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.

Restaurant: Nom Nom Cantine (Montreal, Canada)

You can see the last visit to Nom Nom Cantine recap HERE.

Nom Nom Cantine

I recommended Nom Nom Cantine as our co-worker lunch spot last week and we ended up going there. I’ve never had the lunch menu before and only been there once before. The restaurant decor was still the same and the atmosphere is still very relaxing.

Appetizers

Chicken Dumplings

The most impressed dish I had in my last visit was the dumplings so this time, I came back to try them again. These ones are steamed and the sauce is a little sweet and a think maybe a tad bit spicy. While I don’t have pictures, my coworkers also took dumplings. One of them took the pork and the other took the vegetarian. The latter is fried. I actually liked the chicken dumplings the best while the other two are pretty good also.

Main Meals

Chicken Poke Bowl ($19)

General Tao Chicken (They have another name but I can’t remember it)

Two of my coworkers ordered these two meals and shared it between them as they both wanted to try both of them. While I didn’t try the poke bowl (which wouldn’t matter since I’m not sure what its supposed to taste like as I’ve  never had it before), I did help them finish up the General Tao Chicken. The chicken here is done really nicely. There’s a nice flavor to it and a good texture in the bite of the chicken.

Shrimps Soba Noodle

My other coworker and I ended up getting the Shrimp Soba Noodles which had some interesting ingredients like lemongrass and such that gave me the impression that in a soup, it would have this refreshing taste to it. Plus, its supposed to be pretty popular dish at Nom Nom. This noodle bowl did taste good and was quite the comfort food. The shrimps are done perfectly and the soba noodles done in a soup bowl is the first time that I’ve had it this way. Usually its served cold in my recollection. However, it was a little disappointing because the soup lacked a bit of flavor. It leaned a bit more towards the blander side. For myself, I’m used to it so it didn’t bother me too much but my coworker also didn’t quite like it as much because of that. On top of that, the disappointment came with the fact that it lacked all those flavors it seemed to have promised and turned into a very normal bowl of soup noodles.

After Lunch Tea

Green Tea

I forgot to take the desserts that my coworkers ordered but I got myself a tea. Its always nice to see the care taken to present the tea and in this case, they had this whole thing. I believe the tea was sencha tea and had a fantastic flavor to it.

Overall, Nom Nom Cantine is still decent. It hasn’t really changed how I felt about it the first time around. The service is pretty good. The waiter was helpful and very friendly. The food presentation is very attractive. The flavors were mostly good except for the slightly blander soup base. The selection of food isn’t a huge amount but its a good idea to limit the options but offer a good quality of food in my opinion.

***As an ending note, the waiter did explain that Nom Nom would be changing form into an Italian restaurant later this year  because the restaurant was always meant to be more of a pop-up concept. You can see their first form was as a French restaurant called E.A.T. where we did go to in this post HERE.***

My Weekly Adventures #44

June is here!

The last two weeks of May probably was two of the most hectic but I can already see the next two being pretty eventful as well. I’m working on some housekeeping stuff for both Game Warp and Tranquil Dreams mostly. Work has taken a slight toll on me and I’ve been taking more time to relax, watch some videos and gaming streams. You should check out Splat Panda if you haven’t. These guys are awesome fun to watch especially as they now are playing games that I personally wouldn’t attempt but like watching others play (aka currently is Dark Souls 2 and The Surge). I’ve also been watching a few other people stream Friday the 13th: The Game. I’ve learned that I’m not suitable to play those games as they stress me out too much which probably will change with more practice so maybe I’ll eventually pick up one of these multiplayer games, perhaps when Friday the 13th releases their single player campaign which I think is in the works.

Either way, back to my last two weeks and what has been going on!

Day Off: Time with Family and Friends

I had mentioned that Victoria Day weekend had passed and I took a day off on the Friday so that I could spend some time with my mom and my aunt visiting from Australia. We decided to go out for lunch and I invited Phoebe and her little bunbun. It was a challenging day to say the least as bunbun was a little irritated by her teething issue. However, we still enjoyed our meal quite a bit. We proceeded to have a much longer than expected walk back to the bus station to catch our ride back to my place and do some gardening preparation. We ended the evening with a lovely dinner and also tried to show bunbun My Neighbor Totoro, at least part of it.

