Food

Of duck tongues and corn fungus

/ Greg / 2 Comments

On this recent trip to Chicago, my eating out was pretty even split between some delicious downmarket staples and a couple of higher end meals.   Chicago is a truly great eating and drinking town, and on this visit I booked restaurant reservations at a couple of places where the menus and reputations for inventive food excited me.  So excited in fact, that for my first night in the city I opted for the allure of a delicious meal over a Blackhawks – Canadiens hockey game.  That’s right – I chose eating over sports.  Maybe I’m becoming more refined as I age…

Night one: The moment the reservation window opened for the Girl & the Goat (I think it was three months before my planned visit), I grabbed one and started scouting the menu.  The idea of sampling a number of small plates was high on my list, and the restaurant’s ability to scale down dishes to suit a solo diner looking to try multiple things made me very excited.   One item that was personally recommended to me by Chef Stephanie Izard on Twitter was the duck tongues.   I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t even know ducks had tongues.  What a delicious discovery!   Here’s what will probably be the best thing I eat all year – duck tongues with crispy wontons, black beans and piri piri:

Duck tongues at Girl & the Goat

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Chicago’s delicious iconic foods

/ Greg / 3 Comments

By any measure, Chicago is a great food city.  I’ve been there two times now, and have barely scratched the surface of what’s available.   On this last trip, I made a point of rounding out my dance card of Chicago favourites.  First stop shortly after touching down: the Billy Goat Tavern for a “cheezborger”

Drawing its fame jointly as the backdrop to a famous SNL skit as well as the source of the curse that has kept the Cubs out of the World Series, it’s a great humble bar tucked on the lower level of Michigan Avenue.  The cheeseburger (I ordered a triple) was a perfect old fashioned delight and I enjoyed sitting at the bar and talking baseball with the bartender.

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A world of food in Toronto

/ Greg / 1 Comment

A trip to Toronto for me is always a chance to sample from a world’s worth of cuisines.  On this last visit, I managed to to squeeze in some pretty tasty Spanish, El Salvadorian, Mexican and Venezuelan meals.

Spanish: Patria

The food of Spain isn’t the only allure for me, it’s also the art of tapas that draws me in.  I always struggle picking something from a menu, so tapas works perfectly for me.  Patria, on King St. West, is a relatively new Toronto restaurant and was the place my sister picked for her birthday meal.  The food and wine were lovely, and we had a nice cross section of tapas.   Marcona almonds, chorizo, manchego, pan con tomate, roasted peppers, some interesting Spanish wines, and much more…. good times!

Tapas at Patria

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Best eats of 2013

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My travels in 2013 gave me some very memorable eating memories.  Here are a few of the many great things I ate while away this year.

San Juan: Mofongo

Having now tried the national dish of Puerto Rico, I wonder where mofongo has been up to this point in my life.  This is a dish made with fried green plantains that are mashed with olive oil, garlic, some fried pig bits and then filled with meat.  While in San Juan I tried two versions.  The one on the left from Cafe Manolin, a 50’s style diner, was filling and delicious as I waited out a torrential downpour.  The one on the right from Restaurante Airenumo was a more upscale version and the best meal of the five days in Puerto Rico.

Mofongo
Mofongo

Vancouver: Vij’s

Vij’s was a bucket list restaurant for me.  For years and years, I’ve known I would eat here once I got to Vancouver.  This meal was perhaps the best overall meal from the year of travel.  Exceptional service and feeling like you were dining in someone’s home only made it that much better.  The food was sublime: flavourful, perfectly spiced, interesting and inventive.  Making this the perfect evening was getting a chance to say hi to Vikram Vij himself.

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Philadelphia: 6 days, 4 sandwiches

/ Greg / 3 Comments

Six days, four delicious sandwiches.  I’m not sure that’s the right ratio.  It would have been more sandwiches, but there’s just so much great food in Philadelphia that I couldn’t limit myself to having all of my meals squished into a roll or between slices of Italian bread.

My version of sandwichpalooza was of course going to feature a cheesesteak.  My first one of the trip, on the first night in Philly, was had at Campo’s.  I’ve only had one other Campo’s sandwich, and that was at a Flyers game a couple of years back, so I thought I’d try one from their “real” restaurant.  The Cheez Whiz may not look tasty, but trust me, it works really well:

Campos cheesesteak

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Beer experiences in Prague

/ Greg / 2 Comments

Drinking beer in Prague is a true pleasure.  Great beer is everywhere; you don’t have to seek it out.  Over the course of two weeks I didn’t have a single bad beer or ever spend more than $2 Canadian for a beer in a bar.    These are a few of my favourite beer-related experiences in Prague – the bars, the delicious traditional Czech snacks, and of course, the beers themselves.

First beer in Prague:  After getting settled into our apartment on the first day, we made our way for a much needed meal at Svejk Restaurant U Karla.  We picked this location for the ease of gluten-free eating for my wife for the first night.  A few minutes after sitting down, I got acquainted with my first Pilsner Urquell:

First beer in Prague

What went well with my second beer in Prague?  My first pork knee.  Czechs know how to eat:

Pork knee

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30 hours in Vienna: Monday

/ Greg / 1 Comment

After a great first 12 waking hours in Vienna, we were ready for a mere 10 more hours in this stunning city.  Nowhere near enough time to see everything, but more than enough time to put a dent in it and have some fun in the process.

