Le Pois Penché

I convocated last weekend, which meant I was back in my old stomping grounds of Montreal for four days.

Since my entourage, which included my parents, aunt, uncle and grandma, were all dolled up for the event, my mom decided that it would be the perfect time to finally try some French food in the French-Canadian Belle Province. Since I'd spent my four years in Montreal as a poor student, I wasn't well-versed in the French food that's available in Montreal, so I just picked Le Pois Penché, a newish "Brasserie Parisienne" that was within walking distance from our hotel.

If my uncle and grandma had their way, they would have Chinese food at every meal no matter where they are in the world, so I thank the waiter for being so patient with my family when we rejected any orders for drinks aside from water despite their impressive wine list, and when my uncle rejected his suggestion of their "signature" appetizer, the seafood platter, because the seafood would be served cold.

After struggling with the one-page menu for a little bit, everyone finally figured out something that *sounded* like something they would like to eat, and though the food was a little slow (we should've been sipping wine the whole time, after all), we finally got on our way.

Curious as to what foie gras tasted like, we ordered a tourchon of foie gras and duck confit to share as an appetizer.


Because the tourchon was basically a pâté, it was hard to discern which flavours were coming from the foie gras, and which from the duck confit. Either way, I enjoyed the savoury spread, which contrasted nicely with the sweet fig confit that came on the side.

My mom ordered a tuna tartare, and it looked gorgeous and delicious, though I didn't have any.


I ordered from the $23 prix fixe menu, which comes with one appetizer (entrée en français, which can make things a little confusing) and one main dish. Of course I naturally gravitated toward one of my favourite vegetables, beets, which came in the form of a salad on a bed of arugula with a goat cheese brûlé and a sprinkling of candied walnuts. I'm usually not a fan of goat cheese (I find it tastes too "goaty"), but this one was very mild and complemented the beets quite well.


For the main course, I chose the wild mushroom risotto with arugula and pine nuts and even though I know risotto isn't French, it was just what I needed - some carb-y comfort food with some interesting notes from the pine nuts, parmesan cheese and mushrooms.


I also had a chance to taste my parents' dishes. My dad's rack of lamb tasted good, although it was more rare in the middle than expected and a little hard to chew. My mom ordered the Tournedos Rossini, which was filet mignon, foie gras, wild mushrooms and truffle with a red wine and veal stock reduction. I enjoyed this a lot as the meat was very tender, though my mom was not a huge fan of the wine sauce.


Overall, I enjoyed the meal even though everyone else seemed to have something to complain about, which at first made me feel bad because I was the one who chose the restaurant but in the end I realized they would've complained wherever I chose, since many of their statements started with, "In Hong Kong..." It's like going to a Chinese restaurant and complaining that there isn't any wonton soup or General Tao chicken! I had to leave early as I had some after-dinner plans with friends, but not before my uncle offered to pay by shoving his credit card in the waiter's face before he'd even cleared the table and asked us whether we wanted dessert. I'm sure he left his "standard" 10% tip as well.

While the slow service might give me some second thoughts about going back the next time in Montreal, perhaps on an evening when I'm not feeling particularly hungry but feeling particularly wealthy, I'd drop in for some pleasant service, good company, good wine, and a cold seafood platter ;)

Le Pois Penché
1230 Blvd de Maisonneuve O
Montreal QC
(514) 667-5050

Read More...

Me elsewhere, aka SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION!

Calgary is Awesome. So awesome that when recently faced with the choice of boyfriend/NYC vs. being single in the ol' YYC, I chose the latter. So it's only fitting that starting this week, I will be a regular contributor to Calgary is Awesome, writing a weekly (hopefully) column called Chow Down in Cowtown. Entries will be cross-posted here, and I'll occasionally post there about non-food, awesome Calgary stuff as well.

If you are a Dietitians of Canada member, the Summer 2009 issue of Practice is out and I have an article on the last page on my experiences as an intern in Hong Kong this past November. Also, I know this is old news, but if you haven't seen it yet, the most recent issue of Cornucopia, the student network newsletter, has been out since April and it'll be the last one where I'm serving as editor.

Read More...

Mothers' Day Brunch at Belgo

Sometimes I get sick of being behind the camera all the time...
Happy belated Mothers' Day! I hope everyone had a nice, sunny weekend and got to spend some quality time with their moms. For Mothers' Day I usually buy my mom some variation of flowers and chocolate, but this year I was hoping for something a little different so I asked her what she wanted.

"Training gloves. I'm getting all these blisters from weight training that I'm going for lighter weights now."

