El's Japanese Fusion

Cross-posted from Calgary is Awesome.

Some people may be surprised that this little hole-in-the-wall Japanese place is still surviving despite much larger competition across the street, but considering that the same building houses two deli/diners that claim to specialize in Montreal smoked meat, I suppose anything can happen in Marda Loop.

I first tried El's Japanese Fusion two summers ago, when one of the trainers at the gym where I worked took me there for lunch. He is Korean, so he liked/likes the Korean-owned El's because he could chat up the owners and sometimes score a free salad or soup (the same goes for Sushi Hanami). The lunch menu then was tiny, and we always opted for the bento boxes anyway just because they were quick and easy, so I was a little taken aback when I went for supper on Friday night to find that the menu is actually pretty huge!

El's prides itself on its tempura - while most sushi restaurants will have chefs preparing sushi behind the bar, at El's, the deep fryer is in full display and you can see the chefs mixing up the batter and dipping various ingredients in it before throwing it all into the hot oil. As a result, most of its extensive selection of makis involves tempura in some way. Usually I would have no qualms about that, but I'd just finished off some cottage cheese that was about to expire at the office and was looking for a light dinner; combined with the fact that the small, 20-seat space was a little sticky with grease, it was a little off-putting!

After a bit of hemming and hawing, we finally chose three rolls to share - the W-Spicy maki (spicy tuna and salmon), the Yuke maki (raw sirloin beef on top of a crab roll), and the Seaweed Salad maki (seaweed salad and other veggies in soybean paper).


The W-Spicy maki ($9.95) was my least favourite of the three that we ordered (which is why I snapped such an unflattering photo of it, haha) - I thought the tomatoey spicy sauce overpowered the tuna and the salmon too much, whereas most spicy sushi I've had just has a little dot of Sriracha sauce. Still, the portions of fish were generous and I liked the contrast in flavour and texture between the light, buttery tuna and the meatier, more flavourful salmon.


We originally ordered the Yuke maki ($12.95) as it was simply listed as "raw sweet sirloin beef" on the menu, so I envisioned a sushi roll with raw beef inside it (logical, right?). When it arrived, we were a little surprised to find that it's actually a roll with crab meat inside and a small slab of raw beef on top, topped with slivers of raw garlic, chopped scallions and a dollop of masago. The Korean influence is evident in this sushi as the beef is drizzled with a sauce that is reminiscent of Korean barbecue sauce.


The Seaweed Salad maki ($8.95) was the surprising favourite. My friend and I both agreed that it was very refreshing (not to be confused with the Refreshing maki, $7.95), most likely due to the fact that there isn't any rice in it, and the usual slimy, saltiness of seaweed salad was masked by the mixed greens and shreds of daikon. The soybean paper that the sushi was wrapped in was pretty neat too, originally I thought it would be like tofu skin, but seeing its vibrant green colour, I'm guessing these soybeans were not fermented.

Although the meal wasn't mind-blowing, I think I will definitely go try El's again when I'm more in the mood for something fried. Support the little guy, right?

El's Japanese Fusion
17-2008 33 Ave SW
Calgary AB T2T 1Z4
(403) 217-6796

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AKA Winebar & Bistro

Cross-posted from Calgary is Awesome.

When I first heard about AKA Winebar & Bistro from are you gonna eat that?, an awesome Calgary-based food blog, I wanted to go right away. "Brunch with no line up? Sign me up!"

Well it seems like since Andree wrote about AKA Winebar and managed to grab a photo of the space when it's empty, people have heard about the place and when we arrived at around 11 this morning, the place was *packed* and a steady stream of people followed behind us. Still, the line wasn't spilling out the door like it was at Diner Deluxe, which sits kitty-corner to the tiny bistro, and we were lucky enough to be squeezed into a corner table so our wait wasn't that long anyway.

Unlike most brunch places that seem to have a whopping selection of dishes, AKA Winebar just has a handful of them (nice for usually indecisive people like me). The meat selection is heavy on the pork (bacon, pork belly and sausage, though you can choose gravlax if you get the Eggs Benedict with Brioche), which left my non-pork-eating dining companion a little unimpressed. He ended up ordering (and enjoying) a three-egg omelette with asparagus, green onion, and cheese ($11).

