Montreal Day Two

My brother and I went to the Biodome, Olympic Tower, and botanical garden. The garden was an eye-opening experience for me, since I knew so little about the cool plants beforehand. Because the gardens were so interesting, we missed lunch.

CC Cafe Quiche Lorraine ~5$

• Eh. Normal quiche.

Franx Express, ~5%

• Delicious poutine at the Peel RESO, which is this underground area that connects a bunch of metro stops and is stocked with clothes stores and food courts! Not-too-salty gravy, slightly off-tasting cheese curds (due to no refrigeration?),  and ever-crispy fries! The cheese curds were stringy and slightly melted too, at parts. So, poutine can be delicious!
• The guy who sold the poutine to me actually doesn't know much French. He used to live in the US, and then moved here and loves it here.
• Unfortunately, the Peel RESO closes around 6 pm, and we didn't realise that the McGill RESO was the popular one and closes at around 9.

Crepes Gerard $9

• We got a peach melba crepe. It was a canned? peach, one scoop of vanilla ice cream, one strawberry, a handful of almonds, and caramel syrup, all made lovelessly with ungloved hands, 10 minutes before closing. It was a very bland, chewy crepe.

Kinder Surprise from Super C (3.29$ for 3)

• I no longer long for Kinder Surprises. There is no price that can buy back my 5 or 7 or 9 year old's excitement at nibbling at a hollow egg, and snapping open a bright orange capsule filled with plastic parts that can be assembled into a tricycle or something. Sure, the wrapper looks the same, and the milk/white chocolate is just as scanty (20 g...), but this time, the capsule was a mustard yellow one-piece blob! Disappointment!
• To make matters worse, my toy was a piece of paper! Time to stop liking Kinder Surprises on Facebook, I suppose.

Savoury Crêpes

As a farewell dinner (well, only for a little over a fortnight), SP and I made some crêpes. Twice, he flipped them using the pan, which was spectacular. We had various fillings: brie, peanut butter, fig butter (which has crunchy niblets!), and grilled tofu.



Regarding brie, a new cheese for me: I mildly dislike it. The rind has ruined it for me. Even after melting, the brie rind elicits some feelings of disgust, which have developed more strongly over the week. It tastes a bit earthy, but also reminds me of certain bodily fluids. This flavour is mainly due to retronasal olfaction - the volatile compounds that are smelled by the nose via the mouth while eating the food (as opposed to just sniffing the food). When I pinch my nose, the flavour is greatly reduced, and all I'm eating is a chewy rind that is mildly salty. So, I've been cutting off the rind and saving the pieces for SP, who enjoys it. In fact, some of the mold from the rind colonised a new patch of cheese in the interior, due to contact in the bag! The cheese itself is really soft, has a mild, earthy flavour, and is buttery. I don't think that I enjoy it that much as it doesn't pack much umami.


The fig butter goes pretty well with the brie, and I was too busy eating to take more pictures. There was no need to "prepare the Nutella" because we didn't have any. Crêpe combinations included:

• Brie + fig butter + tofu
• Peanut butter + fig butter
• Brie rinds (all SP's!)
• Peanut butter + brie

The first crêpes looked great (according to SP), although all our crêpes were on the small side as I possess a small frying pan.

"Brie and fig butter" has a fancy aura. Imagine going to a dainty restaurant and being served 

"Traditional, fresh, homemade crêpes cooked to a perfect tan colour, adorned with specialty imported double cream brie cheese curls and a generous smear of select fig butter with natural sugars"

...Or, you know, elicit a warmer atmosphere by getting your boyfriend to make them for you at home. Although he is expert crêpe-flipper, I am expert crêpe-batter-in-the-pan-spreader.

On the side, I made some bubble tea (Pu Er + sugar + milk + instant tapioca pearls) , which we both drank lukewarm. Then, like a four year-old, SP started shooting tapioca pearls through the straw, and got not only my bedspread, but also my light-coloured skirt splattered with milk tea.

We ended up with 7 or 8 crêpes, made with 1 cup of white flour, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of oil, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. This is a recipe that SP's mum uses.

Crêpes from a French guy & Koja

Ok, so he's not French, but he lived in France for a bit and speaks fluent French -- I present to you:  my boyfriend SP (in the process of rolling a crêpe)!

Our shopping adventure was fun too! As we walked towards Trader Joe's, SP saw a falafel food cart driving into the city. "No! You're driving the wrong way! I want food to come towards me, not away from me!", he said. We bought eggs, milk, and flour, but not Nutella, because Trader Joe's doesn't sell any (they sell cocoa almond spread, though). On the way back, though, we walked past a Rite-Aid, and they had exactly ONE JAR left! Coincidence! I'm not a huge fan of Nutella (in early 2007, I had an obsession with it and ate it every day. That may be why I haven't loved Nutella since). Nutella has many uses, one of which is lathering it onto a homemade crêpe.

