windows, and I’ll get them up online, maybe later today. Some shops have their Christmas decorations up already! And sad to say, I was looking at them. Maybe I’ll actually decorate this year. I should get my winter Icicle lights up today while it’s still above 10C and the plastic wiring is pliant.

The old Summerhill train station still looks lovely as an LCBO. The fountain outside almost made me jump out of my skin on the way home, however. It has one of those deer-scare type setups, where a container fills with water, tips, noise happens, water spills out. Caught me unaware.

Came back just before 8, just had enough time to snap a shot of people outside and cross the road, and Matt opened the door and invited us all in.

Fundamentally rustic table centrepieces: beef rib bones in triads going the length of the table.

Time to peruse the menu. As usual for Matt, lots of variety, interesting combinations, delicious pairings. I can hardly wait to start.

Matt’s introduction to the dinner — alas, he’s on the edge of losing his voice!

First dish up in the sausage ceviche — now, it’s not raw sausage cooked by the acid of a citrus fruit. It’s actually been cooked. It’s served with a lot of the ingredients you’d find in a ceviche. It makes for a tasty appetizer. Matt, feel free to tell me what type of sausage it was!

It was accompanied by the first beer of the night (full flight of beers, different one for each course). This was a pleasant ale, good place to start, accompanied the food without competing with it.

They went well together! Our next beer had a flashy label, a good joke, and nice flavour.

It was mild, a bit of spice, and went really well with the sous-vide pork tenderloin, served with some crunchy chickpeas, dice of quince, schmear of rooibos lemon chiffon pudding, and some tarragon leaves. OK, that caught me by surprise a little. Wasn’t expecting pudding with pork, but it worked really nicely, the same way that a sweet applesauce or jelly goes with pork. The vanilla/lemony notes brought out the subtle flavours of a meat that serves to underpin other tastes. The licorice of the tarragon really came out with the beer.  The pork tenderloin was, like all the meats, incredibly tender. Cooking it sous vide, it had lost none of its juicy nature.

Next up was an Amsterdam Bone Shaker IPA. Like all IPAs, hopsy bitterness remained after sipping.

That bitterness worked well to accompany the richness of the Chantecler Chicken Risotto with butternut squash and pine nuts. This was a really great dish. The chicken is a variety I’ve only had once before, at Brad Long’s Veritas Local Fare on King Street East.  It’s got a wonderful rich chicken taste that you hardly ever find any more. The risotto was creamy, slightly sweet and rich from the squash, and each grain was still al dente at its core. The lightly toasted pine nuts completed the dish beautifully. One person commented “it’s like rice pudding.” Yup, But better. And for dinner.

The next two dishes on the menu were switched, so the chicken risotto was followed by Muscovy duck, then lamb biryani.

The Muscovy duck was accompanied by a strawberry beer, Amsterdam Framboise. A slightly medicinal nose, the flavour of the beer is great, and works really well with duck.

The duck was served two ways: we had a slice of juicy, tender, rare breast, and a crepe (Matt, was there cocoa in that crepe?) with leg meat and mushrooms. Hazelnut streusel was strewn about to add a sweet note to the lamb, and there were a few eye-interesting ingredients, in terms of some Romanesco (fractal food!), some delicious mushrooms, and a dollop of Romanesco purée. There was a round ball — just behind the breast meat — that looks like a truffle. Well, it wasn’t a mushroom truffle, and it wasn’t a chocolate, either. It was a tartuffo! Surprise! And the ice cream was carmelized onion. Absolutely delicious.

This was followed by a Great Lakes Winter Ale (I missed its picture!), which had a lovely light taste of cloves, and accompanied the deconstructed lamb biryani that came next. A couple of pieces of saffron cake, a white mousse, some plump sweet raisins, and some very tasty braised lamb, all done up with Indian spices and herbs. Another case where Matt surprised us by putting sweet and savory together in a delicious plate.

On to the dark beers. To accompany the beef, we had Black Oak Nutcracker Porter. Chocolate, molasses, creamy, coffee notes, this could be dessert.

It was a perfect counterpart to what came next. We’re in a butcher shop that prides itself on its dry aged beef. It’s on display in a cooler, directly behind the table. Big glorious slabs of meat, hanging, tenderizing, drying. We were fortunate to have some 60 day aged beef, prepared two ways: braised shortribs, glazed in honey, almost tasted like candy. Meaty candy. The shortribs were topped with some blue cheese, which I ate with both of the dishes, because blue cheese and well aged beef just belong together. The ribeye was succulent, and the cheese went with it the way it should, bringing out the stronger tastes in the beef, contributing umami. Sunchoke foam was a light palate cleanser, and worked with the potato to prepare the mouth for another round of beefy goodness.