High School Friend’s Wedding

One of my high school friends got married on that same weekend. They had it at a pretty convenient location and the reception was done really well. There were a few familiar faces which was cool. The food was alright. I’m pretty snobby about Chinese food in Montreal because its pretty subpar however, we’re there to celebrate a happy event and that is what matters. I also luckily won the raffle right as I was stuffing my face with fried rice. It was super elegant. 😉

The raffle gift was a little egg-shaped toothpick holder which is pretty awesome. We’re going to put it to good use. And of course, my husband making faces as I attempt a selfie. It was cool and went much better than we anticipated. We didn’t stay too late either since Sunday was going to be a hectic day also.

Kick-off Marathon for my Friend & Other Sunday Events Already Blogged About

Some of you know that I’m the backup driver and water support for my friend who has been training for half marathons. Its pretty cool because it forces me to wake up earlier and sit around reading or writing outside in some park while I wait for him to get back. Marathon environments are a lot of fun. I am planning on training for a 5 or 10km however my foot decided to join into my other issues and I haven’t been able to train yet. It is getting much better now so I should be 100% very soon (hopefully). My friend usually just jumps into the Ottawa Half Marathon but this year, he decided to do a warm-up and did a 10 km at the SSQ Longueuil marathon. He did pretty alright time-wise and it was a nice day and the site is pretty nice also.

He drove me over to meet up with Phoebe and her family as we were going to prepare for Battle of Ingredients and go to the greenhouse. You can see my gardening haul HERE and the Battle of Ingredients HERE. We had another couple join us for dinner as they always do. The evening ended with a dramatic event and some happy ones like co-op play in Broforce.

Since we’re talking about the long weekend, I might as well add in the Monday where we took it easy and headed out on date night to see Alien:Covenant. My review is right HERE.

Ottawa Marathon Weekend

As the last four years have been, I’ve gone away to Ottawa for the marathon. My friend now runs both 5K on Saturday and Half on Sunday morning. I pretty much hang about and have water when he’s done and make sure he gets to point a to b safely. Aside from that, I take it as a weekend away to relax: shop a little, eat a little and walk around to take in the city a little.

My companion PSP

My furry companion

New discovery: Butterfly Jasmine at David’s Tea

Canada 150 celebration at Byward Market

My new Animator’s Series haul

Candy haul at Squish

I dusted off my PSP for the trip and was playing through LocoRoco and just like every 30 year old should, I brought my Thumper with me. David’s Tea ran out of Dragonwell which is my tea of choice for the morning but I ended up trying out Butterfly Jasmine which was pretty smooth as well. During Saturday, there was some shopping like the Disney Story and Squish  for candy as shown above. I also picked up some hiking pants for my husband at Eddie Bauer which were 40% off, got some stuff at La Senza (40% off bras are a rarity) and my friend got me a Fuel Belt to motivate me to go out and train in the summer as a belated birthday gift. We also had a breakfast at a King Eddy’s Burger or something and I’ll be doing a separate short post for that soon since this post is getting a little crazy.

This weekend ended with the drive back so that I could make it in time to do recording for the 50th episode of MBDS hosted by Elwood, my Game Warp co-host and MBDS is his own movie podcast on obscure cinema.

New Shoes

I finally found some comfy flats suitable for work! Its taken me at least two years. I’ve been trying to extend the life of my last pair of flats and then ended up giving up and swapping between sneakers and running shoes but the fact is when the weather is really hot, it gets very suffocating to wear it and most importantly, its not very professional for the office. My office is semi-casual so these actually work really well and comfy also. I had originally ordered the whites but somehow I got these and I think that everything worked out for the better.

And that’s it! I think that was packed enough!
If you didn’t think so, I sure did because all I want to do is sleep all the time! 🙂

What have you been up to?

Lunch: DollarBouffe Restaurant (Brossard, Quebec)

Last weekend, my friend and I headed out to run some errands and decided to go grab some take-out for lunch to save on some time since I had to prepare for that evening’s events with friends.

DollarBouffe Restaurant

Deep-fried  Pastry with Pork

This was pretty good. While it is deep-fried and should be oily, I found it a little too oily and had to kind of soak a bit of it away with paper towels. However, the pork inside is seasoned really tasty.

