Restaurant: Fatboys Southern Smokehouse (Ottawa, Canada)

In the string of restaurant visits that we’ve been on, vacation week off means a little day trip out to Ottawa. After a little research and whatnot, we decided to head out to check out Fatboys Southern Smokehouse in Ottawa, somewhere that we’ve never been before but the whole description from the food it offers to the biker ambiance really had us intrigued. You can check out the menu and everything else HERE.

Going for lunch on a weekday has a lot of great things. For one, its usually less crowded as everyone else has work. Second, less people means faster service and better service. I’m not sure it would make a difference as our waitress was incredibly friendly and helpful with everything from menus to making sure about my allergies and intolerances and what I could have and not have. She also came to check on us frequently and in reasonable time, ie. not when I’m stuffing my face with food (which you’d believe a lot of other restaurants don’t quite time well). Not to mention that, the menu is really good which makes us want to go back to check out more of the food that they offer, especially the ribs since being lunchtime, we didn’t have quite as much appetite for it and all the fun things like milkshakes and their detailed bourbon list as well as the great and unique list of sides.

It sounds crazy that I didn’t take anything else in the restaurant other than the bathroom entrance and the bathroom decor but I think its a good idea of how its biker ambiance in general. Its very nice and a lot of great things to look at from its bar counter to along the walls and the industrial interior above on the pipes above and such with stickers and other posters. Everything is really charming!

Appetizer

Kentucky Popcorn Chicken

As appetizer to share, after much debate between Fried Rib Tips and Kentucky Popcorn Chicken, the latter won the debate. Luckily it did because this was delectable and also our first initial choice. The chicken had a beautiful well-spiced batter that had a lovely kick to it. It was also thin so didn’t have the really thick floury texture but just blended right in each bite with the perfectly cooked chicken. Its so delicious!

Main Meal

Smokehouse Burger with added bacon with a side of Smoked Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese

Carolina Pulled Pork (no slaw) with a side of Dusty Shoestring Fries

We only both had the burgers/sandwiches. My husband had the Smokehouse Burger which he liked quite a bit especially with the added cheese. The Smoked Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese also impressed him a lot also as he really enjoyed the flavor of it all.  I had the Caroline Pulled Pork but had to have the slaw removed due to lactose intolerance. At the same time, this lead to the choice of dusted shoestring fries which turned out to be a great choice because it had some lovely “dusting” with what would seem like barbecue spices and sugar or something sweet. Two very awesome dishes which are full of southern flavors.

Overall, Fatboys Southern Smokehouse is a great restaurant. We tried a very minimal part of the menu but there is so much to offer here as just the little that we had was all very delicious whether it is the meat or the spices or the overall service or the restaurant style which all fits together in a lovely package. Its one to definitely visit and one that we’d definitely return to.

Goodfood Recap #39

Welcome to the next Goodfood. Its been probably about a month. This is definitely back to a monthly basis at this point. This time’s picks are fairly summery in my opinion, at least getting into the more warm weather foods that we tend to learn towards. There are some repeats and some that feel like a little twist added to something we’ve done before.

Let’s check it out!

Shrimp Boil
with Summer Corn, Roasted Potatoes & Green Salad

As always, seafood meals kick off the Goodfood meals. This time, we start with our repeat meal. The last time we had this, I believe my husband made it so it was a new experience for myself. Other than the fact that I’d love to know how you break corn into 3 parts (my husband says the cleaver is how to do it) by hand, this meal was pretty good. The shrimp was nice and its pretty simple to put together. It has a few steps to it like boiling the corn and potato first before putting it in the oven with the shrimp. The sauce that they say to make with a butter base (which I replaced with margarine since we don’t have butter at home) was really delicious. The green salad also had a good oil-based dressing to it and was a refreshing side.

