Archive for ‘Food and Drink Writing’

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February 23, 2012

Nightclub Bloke & 4th scores with upscale cuisine

Chef-Adrian-Niman

Adrian Niman, who had hockey dreams, has a winner with Bloke & 4th on King Street. (Julia Pelish photo)

[First published on Vacay.ca]

Adrian Niman stands in the middle of his swanky new restaurant, thick with sexy red drapes and sexier women in tight black dresses, and talks about his dream of the country. Bloke & 4thfits right in with Toronto’s vibrant nightclub scene in the Entertainment District; its chef, though, is more about wine pairings than bottle service. Despite the fact that he’s just 27 and, on the surface, a superb fit for this glam supper club, Niman is all about the cuisine, not the scene.

“I’d love to have a little place in the country, with my girlfriend and focus on all local ingredients,” Niman says during the opening of Bloke & 4th earlier this month. The club had a soft launch in December and has packed in the late-night crowd, doing thousands and thousands of dollars in booze sales alone on weekends, Niman says.

His passion, however, is food and to his credit he doesn’t waver from it, even though he could go off-course in a posh spot like Bloke & 4th. Places like Ultra and barchef on Queen Street draw in the city’s high rollers and their arm candy who come to mix and mingle; indulgences other than food on their mind. With Niman’s cuisine, Bloke & 4th distinguishes itself from that pack.

“We’re going to try different things in here,” the chef says as he calls out for pick-up orders in the kitchen. “Some of it’s going to work, some of it isn’t, but we’re going to be creative.”

Its current choices include a number of good dishes and one killer one: a Bangkok Cole Slaw ($26) that includes yellow fin tuna, crispy calamari, and a mix of vegetables and sauces that combine for a sensational blend of flavours you can’t find anywhere else in the city. That dish was inspired by Niman’s time in Thailand, and other items are influenced from his days working in Spain and his early career at North 44, Mark McEwan’s esteemed restaurant.

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February 18, 2012

Have dinner with a ghost at Muriel’s in New Orleans

denise-gratia-muriels

Denise Gratia of Muriel's sets the table for the ghost in New Orleans. (Julia Pelish photo)

[First published in AOL Travel/Huffington Post Canada]

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — Each night, Muriel’s restaurant sets a table for Antoine. It’s beneath an ornate chandelier at the foot of a staircase leading to the upstairs bar. The table cloth is white, there’s a candle and a setting for two, with plates, utensils, napkins and glasses for red wine. A waiter will place a basket of French bread in the centre as well as a bottle of wine, usually Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. This is the way Antoine likes it and there’s nothing unusual about the scene except Antoine has been dead for 198 years.

The ghost table at Muriel’s has become a draw for this city’s many paranormal tours. Groups stand outside an iron gate and peer through the window to catch a slight glimpse of the table, which Muriel’s put in place after Hurricane Katrina, in part to help calm the active spirit. With Mardi Gras approaching on Feb. 21, visitors will arrive by the thousands looking for fun, excitement and the bizarre happenings that have brought this city fame. Muriel’s is sure to attract more than a few party-goers looking to scare up a good time.

“This is the most haunted place in the city,” declares George Dubaz, a tour guide with Spirit Tours. Dubaz stands outside the restaurant on Chartres Street in the French Quarter and points to the large, two-storey building that has stood on the property in one form or another since the mid-1700s. “Some of the staff members will tell you they’ve seen glasses fly across the room.”

Dubaz says he wasn’t a believer in ghosts until he moved from Biloxi, Mississippi to New Orleans after the 2005 hurricane that devastated the Crescent City. Now, he says, “I’ve seen and heard of too many strange things for there not to be something to it.”

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January 23, 2012

Archie Manning’s restaurant in New Orleans is a winner

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — Eli Manning is headed back to the Super Bowl and, thanks to his dad, his hometown will have a hot new place to watch the big game.

archie-manning

The burgers at Archie Manning's restaurant feature his uniform number and those of his sons.

A restaurant in New Orleans bearing the Manning name was going to pack the house no matter what. Archie Manning’s a classy guy, though, so you could expect that he would deliver an establishment with style and sophistication. At Manning’s, you’ll find a big, airy sports bar that has plenty of hospitality and enough warmth to make it appeal to women too.

The newly opened restaurant in the Big Easy’s trendy Warehouse Arts District features a large patio, which will host live music, as well as a banquet hall and 300 televisions, including a dominating 13.5-foot-by-7-foot screen that will catch the eye of anyone passing by. The menu from chef Anthony Spizale includes well-known southern favourites like Shrimp Po Boy sandwiches and Gumbo, along with some eccentric choices (Pig Skin Sliders and Alligator Sliders) that might surprise tourists.

