back to blogging & thoughts on park restaurant

It's been a solid year since I've updated. To bring you up to speed, I'm now less than a month away from finishing my undergraduate studies, have decided to take the next year off, and am seriously considering pursuing culinary school. The details for these plans are in the works, but still - this is a big leap from where I was last year. It goes without saying that there have been ups and downs, but I'm excited to face the next chapter of my life.

As for the blog itself, I've made a few minor changes, including the layout and the scope of content. Although there will still be heavy emphasis on food, cooking, and restaurant reviews, I'm expanding its horizons to include posts on travel, opinion/rants, and what I'm going to be filing under "life/other" - putting the "miscellaneous" into "miscellanny". 

Now that general housekeeping is out of the way, let's talk about Park, a restaurant in Westmount run by Chef Antonio Park. I follow Chef Park on Instagram and am often awed by the beautiful presentation of the omakase sushi and sashimi platters. Also, I'm a fan of his use of organic and sustainably sourced ingredients. Based on online reviews (Yelp, Urbanspoon) and blogs, people seem to love or hate the place. A lot of the hype says Park offers some of the best sushi in town. Some criticisms I heard included good-but-overpriced food and poor service. 

I went twice recently - the first time, we caught the Saturday brunch menu, albeit unintentionally. We wanted sushi and failed to realize that Park doesn't serve sushi for Saturday lunch (if you make reservations by phone, they let you know, but I had booked via OpenTable). Womp womp. We had made the trek, so we decided to stay and eat. The place itself is nice and bright,  and feels spacious even though the square footage isn't ample - the restaurant has high ceilings, with an industrial-meets-woodshop-meets-modern-deco feel.

Between four people, we ordered the deconstructed salad for two, the japchae with chicken, and the special of the day - braised beef shoulder served with fried polenta and topped with a fried egg. Presentation was quite beautiful for all three, but we ultimately walked away from brunch feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. 

The salad came with three dressings - sweet (sweet potato), tart (yuzu), and creamy (basil), and had wonderful variety, including but not limited to: mixed greens; shredded carrot and daikon; quinoa and beet salad; roasted mixed nuts; kimchi; olives; pulses. I enjoyed the concept, which is very DIY and customizable. I like to interact with my food, you know? The salad ingredients were fresh and tasted good, but I found the balance of the dressings to be the best part of the dish. 

The japchae was fine - good flavour, but a bit skimpy on the chicken. The yam noodles were slightly overdone and too soft. All around good, but nothing about this dish caught my attention. 

I was eagerly anticipating the final dish, but it ultimately was the biggest letdown of the three. The polenta was beautiful - crisp on the outside, creamy in the middle. The egg was lovely and soft. The baby greens were nice and crisp. Nothing on the plate was superfluous. However, while the meat was tender and juicy, it was so exceedingly salty that I could barely bring myself to take a third bite. Even with the polenta, it was almost too salty to bear. At a restaurant like Park, this was a disappointing, rookie mistake. It would have been such an amazing dish otherwise. 

That being said, we still wanted to try the sushi, which really is Park's main selling point, IMO. We rescheduled and headed over for lunch on Friday. As a general disclaimer, I'm no sushi expert. Having grown up in Toronto, I feel like I haven't been exposed to really good sushi, like what the BC kids are always raving about. That being said, here are my general thoughts on the lunch sushi platter:

Overall, quite excellent. I'm not exactly sure if I was expecting it to be life changing (seriously, a lot of hype around Park), but it was a solid experience. The nigiri sushi had great balance between fish and rice, and melted in the mouth easily. The maki had grilled salmon, cucumber, and avocado, with a creamy basil sauce and a flavourful dark sauce (reminiscent of unagi sauce) drizzled over. Ultimately, I preferred the nigiri to the maki as the rolls were honestly too large, making it awkward and difficult to chew. While the flavours in the maki rolls were great, I found the texture a bit too mushy. 

While I didn't sample the sashimi appetizer myself, the feedback I heard was that the ponzu sauce was somewhat too tart, and the fish itself was layered in the wrong order - rather than having a row layered from light to rich in flavour, the salmon was at the top. When it came to dessert, we checked out the menu, but nothing sounded particularly appealing (the white chocolate mousse and the yuzu meringue tart seemed like the most creative of the lot, but we didn't try them so I have no actual feedback to offer). Finally, between both trips to Park, I didn't find any problems with service (maybe the people raging about this online just got unlucky - though I imagine dinner service must be more hectic). The waiters were friendly, helpful, and prompt. 

