Zydeco Smokehouse

In December I was anxiously and excitedly waiting for the opening of the new Zydeco Smokehouse on Preston Street.  They very smartly posted the name of the restaurant and the menu long before they opened so that by the time the doors officially opened for business I could hardly stand to wait any longer to taste the tempting southern, smoked, barbeque offerings.

 

 

I had checked out the reviews on-line before heading over there on very cold January late afternoon and even though everyone posting about Zydeco was raving about the pulled pork I had a hankering to try the chipotle meatloaf ... what a brilliant idea.  Sadly, this was bad planning on my part as it was only about 30 minutes before closing for the day and the chipotle meatloaf was all gone.  According to the owner, the cooks from the Italian pub next door (which I'll not name here but which I can totally understand being familiar with the mediocre food they serve over there) were over and bought up the last 3 orders.  Well, at least you can take that as proof that everything is fresh made.  Since I was foibled on the chipotle meatloaf I decided to stick with the opinion of the masses and picked the pulled pork even though I was pretty tempted by the barbequed chicken.  Along with the pulled pork sandwich I went for the mac n' cheese which the on-line reviews and the owner recommended; and of course I had to have the Louisiana cole slaw - since I'm a huge fan of the oil/vinegar style.

 

Before I give you my review of the meal, I will tell you that I was on my way home from walking my princess Gwenny, and it was a pretty chilly -15*C temperature, and it took us about 15 minutes until we were home from Zydeco.

 

on chilly days even dogs need a moose antler hoodie sweater!

 

By the time we got home the food was cold.  And this was definitely a factor in me enjoying the meal.  The pulled pork sandwich is loaded with pork and the smoky barbeque sauce.  Unfortunately, there was a fair amount of liquid in the sauce and from the cole slaw which basically saturated the bun.  Cold, soggy bun = not good.  I ate the pork and threw the bun away -- extra carbs are not necessary anyway.

 

 

For me, it was not the best pulled pork I've ever had.  There was a spice in the meat that wasn't to my taste.  Clearly other people absolutely love it and it wasn't bad - it just had a bit of an odd after taste for me.  The cole slaw was too oily and needed more vinegar -- and for the take out service I'd rather see the cole slaw in a separate container.  Finally, the mac n' cheese was not good.  It was really mushy and overcooked and somewhat bland.  Again, I would say the basic cause of my failing to enjoy the mac n' cheese was from having been sitting in the steam table for a long time.

 

Sadly I was very disappointed with my experience at Zydeco but I`m not giving up on this place.  First off, the owner is incredibly friendly and wants to please his customers and I'm a firm believer in supporting local, independent businesses.  The cold walk leading to cold food and soggy bun were partially my fault; as well as me showing up just minutes before closing lead to me getting the over cooked macaroni.  I`m still holding out for the chipotle meatloaf and there are lots of other sides to check out.  Next time I`ll pass on the cole slaw and check out some of the other sides.

 

 

Two Six {Ate}

Shortly before Christmas Caitlyn and I had to get together for dinner as we had not seen each other for some time.  A new place had recently opened on Preston just a few blocks from my house called Two Six {Ate} ... how clever since it is located at 268 Preston Street ... and I was anxious to check it out as I loved what I saw of the decor from peeping in the window and was intrigued by several items on the menu.

Two six {Ate} specializes in small plates with fresh, local ingredients; they are house smoking meats ... there is usually a special which is an entree size meal rather than the smaller snacking size and sharing plates and of course they are changing up the menu seasonally.

After careful contemplation of the menu, Caitlyn and I agreed that we were gonna do some share-zies but also the were a couple of choices that each one of us had more of a preference for as well.  We were both also thrilled to see local brewery "Broadhead" on tap and we both started off with a pint while making our decisions.

Round one we started with the crispy house smoked chicken wings and the ham and cheese arancino (which included an Italian lesson from our waitress on the correct pronunciation:  air-an-chee-no (singular) or air-an-chee-ni (plural).

These chicken wings are to die for.  I remember raving about the chicken wings at The SmoQue Shack on a previous post but I'd have to rate these chicken wings right up there - if not better.  The wings (as the name suggests) are smoked in-house and they are perfectly crispy on the outside but juicy and full of flavour on the inside.  The pièce de résistance though is the "valentina hot side" sitting right there in the centre of the plate.  OMG ... it is hot but flavourful hot not burning, it has a smokiness ... if the chef/owners ever decide to bottle this sauce it would be a world-class money maker.  Outrageous!

You might think it is going to be hard to move on from this course but no ... the ham and cheese arancino exceeded our expectations ... by a long shot.  And you all know how obsessed I am with all forms of arancini right now.  It was sooooo freakin good we actually ordered more as the night progressed.

 

The rice is soooo rich and creamy from the cheese ... I described it to my sister as the best "mac" and cheese I've ever eaten ... and its not even "mac" ... it's rice.  And then, add big chunks of delicious (again house made) ham for just the right amount of saltiness.  Hot, crispy, creamy ... deee-lic!  It's served with a small frisee salad topped with chili lemon dressing.  I liked the frisee salad ... Caitlyn loved it ... I barely got any!  Kidding   :-)  I've recently been back to Two Six {Ate} and they have changed the arancino from one large size rice ball as we had shown here to two smaller balls.  But still every bit as delicious and perfect for sharing (so you know everybody is getting the same amount and one person isn't bogarting the whole thing for themselves!)

 

Next we went off on our own for ordering.  Caitlyn ordered a tuna dish ... which she absolutely loved.  I had a small bite even though I don't really like fish.  Don't be shocked that I didn't like it.  For me it gave me the impression of canned tuna rather than a fresh tuna fillet and for me, it certainly wasn't the best bite of  fresh tuna I've ever had (I'm thinking of Allium with Marlene or East and Main Bistro in Bloomfield with Stacey and Emma).  But, the important thing here is you shouldn't go by my opinion on that dish and you should rely on Caitlyn who is a huge seafood/fish lover and she assured me that it was fantastic by making lots of mmming and yummming noises while eating. 

 

I, on the other hand had something that looked like this:

 

 

Honestly ... I don't remember what it was.  This is my bad for taking soooo long to update my blog.  Anyway -- I do recall that it had the same frisee salad with the chili lime dressing that was served with the arancino, so I let Caitlyn eat all of it when we ordered our next round.  I'm guessing whatever this was -- it was ok.  I certainly don't remember disliking it but I also don't remember loving it.  And since Two Six {Ate} changes the menu it is no longer on the current menu so this dish will remain a mystery!

 

For round three, we went back to sharing and we chose the chicken confit poutine and the Italian style bahn-mi sandwich.  The italian style bahn-mi sandwich is basically a sub.

 

 

In the tradition of the Vietnamese sandwich of its namesake it has pickled carrot and eggplant, cilantro and then branches out from the traditinal pork by stacking a variety of house-made italian style meats (mortadella, sausage and ham).  There is no shortage of meat in this sandwich, so again, its a good sharing plate.  It is served with chicken liver mousse (on the side if you are worried) and the now famous frisee salad.  For both of us, this was the lowest point of our meal.  There was nothing wrong with it - it was tasty but it was a sandwich.  We both thought there was nothing extra special about this plate and we agreed we would not order it again since there were so many other things on the menu that we definitely wanted to try.

 

Along with the bahn-mi we had the chicken confit poutine which is a fairly large portion and its veerrrryyy rich so it is definitely a dish to share.

 

 

The idea of a confit is preserving meat by salting and seasoning it and letting it absorb some deep flavours by marinating in it's own fat and juices.  There is no shortage of cheese curds (Pine River) or gravy on this dish.  The fries are made in house (you really couldn't expect anything less) and they were piping hot when they arrived at our table.  The gravy, being chicken based was rich and thick but I guess for me I prefer the taste of a beef gravy.  Overall this is a good dish - it was quite rich for both of us ... perhaps we should have ordered it a little earlier in the meal and we might have enjoyed it even more.  Not that we didn't manage to eat every last bit of it and consider licking the remaining gravy off the plate.

 

 

We had exceptional service (that is our waitress in the background) as well as a delicious meal which of course means lots of fun as usual for Caitlyn and I.  As I mentioned, I've been back to Two Six {Ate} with Stephanie and because of the things that I loved soooo much I had to order several of the same dishes again (i.e. ham and cheese arancino and the house-smoked chicken wings).  On my second visit, I also tried the mini fried calzones and I would agree with most people's reviews about this dish:  they are good but the ratio of filling to dough is a little small and overall just a tad on the bland side for me.

 

The really great thing about Two Six {Ate} ... well really there are several great things ... (not the least of which is the food) is the relaxed, casual atmosphere.  The food is not pretentious ... it's fresh and very good; the portion sizes for a "small plates" restaurant are a very decent size.  The service both times I've been there has been excellent - both friendly and knowledgeable.  There is a good variety of items on the menu for enough choice but it is not overwhelming.  They keep the 'staples' which have come to be must-haves every time you visit but change up items to keep the menu new, fresh and interesting.  I think Two Six {Ate} is one of the best restaurants I have been to in a very long time and I will continue to recommend it.

 

 

 

 

Mini Apple Fritters

As I mentioned in the post from 10Fourteen after trying their BLT fritters I started thinking we should eat more fritters.  Why don't we make fritters?  So I came across a recipe for "Beer Battered Apple Fritters" and I thought ... here we go - perfect opportunity -- fritters and beer.  Perfect.  I was hosting B&B Club so I decided to make a practice run with the fritters to see how they would be.

The recipe is not that complicated -- and me being me -- I had to make a few of my own changes!

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups cake flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
1 tblsp baking powder
1 tblsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt

1.  In a large bowl sift together the above ingredients and set aside.

 

In another bowl, whisk together the following:

1 cup beer (the recipe called for "de-alcoholized" beer but that just makes no sense to me)

3 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tblsp orange zest

3 tblsp orange juice

1 tsp vanilla

 

 

Now you don't need the whole bottle of beer for the batter  ... so go ahead and pour the rest into a glass so that you can keep hydrated while you are doing all that whisking.

 

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just moistened; fold in 3 finely diced Courtland apples.  Heat oil in a large saucepan (approximately 2" deep); heat over medium-high up to 375*F.  Working in batches, carefully drop heaping tablespoon fulls of batter into hot oil and fry until golden brown - about 2 minutes per side.

 

 

Remove and and place on a paper towel - I have my paper towels on a cooling rack.  Let cool and dust with icing sugar.

 

 

I had some trouble with the "dusting" with icing sugar; even though they were cool, it was melting into the fritters or just not sticking at all (notice the pile of icing sugar on the plate!).  I even added more sugar the next day.  They are very tasty; they are small so its best to dice the apples fairly finely.  The cornmeal adds a nice bite of crunch to the batter and they hold over well to the next day (although lose the crispiness of being fried).

 

Next time I make them, I would put more cinnamon in the batter and maybe even a bit of brown sugar to make them a bit more caramelized.  But they had good flavour and everyone who tried them said they really liked them.  Mine didn't look as nice as the picture in the magazine ... but it was mostly just because of the dusting of the icing sugar.  They are pretty easy and not too time consuming and a nice fall treat.

 

 

10Fourteen

Stacey and I were heading out to meet up with her friends Sonia and Steve for one of the last nights of live music before the closing of the iconic Elmdale House Tavern (of interest, the old Elmdale has now closed for good but is being renovated and will re-open as the Elmdale Oyster House by the owners of The Whalesbone ... and it's also right next door to my fave burger joint -- best in the city:  Hintonburger ... and no I will NEVER stop talking about Hintonburger, accept it!).

So, of course we had to go out for some yummy eats before heading over to The Elmdale so I chose 10Fourteen, a relatively new resto along the newly gentrified stretch of Wellington just west of Bayshore and, ironically, located at 1014 Wellington Street West ... perfect as we were only steps away from the tavern.  This is the start of of Hintonburg's trendy new restaurant area and I absolutely love this neighbourhood.

The website for 10Fourteen is lacking but I'm attaching the link as they have some much better photos of the inside of the resto than I took that night but other than a map there is not much else on the website.  It's worth it to check out the pix - the decor and ambiance is great.  It's upscale casual with some beautiful mirrors on the walls and a comfy lounge-y area at the back.  The bar was packed with a couple of groups of friends laughing and having a great time (and pretty much every time I've walked by in the evenings I've noticed a group of people having fun at the bar).  There was some jazz music playing and our waitress was pleasant, knowledgeable and appropriately attentive.

Diners are provided with the house made chili-spiced popcorn to munch on while looking over the menu.  The restaurant specializes in "small plates" and the menu, while not extensive, changes frequently so you could basically have something new and different every time you go there.  The chef is also really big on unique and interesting presentation.

 

Stacey chose some red wine while I got some local micro-brewed beer.  Every dish has a title and a very brief description of the ingredients so you really rely on your server for an explanation of the dish and how it is prepared and presented.  We found the descriptions of the upcoming plates that we chose to be spot-on and we appreciated the explanations.  We told our waitress that were were going to order a number of dishes in sequence so as we ordered one item we continued perusing the menu for our next selection.  The time for preparation and delivery to the table was very quick so we finished one round before ordering our next sampling.

 

For 'round one' Stacey picked the "Bahgi" (their spelling) which was identified on the menu as Onion/Curry/Tamarind and I chose the "Poppers" which were described as Artichoke/Chiorizo/ Cheese.

 

The Baghi (background) were perfectly crispy and I love the sweet/sourness of the tamarind.  They were perfect and I don't think that you would know that your favourite Indian mummy-ji had not made these perfect little bundles for you.  The jalapeno poppers were filled with smooth-creamy cheese and lots of chiorizo - so they were already spicy to bite but with sufficient cooling cream cheese to find them enjoyably spicy not too hot to burn your taste buds and miss the smoky flavour of the sausage.  However, if you wanted even more of a kick, that is sriracha dotted alongside them (I did).

Next up, was "Glass of Bacon" selected by me and described as Rhum/Coke/ Lime while Stacey chose the "Mac N' Cheese" explained as Bechamel/Cheddar/ Biscuit/Butter.  The waitress described the bacon as being marinated in the rum and coke then grilled and finished with the lime.  The Mac N' Cheese also came accompanied by a side of a beautiful purple cabbage slaw.

Both of us agreed we could not get any of the flavours other than bacon (not a bad thing mind you ...) from the bacon - the marinating and finishing we didn't find added anything.  Really - bacon is already good as it is, it doesn't have to be made any better.  The Mac N' Cheese was super creamy (and unbelievably hot) but we both found it a tad bland.  Stacey and I both agreed that we should have added the bacon to the Mac N' Cheese and it would have probably improved both dishes.  The biscuit was warm and freshly made with herbs and we both loved the slaw.  Overall this was our least favourite course.

On to 'round three' and we went for the two specials of the night:  "Supreme" which was Boar/Chili/Verde/Jalapeno/Cheese and the "Platter" described as BLT/Fritter/Aioli Leek/Rings/ Apple.

The boar chili is on the left side.  It was delicious with tender chunks of boar and was spicy but not overly hot and very flavourful.  The salsa verde was piled on top and gave a nice temperature and crunchy texture variation from the hot chili.  At the far right side is the BLT fritters.  These were really good.  They were crunchy and hot.  The aioli was delicious -- creamy and tangy.  Really good and made me think I need to make and serve food as fritters in the future - change things up.  And finally, in the centre are the "leek rings" -- essentially an onion ring made with leeks.  These golden nuggets were crispy and and delicious.  They had a much subtler flavour than onion rings and I absolutely loved them.  They were laying on some pureed apple sauce - not for me but Stacey enjoyed it.  I didn't really see the point of adding a sweet fruit (and apple sauce is not one of my favourite things in any case) but it was a flavour and temperature contrast to the leek rings.  I could have popped these golden, crispy babies in my mouth all night.

Alas, it was time to begin the short walk down the street to catch up with Sonia and Steve; the bill arrived in a wine pourer/measure so Stacey decided to put a bill of her own right back in the measure glass to pay!

We had a great dinner and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, enjoyed the company of my great friend and the restaurant.  The food is top notch and we really liked it - in all honestly some of the small plates are a little on the 'small' side and we totally figured had we wanted to, we probably could have eaten every dish on the menu.  In fact we only missed the "Protein" (Lentils/Beans/Chickpeas/ Onions/Cauliflower/Kale) and the "Greek" (Pita/Chips/Cucumber/Tomato/ Onion/Olive) which our waitress told us was essentially a Greek salad with pita chips so we didn't feel like we were missing anything we had not had before.  Nonetheless I have recommended this resto to others and look forward to going back again ... sometime.

coupl'a drinks later and heading out to the tavern ...