Bread sticks, flat breads and brioche with black lava salt on soft butter.
Unbeknownst to me, The Wine Bar shut down for gold-medal Sunday. So, wandering around the corner brought us to Lucien’s doorstep instead. With its cred, I don’t hear about this restaurant very often. Actually, to the point where this wasn’t even on my radar.
Despite eyebrow-raising prices on the menu outside, the dishes seemed interesting enough. So we rolled the dice and ventured in on this quiet night.
There’s been a National Pig Day on March 1st in the US since 1972, but apparently (as of this year) Prince Edward County has now decided to make it International Pig Day, “extending it into a month-long appreciation of pigs, pork and the people who raise them.” Though I only recently learned of this holiday (read: on the day of), I didn’t want to be remiss in showing my appreciation of the porcine and thought, where better to celebrate than at The Black Hoof?
My Wednesday was a bit of a mind-melt. Akin to the mind-melt they had when the earth was at the center of the solar system and some wank named Copernicus was stirring things up. It began with the following Twitter exchange:
@CharliesBurgers Received a box of 4 Laduree Macaroons from Paris. The Rolls Royce of macaroons. Almost too nice to eat. I did say almost. www.laduree.fr
To which I confidently replied “Macarons!! One “o” please.” Because a macaroon is different from a macaron. Really, we don’t need to further the confusion on the matter! And then I proceeded to get pwned.
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The Olympics are on and it dawns on me that I still haven’t finished my write-up of all the places I hit on my Vancouver trip… back in the fall. Well, consider this my effort to get caught up. Hopefully, the roundup will do someone some use. Or maybe you’ll feel like going to Vancouver after the Olympics are done. Regardless, there are some interesting eats in Vancouver. Excellent ramen and Izakaya to be had – as well as a fledgling mixology scene that we have yet to see in Toronto!
It was pancake Tuesday this past week, but since I’m not Catholic, this has less bearing on my life. Except for that pancake part. I’m always down with eating pancakes. So, some time ago, I sat for a talk that Hervé gave for the basics of his (then) new book. There are some very cool bits of science behind it, and being the nerd I am, it appealed entirely. Of course, it was the most basic of all the things he showed us that I took away and applied to the making of pancakes soon after.
Never having made a cheesecake before (usually my sister’s domain), I settled on Cooking For Engingeer’s New York style cheesecake to test-drive and tweak. Now, they call for a ridiculous amount of cream cheese and eggs to make a 10″ monster. Since I needed to serve only 5 people, I opted to scale things down for a 5.5″ cake that would stand 2.25″ tall. Despite never achieving the almond-brown top of a traditional NY style, the cake itself was dense, moist, and free of cracks (not to mention, tasty)!
As a child, I remember eating these pale oddly-shaped cookies. Fragrant with pandan and coconut, these dry and crumbly treats end up melting on your tongue. It’s weird and delicious all at the same time. Goes well with a cup of tea – which sometimes becomes a necessity to help wash it down. My mother tells me of how they used to collect Ovaltine tins throughout the year in which to store, and gift, the kueh bangkit for Chinese New Year in Malaysia. Since the Lunar new year is coming up this weekend, I thought I’d try my hand at making these despite the are-you-kidding-me from my mother and the eye-roll from my father.
My dining companions ran the gamut of reactions when I suggested we go for lunch at Gale’s Snack Bar. You see, Gale’s has been open for years (looks it too), and is located away from the main-and-trendy Queen St. East strip. I didn’t know it at the time, but Gale’s had been written up and mentioned all over the place. Not to mention it made an appearance in Hairspray as the Hardy Har Hut storefront. But ever since I first spied it while I was rolling down Eastern Ave. long ago, there was just something about Gale’s corner spot, its tiny frame, and dilapidated sign, that made me want to go in. Just for the adventure of it.
So, I had spoken of Hainanese Chicken in my last post on making soup. Why? Because for the best version of this dish, you don’t poach your chicken in water, you poach it in soup. However, water does work in a pinch, it’s just not as tasty. Now, I can hear some of you say “poaching!?” but do trust me – this makes a chicken so tender and lovely.
My favourite soup happens to be chicken. But the chicken soup I grew up with had little to do with making a mirepoix and is closer to broth – with the addition of ginger, salt, and sometimes, pork. Having chicken soup on my mind, my eyes homed in on $1.29 chicken carcasses at the local Korean grocer. I eagerly grabbed three trays of the saran-bound beasts and was excited enough to tweet about it. I even boasted to my mother about the find. But it got better. I discovered afterward that each tray had three chickens apiece and so I had nine carcasses with which to make an intense stock and soup from. Oh yes. And so, here’s my how-to for soup that’ll lead into making a tender and delicious chicken, Hainanese style.