That brought us to our final dish of the evening — and I forgot another beer picture! This one was really a dessert beer: Cannery Brewing Maple Stout. Oh yes, yes, yes. The maple note is strong — not as strong as it is in the maple liqueur one can buy in Quebec, but almost. And the maple works with the pecans, and the foie gras ice cream, caramel sauce, poached apple, and streusel topping.

I’m very glad there were no more courses! It was delicious, each course was different, and I’m still quite full from last night.

Hope you make it out to Matt’s next set of dinners — whatever it happens to be, it will be a pleasure.

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St. Phillips deli•bakery•café

22 October 2011 by pat.

I was walking past St. Phillip’s booth, and accosted by a young woman bearing a tray of creampuffs. I was forced to accept (really). (Well, not really. But I really liked it.)

I took a look around the place and spoke with them briefly. They have two locations —  one in Woodbridge, one in Maple, and plans are underfoot to open one in Toronto (alas, nowhere near where I live).

The creampuff was tasty.

The visuals of some of their cakemanship (I’m sure that’s not a word, but I don’t know how to express the one-up quality and detailing of what they do).

This is the side of their booth. That torso in the dress? A cake.

 Clown? A cake. The chocolate brown thing to the right is the closest one comes to seeing a cake-cake.

But I have to call out the luggage.

 Woh.

Awesome.

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Get your freshly shucked oysters! At the Delicious Food show

22 October 2011 by pat.

Larger and smaller operations are both at the show.

In the larger category, think Rodney’s, truly the eminence gris of Toronto fresh seafood. Once in the basement on Richmond Street by Jarvis (old time, I know) they’re now on King West just west of Spadina.

In the smaller category, think Oyster Boy, on Queen West near Trinity Bellwoods park.

Good prices for fresh seafood. Now that they’ve had the chance to scope each other out, they may have the same price. Yesterday, Oyster Boy was definitely the price winner!

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Must get out to Brassaii again

22 October 2011 by pat.

I went to Brassaii, shortly after it opened, with Sandy and a few other friends. They’ve been open quite a while now, and renovated last year, moving the long communal table and making it a chef’s table.

They are at the Delicious Food Show this weekend.

They made delicious meatballs of two meats yesterday (I knew I should have taken notes! lamb and beef?). They sat on a little tzaziki, and had a dab of mint sauce on top. Tender, juicy, flavourful.

One thing I should mention: I was really pleased by the amount of compostable and gentle-on-the-environment food service pieces I saw at the show yesterday.

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Really busy week!

29 September 2011 by pat.

Wow, what a week (and a half!) I look at my calendar, and I haven’t had a free day since the 13th.

Politics has been on the schedule a lot this month: city politics have heated up, and there’s a provincial election coming on Thursday, October 6th.

City politicking has involved a few Sunday afternoon meetings to find out about what is on the plate for the fall in terms of budgeting, and then there was a silly little burp about overthrowing the Waterfront corporation and putting up a big shopping mall… well, more than a silly little burp. Quite important. Fortunately, it’s off the table.

City cuts are still on the table, however, and so there was a protest scheduled for Monday, after work at 5:30, for people to come out and add their voice in opposition  to the KPMG proposals (since beloved mayor insists everyone loves his cuts and agrees with him).

I shot almost 400 pictures and have uploaded 66 of them. One of my favorites is of these two boys:

You can see the full set of pictures here.

Tuesday night, I participated in the flash mob picnic of everyone dressed in white dinner clothes. It was a lot of fun — I’ll have to convince friends to come next year, and then we can do a group picnic, and share in each others’ foods.

It was held in the Distillery District, along the cobblestone road down the middle. Charming to arrive, meet people, sit and unwrap the picnic, chat, mingle, take photos and light sparklers A great time was had by all.

Here’s what it looked like as we arrived:

The full set of images can be viewed as a slide show here.

Last night, I held a meeting to start a networking group of Leslieville small businesses. Sorry, no pictures of it!

Tomorrow, I’m off to do more sign work for my MPP’s election campaign.

Cheers!

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Eating delicious food

22 September 2011 by pat.

I love Italian food, and so I eat it when I can.

This past week, I attended another of Massimo Bruno’s Supper Club dinners: this one was themed “Vacanze Romane.”

