Wooah!

Holy moly! its already been roughly 4 months since I last posted something?! Crazy! ! ! Life's just been too busy and when I do have a quiet moment I'm usually too tired to think of anything to blog about. Seriously tho I've just been soaking up the summer and barbequing as much as possible. Haven't really done anything crazy yet, but I do plan on going wild for my end of summer bbq bash. Most likely going to try and marinade some meats for a few days, attempt to smoke something on my grill and who knows what else I'd wanna do.

Since I haven't really updated anything in a form of a blog, I'm gonna make a few short or one long post with pictures of the food/places I've eaten at during these past 4 months.

So look forward to that!

Santanu's wedding food and Pho

Just a quick post containing pictures from Santanu's wedding and when I went to have Pho with some other fellow classmates from Cordon Bleu

Not too much to say about these stuff, the food at Santanu's wedding was really good, but then I don't eat much Indian cuisine so i don't have much say.

The Pho I've had better, especially the broth but it was the first time i've seen fried shrimp and sauteed meat in a Pho.

Food from Santanu's Wedding



Pho



Bean Sprouts and Thai basil

Dining at Murray Street

This isn’t my first time to Murray Street nor will it be my last, my enjoyment for the food started the first time I went. I was introduced to Murray Street by a good friend and great Chef, Chef Oliver Bartsch. After that first experience going with Chef Bartsch I instantly grew fond of the charcuterie that they offered. After that I found almost any excuse to go and have another meal there, on two separate occasions when friends from Toronto came to visit I persuaded them to go.(which they ended up greatly enjoying themselves) Recently I went to Murray Street for lunch with a few fellow cooks and for dinner with schoolmates from Cordon Bleu.

Pretty much every time I think about Murray Street all I really think about is duck, well duck and their charcuterie. So for lunch when I went with some fellow cooks, I of course ordered the duck confit sandwich. The others cooks that were with me had pulled pork, mac and cheese and the last one also had the duck. The duck club (as its listed in the menu) which came with a butternut squash soup was pretty delicious, the cranberry jam that was in it added to the deliciousness.

For dinner I went with a two Cordon Bleu classmates, we went because one of them was moving to Switzerland. We started off the night by ordering a Charcuterie board, on the board we decided to have the smoked duck breast, country terrine, Fish terrine (I honestly don’t remember what it’s called and can’t find it on the website), grey owl and tomme de haut richelieu. I remember the server asking if we wanted to pick another type of cheese since we picked two goat cheeses, but the girl leaving wanted goat so she got goat. In all out honestly I wish I could just get an order of the entire charcuterie menu on one board and munch it down with some good friends. For mains I of course without a doubt ordered the duck duck duck, the other two had a flank steak and braised rabbit. What I find interesting about Murray Street is that on the menu, other than the duck and vegetarian dishes, everything is a description of their distributor. These menu items tend to change quite often (not sure when they usually make a change), which means you could go in for flank steak today and in a week or two be fed a strip loin. My duck dish was pretty much everything I hoped for and more, I already have a love for duck and on the plate they served me not only duck confit but sliced duck breast and duck sausage. I did have a small taste of the other two’s dishes but I was too engulfed in mine to really put much attention to theirs. From what they told me they’re food was very delicious as well.

Murray Street Website

Please forgive the quality of the pictures, its the best I have without my actual camera. These were all taken with my phone.

