"Real People" Dinner

At a Discussion Dinner for my program, I was making a point and rambled that we first pilot test our food/solutions in our lab, and then, after approval, "give the test to real people." This phrase became the butt of a handful of jokes later in the discussion, and I am now ostensibly the lab assistant of a lab that has "non-real" people. On a related note, AK distinguishes "real people" food and lodging from college kid living conditions. "Real people", for example, have vapid paintings on their walls, and don't eat ramen-with-poached-egg. In a clutter of spontaneity and thoughtful planning, we managed to have a remarkably posh "real people" dinner on the porch of his house, complete with neither tablecloth nor napkin. Actually, apart from the food and sunset, everything else was rather "college kid"-style (including Christmas lights). However, the food is the only thing that matters and it's neat choosing not to pay for perfect plating and swanky music.

Unfortunately, as is frequently the case this summer, I didn't have my camera, so these phone pictures will have to suffice.

The Menu

Not-Crusty-Enough Baguette with Camembert

8 Oysters (4 Chesapeake, 4 other)

Ribeye Steak with Mushrooms and Steamed, Buttered Spinach

The Oysters

Oysters are really expensive to order at restaurants. At Simeon's, oysters are $37.50/dozen (I think). At Wegmans, however, they are only $1. Although this sounds perfectly ridiculous (because an entire box of mac and cheese is $1), consider ordering 6 cooked-from-frozen mozarella sticks for $7.99+tax+tip from a generic casual-style restaurant. And they revel in it.

The woman at the Wegmans seafood counter was very nice and explained to us that one of the oyster types was more briny than the other. However, I don't remember which was the more briny one, and I don't remember the name of the other oyster type either. Suffice it to say that 4 of the oysters looked more textured and wavy while the other 4 looked neat and tidy. '50s conservative, vs. '60s whoot-whoot, if you will. Although the two types of oysters came in different nets, I ended up mixing them due to a memory lapse. In another memory lapse, I put the oysters in the freezer, only to realize 20 minutes later that oysters should probably not be frozen because the oysters were still alive (maybe?) and that frozen scallops (and other seafood) have a terrible texture, so why not oysters? So, they were promptly moved to the fridge.

However, obtaining oysters is not the main problem. Opening them is. I didn't see the point of purchasing a $20 oyster opener, and I was confident that we could pry them open somehow. The woman at the counter suggested using a screwdriver. She also said that legally speaking, she could only tell us to eat them cooked. I found this humourous.

We tried using a butter knife and another sharp knife to pry open the oysters, before AK found that a 3/8-inch drill-bit (flat) works perfectly as an oyster opener! You gently poke the drill-bit between the bottom (corner?) of the oyster, and then gingerly wiggle the drill-bit around the perimeter of the oyster.

After a short amount of time (much less than the time taken to get to a restaurant, order food, and wait for food), we had our oysters! They sat in the fridge on ice, covered with a plate, for about an hour until we ate them.

The camembert was good because the rind was bland. That's probably not how it's supposed to be, but is agreeable towards my preferences. The steak was good. There were chunks of fat in it, and little blobs of mushroom and garlic. The spinach was made by steaming in this collapsible colander/steamer (like this), which I think is super nifty device!

This was so fun!

Montreal Day One!

My brother and I went to Montreal from the 11th to 16th of August, by bus. We managed to squeeze in nearly all of the important events in four days (the 11th and 16th were spent travelling), and to me, the most important events included FOOD - markets, grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, etc. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as anticipated, as we didn't make it to a few places. Ah well. As Montreal is such a clean, entertaining place, I expect to go back in the future. As I don't feel like detailing the non-food entertainment, here goes the details about all I ate (in 4 consecutive blog posts), in non-paragraph form with final prices! This summer I've also pretty much been eating animals, and this continued in Montreal. I will perhaps revert back to a "mostly-vegetarian" when the semester starts again and I feel more in control of my life.

We spent a lot of money on food, and tacking on 15% tax + 15% tip made meals much pricier than I am used to. However, we're travelling and trying foods, and that's what matters. Point of life is to eat, right?