It was delicious! One thing that stands out for me is the use of herbs and spices in the various plates. After the focaccia, here were four initial plates (two of cod, one stuffed zucchini, one of porchetta and borlotti beans), followed by veal and broccoli alla pomodoro, and then some amazing choux-pastries, deep fried and stuffed with a creamy ricotta filling (bignes). Each dish was herbed and spiced to bring out the ingredients on the plate, and each dish tasted unique in the service. That’s how you avoid taste fatigue!

All the food is served country style, so if you don’t have enough to eat (hah! like that could ever happen) you’ve only yourself to blame.

Here is one picture. The rest are over on my Flickr site. Click here to see all the food from Thursday.

 

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Hosted #PatioClub!

4 September 2011 by pat.

Here in Leslieville, some of us celebrate Saturdays by going over to Stratenger’s at 2pm and having a few drinks. We’re usually done by 4:30, and then go on our way for the rest of the weekend and rest of the week.

Nancy (on twitter: @Nancy178) started off the summer season by hosting Patio Club on her amaaaaazing balcony. I decided to finish off the summer with Patio Club on my back deck on the Labour Day long weekend.

I prepped by sauteeing three types of mushrooms (oyster, beech, and Nebrodinis) and simmering a San Marzano tomato sauce. I pitted a variety of olives. I grated mozzarella. I oven-dried some yellow cherry tomatoes, and preserved them in olive oil.

I bought a bunch of jars of interesting things at Domino’s at the St. Lawrence Market: some black olive paste, some basil pesto, spicy eggplant strips (love them!), artichoke hearts, and upstairs at Scheffler’s, some pearl bocconcini, and a hot and mild sausage.

I also bought some 00 wheat flour from Domino’s, and made pizza dough. Warning: test your yeast first, hmmm? I didn’t, and… it didn’t, either. Flat icky mess.

First thing on Saturday morning I was over at Loblaw’s, buying their frozen pasta dough. Thawing it. Then cutting each ball into 4, and rolling, stretching, pleading with it to stop creeping back into a ball. Resting it, fighting with it some more. Then popping it in the oven long enough to bake.

I discovered with the first two that they blew up just like pita bread (heck what’s the difference?). I needed to be doing something like blind baking. It actually didn’t occur to me to put beans on the rounds (I just thought of that now: that’s something I’ve known for a long time). I did puncture the rest of the rounds with a fork multiple times. They still rose a bit, but not to full ballooned-pita-ness, if you’ve ever seen them in the oven.

Guests arrived,  and we started drinking! We also had some nibblies: I bought some strange things from the snack section at Domino’s: beet chips (they were great) dried/fried peas in pods (meh) and dried/fried okra (hmm. kinda meh). And some Fritos. Oh. And a contribution from @BeeRich33 — some Black Diamond cheddar that he cold smoked in sticks. I cut into cubes, they all disappeared. Everybody loved Rich’s cheese.

Then we made pizzas. Since everything had been precooked, it was really only a matter of choosing which ingredients to put on the ‘za, and put it on the barbecue for long enough to melt the cheese (and, one hopes, not burn the bottom of the pizza bread too badly).

We finished off with some Ontario peaches that @pronosher brought: I cut them in half, brushed olive oil on the cut side, then face down on the grill until they had good grill marks. Turned them flat-side-up, sprinkled a bit of Demarara sugar, broiled a bit longer, then let cool a bit. That was dessert!

All in all, a pretty good Patio Club. The last people left after dark, so I’ll take that as a mark of satisfaction

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Excellent eating in San Francisco part 2: The Ferry Building

23 March 2011 by pat.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I ate at the Ferry Building.

On Tuesday evening, my boss and I went to Hog Island Oysters. We grabbed a little table for two, ordered beer, and then got a dozen oysters, a selection of what they had fresh. I really wish I took notes and my camera. The first oyster was definitely the one with the most flavour: the taste of the belly was similar to what you get with a clam. They were all really good-sized oysters.

The oysters were served with fresh bread and butter, which worked well, and also worked with the bowls that we ordered next. My boss got a bowl full of clam chowder, which used manilla clams, and served the clams in the shells. It looked really delicious; I think it had a cream base. My oyster stew definitely was cream-based. Not too heavy, though! And I was very pleased that it wasn’t salty: I find some places seem to salt first, taste later. With seafood, that can be disastrous. Not in this case. It made for a yummy meal.