On the way back, we stopped by Koja (THEY WERE OPEN!) to get dinner, even though I had been under the impression that crêpes were going to be dinner. Koja sells Korean food, and I realised that I'm never going to be able to have bulgogi :( It turns out that every Friday after 3pm, meals are $4.50 instead of the usual $5 or $6. This makes sense because Koja isn't open over the weekend, and they have to sell off all that steamed rice and marinated cow and pig chunks.

SP got beef bulgogi and kimchi, and I got tofu rice noodles. Although I have have pickled cabbage before, I'm not sure I've ever had official "kimchi". I don't think I like it tremendously -- I prefer cucumber pickles, pickled bak choi, or zha[4] cai[4] (榨菜), a pickled Chinese mustard stem (this is my favourite).

I tried some of the vegetables in the bulgogi, and they had a really strong beef flavour. The tofu and rice noodles were really spicy but still delicious and had a great texture, and there was also some white sesame!

SP told me that he'd never actually made crêpes by himself before. Apparently he'd just lounge around and "prepare the Nutella", which instantly reminded me of whenever my mum makes fa[2] gao[1] (steamed cake), my sister just lounges around and "prepares the chocolate syrup" by taking it out of the fridge.

SP used the recipe that he and his mum use for crêpes, which calls for 1 cup of milk (we used a bit more than that), 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of oil (we used peanut, which .wasn't the best idea), 1 tablespoon of sugar (we used 2), and 1 cup of plain flour (we used a bit less). Basically you just mix the wet stuff, add sugar, and then sift in the flour. We ran into a bunch of problems though, because I'm a college student with no kitchen.

1. No big bowl --> borrowed one from TJ.

2. No sifting capability --> some lumps (but SP got rid of them!)

3. Square pan --> squarish crêpes.

4. When the first crêpe was done, SP exclaimed "No one prepared the Nutella!!" I guess it is important to have an official Nutella-jar-opener, hm?

 

Above: SP cooking. The first crêpe was a little thick, about the same thickness as these ones I made before.

Below: thin crepe!

We made 5 in total, although if we had made thinner (read: better) ones, we would've ended up with 6.

2 Days in Philadelphia

I hung out for 2 days with SP before the semester begins (tomorrow)! We ate a bunch of food (no surprises there...):

1. Falafel food truck on 35th and Market St.

Thought I had escaped from rice since I'm not going to be home until at least March. Guess I was wrong. At least it isn't plain ol' steamed white rice (actually, the older I get, the more and more I appreciate eating plain ol' rice. Maybe it's because I have just grown to love food/carbohydrates, in general).
The falafel was kinda dry and crumbly and uniform in texture.

2. Ramune (Japanese drink with the marble that seals it until you push it down).

3. Singapore Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant 1029 Race St. (six stars out of five)

 Dim lighting (how utterly romantic!), cool tablecloth*, light green tea, and multiple utensils (fork, spoon, and chopsticks that seemed to be made out of a really absorbent wood). When passing me a fork, the owner (?) of the restaurant jokingly asked me, "Do you know how to use this?", and I replied "I'll try...he'll teach me [referring to SP]." (because SP isn't ethnically Chinese, but I am). Since moving to the US over five years ago, I've used chopsticks maybe 20 times in total, usually at restaurants that don't offer alternatives. My favourite eating utensil is probably the metal teaspoon.

 Stuffed tofu with amazing chunky ginger-peanut sauce. Dude. I could drink this sauce! I realise that I would probably be terrible at getting a guy via a dinner date. Especially with the picture-taking and my indecision. Particularly if there is a vegetarian menu with sections labelled "Beef", "Poultry", "Pork", and "Tofu" (all made with soy or gluten, of course).

 VEGGIES!! I am going to make stuffed tofu one day. I think they stuff the tofu AFTER stir-frying it, else the veggies would fall out.

 We also got dumplings. I want to drag SP here for dim sum one day, just because I love dim sum, and every time my family and I go to some dim sum place, most of the stuff has animal pieces. I didn't particularly love the dumplings because the filling was kinda mushy, and there was a lot of extra space inside the dumpling. SP liked them though.

 SP got a curry hotpot, and the veggies at the bottom were still tongue-burning-hot by the time the meal was over. It was pretty amazing, although I got my tongue burned a bit. I was going to get curry with gluten (read on the menu as "Curry with Beef") but I ended up getting Crispy Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs (gluten). I was debating between that and Sweet and Sour Pork Loin (soy), but the owner (?) recommended the gluten, so I got it. I mean, what do vegetarian chefs substitute animal bones with, right?

The sauce was really sweet. There were chunks of pineapple, tomato, pepper, carrot, and broccoli in the dish. I'm glad that this restaurant uses sundry vegetables in all its dishes (unlike other Chinese restaurants that pair broccoli with EVERYTHING) -- well, duh, it's a vegetarian restaurant.

