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wattacetti

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Everything posted by wattacetti

  1. This stuff sounds interesting; Miyamoto would be a (very) long shot but I'm going to try some of the Latin grocery stores. Don't suppose you have a brand name to help the search?
  2. Unfortunately, Customs Canada isn't that thick; they actually do have some oenophiles on staff (and others with training). The customs officials do have some leeway on how they're going to apply tax and excise, and they've been more lenient when you're up front with all of your bills ready for inspection. If you're overly creative, they also have the option of seizing the goods.
  3. I am hoping that they halt the strike rather than permit the CSN leadership to have it continue to make whatever point might be left making. I'm not sure what point there is now, since a sales decrease of only 8% combined with news about the LCBO only hardens management. Besides, $200 and now $150/week strike pay is very poor consolation for 9+ weeks of lost wages.
  4. Del Verde and Barilla would be the two you'd find in my pantry. The people around me prefer Lancia and Catelli, with one particular mug saying "whatever's on sale".
  5. Interesting! I've had that as "sawara" but it's always been a tataki-style presentation. Can't see it as a traditional ceviche per se, but perhaps escabeche?
  6. Ontario is not exactly the prime location to easily find wild salmon (then again, neither is Montreal) and it's too bad that you don't have more time as gravlax would have been an option. However, does it have to be a whole fish? I would think that filet pieces (not steaks) would be easier to handle. You could cook pieces of salmon filet à l'unilatèrale: brush the skin side with a little oil and dust it with something (e.g. cayenne or coffee or nanami togarishi) and then sear away skin-side down. There's also sole meunière if you want to do a classic whole fish recipe (if you want to mimic Tampopo, tell people it's being served with consommé and Heineken, no salad).
  7. I've seen kingfish identified as "hiramasa" in sushibars, but tried Google and came up with the species name Seriola lalandi lalandi on the NIWA website (it's quoted as a type of yellowtail). Saltines (or whatever brand you get soda crackers under) is apparently the common thing to each ceviche with in Mexico, though the variants I've seen have had tomato (as in paste). I've made ceviche with snapper, wild sockeye, shrimp (cooked), scallops, halibut and fluke. Blood oranges worked very well as the acid source for the salmon but it taints the color of the pale fishes. You might be interested in a book called Ceviche! by Guillermo Pernot of Pasion in Philadelphia. Has some interesting ideas as to what you can do with this form, though many of his recipes can't be reproduced given availability of certain ingredients and a certain lack of handy tips in his prose.
  8. How about a nice chicken stock? 1 chicken, spring onions, ginger, and some time to gently simmer to develop the flavor. You can also try this with pork bones or a mix of parboiled chicken and pork. I don't salt the stock since I never quite know what I'm going to do with a batch.
  9. It's more interesting to go in person than just call ahead in case there's something different that just happens to be there. Thanks very much for the information; it's more than enough to start the hunt.
  10. I'm down to my last jar of Lan Chi chili paste with garlic. Marché Hawaii in St-Laurent used to carry the stuff but I haven't seen any in more than a year. Has anyone spotted a store in the Greater Montreal area with available stock? I'd rather not have to sit there and wait for a mailorder package to wend its way through Canada Customs. Much appreciated.
  11. The "signature" dish has somewhat depended on who walked in the door. I'd like to say that it's the magret de canard and spiny lobster with pea shoots, squashed sweet potato and a ginger sauce. However, the one that people have consistently gushed over was the fresh pineapple I had cleaned/prepped by cutting diagonal spirals. I had a university acquaintance who did serve me her signature dish of Shake 'n' Bake (barbecue recipe) chicken legs with Tater Tots.
  12. True. To me, approving of the wine includes: 1. Checking for as-close-to appropriate temperature as possible. If it's hot, the bottle contents are probably cooked (it has happened), and I've been offered frozen bottles on the other extreme. 2. Checking that it's the correct wine (many places I've been to try to switch in a younger vintage and charge the same pricing) 3. Checking if it's corked or oxidized. I will also comment on whether I feel that decanting is required. I remember one place that wanted to decant everything because they had a bunch of decanters and the owners thought decanting was part of the dining experience. If I've made say an inappropriate match, it sits beside me and I pick something else. That's my mistake; everything else should be the responsibility of the establishment to try and maintain some semblance of good storage.
  13. I had one poor experience recently. Everything was presented by our waiter in the sequence indicated until I took a whiff: the bottle was corked so I declined it. What was interesting was that when the replacement bottle was brought to the table, the waiter spoke loudly to my guests to inform them that their sommelier had tasted the original bottle and said it wasnt' corked. I spent the next few minutes with the waiter, "sommelier" and restaurant manager tearing little strips from each of them in kind. Needless to say, I'm not going back to that particular establishment.
  14. wattacetti

    my first roast

    I like the sandwich route using a good olive levain for leftover roast lamb, but there's always a quick and dirty navarin.
  15. Hmm… Speaking as a Taiwanese, I would have said that the thing one serves to guests in one's house is tea. As for the drinking comments, I'd disagree since I've seen/attended enough banquets and dinners where the cognac (in highball glasses with lots of ice) and local booze flows freely. That, beer and the guava juice.
  16. I've got a Benriner mandolin, but that's about it. Trying to find some Kershaw Shun knives but they're somewhat difficult to find in Canada.
  17. Okay - queso de Burgos has been bothering me since my last trip to Spain. How is one supposed to eat this stuff? Three different places in Burgos, three different ways: I've been given little packs of sugar, a little pot of honey, and what appeared to be crême anglaise. My pal tells me that honey is the "correct" one, but she's from Asturias. Anyone care to offer words of enlightenment?
  18. Ah, so he isn't based in Montreal (being Mordecai's son doesn't necessarily imply that you live on the Croissant). Anyway, I've reread the article again, and I can't figure out why he spent so much time dissecting Les Chevres.
  19. I did - reads more like damnation with faint praise. Is he really based in Montreal?
  20. wattacetti

    Bubble Tea

    Unfortunate, but true. All the great chefs go to Taiwan with Chiang back in 1950 and 50 years later the island exports bubble tea to the world.
  21. I like oolong, but I get my tea from one of my paternal aunts. She's a tea merchant, and most of the stuff is reserve stock, meaning that I'd normally have to give up a couple of limbs if I had to purchase it. I particularly like "old man's tea" presentation, though I do get pretty wired after 3-4 pots.
  22. Apart from baking (something I don't do on even a special-occasion basis), I look at recipes as guidelines to show what might work and what might not. Most of the time I cook by feel, which is probably why people can't follow my recipes ("take some home-made demi-glace…").
  23. Now that I saw what odorigui is, I can say "seen it, done it". My aunt took me to a place in downtown Taipei and we had small whitebait-ish fish which didn't have a whole lot of flavor to them. Ikezukuri I had with my cousin, who selected a very nice bigeye; filet 1 was sashimi, filet 2 was grilled, bones then made into soup. Really good overall and made up for the horrid spiny lobster his wife selected to start the meal (chilled lobster smothered in mayo but floating on canned fruit cocktail ). Can't quite figure out Kaimin Katsugyo though. "Pat it on its head?"
  24. Guess what! I attempted to make a reservation for my little "problem event" and they refused as well. It wasn't for a big night either (Tuesday) and I got to hear the same thing in the background: "ça ne m'interesse pas". So… it appears that Le Bouchon de Liège is out for any group larger than 4 people.
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