“I’m real excited about it,” Archie Manning told me on Thursday, a night after the 210-seat restaurant held a grand opening celebration at its 519 Fulton Street location. “I’ve been on the road a lot and this business will help me stay closer to home.”

Manning, the former quarterback for the Saints, lives in the city’s Garden District (his home is on the walking tour of the posh neighbourhood) and is one of the most popular figures in New Orleans. He was walking around the restaurant on Thursday taking photographs with all of the guests and smiling wide inside his new digs. He had the idea for the restaurant about five years ago and opened it in time for this weekend’s NFL playoff games, which included his youngest son, Eli, quarterbacking the New York Giants to victory over the San Francisco 49ers. They will play the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI on February 5 in Indianapolis, on the field where Peyton Manning, Archie’s other quarterback son, has led the Colts.

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January 22, 2012

In New Orleans, meet ‘the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my life’

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The All That Jazz is a thing of legend in New Orleans. (Julia Pelish photo)

NEW ORLEANS, LOUSIANA — Two days before I arrive in New Orleans, I receive an email urging me to go to a convenience store for “the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my life.” When you travel, words like that always grab your interest, even more so when you’re a travel writer and you sense the potential for a story. Still, you have to remain skeptical about such claims. The email was written from a contact who went to university in New Orleans and was now at Berkeley, so it’s more than possible he was a victim of a hallucination. So when I arrived, I asked around town.

“The All That Jazz — delicious,” said Nick Ruggiero, a waiter who moved from Washington, D.C. to the Big Easy about six years ago. “It’s awesome. Gooey, cheesy. You’ll love it.”

Ruggiero knows his stuff. He works at Arnaud’s, one of the city’s finer restaurants, and recommended particular dishes around town. He was the third person to verify that the All That Jazz sandwich at the Verti-Marte was, indeed, deserving of the hype.

“You’re getting the All That Jazz,” said a fourth endorser, who happened to be the nephew of former Raptors forward Sherell Ford. He was standing in line with me at the little 24-hour grocery store in the French Quarter and his eyes lit up when he spoke about the sandwich. “That’s delicious. It’s messy, but amazing.”

The Verti-Marte is across from the La Laurie Mansion, Nicolas Cage’s former home known for its gruesome 19th-century murders and mutilations, and its reputed ghosts. For all of the visitors who come to this town fascinated by its spooky history, the store’s location may be the only thing notable about it. Inside, it looks like your typical U.S. mini-market, with overpriced snack foods, a freezer full of ice cream, long refrigerators stocked with soft drinks, milk and beer, and a cash register that guards the liquor and cigarettes behind it. At the rear, though, is a deli that churns out dozens of items, ranging from rich desserts like bread pudding to entrees like Creole Chicken and, of course, its po-boy sandwiches, of which the $10.25 All That Jazz is the most popular.

“We’ll serve 20 of those a day, sometimes a hundred,” says Ken behind the counter after he takes my order at 11 p.m. “We normally get a lot of people coming in here at four in the morning after all of the drinking and they’re looking for that sandwich.”

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November 22, 2011

‘World’s Best Dark Ale’ only available in Ontario

Jerry-Vietz

Unibroue brewmaster Jerry Vietz and BeerBistro chef Michelle Usprech toast to the release of Grand Reserve 17 to LCBO stores. (Julia Pelish photo)

TORONTO — You don’t know Jerry Vietz, but if you like beer he’s no doubt brought joy into your life. Vietz is the brewmaster of Canada’s most acclaimed craft brewer, Unibroue, which will exhaust you of superlatives if you try to describe what its roster of beers has meant for the international reputation of Canadian brewing.

Since debuting with Blanche de Chambly in 1992, Unibroue has delivered flavourful, Belgian-style ales that stand up to Trappist stalwarts like Huyghe Brewery’s Delirium Tremens and Rochefort’s top brews. It’s also earned all the accolades to live up to its stature as one of the best breweries on the planet. La Fin du Monde, the top-selling Unibroue beer in the U.S., has won five platinum and six gold medals from the Chicago Beverage Tasting Institute’s World Beer Championships, and Unibroue beers have won 152 awards overall.

