Sherbrooke Public Market Haul!

I’m getting something a little quicker to put together out first today. No worries. I have a Halloween post in the works and will be released a little later today tomorrow.

Following up with the Eastern Townships this weekend, this is just a quick little haul post so you can see. We’ve already tried some of the stuff so I’ll also talk about that quickly. We made a few stops but the most noteworthy in terms of shopping was at the Sherbrooke public market, Marché de la Gare de Sherbrooke. The one thing to be careful for is the parking here. They have some odd regulations on where has a limited time free parking and which rows are paying spaces. If you do go there, double check first. Second, its surrounded by a lovely little surrounding including some beautiful wall art in the vicinities to check out.

Without further ado, let’s see what we found!

We are big fans of Kombucha. The feeling that we get from it is fantastic. It makes us feel great and thats why we drink it a few times a week if we have stocked it up. At the market, we found two brands that we’ve never seen before including very original flavors as well.

Sencha Kombucha (original Sencha flavor)

I’m a pretty big fan of Sencha in general so when I saw this kombucha flavor, let me tell you that it was an exciting moment. What works even better is that it tastes really good. Plus, its a really nice portion for the bottle so good for a nice dose of kombucha to just detox a little. The husband liked it also but not quite as much as I did.

Kombucha Fous de L’Ile (Vivace-Perennial)

The husband was a huge fan of this one. The ingredients showed lemongrass and chlorophyll which is pretty good. It had a rather floral and grassy taste and was a little more concentrated than what I’m used. However, its still not a bad one. However, if you take a look at the other flavors on their website, there’s a few that I’d love to try out eventually.

I can’t remember what the boulangerie there is called but this is the bread that my husband wanted to get. Its some risen bread or something. I’m not a bread connoisseur so I honestly don’t know what to say about it. However, the bread was fresh and delicious.

Cep d’Argent: Fleur de Lys
Cidrerie Milton: Cidre de Feu
Millebois Original
Millebois Ambré

Since I have the wine recap segment, I will be covering these ones there instead of here. So far, we’ve tried out 2 of these. However, the Fleur de Lys is one that we’ve already had before. My husband had tried this before and likes it a lot. Our taking a chance moment here is for Millebois which is a maple syrup base drink.

That’s it for the haul!
The Marché de la Gare de Sherbrooke is pretty cool. I do feel like its kind of off season. 
However, just to say that if I had cash on me, I would have bought some fresh produce as they looked really nice.
Something to remember for the next visit!
I see that they have a Christmas market or something so maybe we’ll take a trip there later this year.

My Weekly Adventures: Fun Times, Celebrations and Bad News….

Talk about a packed two weeks which never quite felt that way. Busy times, Fun times, Celebrations, and well, what 2018 year would it be without some bad news, because lets just say, that is how life has been this year. I’m still trying hard to be positive but this year is taking a lot to stay happy about everything when we’re getting a lot of things to be worried about or be sad about. I spent a lot of yesterday reflecting hence why nothing got released. These things happen and its all about finding a balance between getting this space updated and also dealing with the personal life stuff, right?

Festival du Nouveau Cinema

Festival du Nouveau Cinema has come and gone through the first 2 weeks of October, ending yesterday. I had the wonderful opportunity to have ticket vouchers after I tried to sign up for media. I’m not a big site even if I’ve been around for a while so I’m still very grateful for having that especially seeing the situation I’ve been in lately. Its my first time at this festival and I have to say there were some hidden gems in there for sure. A lot of movies that I honestly thought were fantastic. Very indie and very deep and going for this profound feeling for the most part. There are a few exceptions to the equation but I liked most of my choices since I actually went into all the movies blind, no trailers and just read the description a little. With that said, I had some stuff to deal with and now I am still missing 3 reviews from the festival which will be released this week.

