Omnivores Ottawa Supper Club: Big Easy

Mike and Ron picked well again!

Big Easy's Seafood and Steakhouse, located on Preston Street, was the location for the 8th Omnivore's Ottawa Supper Club, where 45 or so of us gathered for good food.

Restauranteur Val Belcher greeted us with a glass of sparkling wine upon arrival (and I actually drank mine, though it took me the entire night to do so), while Chef Barrin Bruck and his crew put together a 5 course meal for us.


Warm bread was brought to our table with two butter choices: a "regular" whipped butter and a caramalized butter, which as divine. We had two of these at our table of four and could have used two more.


Appetizer Course: Madeira escargot on shitake mushroom with steamed leek, salmon flank frite with dill aioli and blood orange tuna ceviche.

The description of this course is what lost my husband's interest in joining me for this meal. Don't worry, I didn't eat alone. I went with a few friends, foodies themselves and we savored every course.


Salad Course: Jumbo blue crab, frisee, roasted corn, poached quail egg, sweet onion dressing, curry apple oil, sundried tomato confit and garlic oil.

You may have noticed over the last few years of my blog that I like to talk. I'm not shy with my opinions either.

When this course was over, we were asked by a friend at another table how we enjoyed it, and my boss, who was sitting beside me said, "It was so good that Jenny said nothing during that entire course!"

I had crab, I was happy.


Third Course, Duck and Shrimp: Duck-prosciutto-wrapped barbeque shrimp, White Stone Asiago creamed grits, with red-eye gravy.

Did you know you could replace the flour in red-eye gravy with ground kidney beans? I know I didn't. I didn't taste them, fortunately, but they matched well with the duck fat and the coffee to make a gravy that balanced the richness of those creamy grits.

This course was served with a Chardonnay, paired to match the smokiness of the prosciutto. It smelled very nice and didn't taste bad either. (You all know how much I love my wine, hehe.)


Happy Birthday to BC, who joined me for dinner! She waited until after dinner to tell me it was her birthday the next day.

Probably a good thing - maybe they would have made her stand on a chair while we all sang to her.

Or not.


Fourth Course: Where's the Beef? Chili pomegranate glazed tenderloin, gorgonzola pecan-stuffed croquette, smoked asparagus and caramalized chipolini onions and lattice cut potato chips. Served with a red wine (I have no idea what it was, I forgot to write it down, and I did not drink mine.)

Remember at last months dinner when I said the beef course was one of the reasons I will never be a vegetarian? Just take a look at confirmation of that belief. Melt in your mouth, rare tenderloin, paired with a croquette that was wonderfully crispy on the outside, but smooth and mellow on the inside. The onions were soft and beautiful, and when they said smoked asparagus, they meant SMOKED asparagus. So good, soooo good.


Final Course, Dessert: Sweet potato Canadian Maple Cheesecake with pecan-graham crust, Bailey's whipped cream, pepper tuile and spiced apple bourbon sauce.

Cheesecake that was so light it was mousse-like. The Bailey's in the whipped cream was so generous that we speculated how they managed to whip the cream. All of it amazingly good. We'd have licked our plates if it wasn't so rude.

This entire meal came to $85, including the sparkling wine, two additional glasses of wine, taxes and gratuity.

Many thanks to the staff, kitchen and dinning room alike, for a lovely evening. And thanks to Ron and Mike for organizing and setting up another winner.

Omnivores Ottawa Supper Club: Allium

When Ron and Mike announced the location, and menu, for the February Supper Club, I was interested. I admit it. I'd never heard of Allium, but the menu, oh the menu, it intrigued me.

The price was higher than my budget was comfortable with, but I was able to find a way, so reserved a seat for myself and a co-worker to go together.

Then I met up with Don and Jenn from foodiePrints, who gave me a glowing recommendation of Allium, and I was even more excited to be going.

Nor was I disappointed at all.


I chose not to go with the optional wine pairing (I know, everyone is shocked by this,) but those around me who did have it were quite pleased with the selections chosen by Owner/Chef Arup Jana, Sous-Chef Luke Baxter. The staff were both attentive and unobtrusive, and knowledgeable when we had questions.


First course: Seared sea scallop, crispy Prosciutto tuille, Tuna tartar with shiso (and truffle oil), and Lobster Roll.

Every sandwich I eat from now on should have crispy prosciutto in it. And I could eat the tuna and lobster every day. For breakfast.

Oh the scallop was good too, but the tuna was divine....


Second course: Maple cured roasted duck breast, on top of a cauliflower and goat cheese puree (and hiding some lovely sauted mushrooms,) melt in your mouth pork belly, puff pastry wrapped duck leg, braised and shredded, and Foie mousse, on a scallion pancake, with truffle oil.

