Gourmand

Looking back on it, this weekend seemed to be all about wine & dine.

It started of Friday when just going for a drink with amigos in our neighbourhood. We ended up in BOA, a new local hot spot. Music, interior, all great ... the crowd a bit too young. But with every song, the music was turned up a notch and well past our threshhold for a normal conversation, so time to change scenery.
A couple of blocks further, we found Dieu du Ciel. A nice dark brewpub with great ale. I had a "Charbonnière", a smoked ale, and was totally diggin' it! We went home, it poured down us, so next time we should bring a canoe.

Saturday we met up with Tinneke's university friends in Portugalia. If you're awake, you might've guessed it's a Portuguese restaurant ... bull's eye! Well, restaurant is maybe giving it too much credit. It's more like a hole-in-the-wall kind of place with limited seating. Only a few items on the menu that come with fries and a salad. The great thing about this place is that they marinate their chicken for on our on site when ordered, so you gotta wait a bit before the chicken charcoal broiled to perfection can find its way to your tastebuds. But it's well worth it! Gotta love places like this. And the bill does not leave a sour aftertaste: 12$ for half a grilled chicken, that's quite a bargain. And what better way to end the evening with some Latin grooves at Les Bobards in the old Spanish/Portuguese Quartier on Main (St. Laurent). And they had Coup de Grisou, a fragrant beer made with buckwheat, great for summer.

And because P. is gonna turn page 29 pretty soon, but will be touring in Europe with his band Plastic Operator on his actual birthday, we had a surprise B-day brunch on sunday at M sur Masson. This more upscale kind of place, has great bruch/lunch and dinner options and is situated in the much overlooked Rosemont area (east of Mile End). The delicious mimosa with sweet fresh orange juice and Moët & Chandon made my hangover fade away and the Eggs Benedict (poached egg with old fashioned ham, hollandaise sauce, sauteed mushroom on toasted baguette) and a side order of patates salardaises (chunks of ye old spud fried in duck fat) left me with a satisfied mind and stomach.

I failed to mention I made fresh cheesecake on Friday, and so by Sunday all its flavours where blended superbly and made it an ideal tea-time companion. And since mussels are becoming readily available (at least here in Canada), we had moules-frites. I like my mollusk friends with lots of veggies (celery, leeks, onions, carrots, parsely and tomatoes), a nice glug of white wine and garlic. Oh yeah, the fries came from Frite Alors, a real Belgian friture.

Only 2 weeks before touchdown on the European mainland ... be prepared!

Cabane à Sucre

This weekend we visited a "Cabane à Sucre" or Sugar Shack with Eric and his parents. These are the places that make the world famous "Sirop d'érable" or Maple Syrup (Ahornsiroop). I guess maple syrup is one of the quintessential Canadian things. Even the leaf of the maple tree is on the Canadian flag!

Most of the maple syrup is made in Québec (some in Ontario and some in the bordering US states e.g. Vermont). It's a Québec tradition to visit a sugar shack in late winter, early spring when syrup is being produced. When the sap of the maple trees start flowing again, after the winter, it is tapped of and brought to the boil to become syrup. It is an all natural product, no additional colourings or flavourings.

And at the "cabane a suc" (this is how the Québecois pronounce it), the liquid gold is poured over a rustic meal with potatoes, beans, ham, bacon, sausages. The typical meal starts with pea soup, you have some "marinades" as a side dish (pickled beetroot and pickled cucumbers) and let's not forget "oreilles de crisse". It literally means Christ's Ears, but it's basically crispy deep fried smoked pork. Crisse is also a typical Québecois profanity.

You end the meal with "crêpes", that are more like yeast-risen doughnuts (think 'Smoutebollen without the beer') but oh so yummie!

And as a final treat you get to do "tire sur neige". Hot thick maple syrup is poured onto snow so it hardens, and you roll it onto a stick and lick that lollypop!

Needless to say all that sugar and fat has us on a diet now ...

Dig in!


Erik, Eric & ses parents.


Wood fired boiling maple syrup.


Tire sur neige.

WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW

Ottawa

2 weeks ago Tinneke had a double bill presentation at Udem (together with her old Belgian colleague) and then they took the show on the road to Ottawa for another presentation. She's becoming quite the rockstars, 2 gigs in 1 week!

So we ended up visiting Ottawa, met other Belgians there (you'd be surprised how many are stranded there) and spend the evenings drinking, eating, discussing music, politics and whatnot with our friends Craig & Nathalie.

Also, T. mom (at least when she was living in Sask. for 4 months) happened to be Ottawa. Unfortunately she had the flu, so we only caught a glimpse of her.

Although Ottawa is Canada's capital, she merely has the administrative features of a capital. So apart from a couple of nice spots (Byward Market, Bank St.) and some great museums, Ottawa has not much to offer (especially when coming from bustlin' MTL). Except for the Bluesfest with Bwab Dylan this year (!).

But anyway, here are some pics:

Chacun son gout.


The Postal Service


The Rideau Canal goes all the way to Lake Ontario.

José, Anne, Francois & T. on Parliament Hill.

At least someone likes the snow!

Definitely spring!

couple of hours later ...

This is spring??!

Parc Avenue, Thursday, 12th of April, 2:50pm

Shortcuts are so overrated

Great copy on this Ford Edge commercial. And a great song too!

A bit of a googlechase (it's kinda like a steeplechase :-), learned me that this song is by Ane Brun, a Norwegian songstress, currently living in Stockholm, the city that feels like "home" to me.

The song is called "Song no. 6" and it features Ron Sexsmith. Arguably one of Canada's greatest singersongwriters, and to me he has already earned his place in Canada's songwriter hall of fame with fellow countrymen/women such as Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. BTW: Ron is hardly a posterboy, but what a talent!

This is the full song, performed live, on Sveriges Television (Swedish TV).

Banks

Probably one of the things I'm still struggling to get used to: banking in Canada.

As I already explained: they charge money for the number of debit transactions on your account unless you maintain a certain balance. But now I discovered what happens if you take out money on an ATM that's not a branch office of your bank. Well, no matter what amount you take out, the ATM charges an extra $1,50 CAN. And at the end of the month, your bank charges you another $1,50 CAN as a service fee coz they had to transfer your money to a different bank. That's complete madness! I mean, once you put money in a bank, you actually have to pay to take it out!

Oh and another thing, I received an invoice from the hospital for my knee (still not OK by the way). And since you can't do a wire transfer to a person or company that doesn't have an account at your bank, you have to pay by cheque. A draft cheque costs $6,50 CAN! Once again you pay to have money taken out of your account, where it's YOUR MONEY in the first place!

The Che-Guevara-inside-me says that we should all cancel our accounts and retake possesion of our money, keep it in the ol' sock, coz frankly what are banks for .... not to serve you but to serve them. Think mortgages, insurances, etc. They're hardly win-win situations .... No no, they win, YOU LOSE!! ALWAYS! But without them you're even more screwed, it's about chosing the lesser evil.
My marketing teacher used to say: "Money is the only real god". I guess he was right after all...

Anyway, it's not that bad yet in Belgium, but I have a couple of sources in the financial world and you'll be getting to that point sooner or later, so buckle up!

Went to see 300 again with some friends in iMAX version ..... it's still AWESOME!

It started snowing and there's a couple of inches of snow all over again ... grrrrrr ...
(BTW: although Canada is officially on the metric system, most people still use inches, pound, feet, etc). But I guess that's a good thing coz on monday we'll be visiting a Sugar Shack (Cabane à sucre). I'll tell you all about it.

We're having a visitor from Belgium over next week, so I'd better start cleaning the house! T. admits I'm way more better than her cleaning the house. Well, I think, WE MEN, are better in anything coz we take pride in whatever we do. Failure is not an option, the winner takes it all, that kinda crap. We just wanna excel. That's why we don't multi-task. Doing 2 things at a time results in a poor overall perfomance.
But then again, I think she was playing reverse psychology on me. So I get to do all the nasty chores.

Sigh! Being unemployed sucks!

Other Mile End Photographers

I discovered these great Mile End pictures on FLICKR.

Or on his blog: http://www.urbanphoto.net/

T. B-DAY W-END

This weekend it was T's birthday! So instead of playing friday night couch potato we went to have a drink @ HELM around the corner. It more or less becoming our favorite hang out.

And on her actual B-dag, saturday, I tried to have her wait for her presents, but since she knew where I had hidden them, there was no way of keeping them from her. And because spring was really in the air this time (the weather is ALWAYS nice on T's birthday), we did some rockin' strolling around town, lined up with 30 people at Café Olimpico for that perfect cappucino and sipped our caffeine fix on the sun terrace outside desperately trying to get that first sun tan, walked down Main (Boul. St Laurent) and ended up having a drink in Le Saint-Ciboire in Quartier Latin. And we were back just in time for dinner at Oishii Sushi. Well I'm normally not a big sushi aficionado (I think fire was invented to cook food, not to have it raw), but we had a succulent meal! We started of with a Tokyotini, think dry martini with a splash of sake and ginger. I'd go all night on these babies! Then a platter with some sashimi (your regular tuna, shrimp, salmon and squid), some great sushi rolls with tempura, cucumber, tuna and toasted sesame seeds inside) and great tempura shrimps. I had superdry Asahi beer and T. some japanese green tea. And as dessert we shared a wonderful green tea cheese cake and hot sake!

And what better way to top a perfect evening with some fine scotch at the Whisky Café. A dram of Bunnahabain and The Macallan on the other side of the table quite did the trick.

On sunday, I roasted a whole leg of lamb. Since I needed to stuff it with zingy herbs, I deboned it partly (took out the H bone and thigh bone). And basted it every 15mins with red wine (Sangiovese/Merlot). Add some veg, and you have a great meal! Oh, and the meat we didn't eat: with feta salad and tzatiki in soft warm pita breads!