Being at this festival the first time, I think that everything is really nice. Its especially a great contrast to fantasy especially as it focuses more on dramas and thrillers and you will see the selection is very international. I don’t watch a lot of dramas but I might have filled up my drama quota in the past two weeks. I don’t really mind it as long as the story is worth it. However, this festival is a completely different beast because unlike Fantasia being held pretty much on the Concordia downtown campus, this one is in a general area where you can have films in on theatre and have to run to a theatre 15 to 20 minutes away. I had that for one time and lets say that I won’t schedule films 30 minutes apart from each other again because that was a nervewrecking experience especially when the showings sometimes did tend to start 5 to 10 minutes late. Not exactly a complaint but it added in some running. Either way, thats all I have to say about it.

Here were my final movie selections:

• Ash is Purest White (China, 2018)
• Burning (South Korean, 2018)
• La Version Nouvelle (Canada, 2018)
• Mirai (Japan, 2018)
• The Guilty (Denmark, 2018)
• Socrates (Brazil, 2018)
• Sticks and Stones (Denmark, 2018)
• Tourism (Japan, 2018)
• Firecrackers (Canada, 2018)

Cinema Recall Podcast: Movies We Love That Everyone Hates

The That Moment In podcast hosts sat down for a second round. This time, The Vern thought up a fantastic idea of discussing our Top 3  Movies that We Love That Everyone Hates. It was a fun time to hang out and hear all our choices. I’m sure these shows are a feat in itself to edit so many thanks to The Vern for putting this together and thinking up such a great idea, which you will see has various parts. The other ones I’m not a part of but you should follow Cinema Recall to not miss these shows and all the other ones.

As for this one, I can’t embed the podomatic player so I’ll just send you all over to the That Moment In post to play it. Here you go!

3rd Wedding Anniversary

Our cause for celebration this time goes to our third wedding anniversary that happened during the week. We follow the gift materials giving thing for fun so this year was leather. We had decided on fairly personal preference sort of items so on Saturday, in between our little adventures that I will talk about in the next 2 parts instead of a fleshed out post, we snuck in some free time to go do some shopping. My husband wanted leather gloves and we found them  fairly quickly. For myself, I wanted a new purse which took a few more stores to find because I’m picky about my accessories. Either way, we ended up finding it. Moving onto the adventures portion…

A Historical Visit Around Warden

Before we got to Sherbrooke for our little adventures, through some coincidence, we ended up going to Warden, which is a small town in the Eastern Townships. One of my clients has two properties there and it turned out to be some historical heritage behind it and he ended up showing us around his properties and telling us about his collections and stories and such. I thought it was really awesome and super nice that he took the time out for that. He showed us around for about an hour. My husband was a bit skeptical at first but he loves history so everything was right up his alley. Not to mention the area is absolutely gorgeous. It is private property so I felt it inappropriate to take any pictures there.

Public Market in Sherbrooke

After that, our first stop was at the public market in Sherbrooke. I won’t expand too much about it here since I am thinking of putting together a haul post so I can highlight some brands and products and stuff. It was a pretty neat spot.

Sherbrooke Met La Table

We skipped Sherbrooke Met La Table last year. I can’t remember why exactly. I think it was just a schedule issue and work issue and such. But we went back this year and went out of our comfort zone to try out some Iranian cuisine at a restaurant called Persepolis. It had a really awesome sounding menu. I have an individual post for this going up in the coming week as well. And that wraps up the general chat about our 3rd anniversary celebrations.

A Quick 2018 Gardening Update – Closing

On Sunday, perfect for after the bad news mentioned below, I went out for a day of closing the garden. I’m sorry that the gardening updates kind of fell off but consider this a wrap-up for the 2018 segment. I’ve done some massive trimming on the ferns and the hydrangea bush (look at the pile that I got rid of). I also did trim back the lilac and took down the barriers and harvested remaining veggies from the vegetable garden but forgot to take a picture of it.

A Family Passing

I don’t usually share a ton of private stuff here other than adventures and whatnot. However, this is still a blog so I’m keeping a part of it personal especially for this segment. If I happen to not post as much (although I have a lot planned still..its my way to deal with things sometimes), we got news yesterday that my grandmother passed away. She had a long life (over a hundred years old) and I’d hope to say a good and healthy one for a good part of it. It saddens me of course but I grieve very slowly over people so its not really showing just yet. However, it is weighing down on my heart and mind so things may get quiet or it might just cause a lack of motivation to write. We’ll see how it goes but I’m dealing with that right now. Here’s sharing a picture of 2012 when I went to Hong Kong to visit above.