 I ate at the Ferry Building again on Wednesday evening, after walking my knees off (I walked just a hair over 10km). Funny, it’s always been my feet that have felt sore before. This time it was my left knee. I was visibly limping by the end of my walk. Guess I have to have that looked at. But after terrorizing all the shop owners and shoppers in the Ferry Building with my camera clicking, I decided I’d go into the Market Bar. They had an interesting dinner menu, and it included a charcuterie plate, which I am always willing to try.

Oops. Too early for the dinner menu! It’s about 4:30 in the afternoon. I’m presented instead with the happy-hour tapas menu, so it looks like I’ll be eating a bunch of little things, which I always enjoy. I had a glass of the De Loach Chardonnay.

First dish up: oysters I don’t know if it is possible to have oysters too often. Especially raw, especially from cool waters. I might worry about them down in New Orleans right now. But from up in the Northwest? Bring ‘em on…

Switched wines. Went for the Montepulciano Vallevo.

Next up? They called it a raviolo on the menu, however, the plate arrived with two, so I’m going to call it ravioli. Delicious, not too heavy, mushroom, leek, ricotta. Umami comfort food. Came in a parsley cream sauce. I knew it was going to be rich, so I ordered some green olives to munch along with it.

Following that, I decided I needed more seafood! They had a dungeness crab cake on the menu. It came with an aioli drizzled over it. Nice, tasty, but somehow, not really special. I’ve had its equivalent here in Toronto, and was somehow expecting more. My expectations may have been overblown.

For the next course, I decided I wanted to compare their brandied chicken liver paté with mine (damn, forgot to get a photo of this one). It was pleasingly presented, a slice of a torchon, slightly gray around the perimeter. Tasted it. Mine’s better Really. This one (and yes, I told the server) was slightly bitter, like the liver had been overcooked just that little bit. That’s the bitchy thing about making paté — it keeps cooking after you take it off the heat. It may just have been this one batch. Maybe it’s usually perfect. I must say, the texture was exquisite: I think he must have passed it through a fine sieve before cooling it.

Time to wrap it up. Got the maple glazed pork ribs.

OMFG.

If you go to the Market Bar, get those ribs. They were excellent. No, they weren’t falling off the ribs (that’s a sign the meat’s overcooked). They were next-door to falling off the ribs. They were rich, succulent, slightly sweet but not overly so (I’m so tired of oversweet pulled pork and barbecue sauces!!!).  Eat those. Really.

What a great way to end the meal. I left, sated, and limped across the road to my hotel to get my bag and head to the airport.

 

 

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Excellent eating in San Francisco, part 1

21 March 2011 by pat.

I enjoyed everything I ate! I want to highlight my three dinners for you. Alas, I only had a camera with me for one of them. I’ve backdated the posts to when I ate the food.

First excellent dinner was at the Japanese restaurant, Ozumo, attached to the boutique hotel Harbor Court. I was staying there while in San Francisco for some business meetings.

Usually when I’m travelling alone and eating alone, I tend to bring my computer and sit at a small booth and have my dinner while working or surfing. I thought I’d pay full attention to the food this time, and arrived without electronic gear, and sat at the sushi bar. I was early, it was pretty empty (and still daylight out!).  Ordered a beer and some edamame, read through the menu. Oooh. Was introduced to the sushi chef working my session (and blast, I’ve forgotten his name, which is unfortunate, because he did a great job).

Three specials: scallops, horse mackerel, and salmon belly. I figured that the specials were as good a place to start as any, and so received a pair of nigiri sushi of each of them, one dish at a time, organized as the chef saw best. First was the scallops: I had a choice between little sweet bay scallops and stronger, larger diver scallops. I went for the larger scallops, and gosh: if those weren’t considered sweet, the bay scallops must have been like candy. They were sweet and tender and fresh.

They were followed by the horse mackerel nigiri, which was topped with some grated ginger and finely sliced scallion greens, as is traditional. Very fresh, it had that slight fishy oiliness that is a signature of this fish. One of my favorite fish, it isn’t offered as part of the standard sushi sets in Toronto (although I have been lucky enough to get it as a salad as part of a sashimi plate at Sushi Marché, just up the block from where I live).  I would happily have that for breakfast at least 4 days out of 7.

The third of the specials arrived next: the salmon belly. Oh, it was rich and delicate. Between the mackerel and it, I felt like I was getting my Omega-3’s!

