“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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Back from Italy!

6 October 2010 by pat.

And fighting off a miserable head-cold that claimed me on Thursday, while I was in the middle of a wine tasting in Chianti: the nerve of it!

Betty and Sandy and I travelled to Tuscany. We left Toronto on the 17th, arrived in Rome at noon on the 18th, and were in Anghiari by about 7:30pm, and were entertained while we tried to sleep by what locals claim to be a thunderstorm they had not seen the likes of before. Our bedrooms had skylights, so the flashing of lightning overhead was really impressive.

Over the next while, I’m going to be going through some of the pictures I shot, some of the meals we ate out or made in our apartment in Anghiari, and my subsequent travels to Florence (and a few day trips).

I wanted to start off with our first dinner out, at Ristorante Da Alighiero in the lovely hill town of Anghiari. It’s run by a couple: she’s the chef, he’s front of house.

Choices, choices! To get appetizers or no: primi or no; secondi? How about contorni? Which wine? How about a local wine? I think we found one from the region; unfortunately, didn’t take a picture of the label, and can’t remember who made it. It was an adequate wine, not a great wine, but it served us well with dinner.

We made our decisions, and Gianni recommended one change: truffles were newly in season, so he suggested that we add the white bean with truffle soufflé to our list of contorni.

 First, an amuse guelle arrived, and it was one of the strangest looking things I’ve seen in a while.

 

Strange to look at, but delightful to eat! It’s a purée of cauliflower, flavoured with some beet juice and flecked with some parsley. There may have been a little bit of cheese in it, but not enough for us to definitely declare it so, or what type of cheese it was.  When we got this, we realized that we weren’t in for just a usual meal.

Even the bread basket was beautiful and provided us with 4 different choices.

 

We shared the side dishes, so each of us got to try a bit of this, a bit of that. The sautéed mushrooms were a big hit, packing wonderfully rich mushroom taste that had been concentrated by letting enough of the water evaporate from them to turn them into meaty chunks.

One dish I was curious about was the vegetable terrine. I’m going to have to adapt this and try it myself. None of the flavours was extraordinary; we didn’t get the sense of a lot of seasoning in the dish. Just good, solid potato, carrot, spinach. An enjoyable way to get a variety of veggies.And the side dish that Gianni said we should have? Sylvia could get a lot of willing slaves with this one. Oh, was it good.

It doesn’t really look like much, does it? I would hesitate to call it a soufflé, because it didn’t have the characteristics of one, and clearly wasn’t baked like one. But oh! The flavour. This is something I will try to do at home using white beans and some white truffle olive oil. That’s the essence of the dish: a purée of beans with the toe-curling fragrance of truffles.And what of the main dishes? We all had different meat dishes, and they were well flavoured and beautifully presented. I think that Betty’s is really award winning, for the cucumber flower off to one side of the plate:

This is duck breast cooked with garlic and rosemary. Betty said the flavours were well matched, and that nothing overpowered anything else. I don’t think any of the three of us used our knives to cut our meat, it was all so very tender.Sandy’s meat dish was pork tenderloin, cooked in port.

And me? I chose liver. Liver is something that the townspeople of Anghiari seem very fond of. An appetizer plate will come with some toast with liver paté on it; going for before-dinner drinks at the local sometimes included that as one of the nibblies (potato chips, olives, sometimes peanuts, sometimes bruscetta). We walked into the local butcher one day, and the slight smell of freshly-made liver paté had us all salivating.Here was the liver plate:

 The baby beef liver was smooth, creamy, and cooked properly (pink on the inside). Bitter liver is a sign of overcooking.

One of the pieces was propped up on a whole clove of (cooked) garlic, which I ate. I ate one of the sage leaves with a fork of liver, and found that the raw, unmodified sage overwhelmed it. Maybe if it was deep-fried into crispy bits, or if it was served as a chiffonade, rather than so many leaves (they looked great on the plate, though!).

Dessert? Sylvia came out of the kitchen to let us know what our dessert opportunities were; alas, we were all full.

I think the price worked out to around 35 Euros each — really good deal for the quantity and quality of food we received.

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Salut! Wine and food festival

12 May 2010 by pat.

I won tickets to Monday night’s chefs duel over crab.Dang, I wish I was one of the judges, because those of us who were not judges ate tasty appetizers, but no crab!Here are some pictures I took.I apologize for the quality: I need to (a)check that my battery is charged before leaving home and (b)check the settings on the point and shoot camera before pointing and shooting! Don’t bother enlarging. The pictures look best small

This one is a look down the bar at all the trays of food that had been set out, cleaned, ready to use, depending on what the chef wanted for the competition.

