Winnipeg Restaurants Reviews by Ray Yuen

Restaurant Reviews - Los Chicos Restaurante Y Cantina (formerly Daquisto’s)

2011-12-30T02:36:00.000-06:00

Los Chicos Restaurante Y Cantina (formerly Daquisto’s)

1715 Kenaston Blvd

204-938-2229

http://www.wowhospitality.ca/restaurants/restaurantsmain.html

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Chicos-Restaurante-Y-Cantina/151011614999901?sk=wall

WOW Hospitality has come up with some top-tier restaurants that deliver some of the best food in Winnipeg. To keep the menus fresh, WOW sometimes shakes things up by changing restaurants while they’re still at the top of their games. Pasta la Vista disappeared from downtown, and the Kenaston location became Daquisto’s. Now Daquisto is gone and its place, Los Chicos serves up Mexican food.

Outside the restaurant, Chicos greets you with the cheesiest looking chap under a pizza dough-like sombrero. This obnoxious looking dude must be among the worst looking logos in all restaurant-land. Walking through the door, you see the décor in the restaurant looks equally obnoxious, with bright orange walls trying to feign the adobe style. The more subdued lounge offers a calmer alternative.

The salsa usually provides a quick glimpse into what you can expect for food. Unfortunately, Chicos’s salsa comes chunky, but still runny, without much depth. Fresh herbs make up the largest part of good salsa but this salsa tastes frankly bland.

The refried beans side tastes saltier than most Mexican beans, but other than salt, it lacks seasoning. Resembling the consistency of coarse mashed potatoes, the beans are moist and gooey. The huge bottle of hot sauce resembling Tabasco goes a long way to helping out the beans.

We start with the crazy chicken wings. Pollo Loco are wings deep fried in a barbecue chipotle sauce. They’re a bit over-fried, which is not necessarily a bad thing here. The meats tastes a little dry but the extra frying time gives a crispiness to the skins. The sweeter barbecue sauce could use a companion side for dipping and a little more chipotle flavour wood make the good sauce a great sauce.

Chicos offers the usual Canadianised Mexican dishes and the Seafood Enchilada serves as a great example. It comes with shrimps and scallops in a lobster sauce and shows little Mexican flavour at all. The weak sauce doesn’t carry very much lobster taste and the meal ends up being a roll with bland seafood and white sauce. The nicely spiced side of rice provides the only semblance of Tex-Mex and it easily overshadows the taste of the seafood.

The Fish Taco comes with either a crispy or a soft tortilla encasing a mixture of vegetables with breaded, fried fish. The deep fried fish adds a nice texture to the dish, and the lime dressing complements the entire assortment. I would like to see a bit more fish in the taco but otherwise, this is a nicely put-together effort.

There’s no shortage of meat in the monstrous Pulled Pork Burrito. The massive roll comes stuffed with roasted, pulled pork that tastes moist and juicy. While I preferred the barbecue belt smoked pulled pork over slow roasted pulled pork, Chicos’s zingy barbecue sauce elevates this meal.

Los Chicos offers a generous amount of food that can be hit or miss. Usual for WOW restaurants, the service is always attentive, friendly and competent. Unfortunately, of the three WOW iterations at this location, Chicos is likely the poorest representative. There’s some good food to be had here but Mexican purists will turn their noses up—only to gaze into the eyes of the ridiculous logo.

**½ /5

Restaurant Reviews - Food Court Favourites

2011-12-28T14:15:00.000-06:00

Restaurant Reviews - Food Court Favourites

Mention shopping mall food courts and everyone has a different perception on what kind of food you expect. Personally, I rarely stop at food courts, but on the occasions where you need a fast bite, the options aren’t limited to A&W or Tim Horton’s. We have some unique food court kiosks and some downright tasty options. The following offers a caption of my personal favourites at the various shopping centres.

201 Portage Ave (former TD Centre & CanWest Global Centre)

Il Pranzo Italian Eatery

Pranzo rotates their pastas but there’s always at least one crowd-friendly white sauce and one red sauce pasta. Today’s white sauce is a creamy and thick seafood selection that comes with bits of shrimp and pollock. This huge portion sits atop perfectly made al dente noodles. The pasta comes with a side of garlic toast; you can get a side salad for an extra $1.49.

Pranzo offers several types of side salads, including a variety of cold pastas, all of which come perfectly al dente as well. The chicken pasta comes in a very herbaceous sauce and has generous chunks of chicken but I find the sauce a little too thick for a cold pasta.

The leafy salads come with the usual dressings. The vegetable leafs are fresh and crisp, with lettuce being the only exception, wilted and browning.

Leaf & Loaf Corporation

http://theleafandloaf.ca/

204-942-2820

The Leaf & Loaf offer so many combinations of dressings and vegetables, I don’t know where to begin. Let’s just say that every option of vegetable I tried is off-the-shelf fresh, and the dressings taste meticulously created. If you want to stray from the salads, the Loaf also offers Rice Bowls, brown rice with various ingredients with dressings. While dressings enhance vegetables nicely, I don’t find them hearty enough to support rice. Even the curry vinaigrette in the Chicken Curry dish is hard to discern within the rice. I guess I expect Indian curry sauce, rather than a curry dressing. I’d stick with the delicious salads.

Other choices include:

City Submarine

Dee’s Chicken

Mmmarvelous Muffins

CityPlace

Samosa Hut

One of the fundamental faults of counter foods lies in the presentation. Sitting under heat lamps or over boiling units dries out most foods and leaves a desiccated wake of cardboard. Because many Indian dishes come with rich sauces, prolonged heating has little detrimental effect on the integrity of the food. Couple the longevity of the food with the high quality of the preparation and you have a downright delicious meal. The servings from Samosa Hut don’t take a backseat to the servings from any sit-down Indian restaurant buffet. Avoid the CityPlace line-ups at McDonald’s and grab yourself a delicious serving from the Hut. The popular dishes—butter chicken, veggie Korma and a meat curry—are always available, and other favs rotate.

Other choices include:

A&W

Gyro Sensations

Koya Japan

Little Bangkok Thai

Manchu Wok

McDonald’s

MMMarvelous Muffins

Mrs. Vanelli’s

Subway

Sushi June

Thai Plaza

Garden City

Casarap

When someone pointed towards a fast food kiosk named Casarap, I came with the expectations of having some kind of wrap or sandwich; I couldn't be more wrong. Casarap is a Filipino based food stand that serves a number of the South Asian standards, most of which share Chinese origins.

Essentially a rice porridge, congee dishes include boiled rice with options for meats. The watery rice takes on the flavours of the meat and offers a complete and healthy meal. Casarap's chicken congee includes fall-off-the-bone chicken wings, topped off with chopped scallions and crunchy bits for texture.

Pansit (noodles) Malabon is another Filipino dish of Chinese origin, named after a Filipino city known for its seafood. The udon-style (although a bit thinner) rice noodles are covered with a bright orange coloured, shrimp sauce. Don't let this scare you away; the sauce doesn't taste fishy at all. The sauce just adds a touch of saltiness to the noodles. The dish comes with two shrimps, which are quite forgettable. Both the congee dishes and the noodle dishes come with a hard-boiled egg.

Among the ubiquity of Chinese fast food restaurants, I'm very surprised there aren't more Filipino counterparts. If Casarap is any indicator, I would take their food over the Canadianised Chinese slop any day.

Other choices include:

A&W

Bake Shop

Koya Japan

Little Vietnam

Manchu Wok

Mini Donuts and More

Pita Express

Taco Time

Grant Park

Koya Japan

Koya fries their meals on order, although the rice and noodles are already pre-cooked. Because the meals are “cooked” (reheated is a more accurate term), the food avoids the dryness of the heating elements. The dishes don’t have anything special to offer, but at least they’re fresh.

The rice rolls have a wonderful combination of vermicelli noodles with fresh lettuce and a cucumber slice, as well as your choice of meats to add a nice complement. The peanut sauce is just sweet enough and very peanutty, making a lovely dip.

The Gyozas come with fried vegetables (broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts and cabbage strips), which taste bland, bland, bland. Even with the sweet and tart dipping sauce poured all over the veggies, tastes empty. As well, the gyozas taste a little greasy and could use some more stuffing. What’s there has a nice taste with crunchy texture but this shouldn’t be your first choice.

Other choices include:

A&W

McDonald’s

Tim Hortons

Kildonan Place

Vanelli’s or Mrs Vanelli’s

http://www.mrsvanellis.com/

Vanelli also keeps precooked pasta on hand, waiting to be stir-fry reheated with fresh vegetables and meats on demand. Because the pasta was precooked, there isn’t any ad dente left but the freshly cooked vegetables come crispy and delicious. The sauces lack any real depth but the so-so food tastes fresher than most fast food counters.

Other choices include:

A&W

Arby’s

Koya Japan

New York Fries

Sizzling Wok

Subway

Taco Time

Tim Hortons

Polo Park

Cultures

http://cultures.mtycms.dev.inovestor.com/en/about-us.aspx

Most of the mains that Cultures offers comes in the form of sandwiches and wraps. All of the wraps look fresh and just-made. The tuna salad wrap comes with lots of fresh, crisp lettuce (a little too much). The fresh tasting tuna salad is among the best you can find, but alas, you don’t get very much of it. If they shrink the amount of lettuce and doubled the scoop of tuna, you would have a nearly perfect wrap.

You get two sides with your wrap. The farfalle in pesto comes with tons of basil and nice chunks of green and red peppers for texture and zing. The oil tastes fresh and good quality but more garlic would further improve this pesto sauce. The tri-colour fusilli comes in amayo dressing that tastes deliciously sweet, without being too creamy. The florets of broccoli add nice texture but there’s a bit too much of it. The display counter shows off a generous sprinkling of cheese—too bad it’s not more evenly spread out as my serving barely had any.

I also want to give mention to Kimchi, although my experience left me in a fit.

Kimchi Korea Delight

http://kimchi.mtycms.dev.inovestor.com/en/about-us.aspx

I love trying new foods and often, the best finds come from ethnic corners. Occasionally, I stumble onto something distasteful and being of Asian heritage, I’ve encountered more than my share of distasteful dishes through my childhood. Today, I rarely come across anything as revolting as some of the things my dear mother made me eat. Without intending to offend anyone, I put kimchi in the same category as ginseng, salted fish and beef brains that came from my family’s kitchen. Although 20 years have elapsed since I last tasted it, I remember the Korean fermented vegetable dish well—and not fondly. Seeing the Kimchi outlet at the food court, I know that I need to give it another chance.

