Notable Nosh | Sybaritica

Almost anyone in Britain will be familiar with the pub special known as the ‘Ploughman’s Lunch’ (or some version thereof), but fewer people have ever heard of it on this side of the pond. I actually remember the name from my childhood in England but, just this summer, I came across it on pub menus in both Ottawa and Halifax …

The rather pastoral name of this simple meal makes it sound as though it has roots far back in medieval times but, in fact, it is not a great deal older than I am. Certainly, bread, cheese and ale have been combined to make repasts for field hands and other laborers for centuries but the actual ‘lunch’ combo was an invention of the British Cheese Marketing Board back in the 1950’s as a way to get cheese served more often in public houses.

Anyway, the basic lunch (ideally served with beer) is centered around good, fresh bread, butter, cheese of some sort, and a pickle. Pickled onions are a great favorite (although sometimes raw onion slices are served) but any sort can be substituted, with Branston Pickle being quite common these days. Meat, in the form of cold ham, Scotch Eggs, or Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, also make regular appearances, and even fruit slices or small salads get used as enhancements to the ‘traditional’ plate. Once you get too elaborate, though, the original notion of a simple, working person’s lunch, seems to get lost in culinary translation…

Today, I put together a little plate for myself consisting of a hunk of just baked Baguette (baked my local supermarket, not me), butter, a very nice Cheshire Cheese, and some pickled onions of the cocktail variety. I would have preferred the larger, more robustly flavored,  sort but, sadly, I just can’t seem to find them anywhere locally. With a cold beer on the side, this made a lovely lunch…

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I am calling this post ‘Tatoyaki II’ as it is a follow up to my awful experience with Tatoyaki at Wasabi in Ottawa back last January. On that occasion, I was disappointed by a dish that I had looked forward to trying for quite a long time and so, when I spotted them on the menu at the Tomo Restaurant during a more recent visit to the capital, I hoped to experience something a little better…

The menu at Tomo describes this particular snack item as ‘Battered octopus balls topped with house dressing, scallion and shaved bonito flakes’ and that, pretty much, is what I was served. The dressing in this case turned out to be twin drizzles of Japanese Mayo and Eel Sauce, both of which complimented each other and the balls very nicely, while the Bonito flakes were clearly very fresh and added a nice touch of smokiness to the whole.

The balls themselves, however, were not especially good. In the first place, the octopus was chopped way too finely rather than being one or more large chunks and it wasn’t really possible to taste whether one was eating octopus, shrimp, or even fish of some sort. Also, although the batter was nice and crisply golden on the outside, it was not well done near the middle and left a raw batter taste in my mouth. On the whole, these were still a definite cut above the awful crap I was served at Wasabi, but, still, the search for a decent Takoyaki (alas) goes on…

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Bao, or Bao Zi, are Chinese buns (chiefly made using a leavened bread-type dough) that are steamed with a filling of some sort. One very popular variety, almost always available in dim sum restaurants, is the famous Cha siu bao (叉燒包), which comes stuffed with Chinese BBQ Pork.

The rather cutely named items you see pictured above were not served at a dim sum restaurant, but rather at a little place called Tomo in Ottawa’s Byward Market. Tomo is primarily a Japanese restaurant, serving sushi, and other favorites, but they also do a number of non-Japanese items, including Pad Thai. The Bao, I was served here , are actually the specialty of ‘Daisy’, the wife of the owner and, while very much in the spirit of Cha siu bao, they are unique in including caramelized onions along with the pork.

I am not actually featuring the buns because they ‘Wowed’ me, so to speak, rather because the idea is one very much worth borrowing even if it wasn’t, in this case, terribly well executed. My main issue with the buns was that they were a little too sugary. The dough itself was quite sweet (more like a desert variety) and the filling even more so (due in part, no doubt, to the onions). This could, fairly easily, have been offset by providing a dipping sauce that was either sour, salty, or spicy (or a combination of these), but, surprisingly, not even soy sauce was offered.

The other aspect I though spoiled the buns was that pork was ground rather than chopped and did not have a nice meaty ‘bite’ to it. There was also, in my opinion, not enough of it in ratio to the onion and, on the whole, too little filling for the amount of ‘bun’. That being said, though, I like the idea of sweet onions with pork and I am going to try making a ‘spin-off’ of my own using pork belly and crispy fried onions… I’ll share the results as soon as I do…

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I was served the dish you see pictured above a little while ago in Ottawa. It was called ‘Nasu Eggplant’ on the menu (which is rather a redundancy of sorts as ‘Nasu’ is actually the Japanese word for eggplant) and was described as eggplant ‘grilled with shrimp and scallop and served in a sweet miso sauce’. A few Ottawa visits before this last one, I sampled Vietnamese dish that also featured eggplant done with scallops and shrimp , so I was rather curious to try a Japanese style dish with these ingredients by way of comparison. I must say, after reading the description, I was rather expecting something along the lines of a ‘Nasu Dengaku’ (eggplant grilled with a Miso glaze), except with scallop and shrimp as an accompaniment (and presumably grilled the same way). As it happened, what I was received was something completely different…