08:30 We started the day with some traditional Viennese pastries for breakfast.  We chose Kurkonditorei Oberlaa as our destination as they have something rather unique in Vienna – gluten free pastries.   My wife was in heaven as she didn’t expect to be able to try any of these delectables.  The gluten free pastries (left and top right in the pictures below) were really good.  In particular, the one on the left below was very similar to a Québécois mille-feuille.  I got one non gluten-free pastry as I had to try an apfelstrudel (bottom right below).  That and a great espresso put me in a wonderful mood to start the day.

Gluten free pastry
Gluten free cake
Apple strudel

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30 hours in Vienna: Sunday

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Nothing focuses your energy quite like having only a bit more than one day in a city you’ve always wanted to see.  When we booked our trip to the Czech Republic, we decided to stay in place in Prague and do a few day trips rather than being repeatedly on the move like our last few big trips.  When we took a closer look at a map and saw Vienna a mere four hours away, we knew we had to do a quick trip into Austria to spend one night in the city of music.  So what did 30 hours in Vienna look like?  Here’s how we spent the first 12 hours after arriving just before lunch on the first Sunday in September.

12:30 Before going anywhere, we were in desperate need of a caffeine jolt.  Across from our hotel was a coffee shop whose double espresso and lovely pastry got me ready to start exploring.  With caffeine hitting our respective blood streams, we took a streetcar ride around half of the Ringstraße (ring road).  If you envision the Ringstraße as a clock, we took a trip from 12 to 6 to get near the Vienna State Opera.

13:30 On my list of things to try in Vienna was the famous Sachertorte.  Looking up from the map when we got off the streetcar, Hotel Sacher was right in front of us meaning it was time for the rich chocolate cake (with brandy!) and another double espresso.

The Sachertorte
Sachertorte & me

I loved this cake.  The chocolate icing was almost fudge-like.  I could have had a second piece, but I was well into a deep caffeine and sugar buzz.  Plus, my understanding wife who can’t eat gluten may not have been so eager to sit and watch me wolf down a second slice.

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Gluten free eating in Prague

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Goulash.  Dumplings.  Beer (oh, the beer!).  Rich sauces thickened with bread.   I loved my first experiences with Czech cuisine.  But it’s not the most approachable for visitors with a limited grasp of the Czech language who suffer from Celiac disease.

As I planned this trip with my wife who needs to eat a strict gluten free diet, we honed in on a couple of places to ensure she got a taste of authentic Czech food rather than spending two weeks watching me chow down in restaurants while she ate a salad.  In the heart of Prague, we ate at two great places with dedicated gluten-free menus

Švejk Restaurant U Karla

Not to be confused with other Švejk restaurants around Prague, this one at Křemencova 7 has a separate gluten free menu.  In fact, when you order from that menu, your food arrives at the table with little gluten free flags.  This is a great place with a pub feel and we enjoyed the food the two times we visited.

One of the truly great dishes: beer cheese, wrapped in bacon served with a braided bun (similar to a pretzel).  This was amazing gluten free pub food.  I’ve sampled a lot of gluten free bread products and very, very few I’d order unless I needed to.  This one was mind blowing!  I would have had no idea it was gluten free:

Gluten free beer cheese and pretzel

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This year’s big trip

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I’ve been fortunate over the past few years to visit a number of interesting places. Many of those have been short stay, primarily work-related trips.  But by tacking on a day or two of vacation I’ve been able to see some interesting things and have some wonderful experiences that I cherish.  With that said, there’s nothing that compares to a “big trip”.  For us, that’s usually a once a year thing when our work and vacation schedules can be aligned for a two week escape.  Last year it was a four country tour of Scandinavia, the year before had us wandering around Switzerland and down to Milan.  This year our big trip is a two week jaunt to the Czech Republic with an ambitious 40 hour side trip to Vienna thrown in because we’ll be “in the neighbourhood”.

The Czech Republic has been high on our must visit list for a while.  We’ve rented an apartment in Prague for two weeks and will be exploring the city at a leisurely pace.  What’s on our itinerary?  A couple of day trips –  one to Terezín to learn about its horrific history during WWII, another one (perhaps more of a pilgrimage for me) to Plzeň, the birthplace of pilsner beer.  An AC Sparta Praha soccer match gets us to our first game after all our previous trips failed to align with European soccer schedules.  There’s a night at the opera, some castles, a few museums, and a lot of leisurely exploring, hanging out in parks and cafes, and drinking in what will be spectacularly beautiful surroundings.

Our last couple of big trips were less about food and drink than normal.  This one will be very different.  I’m excited to try some traditional Czech cuisine – in particular, pork knee, roast goose, goulash, dumplings and the pungent domestic cheese, Olomoucké tvarůžky.    As a beer lover, my travel map is littered with pins for hopeful visits to many tankovna pubs so I can sample the finest Czech beer at its unpasteurized and unfiltered best.  In Vienna I hope to try some of the world’s best coffee, have a piece (or 3) of sachertorte, and spend an evening at a heuriger on the outskirts of the city sampling the young, fresh white wines produced on the hills of the Danube.

Here’s to this year’s big trip which can’t get here fast enough!