Radicchio, peppers, basil, thyme, green onions, and a lovely hunk of ginger.

Fingerling potatoes! Red baby potatoes! Yukon Golds! Are you hungry yet?

Several types of tomatoes, some dill, apples, cucumbers, and peppers. Oh yeah, some pears, too!

Aromatics: leeks, yellow and red onions, and a whole whack of a tubfull of peeled garlic cloves.

Here we have some plantain, yellow squash, zucchini, red bell peppers, and some mammoth carrots. These aincho baby carrots.

Screams guacamole, doesn’t it? A couple of avocados, some limes, lemons, and oranges.

Fresh greenery.

Slab of awesome bacon, the package not yet opened, and some chorizo sausage.

Dairy products! Dang, I missed a shot of the $450 hunk of Parmesan. Just relax and imagine the richness these ingredients brought to the dishes.

Not the secret ingredient! But Ingredients I would have gladly munched, raw, because they looked so fresh.

Aw shucks.(You didn’t think I was going to pass on that, did you?)Some nice freshly shucked Malpeques.

Cheeeeze, pleeeeeze.Some boccancino on a skewer with a basil leaf and teeny tomato, plus some maple cheddar from Black River Dairy in Prince Edward county, and some heart-stoppingly wonderful marbelized carmelized onion cheddar, and I don’t know the name of the dairy: send it to me and I’ll fix this.

Awesome steaks.Some were used to create a Steak Diane using some mashed potatoes, grated Parmesan cheese and (yum yum) secret ingredient, crab, all mixed together, placed on top of the steak. Me wants. Damn, me not judge, so me didn’t get.

Obligatory crowd scene. Actually, it was more crowded looking the other direction.

Master of ceremonies, Dick Snyder, announcing the winner! Chef Gordon Mackie of Far Niente. Chef Bruce Woods of Brassaii put up an admirable fight.

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Brunch at the Black Hoof Café

11 April 2010 by pat.

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of having brunch with Cheryl from Autodesk at the Black Hoof’s newest spot, the café directly across the street from the original.

We arrived at 11am, which seems like a good time to go: only had about a 5 minute wait until we were seated (line up was out the door by the time we left). Yummy menu. We had difficulties deciding what to get!

Eventually we settled on tongue grilled cheese sandwich (Cheryl, who accepted the waiter’s recommendation to get that over the blood sausage & crepes, since she had not eaten here before) and pig tails & grits (Pat). Plus French press coffee (two pots thereof).

We shared :-)The tongue grilled cheese sandwich was wonderfully rich and flavourful: swiss cheese, and the tongue had been turned into a preserved meat somehow (didn’t ask for info, unfortunately) and sliced very thin — was a very rich corned beef kind of taste.

The pig tails were shredded meat that was shaped into kind of a rectangular sausage that had been crisped on the outside: yummy, rich, and didn’t have to deal with all those little bones. The grits were creamy, tasty, a little sweet, and topped by two perfectly poached eggs.  A little crispy chip (tasted like Munchos — remember them?) was on the top and gave some crunch to the dish.

We still had room for a little more, so Cheryl ordered the donut holes, stuffed with marrow and rhubarb jam. Little gems, about the size of a marble, dusted with sugar. Added that little bit of sweetness to say that the meal was done (that’s when we had the second pot of coffee).

I’ll be back. There was so much on the menu that looked good! Definitely have to try the suckling pig benny: three people at the next table all ordered it, and it looked scrumptious.

I’m also curious about fried artichokes & broth.

Unlike at the parent restaurant, there seem to be a number of items that a vegetarian could enjoy here: granola, salad, rapini pesto & pasta, and toast with jam and goat butter. Food for all!

Posted in Food, dining out, Food, SOLE food | 6 Comments »

Secret Pickle Dinner Party 2: with 6 courses, in 12 pictures

8 March 2010 by pat.

Oh gawd it was good.To celebrate each other’s birthday, Sandy and Betty and I take each other out. It’s usually a surprise to the birthday girl where we’re going to go.Last night, we started with martinis at a cute little bar on Parliament with lots of pairs of traditional furniture and a trio of chandeliers.

Given the setup, it is obvious that this isn’t where we are going to eat. Sandy and Betty check several times to see if I know where we are going… I confess I have no idea. I knew of a couple of restaurants in the area, but nothing really birthdaylicious springs to mind. So we sip our martinis, slip on our coats, then sally forth to the Fair Trade Jewellery Atelier, where dinner #2 of the Secret Pickle Supper Club is about to begin. (You’ll have to ask Alexa about the name!)We open the door, and are met with chef Matt Kantor of Little Kitchen at his serving table, right in the front window. Beyond him is a table set for, oh gosh, at least two dozen people. Cloak room and aperitifs in the back.