Plain Rice Roll (with soy sauce)

Rice Roll is a pretty traditional dim sum plate. For those who frequent dim sum will notice that this doesn’t look like your typical one. But these are made pretty fresh on spot. It is a little wait but it does taste on point. I’m a fan of the plain rice roll variety, if not, then I’d usually go for shrimp. Next time, I’ll try out the other flavors, I’m sure.

Boat/Sampan Congee

Congee isn’t really my favorite meal. I usually associate it with something I’d eat when I’m not feeling well. However, probably because I’ve been plagued with all these infections and health issues that its been an additional motivation to try it out. Boat congee is a pretty common type but I’ve never actually eaten it much before however this one tastes so good. Especially when the ingredients are really plentiful with big chunks of fish.

Do you like dim sum or Chinese food in general?

Cardinal Tea Room (Montreal, Canada)

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Last weekend turned out to be pretty busy as well. On the mission to buy some flowers to decorate the house, as I usually do every year for Chinese New Year, my friend took me to the Cardinal Tea Room for lunch on the way. For those of you who don’t know, I love tea. Love it so much and obviously, seeing as I (used to) bake a lot (and would if I have more time), I love sweets and pastries and the likes. This cute little place seemed right up my alley.

Let’s go!

Cardinal Tea Room

Decor

Cardinal Tea Room is very welcoming. In fact, its almost like walking into another world. Its quaint and cute with lots of more antique sort of elegance to it. There’s old books in wooden bookcases and mirrors and old-fashioned lights. There’s a beautiful chandelier hanging in the centre of their two storey tea room and a piano near the stairs. The places are decorated with these green lights that we’d usually see at older libraries.

Tea, Pastries & Sandwiches

Oolong Tea

Sausage Rolls

Blueberry Scone (my friend’s pastry)

Open-face Sandwich (my friend’s lunch)

Cardinal Cake: Apple & Walnut Tart

Nice presentation with their very beautiful plates along with delicious food makes this place very nice. While these are rather simple things, the sausage roll is really good for one. The apple tart was really nice. I’m personally not a huge fan of walnut and somehow apple and walnut seems like an odd combination, maybe pecans would be better. However, this tart did grow on me, maybe a hint of the cinnamon (I think) made it tasty. My friend had the blueberry scones which is made with some milk ingredients, cream I believe, so I didn’t get to try it and I wasn’t into sandwiches, but I believe it was good. However, I was impressed with the tea selection although I would have liked a better selection of Chinese tea but that isn’t their crowd probably.

Overall, Cardinal Tea Room is a lovely little tea and pastry restaurant. The service was good and the decor is cozy and charming. The food is pretty good and the tea selection is nice. Definitely somewhere I would like to go again.

Fortune Terrace Chinese Cuisine (Richmond, Canada)

I’ve been to the West Coast a few times as layovers. Some of them are also visiting family for a little bit as well. The one thing I always remember other than some of the spectacular scenery is food. In comparison, Montreal has a decent food scene except when it comes to Chinese restaurants. If you want good Chinese food, at least in my opinion, Montreal is not the place to go. Of course, everyone’s tastes are different and that is why there is still Chinese restaurants opening. And yes, there are a few exceptions. Some dumplings shops have opened in Chinatown and they are rather good. There are some more traditional Cantonese-style dinner places that have been around for years and those are pretty good as well. My main complaint really goes to dim sum. My friends and family in Montreal assume I don’t like dim sum because I don’t eat it but I have my reasons (allergies, unpleasant experiences, etc). However, I love dim sum and when I find good dim sum places in Toronto, Vancouver and Hong Kong. I can eat it everyday and it makes me miss it…even now…after its been two weeks, I still miss this restaurant, Fortune Terrace.

Maybe you think its because I’m Chinese so you know, my standards are higher. My husband went to dim sum once in Montreal and he wasn’t a huge fan. Never went back actually for dim sum or dinner or whatnot unless it was obligatory. However, he loved it at Fortune Terrace. For that, thank you to Fortune Terrace if you ever see this post for making dim sum so good that my husband realized what Chinese food should taste like.