So, bottom line. The prices are okay - definitely not cheap, but if you go for lunch, it won't break the bank. Pros: fresh ingredients, friendly service, quality sushi. Cons: technical errors, lack of attention to detail, and nothing spectacular or innovative in a lot of the dishes we sampled. The omakase looks much more promising in this department. However, I think the fact that the dishes were inconsistent in their execution is a negative reflection of the restaurant. If you go to Park, order the omakase if it's in your budget. If not, get sushi. And if it's Saturday brunch, don't even bother - reschedule and go some other time. 

bitter, sweet, savoury

I realized that I had some photos saved from last semester. These pictures are a little bittersweet, but contain beautiful memories nonetheless. 

At The Keg for a birthday splurge: grilled top sirloin.

A rainbow on an autumn palette.

Happy birthday, Amy!

A buttermilk, banana, almond butter, whipped cream and chocolate affair for the birthday girl.

Fall flavours (with some summer nostalgia): prepping black bean, pumpkin, zucchini and lime soup, with blanched kale on the side. 

 

Does the colour orange stimulate appetite?

Trying to be as veggie as possible: whole wheat pita, baby kale, hummus, avocado and tomato salsa. 

That wraps up my photos from 2012. It's already February, but here's to 2013 - let's make another year of great food and great memories!

keep calm and bake on

Say this with me: Nutella-stuffed brown butter and sea salt chocolate chip cookies. Uunnnfff.

The recipe is from Ambitious Kitchen. I didn't follow the chill time exactly, but still got superb results. In my opinion, three things make these mind-blowing: 1) brown butter, 2) Nutella centre, 3) sea salt.

It takes a bit of time to brown butter, and there's a certain amount of finesse to it, but it's easy enough as long as you're patient and attentive. You melt butter and cook it, stirring constantly. Then you wait, and wait...

...and then it's done! 

I cut down slightly on the amount of sugar in the recipe. Not that it makes much of a difference calorie wise, but I can keep trying to delude myself, right?

The buttery dough is already good enough to eat, but it gets better. HOWEVER, I completely lost track of taking photos while making these, so no more progress shots. 

In my opinion, these are the best straight out of the oven, when they're extra soft and chewy and just... ugh, I can't even find the words to describe how immensely luscious these are. The large grain sea salt perfectly offsets the sweetness of the Nutella. Sugary white chocolate chips, smooth milk chocolate chips, and bitter dark chocolate chunks are complimented by the slightly under-sweet dough base.

Yes, I baked half of these in a muffin pan. I only have one cookie sheet.

At first, you'd see these and go, "oh sick, multi-chocolate chip cookies!" Then you bite into one, and you're like, "Holy sh*t, wha--?" And then no more words come out of your mouth, because you're too busy eating.

Later on, I decided to make gingerbread cookies and brownies, which later on became chocolate covered brandy balls. Have I ever mentioned that I'm a lightweight? Five of these brandy balls could probably knock me out. Lucky I had people over to share with.

What's better than sharing sweets with people you love? Not much, if you ask me.

steak and other drugs

Pork, shrimp, and water chestnut wontons. The texture of the water chestnuts is so fun. I love how making wontons and dumplings can be such a great social/group activity. I still have two bags of these in my freezer. 

The bf and I took a trip to Costco. The bus ride there was only 20 minutes, but we waited an hour and a half on the way back because apparently Montreal bus schedules... aren't really schedules. I was slightly angry. I may be slightly understating how angry I was.

At Costco we picked up some awesome AAA grade top sirloin steaks. The local supermarkets I usually go to only have grade A beef most of the time, so the step up was welcomed. 

Above: Let the meat come to about room temperature, then generously salt and pepper both sides, and rub with rosemary and garlic powder or garlic salt (skip the first salting if using garlic salt). Sear on medium high for 2-3 minutes per side or depending on preferred doneness. Wrap in aluminum foil and let rest for 7-10 minutes. Open, and bam! You see a really juicy steak and start drooling.

Mother wisdom I've been fed: "If you're eating a lot of meat, eat even more vegetables to go with it."

Wait, two people are sharing this. Hang on.

There we go. I had a third of the steak, along with some sides. Perfect portion. Perfectly juicy.

Steak round two: rubbing in liberal amounts of garlic salt, pepper, and rosemary.

Sauteed some diced celery and green onion to be tossed through quinoa later.

Sear, baby, sear!

Final product: steak with quinoa and blanched okra. 

Since this one was kept overnight in the fridge, it lost a little of its moisture content. Never fear though, I had a solution for the third one! 

Ever tried plum wine? It's quite sweet and slightly syrupy. Too much of this would probably result in a pretty nasty hangover.

Braised chicken, Korean style. Adapted from Maangchi's recipe for braised chicken with vegetables found here.

Sadly, I'm an absolute weakling when it comes to competing with Maangchi's love of spicy food. I put in two little red thai chilis and just about died from how spicy it was.

My sister came to visit me! I made breakfast: scrambled eggs, figs, greens, and grapefruit. I felt kind of bad at how little cooking was involved, but she's on a low/no carb diet, so... Besides, there was leftover braised chicken. 

