Savoy Brasserie

I can't believe how quickly E is changing.  At 9.5 months, she has now learned to army crawl her way around, showing us all of the ways our house is not sufficiently baby-friendly.  I'm guessing she'll be walking before fully crawling.  She has started cruising this week and that's all she wants to do...  Well..cruising and using the phone to call 911.  Seriously!  What are the chances of a baby pressing the talk button and then 9-1-1?  Apparently, pretty good.  Oops.

Good thing she doesn't make strange (yet?) -- we were able to get out a second night out during Grandma and Grandpa's recent visit.

This second night we went to Westboro. The corner of Churchill and Richmond has changed a lot this year.  First Gezellig moved in on the north-west corner and now Savoy Brasserie has taken over the space previously occupied by Newport Restaurant on the south-east corner. 

The Savoy has a lot of things going for it (location, space, design, concept).  At the same time, there are new restaurant kinks to work out (food consistency, staff training, flow of restaurant, equipment functioning).  

We met up with a couple of friends for dinner about two weeks after Savoy Brasserie opened. For an appetizer, R and I ordered the Savoy salad.  The salad was a bit underwhelming, but I'd attribute it to forgotten ingredients.  I didn't realize until after I finished the salad and saw the neighbouring table's order that our salad didn't include chick peas.  I did, however, notice that there wasn't a drop of dressing (grapefruit vinaigrette) on the salad.  Our friends order the escargot and enjoyed it.

For my main, I ordered steak frites.  The steak was done to my specifications (medium), but I debated askng for steak sauce.  Generally, I hope for a steak to have enough flavour on its own, without needing some sort of sauce.

My friend ordered a bouillabaisse, which she enjoyed.  

R ordered veal scallopine and said it was "just okay."  Not pictured is the duck confit, which our friend really enjoyed (though I think he felt like his serving size was smaller than ours).

Although the staff all seemed polite, I found the number of waiters a bit dizzying.  I know R got really tired of his chair being bumped by passing waiters.  Hopefully they can find a way to widen the aisles for the waiters to pass through.  Below, you can see see the amount of space between the two chairs, which is a main artery of the restaurant.  

Of course, the elephant in the room is the firemen.  Again, I'll give the restaurant slack because it recently opened.  But, the smell of smoke, followed by blaring smoke detectors and entry of firemen kind of broke up the evening.  We took it as our cue to leave and headed down the street for some dessert.

So -- the big question.  Will I return?  Sure -- I'd like to see how they're doing in a couple of months.  Aside from the lack of space between tables, I think all of the bumps we experienced can be easily ironed out with time.

Odile

Going out for a nice dinner is a rare occasion these days.  E and I go out for lunch fairly regularly (maybe once every couple of weeks).  But, without a babysitter or family in Ottawa, I can count the number of times we've gone out for a nice dinner in the past nine months on one hand.  

Knowing that R's parents were coming for a visit, I texted Ron about going out for dinner.  I listed a couple places I would like to try, but hoped he would choose one in particular: Odile.

Odile is Chez Edgar's little sister, but only in the sense that it is Marysol's second restaurant (note: Odile opened about a year ago).  I may be biased, but I think little sisters are pretty awesome.  

After getting screwed by my GPS and ending up in Aylmer, we made our way to Odile's lovely patio area.  I love the way Marysol's food uses fresh ingredients, is cooked with a lot of care, but is not at all pretentious.  

R and I shared a caesar salad.  The dressing had a great kick of garlic and anchovies.  I loved the croutons.  It tasted like bread that had been soaked in garlicy goodness and then baked.  I also thought the pig cheek was an interesting touch.  It had good flavour, though was a bit on the fatty side for my liking.  

For the main I ordered red wine braised shortribs.  They come with a puree of yukon and celery root and kale.  All of this is topped off with chevre noir, a gremolata and shallots.  Oh goodness was this so delicious.  Comfort food at its best.  The shortribs were melt in your mouth and flavourful  If this is how fresh kale can taste, then I need to work on improving my kale-preparation skills.  I will also be looking to make a recipe where I can punch up the flavours with a gremolata soon.  The serving was hearty, but I want some more!

Others at my table ordered the duck breast and were quite complementary of it.  Clearly, there is no shying away from a healthy serving of meat.  My table mates also quite enjoyed the touch of sweetness brought by the fruit (fig? date?).

Even though it was starting to get cold (well, I wasn't cold after drinking two glasses of wine), we couldn't skip out on Marysol's delicious desserts.  Our friends shared an almond cake (can't remember what else was in it).