I’ve rambled on enough. The star of this post is Fortune Terrace Chinese Cuisine located in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

By the time we made it to pick up the luggage, get the rental car and headed to the complex and stopped by T&T to grab some refreshments for the road trip to Kelowna, my aunt, cousin and their friends were already at the restaurant seated and ordered all the dim sum.

First thing that caught my eye was the decor. The ceiling is full of these little lights and butterfly decorations.

And here is the food! There’s the pyramid fried rice and the vermicelli wrapped up in the crusty exterior and ton of traditional and new style dim sum, including the salmon and cheese egg roll and then for dessert, there was a souffle and this sesame covered dessert. Lots of stuff to fill our bellies. Before you get excited, we were probably ten people or more. Enough to justify this much food.

Fried Rice Pyramid

Preserved Cabbage & Bitter Melon & Beef Vermicelli

Traditional Dim Sum

Traditional Dim Sum (Dumpling varieties)

Traditional Dim Sum

Almond Souffle

Salmon and Cheese Shrimp Egg Rolls

Dessert: Chestnut Cake

My favorite was absolutely the fried rice. That was so delicious. The dim sum was also very good. My husband liked the souffle and the salmon and cheese rolls quite a bit. I couldn’t taste those. I believe there was also a Barbecue Pork Buns but they were vanquished and I didn’t take a picture of them. That is a vague memory I have of it. What is really cool is that a lot of their items are with organic ingredients. I didn’t pay for the meal so I didn’t see what it all came down to however my guess is that its a pricier restaurant and they make it worth your while to go there with using better ingredients. It is completely speculating off the menu items.

With our bellies filled, it was time for the road trip to Kelowna! If you missed the Day 1 road trip highlights and scenery, you can check out that post HERE. Tomorrow will be the restaurant we went to dinner for mentioned in the Day 1 post also. These vacation posts might take a while to get through because there is so much to talk about and places I really want to share.

Happy Saturday, my lovelies! 🙂

Lunch: Fried Rice with Shrimps and Yin-Yang style Vegetables

I’m sure we all have that issue at some point or another. Preparing lunch in advance is always a huge difficulty for me.  I usually stick with leftovers and whatnot.  Most of my meals are interchangeable between lunch and dinner.  In this case, one week night, I thought about how I haven’t had shrimps in a long time and I conveniently had just bought some frozen Yin-Yang style stir fry vegetables from the grocery store.  Typically, using overnight rice is the best results but I didn’t have that so we made a tub of rice in the morning and cooled it down so I could cook it at night. I haven’t made fried rice in forever so forgive me if its not exactly presentable.

Fried Rice with Shrimps and Yin-Yang Style Vegetables

Ingredients:

2 bowls Steamed Rice (overnight is the best)
Shrimps, defrosted and peeled
Fresh or Frozen Vegetables (I used Arctic Gardens Yin-Yang Style Stir Fry Vegetables)
1 Egg, beaten
1 tsp Garlic, minced
salt or soy sauce, for taste

How to make it:

1. Heat some oil in a pan. Add some minced garlic. Cook shrimps.  Remove from pan once cooked thoroughly. Set aside.
2. Cook frozen vegetables (or fresh ones) until they are thawed and heated.  Once ready, remove from pan and set aside.
3. Heat up rice and add beaten egg. Mix together until egg is cooked.
4. Add back the vegetables and shrimp. For taste, add in a dash of salt or a bit of soy sauce. Mix it together until its blended.
5. Remove from pan.  Put in a bowl and its ready to eat!

I’m bad at teaching people how to cook.  My mom taught me cooking from improvisation so measurements are more instinctive than exact.  I tried my best to give you approximations. For mine, I forgot to add in the salt or soy sauce so I added that later.  But, please do.  Or else, its going to be really bland. Unless you like the natural non-seasoned tasting.  That works also.

In a fully unlazy me way, I’d use fresh vegetables.  However, improvising me only uses what’s on hand and defrosting shrimps felt like this was the best recipe.  As you may notice, I don’t cook shrimp very often but fried rice is also one of the quickest and easiest ways to make a meal. I’ll try experimenting a little further.  Maybe I’ll be back with chicken and beef fried rice.  Who knows, right? The one I want to learn to make has to be with pineapples and whatnot.

Do you like fried rice? What recipes do you make with shrimps?