Duck Club


Charcuterie Board



Duck Duck Duck


Beef Flank


Braised Rabbit

Pizza time @ Tennessy Willems

Haha! As I said I was going to be making more blog posts, who knew it would literally be the day after I made that post. For today’s adventure I met up with my good friends Jesse and Felix to head off to a new pizza joint in town, the joint is called Tennessy Willems: The Wood Oven Pizza Joint. This is actually going to be the first time in a few months since I’ve had pizza of any sort; the tastes of New Haven still linger in my mouth. Jesse had also prompted me a bit about this place; he told me that the chef used to work in Toronto at Librettos (a place I will have to go to when I visit Toronto in Feb.). As we walked towards the pizza joint I was getting quite excited to be having pizza done the same style as Pasqualino Oliveri our old Chef at The Grand did. That wasn’t the only thing that I was quite excited about; I was excited about the fact that they also offered duck confit pizza (I love love love love love duck, especially duck confit!). Walking into the restaurant the first feel I got was that it’s pretty cozy looking, the very first thing you see is the pizza oven, and it has a seating capacity of 27. We take a seat and right away we got our server with our water and menus, she gives us a few minutes and we make our orders, I ordered the Duck Confit Pizza, Jesse and Felix ordered the Margherita Pizza. Right after having our orders taken down it took roughly 10 minutes for the pizzas to arrive. Right away the first thing we did was check the crust, lifted it to check if it was going to hold its shape and we also looked at the bottom of the crust to see how the color was. The pizza lived up to its name and the crust was great, it had a nice crunch, held its shape and was slightly burned a bit, it’s a wood oven pizza of course there will be some parts with a bit of burnt. My pizza the Duck Confit Pizza was pretty good, the onions gave it a nice sweet taste, the truffle oil helped give it a more of a distinct flavor, I couldn’t really taste the cheese all that much. Over all I would order the pizza again except for the fact that it was a bit dry, since there wasn’t really any sauce other than the oil. I understand from past experience that tomato sauce does not go well with duck confit on a pizza, I’ve yet to figure out what kind of sauce would fit a duck confit pizza although maybe adding a bit more cheese would have helped give it a bit more moisture. Judging by Jesse and Felix’s reactions to their pizza I’d say they were satisfied by it. I’m willing to come back and try it again hopefully with the friend we forgot to bring along, Pat! For sure we’ll remember to call you next time we go for the zaaaa. Overall I’d say the layout is quite cozy, the menu is clean crisp simple, the pizza is great and the service is awesome. For anyone out in Ottawa looking for satisfying pizza I would suggest you go down to Tennessy Willems and have yourself a pizza!


Tennessy Willems website



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What Tennessy Willems has to offer, this is taken directly from their menu

I posted this incase anyone can't read the picture of the menu clearly

APPETIZERS

CHEESE BOARD
3 local cheeses, house-made cranberry-pear chutney, spiced almonds and homemade flatbread ... $10

MACKEREL PLATE
Whalesbone Smoked Mackerel, apple beet slaw, lemon Crème Fraiche with homemade fresh toasted bread ... $10

CHARCUTERIE
House-made Terrine, local derived sausage and cured meat garnished with pickles and mustard ... $10

BC SPOT PRAWNS
Sustainably farmed BC prawns in brown butter with lemon, capers, parsley and shallots ... $10

SALADS

HOUSE SALAD
Arugula served with wood oven roasted mushrooms and fresh parmesan in a Maple and Sherry vinaigrette ... $9

WARM BEET SALAD
Local C'est Bon goat cheese, apple vinaigrette, pickles fennel and tarragon ... $10

CAESAR
Romain lettuce, double-smoked bacon, fresh Parmesan and wood oven toasted croutons in a lemon, Dijon and garlic dressing ... $9

WOOD OVEN PIZZA

MARGHERITA
Fire-roasted tomato sauce, fresh Mozzarella and basil ... $10

THE ELMDALE
Fire-roasted tomato sauce, spicy Italian salami, mushrooms, roasted red peppers and fresh Mozzarella ... $14

HELEN's
Baby spinach, fresh Parmesan, C'est Bon goat cheese, and oven roasted pine-nuts, squeezed with fresh lemon ... $14

GREEK PIZZA
Basil pesto, oven roasted red peppers, Calamata olives and feta ... $16

WILD BOAR
Local wild Boar sausage, carmelized apple, sage, garlic and sharp Cheddar ... $18

DUCK CONFIT
Carmelized onion, white Truffle oil, Riopelle and duck confit ... $18

SOPRESSATA
Fire-roasted tomato sauce, fresh Mozzarella, red onion and Sopressata salami ... $15

FOUR SEASONS
Fire-roasted tomato sauce, fresh Mozzarella, Cremini mushrooms, artichokes, Calamata olives and Capicola ham ... $15

THE CHORIZO
Olive oil, carmelized onion, Chorizo sausage and local C'est Bon goat cheese ... $16

BIANCO
Pear, walnuts, smoked prosciutto, fresh Mozzarella and Gorgonzola ... $16

MAINS

Pan seared FLAT IRON STEAK with roasted fingerling potato wedges and chili dipping sauce ... $18

Roasted, line-caught HALIBUT FILET on a bed of navy beans, grape tomatoes, Oyster mushrooms, and double-smoked bacon with a lemon butter sauce ... $18

House-made LASAGNE with arugula béchamel, C'est Bon goat cheese, fire-roasted tomato sauce, and fresh Parmesan ... $15

SPAGHETTI with organic beef meatballs ... $15

DESSERTS

CRÉME CARAMEL ... $7

LEMON TORTE ... $7

CHOCOLATE MARQUIS Mmmmm... $7

The menu, read above if you can't read whats on the menu from the picture clearly


Tennessy Willems building!