R and I shared a slice of pear and sugar pie,  We were completely full before the pie came, but managed to find room for it and thank goodness we did.  I don't always like pie crusts because they can be too dry for my liking.  But I loved the crust on this pie.  Of course, the star was still the filling.  The fudgy/sugary thing on top didn't do much for me.  I felt the pie was sweet enough without it.  But, I don't like fudge in general.

Aside from the exceptional food, the service was pretty stellar too.  Like the servers at Chez Edgar, our server was down to earth, professional and friendly.  I hope to be able to return to Odile soon!

Sidedoor Contemporary Kitchen and Bar

Growing up in Winnipeg, I have fond memories of spending time at my Baba and Zeida's house.  They lived less than 10 minutes away.  I'd have sleepovers and Baba would always make me cream of wheat, a half a grapefruit (sliced in half, with each piece of fruit cut away from the skin) and a perfectly soft-boiled egg.  She'd make sure that she picked up some corned beef and rye bread, my favourite, before my arrival.  My Zeida would barbecue chicken, often drumettes.  I believed that they came from chickens with really small legs, but never questioned the practice since they tasted so good.  I'd scope out the garden for ripe cucumbers. My brother and I would pick apples from the trees in the backyard,while my Baba lost her mind thinking that we were going to fall and hurt ourselves.  Before family dinner started, I'd steal all of the homemade pickles my Baba had cut up and put on the table.  No surprise that some of my most vivid memories are about the food.

I can't help but feel a little bit envious of friends (with babies) who have family living in the same city as them.  Living in Ottawa, R and I have at least a 5 hour drive to see Giz and a 5 hour flight to see his parents in Saskatchewan.  Will E know her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc?  When will she understand why I stick this noise-making black thing (iPad) in front of her face for Skype dates? Will we ever find a babysitter with whom we can feel comfortable leaving E?

We were really happy to have R's parents come for a visit last week.  They spent a lot of time with E.  R and I even got a night out, which we took advantage of by going out with a couple of friends to Sidedoor Contemporary Kitchen and Bar, located in the Byward Market.

They serve small plates, which we shared with a couple of friends.  My favourite dish was the tacos.  We ordered lamb with funky chili and Chinkiang pulled pork.  The combination of flavours in the lamb was so good.  It had both my friend and I wishing we could mix flavours that well.

While R was driving around looking for parking in the market (usually a frustrating experience), I was texting my friend asking for his recommendations on what to order.  He suggested the broiled blackened cod with butter leaf lettuce wrap and house pickles.  Since I'm not a big fan of cod, I decided to try the grilled beef version.  Everyone enjoyed this dish.  My only critique would be that they could have had more of the house pickles and basil on the plate.  We were left with a lot of lettuce and meat.

This is the pork belly braised in a master stock with mango salad, cashews and chili lime caramel. This was probably my second favourite dish, after the tacos.  The pork belly was nice and tender, but the best part was the salad topping.  So delicious.  

I enjoyed the calamari.  It was lightly battered and fried. Good flavour and texture. 

On the left is the Peking style Mariposa Farm chicken.  Everyone agreed that this dish could have been better.  The skin wasn't very crispy and the chicken was a bit on the dry side.  The bok choy tips were okay.  My friend who eats a lot of bok choy didn't like it because of the butter flavour.  Personally, 

I don't eat much bok choy and it tasted fine to me.

  

 

The son-in-law egg with chili jam and fried shallots was, visually, quite interesting.  But none of us actually liked the taste.  The combination of egg (with a soft yolk) and chili jam is not a flavour combination I find pleasing.

For dessert, we ordered the donut sharing platter.  However, shortly before it arrived, one of the people at the table visited the washroom.  So, the three of us sat staring at the donuts, waiting for our friend to return.  Finally, the waiter noticed and came over to tell us that we shouldn't wait because they are warm.  But, by the time we ate the donuts, they weren't warm anymore.  So, maybe they're great when they're fresh out of the oven.  But if you let them sit for 10 minutes, they're nothing special. 

So, all in all, an enjoyable meal.  But, I would say that there was some imbalances in the dishes.  Some were amazing and some were underwhelming.  Now, in terms of the service...I read a lot of reviews ahead of time that gave negative feedback about the service.  Our waiter was well-informed. But, his demeanour was a bit "too cool for school."  Not a deterrent to returning, but I could see how a customer would feel uncomfortable.

Mia's Indian Cuisine

It's common to hear stories about people having a lot of challenges after immigrating to Canada.  Finding a job in your discipline (or one that pays sufficiently and is satisfying), adjusting to a new culture, learning English or French and developing a network are some of the keys to successful integration.  Often times, this takes more than one generation.  So, it's really nice to hear exceptions to this, like the recent restaurant opening of Mia's Indian Cuisine.  Take a moment to read a little bit about the family's story here.

