Saturday, August 16, 2008

By-Election Blitz

Its hard to eat well when you work on a by-election, away from home.

It’s also hard to keep a blog updated.

At any rate, here is what my first week looked like -

Monday, August 11 2008:

Lunch: I reviewed my visit at the Terrazza Trattorria & Case da Carlo here.

Dinner: I wanted to get an an update on Westmount-Ville Marie, so I went with Jerry to the Bâton Rouge near the Bell Centre, in the old Moe’s Deli building.  We shared a Louisiana Spinach Dip before I digged in a grilled sirloin salad.    The dip was warm and creamy and came with sides of salsa and sour cream.  There was tons of chips, tons of dip, its a good think we shared.  As for the salad, it was made of mixed greens, grilled zucchini and roasted red pepper. The 7 oz sirloin was topped with warm walnuts and very lightly-flavored blue cheese. I asked for the blue cheese dressing to be on the side in order not to ruin the salad.  It was pretty good I thought.

Tuesday, August 12 2008:

Lunch: I engulfed a Baconator at Wendy’s.  Too dry.  It needs some bbq sauce to round it up.
Six strips of bacon, though.  Remarkable.

Dinner: I grabbed a few beers with a lightning strike survivor at L’Île Noire, then we went to Les Trois Brasseurs on St-Denis for some choucroute.  The sauerkraut at Les Trois Brasseurs is not anything special, but it is usually alright, and can feed an army.  I had the Royale, which included a frankfurter, ham and some pork shank.  The ham was ordinary, the frankfurter much better, and the pork shank very tasty - although you have to be careful not to eat all the fat or skin.   Les went for the 3 Brasseurs one, below, which included a frankfurter, grilled ham, a smoked sausage and potatoes.  He could barely finish it, which is rare for him, he said.  They served their own beer too, which had to the whole choucroute experience.

La choucroute Royale

Wednesday, August 13 2008:

Lunch: I went to the Suite 701 for a chat with a columnist.  We shared some crab cakes, which were smallish but lightly and nicely oven-fried.  We then both went for the Lobster Club, which was interesting as it came on a flavourful bread.  The side sald was fresh and crispy.

Dinner: I crossed the Champlain bridge to Verdun to meet a friend at le Garage Café in Verdun.  I had the turbo burger while she enjoyed the semi-automatic. My burger was made of lamb, nicely cooked, with a tasty mix of very nicely melted cheese, ementhal and gruyere.  The french fries were also quite tasty, and there was soooooooooooo much.

Thursday, August 14 2008:

Lunch: I forced the local campaign team to go to La Brasserie Renaud.  More about it here.

Dinner: We went for a few beers at Le St-Ciboire, but the food came from The House of Reggae next door.

Friday, August 15 2008

Lunch: We went back to see Manon at La Brasserie Renaud.  Why not?

Dinner: Had a very late dinner at Fresco before going to see Star Wars.  We actually went there because Dominic and I wanted to grad dinner before the 11:30pm showing of The Clone Wars at the Mega-Plex Lacordaire 16.  We looked around, but there wasn’t much else that was grabbing our attention.  We were surprised by the quality of the offerings, and we both went for the Lobster Linguine, which was served with half a lobster, mussels, shrimps and scallops in a crushed tomato sauce.  Quite tasty, although the lobsters were a tad bit overcooked.  As an appetizers, I picked the smoked salmon, which was very nice and well accompanied, while Dom selected the snails, served gratted with lots of butter and garlic.

Saturday, August 16 2008

Lunch: I grabbed a sandwich at Cavallaro Westmount. The place is a neat little Italian grocery/deli/bakery place, and I got Genoa Salami sandwich with an extra grilled pepper to give it a bit of a zip.  They made it fresh before my eyes, asking what I wanted on it along the way.  I enjoyed it with a can of Brio Chinotto.

Dinner: I went with Anne-Marie to L’Académie as everyone else had gone AWOL that evening. As she filled me in on the action in Westmount, we both decided to go for la table d’hôte of the evening. The vegetable cream they served first wasn’t really inspired, but wasn’t despicable.  I went for the Lamb chops, served with a rosemary sauce and it was pretty good.  The meat wasn’t of the best quality I had ever seen, but it was cooked perfectly and very tasty.  AM went for a steak, which she ordered blue.  Well, it was blue, but it was also cold, which is a sign that they keep the meat in the fridge (freezer?) too long before cooking it, or that the fridge is too cold.  Too bad

Posted by The Waffle at 23:12:21 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, August 11, 2008

Italian lunch in St-Lambert

I have been dispatched on the South Shore of Montreal to give a hand to NDP candidate Richard Marois in St-Lambert, and also NDP candidate Anne Lagacé Dowson in Westmount-Ville Marie.

There is nothing like figthing the Forces of Evil in a by-election. So I’m told anyway.

And of course, you are then forced to eat out, or order in.  At any rate, not much time (or available equipment) for cooking.


Might as well make the most of it. So I forced a few key members of the campaign team to get out of the office for my first day in the area, so I could get a feel for the riding and check out the competitiona little. 

The four of us ended up in a lovely Italian establishment in the heart of Old St-Lambert, La Terrazza Trattoria & Casa da Carlo. 

It was a very nice day, so we decided to eat at the nice terrazza.  Mind you, it is equipped with heaters, so that might not have mattered. It was also very quiet - only another table was occupied, but we thought that it was because it was Monday and a bit early for lunch.  But it basicaly remained very quiet all the way through, which made for great service from out two italian waiters. 