No one had issues with the Foie mousse at our table, but if they had, there were plenty of us who would have stepped up to take that problem away from them.



Third course: Herb salad with lemon dressing, honey, walnuts, tender micro-greens and a salty Allegreto cheese.

This worked best if you could get a bit of greens, cheese and walnut in the same bite.


Fourth Course: Flat iron sliced beef, braised shank (with a bright green and vibrant chimi sauce,) Angus tenderloin cube on top of tomato, and individual Tourtiere with a tomato ketchup/relish, served with a potato gratin.

A meat eaters dream, this course. I am not a vegetarian and will never be one, not if this is the kind of beef I can expect to eat in my life.

Oh and this Tourtiere has replaced all my memories of all the not so good pies I'd had growing up.


Final Course, dessert: Raspberry sorbet with blood orange slices, chocolate brownie on top of chocolate ganache, topped with vanilla ice cream, candied pecans, a drizzle of caramel and shaved chocolate.

I dislike pecans, unless they are candied and come with this brownie, the ganache, the ice cream....

And the raspberry sorbet was probably the best I have ever had, a bright fruit flavor, not artificial, not overwhelming.

Despite being very full, I ate every bite on this plate and would have done it again if another had been presented to me. You'd have had to roll me out afterwards, but it would have been worth it.

Saunders Farm: The best fries I'll never eat

If you live in Ottawa, you know what Saunders Farm is. For some it is a yearly tradition: go to the Farm, get your pants scared off you! (Or take the little ones during the day time for some Harvest fun and only a little spookiness, no pant scaring.)

If you don't live in Ottawa, but read this blog regularly, you know I've been working at Saunders Farm during the month of October, when the farm is open for Haunting Season.

You'd think with a name like Haunting Season, I'd be scaring people, right? Well, I'm not, I'm feeding them!


If you come out to the farm, follow the path under the arbor to the mazes and stop when you see this sign. The Farmer's Table is where you will find me, helping to make wonderful food from fresh and local ingredients. Gourmet burgers made with local, grain fed, hormone free, organic beef. Candy apples hand made with apples picked from a local orchard (the same one I took my children to for our own apple picking.) And more....


Meet Angela Grant Saunders, Director of Beauty, Teambuilding, and more importantly, Catering! Angela's love of good, local and fresh food, is highly contagious. Her enthusiasm shows when she talks about food, when she helps prepare food, when she enjoys her food. The Farmer's Table is Angela's baby, and her pride shows.

If you work at Saunders Farm and are part of one of the food booths, you are part of Team Angela! Go Team Angela!


Nestled in the trees, this is where you will find those fries I said I wasn't going to eat. I'm not going to, I don't eat fries, but I do make them, and I've had it from many, many, many tasters and eaters, that I make great fries.

Alright. I admit it. I ate one. One french fry. The only french fry I've eaten in 5 years! And yes, it was great!

Its hard not to make great fries when you start out with fresh potatoes, hand scrubbed and cut daily.

No freezing for these potatoes, from the cutter to the deep fryer.


First a slow and low fry, just to cook the potatoes gently (or as gently as you can be cooked in hot oil.) We don't want crispy fries yet, just softer potatoes. That takes time, have patience!


After a slow cook, then a rest, it is back into the hot oil for the fries. Really hot oil, not the same low temperature, where the fries will get crispy on the outside, but stay soft and tender on the inside. Golden brown in color, these are not the fries you will get at a fast food restaurant or will pull from a bag and put in you oven.


These freshly made fries come in two sizes, regular and family size, and they go fast! The smell of freshly cooked fries floats through the air around the Farmer's Table, making it hard to resist ordering a few for your family. Or a family size for yourself.

If you are interested in trying these fries, you better hurry, as the farm is only open until October 31st! Wait any longer and you'll have to wait a full year for the next Haunting Season.

And while you are there, don't forget to say hi to me. I'll be at the deep fryers, making mountains of fries that I am not going to eat.

Omnivores Ottawa Supper Club: The Urban Pear

If you are part of the food world in the city of Ottawa, you likely know who Ron Eade is (and if you aren't, he is the Food Editor at the Ottawa Citizen and a fellow blogger, you can find his blog here.) He also plays host, along with Mike McCracken, to the Omnivore's Ottawa Supper Club, where food lovers can join them for an evening of good food at a local restaurant.

This month's featured restaurant was The Urban Pear, a cozy restaurant found in the Glebe. Forty foodies, including myself and fellow blogger Mary of Beans and Caviar, enjoyed a 4 course meal for the reasonable cost of $70, $93 if you wanted the wine pairings for the evening.


