Restaurant: Ichigo Ichie Izakaya (Montreal, Quebec)

Its been a while since I’ve shared any restaurant visits. I actually had quite a few to share but haven’t gotten around to it. We will do those if the time presents itself, however, this past weekend, I went out for a Bachelorette Party dinner at Ichigo Ichie Izakaya, which is the restaurant portion linked to Yokato Yokabai where I had previously talked about in a Weekly Adventures HERE.

Ichigo Ichie Izakaya

Located in Plateau Mont Royal, the best way probably is to take the Metro to Mont-Royal station and take  few minutes walk over. Ichigo Ichie Izakaya is a Japanese pub so we had reservations for the 10 people and gave us a big table on the side. I can’t say that there’s a lot of good stuff to say about the group seating there as the cushioned seats were too low (maybe I’m too short) and then the ventilation wasn’t quite good so it was very hot as its also quite near the kitchen. They need to add some kind of vents around that spot probably.

Putting all that stuff aside, we’re there for food and drinks and of course, spending time to celebrate our friend’s upcoming marriage so let’s talk food.

Cocktails

Cocktail: Nashi

I can’t remember exactly what was in this drink called Nashi but it tasted a lot like those Lychee jelly that used to come in those little plastic cups which was pretty delicious. There were quite a few very interesting cocktail blends here that I’d definitely want to go back and check out if given the chance.

Main Meals
(shared among 3 people)

Garlic Fried Raisu – Soy and garlic fried rice, shiso, sesame seeds

Garlic Fried Rice was my choice. Its always more substance to have some kind of rice or noodles so its why I chose this one, plus, it fit with what I could potentially eat, which was good because the other carbs choice was one that I couldn’t eat. This one was pretty decent. Simple, for sure but the rice and the garlic and how it was fried had really good texture. There was a lot of garlic and yet wasn’t too overpowering either.

Ebi Mayo (I think) – Jumbo shrimp tempura, crushed almonds & sweet chili mayonnaise

Tempura is the sure fire at any Japanese restaurant. If you can’t get this right, then you can forget about it. This one had 2 jumbo shrimp tempura which was cut into pieces on the bed of crunchy noodles or something. I don’t remember why you call it. Everything worked really well even the spicy mayo that actually gave it a nice kick.

Butabara – Grilled Pork Belly skewer, Japanese curry seasoning

Pork belly is something that I like getting when I go out and seeing as Yokato Yokabai has the option to choose pork belly in their ramen, I figured it would also be a good choice for this section. We spent a little time cutting up the pieces so everyone could share. The Japanese curry seasoning was quite powerful and rather spicy however, it was pretty delicious also.

Carbonara Udon – Stir fried udon noodles, bacon, onsen egg, mushroom, spring onions, creamy sauce

Finally, Carbonara Udon was my friend’s choice which I completely forgot had creamy sauce so I had to skip it. My friends however did enjoy this one. They said that the sauce wasn’t too heavy and it was pretty delicious as well.

Dessert

Matcha Tiramisu

Suffice to say that, I had to skip out on dessert as well, even though there was an option for Yuzu sorbet (but I was pretty full at that point) so my friends got the Matcha Tiramisu to share. It felt like it wasn’t exactly what they were expecting and from what they said the matcha layers were fairly bland but then the matcha layer on the top was too thick.

OVERALL…

I’ve never been to a Japanese pub as Ichigo Ichie is categorized at. The cocktails are really cool and they have a nice selection of drinks. Everyone at our table, who took other drinks also seemed to enjoy it. The service was also pretty good. Our waitress was very helpful and friendly and answered a lot of our questions whenever and happily went to seek out answers when she didn’t know the answer to it. The food itself was pretty decent as well. Its a tad overpriced in my opinion but its meant to be tapas style so meant to share and it all came out to an alright bill at the end. With that said, paying for food is always more enjoyable when you enjoyed the meal and I was pretty happy with the food presented. There’s a lot of interesting dishes on the menu which could merit a second visit.

Dinner: L’Atelier du Joel Robuchon (Casino du Montreal)

L’Atelier du Joel Robuchon is a fine dining restaurant located in Casino de Montreal specialized in intricate French cuisine. As I mentioned in the Weekly Adventures before, my friend treated me to a meal there. Finding the way to the Casino is going to be the easy part, however, remember to look for the indications on the floor to get to the restaurant. Its a little up of going up and then taking an elevator down to its own little corner in the Casino.

 Cocktail- Coco Hennessyto (I think that’s the name)

I think thats how you spell it. This beautiful cocktail had some avocado puree popsicle topped above it along with some coconut milk and other fun ingredients. It is a fabulous and delicious twist on the mojito.