On Wednesday, Vietz was at BeerBistro in Toronto to unveil perhaps Unibroue’s finest creation, Grand Reserve 17, which in 2010 was named the World’s Best Dark Ale from the annual World Beer Awards in London. About 30 of us were invited to the event that also featured servings of BeerBistro chef Michelle Usprech’s Unibroue-infused cuisine and a special serving of a Christmas ale Vietz first made in his home. It’s not a surprise that Grand Reserve 17 is a delicious beer, what you will raise your eyebrow at, though, is how light it feels on your palate. Rather than a thick, rich ale like Maudite that announces the intent of its 8-percent alcohol content upon the first sip, Grand Reserve 17 is immensely smooth and easy to drink. It costs $9.95 for a 750-millilitre bottle and is available only at LCBO stores.

This beer with 10-percent alcohol content was the first Vietz created when he took over as brewmaster in 2007, after working at the brewery for more than four years. He calls Grand Reserve 17 “my baby.”

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November 17, 2011

Cool Copenhagen gives Toronto a treat

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A walk through pristine King's Garden is one reason to visit Copenhagen. (Julia Pelish photo)

The Danes in Copenhagen sure know how to do things right.

They’ve got the best restaurant in the world, some of its finest architecture and a public transportation system any Torontonian would envy. On Tuesday, about 100 of us received the opportunity to enjoy an exceptional evening at the Gardiner Museum, where our province’s own phenom chef, Jamie Kennedy, teamed with one of Copenhagen’s greats, Paul Cunningham, to deliver a meal worthy of an award itself.

Called “Cool Copenhagen,” the night was about filling in guests on the splendour of life in Denmark’s capital while indulging in some top-notch cuisine and first-rate music by A Friend in London, who are in Mississauga recording their debut album and have a growing fan base in Ontario.

Kennedy started things off with a silky soup featuring pumpkin and sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes) harvested from his Prince Edward County farm on Monday. A sunchoke chip that crackled with flavour topped the dish, a terrific opener that was followed by the meal’s highlight: the Cunningham-prepared smoked mackerel and parsley salad that was salty and textured. The choice of fish was typically Danish (“we try not to overfish salmon and cod,” the Michelin-starred Cunningham told guests) but the presentation and flavours were distinct. Kennedy’s main course of Roast and Confit of Pork was served with brussels sprouts and beans from his farm. The roast pork was fabulous, with the tenderness of well-marinated duck and juicy flavours. Cunningham finished things with an interesting dessert of goat’s milk sorbet with a herb meringue that featured Chinese medicinal herbs as well as parsley and thyme. It was refreshing and impressively inventive.

“There are definitely differences,” Kennedy said about his way of cooking and Cunningham’s. “Danish cuisine is very traditional. Here, we’re still developing our cuisine. We’re a young country and we have a lot of different cultures. We won’t develop a national cuisine, I don’t think. It will be regional, and that’s because of a lot of factors, including proximity to water, or not, in some cases.”

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November 11, 2011

Frank Dodd, Jason Parsons are good friends running separate wineries

[Story first appeared on Vacay.ca]

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO—Survive war and you’ll have friends for life. For chefs Frank Dodd and Jason Parsons, the field of battle was Cliveden House, a 160-year-old manor built along the Thames in a suburb of London. With a turreted roof and massive opulence, it looks like the kind of place a tyrant would call home and, according to the chefs who’ve apprenticed there, one has.

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Frank Dodd is the chef at the outstanding Hillebrand Winery, close to his friend's restaurant at Peller. (Julia Pelish photo)

Dodd spent six months training in the British armed services and says the best thing about that experience is it prepped him for Cliveden. Parsons calls the 12 months he spent at Cliveden between 1995-96 the toughest of his 37 years of life. His wife, Meg, says the man who used to run this particular hell’s kitchen “makes Gordon Ramsay look like a pansy.”

His name is Ron Maxfield. During his time in the Cliveden kitchen, he churned out a good amount of chefs and at least one pair of brothers in arms.

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October 26, 2011

The Great Dessert Search, Edition No. 4: Le Bremner Jelly Doughnuts

Jelly Doughnuts - Le Bremner Montreal

At Le Bremner, the Jelly Doughnuts come in chocolate, lemon and fruity jam flavours. (Julia Pelish photo)

MONTREAL — Soft, sugary, sweet and so guilt-inducing they’ll sentence you to the gym for a week, at least. The Jelly Doughnuts at the most talked about new restaurant in Montreal, if not Canada, are deliriously tasty, as well as a reminder that Le Bremner is a fun, casual place, no matter all the buzz about it and its celeb chef.

The doughnuts come three to a plate, each filled with a different creamy, gooey centre. These are Timbits on steroids — and after a serious retool in a masterful kitchen. Whether it’s the chocolate, lemon or fruity jam flavour, the Le Bremner doughnuts satisfy your craving for sweets and do it in a way that’ll make you smile — which is what a great dessert should do. It’s a playful dish, as well as a delicious one.

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