carswell

Someone ought to point out that ChuChai is purely vegetarian and somewhat Chineseified. As is its nextdoor neighbour and BYO arm, the less formal and slightly less expensive Chuch. Red Thai on the St-Laurent glitz strip serves new wave Thai in an over-the-top setting. Foodwise, Lao-Thai on Décarie between the Du Collège and Côte Vertu metro stations in Ville St-Laurent is my favourite Thai-ish eatery these days and inexpensive to boot. It's a schlepp from downtown, however, and the decor is borderline hole in the wall. There've been a few threads devoted to the topic, btw. Thai for lunch? best thai Any good Thai restaurants in Montreal? Also, do a search on Thai and you'll turn up several threads with mentions of other restos. All that said, I have a hard time believing you'll find Thai food in Montreal as good as that in Vancouver.

For most preparations, I prefer Arborio over Carnaroli. I find the latter gives a less creamy result with the grains retaining more of their integrity. Some chefs prefer it for exactly that reason, as it is more suited to the restaurant technique of cooking the risotto most of the way, then cooling and finishing to order (sometimes by adding cream to fake the missing creamy starch ). Carnaroli holds up better in soups, though. Violone Nano is good for the looser/soupier Veneto-style risottos, especially those with shellfish, where less creaminess and more firmness don't seem out of place.

Words to the wise on grinders (there's also a link to a useful grinder comparison chart a couple of posts above the one linked to).

A few low-end reccos that are available locally. Mokita Café Crème is probably the lowest priced machine capable of producing decent espresso. Most places sell it for around $325-$350, but I saw one a couple of weeks ago at Brûlerie St-Denis for $280. A stainless steel version, the Super Inox, can be had for around $450 (the linked-to Dezco's prices are among the highest acrosss the board). Innova recently launched a line of stylish low-end machines that reportedly have many of the same internals as the above Mokitas. The Arc is the best buy; I've seen it for around $450. The classy Dream (the same machine in a fancier housing) runs around $650. Gaggia low-end machines are all pretty much the same inside; only the housing changes. They differ from most machines in that the boiler is aluminum (not brass) and small, meaning it heats up fast but doesn't have a lot of staying power. A Baby will set you back $450-500, a Classic $500-575. There's been quite a bit of positive talk about the ultralow-end Carezza, but I've not seen it around (haven't gone looking, either). Style mavens are enamoured with the Francis! Francis! line, the least expensive of which is the X3. It doesn't make coffee any better than (some would claim as good as) the above machines, and you pay a hefty premium for looks ($685 at Dezco, $735 in black and a whopping $885 in stainless). The consensus is that the best single-boiler non-heat-exchanger machine is the Rancilio Silvia. Café Union's $750 pricetag is as good as I've seen. Somewhat finicky to operate, it is capable of producing an excellent cup. I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the manual machines from La Pavoni. These have a lever, not a pump; in other words, you are the pump. They also have smaller than usual baskets. The learning curve is long but hands-on types may not count that a disadvantage. The smaller Europiccola usually runs around $650, though I've seen it for about $100 less at Brûlerie St-Denis. The larger Professional runs $800-950. One advantage of these machines is that you can steam milk as soon as you've pulled your shot; with single-boiler pump machines, you have to wait 45-90 seconds for the boiler to reheat. If you're interested in these machines, make sure you're looking at the Millennium models, which feature larger (though still small) baskets and changes designed to reduce overheating. Even with the changes, they are good only for three or four shots at a go before the water becomes too hot. Beyond that, you're into heat-exchanger territory, machines that allow you to draw steam even as you pull shots. (If you plan on making cappucinnos for a crowd, these are the machines you should be looking at.) At around $1400, the Expobar Pulsar and NS Oscar are the price leaders in this category.

Bop over to the Coffee forum for a thread on this. Also, check out Coffee Geek. And remember that it's not worth getting an espresso machine if you don't also get a decent (i.e. burr) grinder. What we might talk about on this forum (though maybe in a different thread?) is where to buy equipment and beans locally. One sad reality: prices in Canada are really, really high compared to the States. For mid-range to high-end machines, the price of the machine alone in Montreal will get you the same machine, a world-class grinder and essential accessories (e.g. a tamper) from, say, Chris Coffee in Albany, shipped and delivered to your door with a C note or two to spare. Ludicrous. Anyway, the first question to ask is always: How much are you ready to spend?

Click here for a few suggestions in another thread, including a different approach to the confit and cabbage theme. In the headnote to her confit recipe in The Cooking of Southwest France, Wolfert also mentions garbure and other soups; fava, bean and lentil dishes; with marinated strips of roasted red bell pepper; and shredded and sautéed with rice and slices of spicy pork sausage. The garbure and that last one sound especially appealing today (9ºF with gusts up to 45 MPH).