Bread starter

As far as fancy restos go, this place gave you a platter of bread choices. My friend specifically had two cheese breads and they thoughtfully put it on a separate plate to not contaminate the other selections. In the big platter, there are mini baguettes, croissant-like buns, some ham stuffed bread and a spelt bread. I tried the mini baguette and the spelt bread.

Before we continue, I want to share what we took. I ambitously went for the “Experience” Tasting Menu. My friend took the “Seasonal” Tasting Menu which had two extra plates. I would later realize that eating bread was not recommended with the amount of food and the length of time it took to finish this meal. The length was 4 hours. Talk about an experience, right?

Do note that I will use the dishes listed in their menu and when I remember to list the changes they made for my lactose intolerance. Let me tell you, I gave the kitchen a run for their money judging from watching at the seat how they convened at the table. French restaurant and no dairy products except for butter is not exactly easy. As for my friend’s choice, I’ll see if I can share his instagram post for it.

To begin…

Velvety Jerusalem Artichoke Cream with Toasted Hazelnuts 
Replaced with…this (because I can’t remember what it is)

However, I do remember it being incredibly delicious! The flavors and the everything was so perfect. Now if someone from the L’Atelier du Joel Robuchon lands here and sees this, how about you tell me what this is? (Fat chance of that happening, but hey, its a shot, right?)

Le Crabes des Neiges
Snow crab with finely juliened sweet and sour turnip with clover and rosemary honey

Possibly one of my faves of the evening went to these little snow crab layers of goodness. It was a mystery how to keep it together to eat but I made my best effort and its just so awesome.

Le Foie Gras de Canard
Duck foie gras royale, tasty apple and raisin variation fine Le Carminee jelly

Of the most loveliest presentations for this mean, however, I have to confess that I’m not a huge fan of foie gras so I do partially blame the heaviness of this piece regardless of having the toasted slices or the currants to accompany. It was delicious if it was about half of this size. But foie gras is a very personal preference sort of food so if you like it, this probably is a decent amount.

La Chataigne
Fine chestnut veloute with smoked bacon over a delicate celeriac cream
replaced by this Artichoke dish cooked three ways with cayenne pepper

To be honest, I have never eaten any foamed stuff before tonight. We’re more the diner and bistro sort of people. We love a nice meal here and there but nothing like these fine dining haute cuisine sort of things. However, as an entry point, this artichoke was fantastic, given that I haven’t eaten artichoke either before. There was a fried variety that was great, and the puree bit on the bottom was nice and I believe the foam is also the third way to make it. Its garnished with cayenne pepper and some sriracha mayo or something like that. It had a definite spicy hot punch.

Le Blanc de Fletan
Halibut filet with anise-flavored shellfish broth

About this dish, I had to walk around a little before eating. The fish was delicious and it had this lovely fennel seafood bits around it including mussels and shrimps. It was made so very good. We rarely cook halibut but the broth and the whole thing was paired so well in terms of flavors. The seafood broth was absolutely on point.

Le Cochon Gaspor
Roasted pork rib, tenderloin glazed with jus over herb risotto

The replacement here is that risotto is usually made with cheese however, they made this risotto with olive oil. Unfortunately, I only took two bits of the tenderloin before I felt like I was going to get sick from overeating even after walking around and standing about. I’ll talk about the experience at the end which I think contributed a lot to why ordering for meals like this one is different from ordering a la carte.

Back to the meal, this dish was very good. The pork was done so awesome. It was tender and juicy and the sauce was fantastic. I would have wanted to finish this one if I wasn’t so full. My friend did help me finish it and he loved it a lot.

The Dessert

The original was a chocolate creameux with crumbled biscuits and cocoa sorbet which was replaced by something of a coconut delight. The sauce around it was really good. Then the whole feeling of cracking open the sugar coat around the coconut mousse or some sort of so satisfying. I usually find coconut has this tendency to be overpowering in its sweetness but in this case, it liked it a lot. This dessert felt like an experience in the whole eating journey.

Finally, as the bill was being paid, they brought us some little tidbits of sweetness. My plate had a fruit jelly and a nougat.

For my friend’s seasonal tasting menu, here’s his instagram post on it.

View this post on Instagram

After all the running, my target was to eat here to celebrate the 9 month running season #robuchonmontreal #montreal #weekend #friday #dinner #casinodemontreal

A post shared by Ron (@rlaw1978) on Nov 10, 2017 at 10:42pm PST

OVERALL…

L’Atelier du Joel Robuchon was a pretty great experience. The food was impeccable from both the presentation and the flavors. It was very unique. The service was fantastic. They tried their absolutely best to accommodate to what I wanted. The tasting menu was a hard task to put together and they did a fine job. Kudos to our waitress and the kitchen for that. The cocktail was also incredibly original and I actually wanted to figure out how to make one at home. The experience of it all was nothing short of pure awesomeness. The atmosphere and the decor were beautiful and yet still had somewhat of a casual vibe.