Kimchi offers nine tempting options but only two include kimchi: the kimchi fried rice and the kimchi fried noodles, both available with your choice of a main ingredient. I choose the fried rice with beef.

The back room hands out pre-portioned servings to the wok chefs, who stir-fry your order as you wait. The chefs put on a good show as the flames fly and flicker furiously. Oil causes flames and more oil you use, the higher the flames. While the show looks impressive, the dish ends up on the greasy side. Although the oily rice has been nicely flambéed, a fair amount of the grains taste crunchy, which happens when the rice is undercooked.

You get a lot of rice and most people will feel quite full after finishing this meal; however, among the abundance of rice is a scarcity of eggs, vegetables and even beef. Through the entire plate, I only find one shred of fried egg, three cubes of carrots and a handful of meat. The dish also comes with only a few shards of kimchi, which is a perfect amount to include. The pungent nature of kimchi can easily (very easily) overpower everything and the minute amount of kimchi that Kimchi puts into their rice is just enough to give a taste without taking over. If you have the urge to try kimchi, definitely try it through this rendition before going to the unadulterated version.

Kimchi’s kimchi comes in different spiciness levels: mild, medium, spicy, very spice or fiery. When asked, I ordered mine “as hot as you can make it—hotter than you’ve ever made it before.” I get the response,

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, make it spicier than you’ve ever made it before. Then when you think it’s so stupid hot that no one in the world can eat it, make it even hotter,” I exclaim.

“I’ll give you level three—that should be hot enough for you.”

“Please make it as hot as you can,” I insist.

“You can’t take it. I’ll give you triple spicy and if you don’t think it’s hot enough, then come back and we’ll add more.”

“I’m getting takeout; I can’t come back. Just make it as I order please,” I implore. The attendant then walks away and I’m left with a level three spicy rice. Granted, this is a spicy dish but it comes nowhere close to the expectation of a person who orders it “hotter than you’ve ever made it.”

The kimchi fried rice tastes good despite the lack of ingredients. At $8, the price is a little high for food court but not unreasonable. However, neither the food nor the price will stick to my mind. I will remember this experience solely through the eyes of a person judged by an arrogant cashier based on appearances. Whenever someone asks me what I think of Kimchi the restaurant, I will relate that it took every bit of restraint I had not to reply, “who the hell do you think you are?!”

Finally, I also want to mention Brioni’s.

Brioni’s

Located just on the outskirts of the dining area, I’m not sure that I can exactly call this a “fast food joint.” Brioni’s has its own dining area with benches and padded seating. Tucked away in its own corner, the seating area isolates itself from the hustle and bustle of the main court area. Considerably larger than all the other kiosks, the ordering counter offers pizza and a fair assortment of pastas. The (extra) thin crust pizzas look heat lamp dried and shrivelled so I go after the pasta instead. Today’s special is Italian sausage with your choice of pasta; I choose the baked ziti.

The dish comes with a small, dense bun, resembling a miniature cinnamon bun—you can choose between multigrain or garlic. The multigrain tastes quite moist, despite being densely hard.

The pasta looks fresh and nicely arranged behind the counter. The melted cheese protects the pasta from being fried by the warmers, leaving the ziti firm and almost al dente. The nice pesto sauce tastes very basilly and herbaceous. You can ask for extra sauce over the noodles, which tastes richly like ripe tomatoes. With the pasta, you receive three segments of sausages, which a fairly generous amount. The sausages come boiled, which is one of my least preferred methods of cooking. Grilling or broiling would have added another dimension to the sausages but as is, the juicy meat has a spicy bite. Fried peppers (green and red) and onions cover the sausages, added a lovely extra dimension.

Brioni’s serves good food—reaching full-service restaurant quality. Despite how they look, maybe next time I’ll try the pizzas.

Other choices include:

A&W

Arby’s

Bento Sushi Express

Famous Wok

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Koya Japan

New York Fries

Opa Souvlaki

Orange Julius

Subway

Taco Time

Thai Express

Portage Place

Bento Sushi Express

http://www.bentosushi.com/en/

Bento Sushi is a mass-production sushi chain that supplies kiosks, retail counters and supermarkets across Canada and parts of the U.S. You can hardly walk through any kind of shopping destination without seeing some Bento products. I always use the California roll as an initial quality indicator. As expect ed , there’s no crab to be found here; the Bento version glaringly features the bright pink pollock, sticking out from the center of the roll.

As with most takeout sushi, if you can get it fresh from the chefs’ hands, you can find some perfectly acceptable items. The longer the food sits in the plastic container, the staler the fish gets, and the drier the rice gets. If you go during lunch or dinner rushes, you can find freshly made items but don’t expect the same in the middle of the afternoon.

Thai Express

http://www.thaiexpress.ca/

I love Thai food—and with a Thai Express at almost every shopping outlet, I would always have something good to eat if they can deliver good Thai. Sadly, their food is not great; it’s not bad, but it’s not great.

The spring roll looks and tastes heat lamp dried and has too much cabbage. A little bit of meat or a combo with some bean sprouts would make it less one-dimensional. As well, the moisture of the bean sprouts would help to maintain the integrity of the roll under the searing heat.

Thai food is known for their noodle dishes and the Pad Sew is essentially the same thing as the Chinese chow fan. This version comes with just broccoli (although the sign advertises Chinese broccoli); it also could use some variety in vegetables. The beef is a little bland but otherwise, the dish is very well made. The noodles are fried perfectly and seasoned well. Chinese chow fan often comes very greasy, glistening with oil; the Express’s version shimmers from the noodles themselves (and not from the oil), thus providing a clean and concise taste.

Other choices include:

A&W

Chester Fried Chicken

City Submarine

Joey’s Only Seafood

Manchu Wok

Mrs. Vanelli’s

Pita Pit

Taco Time

Teriyaki Experience

Tim Hortons

St. Vital Centre

Bourbon Street Grill

Being a fanatic of Cajun/Creole, I just about jumped out of my pants when I saw a restaurant called the Bourbon Street Grill. The first sign of disappointment came when I realised that Bourbon Grill is a fast food kiosk but the major let down came when I peered into the counter and saw Chinese food. The only semblance of Bourbon Street comes in the form of Blackened Chicken and Bourbon Street Chicken. The remainder of the food is Canadianised Chinese, including the chicken balls with fluorescent pink sauce, fried rice and fried noodles. The Asian servers definitely did not remind me of any of the citizens in New Orleans .

The fried rice and noodles taste exactly as I expect. The heating lamp does a nice job desiccating the dishes and results in dry and flavourless slop. The blackened chicken has a nice grilled flavour but the “blackened” aspect tastes more burnt than blackened. The Bourbon Street chicken tastes like a candied chicken, perhaps sporting a honeyed glaze. This dish has a nice taste combination and is by far the hit of the counter. I would go for the Bourbon Street chicken but skip the rest.

Other choices include:

A&W

Cultures

Dairy Queen / Orange Julius

Jimmy the Greek

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Koya Japan

New York Fries

Sizzling Wok

Subway

Sushi Gozen

Taco Time

Thai Express

Time Hortons

Vanelli’s

Winnipeg Square

Pizza and Pasta Della Piazza

22 – 360 Main St

(204) 943-1338

Tucked away in the corner of Winnipeg Square , Pizza and Pasta Della Piazza shows off some fresh-looking pizza and a generous (for fast food) variety of pastas in their showcase. They rotate the options and one of today’s specials includes a dish of penne noodles with assorted meats in a tomato sauce. The rich and sweet tomato sauce tastes like it might easily have come out of your own kitchen, made from your own garden tomatoes. The pasta tastes slightly overcooked, but perfectly acceptable for heat lamp stock. I can’t begin to count the number of different meats in here—but I can identify a few, including pepperoni, ham, salami and smokies-type sausage. A bit of gooey cheese holds this dish together so imagine taking a meat-lover’s pizza, scrapping all the toppings off and using it as the sauce for your pasta. That is what we have here—and it tastes delicious. Pizza and Pasta Della Piazza definitely puts out sit-down restaurant quality food, but they also charge restaurant prices. This special comes to $10, plus a seldom-seen Interac transaction fee. It’s a little pricy for food court, but I guess you get what you pay for.

Other choices include:

A&W

Booster Juice

City Submarine

Cookies by George

Koya Japan

Pizza & Pasta Della Piazza

Rodos Greek & French Eatery

Starbucks

Taco Time

Taste of Sri Lanka

Vinh Long Vietnamese

The Forks

Bindy’s Caribbean Delights

151 – One Forks Market Rd

(204) 942-8409

Bindy’s Caribbean Delights has a long reputation for serving good West Indian food in Winnipeg. Here, you find some of the finest roti wraps in the city with tasty stuffings. The roti with jerk chicken and vegetables is a frequent special but I prefer the regular roti with rice. The vegetable version has too much veggies and not enough delicious jerk for my preferences. Even though Bindy’s pre-portions their stuffings, you can’t help but feel good to watch the owner put it together for you. In the preparation, she asks if you want the hot sauce—be prepared if you nod yes! I’m a severe chilli-head and I find this sauce smouldering hot, just the way I like my Caribbean food.

Fergies Fish ‘n Chips

142 – One Forks Market Rd

(204) 942-9444

http://www.fergiesfishandchips.ca/index.php

info@fergiesfishandchips.ca

As the name implies, Fergies prides itself on its fish and chips. You have the option of three fishes: cod, pickerel (walleye) or halibut. The firm meat of the halibut stands up nicely to the cooking process but I prefer the local favourite (pickerel). The perfectly cooked fish flakes out from its batter shell and tastes fresh but not fishy. Although the fish comes deep fried, Fergie describes the cooking process as poaching the fish inside the batter, thus locking in the vitamins. The batter tastes deliciously light, even though the coating is considerable. The fish tastes a little overcooked but the whole package tastes delicious. The chips (fries) have the rustic home-cut look and taste crisp and crunchy without being greasy.

The seafood chowder comes in a hearty bread bowl, guaranteed to fill you up if you consume the entire thing. I love seafood chowder but I prefer mine with a clam base and oozing with shellfish. While there’s a little bit of scallops and tiny shrimps, fish meat primarily makes up the soup body. Fish fanatics will love the broth but I find it a little fishy.