I was originally going to get the Eggs Benedict, but then noticed on the menu that they had two eggs any style ($9), and I usually prefer plain poached eggs because I don't really like Hollandaise sauce. This meant I wouldn't get any brioche, but the eggs, sausage, hash browns and toast were more than enough. The poached eggs were cooked just the way I like them - with non-runny, almost solid, orange yolks, and the hash browns (of which there weren't too many) had crispy skins and soft innards, though it was just a touch too salty for my taste. The sausage was good, but unfortunately not mindblowing, and the toast, well... I never finish my toast.

The service was pretty slow this morning, which gave my friend and I plenty of time to chat about such stimulating topics as 2012, whether the restaurant was called "AKA" or "Aka" and to soak up the atmosphere. The dining room seats about 40 and is done up in a sort-of classic theme - lots of antique-style curves and black chandeliers line one side of the space. Large windows on the street-side bring a lot of natural light into the restaurant.

Because of the long wait, when I was at the peak of my hunger I said I wouldn't go back, but I think I might rescind that thought. AKA Winebar is relatively new, so they're still working out their kinks, and it is definitely one of Calgary's classier offerings for brunch. I'd also like to go back to see what they have for supper and maybe sip on a glass of wine.

So what about the strange name? I don't have anything to confirm this theory, but knowing that the people behind Muse and Winebar in Kensington are part-owners of this place, maybe it's just another way of saying "Winebar 2"... like "Also Known As Winebar... this is also Winebar", y'know?

AKA Winebar & Bistro
709 Edmonton Trail NE
Calgary AB T2E 3J5
(403) 984-7534


PS: I took my family out to Vero tonight as a belated birthday present to my mom (Hi, Mom!) so my previous post and Flickr account have been updated with some new photos. Enjoy!

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In Defense of Food

I am a real skeptic when it comes to nutrition information - I rarely trust neutraceuticals or functional foods, I double-check nutrition advice that's not coming from an RD or an MD, and PubMed is one of my best friends.

Michael Pollan is an exception. A journalist by trade, he has found his niche writing about food and agriculture and how it relates to our health and the health of the environment. In fact, as I read some of his work, I feel it's his lack of nutrition training that allows him to see the big picture.

I know this review is *really* late. The internet buzz surrounding In Defense of Food when it first came out to ring in the new year in 2008 has come and gone, and the book's been out in paperback for almost five months! (And I finished it two months ago...) Still, Michael Pollan is relevant. He and Joel Salatin, one of the main "characters" in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, were featured in the summer documentary Food, Inc, a young readers' edition of The Omnivore's Dilemma is coming out next month, and Pollan recently wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times on how food system reform is just as important as health care reform in improving the health of Americans.

But getting back on topic here...

I'll admit that I couldn't help but cringe as I read the first bits of the book; it's a full out diss of nutritional science, or as Pollan refers to it, "nutritionism". On one hand, his arguments make sense - studies are often flawed because of the reductionist nature of their design (i.e. looking at one nutrient as opposed to the food as a whole) and also because most of them are funded by the food industry and their "eat more" messages. Consumers have only become more confused and more obese as the industry pushes out more foods that are engineered to be "better" for us based on the "hottest" nutrient of the time. On the other hand, however, does his demonization of nutritional science as "nutritionism" imply that he thinks my profession shouldn't exist?

At one point, Pollan even appears to praise Gary Taubes (author of Good Fats, Bad Fats) for raising doubts against the "lipid theory" which made me cringe because he has gone in a completely different direction, but then in a footnote Pollan adds, "But the healthy skepticism Taubes brought to the lipid hypothesis is nowhere in evidence when he writes about the (also unproven) carbohydrate hypothesis. [...] Indeed, Taubes is so single-minded in his demonization of the carbohydrate that he overlooks several other possible explanations for the deleterious effects of the Western diet..." *phew!*

The book does get better - I think Pollan's explanation of the limitations of nutritional science is worth reading. I definitely don't see it as a slight toward dietitians and nutritionists; I think as a profession we are all getting sick of media reports sensationalizing singular studies of how combining one antioxidant isolated from a food (with many vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and possibly other compounds we haven't discovered yet) with some diseased cells in a petri dish causes such-and-such, or that by injecting some other food component in some rats causes so-and-so, and the effect that it has on the food choices that people make or the food products that companies produce. Our bodies are different from rats and are more than just a combination of cells, and our diets consist of different foods, in different combinations, not just nutrients.