Cute Kitty Pic

As a final note, posts might be a little sparse. I’m working on some stuff right now but I have a really bad habit of not grieving when I should so I’m going to take some time to you know, do that. I’ve been slightly trying to recuperate and just relax a little and not stress out. So, forgive me if both the Halloween marathon or the wrap-up for Festival du Nouveau Cinema takes me longer. I’m working hard to get it all done but still trying to make sure that I’m okay. Its been a rough year overall so its just getting back to a positive mindset.

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!

Sherbrooke Met La Table: Bistro KapZak

The fall events have officially started here. I have some fall colors coming up next week which is a little delayed. The food events are trickling in and to be honest, it is quite exciting to have a reason to head out and find some cool restaurants. Sherbrooke Met La Table started last Thursday (October 20th) and runs till October 30th. Sherbrooke is about 1.5 to 2 hours away for us so this becomes a little day trip and a little tradition we started last year. This year’s choice is Bistro KapZak, a polish fusion experience.

For this event, Bistro Kapzak offered two different three course menus at $25 and $35. I ended up taking the $25 and my husband took the $35. You will see both choices in each section.

Bistro KapZak

Drinks

We started with drinks. My husband got a blond beer and I got a white sangria. The sangria mix is actually one of the better ones I’ve tasted with a good balance of soda and alcohol with fruity taste but never overpowering.

Appetizers

Beef brisket with fresh herb chutney

Grilled Pork Belly with Warm Vegetable Dressing

Both appetizers were quite good. The beef brisket had very nice spices to augment the flavor. Matched up with some crunchy dehydrated vegetables (I believe might be mushrooms or some root vegetable) and the chutney, it was delicious. My husband took the grilled pork belly. That would be the more rare choice to have available in restaurants however it is prepared incredibly well although I didn’t try the salad with warm vegetable dressing. It looked creamy and also one of the reasons why I didn’t take this meal even though they offered to make modifications. I believe a course should be eaten as it was meant to be as much as possible. With that said, the grilled pork was done really well. My husband is not a fan of the texture while I absolutely am and we both agreed that the flavors were all there.

Main

Roasted cod loin with a crust of wild mushrooms and wine braised red cabbage

Beef shoulder filet with Ratte potatoes and smoked almond sauce

My main course was the cod loin adorned with some pickled cucumbers and red cabbage. There is a weird mixture of tastes here but seeing as a lemon is usually paired with fish meals, it isn’t hard to imagine this more acidic vinaigrette and vegetables paired up. The cod was done good. It only had the pop of flavor from the spices/crust of wild mushrooms on the top. While the first bite felt a little odd, the taste builds with a few more bites and it actually has quite the unique flavor. My husband got the braised beef shank. This was his favorite of the evening. He isn’t quite used to medium rare meat but it didn’t stop him from loving it.

Desserts

Paczkis with apple sauce

Banana bread pudding

My meal came with Paczkis which as explained to us, is a Polish doughnut, or perhaps a doughnut hole. The apple sauce itself was a little too tart but balanced with the bits of doughnuts covered in powdered sugar, it was rather delicious. My husband’s meal came with the banana bread pudding with whipped cream. Somehow it said ice cream? But a minor detail. My husband in general isn’t much of a fruity dessert kind of guy so to him, this was a banana cake topped with whipped cream. I didn’t give this a taste since I wasn’t certain whether they used milk since from my memory, I think bread pudding does use a little bit.

Overall, Bistro Kapzak is a great place. With their cozy rustic decor and nice music playing in the background in the backdrop of a quiet city looking out into the street, it was quite the evening out for us. We enjoyed the environment as much as we enjoyed the food. Plus, the waiter we had was a pleasure to talk to and helped us understand the menu and was very accommodating. Definitely a place we’d recommend. A few items on their regular menu did also peak our interest so we will definitely be going again.