When the announcement for this edition of the Supper Club went up, I didn't ask my husband if he wanted to go - I asked Mary instead! Full of life and great fun to dine out with, I couldn't ask for a better "date".


First on the menu was the soup, a spiced cauliflower soup with a confit lamb tongue filo, green onion pesto and a preserved lemon and golden morel mushroom compote.

This soup was divine, creamy and thick. While I didn't find the green onion pesto added much to the flavor, the preserved lemon and golden morel mushroom compote was wonderful, bright and with a slight crunch. The confit lamb tongue filo was good, but did not seem to bring anything to the soup other than garnish. Floating in the soup, the filo was also a bit soggy, rather than having that nice, messy pastry texture that I so enjoy in filo.


Our second course was a pan seared Albacore tuna loin and steamed manila clams with a kohlrabi puree, grilled okra, and a red pepper broth mounted with a house smoked smelt sour cream.

Try saying that five times fast!

The tuna was perfectly cooked, tender and melting. The clams hit that right point, not over cooked and chewy, but not underdone either. I'd never tried okra before but was happy to finish off my pieces, crunchy and not at all slimy as I'd expected they would be. The kohlrabi puree and red pepper broth were both full of flavor and everything in this dish matched well together.


Next was our main course, a beef tenderloin with a panzanella salad of 5th Town fedda cheese, organic tomatoes and balsamic marinated bread with grilled king eryngii mushrooms and a black olive tapenade with basil pesto highlights.

I love beef tenderloin, but only if it is done right, medium rare, pink throughout. This tenderloin melted into my mouth, soft and perfect. I needed my steak knife more for the panzanella, which was hearty and full of flavor. The organic tomatoes were sweet and juice, a lovely paring with the beef.

I didn't see any type of mushroom on my plate, let alone a king eryngii mushroom, which was a bit of a disappointment as I love mushrooms.


Our final course of the evening was our dessert, a roasted Niagara Peach with spruce and balsamic bacon cracker, blueberry infused white chocolate mousse (though funnily spelt mouse on the menu), crumbled oats and basil syrup.

I love bacon but did not understand the bacon for this dish. Nor did I "get" the basil syrup. I enjoyed my "mouse", bites of which I always tried to have with a piece of peach and some crumbled oats. Those flavors worked well together, a bit of a crunch along with the freshness of the peach and the softness of the mousse.

Our little corner agreed, however, that the dessert was not the highlight of the evening we expected it would be. After so wonderful a meal, dessert should wow you, and while we all enjoyed it, this one left us all feeling something was missing.

Chef/owner Ben Baird, and sous-chef Mark Currier, along with all the staff, did a wonderful job hosting us. The service was friendly and fabulous, the setting was lovely, and the food was very good. I'd go back for more beef tenderloin and for more of that fabulous soup.

Thanks to Ron and Mike for hosting (and I hope you get better very soon Mike!) a great evening out!

Atelier

I'm not a professional when it comes to food. I haven't gone to culinary school, or pastry school. Food is not my job, though I wouldn't object to it being my job.

Food is my hobby. I like to make it, I like to eat it, I like to take pictures of it, I like to talk about it.... You get the point, I'm sure.

Based on this, it was completely appropriate that for my recent birthday, my husband took me out to dinner to Atelier, a restaurant I had been wanting to try for quite some time. I'd met Chef Marc Lepine before, had tried his food, and had been eagerly looking forward to having the opportunity to try his restaurant for myself.

And I had high expectations going into Atelier. Perhaps not fair of me, but I did.

And I was not disappointed.


Atelier is a small restaurant, seating 20 people, with a minimum 12 course tasting menu. All items served are prepared using molecular gastronomy, so your meal is not just food, it is a dinning experience. Be prepared to be there for awhile, as it takes time to enjoy those courses. (And it will take time for me to go through them all, so sit back and relax, you will be here awhile!)

We went with good friends and were immediately seated upon entry. We were offered a choice of still water or made on the premises sparkling water while the sommelier brought us a wine list. Now, none of us are wine drinkers at all, so while we declined any wine, I was fascinated by how they provided the list: on one column there were the wines available, should you decided you wanted to go "blind" and choose your own wines. In the other column was a wine tasting, chosen to match the menu for that evening. If I were a lover of wines, I would have been pleased with the $55 price for the wine tasting suggested that evening.

Before the first course was served, we were presented with some freshly made bread, made on the premises. From my previous experience with Chef Marc, I knew that the restaurant enjoyed making breads flavored on potato chips, so I was not suprised when our bread was BBQ flavored, with powdered butter. I don't like BBQ chips but I enjoyed the flavors of the bread, especially the salty crunch on top.

Here are the courses served to us that night. (My apologies for anything I got wrong in my descriptions.)