We go to the back, doff our coats, and pick up a Campari and soda (it’s been a while since I’ve had one of those: I had forgotten how much I enjoy them). And I snap this picture, which looks to the front of house. Drinks in hand, we mill about, meet people, and eventually sit down.At each table setting is a booklet for us of the night’s adventures in eating Piedmontese food and drinking suitable wines.

Oh, this looks good.It’s going to be a very good evening.I confess I miss one photo, and that’s of the yummy breadsticks (Grissini del Olio) that we have to go along with the aperitif. Beautiful crunch, right amount of salt, nice herbacious flavours, probably the best breadsticks I’ve ever had.On a flatscreen TV behind me, there are Flickr pictures of Piedmont showing the entire evening, except for when it’s decided we have to see this bizarre Russian lounge lizard TV act from what looks like the ’80’s.Next, it is on to the antipasto: I grab a couple of shots while Matt plates things, but realize half way through the evening that my battery is low low low, so there are only a few shots of food-in-progress.

This is Vitello Tonnato. Delicate beautiful veal tenderloin, buttery soft, with a tuna sauce. What an amazing complementary pair: the delicacy of the veal, and the stout flavours of the tuna sauce work really well together. The wine for this course is Demarie Roero Arneis 2008 (thanks, Alexa, for MCing and the awesome booklets that you put together!)

Here’s an up-close look at my plate: delicate pieces of veal with sauce, capers, and some tarragon.

Our next appetizer is a tart of artichoke and goat cheese with bagna cauda: a sauce I am truly in love with!Bagna cauda is made of anchovies, garlic, parsley and olive oil (and some recipes use butter, too). Matt’s recipe uses some butter. In the same way that veal and tuna work together, this little tart and bagna cauda function as a team. The arugula salad on top adds some contrasting bitterness, and it is a great combination.

The accompanying wine is Ascheri Fontanelle Barbera D’Alba 2008.So where do we go after these delicious appetizers? To a stunning risotto: Risotto di Barolo con fungi (although we have a Via Collina Dolcetto di Diano d’Alba wine instead of a Barolo).

It is a bit of a surprise when we first get it, because we’re not used to seeing risotto made with a red wine, which makes a pink dish. It is totally scrumptious… smooth, with a bit of a bite at the middle of the rice grains. Lots of flavour.  Wonderful marriage of flavours of rice, wine, and mushroom.

This dish is paired with the Dolcetto, the same wine used to make it.

Next is the main course, the serious meat course. And Matt takes his meat courses seriously, as I discovered when he cooked an amazing dinner for four for Sandy. This course is described as Bollito Misto — mixed boiled meats. Imagine meats from different animals all slowly braised together, so none of the meat is tough, and all of it is flavourful, and flavoured with the other meats and vegetables that are also cooked in the same pot. We are given a variety of tongue, veal, capon, pork feet, and brisket, too, I believe. Veggies are potatoes and carrots. The two tasty sauces in the upper right corner are roasted pepper puree and anchovy spread. Rawr!! The paired wine was Tenuta San Mauro Barbaresco.Where do you go after this? for a stretch, and give the chef a little break maybe (did you get a break, Matt?).

After these dishes, two more courses remain: first, the cheese course with Testun al Barolo (which has a strange connection for me: that was the last food I had in mid-December that tasted good, before I was struck by pine mouth {caused by a problem with pine nuts which lasted a couple of weeks). Alex Farms was selling it as a Christmas cheese, so I bought a hunk for my parents. It’s a great cheese, on the mild/medium side, and packed with grape must from the wine fermentation process. This is matched with a salad of arugula and shaved fennel, a truly scrumptious combination. The matched wine is Cantina Parroco Nebbiolo Langhe 2007.

And then, on to dessert! If you know me, you know that I’m really not a big dessert fan. This dessert, however, is really yummy. It isn’t over sweet (which tends to be my prob. with most ’serts). Tarta di Nocciole with poached pears in red wine.

A thin slice of a hazelnut cake (which has some flour and whole eggs as well as lots of ground hazelnuts) reminds me of a flourless, unleavened almond Passover cake my Dad bought… oh, gosh, must have been around 1972. The cake is wonderful. I could gladly eat it for breakfast every day. The sauce drizzled around and under is based on Nutella, and in the ramekin are some delicious poached pears with some ginger, to add some brightness to the dish.