Dragon Express

Dragon Express specialises in Chinese and Vietnamese foods but looking into the display counter, you see the usual selections you expect out of Chinese takeout. The deep fried pork has a bulky plate of armour surrounding a slight sliver of meat. The server first dips the batter ball into a sweetish sauce, then finishes it with a dip into sesame seeds. The seeds provide a nice finish to the deep fried dough.

Chinese dishes—especially from fast food kiosks—often come glistening with grease and dripping with fat. Stir-frying in a wok can be a healthy way to prepare foods but hardly when you drench it with oil. Surprisingly, the Dragon’s chow mein (fried thin noodles) has very little grease and tastes flavourful. The standard veggie noodles have onions for body, with strips of celery, cabbage and carrots for texture. Just a touch of soy gives flavour without over-salting.

Other choices include:

Caramel Crêpe

Chilean Corner

Country Submarine

Danny's All Day Breakfast

MK Asian Cuisine

Tall Grass Prairie Bread Co. & Deli

Taste of Sri Lanka

Yudyta's Ukrainian Food

Zorba's Pizza

Restaurant Review: The Oakwood Cafe

2011-12-03T07:15:00.001-06:00

The Oakwood Café
4 – 660 Osborne St
204-475-4250
oakcafe@mts.net
http://www.oakwoodcafe.ca/

December, 2011

Buried along south Osborne among an increasing popular area, the Oakwood Café looks like little more than a forgettable diner where locals gather to have coffee and breakfast. Inside, the Oakwood lives up to its name with the abundant use of dark panelled walls and tables. The décor is not exactly elegant but it’s comfortable enough.

The Oak always has friendly and attentive service. In fact, the food arrives so quickly at your table, the place must have superhuman coordinated effort. In fact, I would have preferred to wait a little longer for the food’s arrival. We barely begin to generate a conversation before the food comes to clog our mouths.

The steak sandwich comes cooked as ordered, although a little tough. The mushroom accompaniments taste deliciously sautéed, and the slivers of fried onions add a lovely texture. The fries taste crispy and not the least bit oily. By itself, the fries stand among the best in the city; add some gravy and shredded cheddar and you have one of the finest fundamental poutines in Winnipeg. The gravy alone needs more seasoning. In concert with the cheese and fries, the flavouring balances perfectly on the most delicate of scales. However, used as an enhancer to the roast beef dinner, the sauce could use some more seasoning.

While most of the portions are monstrous, I would like to see a bit more beef in the roast beef dinner. Similarly, I would like to see a thicker patty on their burgers. While the Oakwood burger comes mile-high, stuffed with fresh lettuce and tomato slices and slices of bacon, a thicker patty and more cheddar would give this sandwich more body. As is, the patty comes seared perfectly on the outside and moist-juicy on the inside. Tangy mustard and just enough mayo complete this wonderful burger.

From Monday to Wednesday, the Oak offers dinner for two for $50. The package comes with two main courses, two glasses of wine and a dessert to share. While the house wines (Sawmill Creek and Proprietor’s Reserve) are nothing to rave about, they have rotating selections that don’t sit on the menu. The Oak also offers a hearty breakfast special and all you can eat ribs on Friday and Saturday nights.

The Oakwood Café has a forgettable storefront among local favourites Bistro 7¼ and Luxalune in the south Osborne area, but the last thing you should do is forget to eat here. They serve genuinely good food with consistently good service.

**** /5

Restaurant Review: Don Pedro's

2011-10-16T11:30:00.002-05:00

Don Pedro’s Authentic Mexican Grill 114 Market St 204-956-7465 info@donpedros.ca http://www.donpedros.ca/ June, 2011 I admit that I have very little experience with Mexican food. The rage in Winnipeg now is the search for “authentic” Mexican as thousands of vacationers flock south annually to get away from -40 degree weather. While more people everyday claim Mexico as a second home, my experience limits to lumbering the streets of Tijuana and rocking back rotgut tequila. I can’t honestly tell you what’s real Mexican and what’s Taco Belled. I recently learned that the stuffing essentially remains the same (with some limited variation) and the naming of the basic foods determines the covering type and cooking method. The burrito comes with a flour tortilla; the enchilada uses a corn tortilla; and the chimichanga is a deep-fried burrito. From these casings, you can choose your fillings, which normally come chicken or beef based. Pedro adds some varying adornments, according to your preference. I often use staples as a gauge to how well ethnic restaurants prepare their foods. In assessing Mexican food, I look to the salsa as a prelude to the quality of the meal to come. Pedro’s salsa comes a little runny and lacks the ample chunks of vegetables that I often see. Although the absence of chunks also reduces the textural component, the great combo of herbs contributes to good complexity and depth of flavour. It’s not the best salsa I’ve had but it’s good enough to have me asking for more. Another Mexican standard, the Sopa Azteca (tortilla soup) has a rich tomato base with lots of flavour. My past experience with this soup found it to have more of a zip, but those with non-spicy palettes will find this version ideal. The fajita burrito starts with a massive flour tortilla, which comes stuffed with considerably-sized cubes of beef; although the simple but good tasting beef is almost lost in the wealth of flavours that surround the dish. The grilled peppers and onions pack a powerful punch as they crawl all over the tortilla. Finally, drop-cloth-like melted cheese smothers the dish and dares the diner to finish this loaf-like meal. Don’t overindulge—you need to save room for the delicious Mexican rice and fabulously flavoured and textured refried beans. This is a deliciously monstrous dish for a mere $15. I always take a step back when someone mentions fish sandwiches; I guess fishy tasting tuna in stale bread left more scars than I realise. To me, the Fish Tacos sound challenging and basically incongruent. As I’ve been proved wrong many times before, the combo of deep fried whitefish in tortillas gives a delicious flavour with wonderful crunchiness. Add the abundance of vegetables and this taco serving will also leave you loosening your pants. The same beans and rice come with this selection, so be sure to save room. Whether you sit on the calm and quiet street side, or in the rustic and bustling dining room, the service is always attentive and friendly. Again, I’m not sure if the food is authentic Mexican, Tex-Mexican or American-Mexican—but I’m certain that it’s delicious Mexican. **** /5

Restaurant Review: Fargo Ribfest

2011-08-25T18:43:00.005-05:00

Happy Harry’s Ribfest
Fargo, North Dakota
http://fargoribfest.com/

Americans love and celebrate their food, which is great because I love their food and I’m happy to celebrate it too. Every year, Fargo celebrates Ribfest by serving droves of pork over five days at the Fargodome. Barbecue professionals converge from around the world in a cook-off, judged by thousands of happy tasters. This year’s event features seven entrants dishing out thousands of pounds of proudly prepared pork. The entrants include:

Cowboys Barbeque and Rib Co.

Established in 1986 from the heart of Texas, Cowboy’s Barbeque & Rib Company has been servin’ up the finest in barbeque from their award-winning brisket to their custom smoked hams and America’s favourite ribs.

3128 Cimmaron
Weatherford, TX 76087

http://www.cowboysbbq.com
___________________________________________________________________________

Johnson’s Bar-B-Que
“Our meat is cooked so tender you can eat it without your teeth,” said Dan Johnson from Johnson’s BBQ. With over 30 years of experience in the barbeque business, Johnson’s is sure to be a strong competitor.

1903 South Military Hwy
Chesapeake, VA 23320
___________________________________________________________________________

Willinghams World Champion BBQ

Starting the search in 1971 for the best barbeque, Willingham has been accredited to a world- winning Champion, creating the very best in dry-rubbed ribs and sauces with soul from Memphis Tennessee.

405 Annandale Blvd
Annandale, MN 55302

http://www.willinghams.com
___________________________________________________________________________

Aussom Aussie’s BBQ

Australia’s most accomplished BBQ chef with over 200 awards for best in barbeque in the U.S. and Canada is bringing you the finest in traditional Aussie “Barbie” ribs and sauces.

111 Namy Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15220

http://www.aussomaussie.com
__________________________________________________________________________

Porky n Beans

Porky N’ Beans has been a proud member of the National Award Winning Rib Cookers of America since 1983 and it’s obvious why once you taste their ribs. Travelling around the country to compete, Porky N’ Beans is a leading competitor in the barbeque business.

2012 SE Oxton Drive
Port St. Lucie, FL 34952

www.porkynbeans.com
__________________________________________________________________________

Rasta Joe’s BBQ

“Rasta Joe” stands apart from the crowd with his unique Jamaican style pork and chicken. Barbequing for over 30 years, Joe has turned his passion for barbequing into a National Award Winning business.

13530 6A Road
Plymouth, IN 46563

www.rastajoe.com
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Desperado’s BBQ and Ribs

Established in 1989, the Rice’s achieved instant success with their award-winning barbeque. Desperado’s participates in 30 cookoff contests annually, and boasts 19 first place awards in 1997 alone.

1669-501 West 130th Street
Hinckley, OH 44233
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With only three days, tasting enough pork to make a fair comparison proves to be a challenge. Although the contestants proudly boast about their ribs, I use pulled pork as a standard for comparison. Pulled pork offers more avenues for preparations areas for differences. Unfortunately for me, the portions of pulled pork are monstrous, providing for a guaranteed weekend of gluttony.

Cowboy’s BBQ & Rib Co..

Cowboy’s consistently has the longest line-ups so I have high hopes for their food. While the meat is moist, it also lacks flavour. Without any sauce, the meat itself tastes bland and lifeless. The sauce that comes with this pork tastes vinegary and edgy

Johnson’s Bar-B-Que

The meat tastes mildly moist but the serving includes a sampling of burnt ends (the edge pieces of the pork). The meat lacks the smokiness associated with great pulled pork. The average tasting sauce adds smokiness but it’s not inherent to the meat.

Willingham’s World Champion BBQ

Moist and flavourful, Willie’s serves quality pulled pork. The sauce tastes subtle but tangy, which is a great complement since you don’t want your sauce to dominate your pork.

Aussom Aussie’s BBQ

This pork tastes moist and flavourful but it’s completely lacking in smokiness. I suspect that Aussie roasts their pork, rather than smokes it. The sauce tastes very smoky but that’s not where the smoke should come from.

Porky N’ Beans

The very moist and juicy meat bursts with flavour. You only need a little bit of the zesty sauce to add an extra dimension without adulterating the essence of the meat.

Rasta Joe’s BBQ

Rather than true pulled pork, Joe delivers jerked burnt ends. The ends taste very smoky but also very dry. The garlicky and spicy sauce tastes delicious but it’s not enough to save the pork.

Desperado’s BBQ & Ribs

This pork tastes moist and flavourful but lacks the extra dimension to make it special. The same can be said for the sauce as it tastes little different than anything off a grocery store shelf.