However, if I were to go again, I wouldn’t order from the tasting menu. While I do enjoy my food and like to take my time, having a meal that lasts from 7:30pm to 11:30pm is not my idea of absolute fun even if my friend and I are long time friends and we always have stuff to talk about. Its more the idea of sitting around eating or waiting for food. With that said, because I had so much time for my body to digest every course, I felt my fullness much faster, resulting in how I just couldn’t eat anymore by the time the last course came around. Looking back at the pictures, it was a truly gastronomical experience which also means the portions are small. If they came swifter, I would have been able to eat through the whole thing (I believe, since I’ve never tried). With that said, if I were to go again, which I hope to take my husband for a nice night out one time, I’d go for the a la carte menu so both the kitchen and myself will not have any headaches over the lactose intolerance.

L’Atelier du Joel Robuchon is a great experience and if you are a foodie into the fine gastronomical cuisine, this is somewhere you should try for sure if and when you are in Montreal provided you don’t have children under 18 as its in Casino de Montreal.

The Key to Relaxing :)

I’m a bit late with this random life update post that I almost didn’t want to put one together. By the way, if you don’t want to read anytime, scroll down to the bottom, I have a special message 🙂

Nothing really happened actually, which is quite a miracle and honestly, a relief.  I needed some down time from running around.  We managed to finally start painting and for me, it was a totally new experience as I’ve always been pampered and my mom used to do all the painting at my place.  I gotta love her to bits: an awesome cook, a lovely home painter and just wonderful.  Sure, my mom and me, we have our cranky days and she loves to piss me off when I’m in my time of the month and it usually ignites some form of argument but I’m starting to feel the best friend in her coming back slowly. But of course, things never quite last in the happy zone these days and I’m feeling pressured with something else that I’m not quite ready to discuss here just yet.

I really don’t have much to share about the past week.  I’m even in much of a mood to ramble on about stuff.

You know what I think about when I’m in these moods?

One thing is TV and I went ahead and continued on watching Season 2 of Psych.

And happily finished it last night and after getting in a few movies so that I have content for the following week, I will move on later this week to Season 3 hopefully 🙂 Honestly, Psych is not as awesome as The Mentalist, Lie to Me  and shows with the same sort of investigation through hyper-observation. It does have that easy-going silly fun that works for me because it offers a lot of laugh out loud moments that I realized I appreciated a lot more in Season 2.  I look forward to catching up with Season 3 🙂  What series are you watching now?

What goes well with TV aside from food, which I already posted about HERE, is some drinks! While I went to shop for my weekend dinner and food for the following week, this bottle caught my eye.

I have no idea what Still Cider is but what caught my eye was when I was looking at the description in the back, it showed that it was made by Pinnacle which is a popular ice wine producer here. I’ve always liked their products so I figured I’d give this a shot 🙂 Turns out its pretty strong but it tasted decent also.  Its not my favorite but I managed to grow to increasingly like it. It could also be that I was getting a tad tipsy.  Who knows, right? I love exploring new wines once in a while although I’m usually more of a cocktail person.

That leads me to my Sunday night drink.  Work the next day also meant that I couldn’t drink as much as the previous night.  I was surfing Pinterest (again!) and found this recipe called Sex in the Driveway.  LOL! That was seriously my reaction.  I’ve heard of Sex on the Beach but c’mon! Really? Sex in the Driveway?!? Anyways, here’s what it looks like:

Sex in the Driveway

I had a bit of improvisation but the actual recipe is: 1 oz peach schnapps, 1 oz blue curacao, 2 oz vodka and fill with sprite. I don’t own peach schnapps so we used apricot brandy instead and my boyfriend had to improvise because my glass was taller than the normal size.  Either way, it turned out good.  The apricot brandy overrides a lot of the other tastes so it tasted a lot like apricot and was very perfumed with it but I also love it a lot so it didn’t bother me 🙂 Its a pretty good drink and I love vodka based cocktails so this was right up my alley.  But then, I wonder because I swapped out the peach schnapps does the location of where the sex occurred change? Just joking! Being a tad silly..haha!

What cocktail do you like? How about wine?

Now that we have our thirst quenched, my third way to de-stress is one I’m trying to overcome: Shopping.  Except now, I’m trying to resist online shopping.  I’ve been doing rather well, except I really was in need of some clothes so I took advantage of an online sale. And then add a trip to Walmart to damage my wallet a little more…at least I didn’t feel too guilty because everything was awesome.  Since I said that I wouldn’t do a selfie, I just caught the front of the shirt and not my face.