Three of us decided to go for a table d’hôte - and we chose the meat ravioli with black olives and capres. Patrick decided to be disting that day, and opted for the lasagna.

Nice bread rolls were served while we were waiting for our appetizers.  Nicely warm, with a few different variety, they went quickly.  We also enjoyed a fresh Birra Moretti, - which is now apparently owned by Heineken - a light and bubbly italian beer, with a light hoppy taste, with some malt in there too. It also has a very nice aroma and is a very refreshing beer, and usually works well with italian food - especially if you go with spicy tomato-based dishes, not so much with creamed-based ones.

ND and Pierre went for the italian salad, I chose the zuppa.  It was a cream of carrots, which was not bad but not really surprising or creative. 

Our ravioli came: a generous portion of meat stuffed ravioli, topped with a generous arrabiata-type sauce, enhanced with black olives and capres.  Our waiter offered some fresh parmesan and generously sprinkled my dish, a little too much even though I asked him to stop. “That is the way to eat the pasta,” he said.  Fair enough. The ravioli were well cooked, tender and meaty enough to give the dish some depth - which was needed. The saltiness from the olives and capres was not out of control, but borderline.  If the ravioli had been weak in flavour, it would have crossed the line.  Which means that either the chef knows what he is doing, or that he was lucky.  Somehow, I don’t think it was luck.

We ended the meal with a tiramisu, a fairly solid one too.  A nice discovery on the South Shore - and more people should enjoy it at lunch time - I can tell you that much.

.

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Saturday, July 26, 2008

Alexandria Bay’s castle

There is a castle in Alexandria Bay.

Cavallario’s is an Italian Steak and Seafood House located on Church street in A-Bay.  An institution near the waterfront, it caters mostly to tourists in the Summer season.  Cavallario’s facade is made to ressemble a castle and the walls inside are covered with items inspired by the Medieval era.  Especially Medieval is one of Don Cherry’s plaid jacket hanging near the entrance.

Having experienced one of the best Bloody Caesar at the Thousand Islands Country Club (extra horseradish, a bit pricy at 7.00$), most of us decided to see if it was an A-Bay area specialty.  Although decent, it was not quite as tasty as it was at the golf club, but it was also half the price.  (Talking of gold, our round today was postponed and then definitely cancelled after 12 holes for cause of thunderstorm accompanied by lightning that fell too close for comfort.)
Cavallario’s menu is quite diversified, which makes it tricky to figure out what is actually worth paying for and what is there just to make sure everybody finds something to order.
I didn’t feel really hungry, so I decided to go for a lighter fare tonight.  Especially since they kept bringing more of their delicious bread, a softy warm loaf covered with garlic butter.
I started with their BBQ Shrimp, stuffed with horseradish and wrapped in bacon, and served with a tangy bbq sauce with a very good kick.  Unfortunately, only four shrimp were on my plate, fairly big ones but still, you expect a couple more for 8.00$. James also went for shrimp as an appetizer, choosing the Shrimp Cocktail Supreme.  Again, four shrimp only, so I guess the supreme would be the price.  Brian decided to go for the Fried Calamari, a good pick once again this year as they were lightly battered and perfectly fried, and there was more then four - (no worries, I didn’t actually count them).  A few others ordered the French Onion Soup, and I heard no complaints about the very cheesy plate they were served.
A cup of a cream of potato was included with my entree.  It was actually quite well done, not heavy at all, which is rare for a cream of potato.  There was no chunks of potatoes however, but instead nice and crunchy green beans, which gave some depth to the soup.
Where is life without love or a dinner without wine?
That is the question Cavallario’s is asking on top of their wine list.  I suppose they are right, so we ordered a couple of bottles of the Cabernet Sauvignon 7 Oaks from J. Lohr’s winery in California, a well balanced wine, with dark cherry flavour and underlying black currant.
As I said, I wasn’t really hungry, so I ordered the baked manicotti.  Manicotti is a preshaped tubullar pasta, stuffed and baked most often with a blend of cheese.  The Manicotti I got where no longer tubular - they looked like crepes.  That is because the blend of cheese inside (ricotta and parmesan) was too soft for the heavy mozzarella they topped it on.  Unfortunate.  The pasta was served with a nice and rich marinara sauce,  and the blend of herbs and cheese inside the manicotti was very good.  The mozzarella however was a bit chewy, and could have been cut with something lighter.
In a previous trip, I had the Diablo Chicken, a spicy breast served on penne pasta and topped with hot peppers.  It was quite good last year, but Mike told me that it wasn’t as spicy this year, although still good.
Norm had the Roast Rack of Lamb.  The chops were juicy and well marinated with herbs.  And with eight bones, they were a good deal at 26.00$.  They came with an industrial mint jelly, uninspiring and unworthy of the meat.
As for Kenny, I could have sworn he had actually ordered half a cow when his King Cut of Roast Prime Rib arrived. Although it was pegged at somewhere around 16 oz by our very professional server - who sounded like Reese Witherspoon at times - there is no way that beast could have been less then 20 oz.  Cavallario’s is roasting their beef piece every day, and consumers are warned that it is available only until it last as it is the house specialty.  The meat was very tender and juicy, despite the thickness of the cut.  The horseradish that came with it was unfortunately too mild and almost watery.
Everybody was full at the end of this copious meal, and once again Cavallario’s is showing why it’s been around for so long. Attentive and fast service (except perhaps when ordering bar items - which we of course barely did…) made this a very enjoyable meal.
We all skipped dessert.
.
Posted by The Waffle at 22:46:20 | Permalink | Comments (1) »