As you can see, the dish I was served was very nicely presented but, instead of the grilled eggplant slices I was expecting, it consisted of sections of eggplant that had been hollowed out and stuffed before grilling. The filling did indeed contain scallop (and their flavor came through nicely) but the shrimp were not apparent either visually or in the flavor. In addition to these, and not mentioned on the menu, were short-grained rice, and some mushrooms that I am fairly sure were a small Shimeji variety. These last can be very tasty but, unfortunately, there were too few of them in this preparation to add much more than visual appeal.

Anyway, as I say, the dish was very pretty, and the grilling was done well, but the overall effect was a bit lacking. My main disappointment was that there was absolutely no hint of miso anywhere at all. There certainly was no ‘sauce’ to speak of, and I couldn’t detect any miso flavor in the eggplants themselves or the filling. Indeed, there was an obvious lack of saltiness that I had to remedy with a little splash of soy. It’s a shame, really, that the execution of this dish was a bit of a failure, but, overall, I can say that I am glad I tried it as I thought the idea was excellent and one I could have a great deal of fun playing around with at home…

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I have featured Octopus in several ‘Notable Nosh’ posts in the past, as well as including several dishes in restaurant reviews, but this particular offering  that I enjoyed at Brothers Bistro in Ottawa deserves a special mention. In that same city, I have eaten grilled Octopus at both Greek and Portuguese restaurants before (and these are cuisines that make Octopus a specialty), but the Bistro effort you see pictured above really outshone them all.

Firstly, the actual grilling, in this case, was done to perfection. I often find that grilled octopus is over-cooked in many establishment, chiefly, I believe, from cooking too long at too low a temperature. The taste isn’t especially diminished thereby, but the texture of the meat usually suffers badly. Here, the outside of the single tentacle was charred in many places, adding to the overall flavor, but the flesh within was delightfully chewy with the ‘elastic’ bite that makes octopus a pleasure to eat.

The other aspect of the dish that makes it so deserving of mention was the unique flavoring. The meat was served with fingerling Yukon potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and a house-made chorizo, and all were bathed in a lovely ‘vinaigrette’ made with Tamarind and Mint. I was almost going to forego octopus on this occasion (despite it being  a favorite) as there were some other interesting selections on the menu I wanted to try as well. However, the idea of using mint with octopus seemed so (doubtfully) unusual that I couldn’t resist giving it a try.

Happily, the pairing turned out to work very well indeed. First of all, the chorizo, which was more in the form of ‘loose’ sausage meat rather then dense slices, made for a nice umami counterpoint to the marine flavor of the octopus, and it wasn’t the overly hot-spicy as I half-expected it to be. As for the sauce, the Tamarind gave the overall dish a lovely sweet and sour quality (which went especially well with the potato too), while the mint flavor blended with it perfectly to the point that it took me a few seconds to even be able to identify ‘mintiness’ as an individual quality. I am not sure what variety of mint was used (peppermint, possibly) but it was added with a deft touch and the overall effect was excellent.

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One cannot visit the maritime provinces without sampling the fresh lobster and, at the very least, a lobster roll is in order. The best of these I ever had was at Connolly’s Lobster in St. Andrews, New Brunswick some forty years ago,  but unfortunately, I have not tasted their match anywhere since. On my recent visit to Charlottetown, PEI, I scouted out likely places to try a local effort but so many seemed to try to ‘improve’ on the basic theme with citrus aiolis and the like. I wanted just the original chunks of lobster in plain mayo and, after a lengthy search, I found one at the Lobster on the Wharf.

The version here is served with a wide range of sides (Connolly’s only came with potato chips, which was all you really needed) and I chose potato salad and coleslaw. The roll itself was actually pretty decent (at least as compared to most),  and they are generous enough with lobster to give you a good meaty taste instead of the vague tease you usually get. Was it as good as the Connolly’s version? Well, sadly not… The restaurant of my youth sat beside what was then the largest lobster pound in the world and they could afford to stuff their rolls with the choicest tail meat, rather than the bits the restaurant didn’t use for other dishes. This was a close second maybe, but like every lobster roll since, it inspired more nostalgic longing rather pure enjoyment. Ah well….

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I don’t exactly have a ‘bucket list’ of animals I want to eat, but I do like trying new things whenever I can.  There are some things I have read about and long wanted to try (snake comes to mind), but there are others whose possibilities as a dinner feature have never occurred to me before. Accordingly, when I came across sausages made from Water Buffalo at the Brother’s Bistro in Ottawa a while back, I was both surprised and intrigued.