Quality synthetic corks are made from inert plastic that has shown itself quite capable of withstanding substances far more reactive than wine. The expiry date you refer to is new to me; I expect it has more to do with the evidence suggesting that synthetic corks are best for wines to be consumed within a year or two of bottling. (One should bear in mind, however, that syncork technology is constantly improving.) Revue des vins de France recently carried a report on a side-by-side tasting of red and white Burgundies bottled with synthetic and natural corks which found that the syncorked bottles were better up to 16 months after bottling and the natural corked bottles were better after 20 months. Their explanation for the outcome was that the reduced porosity of the syncorks accentuated oxydation; however odd that strikes me, the point is that off flavours and odours were simply not an issue (though they certainly would have been had any of the bottles with natural corks been affected by cork taint). You are not the first taster to claim he can detect off flavour and odours in wines from bottles with artificial stoppers. Yet, as far as I can tell, all such "evidence" is anecdotal. Have any of the persons making this claim ever submitted themselves to a rigorous double-blind test? Not to my knowledge. I wonder why that is; it would be an easy thing to organize and conduct. If you know know of any such impartial tests, please point us to the results. On the other hand, there are studies showing that the sublimation of syncork plastic by wine is nil or virtually nil. Neither I nor any wine lover of my acquaintance, including a number of people who make their living in the business, has ever noticed the stopper degradation or artificial odours you refer to in wines from bottles sealed with artificial closures, most of which I'm sure were stored on their sides (that's how our cellars are designed). Nor have I read or heard of such claims from wineries, importers or distributors. Indeed, as you point out in your first post, no effort has been made to recommend that bottles be stored upright. Barring some vast industry-wide conspiracy, that's probably because theory and practice have shown that it doesn't make a difference. edit: readability

Le Robert doesn't support your friend's claim and gives doucette as a synonym of mâche. Other sources list mâche commune, doucette, clairette, blanchette, salade de blé and valérianelle potagère as synonyms. The confusion may spring from the looseness of the term: several works mention that "corn salad" is used to designate any of several plants of the genus Valerianella of the valerian family.

It's still in the phonebook. Home-cooked sounds good. But the best in Montreal?! Better than Dev, Ghandi, Punjabi Palace, Nirvana, Mysore, Bombay Mahal, Masala and Pushap, all of which have received positve word of mouth here on eGullet? Too bad it's so far from the metro. But if your answer is an honest yes, I'll consider making the schlepp.

Valerianella olitoria aka V. locusta aka field salad, corn salad (corn here being in the sense of grain, not maize, as the plant occurs as a weed in fields of grain; the French nominal equivalent is salade de blé, i.e. wheat salad), mâche, fetticus (infrequent), vetticost (infrequent) and lamb's lettuce. Lamb's tongue, yes, though that name is also used for the similar roary plantain (Plantago media) and the very unsimilar Stachys byzantina (aka lamb's ears), a groundcover with thick silvery velour-like leaves. edit: typo

Three types that I'm aware of: moulded (including injection moulded), extruded (including coextruded) and composite (aka agglomerate). Composites are typically made from cork pieces and cork dust bound together with glue; they look nice but don't eliminate cork taint. The "slugs" you refer to are probably moulded, and you're right that they're a pain to extract. Injection moulded corks, with a denser plastic used for the exterior and a softer plastic for the inside, are better. In my experience, coextruded corks are the easiest to remove, though like the others they will strip the Teflon off your high-tech corkscrew faster than you can say "What the f***?!" With moulded and extruded corks, the appearance depends on the plastic and dye used.

Huh? This is the first time I've heard anyone make such a claim, and I'm a longtime proponent of alternate closures. (I'm not questioning whether bottles with synthetic corks can be stored upright, by the way, just whether they should be.) Can you back up your statement? Can you cite studies? Do you also claim that screwcapped bottles shouldn't be stored on their sides?

Thanks, but not owning a pressure cooker or feeling an, um, pressing need to acquire one, I doubt a taste-off is in my future. Prehaps derricks will volunteer his services. Googling does turn up some indirect "I told you so"s, however, including this one from eG's Cooking forum (the author, Craig Camp, used to host the Italy and Wine boards). It appears, unfortunately, that no one took him up on his dare.

Bet I'm not the only one who finds this thread bringing back memories of high school science fairs. There was always at least one project showing how small pieces of meat left in Coke would dissolve. Looks like chefreit's recipe uses the same process; it just doesn't carry it to the extreme.

Clickity.

Sorry if I was unclear, Boris_A. My comments and questions were directed at the advocates of pressure-cooked white rice risotto. I can see whole grains working just fine. I sometimes make spelt "risotto" in a sauté pan (don't have a pressure cooker). While the technique is similar to that for a risotto (add small a small amount of liquid; stir until evaporated; repeat until tender), the result is unrisottolike. For one thing, the starchy/creamy sauce doesn't develop ever; in fact, some recipes actually call for stirring in some lightly whipped cream just before serving. It is above all that startchy/creamy sauce that I can't imagine developing in a pressure cooker risotto made with white rice. I'm also skeptical about the final texture of the rice and the depth of flavour.