Day 1: 12th

Lays Fries & Gravy Potato Chips 1.71$

• These were pretty good!
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Café Depot ~8$

• In my question for une boulangerie at 8-9am on a sleepy Montreal Sunday, we ended up here. Unfortunately, this was a chain store (like Starbucks) and nothing was particularly appealing. If I were travelling alone, I would've walked around more searching for a neat local place, but I think my brother was hungry.
• My brother got an iced mocha coffee thing that tasted like green bean ice lolly to me. It wasn't that sweet, and I enjoyed it (but I enjoy most mocha things, so that doesn't mean much). I think I ended up with 1/5 of it because it was too much for him. The ice chunks were too coarsely crushed; We had a round of ice the size of a quarter.
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• We shared a slice of blueberry cheesecake that was merely ok. I realised that my standards for restaurant foods have slowly increased since I started learning to cook, particularly regarding desserts. I now look at a lot more food with disdain because I can make a whole batch of [insert dessert] for the same price of a made-weeks-ago-frozen-and-reheated dessert at a restaurant. This isn't true for macarons or baked Alaska yet, though.

Frites Alors! ~40$

• Well! Our second attempt to order in French was foiled again! Everyone can tell that we are not fluent (to zoom forward in time, though, there were two instances in which I spoke all French - badly - buying Metro tickets, and buying maple syrup at the Atwater Market). The waitress was really nice but forgot to give us our second sauce (but gave it to us when we asked her where it was).
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• Ever since I read the Wikipedia article about poutine, I've wanted to try it. Unfortunately, cheese curds are difficult to find in the Northeast, and now, I had the chance! I could eat poutine for all meals in Montreal! So, of course, I got the smoked cheese poutine. My brother saw that there was cheval tartare, which is horse tartare, which is horse pieces mashed up with spices and served raw. As we've both only tried raw fish before (sashimi), we immediately decided to order that. Finally, for some reason, my brother thought that it was necessary to order a third dish (sure, we were hungry, but not famished?), so we got fried calamari with amazing Frites Alors! sauce.
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• The smoked cheese poutine was a disaster. I didn't like it (although perhaps you would enjoy it). The fries had initially been cooked perfectly, but the cheese curds (or was it the gravy?) were so salty! Over time, the fries became extremely soggy and I felt like I was eating roasted, soggy, semi-mashed potato strips instead of fries, which defeats the purpose of using all that fatty cooking oil. Apart from the excessive peppercorns that added a lingering spiciness, it wasn't flavourful; all the volatile compounds in the gravy were masked by the salt. In retrospect, I probably should've just tried the original poutine.
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• The fried calamari was perfect, and the Frites Alors! sauce was drinkable (although a bit spicy). It is always a plus when a sauce is drinkable.
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• The raw horse mince (cheval tartare) was...interesting. I tried it by itself, and with bread. It was sour (there were chunks of pickle in it), oily (fatty tasting?), and kind of bland and tacky/gluey. Apart from that bizarre oiliness, there was no discernible flavour. I would not want to try it again.

McDonalds

• Free Wifi.

Moi & Toi Café ~25$

• I wasn't hungry at all (too much food from Frites Alors!) so I didn't even want to eat dinner. However, my brother wanted to have a meal, so we went, and I got Crème brûlée because I've never had it before. It was fine.
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• 
• My brother got ratatouille with fried goat cheese (ostensibly) and it came in a cuboid with a square of something that tasted like a mild cheese cracker. I don't remember ratatouille as something densely packed, but, sure, it was fine.
• 
• The meal came with three pieces of baguette.
• The service was quite nice.

Super C ~17$

• I enjoyed visiting this supermarket. I like checking out different cultures' supermarkets because they stock interesting items, whether in pairs, or on sale, or even merely the size of the items. For example, there was a whole cheese section (no cheese counter though), with picnic sized artisan and fancy cheeses, while the generic cheddars and stuff were in a different section of the store. There were small tins of tomato sauce (150g?) as opposed to the big tins at our stores. The baguettes were skinny, the beer was easily accessible, and there were a whole bunch of fruits and vegetables that I had never tried before.
• We got 5 Mars bars, one Dairy Milk Hazelnut bar, one Crunchie bar, 3 Kinder Surprises, 125 g Camembert cheese, one small baguette, and some juice.
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• We tried the Camembert and baguette that night (even though I wasn't hungry, and I didn't really have an appetite either), and it was quite good. The rind was pretty tasteless and a bit chalky, while the cheese was soft, mild, and creamy.