Margherita Pizza


Duck Confit Pizza

To those that still check out my blog

Hey what’s up everyone, been a while since I did a post about anything and decided that I should make a post. In my current situation I haven't had the chance to be going on any food adventures, so I have decided that I shall be blogging about the different types of food I have eaten around the city and the food I've been experimenting on at home or at work. With that being said be on the lookout for many new posts as I continue my culinary adventure.


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For Christmas I was invited by my housemate's family to have dinner at their place, I was also asked to bring along some food. At first i wasn't too sure what I was going to cook, this being the first Christmas dinner I ever had to make any food for. I went through some books, looked at websites and talked to my chef at work about it. Somehow through all the ideas I was looking up and being suggested of, I decided to go with a mini quiche. I originally found the recipe on All Recipes and then taken it and modified it to what I wanted. Essentially the recipe was the same except I used more eggs, less baking mix and green onions instead of parsley. The recipe turned out to be pretty good, but the end result turned out to be a bit dry and needed some ketchup to accompany it. I think where it went wrong was that there wasn’t enough moisture, so I decided that the next time I make these mini quiches I’m going to cut down on the baking mix which hopefully will fix the slight dryness. Cooking these mini quiches was pretty straight forward, sautee the bacon along with the onions + green onions, cool down and then mix in with the eggs + baking mixture.

When we went over to Andrew’s parents house (Andrew is my housemate) there was already a ton of food already made, his mom really went to town in making a wonderful meal. I was a bit scared that the mini quiches wouldn’t be much of a hit and that no one would even touch them since I don’t think they looked a bit like pucks. Near the end of the meal his relatives came up to me telling me they were delicious and just hearing them tell me they enjoyed it made my night. (Well that and my housemate eating a couple of them and telling me to make it again) On a side note, there was a crazy amount of food at the Souter’s and man oh man did I leave with a nice full stomach. His mom even made me my favorite thing to eat at the Souter’s which was deep fried cauliflower Mmmmmmmmmm I can taste it now just talking about it.

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I’d also like to make a quick shout out to two of my friends who also have food blogs, Justin and Jesse. Justin’s blog started roughly the same time as me, I met him while I was doing the work study program at Le Cordon Bleu and he was starting up his program Le Grand Diplome Professional. Which is like the Grand Diplome Certificate, but you also have time to go on a stage and they also include a few other classes that the Grand Diplome does not include. Justin’s a great guy to talk to and usually when we do talk it is at some crazy hour in the morning mainly having discussions about food. Check out his blog @ Le cahier de Justin

My other friend that I’d like to make a shout out to is Jesse; I met him while I worked at The Grand Pizzeria and bar. I mainly worked in the kitchen while he was the head pizza maker out at the pizza oven; he’s also the one that trained me how to open dough and to work the oven. The second him and I started talking about food we became great friends, at first it was just what kind of crazy pizzas we could create but after a while we started talking about any food. He’s pretty much my travel buddy when it comes down to my adventures, him and his brother Josh accompanied me on that Pizza voyage we went on. I’m sure there will be many more adventures to come; I especially can’t wait for the East coast barbeque road trip we’re going to take through America. Check out his blog @ http://jessedevouge.blogspot.com/. His blog is fairly new but be sure to keep an eye out for what his latest food obsession is.



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Below is the recipe for the mini quiches

Ingredients
• 6 slices bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 eggs
• 70 g buttermilk baking mix (or just normal baking mix, an example would be bisquick)
• 2-3 bulbs of green onion
• 110 g shredded Gruyere or Swiss Cheese

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 2 mini muffin pans.(or use a regular sized muffin pan, which fits about 12).
2. In a skillet over medium heat, fry bacon, onion and green onion together for about 5 minutes, or until bacon is crisp. Drain and set aside.
3. In a bowl, beat the eggs. Stir in the baking mix, shredded cheese, bacon and onion/green onion (make sure to cool down the bacon mix before mixing in with the eggs else you will cook the eggs with the heat from the bacon). Spoon into greased muffin cups. (make sure to give it a good spray, I had some slight problems trying to remove them from the pan)
4. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops are lightly browned. Allow mini quiches to cool in the pan before carefully removing with a small knife or spatula.


Recipe from All Recipes with modifications from me



The Mini Quiches


Andrew's Chocolate cheesecake


First plate of food for Christmas Dinner