This dessert is accompanied by a sparkling red wine, Piemonte Cantina San Pancrazio Brachetto 2008. Really good pairing.

There is yet one more thing to happen. Joey, the Accordion Guy was there. I didn’t realize that he had brought his accordion to sing me a happy birthday!

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Little Kitchen: scrumptious dinner @skemsley’s!

11 January 2010 by pat.

Oh, what a delicious over-the top evening. Sandy won a dinner for 4, prepared in her home, by Little Kitchen chef Matt Kantor. We had a great time.

Betty and I arrived at Sandy’s a little on the early side, but Betty, being the wise sister that she is, had a bottle of prosecco in hand, so Sandy, Damir, Betty and I all toasted the evening-to-come. Sandy, feel free to comment about what the different wines were that we had with these courses!

Shortly after 6, Matt Kantor, proprietor of Little Kitchen, phoned up, and Damir helped him carry goodies and cooking items upstairs.

Although I took this photo at the end of the night, I thought I’d place it here as the first picture, so you know who Sandy is, and get to know Matt, too.

It was time for the festivities to begin!

 First dish of the night was Beet and Orange a la Heston.

The beet gelée, surprise, surprise, is the orange-colored one. And the red gelée comes from blood oranges. Blumenthal, eat your heart out

 

 

 

 It was followed by properly toothsome Gulf Shrimp that gently yielded to a deliciously moist flesh once past the exterior, served with an excellent charmoula sauce. We didn’t leave any on the plate. The charmoula recipe is on Little Kitchen’s website. We started fantasizing about all the possible uses of charmoula…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sun chokes (Jerusalem artichokes). Pretty much one of the best soups we’ve ever ever had. So lovely, rich, flavourful, and creamy that it made us swoon. The topping of double-smoked bacon lardons and perfectly cooked shiitake mushrooms added contrasting flavours and textures. Really excellent, excellent soup.

 

 

 

 

 

How do you follow something like that? In Matt Kantor’s universe, you serve something even more outrageous. In this case, it was a perfectly seared scallop with a round of apple and some purée, and a side of raw scallop, fennel and purple potato. It’s called batting 1000, folks.

 

 

 

The standard for multiple course meals is that one goes from light to heavier and richer dishes. The next one really knocked our socks off. I had only thoughtof cocoa pasta being served as a dessert: wow, was I limiting things! Matt combined a cocoa Fazoletti with a wild boar ragu for this stunning dish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The next course brought more richness: braised lamb that had been cooked in a tagine, moulded in a cabbage leaf, served atop an eggplant puree, and a cucumber and citrus salad to the side. Wow. Extremely tasty. Taste of some traditional Moroccan spices in with the lamb really took us to North Africa. I loved the way the cabbage leaf translucently covered the lamb. It was glorious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, and on to the finale: French toast with an ice cream of banana and white chocolate, topped with toasted hazelnuts, and a caramel drizzle. Can life get any better?

 

Not much; really, this was so fine.

 

 

I ate for the first time today at 3pm: was still full from last night. Oh my, that was a fine meal, in the best possible epiglutton tradition.

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Pho who the bell tolls

29 November 2009 by pat.

Oh, it tolls for me, because I ate too much.

Big bowl of Chicken Pho at Hanoi 3 Seasons on Queen East (between Caroline and Larchmount). Fragrant, steamy, with lovely flavours of lime, cilantro, ginger, a touch of coconut? and basil in the broth. And a bird’s eye pepper to just add a little edge. I only started going to Hanoi 3 Seasons in the spring. I found out tonight that it’s when the weather gets cold that it really fills up, as people come in search of that delightful bowl of steaming broth, rice noodles, and other goodies. Next time I might try the rare beef pho.

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I had a dream…

28 November 2009 by pat.

Back in the summer.

That Chef Lynn Crawford and her significant other moved next door, and all the neighbours were terrified to invite her over because they were afraid to serve her inferior food.

Well, it’s sort of coming true.

Chef Lynn Crawford has bought out The Citizen with Cheri Stinson, who she has frequently paired with on Restaurant Makeover. The Citizen isn’t quite in Leslieville, it’s the neighbourhood next door (Call it Riverside, call it Queen/Broadview, call it Lower Riverdale).

Before it was The Citizen, it was the second home of Riverside Cafe, where Signe Langford used to do such wonderful things with mussels in a wee tiny space.

Set to open next year in March, we’ll have to see if all the neighbouring restaurants panic like the neighbours did in my dream.

More details at The Toronto Star (I’m not sure how long the link will remain live).