Pretzel Pop

A dijon mustard cream sauce, with diluted honey, created using an anti-griddle, coated in crushed pretzels.

46 Degree Salmon

Wild pacific salmon, cooked sous-vide to a temperature of 46 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Served with a zucchini and shallot salsa, orange pepper gel (the straight line), a red pepper and curry puree (the circle), with lemon balm.

Lovely.

The Scallop

Pan seared scallop (using a magnetic induction cooktop), with a Star Anise and citrus vinnigrette, jeruselem artichoke puree and a warm bacon and asparagus salad.

Tuna Breakfast

Albacore tuna with a sliced, black truffle, sauted coffee mushrooms on a truffle oil pancake, a lemon verbina mayonnaise, egg yolk ribbon and a dehydrated leek.


This custom made spoon was provided for the next course, a soup course. The handle contains a test tube, stoppered by a cork, inside of which was toasted, crushed pistachios.

Souped up Cheese Plate

A pear, honey and goat cheese soup, with frozen grapes, and grape slices on goat cheese shards, with pink peppercorns, served cold, with an optional sprinkling of the toasted pistachios.

Tomatotrix Reloaded

Fresh Ontario tomato base (the first time served on the menu), with, starting from the right side, rainbow chard leaf, a soft Quebec Sauvagean (I'm sure that is spelt wrong, sorry) cheese, lambs quarter leaf, radish blossom and radish, eggplant paper on fennel cream, with Nasturshium leaf (again, spelling probably bad) and a powdered balsamic vinagrette.

This was my husbands favorite dish.

Fire and Ice

The custom spoon clip held a shard of cinnamon, lit up to provide the scent of cinnamon while you ate a strawberry-rhubarb foam, frozen with liquid nitrogen, on a maple syrup brittle and a cinnamon custard. Best eaten by placing the entire spoon in your mouth at once.

Caramel Apple Boar

Wild boar belly, cooked sous vide for 9 hours to 82 degrees, with a cubed purple potato, sauted snow pea, green apple relish with lime and jalapeno, a golden appricot gel and a caramel sauce.

Duck Choco-latte

Sous vide duck breast (1 hour to 58 degrees), triangular potato cooked in duck fat, with creamed cauliflower, beet puree, unopened Day Lily blossom, some date leather, and expresso foam and a sprinkling of cocoa nibs.

Yes, Deer

Venison, cooked sous vide to 54 degrees for 20 minutes, with corn juice gel, a corn powder (in the center), popcorn, Tank house ale gel (the darker gel), shisho leaves, cap mushrooms, a molasses powder (the darker powder to the right of the plate), caramalized onion paper and freeze dried peas.

Beer and Nachos

On the left: Nacho cheesecake with a tortilla shortbread crust, aged cheddar cheese on top, served with a salsa meringue.

On the right: Jalapeno and sour cream ice cream, Bo's beer foam, crushed tortilla chips, avacado puree, dehydrated black olives.

Optionally, a jalapeno powder was included at the corner of the plate for those who like their nachos a bit spicier.

Cherry Bomb

Starting left: dark cherry gel, cherry sorbet with crushed pistachios, Dr. Pepper foam and Dr. Pepper meringue (the little white "blobs" along the plate), chocolate brownies, pistachio brittle (green crunchie item along the plate), cherry leather, aerated cherry foam, crumbled chocolate strussel, dehydrated cherry foam puree, and a cherry bomb truffle with liquid cherry center.

Phew, say that 3 times fast!

I will add in right here that I would happily be Pastry Chef Michael Holland's personal slave for awhile to learn how to make his brownies. I make some good brownies but those were simply divine.

Birthday treat, Atelier style

Vanilla cupcake with vanilla butter cream, dropped into a sliver bucket containing liquid nitrogen, stirred, removed, then crushed. Served in a specially prepared bowl that said 'Happy Birthday' on it.

The Elvis Truffle

Peanut butter ganache, banana, covered in white chocolate, with bacon bits.

Are you still hungry? We weren't.

I can't say what my favorite course was, though I can say which was my least favorite (sorry Elvis, I don't like peanut butter at all, but I did eat it.) There were some item that I didn't completely understand or enjoy on their own (like the beer gel in Yes, Deer) but taken together with other items on the plate, they were wonderful. Even the peanut butter seriously benefited from the banana and bacon.

The service was exquisite and seamless. The staff wonderful, answering any and all questions. Had I not brought a note book and pen, they would have been happy to supply it.

The meal ended with a signed copy of the menu and a tour of the kitchen area (which is tiny).

A wonderful way to spend my belated birthday. I would highly recommend spending an evening with Chef Marc and his staff.

Reservations can be made by phone but can also be made through the website, www.atelierrestaurant.ca