Glazed Korean Chicken Lettuce Cups
with Sticky Rice & Carrot Salad

My favorite meal of this meal kit goes to this recipe. I’m always a big fan of the Asian foods here. They usually are pretty decent. Its been a while since I’ve tried some lettuce cups and such although I did end up eating it all separately in the end. However, the chicken is really good although it takes some attention. At the same time, the carrot salad is a bit like preserved style so has this sour flavor to it but it matches really well to balance out the flavors here. Plus, the sticky rice is one of the fave parts of these meals whenever it appears since I don’t buy Calrose rice but I definitely should just to be able to eat more sticky rice, not to mention the sauce the blends in with it from the chicken is just delicious.

Curried Tofu
with Coconut Rice, Roasted Vegetables & Thai Basil Salsa Verde

Tofu meals are usually hit and miss for us however we keep trying them out because its a good source of meatless protein and its always nice to add a vegetarian option every once in a while when we get a chance. While I can’t say the tofu itself was anything great (I’m not a fan of the extra firm tofu), the curried sauce was pretty good. The roasted vegetables are also pretty good and the thai basil salsa verde was also surprisingly a good addition to add some different flavors to the meal.

Beef & Shiitake Burgers
with Miso Mayonnaise & Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges

Burger choices are normally for my husband because he likes trying now types of burgers. This menu feels familiar and yet also feels like a past one we have had but maybe with changes. I can’t quite remember right now. It was a pretty good one although, I have never had uncooked bok choy so was a bit skeptical and after this, learned that I prefer it cooked. It is somewhat of a messy burger so I ate it all separately. Everyrhing was alright except note to self, with miso based sauces, it already starts off quite salty.

Thats it for this Goodfood recap!
Any meals that peak your interest?

Restaurant: Cochon Dingue (Quebec City, Canada)

Spring is here and the weather is doing very nice. With the warmer weather coming in, we’re heading out more for hiking and visiting different places. Due to later vacation plans in the making, we’re taking it easy on the closer places while also getting our hiking body back into shape. While I’m working through the first location’s post, we went to Quebec city and I took my husband to try out a restaurant that I had gone with my girl friends’ a few years ago (but unfortunately, didn’t write about) and thats Cochon Dingue. At the same time, I wanted to see the change there.

There are various locations in the Quebec area. This is the one that we went to.

Lunch

Let’s first start with my husband’s choice for our late lunch. We had the regular menu and he decided to choose the Tartine Croque Monsieur which has pulled ham, tomato and Bechamel sauce, melted Swiss cheese on country bread and fries and coleslaw. He hadn’t eaten this in a long while however, this was very delicious. There was a lot of cheese which made it really nice. The pulled ham was done really good also. Everything was done worked well together.

As for myself, I took the Crispy Chicken Burger with curry mayo, lettuce and tomato. I’m usually not much for beef burgers so this naturally became my choice. The crispy chicken is done really nice. There’s a good crunch to it. Its a fairly big piece of chicken so I had to eat some parts of just the chicken itself. Together, the burger works pretty good because of everything adding in to the different textures and flavors. However, alone, the chicken could be leaning on the blander side. The fries here is also done pretty good as well as well as the coleslaw.

Overall, we didn’t really try out a ton of food here and we didn’t come for the breakfast or dinner menus which is one of the things I like about this restaurant that it doesn’t peg itself into one category, therefore limiting its opening and service times. Another very good aspect is the atmosphere which feels very casual but also very creative because of the little decorations from the lights having little whisks around them. Aside from that, the service is fairly decent as well. I think the only thing that left me a little uncomfortable was when we first got in, the hostess was a bit rude and felt like we were bothersome rather than welcomed. Its something that bothered us when we first sat down but the satisfying food here did make up for a good part of that.

Goodfood Recap #24

Back to back weeks going on. Sorry for the delay. We’ve actually been really behind in cooking in general but we finally did finish up this box.

Do note that due to various reasons, we are again decreasing the frequency of Goodfood boxes. With our schedule, its actually becoming more of an inconvenience plus, we just can’t seem to decide on some of the recipes so we altogether decided to let some weeks by. It all works for the better financially also since these boxes are convenient but as we all know, convenience usually comes at a price. And well, July and August have been quite taxing on the wallet so we have to make our necessary cuts.