The best part of the book is towards the end, not because it's ending (!), but because Pollan tries to make eating an easy act again by proposing some simple rules, based on the now well-known phrase that he utters at the beginning of the book: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

• EAT FOOD:
  • Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
    
  • Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup.
    
  • Avoid food products that make health claims.
    
  • Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
    
  • Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.
• MOSTLY PLANTS:
  • Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
    
  • You are what what you eat eats too.
    
  • If you have the space, buy a freezer.
    
  • Eat like an omnivore.
    
  • Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
    
  • Eat wild foods when you can.
    
  • Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
    
  • Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. Or the Greeks.
    
  • Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
    
  • Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.
    
  • Have a glass of wine with dinner.
• NOT TOO MUCH:
  • Pay more, eat less.
    
  • Eat meals.
    
  • Do all your eating at a table.
    
  • Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
    
  • Try not to eat alone.
    
  • Consult your gut.
    
  • Eat slowly.
    
  • Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

All these tips make sense (although it is debatable how realistic some of them are for many people), and none of them involve counting calories, watching carbs, protein, or fat or any other nutrition jargon. Nutritional science is complicating and often doesn't prove anything, but food and eating shouldn't be. We need it to live. Like Omnivore's Dilemma, I highly recommend In Defense of Food to anyone who eats.

PS: I am now on the hunt for some new reading picks, fiction and non-fiction. Although I think Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life is next on my list, I'm interested in hearing what you guys have been reading lately ;)

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Muku

Cross-posted from Calgary is Awesome

Usually when people think of ramen, they think of 99-cent (or less) bricks of tightly coiled, pre-fried noodles served in a broth made with chemically-loaded salt. "Real" ramen is a completely different story - like the better-known Vietnamese pho noodles, the secret is in the broth, and in Japan, each region has its own specialty. In Kyushu, the island in the south, pork bones are boiled down to make tonkotsu ramen, while in Hokkaido, the island to the north, they make a miso-based broth. The noodles are then topped with a variety of vegetables and meats, with the most common being seaweed, scallions, corn and thinly-sliced barbecued pork called chashu, which takes its name from Chinese BBQ pork, char siu (叉燒). Muku, Globefish's sister restaurant occupying the latter's original space on 14th St, aims to bring all these different flavour combinations to Calgarians.

Despite my family's negative opinion of Globefish, my brother likes Muku, and recommended that we all go when we had extended family visiting this weekend. The space is small and the restaurant appears to be used to groups of 2-4, max. Our "large" group of seven appeared to stress the staff out and there were a few order mixups and general slow service as a result.

Like Globefish, Muku tries to make dining there a friendly experience, with a menu filled with illustrations. Even the bottles of shichimi togarashi, the seven-spice blend usually used to top Japanese noodles, were labelled with all of its components.


Unlike Globefish, however, Muku's small kitchen prevents it from stocking many ingredients, so its menu contains a few simple appetizers then numerous permutations of the same few star ingredients - tonkotsu, miso and shoyu broths, ramen noodles, rice, assorted vegetables, assorted seafood, sukiyaki beef, teriyaki chicken and chashu. This leads to a few unorthodox items, like chashu rolls and chashu sandwiches.

My very-Chinese family naturally gravitated toward the combos, which offered a fairly large volume of food for a fairly low price ($8.95-$11.95). However, I personally found the food combinations a little weird - most of the combos consisted of a small or large bowl of ramen, a small salad, kobachi (a small "appetizer" of sliced sukiyaki beef) and a side of either a sandwich, chashu rolls or a bowl of sukiyaki rice (carb-loading much?)


I ordered a bowl of miso ramen ($9.95) à la carte, as it sounded like the most vegetable-y ramen of the bunch, with seaweed and grated carrots in addition to the usual corn niblets, baby corn, green onions and chashu slices. The noodles had a nice, springy al dente texture and I loved loading up on the veggies. Unfortunately, the pork was dry and flavourless and the broth was greasy and far too salty - I knew I was going to be in trouble when the miso broth was described in the menu as miso added to their signature pork and beef broth. I also had a chance to try a piece of the chashu roll and was unimpressed as well - the rice lacked the savoury, almost-fishy flavour of good sushi rice and seemed to be something that was thrown on the menu just to help use up the chashu.