Looking over the menu, I decided to get items that are either not often available in Toronto or sometimes of questionable freshness. I ordered uni (sea urchin) and monkfish foie (as they put it on the menu). I asked where the sea urchin was from, and was told that it came from the peninsula and was fresh.

It was delivered, in the usual nigiri format, wrapped in nori sheets, with the uni presented on the top.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have it straight out of the water (as Gail C. has had). It was creamy and rich and quite different from what I’ve experienced in Toronto. I could have had more of it, but there were other things on the menu I still wanted to taste.

Next up was the monkfish liver, which had been steamed in a torchon, and was presented as a series of five half-coins of liver standing on edge in a sauce of soya and I don’t know what else.  It rivalled duck liver. It was perfect. Slightly fishy but not obnoxiously so, cool pieces of heaven swished in a salty sauce to complement it. I’ve had monkfish liver once in Toronto in a sushi bar — Hiro Sushi on King Street. Hiro had smoked it, which was a stronger flavour. This was absolutely delightful. Firmer and fattier than cod liver, it was like a foie gras from the sea.

I still felt like I could eat one more dish. Sitting at the bar, I had noticed these red tentacles in the container to the far right. I’m used to octopus, but this was really really red, so I wanted to taste it to see if it tasted the same.

Pretty much I don’t know what they had put in the pot with the baby octopus to make it that color, but it didn’t have much effect on the taste. I liked the cut the sushi chef did, which was to take the slice and butterfly it, and serve it on top of the nigiri that way. It was good, but I think the best ever octopus I’ve had was at Massimo Bruno’s: it was presented as a carpaccio, tender, marinated, and delicious enough to go back for seconds.

Still, this was tasty and tender.

All in all, a great meal at the sushi bar. Glad I left the laptop upstairs.

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“Or just let us cook for you”

7 March 2011 by pat.

Prior to heading out to dinner, we met at Betty’s for a drink and appetizers. The drink was a lovely sparkling wine from Argentina Chile that Sandy sourced: Cono Sur Sparkling Brut NV. It went perfectly with the wonderfully smoky eggplant dip that Betty got at Paramount on Yonge, just south of Dundas. Where Superior used to be is now a mid-eastern restaurant called Paramount that also provides food-to-go. We had the dip with some pita, and then, it was time to get on the subway: and I had no idea where we were going!

 

The title of the blog entry? Those are the words at the bottom of the menu at Cava, a wonderful Spanish restaurant on Yonge Street,  just north of the St. Clair subway station. Sandy and Betty took me there for dinner to celebrate my birthday, and after looking over the menu, the three of us decided to do just that — let them cook for us. We were asked if there were any foods we don’t like, and the waiter looked rather nonplussed when Betty said “eyeballs” and I added “or insects.”

We didn’t get thrown out then and there, so we settled down for the evening, and Sandy chose the wine.

A beautiful bottle of wine to get us started with our surprise menu!

The first set of food came out quickly. Appetizers on toast. One set is quickly fried sardines resting on a red pepper and speared with a bamboo stake of seeded picked pepper, olives, and two anchovies threaded around the olives. Those gave us a hit of salty fishy oily flavours.

Then to the second set of toasts: on their menu, it’s called “pincho of gamay-poached foie gras with pomegranate onions.” The foie gras is rich, smooth, sweetly flavoured by the wine, and complemented with the onions and pomegranate relish that cuts through the fattiness and refreshes just when the tongue begins to suffer from a surfeit of foie.

From that awesomely rich and flavourful dish we moved along to the next platter, which was some bruschetta of edamame (turned into a layer of green purée), topped with grilled green onions to bring a bit of bitterness, Moroccan olives for richness and salt, and sweet sweet Sicilian tomatoes that must have been very slow roasted for very many hours. Oh excellent bruschetta!

Thus revived, we were presented with another relatively light dish; this time, a ceviche made of lightly smoked kingfish, served with a salad of frisée lettuce and some corn chips (I’m sure they were made in-house). The kingfish didn’t taste like any mackerel I’ve eaten so it may have been one of the other varieties of fish with the same name. Or else the smoking and ceviche processes removed or masked the oiliness. Delightful and sprightly!

From there we progressed to another fish course. This time the fish was sablefish — also called Alaskan black cod or sometimes “butterfish.” And it’s a sustainable fish, too. It’s a rich melt-in-your-mouth fish and the miso glaze provided a good counterpoint to its richness. The fish sat atop a purée of celeriac and watercress, which had a comfort-food mouth feel and a vegetable freshness (and I’m sure there was lots of butter). Hiding under it all was a layer of potatoes, cooked in duck fat. Oh yes, I’m glad I’m not having my lipids tested this week, although recent research seems to indicate that things like lard and duck fat are much better for you than butter (and we’ll not even discuss how evil hydrogenated vegetable oil is).