While Giz was in town, we went for dinner to check out the new restaurant.  The decor was simple, with nice white linen on the table.  Some of the reviews insinuate that the service hasn't hit its stride.  But, I found everyone to be friendly (maybe a bit timid).  Even though it was a Saturday evening, the food came out at a reasonable pace.  

To start, we order vegetable samosas.  They were fresh-tasting and better than what we've had at several other local Indian restaurants.

They also brought out some cracker-like appetizer with a chutney dip.  

For the main, we order butter chicken, a tandoori dish and a chana masala.  The chana masala was the favourite at our table.  I found the butter chicken to be too sweet and the tandoori was mixed.  The lamb was quite tough, but the chicken was good.  Since we like spicy food, I was hoping for a bit more heat in our food.     

The naan was delicious.

The salad came with the meal.  I'm still trying to figure out if a side salad is typical to Indian cuisine or if the owners are doing it to appeal to local clientele.  If it's the latter, it's a bit lame.  I think a basic iceberg lettuce salad with a couple of cut vegetables doesn't add much to the table.   

Overall, we were happy with the meal and would return.  In the future, I'll probably opt for some spicier dishes and hope that they modify their butter chicken recipe.  

Norma's for Brunch

I was invited to brunch with attitude. I just wasn't sure if it was my attitude, my invitor's attitude or the restaurant's attitude. It also didn't really matter how many times I asked, I was told "you'll see". Okay, it's a surprise. Sometimes it's just easier to go along than to ask too many questions. I trusted my companions and boy oh boy was I in for the experience of a lifetime. We arrived at the Parker Meridien Palm Springs and were ushered to Norma's Restaurant.

Have you heard of it? I'd heard of the one in New York but had never visited and had no concept of what awaited. My companions wanted me to have a life long memory. Nestled in what feels like a forest, the soft latin music and bustling wait staff just make you smile. The energy is completely positive and you feel a sense of fun around you. Our waiter was engaging, helpful and efficient and started our experience off with a shotglass sample of the smoothy of the day Coffee was served in a French press. The menu is diversified and interesting with catchy names such as "Wa-Za" for a waffle that has fruit inside and out and looks so interesting you're just not sure whether or not you should eat it or save it as a piece of art.

Mango-Papaya Brown Cinnamon Crepes



Normalita's Huevos Rancheros




Fish Tacos



We're getting ready to go home from our vacation. We're all ready. It's been a great couple of months but reality becons and soon enough we'll have more great things.

Sucrerie de la Montagne

Plus 25 Celcius in March?  This does not happen in Canada and is not good news for maple syrup producers.  Maple sap runs best when the weather is warm during the day, but cool at night.

March and April is maple syrup time around this part of the world. You can read about previous visits to cabines a sucre (sugar shacks) here, here, here and here. If you take a look through these posts, you'll get a sense of the range of sugarshacks, from lame pancakes on a plastic plate to an all you can eat selection of food, sure to make you feel stuffed for the next 2 days.

My last, and probably most intense, sugar shack experience was at Sucrerie de la Montagne.

When you arrive, a horse-drawn carriage will take you the short ride from the parking lot:


You can explore the grounds, seeing several rustic buildings that house cottage-like accommodations, a bakery...

 a general store, a building where maple syrup is processed (during the maple syrup season)

and, of course, the main halls where the food is served.  Sucerie de la Montagne blows other sugar shacks (that we've been to) away in terms of food quantity and quality.  Let's just pretend that everything you see in the rest of this post was stretched out over a week of consumption, rather than one sitting.

Soupe au pois du Montagnard (mountain dweller's pea soup)

Omelette soufflée de la fermière (farm-style omelette soufflé)


Saucisses de campagne (country-style sausages) & Jambon fumé à l'érable (maple-smoked ham)


Tourtière de la beauceronne (meat pie from Québec’s Beauce region)


Traditional sugar pie


Pancakes with maple syrup



On this plate is Ragoût de boulettes (traditional meatball stew, Oreilles de crisse (crispy-fried pork  rinds), Fèves au lard de chantier (wood-fired baked beans), Pommes de terre pilées à l'ancienne (old-style mashed potatoes) and the same omelette, meat pie and sausage that you see, above.

Guests are also offered Coffee and tea, Pain croûté de la paysanne (farm-style crusty bread) and
Homemade fruit ketchup and pickles.

Of course, the star of the show is the maple syrup.


The food is all you can eat and is served family-style.

Once you're done.  If you're not in a coma, you can get up and dance to some traditional music.  Or, at least listen to the music while you rest your head on the table, unbutton your pants and close your eyes.  That's normal sugar shack behaviour, right?

Here's a video that gives you a good idea of what the place looks like.  Skip to 1:47 if you want to see the food insanity!