Muku is a great concept for a pho-dominant city like Calgary and I'm sure many will welcome trying something new in the small, intimate space. However, I think they have lots of work to do before I will be going back.

Muku
326 14 St NW
Calgary AB
T2N 1Z7
(403) 283-6555
Open Tues-Sat 11:30-2:30 for lunch and 5-9 for dinner. Open Sundays 11:30-8. Closed Mondays. Best to go in small groups.

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Photoless Review - Vero

(Mostly) Cross-Posted from Calgary is Awesome.

So I haven't updated in three weeks and now I'm going to tell you that I forgot my camera so there will be no photos for this entry? Yeah, I'm sorry. I fail at blogging :( **EDITED 09/20/09 TO ADD PHOTOS FROM A RECENT TRIP**

A friend of mine who reads the blog wanted to join me on one of my "food adventures", so we compared schedules and found a free spot this evening. I had a small list of places that I thought him and I might enjoy, and after a bit of discussion we decided to head to Vero, an "Italian fusion" bistro in Kensington, next to awesomejames's Fiasco Gelato.

We didn't have a reservation and the hostess was ready to turn us away when the waiter noted that there was one table that hadn't shown up and it was half an hour past their reservation already, so he was able to "squeeze us in". (Yay!)

The restaurant is done up in a bold black, white and red colour scheme that give it a clean, almost impersonal modern look that somehow seems to warm up over the course of the night as the space fills with people and conversation. The chairs are also more comfortable than they look - my dining companion sat down, leaned back, and rocked...

Vero is owned by the brother-and-sister duo of Frankie and Jenny Chan, but you wouldn't have if not for the subtle Asian accents - all the candleholders bear the logo of Goods of Desire, a popular home decor store in Hong Kong, and the sauce for our appetizer, mushrooms and escargot with a parsnip purée ($12), reminded me of Chinese black bean sauce with its garlicky savouriness.


We were originally lured to Vero for their "Three Course Sundays" special, where you get three courses for $39. (They also have a three-course lunch special for $15.) When the hostess explained it to us it sounded like more food than we could handle, so we opted to share the aforementioned starter and ordered our own mains. I had the risotto with Nova Scotia scallops ($27) which came with some of my favourite things - there were little bits of butternut squash, which cut through the saltiness of the risotto and the garlicky pesto (!) with its earthy sweetness. The scallops were big, juicy and plentiful and the entire dish was topped with greens (mâche?) and a sprinkling of balsamic vinegar. Still, I felt the dish was lacking a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, though I enjoyed it nonetheless and managed to clean my plate, sopping up the last remnants of sauce with my scallops.

My friend was originally gunning for the ahi tuna, but then he saw that the Stuffed Chicken ($26) was stuffed with Medjool dates (among other things, like mascarpone cheese and mushrooms) and ordered that instead. He was slightly disappointed that the chicken appeared to be more "topped" than "stuffed" and that there were more mushrooms than dates, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway.

We didn't have room for dessert, though we were a little tempted by their chocolate fondue ($25), which is made with Valrhona chocolate, Baileys, Kahlua and Grand Marnier and served with fresh fruit, pound cake and burnt marshmallows for dipping. I was also impressed by their list of herbal teas, which boasted effects such as "lowering blood cholesterol" and "helps with digestion". Our bill did come with four tiny squares of Valrhona dark chocolate dusted with cocoa (two for each of us), served in a little yin-yang shaped dish. The first I tasted was soft and pliable with a hint of fruitiness, while the second was more solid and bitter. It was a wonderful way to cap off the meal, though if I'd had a little more room, I would've headed next door to pay awesomejames a visit :)


Vero
209 10 St NW
Calgary AB T2N 1V5
(403) 283-8988
Lunch: Tues-Fri 11:30-2; Sat-Sun 12:30-3. Dinner: Tues-Thu 5-Close; Fri-Sun 4:30-Close. Closed Mondays. Reservations recommended.

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