Although I've never knowingly tasted a pressure cooker risotto, my inclination is to agree with swiss_chef. In my experience, true risotto results only from the repeated application of small amounts of liquid and continual stirring, and that they aren't made that way is the main reason 95% of restaurant risottos suck. So, the skeptic in me wants to know if the pressure cooked version is really a risotto instead of, say, a moist pilaf. In a side-by-side blind tasting, could one distinguish a pressure cooker risotto from the genuine article, assuming identical ingredients were used?

Yeah, saw it yesterday evening. Didn't know it was all non-smoking, though; that's great news. It was strange how that corner of the first floor was all lit up and animated while the rest of the builidng — dark, borded up and menacing — hulked over. Am surprised the smoke smells don't overwhelm the shop. Hmm. The decision to ban smoking wouldn't have anything to do with the fire, would it?

After receiving a last-minute request to supply the first course for a dinner I was invited to last night, I thought about Le Petit Milos. Checking their website (which irritatingly expands your browser window to near full-screen), I was pleased to see they were open till 7 on Sundays. So, before heading downtown, I schlepped over to the corner of Park and St-Viateur only to find the windows covered, the entry unshoveled and the door bearing a sign saying the store was temporarily closed until April. Peeking in through the grimy door with daylight waning, all I could see were completely empty shelves and refrigerator cases and piles of debris on the floor. Anyone know what's up? How long have they been closed? Are they really going to open again? And why the fark don't they put a note on their website? At least I was able to score the ingredients for a decent dandelion salad topped with smoked fish (excellent arctic char in oil) at Marché Latina down the street. But geesh!

Yep. Had just finished watching a film (Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, a minor gem in a beautiful new DVD transfer). At 1:18 a.m. by my clock, there was a mild rolling sensation and the building's walls began creaking. The 2½-foot stalks of an about-to-bloom amarylis were swaying — a kind of upside-down pendulum — with an amplitude of about one inch on either side of centre. It lasted about 20 seconds. Not at all scary, unlike the Lac St. Jean quake of a decade and a half ago, which had me dashing to the most structurally reinforced room in my apartment.

How sad. Ironically, it just got a strong review from Hour. In fact, weren't all the reviews positive? I wonder if this is a sign that Montreal has reached the bistro saturation point.

*bump* So it's snowing. So the wind is howling. So the earth is shaking beneath your feet... Don't let it get you down, Bubbie! Scroll to the top of this thread and remember that, in a little more than a month, the winter enclosure will be gone. And then, and then, the allées will be swarming with people on the weekends, the annuals and perennials for transplanting will be on full display, the tables will be groaning under the weight of piles of local asparagus and fiddleheads, and fresh berries and corn will be just around the corner. Your problem will no longer be finding something to eat that looks appealing but how to deal with the bounty. Thanks to sf&m and his digicam for providing this valuable public service.

I'll probably get around to trying them soon, sf&m, for the sake of completeness if nothing else. To be frank, I'm a bit put off by three things: the high price; that they use Muscovy duck legs, not moulards; and that the bottom quarter or so of the jar appears to be not duck fat but stock (duck stock is listed as one of the ingredients). In a classic confit, the legs are surrounded by fat and the only liquid at the bottom of the storage container are juices (salarque) that seep from the duck during the ripening process. So, the stock is a definite break with tradition, but then again so is the sous-vide technique used by many purveyors... Fiddleheads are an acquired taste. That said, I find the preparation method can make a big difference. Sounds like an interesting topic for the Cooking forum in a couple of months, when the fonds start showing up in the markets.

They're supposed to be great for making large batches of hard cooked eggs. Like for when you need a couple dozen for pickling. Aren't you glad you asked?

Heads up. From March 3 through March 6, the SAQ is holding what is rumoured to be the first in a series of clearance sales. Discounts of up to 30% on well over a hundred products. What's more, some of them are actually stuff you might buy. For example: Graham LBV Port 1998, $14.95 (normally $20.90) Château La Roque 2001, Pic-Saint-Loup, $17.05 ($18.90) Pinot Noir 2002, Yarra Valley, Coldstream Hills, $27.70 ($30.75) Fresia 1997, Kyè, Vajra, $28 ($35) Torre dei Venti 2001, Insola, Fazio, $12.95 ($16.85) Côtes-du-Rhône rosé 2003, Guigal, $16.50 ($20.10) Neige 2003, Ice Cider (200 ml), $13.55 ($15.05) Click here and then follow the links to the various categories. (If the link doesn't work, just go to www.saq.com and click on the front page banner ad.)