So I went and picked up a pair of gloves. They were less than $20. Feeling inadequate, I had a bit of a "心血來潮" (literally, "rush of blood to the heart", but I guess the English equivalent is "a rush of blood to the head") on Thursday and decided that I wanted to take my mom out to Mothers' Day brunch. Obviously, all the hotels were already sold out, but then I saw the Martini Boys Mothers' Day Guide, which said that Belgo was serving a brunch too. I gave them a call, and was pleasantly surprised that they were still taking reservations. So I booked a table for five, and we headed out yesterday around noon.

Belgo is usually a French/Belgian Brasserie, serving up traditional dishes like French Onion soup and Moules et Frites with a bit of a modern twist. They also have an impressive selection of (mostly European) beers and wines. It's got an interesting, open multi-level setup which would be fine on any other day/evening, but as we were led up several flights of stairs, my parents began to gripe about how far they'd have to walk to get their food, but in the end, I was thankful that I got this tiny bit of exercise after all the food we had!

The buffet was separated into a cold appetizer table, a hot table, a dessert table, and an omelette station. My parents and I started with the cold section, which had a lovely breakfast spread of muffins, danishes and croissants before delving into the "lunch" part of brunch with marinated clams, mussels, and crab legs, a couple salads, and charcuterie. There were also these gorgeous Danish yogurt and granola parfaits served in a martini glass.


I grabbed a couple clams and mussels, which were good, but skipped out on the crab legs, which I tend to find too laborious to eat. My dad was great about taking apart some crab legs and feeding the meat to my mom. (Awww...) I also grabbed an eggplant and some tomato from their grilled vegetable salad (the eggplant was too raw for my taste) and some cold cuts, heirloom tomatoes and small cubes of cheese that tasted like it had horseradish in it for my first round of eating.


I displayed a complete lack of self control at the hot foods station, and totally filled my plate. There were breakfast foods like bacon, sausage and ham (I just grabbed the sausage), Eggs Florentine (the English muffin was too tough to chew, but I liked how it wasn't slathered in Hollandaise sauce and the poached egg was cooked perfectly), waffles with maple walnut syrup and roasted fingerling potatoes. However, it was the lunch foods that really stole the show - their "Poulet à la Bière" was very tender with a hint of alcohol (I initially thought it was wine) and the meat fell right off the bone and the seared pickerel was cooked perfectly (a gripe that my parents always have is fish that's overdone) paired with bacon bits roasted Brussels sprouts (!!!) The only gripe I had was with the asparagus, which was a little thick to begin with, and the tough ends weren't trimmed well enough. The cider brined pork loin (paired with sauerkraut) looked fatty and delicious too, but unfortunately there were no serving utensils to be found next to the dish, so I didn't have any.


Alas, I was too stuffed to grab an omelette, but while I was grabbing dessert (because, *ahem*, there's always room for that) I peeked over and saw a nice selection of veggies and meat as a topping, and I overheard the chef tell one of the customers that there was even shrimp!

But seriously, try to tell me with a straight face that you can resist these cute little petits-fours and gorgeous chocolate-covered strawberries. (I didn't go for a slice of torte or pie, I think that's a start.


The green one, a pistachio-chocolate square with wafer in the middle, ended up being the favourite. My sister was pretty proud of her gigantic (GMO?) chocolate-covered strawberry.


At $35 per person, the buffet was a little pricier than what my family would usually go for, but there were ample amounts of good food and it was a last-minute score that I was pretty proud of. The service could've been a little better - I think we came in in the middle of a shift switch so for a while the servers were MIA and we unclassily left our used plates on the next table over to make room for more food. Also, I'm under the impression that the servers were just not used to the whole buffet format as they kept on clearing our cutlery along with our plates! (More unclassy pilfering from the next table here.) Still, it was a great way to try some of their food, and if Poulet à la Bière or roasted Brussels sprouts are on their regular rotation, I would definitely go back. (The breakfast food wasn't as good, but that's probably why they usually don't serve it ;) )

Belgo
501 8 Ave SW
Calgary AB
(403) 265-6555

Read More...

On secret weapons (Pulse & Barley Salad)

I rarely find myself packing a lunch these days, so when I do, you know that it means business. Today's business was the Canadian Dietetic Registration Exam (CDRE), which is the last step to becoming a Registered Dietitian. The exam is 210 multiple choice questions written in two three-hour sessions (but based on the exit questionnaire it looks like they're wondering if they can trim it down to 2½ hours... and I think they can), with a 45 minute break in between, so they suggest you pack a lunch instead of counting on something good to be open on a university campus on the weekend (we're all future dietitians, after all), so I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to make myself some brain food.