Dinner (or Lunch): Asian Burgers

Gourmet burgers is the new thing in town right now.  You see all these restaurants that offer up these creative burgers with all sorts of fun ingredients.

While I love eating out and seeing all those imaginative ideas, I always feel like making burgers at home is something completely doable.  I’ve been eyeing how to make Asian Burgers for a long time and I’ve been following Chew Out Loud since the beginning of my blogging life.  I probably saved up like over a hundred recipes at this point.  Maybe I’m exaggerating, maybe I’m not.  I’m not going to count.  But, on a Sunday night, we wanted to have burgers and to make it awesome and for celebrating that I got my little baking counter, I was in a wonderful mood and kept my cool and prepped dinner.

My combo was Oven-Roasted Potatoes (that I posted Here last week) and these Asian Burgers.

Asian Burgers

Recipe found at Chew Out Loud

**Note: I did not make the Sriracha Mayo since I can’t handle spicy stuff so we just ate with normal mayo.**

Ingredients and Recipe is in the link above

Substitutes:

• Panko Bread Crumbs replaced with Corn Flakes Crumbs
• Garlic powder with minced garlic
• Toasted sesame oil replaced with normal Sesame oil
• White pepper replaced with black pepper

We didn’t have any fancy bread, just normal white bread, so used what we had on hand. Funny how we wanted to make burgers and didn’t go buy any buns. Haha! Scatterbrained as we are, that’s just how it is.

Let me get this straight.  I’m not a burger person.  I’d much prefer eating hot dogs than burgers. But this Asian Burgers, I’d do it again! Its so juicy and delicious.  Maybe its my whole Chinese me talking about it.  The blend of everything was great and with the wide selection of different sauces, it keeps it moist, not like the usual dry slab of meat that are normal beef patties. The blend is absolutely yummy.

Oh, by the way, all the cooking to perfection is all on the husband’s skills 😉 I take no credit in that part. Haha!

Highly recommend! 🙂

What type of burgers do you like?

Sherbrooke Met La Table: OMG Resto

I love food festivals! Thanks to how much fun the MTL a Table was and our last hiking at Mont-Orford having us check out the Tourism Sherbrooke book that exposed us to this event called Sherbrooke Met la Table. This food event is pretty much what MTL a Table is except on a much smaller scale.  It has 20 restaurants.  Its currently running in Sherbrooke. If you are in that area, its definitely worth a visit.  We had a few restaurants that we wanted to try but in the end, we had a day trip which included booking a lunch and a dinner menu that appealed to us the most. This runs till the end of this weekend.  While its smaller, you will see that the style and menus are much more diverse and has some really great concepts.  I have some in mind that I hope will be there if this event runs again next year. I’m not even sure how long this event has been going for.

Our first choice was for lunch at OMG Resto!  Please note that they don’t always have the same wide variety offered on their menu so my husband took something from the normal menu. Before we get into the food.  You have to see the nice building that its located it. Its in a church.  Get it? OMG?

The inside decor is some of the best I’ve seen. Plus, its Christmas decorations are up so its so pretty!

Wine Rack

OMG Resto Decor

Giant Christmas Tree

Its really nice.  The tree is perfect for its high church ceilings. They had stairs going up and the backdrop was full of those LED pots.  Its a very nice ambiance and comfortable setting.  The wood walls makes it exceptionally home-y. Plus, I don’t usually talk about bathrooms but its a unisex bathroom.  There are four individual stalls and then in the middle was a urinal and you have this door that closes. Its super cool! This restaurant overview is getting really in depth.

Let’s move to the food now before I get too carried away!

Drinks

Mad & Noisy (Beer) & Cocktail: King Kunta

Mad & Noisy is an Indian pale lager.  My husband had it.  We both agreed that it was incredibly bitter. Not really our taste but it is smooth.  Not like a typical beer that I’d taste.