The sausages in question are a dry cured variety made with Water Buffalo meat and cranberry (which are just visible as tiny brown flecks in the sausage, if you look carefully enough). Alongside the thin slices I was served, there were some nice crispy herbed-bread triangles, creamy Dijon mustard, and a selection of pickles in the Italian Giardiniera style that featured onion, carrot, asparagus, and Garlic Ramps. All of these accompaniments would be terrific alone, or with each other but, unfortunately, they were not well paired with the sausage…. Read more

I think this is the third or fourth time I have come across a pre-made seaweed salad in our local supermarket, lately…  Each time it has been offered in one of those plastic, clam-shell containers alongside the infrequently appearing sushi selection and I was pleased to see something new and relatively exotic for this part of the country.

The salad looks very much like similar ones I have been served in restaurants down south, right down to the somewhat neon quality of the bright green shreds. It wasn’t until I started eating the salad that I saw that there are two types of seaweed used (in addition to the clear strips of Agar added for texture); the first, I am almost certain, is Wakame, while the second, which appears in much smaller amounts and is a considerably darker green, is almost certainly Kombu. By the way, the extreme bright green of the Wakame is unlike anything I have seen on a beach, or even when reconstituting Wakame at home, and I have read that dyes are used to produce the color. This is somewhat odd, to my mind, as the natural color of the real article is actually a very pleasant bright green anyway…

The salad is very delicately dressed with what I take to be a very light splash of vinegar (rice vinegar I presume), and just a hint of sesame oil. The combination of these produces has only a mild presence and the nice fresh flavor of the seaweeds is allowed to come through. There is a garnish of sesame seeds and chili flakes as well but the former merely adds texture while the chili is barely noticeable. I must say that I rather thought that the texture of the salad, after being prepared well in advance and allowed to sit, would be a bit soft and maybe even slimy but it was actually very good indeed. The seaweeds had just the right bite, with an interesting contrast made with the agar strips, and the overall effect was very pleasant. I wasn’t expecting a great deal but I think this was every bit as good as many versions I have been served in restaurants.

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I have been playing around with a little ‘snackie’ sort of dish I tentatively call ‘Shanghai Sliders’, which is essentially a tiny little steamed ‘burger’ made with Pork. I was therefore interested to come across the sandwich you see pictured above at small Chinese restaurant in Halifax, where it was actually called a ‘Chinese Beef Burger’ on the menu, and was described as ‘Beef Shank in Nang with Sweet Bean Sauce’.

I pretty much guessed that the ‘Nang’ was the same thing as ‘Naan’ and this turned out to be the case. Indeed, it turns out that ‘nang’ is a variant on the name common in the Xinjiang region of western China. The meat was clearly from the shank, or shin, which, when red-cooked (as I believe this sandwich meat to be), is often served cold on Chinese appetizer platters,

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty good and the meat nice and tasty. The sweet bean caught me by surprise a little bit because, at the first bite, I actually could have sworn that they had used mayonnaise  on the bread (which wasn’t the case at all). I usually like lettuce on sandwiches and burgers but I didn’t care for it here and I took it out after second bite. There was nothing wrong with it all, I just found it interfered with my appreciation of the meat. I also enjoyed the naan and I think I shall use it for sandwiches more often in the future.

The beauties you see pictured above are the largest oysters I have ever come across on the East coast. You can probably get some idea of the scale from the lemon wedge at the bottom of the platter, but, for reference, the largest was easily the same length as my hand from my wrist to the tip of my middle finger.

Many years ago, my wife and I came across a number of really large ones on the beach at low tide whilst on a vacation on Vancouver Island. We grilled those (leaving them over the flames just until the shells popped open) and they were really delicious. Still, I always rather regretted not sampling one raw from the shell.

I got my chance to try these giant ones at Gallant’s Oyster Bar in Charlottetown, PEI, during my summer vacation. The guy who shucked them for me told me that the name is not an official one. Rather, they are harvested in the same area where the variety known as ‘Green Gables’ are harvested, and he just calls them ‘George’s Jumbos’ because the guy who fishes them happens to be named George. I am not sure, but judging from the shell, these ones must be about 10 years old, or so.

Anyway, I have to say that they were rather a revelation. I had rather suspected that (as with many things) oysters would get tougher and less delicate in flavor as they got older but this proved not to be the case. George’s Jumbos turned out to be every bit as sweet as many of the smaller types I had on that visit to the island. They weren’t quite as briny as, say, the Raspberry Points, or Malpeque’s, but they ended with very pleasant cucumber notes and had a great, chewy texture. I rated them at a decent 3 out of 5.

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