Beautiful Vegetables, Roof-Raising Sisters

The food: Fresh takes on vegetables

During my recent trip to England, I ate at two London restaurants that featured Mediterranean style salads and vegetable-centric dishes, sold by weight, that make for a colourful and delicious meal in combination on a plate. This style of eating struck me as fresh, modern, and representative of contemporary London.

The first such place I tried was Fait Maison, on Stratford Street in Kensington, a café that makes lovely food from organic ingredients. E and I chose our selections at the front of the shop, where enticing platters of food were displayed, and then walked through to the smallish back room, where, a few minutes later, a server brought out our food, plated and where applicable, heated.

I had the salads shown above: one with eggplant and pomegranate seeds, another with tomato and a soft white cheese that was not mozzarella, and a third made with green beans, snow peas, and black and white sesame seeds. E had the potato torte and a delicious concoction of squash, chickpeas and onions (both shown below) that was so good he has tried to replicate it at home since, twice.

Another day, we ventured to the Notting Hill location of Ottolenghi, a buzzed about mini-chain of food shops that also features beautiful Mediterranean-style salads and dishes, artfully displayed.

The seating here consisted of one communal table (no washroom on premises) so we chose a selection of items to take away, which we ate in nearby Hyde Park, an hour later. A pleasant server patiently explained how the shop’s system works re: pricing and packaging, and told us what the various platters of food contained, though a bitchy supervisor admonished me when I pulled out my camera and said I was not allowed to take pictures inside. (Which was ridiculous as photos of the food are widely available online and in print.)

Though tempting looking dishes of seared tuna, rare beef, chicken and shrimp were available, we once again chose an all-vegetable selection – roasted eggplant with yogurt, mint and pine nuts; a herbed rice and nut pilaf; and some baby carrots with peas and parsley, all of which we enjoyed on our bench overlooking the Albert Memorial.

Salads to takeaway from Ottolenghi

That same week, I visited another appealing attraction of contemporary London: Sister Act, the musical, currently playing at London’s Palladium Theatre, a venue I was thrilled to enter because it was the location of a key scene in the 1935 Hitchcock film The 39 Steps.

Sister Act the musical is based on the 1992 movie (starring Whoopi Goldberg); its period has been reset to the 1970’s; it features nuns, church and talk of God (the kind of content I had trouble with when I saw Altar Boyz); and its disco-tinged (this is a good thing, IMO) score is written by Disney stalwart Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid), but I very much enjoyed the show ANYWAY.

It’s a roof-raising, crowd-pleasing, catchy-tune-packed, get up on your feet and dance kind of show, a la Mamma Mia and Hairspray (no sneering, please, I liked both those shows); I’m pissed that I can’t order the Sister Act soundtrack from itunes in Canada; and I hope it comes soon to Broadway so I can see it again.

Check out this version of one of its big numbers, performed by star Patina Miller and the London Palladium cast:

Food, traditional food

The food: Fish and chips in London

Plaice and chips at Fishbone

The story:

During my recent visit to London, I went to see the current West End revival of Oliver! Oliver! is not one of my favorite musicals, but what better venue to see a show based on a Dickens novel, with a score written by an English composer, than at the historic Drury Lane theatre in the city where the show is set?

When I read in reviews beforehand that the crucial roles of Nancy and Oliver had been cast through a British reality television show called I’d Do Anything, I was even more dubious, but the show I saw was worth every penny of the discount orchestra (stalls) ticket I bought for 38 pounds at the Leicester Square TKTS ticket booth.

Never in all my show-going days have I seen such a lavish production – there were at least 50 talented and energetic cast members singing their hearts out in and around breathtaking, complex sets that depicted a romanticized but vividly realized version of Victorian London. And Lionel Bart’s score was more pleasingly melodic and packed with bright and shiny pop tunes (some of which can be heard here) than I’d remembered – especially notable this time was the haunting counterpoint of Who Will Buy.

In keeping with the spirit of Oliver! I felt compelled to eat at least one traditional English meal in London, which is how E and I ended up one evening at Fishbone, a slightly shabby chippie in Fitzrovia that I’d read good things about in London’s Time Out magazine that happened to be a 5 minute walk from our hotel.

The weather was fine enough (and the interior of the shop depressing enough) that we sat outside at a sidewalk table to wait (and wait) for E’s haddock (fried in a matzo meal batter) and chips, my conventionally battered plaice and chips, a tomato and onion salad, and some coleslaw billed as homemade.

Haddock and chips in matzo meal batter

Turns out the 20 minute wait was because the cook had freshly battered and cooked our fish (not for us the prefried cod sitting under heat lamps that several people picked up for takeaway while we waited). Sure enough, the fish was sweet and flaky, the batters crisp, not greasy. The chips were also crisp, if bland – they lacked the soft center I look for in fries, while the fresh-tasting salads added a welcome light counterpoint of their own to the fried food. Who will buy, indeed.

Creamy coleslaw from Fish Bone

A gleeful mashup

The food: Homemade Arancini

Flattened but still tasty homemade arancini

The story:

After extolling arancini in general in my last post, and happening upon a recipe for citrus arancine in Bon Appetit magazine, taken from a Georgia restaurant called Cakes and Ale, I decided to attempt making my own.

In my (lack of) wisdom, I did not follow the Cakes and Ale recipe (too complicated) and devised my own mashup recipe, which began with leftover oven-baked sage and saffron risotto made according to a favorite Martha Stewart Living recipe.

Leftover risotto and spinach and ricotta mixture for stuffing

I stirred some minced lemon rind into the risotto, whipped up a stuffing made of 2 T. ricotta cheese, 2 T. chopped spinach and a sprinkling of nutmeg, beat an egg and laid out some panko breadcrumbs on a plate.

The assembly process that followed didn’t go too well –  the risotto was sticky and hard to work with, I had trouble inserting the spinach and ricotta mixture into the misshaped balls I devised, and more trouble reforming the balls after the insertion. The next steps – dipping the mal-formed lumps into the beaten egg and the breadcrumbs – were not smoothly executed either, as you can see from the sorry looking results before frying.

Having come this far, I went ahead and pan-fried (not deep-fried – I didn’t have the strength to deep-fry) the balls, or should I say, patties, in 2 T. olive oil, and made a sauce of strained pureed tomatoes mixed with a little cream and some chopped basil.

Eh, voila! Citrus sage saffron arancini stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a basil tomato cream sauce.

Once more, with feeling

Okay, they were more like pan-fried stuffed risotto cakes than real arancini, but they tasted good, and made me appreciate all the more the artistry of the restaurant chefs who make the genuine article way better than a mashup cook like me ever could.

Speaking of mashups, I’m loving the TV show Glee right now. Here’s one of their stellar mashups, as tasty or even tastier (because there’s dancing!) as a plate of great arancini.

 

 

Shaky Camera, Soothing Pasta

The food: spaghetti margherita

Pasta Margherita at Da Corrida

The story:

While on vacation last week in London, England, E and I went to see the documentary film The September Issue, a behind-the-scenes look at American Vogue’s 2007 September issue. The film looked – and sounded – interesting, but I was unable to watch most of it head-on (I spent much of the time peeking at the screen from behind my hand) because it contained many shaky hand-held camera passages, of the kind that make me nauseous.

When the film ended, and we emerged from the Curzon Mayfair Cinema, I was dizzy, pale, and not hungry, so when E suggested we duck into a old-fashioned-looking Italian restaurant around the corner called Da Corradi, in Shepherd’s Market, that bore a sign promising homemade pasta, I said fine, whatever, and ordered the simplest thing on the traditional menu: spaghetti margherita, with tomato sauce and basil. E ordered a spaghetti bolognese, and so we could eat something approaching a green vegetable, some deep-fried zucchini sticks.

By the time the pasta arrived (within ten minutes, though the small main floor space was full, at 8 p.m., of customers, almost all eating large servings of pasta), a lemonade had restored some of my equilibrium, and I’d noticed the celebrity endorsements on the wall, which featured signed photos from Julie Andrews, Bob Hoskins, Al Pacino, and Kevin Spacey.

Looks a little stodgy, but was actually tasty and light.

The appearance of the fried zucchini gave me pause, but it was surprisingly good-tasting, and not greasy. And my spaghetti was the perfect choice after the dizzy-making film – the fresh pasta had a lovely chewy yet soothing texture, and the tomato sauce it had been tossed in was sweet and light. E also found his bolognese to be simple and good,

Spaghetti Bolognese from Da Corradi

and both dishes were much better than the blah pastas we had another night at Carluccio’s, a popular and stylist restaurant chain recommended by Elaine Louie of the NYT in her book Savoir Fare London: Stylish Dining for under $25.00 that should be avoided for pasta, but did feature delicious arancini.

Crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside arancini from Carluccio's

The multiple morals of this story? 1) Hand-held cameras should be banned from moviemaking, 2) A simple dish made with fresh ingredients at a traditional restaurant can trump a fussy creation at a stylish joint, and 3) always order arancini.

Sin and Virtue

The food: a delicious vegetarian dinner

Angelwalk Theatre, a new independent theatre company, has opened up at the Toronto Centre for the Arts Studio Theatre., and the first show in its inaugural season is a local production of the long-running off-Broadway hit Altar Boyz.

I’ve heard Altar Boyz described as a funny, all-singing, all-dancing parody of boy bands, and I’ve often thought about seeing it in New York, but I never did. Partly because there were always shows higher on my priority list to see during my brief trips to the city, and partly because for a show to spoof Christian pop/rock, as Altar Boyz does, it has to feature Christian pop/rock (proselytizing not being my favourite thing).

The good news about the Angelwalk Theatre production of Altar Boyz is that its production values are high. A talented group of actor/singer/dancers work their asses off onstage, and hit all the (mostly corny) jokes, the notes, and the many energetic dance routines (how my heart is stirred to see a dance-based musical comedy where actors actually move while singing!).

The direction, by Tim French, keeps the show funny and lively, and his choreography is a delightful combination (and knowing send-up) of boy band hip-hop lite moves.

Most of the songs are pleasingly melodic (and parodic), and one of them, the pro-sexual abstinence “Something About You,” beautifully sung with cheesy faux sincerity (and tongue firmly in cheek) by Ken Chamberland as Matthew, sounds so sweetly schlocky it could have been a boy-band hit back in the day.

Other highlights of the production were the lovely choirboy soprano voice of Jeigh Madjus as Mark; the comedic acting of Aidan deSaliaz in the largely thankless (and sadly stereotypical) role of Juan; the athletic and accomplished dancing of Stephen Roberts as Abraham, the cutest and lone Jewish (don’t ask) Altar Boy; and Eric Morin (Luke)’s spot-on white homeboy impersonation (complete with doorag and basketball jersey).

With all that talent assembled and on display, an avowed atheist like me could almost tolerate the omnipresent Christian messages in the show. Almost. But what the hell, I recommend the show to musical theatre fans anyway (see it before it closes on October 11, 2009!) and I commend Angelwalk Theatre for putting on such a professional production of this rather weird concept of a show.

And if your idea of being virtuous runs less to sexual abstinence and more to interrupting a string of decadent, rich meals with an occasional delicious vegetarian meal like the one E and I cooked up recently and pictured here – featuring warm orzo with tomatoes, feta, chopped mint and olive oil; broccoli and cauliflower pan-fried with grated old cheddar, and eggplant slices coated with egg and panko breadcrumbs, drizzled with olive oil, and oven-roasted – then eat away, say I.

A Good Day to be a Writer

The food: WASP comfort food, Glenwood Treasure style

Asparagus green bean quiche from Summerhill Market

The story:

My friend Jane Drake, a successful and prolific writer of children’s non-fiction books, recently invited me to speak to a group of friends gathered in Toronto from Texas, New Hampshire, New York, Utah, Ohio, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Indiana.

In advance, they had all read The Glenwood Treasure, bless them, so I not only gave a talk about the book, I led them on a mini walking tour to three of the book’s key Rosedale locations: Chorley Park, the Toronto Brickworks and Summerhill Market.

Jane's delicious grilled vegetables

In between the talking and walking, though, Jane served a lovely lunch, which she thoughtfully and cleverly based on a menu described in my novel as a WASPy mother character’s idea of comfort food: quiches and salads and brown bread and the requisite side of smoked salmon.

The weather was fine for our walk, the company gracious and attentive, (they bought more books, too!) and the comfort food was delicious – it was a great day to be a writer.

Good Burger, Bad Service

The food: the hamburger at Allen’s

Hamburger with blue cheese at Allen's

The story:

Last week, I went to Allen’s on the Danforth in Toronto to have a burger because I used to think their burger was the best in Toronto, and I wanted to write about it, give Allen’s its due.

E arrived there first, at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, and was seated on the wooden bench at a table for two on the pleasant backyard patio, which can hold about 50 people, but was occupied by only 10 or so customers.

A quiet afternoon on the Allen's patio

I showed up five minutes later, and tried to sit down in one of the cheap plastic chairs that are the only non-bench seating available. I found them too low (the table top was at my chest level when I sat in one) so I pulled another small table over to the one E was sitting at, and sat beside him on the bench, both of us facing the same way.

The waitress came over right away. “Are you expecting a larger party?” When I said no, she said, grim-faced, “Well, we’re going to need that table back.” And though there were at least 30 seats available at that moment on the patio, she wasn’t kidding.

We should have stood up and left, I suppose, but we didn’t. We told her we would be out in less than a hour, she did not take the table away (she didn’t need it yet, it seemed), and we ordered two burgers and some mixed sweet potato and regular potato fries to share.

The burger was good and juicy, its meaty flavour was not sullied by overpowering garlic or spicy notes, the bun was eggy and toasted, and I did like the blue cheese that came with it. But we were given two tablespoons of anemic relish in a small container for two people, the water I asked for was served in a plastic cup (E’s beer merited a glass), and the waitress was terse and unsmiling for our entire 40 minute visit.

Hell, I’m not looking for tablecloths, crystal or attentive service when I go out for a burger. The cafeteria style lineup at places like Shake Shack, in New York city, where customers eat delicious, high quality, and inexpensive food out of paper containers off trays, suits me fine as long as the counter people I deal with aren’t rude.

My all-time favorite burger: the Shack Burger from Shake Shack, with awesome Shake Shack fries

But after being a semi-regular Allen’s customer for 20 years – and being made to feel unwelcome this time and on a few previous occasions – good burger or not, I won’t be going back.

TIFF Food, Part 3: Queen West

The food: soup at Ravi

The story:

I’ve been attending a screening per day at the Toronto Film Festival this year, mixing with festival-goers (= collecting material for my fiction by eavesdropping on all manner of lineup and in-theatre conversations), ogling some onstage celebrities (Demi Moore’s legs are OMG amazing), and seeing movies – some good, some not so good, all interesting. So far.

Prior to an international premiere screening of Last Ride, a slow but beautiful and haunting Australian film starring Hugo Weaving, about an ex-con and his son on the run, E and I stopped in at Ravi Soup at 322 Adelaide Street West for an early dinner.

E had the soup and wrap combo with the curried lamb, yam and spinach wrap and a smoky, richly flavoured roasted red pepper bisque. The wrap filling was spicy (too hot for my palate) but complexly and satisyingly flavoured. And while the mango-pineapple salsa served with it was a refreshing counterpoint, I thought there should have been more of it.

Curried lamb wrap and roasted red pepper bisque

I opted for the chicken hotpot broth with tofu and noodles, which was delicately delicious. In my carb-loving way, I would have liked less broth and more noodles – more of all the non-liquid ingredients, actually, and maybe another flaky biscuit with red currant jelly like the one that came alongside.

Chicken hot pot broth with biscuit

Other places to eat when in the vicinity of the Cineplex Scotiabank theatre: Babur restaurant, 273 Queen Street West, home of above average Indian food and, in my view, the best samosas in Toronto; and the Sandwich Box at 388 Richmond Street West, for pricey but good sandwiches made to order with artisanal breads and high quality ingredients.

TIFF Food, Part 2: Yonge & Dundas

The food: Breakfast and burgers at The Senator vs. Ramen and yakisoba at Kenzo Japanese Noodle House

The winner!

The story:

I was all excited (excited!) to hear about the new Yonge & Dundas location of Kenzo Japanese Noodle House, a ramen place that some people (who don’t know shit) claim has good food.

You there, looking in the window - don't go inside!

So I stopped by on a weekday for lunch and found a lineup out the door – a good sign. When I slipped inside, the people waiting told me no one had spoken to them since they’d arrived – a bad sign. I fought my way to the back, where dirty dishes were stacked up by the cash register (uh-oh). I placed my takeout order with a pleasant but overworked and overwhelmed waitress, and eyed the shabby interior – another bad sign.

Signs aside, such is my desire to find good ramen in Toronto (I still dream of the delectable ramen at Kintaro in Vancouver) that I was still excited when I brought the food home and plated it in my kitchen.