Judgement

There’s a lot of good food to be had here and you’re guaranteed to take years off your life if you eat the way I just did! While it seems that my ratings are a bit harsh for some of the participants, the truth is that all of the competitors make great food, some just a little better than others. Although Cowboy’s had the poorest showing for me, they stood as the fan favourite, winning the most votes for best at Fargo Ribfest.

If you need a break from the meat, you have a few options, although none will save your heart. You can choose from battered fried Oreos, fried twinkies, fried cheesecake or fried vegetables. If you don't want battered fried, they offer roasted corn that sopping, dripping in butter. Yup, that's the healthiest dish around!

In addition to delicious food, Ribfest features live music every evening. This year’s entertainers include 32 Below (opening act: David Lee), Rodney Atkins (opening act: October Road), Post Traumatic Funk Syndrome, Montgomery Gentry, and Candlebox (opening act: Pill Morning). Throw in a field full of kids’ play structures and you have the makings of a family friendly forum for all.

Americans know how to have a good time and they certainly know how to eat. Take the short drive and indulge in a bit of gluttony. You won’t regret it (well, you might, but you’ll have fun anyway)!

Kum Koon Garden

2011-08-23T04:33:00.000-05:00

Kum Koon Garden
257 King St
204-943-4655
http://www.kumkoongarden.com/index.html

July, 2011

As Winnipeg’s largest restaurant, Kum Koon seats well over 600 people, which is amazing considering the kind of line-up you sometimes have to endure. During weekday dinner seatings, the restaurant will often look cavernous and you may expect bats to fly out of the dark. However, during weekend lunch hours (and often during the week as well), the lobby bursts with hungry, expectant patrons, while the dining room bustles with Hong Kong-like activity.

Servers dash through the aisles and arms wave frantically, hoping to wave down the traffic of food-filled carts. Most of the treats are almost always fresh as people gobble them up as quickly as they emerge from the kitchen. As a child, I remember wanting a seat close to the kitchen (really!); if you sat in the middle of the dining room, the carts could well be empty every time they reach you. Today, they pump out more service and more food so you rarely find yourself short on dumplings; however, sitting close to the kitchen still gets you the freshest and hottest choices.

This is the essence of dim sum: waiting for carts full of food to pass by and hailing whatever you consider tempting. More people become dim sum fans every day and you can’t get enough of the same foods at every visit. Staples include shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, rice noodles, various deep fried items, sticky rice dishes and assorted buns. While some complain that you get bored of the same options after a while, a new wave of dim sum restaurants experiments with nouveau and fusion dim sum.

Koon leads the way in creating new and innovative dishes to add to its traditional dim sum favourites. The candied beef strips combine the savouriness of meat with the lovely sweet coating. The strips are a little tough so prepare to chew.

Koon’s dim sum sushi is one of the most outrageous examples of fusion that I’ve ever seen. Rolled with traditional nori (seaweed), this Chinese maki comes with pork rolled over pollock, steamed afterwards. The pork provides a traditional dim sum flavour while the seaweed explodes with ocean-taste after steaming. I admit to having a hard time with this dish. While the roll tastes good enough, I can’t wrestle with the merging of these two flavours—each of which I love separately. It’s definitely worth a try to give your own assessment.

For the dim sum traditionalist, all of the usual suspects cruise on the carts. At least four different kinds of shrimp dumplings swim in this dim sum ocean. The traditional dumplings have the mashed shrimp meat, while the new method, whole shrimp dumplings also appear. You can also order a shrimp and scallop combo, or a shrimp and vegetable combo. All of them taste wonderfully hot and steamy.

The monstrous pork dumplings are probably the biggest in the city. Old-style pork dumplings had huge fat content but this lean version doesn’t give up any of the flavour. The beef dumplings (normally larger than the pork dumplings) are smaller than average, but equally flavourful. If you don’t like the taste, you might find the Worchestershire a little strong but not overwhelming.

Fat content blubbers all over yesterday’s dim sum but most of Koon’s dishes come low on fat. Even the beef rice noodles, often swimming in pools of oil, sit atop a pond of oil-free, deliciously sweet soy. The rice noodle portion is also a bit small but it has a great meat to noodle ratio (lots of meat). The spring rolls also have a nice ratio of meat to veggie stuffing. Perfectly fried, these rolls have very little grease on the surface.

If you’re not a fan of dim sum, both the chow fan and the chow mein noodles are well cooked with lots of accompaniments. Again, both of these dishes often come with gobs of grease glistening on the surface but Koon really holds back on the fat without sacrificing the flavour.

For decades, Winnipeg’s Chinese population believed that you can’t get good Chinese outside of Chinatown—and with few exceptions, this was true. Then a large immigration injection into the suburbs demanded that the neighbourhood joints improve their food. For a while, downtown had its tables turned and it trailed the burbs in quality, quantity and innovation. Bravo to Kum Koon for taking their food to a higher level and re-establishing itself as one of the best Chinese places to eat. It’s no secret though—just ask any of the hundred people waiting in line.

****½ /5

Restaurant Review: Terrace Dining Room (Assiniboia Downs)

2011-08-11T16:30:00.000-05:00

Assiniboia Downs – Terrace Dining Room
3975 Portage Ave
R3K 2E9
Tel: 204-885-3330
Fax: 204-831-5348
http://www.assiniboiadowns.com/dining.cfm

July, 2011

When you mention Assiniboia Downs, many people think of horses and racetrack gambling. The Downs have made a concerted effort to include fine dining into the mental concept of going to the track, in addition to betting on the horses. Now boasting to serve “more prime rib than any other restaurant in North America,” I’d say that the Downs are seeing success in the food service business. Judging by the line-up of people with plates in hand, I can see validity in this claim.

If you want to wait until the line settles down, the sidebar has a pasta chef waiting to custom make a noodle dish to your desires. You choose from a selection of two noodles, a variety of vegetables and meats of the day. The pre-cooked noodles wait for reheating and can sometimes be a little overdone. The chef cooks the vegetables expertly and the sauces taste rich and full. As a caution, the considerable pasta portion can put a serious dent into your ability to savour everything else. Don’t be shy about telling the chef to back off on the portions, rather than leave food to waste on the plate.

Aside from the prime rib, most of the other foods change daily. Today’s seasonal vegetables include broccolettes (think Chinese gai-lan stem with broccoli florets), steamed to perfection and accentuated with a mild butter sauce. The chicken breasts become somewhat overcooked, sitting under the heat lamp. Similarly, the salmon special is heated well beyond the preferred medium-rare doneness. I’m surprised that very few of the selections suffer the same fate as the remaining items taste fresh-off-the-pan.

The salad bar offers a variety of salads, including the popular Caesar, well dressed and tangy. An assortment of cheeses and vegetable dips—as well as peel-and-eat shrimps—try to lure your appetite. If you try everything on the buffet, you’re almost guaranteed to forgo the beef.

Carnivores hunt straight to the prime rib and dismiss the allure of the surrounding buffets. The carving chef cuts thin, thin slices of rib from the medium-rare roast. If you want a substantial cut, be forceful in insisting on a restaurant-sized cut. Although this prime rib doesn’t compare to 529 prime rib, it’s no cafeteria roast either. The horseradish, mustard, jus or gravy accompaniments will ensure that you dress your rib exactly as you like it.

While you enjoy your meal, you can partake in the house’s activities as well. Betting hosts come by prior to every race and take your wagers. With every seat in the house offering a great panorama, and ample monitors to give you nares’ view to the photo finishes, you can’t help but get into the excitement. I’m not a gambler by nature and yet, I feel the compulsion to throw a few dollars down every time the host returns. It won’t take long before you know the differences between win, place and show, and why you just bet on the quinella. I bet that you will have a good time coming out to the Downs for a fine meal and some horseplay.

**** /5

Restaurant Review: Sushi Cushi

2011-07-30T06:29:00.000-05:00

Sushi Cushi
Unit K – 1045 St. James St
Tel: 204-772-9257
Fax: 204-772-9490
sushicushi@hotmail.com
http://www.sushicushi.ca/zbxe/sushicushi/78

July, 2011 Some of the best restaurants are also some of the hardest to find. If someone doesn’t point you in the direction of Sushi Cushi, you would never know about it. I guess a lot of people have been pointing as the dark and subdued dining room is always packed over the lunch hours.

Cushi has a philosophy about serving cooked as well as raw, and healthier across the board. The result is an extensive menu for which I wish I had a bottomless stomach to sample.

In assessing sushi houses, I usually benchmark the staple California roll. If a restaurant uses pollack, you should be wary that they cut corners. Most places use canned crab meat, but on the occasion, you find a place that uses lump crab. When you find a place that uses lump crab, keep it on your radar; you know that they spare no expense to provide you the best.

Cushi uses the canned crab but they don’t skimp on the volume. The plump California roll is stuffed with tons of crab, a huge chunk of avocado and lots of rice. Consistent with their healthier theme, they’re light on the mayo. The rice is a little too rich with vinegar, which overwhelms the taste of the roll.

Unfortunately, Cushi’s over-vinegared rice pervades through their nigiris and dominates most of the samples. Rice aside, the salmon tastes rich and buttery, consistent with what you expect from top-grade sushi. The fatty tuna (toro) tastes equally buttery and unctuous. The best toro flakes apart between your chopsticks and melts in your mouth. This toro isn’t as delicate as some, but it certainly doesn’t lack in taste. I wish for the portions to be a little larger as I can’t get enough of this.

While the nigiri and the sashimi servings are a little smaller than average, there’s nothing shy about the maki serving sizes. The massive rolls take up lots of stomach space, so don’t over-order. The huge scallop roll is a little cucumber-heavy, taking away from the delicate taste of the scallop, but overall, the meat tastes deliciously rich.

The unagi (freshwater eel) tastes equally rich and sweet. Eel meat itself doesn’t have a lot of flavour so it relies on the taste of the unique barbecue sauce to provide depth. This is a delicious sauce that doesn’t disappoint.

While unagi normally tastes sweetish from the sauce, Cushi’s unagi roll tastes predominantly salty. This roll also has a spicy edge and some tempura flakes add nice texture. Again, the rice tastes a little vinegary but otherwise, this is a very successful option.

As sushi houses spring like shitakes, you find sushi on almost every street corner. Choose wisely as there are lots of inferior places. Sushi Cushi is definitely a place you should have no reservations about frequenting. Sometimes the best restaurants hide among sterile strip malls. Do your best to find Cushi, it’s worth your effort.

**** /5

Restaurant Review: Deadfish Cafe & Lounge

2011-07-29T07:37:00.000-05:00

Deadfish Café & Lounge
167 Osborne St
204-477-6609
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deadfish-Cafe-Lounge/125666440846951

July, 2011 I loved Tomato Pie Co. I loved the food, the atmosphere and the people, so I was very saddened to see them close. When I saw the Deadfish sign go up, I was not taken by the name (still am not) but I hoped that they would come close to meeting Tomato’s wonderful food. Then when I saw the menu, I thought that the food was all over the place and lacked focus. Restaurants that usually try to be jacks-of-all trades, end up being…you know the rest of the saying.

Then I looked closer at the menu and realised that it’s not as dispersed as I first thought. The prime rib refers to a sandwich; the Big Taco and the Bacon Double Cheeseburger refer to pizza topping combos, and the Return of the Mac—well, that still refers to macaroni and cheese. Reading the details, you find that the menu has a definite Caribbean lean to it, although you’d never guess from the restaurant’s name.

The Aloo Pie is a Trinidadian version of a pirogue (almost every culture has a version) stuffed with a potato filling. The pastry’s a little dry and the stuffing lacks some flavour. This is not a bad intro, but considering what’s to come, this might be one you skip.

Don’t skip the Doubles though. For a mere $8, you get two burger-sized doubles, filled with deliciously seasoned chickpeas. Eat the doubles first as you might not have room to finish the mound of tamarind chutney on the side. Although our Trini friend tells us that the seasonings are not quite authentic, the fritters still taste delicious.

The shrimp appetiser comes with plump shrimps, perfectly pan-fried. The herbed butter enhances the juicy tails but the chilli garlic explodes with flavour. A hint of citrus and spice rounds this dish out perfectly.

As easy as it is to overcook shrimps, restaurants more often overcook mussels—and nothing is sadder. Overcooked mussels shrivel and shrink into dense pods that taste dry, not unlike the texture of overcooked liver. You won’t find a single overcooked mussel here, and after you finish devouring the plump mussel meat, you’ll lick up the leftover curry sauce.

If you want something a little lighter for an intro, the Lettuce Wraps come with a delightful medley of vegetables but the pungent chunks of crab will make you forget all about the veggies. I love crab and I love spiciness but I would rarely mix the two. People with little tolerance to heat will find that it overwhelms the delicate nature of shellfish. However, as a chilli-head, I find this powerfully spicy crab an ideal stuffing for the fresh lettuce leaves.

The Return of the Mac comes with perfectly cooked asparagus as a vegetable distraction. The main attraction comes from the smoky sauce and the noodles that are covered in crunchily fried breadcrumbs. This definitely isn’t the mac and cheese that you eat out of a box.

If you’re a fan of seafood at all, the paella tastes absolutely divine. Paella normally features a rice backbone that soaks up all the wonderful liquids of its main ingredients. Fish’s paella has so much seafood that there’s barely any room left on the plate for rice. Chunks of salmon swim through this dish, in between the bountiful mussels and plump (even larger than the appetiser version) shrimps. A skilfully seared scallop sits on the stack of seafood. If I had one comment to make, I would ask for more scallops.

Specials today include a ridiculously thick slab of halibut that’s poached to perfection, and linguine in a rich rose sauce with moist chicken breast pieces. Everything we touch tastes wonderful but you can’t help but get great food when the server openly tells you what’s “terrible [and] don’t order this.” Honesty from the staff inspires confidence and trust.

I’m not a big dessert person and I usually have a motto where “if I have enough room for dessert, I’ll have another appetiser.” Today, I have no room for dessert, no room for another appetiser, and yet I can’t stop eating the deep and moist banana bread pudding.

Sitting beside the piano, we found the live music a little loud, but it’s nothing that the expertly made mojito can’t drown out. Everything here is done well. I’m not sure I’m ready to like it more than its former iteration, but I definitely like the Deadfish.

**** /5

Cooking Tips: PIcking the Right Steak

2011-07-17T19:24:00.001-05:00

Cooking Tips: Picking the Right Steak

In the muggy dog days of summer, barbecues flare across neighbourhoods, hoping to grill the perfect steak. Technique has a great deal to do with how a steak turns out, but the raw ingredients play a large part as well. As you stand before the meat counter, how do you decide what steaks to throw onto the grill when you get home? Do you buy based on familiarity? Reputation? Price?

Steaks range considerably in price and generally, you get what you pay for. The more an animal uses a muscle, the stronger it becomes; stronger muscles = tougher steaks. There’s another angle though: the more an animal uses a muscle, the more flavourful it becomes. You juggle between flavour and tenderness to find the perfect steak. Another consideration people don’t usually think much about is the marbling, which is essentially the amount of interior fat within the meat (as opposed to exterior fat rinds). Highly marbled meats appear marble-like and this marbling contributes to both flavour and tenderness (to a lesser degree). Cut alone doesn’t dictate the amount of marbling, although certain cuts inherently have more natural marbling.

Round steaks come from the butt and flank steaks come from the thighs—both of these cuts are often too tough for the grill. The tender cuts usually come from the middle of the animal and I recommend you make choices from here; however, there’s quite a variation between these choices as well.

Sirloin ($17.61/kg):
Butchers separate the sirloin into sections and the regular sirloin steak comes from the bottom of the cut. As the toughest region of the sirloin, it usually carries the lightest price tag. For a tougher cut of meat, the sirloin has less flavour than expected, but lots of chewiness.

Flavour: 3 – Tenderness: 2

Top Sirloin ($13.54/kg):
The top sirloin is one of the more flavourful steaks you find but because it’s still part of the sirloin family, it carries some toughness. This is great meat to use as a stir-fry but you need sharp knives to eat it as a steak.

Flavour: 4 – Tenderness: 2.5

Flatiron ($14.31/kg):
This steak comes from the top of the shoulder and you expect this to be a very tough piece of meat. However, each animal has a small region near the crest of the shoulder that gets very little work. That’s the flatiron, which is moderately tender and offers great flavour and potentially great marbling.

Flavour: 5 – Tenderness: 3.5

Sirloin Cap ($13.54/kg):
The triangular piece that sits right on top of the top sirloin is the cap. This steak doesn’t have as much flavour as the top sirloin but it’s easier on the knife. Because there isn’t a lot to go around, the price takes a considerable jump from the other sirloin cuts.

Flavour: 3 – Tenderness: 3

Rib Steak ($19.72/kg):
Ribeye ($24.13/kg):
The rib steak and the ribeye steak are the same cuts, except the rib steak comes with the attached bone. This is a tender steak that has great flavour and can have excellent marbling. The ribeye is also one of the fattest cuts of meat, so if you watch calories, this might not be a great option.

Flavour: 5 – Tenderness: 4

T-bone ($21.92/kg):
The t-bone cross section includes the smaller tenderloin segment, and the larger strip loin segment, held together by part of the spinal column bone. Because of the components of the t-bone, these steaks usually come in large portions, suitable for bragging rights for all carnivores.

Flavour: 4 – Tenderness: 4.5

Strip Loin ($22.58/kg):
As a leaner cut of beef, the strip loin has very good flavour, coupled with excellent tenderness. This is the preferred cut for many and the price reflects it. Great cuts of strip loin can also feature good marbling.

Flavour: 4 – Tenderness: 4

Tenderloin ($34.75/kg):
The tenderloin is the most tender cut on the animal and you pay for it. It is also one of the leanest cuts of beef so people often compensate by wrapping bacon around the sides. Because of the tenderness and the leanness, the tenderloin steak is one of the most subtle tasting.

Flavour: 2.5 – Tenderness: 5

Putting it together, we can compare the flavours and the tenderness of each of our steaks. Factoring in the price, the Value Index gives us a marker for best bang for your steak buck. For its low price, great flavour and moderate tenderness, the flatiron gives you the best value for your money. Meanwhile, the tenderloin’s lofty price and low flavour means that you overpay for its tenderness. Here's how they all stack up:

Happy grilling!

* Prices reflect an average sampling over May-June or 2011 from Sobeys of Canada. While I do not publicly support any food vendor, Sobeys is the only large retailer that carries all of the above selections, required to do a fair price assessment.

Restaurant Review: Victoria Seafood

2011-06-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Victoria Seafood Restaurant
1086 St. Mary’s Rd
(204) 255-0665 or (204) 255-0669

June, 2011

The newer Chinese restaurants have modern décor with some Asian pictures, and slews of tacky kitsch. Older Chinese restaurants that never bothered to update have dull coloured walls, banquet room chairs and garbage bag plastic spread over the tables. This is the Victoria Seafood Restaurant, although the kitsch starts to spread.

In the past, you couldn’t find much dim sum outside of Chinatown and if you did, it probably came from downtown leftovers—packaged and frozen. The Vic was one of the first restaurants in Winnipeg to offer fresh dim sum outside of Chinatown. Today, among the fields of dim sum restaurants that sprout every week, the Vic stays the same—with the same drab dining room, the same garbage bag table cloths, and the same good dim sum.

Vic’s shrimp dumpling is one of the few disappointments. There’s nothing holding the shrimps together and so the stuffing easily falls apart. The thin dough falls apart equally easily, leaving your plate covered in shrimp tails. I can forgive that, except those tails don’t have much flavour. There’s also virtually no difference between the shrimp dumpling and the deluxe shrimp dumpling, except the deluxe comes with the typical pork dumpling wrapper instead.

By contrast, the pork dumplings come juicy and plump, with nice flavour and not too much MSG. The beef dumplings also have nice flavour; they do not taste too acidic or too doughy, as beef dumplings often can. Beef rice noodles often come swimming in a pool of fat but Vic’s noodles aren’t inundated with oil and they come with a fair amount of meat, although the meat is slightly under-seasoned. Often, dim sum houses offer a sleeping bag-sized noodle wrap with a chopstick-sized meat stuffing. The Chinese are renown for skimping on ingredients (think giant batter coatings with slivers of meat in chicken balls). I don’t mean to offend but being of Chinese decent, I know some of the secrets.

The deep fried spring rolls don’t taste greasy at all, although they’re a little over-fried and dry. Even though the wrapper looks over-fried, the dense stuffing remains moist and flavourful. The pan-fried dumplings also have dense stuffing, but this stuffing is a little too dense. This gyoza-like dumpling should have gyoza-like consistency but instead, its consistency resembles that of a bagel. The flavour is also a little too subdued in these dumplings.

The shark fin dumplings (not made with shark’s fin) features black fungus, which should only act as a subdued flavour enhancer. Unfortunately, Vic uses too much fungus, which dominates the entire dumpling. Westerners generally don’t like the idea of eating black fungus, so you may choose to skip this dim sum selection.

While Vic’s dim sum has some shortcomings, its limitations are quite minor and easily adjusted. Overall, Vic serves good food and good dim sum. Couple the quality of the food with the competent and friendly service (often a rarity in Chinese restaurants) and you have a winning, dining combination. We all know the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I would do some fixing to Victoria Seafood’s décor but the rest just needs a tweak.

***½ /5

Restaurant Review: Kay's Deli

2011-06-14T21:10:00.002-05:00

Kay's Delicatessen
339 William Ave
Tel: (204) 949-0424
Fax: (204) 949-0442
http://kaysdeliwinnipeg.wordpress.com/our-food/

June, 2011

When Kay’s Deli first opened its doors, it offered a healthier option for the downtown business person. My excitement soared through the towering ceiling when I talked to the chef. He raved about his visits to New Orleans and his love for all things Cajun. As I repeated a hundred times, you’re hard-pressed to find real Cajun north of the Mason-Dixon Line, excepting culinary centres like New York City or Chicago. Very occasionally, you find an isolated Cajun restaurant that serves the real thing—they all rise from a chef’s visit to the Bayou and a desire to bring it home (visit the French Quarter Café the next time you go to Canmore).

I wondered if we’d finally have authentic Cajun in Winnipeg. If any chef spent time in New Orleans, they wouldn’t pass food with Tabasco sauce as Cajun. Kay’s chalkboard menu listed jambalaya and I trembled in anticipation. Sadly, they were out for the day.

The next time I walked through Kay’s doors, all signs of Cajun disappeared except the fleur-de-lis designs on the walls. The jambalaya was gone—even the chef was gone. Kay’s board only listed soups and sandwiches; the same menu categories adorn the board today.

During a typical busy and bustling lunch hour at Kay’s, I waited over an hour for my soup and sandwich to arrive. Meanwhile, the take-out crowd streamed in and out with assembly-line efficiency. On a rare occasion with nary a soul in the dining room, my order came to my table within four minutes of ordering. Be forewarned that if you’re an office worker out over an hour break, consider take-out or getting your sandwich from somewhere else.

The pesto chicken panini comes with roasted chicken, fresh vegetables and a red pepper, garlic mango sauce. While the sauce sounds divine, it offers very little for taste. Any of mango, garlic or pepper should pack a powerful punch but I can’t identify even one of these flavours from the sauce. The pesto sauce doesn’t do any better as I struggle to taste any garlic or basil. Smothered over the chicken breast, a strong pesto flavours and moistens the chicken; unfortunately, this meat just tastes dry, overcooked and tasteless. The ciabatta comes nicely toasted but the abundance of dried rosemary completely dominates the entire sandwich. The vegetables taste fresh and crispy but veggies alone cannot make the sandwich.

I recently discovered the beauty of food without meat and I have great hopes Kay’s veggie burger. The mango dill yogurt sauce has so much potential, but when I taste it, I can barely tell that this it’s not just plain mayo. Again, the sauce forms the weak link in the sandwich chain. The patty also has great potential but the potato ends up dominating this creation. The excess of starch makes this patty resemble a latke (potato pancake). The pecans add lovely texture but the ingredient proportions of the patty needs some adjusting. The vegetables taste crisp and fresh but the real star of this burger is the onion Kaiser bun with cheese. Kay has the basic foundation for a great burger but as it stands, there’s room for improvement.

As a deli, I find Kay’s sandwiches a little lacking but the soups tell a very different story. Without a fixture on the menu, the specials change every day—and they always look interesting and innovative. The split pea soup comes rich, thick, flavourful, with great texture from the coarsely pulverised peas. I tasted a lot of pea soups in my life and this stands near the top of the pile as one of the greatest. Similarly, the chunky tomato with pesto and feta also comes richly flavourful, even powerful. Each spoonful of broth tastes like taking a bite out a tomato out of your own garden. The hint of basil from the pesto completes the classic Italian pairing. I would have preferred fresh basil and a bit more feta, but overall, this is a wonderfully successful special.

Kay’s also carries Bento Sushi, the mass-production sushi chain that supplies kiosks, retail counters and supermarkets across Canada and parts of the U.S. A glowing sign shifts boldly stating that they make the sushi fresh every day. Kay’s carries several types of maki but I always use the California rolls as a measuring stick. Sadly, this roll rolls short of standard right off the bat. If the rolls use pollock, there’s no need to eat any further. If they have some canned crab meat, they’re in the majority. The few that use genuine lump crab meat will have me back and drooling for more, every time; you very rarely see this. Kay’s (or rather, Bento’s) version glaringly features the bright pink pollock, sticking out from the center of the roll. I can almost accept pollock from a fast-food kiosk but an establishment like Kay’s that prides itself in its ingredients should not dish out fake crab.

Kay’s tries hard to do things right—and you can tell. The ingredients taste fresh and caringly put together; unfortunately, Kay’s Deli falls short in some of its basics. While the sandwiches taste acceptable, the soups take the awards. Next time I’ll order a bowl of each of the specials of the day.

*** /5

Restaurant Review: Steve's Bistro

2011-06-14T20:51:00.000-05:00

Steve’s Bistro
3123 Portage Ave
(204) 831-5531
http://www.stevesbistro.com/

June, 2011 Dozens of strip malls line Winnipeg’s major streets and you’ll find a restaurant in most of those malls. Some might be nice, some dumpy, and some downright nasty. Judging by the frontage of Steve’s Bistro, I have no idea which to expect as I approach the doors. The strip mall looks a little dumpy but Steve’s stunning combination of modern décor with Old World Mediterranean feel delightfully surprises me. Beautiful artwork adorns the walls and if you like them enough, they’re all for sale. Subdued Greek music caps the pleasant ambiance, shared by a dining room full of din in the middle of the afternoon. The competent and courteous staff buzzes busily through the tables as they bring out a stream of food and refreshments.

The short but exciting wine list should satisfy most palettes but there’s only one each of red, white and blush by the glass. Fortunately, the selections are better than the usual Jackson Triggs.

For a mere $3, Steve offers you a choice of dips as starters. The hummus comes rich and deliciously garlicky. The grilled pita tastes wonderfully warm and a sliver of red onion completes the perfect bite. Next time, I’d consider ordering all of the dips and nosh exclusively on them for lunch.

As lunch specials, Steve offers a choice of Reuben sandwich, turkey and ham Panini, or beef and lamb gyros. Each comes with a choice of fries, soup or salad, and rings in at a mere $10, with a 30 minute guarantee. There is no menu soup so you have to go with the flavour of the day. Of today’s two selections, I try the white bean soup, which comes packed with vegetables. The generous chunks of carrots taste a little overcooked but the beans taste wonderful. The odd tomato broth tastes a bit over-salted on one spoonful and just right on alternating scoops. I’m not sure if my taste buds are playing with me, or if the soup pot needs some stirring.

The considerable gyros comes in the familiar grilled pita. The fresh romaine and tomato are joined by just enough red onions to give the perfect combination of vegetable flavours. The bistro-made tzatziki pulls the ingredients together. The thin slices of beef and lamb accent the combination well, although I would have liked to see a bit more meat.

When people talk about ethnic restaurants, people often think of the standard Chinese restaurants, or the proliferation of the Japanese restaurants. We tend to forget that we have a wealth of Greek restaurants that offer fabulous food—and Steve’s Bistro sits among the best.

****½ /5

Restaurant Review: White Star Diner

2011-06-07T21:17:00.000-05:00

White Star Diner
58 Albert St
(204) 947-6930
whitestardiner@shaw.ca
http://www.whitestardiner.ca/Home.page

June, 2011 The Albert Diner was known for their greasy burgers and for being a dive. The Albert is gone now and the White Star Diner takes its place. With seating for four, and additional seasonal seating for four outside, the place is still very much a dive—but how are the burgers?

If you walk into the Star over a lunch hour, it’s consistently packed. You stand looking at the chalkboards and before you get to think that they only serve four items, the (assumed to be) owner points towards the stack of menus. Now you’re stuck shoulder-to-shoulder with a crowd and trying to flip through the booklet. You try to be quick, but you can’t because this tiny shack has a considerable selection. The owner suggests the pulled pork sandwich right at the top of the menu. The crowd dies off a little and the owner eagerly discusses his love of pulled pork with you. I love pulled pork too, but I prefer mine smoked. The Diner’s owner gushes in telling me how he roasts his for hours and it’s a shame not to try it.

Even though it’s not smoked, it has great flavour. The juicy shreds of meat come apart very easily to soak up the delicious homemade barbecue sauce. I always prefer to have vegetables in my sandwiches and the coleslaw makes a great accompaniment. All this comes for a mere $5.50.

Before I got sidetracked onto the pulled pork, my original intent was to taste their burgers. The Star offers a basic burger for $4.75 and you can add any (or all) of the following for an extra $1.35 each: Canadian cheddar cheese, Dutch edam, crisp bacon, sautéed green peppers, or sautéed mushrooms.

I hate processed cheese so real cheese goes a long way towards making a great burger; here you have a choice of two cheeses and I opt for the plain but good cheddar. I add the generous amount of green peppers, which taste fresh and crisp. Unfortunately, the lettuce is a little wilted but that’s not hard to forgive. The Star has it where it counts, with an outstanding patty, perfectly cooked—seared on the outside and dripping, juicy on the inside.

The Philly Cheeseburger rests in the Specialty Burger section. This rendition comes with sautéed onions and green peppers, as well as mozzarella, lettuce, tomato slices, and mayo. A lot of burger joints struggle to find a good balance between ingredients, and often one ingredient overwhelms everything else. The Star comes up with a perfect balance, again delivering a fantastic sandwich.

Poutine suddenly appears on all sorts of menus in Winnipeg and it has three spots on the Star’s plate. While the Philly Cheese poutine looks very inviting, I go with the traditional instead. With only three ingredients, they all need to contribute to deliver a good dish. The double-fried fries taste a little greasy but it provides a nice complement to the rich gravy. I prefer cheese curds on poutine so I’m a little disappointed with regular mozza. I added pulled pork to my poutine for an extra $3 and it takes the dish to an entirely new level.

I regret that I no longer work downtown, or I would keep returning to try every item on the menu. Whereas the Albert Diner was known for their greasy burgers, I come to know the White Star for its great burgers. Try to go off lunch prime hours and take a moment to talk to the owner. His passion about his food will make you enjoy it just a little more.

**** /5

Cooking Tips: Grilling Great Meats

2011-05-15T14:21:00.002-05:00

Grilling Great Meats: Cooking Tips

Summer slowly creeps near and you have full body itches to fire up the barbecue. After seven months of absence, your heart has grown so fond that the mere smell of the smoke evokes droplets of saliva down the sides of your mouth. You throw those big slabs of meat onto the grill and close your eyes tightly to listen to the sweet sound of sizzling. As your timer goes off, you quickly toss those t-bones over to finish them off.

You finally slap your steak onto your plate and greedily cut into your prize with your knife. The juices run onto your plate as you eagerly engulf your first bite. Right, now you remember the great tastes of the meats coming freshly off the grill. For the rest of the summer, you amble out to your grill for repeat rewards of flame-cooked meals.

After two months of home-grilling, you end up in the halls of your favourite steakhouse. Still not sick of red meat, you order the largest cut of beef they offer. As your meal approaches your table, you realise that you have a stream of saliva seeping from the side of your mouth again. You haven’t experienced this since your first barbecue of the summer. Why is it back now? You sadly realise the truth—that your home-grilled steak doesn’t taste as good as the restaurant-grilled steak. Now the flood of excuses rushes to your mind:

1. Their grills are better than mine.
2. They can get fresher meat than me.
3. It’s their secret spice/sauce.

How many of these apply? All? Probably not.

1. Some restaurants might have super-duper grills—some claiming to get as hot as 1800 degrees. Most have commercial grills that have more capacity than your grill, but not necessarily more power—and if you throw a steak onto 1800 degrees, you get charcoal, not steak.
2. Some restaurants might have access to better meat, some don’t, and some will even use stale meats. Chances are, if you have access to a reputable butcher, you can get meat every bit as good as the restaurants’.
3. You can create any combination of spices or sauces, catered to your individual preferences.

So what is it then?

4. They know how to grill a steak properly—you’re not the grill-master that you think you are. I’ve watched dozens, if not hundreds of people pilot a grill and in my entire lifetime, I can count on one hand how many people truly know how to wield a pair of tongs by the grill.

Wow, that’s hard to take.

The truth is, grilling is not that difficult; however, like every other skill, it needs to be learned. Most guys have the macho instinct telling them that being male means knowing fire meets meat. By birth, the woman knows the kitchen and the man knows the barbecue—what a load of hokum, but let’s leave the sexism lecture for another day.

Grilling is not sex nor gender specific; it’s skill based. Like all other cooking methods, there are some fundamentals to good grilling. If you read my article on great roasting, you recall that people have two settings on their ovens: off and 350F. By contrast, many grills have a full spectrum of settings, from low to high (sometimes labelled as searing), and grillers aren’t afraid to use all those settings.

Here’s a common misconception: the temperature setting of the grill is directly correlated to the doneness of your steak. Wrong. The only factor that determines the doneness of your steak is the amount of time spent on the grill. I’ve seen grillers adjust the settings to high/sear for well done and low for rare. Your well done steak ends up charcoaled and your rare steak becomes a pale, pasty blob.

Here’s another misconception: flames from your grill means that your barbecue is too hot. I’ve even seen people use a spray bottle full of water to hose down the grill. The condensation from the water and the cool grill means that you end up with steamed steak—how appetising. It’s called flame cooking for a reason, you want the flames. Flames = flavour.

Here’s another mistake: flip the steak often so it doesn’t burn. When you flip the steak, you take the heat away from the cooking side and apply it to the cooler side. If you keep flipping your steak, you essentially heat it up, let it cool, reheat it, etc. It takes you longer to brown your steak and the longer it sits on the grill, the drier it becomes. You only need to flip a steak once. You can lift it to check and if it’s not brown enough, leave it alone.

Here are two quick rules to grilling:

1. You want flames.
2. You want high heat.

In fact, your grill should only have two settings: off and super-super hot. When you preheat your grill, make sure all burners fire at full. If you’re a coal user, stick with hardwood, which burns considerably hotter than brickettes. I use a gas grill and I have an infrared burner that purportedly brings the temperature in excess of 1500C. Frankly, the numbers don’t really matter; I just want my grill to get hot…hot…hot. I use the infrared to grill all the time and leave the conventional burners for keeping warm. Back to preheating, bring your burners (whatever kind you have) to high and close the lid. Allow your grill to get as hot as it possibly can (up to a half-hour of preheating).

When it’s ready, quickly toss your steaks onto the grill (don’t lift the lid and wait while the precious heat escapes). The grill should be hot enough to leave grill marks on your steaks. Give your steaks a half turn (rotation) if you want the grill crosses. The fat from your meat and the high heat should cause your grill to flame. If your meat is too lean (tenderloin, for example), a squirt bottle filled with vegetable oil can bring flames easily. Be careful not to have your hand over the grill when you do this—you don’t want flames on your flesh. Make sure your meat sits deep into the flames; if the meat only sits on the flame tips, you end up with charcoaled blackness.

When your steak looks well seared (dark brown), it’s time to flip. When you flip your steak, try to flip it to a new area on your grill; the unoccupied areas will be hotter than the occupied areas. In between flipping, be sure to close the lid on your grill again to restore the heat. After you close the lid, you should see lots of smoking bursting from your barbecue; this is good. The smoke adds another layer of flavouring to your meats.

Now your steaks look dark brown on both sides. When should you take them off the heat? If you want blue rare, the time is now, but most people prefer medium-rare. This is the hardest part of grilling; this is where you have to do some learning and gain some experience. Use the tip of your tongs to lightly press against your steaks; the firmer the steak, the more well done it is. Practise on steaks with varying degrees of doneness to learn for yourself how much resistance your meat should have. THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO DETERMINE STEAK DONENESS. Here are some other methods people employ:

1. Using a timer: Since your steaks will not have uniform thickness, and the temperature of your grill will not always be the same, a timer cannot guarantee a consistent degree of doneness. As well, different types of steaks (have different meat densities, and) cook at different speeds. You cannot rely on timers.
2. Poking a hole in your steak: Poking holes in your steaks will let all the delicious juices leak out, plus, can you really tell how well done a steak is by looking at a gushing hole?
3. Cutting the steak: If you think poking a hole in your steak releases all the juices, cutting it to peek inside will ensure that your steak tastes dry.

It’s not easy to judge a steak’s doneness but pressing your tongs against it but it’s essential that you learn. After all, how can anyone call themselves a grill-master if they aren’t willing to learn the most basic fundament?

After you seared both sides of the steaks, drop the heat to medium and allow the meat to internally cook. You don’t have a lot of time as your steaks will cook fast. Be sure you stay close and press your tongs against them frequently. Even if someone wants well-done, you should follow the preceding practice. There’s a big difference between well-done where there’s no pink and the juices run clear, and a juiceless slab of leather. I have yet to meet anyone who asks for a steak done like leather.

After you remove your meat from the heat, let it sit for a few minutes before eating it. If you cut into it right away, all the juices will come gushing out of your steak and sit on your plate. Your mashed potatoes might taste wonderful sopping up the juices but your steak becomes a lot drier than it should. Wait five minutes before serving (which is usually just enough time to get your starch and vegetables plated) and you have the ideal steak.

You can use whatever seasoning/spices you want. If you want to use herbs, you should add them right after you flip the steaks. If you add herbs before grilling, the heat will burn your herbs to charcoal. The same applies to barbecue sauce—brush it on right after grilling or the sugar in the sauce would burn. There are big differences between seared, charred and burnt; you don’t want the latter.

There you have it—a perfectly grilled steak that tastes just as good as any you order from a restaurant. You can use the same techniques for grilling lamb, pork (which should be eaten medium to medium-well), chicken (should be well done) or some fishes. Bon appetite and happy grilling!

Restaurant Review: Yuki Sushi

2011-05-15T14:00:00.000-05:00

Yuki Sushi
554 Main St
Winnipeg, MB
Tel: (204) 956-2849
Fax: (204) 956-2841

The McLaren Hotel in downtown Winnipeg had a reputation as one of the roughest-toughest bars in the city. Winnipeg has made concerted efforts to clean up the core and targeted the McLaren watering hole. Although a pub continues to keep its visitors moist, Yuki Sushi stands at the Main Street frontage and dominates the building’s façade. If you look at the restaurant objectively, you see remnants of the joint that used to be here. The bar stools definitely remind you of a diner and the booths are not as cozy as most restaurant booths.

A respected friend of mine, knowledgeable and savvy about sushi, always referred to this place as “Yucky Sushi,” with which I didn’t agree. Having dined at Yuki several times, I find the service always friendly, attentive and eager to please. About the sushi, I normally use the California roll as a benchmark. If the roll uses pollock, there’s no need to come back. If they have some canned crab meat, they’re in the majority. The few that use genuine lump crab meat will have me back and drooling for more every time; you very rarely see this (in Winnipeg anyway). Every time I ordered the California roll, Yuki served the roll with canned crab meat; unfortunately today, the roll comes with pollock. I forgive grocery sushi for using pollock but for a sit-down sushi house to use fake crab is a sham and shameful.

Yuki’s version of a dynamite roll includes shrimp tempura, avocado, cucumber, masago and mayo. Of the listed, the most prominent ingredient is the cucumber. This shows an imbalance of ingredients as the subtle cucumber should provide little more than texture. By contrast, the chopped scallop roll should taste entirely subtle as scallops are not pungent shellfishes. Yuki over-salts the roll so that the delicate taste of the scallops lies buried.

As a sushi novice, I could not get over the fishiness of the nori (seaweed wrap). My first dip into the sushi pool found me coming out with one of the most Western-friendly nigiris, the tamago, which is a piece of sweet egg omelette tied to the rice by a little string of nori. The fishiness of the nori string turned me off the dish. Since, I’ve grown to love nori where I can eat sheets of it on its own. Alas, there’s something about Yuki’s nori which reminds me of why I didn’t like nori over two decades ago.

Of Yuki’s nigiris, the hokkigai (surf clam) tastes hard, tough and a tinge fishy, making this one of the worst clams I ever tried. The unagi (barbecued eel) does little better than the clam. The extremely small portion of fish sits on a monstrous mound of rice and what little eel is here has very little taste.