Without further ado, lets check out last week’s box!

Salmon Burgers
with Remoulade, Red Cabbage Slaw & Roasted Potato Fries

My husband is a burger fan and we usually tend to try out the burger recipes. I can tell you that salmon burgers aren’t quite our cup of tea. We love salmon but as burgers and with this remoulade, it just wasn’t up our alley. The best part of all this was the roasted potato fries and well, you will see that its quite a frequent appearance in the meals we have been choosing. I’m sure salmon burgers are good for some people but a mix of factors here just didn’t work for us.

Spiced Chicken
with Bell Pepper & Cucumber Coucous Salad

You can’t go wrong with chicken. Over and over its been proved to be right. It has been a while since we’ve had a couscous meal so this was really fresh to have the bell pepper and the cucumber with the salad. The chicken spices were really good. Its a simple meal but very delicious.

Grilled Greek Chicken
with Prune & Cerignola Olive Sauce, Roasted Potatoes & Arugula-Almond Salad

When I first looked at this recipe, I was starting to worry about the prunes and olives and the taste that it would give. Surprisingly, it works really well. The potatoes were good, The chicken spices were simple and the prune and olive sauce worked so well with everything. My only issue is that it had arugula and I’m just not a big fan. Luckily, whatever was left over, my husband cooked the salad and paired it with another meal afterwards.

Pork-Lemongrass Skewers
with Crispy Rice & Bok Choy Salad

The highlight of this box for sure goes to these pork-lemongrass skewers. It caught my eye when I was choosing this as one of the recipes. All the cooking goes to my husband as I’ve been busy with Fantasia Festival so he’s been taking care of a lot of these things for me. Crispy rice has appeared a few times in recipes and they are really good. The skewers and pork lemongrass is really tasty and there’s ginger in there that subtly was setting my mouth on fire and I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. My husband cooked the salad instead of leaving it raw which I love because while I’m slowly getting back to eating raw vegetables, I do like it cooked.

Overall, a pretty decent box. There was some surprises like the prune and olive sauce for the chicken.
Some things delivered like the pork-lemongrass skewers but of course, there was also the disappointing salmon burger. 

Which meal caught your eye in this box?

MTL a Table: Bistro-Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises

MTL a Table finally done as of this past Sunday. In a final attempt to give a brunch a shot, my friends decided to go out for one last little trip out! Well, a post I saw about the recommended brunches just made me want to go eat one of them so much and the Bistro-Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises just looked phenomenal in the article that I’m happy they agreed.

Let’s wrap up MTL a Table in style!

Bistro-Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises

MTL a Table Brunch

First service

Mimosa with Prosecco
(another option is mimosa with beer)

One word for this: YUM! I love mimosas. Probably because I don’t usually have them when I go out for breakfast.

 Second service

Toutiere du Lac St. Jean (Pie pan of Lac St-Jean with deer, ox and boar, country bread, wild boar bacon jam and seasonal fruits)

Burger des Soeurs (Pretzel Bread, blueberries wild boar sausage, aged cheddar cheese, egg, fruit mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato salsa Kumato and seasonal fruits and brown chopped potatoes)

Pancake and Gravlax (Thin pancake with gravlax and smoked Matane shrimp, dill cream, flying fish egg, apple and fennel salad, smoked potato salad and seasonal fruits)

I had the tourtiere du Lac St. Jean for this one. The other choices, without the lactose portion just would seem incomplete. But then, I had my eye on this option. I don’t think it was on the menu displayed on MTL a Table site. Just to show that, you can never be sure about a menu until you give it a chance for these events. For those who don’t know, Tourtiere is something of a traditional Quebec food. It is pretty much a meat pie. Some people prefer to eat it with ketchup. I do that sometimes. If you look at this one, they really changed up the formula. The meat is different and the presentation as well. It was so awesome! Right from the meat in the pan to the bacon jam. As for the other options, the pancake and gravlax was delicious as well. My friend enjoyed that one. Her husband took the burger and I think it was decent as well.

