Friday 24 February 2012

Montreal Week 1

Haven't been back to Montreal in over a year.  I'll be spending two weeks here for work, so I took the chance to try out some new restaurants.
You've probably heard about how Laurier BBQ fired Gord Ramsay recently.  Despite the fact, we still gave the restaurant a try to see what gourmet rotisserie chicken tastes like.  The restaurant is a very nice hang out and there were still lots of diners at 8:30pm on a Tuesday night.  I got the 1/4 chicken leg with fries and coleslaw.  Their gravy was pretty good.  We kept comparing what we were eating to another rotisserie chicken joint called Scores.  I preferred Laurier BBQ's gravy and coleslaw, but I think Scores has better fries.  My fries were a bit over-fried.

Sunday 19 February 2012

Short trip to Chicago and a surprise encounter with Scottie Pippen!

I went on a short trip to Chicago this week.  Here are some of the interesting places where I ate at:

I had lunch at this nice little store called grahamwich.  It is owned by Graham Elliot, who is a Michelin starred chef and one of the judges on Gord Ramsay's Masterchef.
 I ordered the waldorf chicken sandwich.  It was pretty tasty but a bit on the salty side with the blue cheese.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Winterlicious 2012 at Luma

This weekend we went to our first Winterlicious meal at Luma inside the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  This was my first time having dinner at one of Oliver & Bonacini's newest creations.  I've just realized that they've opened up another restaurant called Bannock at Queen & Bay.  That'll probably be the next place I try.
Luma's Winterlicious dinner menu provides pretty good choices from soup, salad and foie gras pate as appetizers, to steak, chicken and seared tuna as mains, as well as choices between satisfying to light desserts.  Since there were three of us, we got to try most of the menu items.
For appetizers we had the beetroot soup, the winter salad and the pate.

2hung thought that the beet soup tasted a bit bitter, but I thought it tasted nice and sweet.  The pate was very rich, so we couldn't finish the whole thing.  I tried a piece of the duck heart.  The texture was a bit slimy and a little chewy.  I think I prefer seared foie gras much more than duck heart.
For mains, we tried the flatiron steak and roasted chicken breast.  This time 2hung thought his steak was a little over seared, and again tasted a little bit bitter, but my steak was fine.  I like how they paired the steak with lots of oyster mushrooms.
 
 Finally for dessert, we ordered the bread pudding and panna cotta.  Both of these tasted great.
 
For the price of $35, I thought this meal was well worth it.  They probably could've pushed it and charged $45 for this meal like what Bymark is doing, but they didn't, so if you're looking for a new place to try for Winterlicious.  This would definitely be a good choice!

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