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Snails, snails, snails

21 September 2009 by pat.

I have a can of them in my pantry, crying to be used.

I ate some excellent snails at Batifole, a French bistro at Gerrard near deGrassi.

These weren’t the standard snails in garlic butter: they were in a creamy sauce that might have had a splash of something added to them.

I also had some yummy snails at Fare Bistro. I’ve eaten them many times, enjoying each time.

With these delicious tastes in my memory, I went searching for recipes. Alas, most were pretty boring, and pretty much the same thing: snails in garlic butter, served either in the shell or in mushroom caps.

Then I happened on this site.

I’m still going through it, but I thought you might enjoy the recipes.

Posted in Food, dining out, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

Tutti Matti

30 August 2009 by pat.

Tutti Matti is a Tuscan restaurant, and the food it serves is excellent.

Sandy, Betty and I ate there last night to celebrate Sandy’s birthday, and we had a grand old time!

Accompanied by a Chianti Classico, we started with some fresh bread, served with olive oil and a lovely well-aged basalmic vinegar. The bread was perfectly chewy, with a thin, brittle crust that was a delight to eat.

Over bread and wine we decided on our appetizers:

• Prosciutto four ways (with melon, with fig, with peach (and I forget the fourth)
• Carpaccio affumaicato: two beautiful displays of carpaccio, one of smoked duck breast, the other, smoked venison
• The third had lightly smashed peas on a crostini draped with thin slices of pork (the sign for the restaurant is a wild boar: we had to have some pig!) It was drizzled with a tuna sauce. Tuna sauce! I had never heard of it before, but it was lovely, and I’m going to have to find a recipe for it. It would be excellent drizzled over some white beans, pasta, probably would work with many different things.

I think we were all agreed that the smoked venison carpaccio was one of those things you’ll always remember having eaten. We also fell all over the prosciutto-wrapped baked peach. It was sinful. Almost at the foie gras level of sin. It tasted so rich, so flavourful, so balanced — and the flavour just sort of sneaked up on you half-way through the second chew, and spread. All of them were delicious, and we agreed that we’ve never found bad food at any of our yummy dinners: we’re all willing to try just about anything.

For mains, Betty and I opted for the ravioli stuffed with lobster and ricotta, served in a butter-sage sauce with some amazingly fresh green peas. Sandy had the pappardelle con stracotto. I fell in love with my ravioli. I think there was a little bit of lemon zest in the ravioli which gave it a nice zing to deal with all the richness of the dish. Sandy’s pappardelle dish was awesome, rich, flavourful and just the thing for an autumn-feeling evening. Betty regretted having the ravioli and wished she ordered pappardelle as well. The sauce was positively unctuous.

How does one top all those dishes with a dessert? We went for the small cheese plate and the biscotti plate, and an Italian dessert wine that was thick and raisiny and light amber. They completed the meal, and finished it on a high note.

Chef Alida Solomon is to be complimented for her savvy preparations and the freshness of her ingredients.

While talking over dinner, we decided that we’ll celebrate Sandy’s next birthday in Tuscany. We have a year to plan.

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Eating tapas @ Torito on Augusta Ave.

29 August 2009 by pat.

Sandy and I ate there last night. We enjoyed each tapas dish, and returned after the cabaret show for figs with blue cheese and sherry.

Fresh food: lovely marinated food: yummy rich comfort food — it was all there on the menu.

If I tried to pick a dish that still stands out in my mind almost a day later, I’d say it was the rabbit with peach chutney. The rabbit was shredded, and I think it was confit cooked (I noticed later that they also had confit of rabbit leg on the menu). It had a crispy richness and tenderness to it that seems to be the calling card of food that has been slow cooked in fat, and then rapidly seared just before serving to provide some crunch to it.

The peaches that accompanied it were julienned, cooked or at least mascerated in a liquid that did the cooking, and tasted of cinnamon and cloves. It was an excellent complement to the rabbit.

Other items on the menu were like perfect ballroom dance pairs: you know they dance well together, and they never cease to please: one of those is arugula paired with some shavings of a dry, hard cheese. At Torito, the dressing was lovely, light, and included quince. An addition of toasted almonds made it very scrumptious.

Soups? We started with the creamed Jerusalem Artichoke soup, decorated with some chili oil and completely scrumptious fried onions in a pile on top. Sandy’s lucky I didn’t steal them all… or maybe I’m lucky she didn’t!

An excellent meal.

We had the 3 course special (of which there was a donation included to STOP, an organization to help feed people) followed by other dishes (hmm. sardines, salad, and a rich rich ground lamb dish, if I recall correctly). Plus drinks.

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