First up from La Senza is my ROAR sleep wear. I love tigers. What more can I say? 🙂

I love La Senza stuff but its just so pricey.  Thank goodness this was on special and had my size left in stock.  Then, in the same package, I had a few other stuff but as a filler I got this very meaningless headband but maybe for Halloween eventually, it’ll be useful.

Cat ears hair band

I wore them on and off during the weekend.  I like to channel my inner feline/tiger/cat self.  After all, my boyfriend calls me kitty as a nickname.  It could be because I like to meow randomly.  Scratch that about no selfie, but just one because I don’t know how to take a hair band without my face.

Moving on from that, I also got a cute shirt at Walmart which totally defines me.

Fight for Cupcakes!

C’mon! You add Marvel and cupcakes and I’m in! I guess the only way to one up this would be to add a cute tiger with a cupcake…

Now that we’re done with clothes and accessories, I’d like to bring your attention to this super cool car trunk art that I saw.  I don’t know what you call it but this car we were behind at a red light had the COOLEST picture on it ever!

I don’t know this car and if the owner of that car does find the way to my site and doesn’t like their car shown, feel free to tell me and I’d gladly remove it. Just in case anyone gets offended by it.  I should probably blank out the license plate, right? Still, I’m am quite impressed with this.

One of the best things of this weekend is that the weather FINALLY is warming up. We had a pretty clear Saturday which was great because I managed to start my walker to runner training that I talked about HERE! On the same day I also started the Beach Body Challenge and as of today, I’m going to do Day 4 and I honestly want to punch someone because who puts 50 burpees and 50 leg raises in one go.  Either way, for the run, this is my land of jogging: the neighborhood bike path 🙂

Not looking very green and alive right now but it will come 🙂 We did have abnormal warm weather yesterday.  I’m ready for the heat! Although at my office, its feeling extremely sauna-like everyday. Since then, its pretty much been raining. Hopefully it’ll stop soon so that I can go out for another run 🙂

This post was full of randomness so I guess to wrap it all up, I’d like to end with steering you all to check out a post I’m pretty proud of on my newly established blog (that I really should spend more time on) for the last Weekly Writing Challenge.  I’ll find my comfort zone there soon, just like I kind of have here! You can check it out HERE! Its only a fifty word “story”.

Blogging has been my breath of fresh air, even in all my versatility and lack of direction and spontaneity.  Its all about keeping things positive and even without any milestones or whatnot, I’d love to just share this quote to end this off!

 

Maybe I’ve been feeling extremely mushy or its just me being extremely thankful, I don’t know but all I know is that without this blog, I wouldn’t have had the courage to do many of the things I’ve been working on of late.  You all are my inspiration and I thank all of you for dropping by and following, commenting and just writing up all those wonderful blogs you own 🙂 You all are awesome! Its keeps me motivated each day to know that there are such wonderful people scattered across the world that I’ve been acquainted with here in this blogosphere!

Happy Tuesday, my friends!

Saint Patrick’s Day: Kiwi Cocktail

I’m thinking next year, I’ll start posting up cocktails..haha! Although that would result in a whole lot of drinking, more than my tolerance could endure probably.

On that note, yesterday was Saint Patrick’s Day! How many of you celebrate it? Drink a bit (or a lot..whatever you fancy)! I don’t personally celebrate it but for the sake of joining it, I saw this cute cocktail that I wanted to try.  I had some kiwis that I needed to eat before they went bad.  I’m not a huge kiwi fan but I figured in cocktails, it should be alright.

I got this cocktail recipe from here: http://toneitup.com/blog.php?KISS-ME-I-M-IRISH…-and-GREEN-5746

The kiwis I used were mega sour so this drink turned out to be extremely sour.  We added a little bit of vanilla coconut milk ice cream on the top to cool the drink down a bit and it helped balance the taste a bit.  And keep stirring if you try it out, the vodka sat at the bottom and I felt like I took a shot of vodka near the end.  I love vodka but man, strong stuff! However if you do just do a smoothie with this, I’m sure that this is super healthy 🙂

I love vodka based cocktails but its probably the last time, I’d mix in blended fruits..although I did one really awesome one with watermelon before.  Got that party started real quick!

Do you drink alcohol-based drinks/cocktails? What type do you like?

Thinking about this, I need to mix up something tonight to relax…before I seriously go crazy! Now, vodka, apricot brandy, or amaretto…hmmm…wish I had some mint leaves though, then mojito here I come 😉