I had the cocktail mixo menu. I can’t remember everything that is in the drink but it had gin, pineapple juice, mint (or basil) and some other stuff. Doesn’t really matter because it taste REALLY  good.  Plus, it had a smaller quantity that other places I’ve been to but its to be tasted and enjoyed slowly, so that was alright 🙂

Appetizers

Met la Table menu: Mini fish cake, lime aioli, arugula with parsley

Les Cochonettes : Pulled Pork mini burgers

Met la table lunch menu’s appetizers was mini fish cakes. I usually have crab cakes so fish cakes was interesting.  I have no idea what lime aioli was. I’m guessing its the sauce at the bottom. It has something of a mayo sort of base.  I wasn’t sure what it was so I didn’t eat a lot of it but it was a good mix with the fish cake.

My husband had these little pulled pork burgers called Les Cochonettes.  There was four but he ate one before I could take the picture. Regardless, these are awesome! And I only took a bite! He liked it a lot too.

Main dish

Condiment rack

Burger de Gars

Met la Table menu: OMG Duck Burger with mango chutney and home fries

Look at that condiment rack! Three types of ketchups! I’m impressed.  When it first set on the table, I was like, now that’s hardcore. Haha!

Lets get back to business. The husband took the Burger de Gars (Translation: A Guy Burger). It had smoked meat, beef patty and bacon among tomatoes, pickes and mushrooms plus strong cheddar cheese. He liked it.  OMG resto age the beef in their restaurant so it enhances the taste of the beef.  The mix was good. His only critique would be that the “strong” cheese wasn’t very strong. Other than that, it was great.  Just a note for cheese lovers/connoisseurs.

Okay, so my burger. Let’s get something straight.  I like duck. I don’t eat it a lot nor do I claim to be a connoisseur or any sort but I didn’t get to taste the duck burger at La Maison du Magret during MTL a Table and this one has mango chutney.  If you missed it from a previous resto review, I LOVE mango.  This combination of duck, foie gras and mango chutney in a burger sounded really good.  Except, it didn’t.  The foie gras taste overpowered everything else. Mixing it with the mango chutney had this weird mix. Regrettably, it was suffice for half of the burger and then it took a little more effort to finish up. What would have been great is if the mango chutney was on the side and maybe found some sauce that would balance it but then when we have foie gras, the point is to taste it.  Its an acquired taste. To be honest, its really my issue because the patty itself was tender and juicy.  It was done very well.  Its just the strong foie gras that I couldn’t get over.

Dessert

Met la Table menu: Homemade donuts with vanilla infused whipped cream cheese

As many of you know, I can’t eat these.  You know, lactose intolerant  and all.  BUT, the resto didn’t know that and my husband didn’t order a serving of dessert but they still gave him a plate as well. Which meant he had double the indulgence 😉 It was very nice of the resto and we absolutely appreciated it with all our hearts. My husband was great because it was totally taste the homemade home taste and the addition of the sauce balanced with the dark chocolate filling was a great combination.

Additional Goodies with our bill!

Lollipops

Overall…

We have our critics of this meal but it was an enjoyable experience.  The food presentation is appealing.  The drinks and cocktails are nice and attractive. I would have loved to try more. The food was great (except my duck burger but thats because I’m not a foie gras lover).  I’m sure that if I had something else, I would love it a whole lot more. The decor and the setup and just the idea of changing a church (previously St-Therese Church) into a restaurant-bar is so weird and wrong but also done so right.  On top of that, the service was fantastic.  Our server was called Guillaume and he was an absolute gem.  Its worth every bit of the experience and if we were to go back to Sherbrooke, I’m pretty sure we’d stop by this place for a meal. Maybe even on one of the nights, they have some awesome performer there (because they seem to have some known musicians going there).

Do you love foie gras or other duck meals? What do you think of this restaurant setting and concept?

Plattsburgh Finds & Lunch at Applebee’s!

One of the best moments is being able to reconnect with good friends.  Its been a year or so that I haven’t spoken with one of my friends.  Sometimes, its just one of us taking the first step.  I guess thats a problem for me because I always assume everyone is busy with their own life and I don’t like to disturb them.  Long story short, one of my good friends who is also my best travel buddy is around again.

Our new plan from hanging out again was setting up our trip in advance.  We decided to do a short Plattsburgh food run.  The perks of living relatively near to the US border is that we can go and do food runs and explore all those options Americans get that we don’t in Canada. We were joking as we were looking at the different flavours that Canada gets on who  makes these decisions on what Canadians like rather all those other ones that’s there.  Seeing as it is across the border and one day, it all dials down to getting a whole lot of food…or when they asked our reason, Pop Tarts, Iced Tea, Oreos and Chips… What more can we say, right?