Story time: my sister tweeted a picture of the eggs, greens, and fruit. Her followers commented things like "you're going to be starving in 10 mins!", "wow, that's all?", "that's not a complete breakfast, your little sister sucks at feeding you, this is a direct attack on her competency as a cook and sibling". I may have made up the last one. Not gonna lie, that's how I felt when I read the comments though. I wanted to be all like, "There's braised chicken! Chicken! A lot of it! You just can't see it! Yeesh!" But alas, starting a fight on my sister's Twitter wouldn't have been a nice thing to do.

Moar mom wisdom: "Eat colourfully." I try.

Fried quinoa with salami "chips". Cut slices of hot salami sausage into strips and fry in a pan (oil optional, since the meat will give off a fair bit). Remove and let drain on paper towel. 

These are super crispy and fun to eat. Makes for a yummy garnish.

There was no way I could eat steak more than twice in a week, so we had to throw the third one in the freezer, which in my opinion is often a one way street to winding up with dry slabs of meat. What to do? Adding sauce is an okay solution, but that doesn't actually resolve the problem of dryness, it just covers it up slightly. 

The answer: brining. I'm sure there are other techniques out there too, but this is pretty foolproof. There's a standard ratio of water to salt I believe, but I didn't follow any, I just eyeballed it. The brine I used consisted of water, salt, whole black peppercorns, and fennel seeds. Normally, meat is brined for a long time - several hours, or even a day for larger pieces or whole birds. I only brined the steak for an hour and a half, but the difference was still noticeable. 

Just in case, we decided to make a sauce too. I had about a cup of leftover dry rosé, which I combined with half a cup of aged balsamic vinegar and a few black peppercorns. Let it come to boil then simmer until reduced to the consistency of your liking. Once its reduced, turn off the heat and throw in a little chunk of cold butter and whisk to incorporate.

Steak with balsamic glaze, boiled new potatoes, and spinach with honey dijon dressing.

Tired of steak? Go for tofu soup! 

Next post: Sinful or heavenly? Nutella stuffed brown butter and sea salt chocolate chip cookies from Ambitious Kitchen.

restaurant: holder

At the start of the semester, my entire family and some family friends joined me on the trip to Montreal. One of the highlights of the trip was eating at Holder. I sampled everything, but not all the dishes left impressions. The meat entrées generally seemed better than the fish. Overall verdict: superb service, very good food, would definitely go again. 8/10!

Duck confit with roasted potatoes and arugula.

Loved: deep, rich flavour, crisp exterior and tender meat. Roasted potatoes were divine, almost luscious. Seriously, how do you make potatoes that delicious?
Could do without: oil-saturated leaves - would have preferred the arugula crisp and fresh, too salty.

Pan seared tilapia with sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts on a bed of julienned vegetables.

I only tried a sliver of the fish, and it was decently tender but slightly bland. However, I'm hesitant to comment on the overall quality of the dish without having sampled everything on the plate.

"Holder style" fish and chips.

I forgot to ask what kind of fish they used. Whatever the case, it was excellent. Soft, flaky, and sweet on the inside, crisp and savoury on the outside. Among the best fish and chips I've had, but only because of the fish. The fries were decent although nothing that special; a little sweeter than I thought they would be yet pleasantly so.

Lamb shepherd's pie with cognac sauce and asparagus.

The lamb was slightly stringy and no particular flavour in the sauce stood out and grabbed my attention. Good, but I wouldn't order it again.

Swordfish steak with lentils and vegetables.

The swordfish was slightly tough and dry, but the herb blend was strong and suitable for my tastes. Overall though, I'd say I was underwhelmed.

Grilled veal flank steak with marsala sauce and fries.

The friend who ordered this dish asked for her steak well done, which in my books is a waste of a perfectly good cut of meat, but I suppose to each her own. She's also just sprouting from tween-hood, so I'd give it a few more years before she starts really appreciating rare beef. I certainly didn't when I was her age. All in due time!

Seared fois gras on gingerbread with red wine and dried fruit sauce.

Excellent. Divine. This will be the first thing I order next time I'm there. The only thing I can pick about it is that the gingerbread was slightly too chewy, and a bit of a chore to cut. But the sharpness of the gingerbread spices against the rich, velvety texture of the foie gras is to die for.

Seriously, the fois gras was so good that we ordered another.

la belle basilique

Religious or not, the Notre-Dame Basilica is a sight to see. It's beautiful enough to stir feelings of awe and admiration even for me.

I had a strange fixation with the prayer candles that decorated the aisles of the basilica. For a dollar or two you could make an offering, say a prayer, and light a candle. Some where small and multicoloured, others long and I suppose more pious, for their offerings were more expensive than the small candles, and they burn for four days rather than four hours.

Truly, an excellent place to sit, ponder, and pray.