In Addition…

The winner of the show for my friends was maybe the side of pretzel bread that we got. It was not only cute to look at but also tasted really good. I personally think they could have gotten another one.

Overall… Bistro-Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises is a winner. The brunch was the best meal out of the four places we checked out. You can argue that I’ma brunch lover so a little biased but this place has heart, great atmosphere, located in a nice part of town and the service was great. Really not much to complain about. I just want to go out to eat there again and try something else on their menu.

MTL a Table: Restaurant Etre Avec Toi (Montreal, Canada)

This past weekend was a fun one. We had back to back dinner dates on Saturday and Sunday. If you missed Saturday’s dinner, you can check it out HERE!

On Sunday evening, we met up with friends for the next MTL a Table dinner. It was time for our most anticipated choice, Restaurant Etre Avec Toi (E.A.T) located inside the W Montreal. E.A.T. has a beautiful environment complimented by the classy decor of the hotel itself. The restaurant had fun and quirky art on its walls. It had a rather artsy vibe.

Lets look check it out! Just saying, between the six of us, we managed to see almost everything on their MTL a Table menu at a decent $31.

Restaurant Etre Avec Toi (“E.A.T.”)

First service: Appetizers

Tuna Tartare (Moroccan spices, quail egg, dates, almond and mint)

Salmon Tartare (lemon, coriander, olive oil)

Grilled Caesar Salad (grilled romaine, smoked black cod, parmesan and lime)

Foie Gras Mi-Cuit with granny smith salad (+9$)

Second service: Main course

Paella (calmari, grilled octopus, saffron rice, mussels, shrimp au jus, chorizo)

Mussels & Fries

E.A.T. Signature Burger (Angus beef, bacon, black beer cheddar, romaine lettuce, tomato, sweet onion butter)

Burger paired with fries with individual little bottles of Ketchup and Mayonnaise

Third service: Dessert

Le Mont-Royal (Brownie Sundae, selection of ice cream, caramelized banana, creme chantilly, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce)

Churros (originally paired with creme chantilly) Lactose free modification: fruit sauce

Restaurant Etre Avec Toi does so much right from the atmosphere to most of all, the service. Our waiter made a great effort in making sure we were all good from trying his best to get a wine for us, which didn’t work because their selections didn’t fit our tastes unfortunately to making sure the kitchen knew of my allergies and making those necessary changes for every portion of my meal. As for the food, I can’t say that it was great and I doubt my group felt it was spectacular however, the presentation was very nice.

I started with the foie gras mi-cuit appetizer. Seeing as I’m not particularly a foie gras fanatic, I did like this one a lot. It was done really well and paired well with the granny smith salad and the sauce they used was really delicious. It balanced the whole dish along with the crunchy bread on side. I liked this a lot.

As for the main course, I took the paella. There was a huge debate on my part between this and mussel and fries and somehow the paella won. The paella was rather different but in a relatively good way. Let me explain: the saffron rice and the balance of the tastes were all there. The only issue was that there was one rogue piece of chicken that tasted good but seemed out of place. The calamari was done really well, along with the two pieces of shrimp and mussels as well. The one thing I felt a little disappointed by and probably made this dish the most challenging to eat was the grilled octopus. It was a giant piece and we had a butter knife to cut it, making it a tiring task and then it was very very chewy. I’ve never cooked octopus before but while I do remember eating it before and having it chewy, maybe this one was a little overcooked. Just a tad, perhaps.

Finally, the dessert was churros. I had one piece at the restaurant and took the rest home to finish because I just needed time to digest, which is a rare situation that arises at MTL a Table meals but it happened. The churros are fantastic. If I could go back for one thing, it would definitely be this. Plus, the fruit sauce was a nice touch which tasted something like strawberry and some other fruit perhaps. We had a debate of whether it was banana or orange or maybe both. It was really awesome.