The gluten ball tasted a bit like potato, a bit like gluten, and sort of had the appearance and texture of pig flesh. It obviously didn't taste like pig flesh. The sauce masked everything, though, which was neat. I'm going to believe that the "bone" part is just a potato fry, because that's what it tasted like. It was odd chewing the "bone". Seriously. It's like having an edible popsicle stick.
Note the brown rice.

At the end, we got 2 orange slices, 2 fortune cookies (grr) and 2 fried sesame balls with custard filling. My fortune was "The weather is nice". Great.
I think that for a sit-in vegetarian restaurant in the city, the meal was reasonably priced. With presumably fresh ingredients and a lot of veggies in the dishes, dim sum at night-time, a regular customer sitting in the corner reading a book (who ate a meal and also ordered take-out before leaving), and pretty tablecloths*, Singapore Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant is quite charming. SO BRING YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S) THERE!

*In looking at pictures of this restaurant online, I realised that they also have pink tablecloths. I prefer the paisley blue ones more)

4. Lotte Koala's March (cookies) - not a huge fan of them but SP loves them.

5. Lovash Indian Cuisine on 37th and Spruce St.

 More rice (long grain, rather cold -- but that may have been due to the weather, but the peas and paneer cheese were still warm). Some of the peas were still a bit hard, which means that they use dried peas, and not frozen ones. I love frozen peas and frozen corn. I eat frozen corn while it's still frozen, and I intend to do that with peas too, in the future (for other frozen things I eat, read here). The panner was less plasticky/smooth compared to paneer I've had before, and I'm not sure if that makes it more/less authentic.

 SP got chicken with something...It looked good because it was in a plastic container while mine was in a styrofoam one.

6. The Crepewalk, 36th and Spruce
Nutella crepe. Obviously better than the crepes that I made (which SP said were too thick). These are pretty much translucent!

Crêpes

Today I found out that I am bad at flipping crêpes. Here is a picture of a crêpe with a rip in it, beneath the fold.
I got a French crêpe recipe from here (it's in French--my French is useful! Okay, I could've used Google Translate, but it has glitches-- it translated "1 tbsp butter" to "1 cup butter")! I made about 6 pan-sized crêpes from the recipe. Crêpes are really thin.


I used whole wheat flour, which I guess isn't traditional... but oh well.

My first problem was that the butter wouldn't melt when I was mixing the batter. Well, duh, it's something like 15 degrees C in the house! So, I ended up having really gloopy batter, but the crêpes turned out intact.

 Another problem was that I would flip the crêpes over before the bottom side had been thoroughly cooked, and I couldn't flip the crêpes correctly with my spatula. I'm sure there is a more efficient way of making crêpes...but no one has ever taught me. I ended up picking up opposite edges of the crêpe with my fingers (hot? No...compared to fresh coffee, not really) and the spatula, and somehow maneuvering it some 180 degrees.

Taste? Well, nothing burned, the crêpes were moist, milky, soft, and gooey and... crêpe-like (yes, they tasted like crêpes! Except, chewier due to the whole-wheat flour). They were more oily than I would've liked... I guess I should use melted butter next time (but I hate the smell of microwaved butter)? They were a tiny bit sweet, which I have a problem with; I guess I would just prefer to have really sweet crêpes, or non-sweet crêpes. Eating tiny-bit-sweet-crêpes is like drinking water with a tiny bit of sugar - not plain ol' thirst-quenching, and not delicious-sugary-drink either.


Maybe I just prefer the pancakes that I used to eat in Australia? I don't even know how those were made, but they were poofy (not American pancake poofy, though), dark brown, the size of a coaster, and full of holes on one side.

Berry Nice Morning.

With ice cream dollop.
Without ice ceam dollop.

I'm gonna let two grad parties slide [too many pictures]... and instead talk about berry pancakes and smoothies. Yesterday morning, my brother and I went to JM's house to make some berry smoothies for breakfast and watch the movie 21. We brought along a lot of raspberries, some gooseberries, and a few blueberries from our yard. JM has this mulberry tree, so the smoothies we made ended up being berry berryful. Actually, I can't really take credit for what JM's sister and my brother made, with milk and ice and berries. Oh, and maple ice cream, once we realised that the smoothie tasted way too sour without a shot of sugar.

JM and I, on the other hand, made some berry pancakes with the leftovers. We used this flat-pancake recipe but omitted the baking powder because apparently last time, the pancakes had turned out sour. JM actually has a griddle! GRIDDLES ARE AMAZING! Although I never butter or oil the pan when making pancakes, JM does. I personally didn't see much of a difference...

The only problem with not having some sort of raising agent was that they tasted more like crepes, and the berries had to be flattened in order to actually get something that looked uniformly flat. Actually, we had dumped in too many berries in the first place, and there proberry ["probably"] was more berry than batter. I liked that they weren't sweet, though.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning :)