In reflecting upon how the local interpretation of Nuevo Latino is evolving, I came back to Mario’s original (and flagship) eatery Raza.

I admit that there is a little bit of a blog backlog here as well as I should have posted this much earlier. The meal I am describing is one I had with my brother oh, a year ago but I think the commentary is still relevant even if the menu has obviously changed.

Raza is the model from which Madre and À Table have both evolved: there has always been a certain austere white minimalism to the space. It’s a long room with a bar in the back and kitchen in the rear, and seating for 24-28, depending on table layout. Unlike its offspring, Raza aims for the fine dining end of the spectrum, so there are white tablecloths, white napkins and nicer plates and flatware. What’s changed and what’s gone: there are now brown wood accents and inset panels replacing the wall projectors, and the votive candles are no longer on the tables. I guess the brown warms up the room but I miss the projectors and the sparseness. Wine racks also dot the walls.

I also didn’t recognize any of the service staff, though that wasn’t a big surprise.

The menu format hasn’t changed too much over the years. While things have settled down in terms of description to afford a certain flexibility, the menu continues to be a short affair (four starters, four mains, two desserts) for the à la carte option, and two formats are offered for the tasting menu, depending on whether or not one wants foie gras and a pre-dessert as part of the meal. Those with sufficient quantities of alcohol dehydrogenase can also elect to have wine pairings to go with the tasting menu.

We elected for the seven without pairings just to see, and then settled in.

Dinner

Dinner kicked off with sweet potato and plantain rolls. These things are nice, but it’s a really dumba$$ idea to eat too many of these things with a tasting menu coming. Irrespective of whether it’s five-course or seven-course, it actually winds up being a lot of food (this from the guy who slung eleven butter-laden courses at the unsuspecting).

Soup: mushroom and celeriac soup. Interesting as this was a hot soup done with table service and not something I expected for summer. The bowl first arrived with a slice of king oyster mushroom dabbed with parsley oil, a braised pied bleu mushroom, and popcorn powder mixed with grated frozen foie gras. The soup itself was full of umami and tasted of forest mushrooms; this masked the foie somewhat with only a ephemeral fatty sensation to send that reminder that there was also foie gras in the bowl.

Ceviche Course: scallop ceviche with leche de tigre. Still a great dish as it is constantly evolving and always seasonal as he has to follow the best available seafood for this. This was the first time Mario made a non-fish ceviche for me, and I found that the sweetness of the scallop pairing very well with the leche de tigre. Radish and jicama offered different textural counterpoints to the softness of the scallop.

Fish Course: I’m not sure if it shows up properly in the photo, but see that stuff that the shrimp is nestled on? It’s parsnip. P-A-R-S-N-I-P. Not polenta as misidentified elsewhere (and yes, I saw that the correction was made to the post). How freaking hard is it to differentiate between ground corn mash and a root vegetable? Rant aside, this was a nice shrimp dish: spicy, salty, sweet. Can’t fault the flavors though I could have used a little more texture since the shrimp were soft and sitting on a parsnip purée.

Fish Course: this was a beet-tinted bacalao served on a bed of quinoa and shrouded with fish fumet sea water air. This is the only dish that I struggled with because I couldn’t figure out what was the point. The bacalao was interesting as it was tinted pink from the beet juice (no flavor of beet) and the quinoa had a nutty salty caramel taste to it. Unfortunately I felt that this fish course was disjointed because it came across as a piece of fish, some salty foam, and quinoa.

Poultry Course: duck. Rare duck magret with ginger, aji amarillo, kumquats, brussel sprouts… this was the highlight of the meal and showcased interesting textures, layers of complementary flavors, umami and clean visual presentation. Good stuff.

Meat Course: squid ink-marinated filet mignon with chorizo foam, mushrooms and potato purée. What can I say? This variation of steak and potato reminded me of the Smurf Village. The visual presentation that is, not that it tasted like Smurf. While I think that foams, airs and espumas have their respective functions and places in cuisine, I generally don’t expect them on a beef dish. However, this was in all honesty a very interesting way to introduce a sauce element without actually plating a sauce. I was a little surprised that the filet was not sous-vide but the cooking was really well-controlled (arriving rare), and the squid ink added a saline umami undertone to the beef.

Pre-Dessert: strawberry and raspberry with radish gelée and cilantro. Tangy, sharp, sweet and highly seasonal. I was quite comfortable with this dish and would have been perfectly happy with this as dessert, but it was an entre-mets to reset the palate (quite a successful one too).

Dessert: molten chocolate cake, marshmallow, dulce de leche ice, and pralines. Dessert has come a long way since the original fried chocolate ravioli or the smoke gun experiment. This has all the elements of a proper dessert as it as it was sweet and showed off different creamy textures reset by the occassional inclusion of the nuts with the ice cream.

Wine

Wow – how the list has changed in the last 5 years. Mario’s love affair with Pommery’s Pop! still remains but gone from the list are the mainstream wines. The list has refocused with a small core of private imports backed up by more interesting South American and Spanish(!) offerings. I do not think that it’s in Mario’s long-term plans for Raza to gain a Wine Spectator award of excellence, but there is interesting drinking on his list to pair up with any meal.

I kept to the wines by the glass because wine service with most tasting menus becomes a real exercise in the management of alcohol toxicity after the third or fourth course. I received glasses of Viña Casa Tamaya’s Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon; both were servicable with dinner, though I did find the Cabernet somewhat too vegetal for the beef.

Photos

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Impressions

Looking back at the original draft post and the photos I took of the evening, I was struck by how far along the restaurant developed in the 5+ years (!) since it first opened. I miss Nielsen having a case of the shakes every time he poured me a glass of wine and I miss the fact that the restaurant is no longer all white. However, you can’t fault success and you can’t fault the need to evolve.

I will definitely state that Raza is no longer a “Nuevo Latino” restaurant. When David and Mario first launched in 2005 I could see very strong elements of Douglas Rodriguez and Guillermo Pernot in the concept and the cuisine. At the time, it was good movement to hang their hat on: it was new for the city, it was different enough that a local reviewer had to “borrowed” my comment that tiradito can be considered by the unitiated as a Peruvian take on sashimi, and it was good enough to get them named as one of En Route’s ten best new restaurants for 2005.

The last review by the local paper laments how Raza no longer has the beer-braised beef, the quail with guava barbecue sauce or the foie gras empanada. Ignoring the backhanded colonial compliment of how everything is presented in a “sophisticated (as in French)” style,  I look back to my own notes and my own photos and and I’m okay with the absence of these dishes from the menu. Why? Darwin and the basic premise of evolution: a restaurant needs to move forward regardless of someone’s desire or need to live in the past. If you want these things, I understand versions of each dish are now on the menu at Mario’s Latin bistro Madre, and they may make an appearance at À Table in the future.

I think that the most important thing that happened to Mario since launch was his bringing in Alex Ureña for the 2007 Montreal Highlights Festival.

Ureña did an Apocalypto and introduced chorizo foam to Raza; its first appearance was atop a Manchego-inflected risotto, but it evolved into chorizo air and since begat seemingly unstoppable offspring. But… Ureña also also brought along modern Spanish culinary thinking which has been the more significant influence in the development of Raza. The Latin and South American ingredients are still there but it’s more adventuresome cooking that both honors and challenges the approach to culinary tradition. When speaking with Mario at the end of the meal, I asked whether he still felt he was doing Nuevo Latino cuisine (I reiterated that he wasn’t). While I didn’t get an answer, I like to think that he’s secretly in agreement that he’s evolved well past what Rodriguez et al. first put forward 15 years ago.

Speaking with him again at the launch of À Table, Mario was still dancing around the evolution of his culinary style though he definitely did laugh at the Québeçois Latino moniker and is still adamant about not doing any variation of the grilled calamari with balsamic reduction that is a ubiquitous fixture at many of the island’s other eateries. I do see Raza influences throughout the new restaurant from the squid ink, to the chorizo, to the brussel sprouts (sic), so the new place still learns from the original.

That last conversation and reviewing the photos does have me thinking. It is now a year since this dinner with my brother and I think it’s soon time to go back to have a peek at how Mario has continued to evolve his flagship’s cuisine. Should be interesting and there is probably no harm asking for a deconstructed empanada while I’m at it…

After posting about the opening I decided that I would go and have dinner there the same night as I realized that my chef-pal Mario would probably oversee the launch for a couple of weeks. It’s always interesting having an opportunity to speak with a chef who’s opening a new offshoot of his/her brand and I was curious to hear about the impetus for this specific restaurant and what his expectations were. And it only took me a  week to post about it.

As with Madre, Mario elected to stay away from the downtown core and move into other regions of the island. This time, he’s chosen Ahuntsic. Ahuntsic – not exactly the first neighborhood that comes to mind when I think of where I want to go and have meal but successful restaurants have managed to establish themselves in Rosemont and Villeray, so why not Ahuntsic. I do know that the restaurant was already getting a thumbs-up from me even before setting foot inside because apart from the fact that there is plenty of parking (with my getting a spot right in front), the parking is free.

Free is always good but free parking in front of the restaurant turned out to be particularly important as the evening went on, because the the torrential rain and hail that oh, came down about an hour after my arrival would have really sucked had I needed to go feed the meter or trudge back to the car after dinner (the precipitation did flood the Acadie circle [again - but that's not particularly difficult since they forgot to add a drainage system during its reconstruction]).

Anyway, À Table follows similar styling cues as Madre and Raza before it; a certain mimimalist esthetic in a long narrow room with the kitchen set up in the back. Like Madre, À Table is less formal than Raza and has uncovered wood tabletops and a smilarly-sized kitchen that diners can look into. Unlike Madre, À Table’s kitchen is fully open with one station actually jutting out of the kitchen space.

À Table’s concept is that the brigade also does the service, which is similar to what is found at local competitor Kitchen Galerie and David Chang’s Momofuku ko. The restaurant was staffed by a team of five: Mario, his executive sous-chef Rodrigo Flores, and three in the brigade who I didn’t recognize. One – Yasmine – has worked with Mario at Raza, so the team had good familiarity with his flavor and presentation habits.

Brigade as service had me expecting a round-robin service as each member of the brigade would handle something different during the meal but the odd thing, which I think had a lot to do with opening week and my being there, was that Mario elected to cook my meal and Rodrigo doing complete service honors. I think that’ll change in the future.

Like many bistros across the Big Croissant, the menu is scribbled on a chalkboard to offer both flexibilty and cost savings (since you don’t have to spend time printing menus). They’ve elected to use a big one installed over the entryway to the kitchen, which is pretty much visible from every table in the eatery. The handwriting makes me suspect that Yasmine drew the short straw to climb the ladder to write out the offering.

Dinner

Week 1′s inaugural menu consisted of:

• ceviche de thon
• soupe froide de mais
• salade de jicama et tomates
• carpaccio de canard
• filet mignon
• omble de l’artique et caviar (uh, I think that should be omble chevalier)
• pétoncles  pôelés
• risotto aux crevettes
• gateau chocolat, glace dulce de leche
• peches caramelisees, mousse orange/fenouil

So: four starters (ceviche, soup, salad, duck), four mains (beef, fish, scallops, shrimp/risotto), two desserts. Small to keep things manageable but pretty fancy (at least for that part of Ahuntsic) and somewhat surprising in terms of its use of some pretty expensive ingredients on launch menu (filet, scallops and tuna don’t grow on trees). Well, if you’re going to launch, put out your best.

I went for the following:

Carpaccio de canard (panais, amarillo, gingembre): that’s the description that was listed on the board. Little surprised to see parsnip since I equate the things with an autumn/winter offering, but I’ll get to it as it served a purpose. I thought this was the best dish of the evening. The parsnip was served warm as a rough purée (I got an intact parsnip tip that was either intentionally included or managed to escape the food mill – textural element I guess) and were overlaid with slices of very rare seared duck which had been sauced with the aji amarillo and ginger sauce. So, the duck warms up and cooks a bit more from the heat of the parsnip, and stays cool but cooks from the acid of the aji amarillo sauce. Microsprouts, edible flowers, haricots verts and lightly-pickled onions and brussel sprout leaves (the man loves his brussel sprouts) finished dressing the plate. So, we have a plate that has sweet (parsnip), savory (duck), acid (onions, sprouts, aji amarillo) and spicy (aji amarillo). I recognize all of Mario’s Nuevo Latino influences but there’s a Vietnamese intellectual twist here.

Risotto aux crevettes (persil, parmesan): a spicy surprise with grey shrimp, parsley oil, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano and vegetables; I’ve included a photo of Mario spending the 20-odd minutes stirring the rice to make the risotto from scratch. The rice still retained a nice bite to them and the overall dish had the desired creamy unctuous cheesy consistency expected of a risotto. The dish arrived with the grey shrimp finishing off their cooking from heat of the rice; they were sweet and had that nice underlying umami. The same brussel sprouts are intended to help cut some of the richness but I’m not convinced they were necessary here. The spicy surprise? Chile has been added to it, which gives a slightly tingly aftertaste. This was the dish to order for those with really big appetites: the portion size was very generous in terms of the amount of risotto, the shrimp and the shavings of cheese.

Omble de l’artique et caviar (quinoa, avocat, encre): A nice piece of fish and a fish that I’ve been playing with. The fish arrived with a nice crispy skin that carried a slight buttery taste, and the fish itself was cooked to a nice medium which retained the delicate nature of the char. Nice fluffy quinoa, and textural and savory elements from the mullet roe, the avocado (guacamole) quenelle and the vegetables. As I said, the man loves his brussel sprouts and they’re on the fish as well, but they do work well here as the acid brightens the fish. I would have liked to have just a bit more of the broken ink vinaigrette because that really boosted the savoriness of the dish.

Soupe froide de mais (chair de crabe, pdt): I didn’t eat this but I mention it because I actually wanted to have this for dessert (it’s cold and savory). Unfortunately, they ran out. Boo… hiss… Them’s the breaks of cuisine du marché as the style generally implies limited quantities of everything and it’s not like I identified my dessert selection when Rodrigo took my order. I should have though, as I heard it was really good.

Pêches caramelisées, mousse orange/fenouil: The dessert that I wound up going – slices of caramelised peaches nestled underneath a foam of orange and fennel. Peaches are in season so always a good thing when it comes to market cuisine. Never would have thought that orange and fennel would work together but they kept it in check and it was primarily orange with an anise-y aftertaste. The slivered almonds and filberts added crunch and structure to what would have otherwise been a glass of squishy-soft and liquid.

Wine

Like the other two restaurants, the list is predominantly South American (mostly Argentine) but there are also two reds from Spain and Australia (!) makes an appearance with Yalumba’s Viognier and a Pinot Noir from Scotchman Hills. Reds and whites are available by the glass, but one has to ask what’s currently on offer since that’s not listed on the list. Pommery’s single-serving Pop! also made the list here, so I’ll have to tell them ahead of time to have a silly straw available if Ronny wants to go on her next trip to Montréal.

The house cocktail remains the pisco sour. I declined as I’ve been staying away from pisco since that unfortunate evening with the Colombians and the Peruvians a few years back in Bahia.

I think the list is going to change fairly quickly as they received their liquor license a few hours before opening night. I don’t know what the list will ultimately look like but as À Table deviates more from Nuevo Latino than Madre does, I expect it to eventually offer more regions but not necessarily a whole lot of private imports.

I would have liked to have a Grüner Veltliner since those pair with almost everything and have a nice crispness for summer, but went with a servicable Santa Julia Chardonnay.

Impressions

I have to admit that I’m somewhat of a masochist when it comes to restaurant openings. There’s always something that isn’t quite ready: at Pintxo (day 7) it was the menu and very shaky service, at Madre (day 3) the tables weren’t ready yet and the wine offerings can be charitably described as ”anything palatable we could grab at the Masson SAQ because the liquor license arrived 10 minutes before close” (and that on the day I showed to boot), and that steakhouse in Collingswood (11 days)… it was everything. I elected to risk another opening as I knew that Mario was going to be overseeing the kickoff and wanted to have him tell me his vision and expectations of the new eatery.

Going on day 2 had me dodge one major bullet – the air conditioning was installed and working whereas it hadn’t been fully operational on opening night. I felt this launch was smoother than Madre’s and most things will eventually iron out as they settle in. About the only two things apart from the weather than hampered them on day 2 were:

• no oven – they opened without yet receiving their oven, which isn’t a bad thing given this summer’s hot/humid nature; the flip side is that their own sweet potato rolls won’t be available until it’s installed
• coffee; they’ll need to work on that

That aside, once they get comfortable with the new layout, learn the idiosyncrasies of the neighborhood clientele and figure out what will work best from the market for the neighborhood, I anticipate good things for them, likely to the point where getting a table as a walk-up will probably only work on Tuesdays (so sue me for being lazy and not wanting to call in for a reservation).

What’s going to be of particular interest is Rodrigo Flores, who is tabbed to helm the restaurant. This kid cooks very well, and has demonstrated his ability to handle pressure at both Raza and Madre. While his immediate professional culinary influences have come from Mario’s Nuevo Latino references, his familial background is Mexico and Catalunya. I am hoping that he will bring in Mexican and Catalan elements into his offerings as he further develops À Table.

Successful launch, and people will go, but now the next question for me becomes, will LC uh, “borrow” my Québeçois Latino opening line for her column?

I am by no means trying to compare local dim sum offerings to Vancouver, which was recently named by Condé Nast Traveler magazine as the city with the best Chinese food. Period. True? Maybe. I’ll give YVR the nod as the best in North America following the 1997 exodus prior to the repatriation of Hong Kong, but I’d have to make an eating comparison between Taipei and Vancouver just to see for myself which city is really the top of the pile.

Local dim sum however, remains in flux ever since the opening of the Brossard branch of the Kam and the closure of the Chinatown Tong Por. Chinatown’s main stalwarts (Ruby Rouge and the Kam Fung) continue to be plagued with inconsistencies with the RR suffering more than the Kam, there are rumors that the Tong Por VSL is falling to consistency issues of its own, and Zao’s has decided to rename itself “La Maison Foo Lam”, all the while trying to find a footing to compete against the others. I wasn’t in the mood to find out what Brossard’s latest daikaijū (大怪獣, giant monster) restaurant addition was like (initial reports aren’t good) so I elected to try the Kam’s “other” surburban outpost – La Maison Kam Fung in Saint-Laurent.

Okay, let’s get it over with - the Kam is located in a strip mall. A rather small one next door to the Wyeth facility (now part of the new P), with somewhat limited parking that it shares with a newly-opened breakfast place for the Bois-franc straight-laced in need of waffles and breakfast sausages.

I think my family’s been going to dinner at this Kam for the better part of oh, 15-20 years or so and apart from re-upholstering the chairs, I don’t think they’ve made any significant changes to the decor since that first visit. Two tanks of live seafood at the entrance (one with lobsters and crab, one with live fish), the giant phoenix and dragon wall plaque for weddings, dance floor, disco ball, red velvet-y everything. This was the restaurant where we learned not to be present when a Vietnamese wedding is being held (non-stop mandatory table-by table karaoke including disco-beat renditions of “Ave Maria” sung in Vietnamese – think about it). Those are really only during the summer months so it’s a pretty good bet that one can avoid that during the winter.

The Kam uses pushcarts and it’s actually the first time I noticed that the people doing the pushcart 1) all wear the same orange visor and apron that I see almost everywhere else and 2) they speak Mandarin (!). The language support is a surprise. Unlike the Chinatown branch, geography has a less significant effect at this locale, but the staff recognized me even without my parents present so I got a pretty good table (yes!). I was also surprised that it wasn’t as packed as my last, as there were maybe only about a third of the tables occupied at 11:00 am, but who knows? Maybe people were still flipping between the Olympics and Coronation Street. Then again, it really did fill up by noon, and with a very good representation of Saint-Laurent’s multicultural population and many large groups taking up the big tables. All good for turnover, and most impressively, enthusiastic eating and very little squeamishness from what I saw.

The meal

Well, it’s dim sum: whatever was available that looked interesting on the pushcart. I saw the following:

• Assorted steamed dumplings (餃, Dumpling; 餃子 gau zi, Gow gee)
• Har gau (蝦餃 shrimp dumpling)
• Siu mai (燒賣 pork dumpling)
• Char siu bau (叉燒包, steamed bun)
• “Phoenix talons” (鳳爪 Fung zao alias chicken feet) – saw it but didn’t order
• Spare ribs (排骨 paai gwat, páigǔ) – ordered the beef short ribs version, saw but did not order pork ribs
• Tofu skin roll (腐皮捲 fu pei guen) – saw it but didn’t order
• Chive Dumplings – saw it but didn’t order
• Shrimp and Chive Dumplings (韭菜虾饺) – saw it but didn’t order
• Beef leaf tripe (牛柏葉, niu bai ye)
• Lotus leaf rice (糯米雞, nuo mi ji) – saw it but didn’t order
• Crispy fried squid (魷魚鬚 yau yu sou) – saw it but didn’t order
• Stuffed crab claw (釀蟹鉗, niàng xiè qián) – saw it but didn’t order
• Spring roll (春捲 cheun gyun) – saw it but didn’t order

There was a whack load of other things (especially fried and baked) that I didn’t order, including daikon cake, Singapore noodles, gai lan (too late) chili and salt-baked capelin (too late) though it was more that therre’s only so much that I can eat. There weren’t too many of those “special plates” (they’re generally $$$, but it tops off at $5.50 here) that I could spot, but then again, I wasn’t going to hang around the restaurant just to see. Apart from the offerings on the pushcarts, the Kam had a stock menu offering the stalwarts (e.g. General Tso’s chicken) for the more squeamish or for those not in the mood for smaller bites.

I was fairly impressed by the different steamed dumplings this go, as they were greatly improved from the previous times. The skins were not translucent as with other places, but they were thin, not cloying and had a nice chew to them. Fillings were very savory and weren’t skimpy on the key ingredients. My favorite of these was one I couldn’t identify, but it was a seafood filling mixed with peas, corn and water chestnut for textural and color differences. The organ meats were limited to the leaf tripe, which was cut into larger strips and flavored with fried julienned ginger. Interesting. The char siu bao is one of the nicers ones I’ve had in the city and has remained consistent with a nice bread that was slightly sweet from the milk and a savory filling that complemented it. I also liked the two vegetable dishes (eggplant and peppers) as they were light and retained their respective tastes even though they were fried dishes.

The one dish I was disappointed with was the chili and salt baked shrimp, which was okay in flavor but suffered from way too much breading. The dish calls for the shrimp to be dusted in flour, not dipped in beer batter. I seem to be the only one in disagreement since they were being popped down pretty quickly at other tables.

Dessert. I saw egg tarts, I saw jello (because there’s always room for jello) and I saw silken tofu (豆腐花 dou fu fa). I didn’t order any of it because of lack of space.

Wine

In nearly two decades I’ve never actually noticed whether or not they have wine. I think they do since there is a wine rack behind their bar, but the only alcoholic drinks I’ve ever seen people consume is beer. Standard domestic mix, plus Heineken plus Tsingtao (if you really must). I stuck with tea and ice water though these two guys at the next table sucked down a 12-pack of Coke with their meal (that’s a lot of high-fructose corn syrup).

Photos

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Impressions

The last time I did dim sum at the Saint-Laurent Kam (wow, maybe more than a year now), I came away thinking that it was pretty ordinary. Tasty enough, but not great and not something I’d be springing out the door to try.

The Kam has improved their dim sum since that time. It’s still not the most exciting place for dim sum (excitement? it’s across the street from the southern border of Bois-franc), but it’s playing to what its clientele likes by offering competently made mainstream items. Can’t complain at all - seafood was tasty, pork was tasty, vegetables were nice, unobtrusive service. I appreciated this “no surprises” excursion today as I’m about to suffer from a headache coming out of the Big Easy.

As I mentioned at the start of the Year of the Tiger, unlike last year, my parents weren’t out of town so my mom made New Year’s Eve dinner. Good thing too, as while my Year of the Ox dinner last year was okay, I think everyone just likes it better when it’s my mom cooking.

Though I did offer, I didn’t prep anything this year as my mom decided that she had more than adequate lead time to prepare everything she wanted to make. My sister made a dish (she normally does more than one but she’s been a little busy these days) and I did make at least a manual contribution by doing some choppy-chop and plating as things were finished and came off the stove.

Scallion (green onion) pancakes (蔥油餅). This is a snack that pretty much everyone likes, but we don’t make them too often because it really requires communal participation as the prep is not something that works well at a small scale or when solo. We actually didn’t break out the rolling pins to make some for New Year’s and the only reason I’m bringing them up is because of my parents’ penchant for “experimentation” when they do New Year’s grocery shopping. This year’s exemplar of trying something new came in the form of a commercial pancake because they thought it would be a nice quick snack to fix which wouldn’t interfere too much with dinner prep.

Okay… I think my brother is still shaking his fist in anger over the quality, validity and authenticity of this pancake (my parents too, but I think they’re trying to be polite about it). My mom prepped it really nicely but I don’t think any amount of care in cooking it would have saved this thing. A good 蔥油餅 will have layers, be toothsome and have that grilled onion flavor. This one was squishy inside, didn’t have layers and was studded with a sweet-ish pickled cabbage that generated those “why are we eating this?” expressions.

Anyway, my mother presented twelve (12) dishes, plus fish, plus rice. Great way to bring in the New Year.

The traditional greeting is 新年快樂, but I was spending quality time chewing so it sort-of came out ”mmm…”

The obligatory roster

Rice (d-uh). Steamed white rice, and plenty of it to ensure that we can show plenty (and I got my rice bag weeks in advance this year).

Fish. We don’t touch the fish on New Year’s Eve. Some families do, ours doesn’t. I actually don’t know what kind of fish this is but there’s mention of a gold strip along its back. It is however, tasty as I did get a chance to eat it after the Eve, when it was served with this really great sauce (a hot and sweet/sour one that resembled a gastrique – soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, chili peppers, onions, ginger).

Chicken. This year, the chicken option was my brother’s favorite dish: it’s a spicy chicken (pieces of boneless breast and thigh) sautéed with chili paste (specifically Lan Chi brand chili paste with garlic) and served with blanched baby bok choy. My mom didn’t tone down the chili paste so it was quite savory with that typical kick of heat on the back palate afterwards.

The rest of the menu

• Noodles; fried long noodles with plenty of shrimp, pork, shiitake, cabbage, onions, carrots (I think there was actually more ingredient than noodle)
• Roast duck; one of my father’s favorites, though if we were in Taiwan this would be replaced by goose, which he likes even better (me too)
• Char siu (叉燒); for oinky barbecue goodness
• Taiwanese pork sausages (香腸); these are slightly sweeter and juicier than the typical sausage but when in Taiwan, just buy the sausage from the vendor and resist the urge to “gamble” to win one (the same sausage will just cost twice the price if you do)
• Black mullet roe; a Taiwanese “must-have” for New Year’s and one of my father’s favorite things to eat (the roe is a gift of my second paternal aunt)
• Scallop and shrimp; a plate of oil-poached diver scallops and shrimp finished off with red peppers, onions, Sichuan peppers and other spicing
• Braised pork and eggs; soy-braised pork hock and knuckles and eggs (umami-laced deliciousness)
• Spare ribs and chicken; spiced velvetted ribs and chicken filets (my mom made the filets specifically for a little guy in short-pants who unfortunately had a cold on New Year’s)
• Sautéed mustard greens; this was the only purely-vegetarian option on the table (New Year’s isn’t about vegetables)
• Aubergines; my sister’s dish – Chinese eggplants stuffed with minced pork and served with a hoisin-based dipping sauce
• Soup (daikon and meatballs); you can tell it’s my mom who made the soup because its base is a tasty pork broth whereas my variant is a cheapskate version with kombu stock

Wine

Wine? I wasn’t asked to (my father said he was overloaded with bottles) but unexpectedly wound up suppying the wine in a roundabout sort-of way: it was a 2007 Oak Bay Pinot Noir (gold medal winner at 29th All-Canadian Wine Championships) that I had brought over for my father earlier.

I would have actually brought a Grüner Veltliner or a softer neutral white, but the Pinot paired surprisingly well with the meal as its earthy tones complemented the umami in the meal (note to self: be a bit more avant-garde with pairings).

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Then there’s the issue of how much additional time the commute takes on: during one storm last winter I actually spent more time sitting at the wheel than I did sitting in front of the keyboard (and I completed a full day). So apart from having an extra breakfast and an afternoon snack for the interminable boredom while waiting to get onto one of the bridges, the extended commute generally leaves little time during the weekday to spend time making anything particularly complicated.

This one can be whipped together in a hurry, especially if frozen shrimp makes up a pantry staple (I try) and it can easily scale up depending on the servings required. Since it’s fairly neutral, accompaniments can also change to take care of what’s in the refrigerator that needs to be eaten or most options that might suit your fancy.

Ingredients

• shrimp
• yellow beans
• mushrooms (I had button, 2 types of pleurotte and shimeji)
• 1 shallot
• potatoes
• cream
• butter
• milk 
• vanilla 

Preparation

The challenge is in timing, as several elements are prepared concurrently so that everything is ready for plating.

Steam the potatoes (skin on) until they are fully cooked. Heat up cream and butter until butter is melted. Peel potatoes, discarding skins and pass potatoes through a food mill or ricer. Fold in cream and butter mixture, ensuring that the potato becomes an even purée; continue adding cream and butter until the potato becomes the thickness of a very thick sauce. Season with salt and white pepper.

Tear and slice the mushrooms (as required) and mince the shallot. Sweat the minced shallot in butter until soft. Add the mushrooms and gently cook. Season with salt and pepper, remove from heat and set aside.

Steam yellow beans until cooked but still crisp.

Peel shrimp (leaving tails), devein and lightly season shrimp with salt and white pepper. Melt butter into a pan over medium heat; when butter stops foaming, turn down the heat to low and slowly cook shrimp. When shrimp are almost cooked, add a small amount of vanilla (bean or whole bean extract). Remove from heat and set aside.

Service

Adjust potato consistency with some hot milk until it is fluid. Plate mushrooms and yellow beans. Place shrimp. Sauce with potato purée.

To make it more of a meal, this dish can be preceded by something simple like a tomato and cucumber salad if those are lying about. The one below marinated the cucumbers in soy sauce and rice vinegar and used wine salt to season the tomato.

Wine

Something to pair off the shrimp would probably be the best thing, and as it’s already tinted with vanilla, a New World Chardonnay that’s not overly oaked. Grüner Veltliners are another option.

Bad news on the eating front this weekend as word came down that the Foo Wor restaurant in Brossard has shuttered its doors. This is really too bad because I liked Foo Wor’s dim sum: they had a really great roast pork plate and their dumplings were very delicate and flavorful. I guess it must have been hard to draw people further west on Taschereau with their location being hammered by both the departure of the Kim Phat grocery store that drew crowds to its strip mall in the first place, and the opening of a giant Kam Fung in the new Place Kim Phat that sucked out what remaining customers might have driven the few extra klicks. Worse still, the Foo Wor’s closure coincides with rumors that the quality of dim sum at Xin Jing Hua now being described as “unmemorable”, with that particular stalwart appearing to take on the Kam Fung competition by using the anti-Wal-Mart defence of dropping prices irrespective of the impact to quality. This is really disappointing: one less dim sum alternative to frequent in the greater Montréal area, and another starting a slide to mediocrity.

I am hoping that another restaurant steps in to help fill the void. Tong Por St-Laurent (which I’ve already scribbled about) appears to be chugging along in spite of their weird waiter but another possibility that presents itself is Zao’s. Tantalizing to be certain, as Tong Por was one of the better dim sum houses before the transformation and some of the former Le Président chefs switched over to Zao’s after the takeover. Their “dumpling magic” didn’t make the trip with them though, as I’ve read reports that the dumpling wrappers need work.

However, I don’t go to dim sum exclusively for dumplings so I was curious to see what other stuff they might offer and how that would compare. Did I mention I was also hungry?

Okay, so… off to Zao’s.

Zao’s is on the west (southbound) side of Acadie, ergo it’s across the street from the outlet shopping arcology that is the Marché Central. Its specific strip mall also houses a Lebanese restaurant, a Chez Cora, a coffee shop, another Chinese restaurant (which turns out to be just a sign), and Sharky’s Pool Hall. I actually had a WTF? moment when I realized that Zao’s is not only on the second floor next to Sharky’s Pool Hall, the owners appears to also run Sharky’s Pool Hall. The annoying thing about the location is there is absolutely no parking, which is really strange for a strip mall. I managed to find a space that was essentially in the middle of a muddy sinkhole and then hoofed it up the stairs.

The interior is really non-descript and if it weren’t for the tanks of live seafood, the stereotypical scroll painting and the giant phoenix and dragon wall plaque for weddings, it could be a pool hall, a cafeteria or discount shoe and clothing retailer. Ambiance isn’t the strong suit for Zao’s: nothing fancy for chairs and tables, and the flat-screen televisions were showing competitive poker. One thing you’ll want to watch out for is when they turn on the music: there are speakers every 2 metres or so just above the windows.

So what’s the crowd like? Well, since it’s dim sum there won’t be any pack of Appalachian hillbillies sitting nearby, but in all honesty there was almost no one at 11:30 AM on a Saturday. One family was finishing their meal when I arrived, and another table was talking and drinking tea, but not eating. Okay…

I eventually figured out that the crowd for Zao’s is the same crowd that spends its time at the outlets across the street and stream into the restaurant considerably later than other places. The other oddities apart from the decor, the televisions and the clientele? The workers. They were standing around waiting for clients when I arrived but:

1. They’re friendly (!)
2. They smile (!)
3. They speak English and Mandarin Chinese (bad thing as it’s something that will upset the pur et dur, but good thing especially since I don’t speak Cantonese)

Zao’s does the pushcart, but there aren’t a whole lot of them and a lot of the pushers actually brought food over in hotel pans to see if I was interested in whatever it contained. I also found out that I could specifically order some things if they weren’t already available.

The Meal

Well, it’s dim sum: whatever was available that looked interesting on the pushcart. I saw the following:

• Assorted steamed dumplings (餃, Dumpling; 餃子 gau zi, Gow gee)
• Har gau (蝦餃 shrimp dumpling)
• Siu mai (燒賣 pork dumpling)
• Char siu bau (叉燒包, steamed bun)
• “Phoenix talons” (鳳爪 Fung zao alias chicken feet) – saw it but didn’t order; they were quite orange in color
• Spare ribs (排骨 paai gwat, páigǔ) – ordered the beef short ribs version, did not see pork ribs
• Tofu skin roll (腐皮捲 fu pei guen) – saw it but didn’t order
• Chive Dumplings
• Beef leaf tripe (牛柏葉, niu bai ye)
• Lotus leaf rice (糯米雞, nuo mi ji)
• Crispy fried squid (魷魚鬚 yau yu sou) – saw it but didn’t order
• Stuffed crab claw (釀蟹鉗, niàng xiè qián)
• Spring roll (春捲 cheun gyun) – saw it but didn’t order

There was a whack load of other things (especially fried and baked) that I didn’t order, though it was more the stuff that I normally don’t find or get at other places. And the nice surprise? Those special dishes that I almost always miss everywhere else were in easy supply at Zao’s: chili and salt-baked capelins full of roe, clams in black bean sauce, porky chive dumplings.

The reports I had read were correct: the steamed dumplings really need a rethink. The fillings are okay – they’re savory and taste of shrimp, pork, scallops or whatever else is used as filling, but the skins weren’t particularly translucent, were very sticky, and had an odd texture to them. Other misses were the char siu bao (odd texture to the bread, meh filling) and the steamed leaf tripe with ginger and onion (lacking ginger and onion, and salt).

My two favorites were actually the flanken cut beef ribs, which were very savory, beefy and peppery. Flanken ribs can be tough, but these were tender so someone was definitely paying attention to their cooking. What else? The capelin. Full of roe, crispy, warm, slightly salty, nice bite from the bird chiles, onion and bell pepper.

One item here that looked pretty good was the stew of organ meats. As I’ve said, I usually avoid this as it’s often chock full of mou (lung), but this one was full of large pieces of honeycomb tripe and daikon. After everything else that was ordered I wasn’t sure if I could stomach (sic) more tripe but maybe next time. Chances are probably very good that it’s better than the leaf tripe.

Dessert. I saw egg tarts that looked okay and I saw some mochi. I elected to go with silken tofu (豆腐花 dou fu fa) instead, because I happen to like it better. Zao’s ginger-flavored simple syrup is thicker, darker and sweeter than others (more reduction) but it’s somewhat weak on the ginger flavor.

Wine

Heck if I know – I stuck with tea and ice water.

Then again, since the (dysfunctional) website is listed as “http://www.sharkys-zaos.com/” I’m assuming there’s booze somewhere. It’s likely on the Sharky’s side, so you can enjoy your drop with some pool or a cozy video poker machine (what I think most people go there for).

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Impressions

Zao’s was actually a very pleasant surprise and reminded me of the time I went to see Stargate. I didn’t expect much based on what I had read and I was really pleasantly surprised.

Sure – the “dumpling magic” that the old brigade from the former Le Président is essentially non-existent and they screwed up leaf tripe and char siu bao, but some really nice off-the-track surprises and a lightness with the fried items. I’ll have to go back and give them a second look just to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke. Hopefully I won’t have the same parking issues.