Time Travel

Diane

Proust's madelaine launched reminisces to fill 3,000 pages in his iconic "In Search of Lost Time" and food has been the subject of many another unforgettable memoir, so when it was my turn to host an Epitourist feast, I thought, "why not time travel?"

Everyone was asked to prepare a dish that brought back special memories of time past and bring a story to share about why they chose that particular dish.

The taste of food really can transport you to another time and place; perhaps remind you of the trip to Italy sipping limoncello or a childhood's summer night. Taking a bite of food is fleeting while preparing the dish can be like spending time with people you love.

And whiling away a whole afternoon eating and enjoying the dishes and memories with kindred spirits... what a Present!

Menu

Pizza bread paired with ginger ale

Wine Jelly and Brie

Sausage Rolls Revisited

French Onion Soup

Hawaiian Roast Chicken, Two Bean Salad, Coconut Rice

Lingonberry Soup

Diane's Momoir

I've been missing my mom so much this holiday season, I chose dishes that reminded me of her. So for me this was more of a momoir lunch. My mom really taught me a lot about resourcefulness, and as I grow older I appreciate her lessons more.

Pizza Bread

When I was about nine or ten, pizza was my dream food and I constantly pestered mom to order. Instead she showed me how to make my own. Simple fare: lightly toast white bread, spread with cheese whiz, smear some ketchup, cut up some wieners, add some cheddar and olives, and sprinkle with hot pepper flakes, and broil for a couple of minutes.

I haven't had this in years, and although I can't say it is the same as Proust's madelaine, it reminded me of late summer nights and staying up past bedtime.

Paired with ginger ale for the Epitourist lunch.

Wine Jelly

The first recipe written in my own hand in my little cookbook is for wine jelly, something my mom and I made together when Rob and I first started going out. I was about eighteen years old - so young! And so proud to share these as handmade Christmas gifts. Rob's mom was one of the recipients, I suppose I wanted make a good impression. Since then I've put the recipe aside and haven't made it until now, forty years later. How wonderful to have this simple recipe to evoke such strong feelings of love and nostalgia, from Christmas Past to Christmas Present.

Mementos for the Epitourists of our time travel lunch.

Recipe for wine jelly from Certo + Tips for preserving with paraffin

Hawaiian Roast Chicken

As I was dithering what to serve, I mentioned my dilemma to Rob, who without missing a beat and without the benefit of options or prompting, came right out and said, "Hawaiian Chicken." This was a bit of a specialty of my mom's that she would make when I was visiting home from college. Although I didn't have this recipe directly from her I was able to find it on the Dole pineapple site.

Served alongside coconut rice and Ottolenghi 2 bean salad.

Paired with Gewurtztraminer.

Laura's Sausage Rolls Revisited

Given the season, it seemed fitting to choose a Christmas-past food memory for an appetizer.

Sausage rolls were a staple Christmas item of my childhood. I clearly recall the red and white tube of Maple Leaf Sausage meat that my mother would split open and mold into a long snake, placed along a piece of rolled out pastry. My mom made terrific pastry, but for some reason she never made her own for sausage rolls or her mince pies. She bought blocks of Tenderflake flaky pastry dough. I think it was perhaps because she made so many, which she froze to have on hand all through the Christmas holidays. She packed them into large silver film reel cans that my father brought home from work. They were just the right height and size.

As I baked my version, the smell wafting from the oven and watching the grease from the pork and butter ooze from the little rolls, transported me back in time.

Sausage rolls revisited:

I wanted to make my own pastry and filling. After much googling, I decided on this recipe from the Guardian:

Notes: Made about 25 small rolls.

Needed a little more flavouring in the filling. More salt and pepper and perhaps a bit more nutmeg and lemon.

For the pastry
225 g plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 tsp English mustard powder
175g very cold butter
1 egg, beaten with a little water and salt

For the filling
300 g port belly, skin removed, minced or finely chopped
300 g pork shoulder, minced (this can often be bought ready minced if you don't have a good butcher)
200 g smoked streaky bacon, rind removed, finely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
Nutmeg, to grate
2 tbsp roughly chopped thyme leaves
8 sage leaves, roughly chopped

1. Sift the flour, salt and mustard powder into a mixing bowl, and grate in the butter. Stir them together with a knife, so the butter is well-coated with flour, and resembles a rough crumble mixture. Pour in enough ice-cold water to turn the mixture into a dough that comes away cleanly from the bowl - be cautious, it shouldn't be sticky - and bring together into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for half an hour.
2. Put the meats into a large bowl and mix well with your hands. Tip in the rest of the ingredients and combine, seasoning well with black pepper and a little salt (remember the bacon will be salty, so don't go overboard). Preheat the oven to 220C.
3. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to about a thickness of 1/2 cm, and cut into 3 length ways. Divide the meat into 3 sausages, as long as your pastry, and place one slightly off-centre on each strip.
4. Brush one edge of the pastry strip with beaten egg and then fold the other side over to enclose the sausage meat. Press down to seal, and then go along the edge with the back of a fork if you like, to make a pattern. Brush with more egg wash, cut to the desired size, and prick each with a fort. Repeat with the rest of the pastry and meat.
5. Put the rolls on a baking tray, and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack, and serve warm.

Served with Alsace Vin Blanc

Caroline's French Onion Soup

I found Diane’s theme of Time Travel very challenging. The food of my childhood could not inspire me. The Canadian foods of the 1970s were pretty much meat, potatoes and iceberg lettuce. We lived in a tiny, remote village on the edge of the James Bay Territory. My mom cooked to feed her family and baked to satisfy her sweet tooth. It was a necessity, not a passion. Although I served a French Onion Soup for this Time Travel lunch, I wished I had made her aspic. It would have been fitting, fun, delicious, pretty and festive.

French Onion Soup

Serves 8

- 2 quarts of water
- one beautiful ox tail, approximately 1/2 kilo
- 1 carrot
- 1 stick of celery,
- 1 onion sliced in half skin on
- 1 clove of garlic smashed with skin on
- fresh sprigs of rosemary, thyme and oregano
- salt to taste (adjust salt at the end)
- 1/2 cup of white wine or vermouth
- 1/4 cup of Cognac
- 4 kilos of Vidalia onions thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup of butter
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- pretty sage leaf
- 8 slices of toasted crusty bread
- 2 2/3 cup of grated Comté cheese

Season and roast the ox tail in a 425○ oven for 30 minutes.

Boil 8 cups of water. Place roasted ox tail, boiling water and following 6 ingredients in a pressure cooker. Put pressure cooker on high heat and pressurize. Cook for 15 minutes under high pressure. Let pressure cooker depressurize naturally. In total, this entire process takes approximately 30 minutes. Using a sieve, strain the broth. Feed the veggies to the chickens and keep the meat for Monday night’s beef and barley soup! Return the broth to the pot, add white wine and cognac. Gently simmer.

Thinly slice onions to 1/8”. A mandolin slicer is handy here. Heat half of the oil and butter over high heat. Once pan is nice and hot, toss in half of the onions. Reduce the heat to medium. Place a lid askew over pan. It is key to slowly caramelize the onions. This step should take approximately 50 minutes. Stir occasionally and keep an eye on the temperature. Stir caramelized onions into the simmering broth. Repeat this step for the remaining onions.

Cube bread to make croûtons. Toss with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toast in a 425 oven for 10 minutes. Set aside. Put a slight slug of oil in a pan. Heat to medium high. Quickly fry sage leaves until slightly darkened and glossy. Remove and set aside.

Ladle onion soup into deep bowls. Top with croûtons and 1/3 cup of grated cheese per bowl. Broil on high in oven for 5 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and starting to show browned/blackened spots. Remove from oven. Crown the beauties with a sage leaf and serve.

Kaarina's Lingonberry Soup

One of my most precious childhood memories is of my grandmother showing me the tiny blue pearls of muscari growing in our summer house garden about an hour’s drive outside of Helsinki. A spry 80-something, Mari-mummo took me along on her rambles through the nearby woods to gather berries, wild mushrooms and dry kindling for the wood stove in the old farmhouse kitchen.

We fetched our milk from a nearby dairy farm, walking through a meadow where the cows grazed among the buttercups and bluebells. A thick layer of cream topped the milk and mummo skimmed that off for our glorious summer desserts.

You could mark the passage of the summer by the fruit and berry soups - known as kiisseli - that appeared at the table under a blanket of whipped cream. Rhubarb and strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, red and black currants and finally, just before it was time to go back to school in the city, lingonberries.

I chose puolukka (lingonberry) kiisseli for our Epitour Time Travel feast because its unique sweet and tart taste can transport even the most down-to-earth Finn back to grandma’s kitchen. And not least, because for the first time I found lingonberries in a Toronto grocery store at Yummy Market. (Check ahead if they have some in stock.)

Puolukka kiisseli - Lingonberry Soup

2 cups lingonberries
4 cups water
3/4 cups sugar
4 tbsp potato starch (or cornstarch)
Half teaspoon vanilla
Generous handful of lingonberries
Heavy cream

Bring the lingonberries and water to a boil for 15 minutes. Strain and return the juice to the pot. Stir in the sugar and return to a boil.

Mix the cornstarch into 3-4 tablespoons of cold water, making sure there are no lumps. Off heat, pour the cornstarch into the juice in a slow steady stream stirring constantly. Return the pot to the element and heat until it bubbles but do not boil again. Add the vanilla. Cool in a cold water bath.

Scoop a generous handful of frozen berries into the bottom of a serving bowl and pour the kiisseli over them. Sprinkle sugar over the kiisseli to prevent a skin from forming over the top. Allow to cool completely. It is best enjoyed at room temperature on the day it is made. Serve with heavy cream, whipped cream, ice cream, crème fraîche, vanilla sauce, yogurt or rice pudding.

The tart red berries also grow in northern British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland but little has been done here to grow them commercially. That could change. The long-ignored lingonberry is about to make its way into the Super Food category. Federal research is underway into health and nutritional benefits of lingonberries. The little red berry could well provide future industry and new jobs for Canada’s economically challenged northern communities.

What Grows Together Goes Together

Laura

I have recently moved to beautiful Wolfe Island, the largest of the 1000 Islands in the St. Lawrence River. This month’s theme was inspired by venison tenderloin from a deer my new neighbour had hunted and followed to its end in the pond on my property.

Diane’s appetizer course:

I had fun putting together a course that revolved around mushrooms grown at Kelly's Gourmet Mushrooms located just across the road on Wolfe Island. Unlike portobello, button and cremini, which flourish in decomposing organic matter, these mushrooms are grown from spores inoculated on secondary hosts and are touted with a multitude of health benefits.  We toured the operation and saw several varieties: shiitake, blue oyster, pink oyster and lions' mane. I chose some beauties that were too gorgeous to slice and dice for the Epitourist feast, so I sautéed and roasted them as close to whole as possible. The next day I made risotto from the stems and leftovers. I also took some mushrooms home and made a tasty soup. For these recipes, visit my blog. I paired this course with a bottle of Rocca di Fracinello, a super-Tuscan, which was super-yummy with the earthiness of the mushrooms.

Kaarina’s salad course:

I decided on a salad made with things the deer might have enjoyed eating in the wild—beets and apples with lavender dressing, goat cheese and walnuts on a bed of local greens and edible flowers. The recipe is based on a salad I enjoyed at The Hub restaurant in Bloomfield, Prince Edward County. Luckily I found a recipe for it in Food & Drink magazine some time later. Without it, I’d never have been able to replicate the dressing, which is brilliant and which I followed to the letter. I replaced the mozzarella di bufala with a soft chèvre from Cross Wind Farm in Keene, the almonds with walnuts, and the arugula with Cosmic blend of local greens and edible flowers from Kind Organics in Brantford.  I think the arugula from the original recipe works better with the other ingredients but the Cosmic Blend with its colourful petals also feeds the soul on a short November day. I found it at the Big Carrot in Toronto. The most challenging part was sourcing the dry lavender. I bought stuff in Toronto that tasted like soap. After a call out to the rest of the Epitourists, Diane found some in her cupboard but I ended up using Laura’s find of locally-grown, culinary-grade English lavender from the Kingston market. The result was totally worth the search. I paired the salad with Pfaff Pinot Gris. This off-dry, fruity wine was a great match for the flavours in the salad.

Laura’s main course:

Venison can be challenging to cook. It is extremely lean, especially the tenderloin, and can dry out easily. Fortunately I had recently been gifted a sous-vide device, which is a perfect method for keeping meat moist. I cooked the tenderloin for 2 hours at 129 degrees F and finished it with a quick sear on all sides in a very hot pan. I made a sauce based on this recipe but substituted local Wolfe Island wild grape jelly for the Concord jelly. To round out the entrée, I served mashed potatoes made with beautiful Yukon Golds, and sautéed red chard, both purchased from the Kingston Memorial Centre farmers' market. I paired the venison with Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon, from Margaret River, Western Australia.


Caroline’s dessert:

As soon as I heard Laura was cooking venison, a memory of my folks feeding carrots to deer popped into my head. My father had built a feeding trough, which he had strategically placed on the edge of the woodlot. In the winter, every day, he filled it with carrots and sometimes apples purchased in 50-pound bags at the Lachute flea market. As the winter night quickly descended, pairs of shiny eyes could be seen in the dark—the feeding deer.

As a last wish to the deer, I set my sights on baking a carrot cake. In my quest for a recipe of choice, I found out that there are two types of carrot cake: the dense and the fluffy. As I am more familiar with the fluffy I chose to go with the unknown. I used a Jamie Oliver recipe from his Cook with Jamie cookbook:

I declare myself a non-baker. I learned a few things when I baked this cake: 1. The importance of using self-raising flour when a recipe calls for self-raising flour 2. I found that including the lime juice in the icing resulted in a runaway finish: Add the zest, leave out the juice 3. Chickens love carrot cake. Especially the icing, which they end up wearing!

Black Art

Caroline

Winter 2017

Inspired by an article called Black Magic from a back issue of Food and Drink magazine, I chose black as the theme for our October lunch. Yup, black and nothing to do with Hallow's Eve. As the date approached, I amassed a number of black ingredients to build my main. Fermented garlic jam, mullet and herring roes, black truffles, black fermented garlic, French blood pudding, charcoal sea salt from Spain and cuttlefish ink (commonly known as squid ink).

Black is the colour...

A lot of thought, planning and testing goes into the preparation of our Epitourists lunches. After much thought, I settle on an amuse-bouche and a main to utilize as many black ingredients as possible.

Menu

Amuse-bouche of pan fried French blood sausage with black garlic jelly

Mexican black bean soup

Squid ink risotto, seared scallops, wild mushrooms
with all sorts of bells and whistles

Dilano's Black Lemon cheese and Leinala's Bakery potato bread 

Ginger cake and lemon curd whipped cream

Amuse-bouche of Pan Fried
French Blood Sausage with Black Garlic Jelly

Who would have thought that this unlikely combination of sweet and savoury would be so tasty not to mention dramatic. A quick flash is a hot pan was all that the sausage needed to be ready. A smear of jelly on a plate, 1, 2, 3 morsels of blood sausage and let your taste buds be amused!

Mexican Black Bean Soup

Kaarina delighted us with this delicious black bean soup with sophisticated toppings. First the dried black beans were soaked 12 hours and simmered for 3-4 hours along with chopped onion, 2 garlic cloves and salt. She excluded the chorizo, used two Poblano peppers, half a jalapeño and toasted corn kernels instead of tortilla strips.

En route to our Epitourists' lunch, I got word that a friend was offering a pound or so of freshly picked, wild mushrooms for our lunch. How exciting! How exotic! How wild! How wow! I was thrilled to detour in his direction.

Wild shrooms!

After many oohs and aahs over the wild mushrooms, we cleaned them as best we could, sliced them and fried them in olive oil, seasoned with charcoal sea salt and finely sliced green onions. After removing the lovelies, the pan was deglazed with 1/4 cup of sherry and a generous cup of veal stock. Once reduced to half, I plopped in a heaping tablespoon of butter to finish. Now, for the rest of the main... I had decided on Black Squid Ink Risotto with Seared Scallops topped with Charred Shallots and Black Garlic Aïoli. And for a splash of colour, a slice of lemon dotted with mullet and herring roes. Phew! 

My lessons learned: 1. Risotto is not photogenic. 2. The Thermomix is not risotto's best friend. 3. "...less can be more and abundance can still be achieved with fewer ingredient." ❧ Yotam Ottolenghi 4. The mixing of too many exotic ingredients can cause certain tummy malaise.

The not-so-photogenic risotto and his friends

Paired wines: Anselmi San Vincenzo, a Garganega blend from Veneto, Italy and Colomé, a 2017 Torrontés from Argentina.

In keeping with our theme, Laura brought a wedge of Dilano's Black Lemon cheese which, as the packaging states, was "excitingly different". I think we would agree that it was so more in look than in taste. And to keep the dutch gouda want-to-be company, Kaarina offered some lovely sour rye from Milbree-Viking in Newmarket.

Rye and charcoal!

To finish, Laura plated an elegant dessert of moist ginger cake topped with lemon curd whipped cream — David Lebovitz recipes which I will definitely be making this holiday season.

Elegant!

Local

Laura

We kept with a local theme for July as this is the time when gorgeous fresh food is growing in abundance — some of it in our own backyards. The venue for our meal was the deck of the clubhouse at our sailing club at the beautiful Scarborough Bluffs. On a hot and sticky summer day, there isn’t a better place to be than by the water. Our feast began with homemade pasta made by Caroline and served with garlic scape pesto harvested from her garden.

You got to lo-o-ove that green!

Pesto and Pasta

Kaarina had just returned from sailing the North Channel of Lake Huron and brought me pickerel from the professional fishers at Herbert Fisheries. They operate the freshest fish and chips joint in northern Ontario, literally serving the catch of the day every day. Delicate and mild pickerel needs little adornment. The best way to cook it is to dust it with a mixture of flour, salt and pepper and quickly pan-fry it in butter.

Delicate and Mild Pickerel

I belong to a wonderful CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) at Joyfully Organic Farm who provided me with the fennel, which I used for a fennel confit and a frothed sherry sauce. The local green beans and new potatoes came from Reesor Farm Market near my home.

Fennel confit

1 fennel bulb
1-1/4 cups olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 bay leaf
sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Cut the fennel in half lengthways and then slice into 1/4-inch thick pieces. Place the fennel, olive oil, garlic, bay leaf and salt and pepper in a small saucepan. Place a circle of parchment paper on the surface and cook over a low heat. Once the oil reaches 120°F, remove from the heat and place the pan in a warm place for about 30 minutes until the fennel is softened but not puréed. Drain the fennel, reserving the fennel and discarding the oil and bay leaf. Keep the fennel warm until you are ready to serve.

Sherry sauce

1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 fennel bulb, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 cup celery, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 cup dry sherry
2 cups fish stock
1 cup whipping cream

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, add the fennel, garlic, celery, shallot and salt and pepper and sauté for 7 – 8 minutes or until golden brown, stirring continuously to prevent any catching. Once the vegetables are golden brown and softened, add the sherry and let it bubble over a high heat for about 2 minutes, stirring and scraping the base of the pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze it. Add the stock and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for 10 minutes, then add the cream and bring the sauce back to the boil for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and blend the sauce until smooth, then pass it through a fine sieve into the rinsed-out pan. If it is too thick, add a little extra fish stock, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Reheat gently until hot, and then keep warm. Just before serving, froth the sherry sauce with a hand-held frother.

Sherry Sauce

Fresh and Local Feast

For dessert, Kaarina chose to make two different ice creams. It is a well-known fact that our Kaarina is not fond of kitchen gadgets, so she was determined to make her ice cream without a fancy ice cream maker. She found this recipe, which worked very well although it took more than twice as long as stated in the instructions: How to make ice cream without an ice cream maker. The showstopper, however, was the tarragon and olive oil ice cream. The tarragon came from Kaarina’s garden. She made a blueberry sauce with Ontario blueberries, and added a few sweet Ontario raspberries to the plate for extra colour.

Handmade Ice Cream and Berries

Kaarina's Lovely Touch

Conversation opened. 5 messages. All messages read

Page 3 of 6 Page 2 of 6 Page 1 of 6

Canadian Cuisine

Kaarina

Our Voyage fantastique to Montreal in May inspired our June Epitour meal. It consisted of two simple courses - an Arctic Char main - followed by a selection of Quebec cheeses. The Arctic Char, which has a short season for wild caught in the far north, was farmed in British Columbia and came to my kitchen via Hooked, a very cool sustainable fish market on Queen St. East, in Toronto’s Leslieville. Since the dish was inspired by a spectacular restaurant meal, I had no recipe to fall back on. My simple interpretation wasn’t up to Caribou Gourmand standard but delicious nevertheless.

Caribou Gourmand Arctic Char

I served my Arctic Char on a pool of pea purée with roasted baby potatoes and asparagus on the side.

Pea Purée

2 cups fresh peas
Half cup chopped sweet onion
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (divided)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Sweat the onion in EVOO at medium heat for 10-15 minutes, taking care not to brown it.
2. Bring 1 cup water to a boil. Add peas and 1/2 teaspoon salt; cook about 2 minutes for fresh and 4 minutes for frozen. Drain the peas, reserving the cooking liquid. Set half a cup of cooked peas aside.
3. Purée the the remaining peas, onion, lemon juice, salt and pepper, half cup reserved pea cooking liquid and the remaining tablespoon of EVOO until smooth.
 

Kaarina’s Crispy-Skinned Arctic Char

Crispy-skinned Arctic Char

4 (5-ounce pieces) of skin-on Arctic Char fillets
3 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

1. Melt 3 tbsp butter in a skillet over medium heat.
2. Season the fish generously with salt and pepper.
3. Cook skin side down for 5 minutes. The aim is to crisp the skin slowly, melting the fat under the skin while taking care not to burn it. Turn the fillet and cook 2 minutes on the other side.

To serve

Gently reheat the pea purée. Pour a pool of purée on each plate. Place a fillet off centre on the pure. Scatter reserved peas over the fish and puree and top with a  handful of micro greens.

Les épitouristes à Montréal

J'ai trop mangé! 

Voyage fantastique!

Diane

My friends the epitourists planned a trip to Montreal and I managed to finagle my way along. At first it sounded too extravagant, so I dithered. Fortunately Kaarina, Laura, and Caroline are an understanding bunch so welcomed my change of mind. Also luckily, the Via ticket agent found me a seat with them, so we were able to enjoy a picque-nique en route.

Being in Montreal felt like being in Europe. Mon français est pauvre so it was wonderful to have the fully bilingual Caroline there to help us navigate and translate.

We stayed at a great Air B&B in the Montreal Plateau neighbourhood, and managed to fit side trips in to Notre Dame, the Jardin, the Marche Jean Talon, and even get some fashion shopping in... however the real purpose of the trip was to eat and enjoy. Which we did. J'ai trop mangé.

Breakfasts were at the Air B&B. One morning fresh eggs that Caroline had brought from her "girls", another morning St-Viateur bagels with salmon carpaccio fresh from the market.

Otherwise we were checking out the local restaurants. This trip brought lots of new experiences and tastes on the menus. I am not an epicurean, just epicurious. I am no restaurant critic but I do love food, and trying new tastes, and seeing what tastes go together well - all the better with friends. I dine at fine establishments probably one or two times a year, favouring bacchanals with foodie friends to dinners out. Mainly I object to paying too much for the alcohol.

The WoW factor for restaurants starts with great-tasting and great looking food, but it is of course, so much more. Years ago I had a friend in the restaurant business and she said when you opened an establishment, you needed to concentrate on two of three things... it was impossible to have all three of these: ambience, service, and price (or value for money). That was back in the eighties, though, and when I asked Chef Laura whether she had heard the maxim she said no. I think times have changed, and people want and expect all three.

True nourishment feeds you on many levels, so I also have another requirement - how I feel after the meal. Within the hour, and the next day.

These are my ratings, 5 stars for my experiences, based on the criteria above: food; ambience; service; value; after-effects.

Restaurants

Iberica ****

Loved these little tapas! Especially the oxtail croquettes served on an actual oxtail. The waitress was patient with our questions and attentive; the ambience was ok but a tv was on, which although in Spanish totally detracted from the experience.  Lots of choice and a good wine selection. We enjoyed our morsels with cava.

Joe Beef *****
Number 3 on Canada's Best. Only 30 seats in this establishment! I counted myself lucky to get a reservation for a late Thursday evening, 6 weeks in advance. Definitely my favourite meal of the trip. Great vibe and a wonderful experience - the best service of any of the spots we visited, with Andie taking her time to speak to the details on the chalkboard and answer questions about preparation. The chef briefs front of house every day about ingredients and dishes which is why they are so well informed. Gorgeous plating and perfection in the preparation. I regret not having room for dessert.  We didn't go for the Lobster pasta or Beef, but thouroughly enjoyed the appetizers and main (lamb brisquet). I have no idea how such a small restaurant manages to have such a huge choice of offerings, it is a magic trick! One of the best value meals, too, as Laura and I shared our plates. I will definitely return and might even be able to talk Rob into accompanying me.

Maison Christian Faure ***
We had lunch at this patisserie - of course it was the dessert we came for! The server brought a plate over for us to choose what we wanted. Talk about a tough choice! We lingered over tea before heading back out in the rain. Really delicious, great service, but a bit pricey. I also found all the hard gleaming surfaces to lack a certain welcoming.

Restaraunt L'Original  ****
Loved the ambience - very early Canadian and woodsy, complete with a canoe used for the bar. Quirky embellishments in the decor. Excellent food and fine service. My favourite thing about this meal was the original preparation of bone marrow. A bone, sliced open, with pickled sashimi and red wine sauce. Deeply satisfying. If I ever return I would skip the wine and substitute a cocktail. Aside from this, no regrets.

Caribou Gourmand ** .5
Where else could you find caribou and seal tartare on offer? Who wouldn't be curious? It was an experience however I wouldn't say the flavour was exceptional and the texture was like liver. Having satisfied this curiosity I wouldn't likely order it again. I ordered the wild boar chop with polenta as my main - it was delicious at the start, but before I had even finished the meal I was feeling over-stuffed and a bit queasy. I took my leftovers to go and was astounded by how heavy the little package was. Extremely tasty however lost marks for the after-effects (just how much butter was there??) and remarkably poor service. They also didn't have the wine on their own list, or the dessert that was on the menu (although we were on the first seating). Highly disappointing, however this was one of the most anticipated meals so perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh that it didn't live up to expectations.


Jardin Botanique Restaurant ****
The lunch counter at the botanical gardens was one of my favourite restaurant experiences of the trip. The counter service was quite friendly. Not only were we able to eat outside in a beautiful setting in the sun, the salad and sandwiches were colourful, nourishing, tasty, great value, and left me feeling entirely sated. Just dizzy from a fine spring day.

Cocktail Bars
Cocktail bars do not have entirely the same criteria for me as restaurants. I don't expect great value - I want a bit of theatre + great service + great vibes/fun + lots of choice So maximum four stars.

Flyjin ***
I thought this was Flying Gin when the epitourists were saying the name and so was a tad disappointed it wasn't all about gin cocktails, being such a devoted fan. The Queen Bee concoction, my second drink, was the best - but that is likely because as Kaarina says, anything with Veuve Clicquot has to be good. We sat right at the bar and chatted up the bartender, who was entirely entertaining.

La Distillerie ****
Best drink menu ever! Lots to choose from: A Yoda cocktail that looked just like the master, limes placed for ears; a phenomenal Caesar. A server that suggested they leave out the sugar for someone and add it in later if required. Fantastic bartender, dressed up geisha style and rocking the cocktail shakers.  Good thing we had reservations elsewhere otherwise I could easily have overstayed my welcome.

North Africa

Caroline

I picked tagine as a base for our first Epitourists' lunch out of the blue March sky. Somehow I knew that the complex flavours of this dish would appeal to K and L. K chose the appetizer and by default L ended up with the dessert. Passionate cooks that we are, our quest to be as authentic as possible took us to Super Arzon Food Market.

Menu

Labneh Dip with Caramelized Onions

Moroccan Mallow Salad

Chicken Tagine

Preserved Lemon

Harissa

Moroccan Chickpea Flat Bread

M'Hanncha - Moroccan Dessert with Almond

Traditional couscous
proved to be a challenge to find