From there, we had some more vegetables to enjoy. This dish was eggplant. The eggplant had been fried until crispy on the outside, and was matched with some Mexican ingredients: queso fresco, the mild fresh white cheese, and a purée of tomatillos and honey underneath it all. Again, excellence in flavours. At this point, though, I’m beginning to worry, because I’m starting to feel full.

We get a little bit of a break (just in time!) and another bottle of wine. Because we’re heading into the richer, meatier part of the meal, we’re recommended a richer wine. Out comes Lo Piot, a bottle with some years behind it. Smooth, full-bodied, fruit flavoured yet not like a fresh jam (I should have taken some notes!).

To accompany the wine, we are presented with a dish of veal sweetbreads with a remarkable salad of radicchio, a little poblano chili, and walnuts in a vinaigrette dressing. They do a really great job here of not letting a course get too rich by pairing it with something contrasting, like a bitter salad or sweet relish.

We’re also presented with a plate of the most tasty cauliflower I’ve ever had. I’m glad I kept the menu so I could refer back to it to see what the ingredients were. What I had thought was a small dice of sweet potatoes turns out to be a kabocha squash tagine with medjool dates and spanish saffron.  These ingredients contributed a wonderful sweetness to the dish — I think Betty commented that it was almost a dessert!

Then we received a skewer of meat: venison, with a warm red cabbage salad. The venison was the most tender I’ve ever had. It was rich, but not gamey, and fork-tender. I don’t know how they did it — if it was a matter of aging it properly, or if it had been marinated before being grilled, but it was one of those foods I know I’m going to remember for a long time.

Surprise, surprise: we’re not done eating yet. Another meat course comes out, beautifully sliced and fanned out on the plate. This is beef cheek that has been slowly braised (not submerged, I’m told) for 48 hours with some herbs. It’s served with a purée of celeriac (and butter, I’m sure) and some chimichurri sauce, which is properly herbal and not all spiced up so you can’t taste anything but the spice. The beef cheek is enjoyable, tender, has a stronger flavour than the venison: some might find it a liver-y flavour, like some organ meats, some might find it gamey, or metallic like iron or copper. I think it was delicious. I love the off-cuts of meat.

 Don’t forget to eat your veggies! To accompany the cheek meat, we get a little pot of Swiss chard with some currants and tiny pine nuts (they must be European). Again, great combinations of foods they’ve chosen to serve us.

We’re almost at the end. We’re told the last course will be a chocolate and cheese tasting! While something sweet to finish off a meal is nice, Sandy, Betty and I frequently forgo the sweet for a cheese plate. We’re going to get both at the same time!

Chocolates are from next door, and complex. There’s a dark chocolate with fennel seed. Another chocolate has cumin in it. The white chocolate has fennel in it. There’s a milk chocolate. For the cheeses, we’ve got a washed rind cheese that has achieved runniness in the middle;  a bloomy rind cheese, like a camembert; a blue (Eremite from Quebec), and a fresh goat cheese. Take a taste of cheese, and after it has hit the back of the cheeks and tongue, have a piece of the complementary chocolate. Follow with a sip of Amontillado sherry for the spice notes to explode. Repeat. Then to the next cheese. It was like a wonderful science experiment into Food. The chocolates chosen worked well with the cheeses, the way a jelly or relish or nuts would be paired with some cheeses.

And they couldn’t leave well enough alone! To finish everything, they brought us out some other chocolates: a very dark chocolate that included espresso bean and spices, and a white chocolate that was filled with fruit pieces. Alas, we had already eaten the dark chocolate before I remembered to get the iPod Touch out for another picture!

 Thank god the meal ended. And that we had a block to walk before getting on the subway home. We needed that little bit of vertical time! It was an excellent, very filling, very flavourful and adventurous birthday dinner: we never knew what was going to come next, but we enjoyed every bite of it.

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Don’t give up on me!

23 February 2011 by pat.

I’m still writing, and taking photos… just a bit behind at the moment.

Last night I had a lovely dinner at Massimo Bruno’s Italian Supperclub. It was a tweet-up, a smaller event than many of his (about 20 people).

I took video with my iPod. It’s on YouTube.

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