As for the other dishes, I do remember that the other dessert had the constant comment about its sweetness. The burger was a little overpowering with the sweet onion butter taste (according my husband). As for the tartare, perhaps my friend Starry Traveler will share her thoughts on it. Her family is my constant companion every year for MTL a Table (and other Montreal-based food events).

MTL a Table: Café Griffintown (Montreal, Canada)

November is finally here and with that comes one of our favorite events in Montreal called MTL a Table. I’ve gone the last two years. If you don’t know what it is, MTL a Table is a gourmet event where selected restaurants offer a fixed menu for $21, $31 or $41 for dinner and some even offer brunch. It is the perfect opportunity to try out some new restaurants and not exactly destroy your wallet over it. This year, our group increased and we are doing a triple date. We have three scheduled over the next two weekends.

The first one this year is Griffintown Café. They had a $21 three course menu.

Griffontown Café

Drinks

Russian in July & Long Island Iced Tea

Ginger Beer Bourbon and Bourbon Sour

1st Service: Appetizers

Roasted Winter Vegetable Soup (lactose-free modification)

Roasted Winter Vegetable Soup

So Simple Salad with Mixed Greens and Roasted Vegetables

Appetizers was good. A lot of love to Griffintown Cafe for being able to modify the soup without the lactose. The roasted winter vegetable soup is very good. Only one person took the salad and I think it was pretty good. Everyone else had the normal unmodified version of the soup. Not sure how they felt. My husband enjoyed it and he isn’t exactly a soup person (or a vegetable person at that). The only difference we talked about was that it was heavily spiced with pepper and I mean like actual full pieces of peppercorn. That added a lot of kick to the soup. For the most part, it was delicious until I went screaming for water when I bit into a peppercorn. It was a funny experience and refreshing to say the least. However, the roasted winter vegetable soup is still a winner especially on a chilly day like when we went this weekend, some heat in the foods adds a little extra warmth and coziness to the meal.

2nd Service: Main Course

So British Fish ‘n Chips (Haddock filet, IPA Beer batter) served with fries and house tartare sauce

Espresso Burger (espresso and dark chocolate glazed Griffintown Burger, blue cheese dressing, tomato and maple braised bacon)

The menu has three choices. The third being a mushroom risotto which no one ended up taking. We were half and half with three taking the Fish n Chips and three with the Espresso Burger. I took the Fish ‘N Chips. The meal was a little salty to my taste however, the IPA beer batter was done really well because the crush kind of melted in my mouth as I ate it. Also, haddock is something I usually eat with fish ‘n chips but really would like to have more because I like the texture of the fish. The home fries are cooked pretty well. Yet again, a little too salty for my taste but I eat pretty bland food compared to most people that I know so perhaps its just my individual issue. I should start mentioning in my order to be a little lighter on salt as a personal preference.

As for the burger, the first hesitation most people had was how they’d make the taste of it all work out. It seems like there is a lot going on there. The burger was huge in height. However, the espresso and chocolate was not overpowering, nor was the cheese supposedly from what I gathered as my friends discussed it.

3rd service: Dessert

Oreo Tiramisu

Carrot Cake

The last course was one I was totally exempted from but I ordered the carrot cake for everyone to share and have a taste. The dessert was probably the underwhelming part of the meal according to my husband. He enjoyed the Oreo Tiramisu more than the carrot cake however, it wasn’t anything special.

Overall, Griffintown Cafe is pretty  nice. The restaurant itself is a little cozier in size. We also went on a night where they hosted the Paint Nite event and that minimized the amount of guests at the restaurant itself not a part of it. The service probably also was slower because of it. However, our waitress was very nice. She was a little short with the details but very accommodating in helping me with my allergy issues. It was a really nice place to hang out with friends. The food was pretty good. There are some small personal preference criticisms but its more a matter of individual tastes and habits than the shortcoming of how the food was cooked because it was done well.

If you are around town, perhaps it is a spot you’d like to check out! They even have brunch normally and that is something that has peaked my interest.