My mind instantly turned to salad - not a lettuce-based salad (BO-RING!), but something a little more filling, like a grain salad, bean salad, or pasta salad. I was tempted to make a batch of Mylène's pasta salad, but was reminded of the fact that I haven't shared a recipe here for a whole two months. (I'm only thinking of you here, people.)


I found this recipe on the Pulse Canada website, and it looked promising. After all, it was rated 5 out of 5 beans (!!!) and I was hoping it would be something like the Manitoban Grain Salad I had at Café Pi in Montreal. (It is not.) And surely the recipe didn't really make 15 cups of salad! (It does.)


I started off by chopping up an onion and a shallot clove before sautéing it in a large saucepan. Since I failed to read the directions before going grocery shopping, I thought the onion was going to be raw, so I bought a red one, but a regular one will do just fine. Also, I chopped up a shallot because my mom took all the garlic and minced it up and put it in a jar in the fridge, though I ended up tossing a spoonful of that into the pot too.


Next you add in 1½ cups of barley; I eyeballed the amount from the bulk bins and was pretty impressed that I came pretty close.

I then covered barley with 1 L of stock + water and brought it to a boil. Then I prepped the rest of the ingredients while the barley was a-cookin'.


This meant chopping up the zucchini, halving the cherry tomatoes, and opening, rinsing, and draining the canned chickpeas and lentils. I then mixed everything up, removed the salad from the heat, and stirred in some chopped fresh dill.

I'd made the salad earlier in the week so I can test run it in another packed lunch (for work) and as beautiful as the salad was, I was disappointed. Perhaps I was a little overzealous in diluting the stock, but the salad was bland, and I had a feeling I knew how to fix it.

I rummaged through my mom's spice cabinet - cloves, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, curry powder... My secret ingredient was nowhere to be found!

I endured two helpings of bland salad before I finally made my way to the grocery store.

The secret ingredient is... cumin! (and lemon... my mom had lemon juice in a plastic lemon in the fridge, but since I was at the store anyway, I figured I'd get the real stuff.) I first discovered this tasty combination four years ago with my ex-roommate Marianna, and it's spiced up many a bean salad. Will it work with this one?

I zested the entire lemon into the salad, then squeezed in half of its juice (now there's half of a naked lemon in my fridge - hehe!) Immediately the salad perked up with the bright citrus. Then in went a teaspoon of cumin, adding a smoky depth to the flavour. I took a bite and nodded in approval as I chewed. My dad asked why the hell I was nodding to myself in the kitchen.

"I took this crappy salad and I made it good."

To top it off, my picky brother gave the salad a try, and he liked it too! So the secret's out - lemon and cumin are my secret weapons, and I'm hoping this salad fed my brain enough to give me an edge on the CDRE! ;)

Pulse and Barley Salad
Adapted from Pulse Canada
Makes ~15 cups

• 15 mL (1 tbsp) vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic and/or shallot clove, minced
• 375 mL (1½ cups) pearl barley
• 1 L (4 cups) reduced sodium chicken or vegetable broth*
• 1 medium zucchini, chopped
• 500 mL (2 cups) cherry tomatoes, halved**
• 1 can (540 mL/19 fl oz.) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 can (540 mL/19 fl oz.) lentils, rinsed and drained
• 10 dill sprigs, chopped
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 1 (heaping?) tsp cumin

1. In a large, nonstick saucepan, sauté onion and garlic/shallot in oil over medium-high heat for about two minutes. Add barley and cook for another two minutes.
2. Stir in broth and bring to a boil.
3. Cover pan and reduce heat. Let simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until barley has soaked up most liquid.
4. Stir in zucchini, tomatoes, lentils and chickpeas. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and stir in dill, lemon zest and juice, and cumin. Can be served warm or cold.

*If you're one of those people who makes their own stock, great. If not, if you buy cartoned stock, they come in packages of 900 mL, so just pour in water for the last 100 mL to lower the sodium content further.

**You can find them sold by the pint at the grocery store.



Nutrition Info (per cup): 178 calories, 2 g fat (0 g saturated), 0 mg cholesterol, 34 g carbohydrates (8 g fibre, 2 g sugar), 8 g protein, 345 mg sodium. An excellent source of vitamin K and manganese. A good source of vitamin B₆, folate, vitamin E, iron, phosphorus, potassium, zinc and selenium.

Read More...