Kenzo's Sho-yu Ramen with Fatty Pork and Quail (?) Egg

Does that ramen look good to you? It didn’t taste good: the broth was so nastily garlicky and what-are-you-trying-to-hide spicy that I was almost felled by its fumes when I opened the container lid, and the ramen noodles were tasteless. The gyoza, meanwhile:

were okay if you like them big and meaty, with thick skins, and more knock your socks off garlic. And the yakisoba (fried noodles), had all the charm and substandard quality ingredients of noodles from a mall food court:

A far better spot to eat in while at Yonge & Dundas, before or after seeing films at the Ryerson Theatre, the AMC Yonge-Dundas 24, or The Elgin and Winter Garden theatres, is the Senator restaurant on Victoria Street, just south of Dundas.

Diner decor at the Senator.

My overeasy eggs in the All Day Breakfast were done perfectly to order, the challah toast imprinted with lovingly even grill marks, the bacon was thick and juicy, and the home fries crisp.

The baked beans I make at home are sweeter and softer than what the Senator serves, but hey, you can’t have everything.

The Senator’s new burger, devised by (new to the Senator) chef Bob Bermann using a special blend of “naturally raised” meat from Cumbrae’s (though it wasn’t listed as such on the menu, our waitress assured us the new burger WAS in the house) also passed muster with my picky palate – the patty, though on the big side, had a nice char and a smoky, meaty flavour. And the ’special sauce’ (not shown), a sweet and tangy mixture of ketchup, mayo, dijon mustard and relish that was served along with the burger reminded E and me of the sauce used at Shake Shack in New York (hmm, Shake Shack), which is always a good thing.

Other places to hit up in the Yonge & Dundas corridor while film festing: the Hakka cuisine at Spadina Garden is far superior to Kenzo’s fare – I especially like the House Fried Special Noodle. And though it’s in a mall food court, the rosti with sour cream at Richtree Market (formerly the Marche/Movenpick) in the Eaton Centre, prepared with fresh potatoes peeled, grated and fried in butter and oil right before your eyes, can’t be beat for a light (?) lunch/snack.

Toronto Film Festival Food, Part I: Yonge & Bloor

The food: Pasta at Black Skirt restaurant

Farfalle Bolognese at Black Skirt

The story:

The Yonge & Bloor area (near TIFF venue the Varsity Cinemas), contains many cheap and cheerful restaurants, mostly serving food of so-so quality. A cut above is Black Skirt, an Italian restaurant located in a less than pretty (overlooking the back of the Brass Rail and a Starbucks) yet convenient location on Charles Street just east of Yonge Street.

The menu is traditional, simple, rustic Italian, the service friendly, the patio pleasant. On a recent visit, bread was brought to the table with a bruschetta-like chopped tomato and garlic mixture that wasn’t bruschetta (the waitress called it another name I didn’t catch) in a mortar. We were urged to crush the tomatoes with the provided pestle and eat the mixture on the bread, which we did, and liked it, though the bread was soft and bland in way that bespeaks of industrial baking. The mixture was sweet, fresh and tart, though.

I’m a sucker for arancini (I might have to go on an arancini-seeking tour of North America someday) so I ordered Black Skirt’s appetizer version (with ground veal, mozzarella and peas), which was tasty without the proferred tomato sauce and tastier still with it, though $8 for one rice ball seemed a trifle expensive.

After that, in keeping with our belief that one can never have too many carbs in a meal, E and I ordered two pastas to share, one a beyond simple spaghetti with ricotta and parmesan, the other a farfalle bolognese, which was that day’s special. Both were priced at $14, which again seemed a little steep for the smallish portion size – and hey, some shredded Reggiano would have been nice instead of the powdered stuff – though both dishes of pasta pleased us with their purity and simplicity.

Some other Yonge & Bloor food spots to try between films when you don’t have the time to sit and dine on rustic Italian fare at Black Skirt: there’s a full range of high-toned and expensive gourmet takeout at the Holt Renfrew food shop on Bloor in the store’s basement level; more spiffy takeout fare (and groceries!) at Pusateri’s at Yorkville and Bay; folksier but still gourmet part-Asian-inflected takeout at Dinah’s Cupboard, on Cumberland, between Bay and Bloor; artisanal breads, sandwiches, and some nice little madeleine cookies at Le Pain Quotidien on Yonge at Yorkville; designer sandwiches at MBCo in Yorkville behind the Roots store; and a great selection of cheeses at the Alex Farm Cheese shop in the Manulife Centre (same building as the Varsity Cinema).