Our first stop was Champlain Centre for a Target run. Then across the street to Hannaford, lunch break at Applebee’s and finally, ending it off at Walmart.

Lunch at Applebee’s

This is the second time I’ve been here.  My stomach was a little wonky that morning so I tried to not eat too much.  We ended up sharing these samplers where you can choose 3 choices. Our choices were: Pork and Shrimp Dumplings, Honey BBQ Riblets and Sweet Potato Fries.

Let me tell you: these samplers are really good! I loved the riblets the best but they were all tasty and just enough to share for something light.  Its a pretty good idea to have this on the menu 🙂

Now that we have food out of the way, lets check out what I got.  Keep in mind that other than the movies and book, most of this stuff, I can’t get in Canada.

1. Sobe Life Water

Its like a vitamin water, I guess.  I’ve never seen it in Montreal but then I never try to seek it out either.  I figured it’d be something new to try when I don’t feel like drinking water or tea 😉 But I have tasted some of Sobe’s juices and they are pretty delish!

2. Movies: You’re Next (Blu-ray), Snitch (Blu-ray), Takers (DVD) & Land Before Time 8 & 9.

I’ve been collecting the Land Before Time series since I was a kid and they are still incredibly fun to watch.  Don’t judge…

3. Book: Paper Towns by John Green.

I saw the trailer for this movie and it reminded me a little of Eleven Reasons Why minus the manipulated feelings while I was reading that book so while I want to catch it in the theatres when its released, I also wanted to read it before.  Here’s where Target is fantastic because it has 20% off the regular price and that’s awesome.

4. Chips: Cape Cod Chipotle Barbecue, Lay’s Wasabi Ginger, Lay’s Mango Salsa, Lay’s Garlic Cheesy Bread, Frito’s Twisters.

Junk food galore right here and its just the start as you can see.  As of now, I’ve only tried the Wasabi Ginger and that tastes pretty good.  Usually these ones are pretty hit and miss but something about it tastes a little like ramen powder with gingery and mild wasabi hotness 😉 Garlic Cheesy Bread is my boyfriend’s since thats his favorite appetizer choice.

5. Cereal: Froot Loops with Marshmallows!

Excuse me, I love marshmallows and I love froot loops.  It was this one or the Fruity Pebbles with marshmallows, I think.  The cereal aisles in the US are just incredible!

6. Pop Tarts: Unfrosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Wild Berry Bloom (Limited Edition), Frosted Cinnamon Roll

I love these unfrosted Pop Tarts.  Mostly because its just the perfect sweetness.  When its fully frosted, it gets a little too much for me.

7. Slow Cooker Sauces: I don’t get why we don’t have these in Canada.  While I’m all about homemade food, this is really great backup dinner solutions.  All I need to do is buy meat the night before.

8. Iced Tea: So I’ve never seen this and it had some nice flavors.  I love hibiscus flavored stuff and I’m trying to find the one I had tasted on my travels a few years back, till today, still no luck.  I haven’t tried this one yet so who knows, right?

9. Lactose-free Ice Cream: The choices for gluten-free and lactose-free or anything allergen free in Montreal is miserable.  I mean, its limited choices and outrageous prices that I kind of want to forego eating these things so I got a nice little cooler bag and bought three tiny tubs of ice cream.  You see two up there, yeah, that’s because there’s also a raspberry sorbet in the freezer 😉

10. Fruit Roll-up (not shown here): Look, we only have Fruit by the Foot here.  While I enjoy that, there’s always 1 out of 3 trips to Plattsburgh that I pick up some Fruit Roll-Up.  I’d definitely think about getting Fruit Gushers eventually.  Its pretty tasty and for the most part, nostalgia wins over me 😉

I guess that’s all there is! Crossing the border, I could see the customs not really caring when they asked us what we went to buy.  Its probably one of the smoothest border crossings I’ve had, as in not a lot of questions and not even a lot of cars.  It was a quick food run but it was tons of fun just catching up and buying random stuff.  At least, I’m stocked up for snacks for a few months (or I hope I will).

Do you have travel buddies? Are you a fan of doing day trips? What are your favorite snacks?