***Note: If you do want to try Bistro Kapzak while it is still in this Sherbrooke location, you need to go before Oct. 30th because they just announced this weekend that for rental negotiation reasons, they will have to move to a new location in Granby. I’m sure lots of Sherbrooke and Eastern Townships goers are less than enthused by this news but for us, it is a lot closer so we will try to head out and maybe bring some friends when this new location opens in 2017 (according to their announcement).

Sherbrooke Met la Table: Overflow Resto-Terrasse

A block or two away from where we had our lunch and a few hours late, we had our second restaurant meal for Sherbrooke Met La Table for dinner at Overflow Restaurant.  Its listed as a tapas and wine bar on the site but has an exceptionally appealing menu with a few choices.  The decor itself is absolutely full of ambiance with its lit up walls and unique ceiling lights that change throughout the night from red to blue to green and to bicolor of green and blue, blue and red, etc.

Cocktails

Sangria: La Bleu & La Royale

There are four selections of Sangrias at Restaurant Overflow! I LOVE sangrias! We chose the other options than the normal red and white one.  I took the Blue (which looks green here..) Its because of the lighting. Look at the back, it had green panels going on at that time. The Blue has white wine, blue curacao, melon liqueur, white cranberry juice and 7Up.  This was absolutely delicious.  Much better than the one that my husband had.  His was The Royal.  It had bubbly, lychee liqueur and red and white cranberry juice. He also preferred mine.

Appetizer

Met la Table menu: Quebec leeks in balsamic vinaigrette

My husband was still digesting his lunch so he took it a little easier for dinner. We had two options.  The other one was a duo tartare dish.  I don’t eat raw meat so I took the second option of Quebec leeks.  I don’t normally eat leeks a lot and we don’t just do a whole cook the leek and add some sauce and thats it.  So, this is how this went. Leeks are pretty good at the green parts but once it hits the white parts, its like eating an onion.  I can get by the taste but not so much the texture of it.  I did finish it though because the sauce was great.  It really made this balance out a whole lot better.

Main Course

Panini Poulet au Gruyere/Chicken Panini with Gruyere Cheese

Met la Table menu: 6oz. Filet Mignon with caramelised onions, grilled vegetables and shoestring fries

My husband had the Chicken panini with a side of fries. It was a decent size with small chunks of chicken with a smoky taste.  He wasn’t sure if it came from being grilled or  from the cheese or the sauce. Overall, that made it very good.  The fries had a distinctive taste and it was really delicious.  The salad that it came with had something like an Italian dressing and it was what you’d expect.

Following along with the met la table option.  I chose the 6oz filet mignon which adds $10 to the menu.  The other options were good but I had my reasons that I wanted to have a nice cut of meat.  This was really good.  The grilled vegetables were done perfect. There was a mix of sweet peppers, zucchini and carrots (I think). The shoestring fries were so good also.  Just saying, that is my favorite fries cut. Is that how you call it? I had my filet mignon at medium well done. And it was so good. The peppercorn sauce was a little too much but it was great that it had it on the side so you could control how much sauce you had on the meat.  Very delish meal! 🙂

Dessert

Met la Table menu: Homemade Brownie with fleur de sel caramel and vanilla ice cream

The brownie was great.  My husband loved it because it had a good texture: a nice thin hard top and a little chewy.  The caramel and the ice cream matched the brownie really well.  It was a well-balanced, slightly sugary dessert, in his words.

Overall…

Overflow Restaurant is full of ambiance.  The lights and decor plus their live band performance all matches great.  When the performers are not there, the background music has hints of very enjoyable lounge music.  The atmosphere is amazing.  The service was friendly as well.  The food was very good.  There isn’t a lot of variety but if I were to return, I’d definitely give the tapas menu a go since that is their specialty.  A very enjoyable experience!

One day out for the Sherbrooke Met la Table ends with this one! Hopefully next year, I will have the opportunity to go for a few more stops.

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?