Whereas most sushi houses charge a fair premium for a considerable amount of sashimi (raw fish), Yuki charges small price for small portions of fish. I like this option as it gives you more opportunity to sample more fishes. The sake (salmon) tastes wonderfully rich and oily but the toro (fatty tuna belly) tastes bland and empty. Good toro melts in your mouth leaving the essence of the sea but this toro leaves nothing.

I understand that restaurants have off days and sometimes things don’t turn out as they hope. However, using sub-par ingredients isn’t a product of chance; it’s a choice. Yuki started off as a wonderful restaurant with very good food and excellent service. While the service remains superior, the food has gone downhill. I hope that Yuki picks it back up in the future because it has great potential and has built a large following.

** /5

Restaurant Review: Amici

2011-05-15T13:35:00.000-05:00

Amici
326 Broadway
Tel: (204) 943-4997
Fax: (204) 943-0369
Email: amicicatering@mts.net
http://www.amiciwpg.com/

April, 2011

Amici has a long reputation in Winnipeg as one of the best fine dining establishments in the city. Consistently, Amici has served delicious and innovative food. Situated in the heart of the Broadway business district, Amici has a perfect location for a power lunch huddle, or a romantic dinner setting before a night out. Much of Amici’s success was attributed to owner and executive chef Heinz Kattenfeld. Now that Kattenfeld has retired, can Amici maintain its vaulted status?

The dimly lit dining room and elegant décor calmly struts its elegance in a classical fashion. Whereas today’s restaurants ring with beating music, showy colours and artful shapes, Amici brings you back to a quieter era of stylish dining. Tonight, the packed dining room roars with din, somewhat diminishing the subdued nature of this dining salon.

The meal begins with a basket of bread featuring thinly sliced options of raisin bread or plain. Both come soft and meltingly fresh, although neither is warm enough to melt the plain, hard butter. Instead, opt for the thyme-herbed butter orbs, which spread easily onto the slices.

Amici offers a wide spectrum of appetisers which provides appeal to every colour or preference. The ubiquitous calamari comes perfectly fried with just enough battering to coat the tasty and tender rings. The light lemon herbed sour cream provides a wonderful accompaniment to this lovely appetiser. Equally Italian, the bruschetta bursts with freshness as the perfect complement of basil and delicious tomato stars in this simple intro. Mild cheese and herbed crusty bread completes the perfect antipasto.

If you want something a little heavier for your appetiser, the fluffy gnocchi swims in a substantial herbed cream sauce. Perfectly grilled slices of rare tenderloin provide a wonderful base in lapping up the luscious sauce.

In addition to the regular menu, Amici presents a considerable list of specials, and the hamachi carpaccio immediately grabs my eyes. If you’re familiar at all with sushi, you recognise hamachi, the delicious yellowtail that tastes divine when fresh, but fishy as heck when out of prime. Amici’s thinly sliced hamachi doesn’t provide enough substance to get the essence of the wonderful fish; the diner is left with only a tease of the taste. The juices of the candied beet adornment ooze through a part of the plate, smothering the delicate flavour of the hamachi. I prefer to see the tried and true Japanese ginger as a palette cleanser. While bits of crusty lemon add a nice highlight to the fish, the oversized chunks of sea salt shockingly disrupts the hamachi. I much favour traditional hamachi sashimi over this carpaccio rendition.

Whenever I visit an Italian restaurant, I always try at least one classic Italian dish. The spaghetti with grilled chicken features a perfectly seared chicken breast sitting on pasta in a garlic cream sauce. Pancetta accents this rich sauce and a generous portion of spinach leaves finishes the meal. This simple and basic Italian classic is done perfectly in every way.

Similarly, the linguine with seafood starts with properly al dente linguini in an understated tomato broth. A rich and powerful tomato sauce can sometimes overwhelm the delicate flavours of the seafood; Amici’s tomato broth finds the target as an ideal oasis for the shellfish. The artful dish features the half-lobster, seared nicely and sitting as the centerpiece. Plump and well-prepared mussels surround the plate while enormous shrimps and scallops swim in the broth. What a beautiful plate!

Amici’s polite, prompt and professional staff sees to all your needs, including a water glass that’s never less than half full. If you want more than water, of course, Amici’s wine list caters to all tastes and pocketbooks.

While the hamachi was a bit of a miss, everything else at Amici’s nails the bull’s eye. I’m happy to find a restaurant that has maintained high standards for so long, and continues to do so.

**** /5

Quest for the Best Burger in Winnipeg

2011-05-05T22:00:00.003-05:00

QUEST FOR THE BEST BURGER IN WINNIPEG

March-April, 2011

While I love fine foods, ethnic foods and exotic foods, sometimes I just crave a simple and unsophisticated burger. Many joints purport to make the best burger in the city but when it all boils down, who truly makes the best burger in town? To compare fairly, I separate the restaurants into categories but in the end, I will still identify the best burger in Winnipeg.

So what makes a great burger? Differing people have different views on what a great burger entails: some like the standard mustard-relish-catsup dressing, while others like something more exotic, or nothing at all. Some like adventurous vegetables while others like the staples, and the meatheads may not want veggies at all. Despite differing opinions, a few standards (should) remain constant:

• The meat should be fresh, juicy and cooked properly;
• The bun should be fresh;
• The vegetables should be crisp and fresh; and
• The whole package should yield a burger that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

If you want to skip all the discussion and go straight to the guts, scroll to the bottom of the article for printable tables of Winnipeg's best burgers, and Winnipeg's best burger values.

As a side note, most chain restaurants charge extra for cheese or chilli (if available). Many of the local joints serve all burgers with chilli and charge extra for their deluxe burger, super burger, or fat boy (ironic that the fat boy version has the vegetables). That’s quite a statement on our society but that’s a rant I’ll save for a future commentary.

It would be impossible for me to taste every burger in the city—so how do I decide who gets a sampling? I start with a simple search to find the recurring burgers for which people rave. Then I add in a few places from reputation. Finally, I visit some of the local steakhouses—after all, if you make great steaks, you can probably make a great burger. First, I visit the chains.

THE CHAINS

As much as I want to stay away from mass food chains, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention at least the big four fast food chains in doing a review on great burgers. I don’t want to spend any time on the Big Mac or the Whopper, but I will spend a bit of time on the new line of “gourmet” burgers that the chains claim to be the next level of burger tasting.

A&W
25 locations across Winnipeg
http://www.aw.ca/

Claims
The Uncle Burger uses 100% sirloin beef.

The Facts
The Uncle Burger comes with five ounces of beef and runs $3.99.

The Highs
• The beef patty is considerably thicker than anything you saw in an A&W burger in the past.

The Lows
• The vegetables are very wilted.

The Lowdown
A&W burgers have a certain flavour to them. A combination of seasonings and A&W’s Chubby Mayo contribute to each burger tasting like A&W—you know what I’m talking about. The Uncle Burger carries this taste and if you like the A&W taste, you’ll like this burger. The thicker patty makes it less susceptible to drying out; although this burger isn’t moist, neither is it dry. Fresh vegetables would have added texture and crispness to the sandwich but the wilted lettuce leaves add nothing.

Claims
The Grandma Burger uses prime rib.

The Facts
The newly introduced Grandma Burger also costs $3.99.

The Highs
• The beef patty is comparable in thickness to the Uncle Burger but unfortunately doesn’t carry the same taste.

The Lows
• Since the vegetables come from the same place as Uncle’s vegetables, the veggies are expectedly wilted as well.
• The absence of A&W’s condiments makes this burger “not taste like A&W.”
• The sautéed onions are overdone.
• There is way too much mayo.

The Lowdown
After just describing the A&W taste, they go and create a burger that does not carry their staple taste. I assume that they omitted the usual seasonings and condiments so that people can taste unadulterated prime rib beef. Alas, this beef has no flavour and the greasy, overcooked onions do nothing to help the patty. The mess of mayo has a tinge of horseradish flavour but it’s sloppily overused. I don’t expect this burger to stay around for long.

Burger King
Ten locations across Winnipeg
http://en.burgerking.ca/

Claims
“An extra thick flame-broiled 5.5 ounce* beef patty topped with mayo, crispy onions, Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce, plus processed cheese, crisp lettuce and red ripe tomatoes.”

The Facts
The XT (extra-thick) comes with an introductory price of $3.99.

The Highs
• The crispy onions provide an extra dimension of texture.

The Lows
• The vegetables are more than wilted; they’re stale.
• The patty is burnt black.

The Lowdown
What a disappointment! With a thicker patty of beef, I expect juiciness and what I get is burnt black and charcoaled. The lettuce sat so long it turned brown on all its edges. The inferior barbecue sauce dominates all the flavours, all except the coal. The creepy King managed to come out with a creepier burger.

McDonald’s
Dozens of locations across Winnipeg
http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/index.aspx

Claims
“We crafted 100% Angus beef into a deliciously thick patty and lovingly paired it with quality ingredients and a lightly toasted bakery style bun.”

The Facts
The Angus Burger starts at $4.99 but jumps to $5.49 with bacon and cheddar cheese.

The Highs
• The thick beef patty tastes more like a homemade burger patty than a fast food patty.
• The real cheddar cheese tastes considerably better than processed cheese.
• The vegetables come bright and crisp.

The Lows
• The bun is too thick.

The Lowdown
McDonald’s Angus Burger costs more than the competitors’ premium burgers but it’s certainly worth it. The beef tastes like beef (not like fast food beef) and the real cheddar cheese is a real delight. Personally, I find processed cheese more processed than cheese. Although the vegetables aren’t garden fresh, they are far from their expiry date. The Big Mac exemplifies the “McDonald’s” taste and they wisely carry the taste through to Angus. McDonald’s is the world’s more prolific restaurant for a reason—people love it. People also love to hate it but undeniably, people love it—and the Angus Burger takes McDonald’s food to a new level.

I love bacon but I don’t like bacon in burgers. Bacon has such a strong meat flavour, it easily overpowers milder meats. The Angus Burgers provides good-tasting beef but the strips of bacon overwhelm it. I would order Angus with cheddar but without the bacon. I would also have used the standard bun over the thicker bun, which takes away from some of the taste.

Things happen fast. Two weeks ago, I raved about the bursting positive Angus Burger. Walking through the Golden Arches today, I find an expanded line of Angus Burgers, now called Angus Third Pounders. The line features the original Angus, now called Deluxe, the Mushroom & Cheese, and the Bacon & Cheese versions. An oversized regular bun supplants the bakery style bun.

Claims
The new Deluxe boasts of the same fresh ingredients and advertises its third-pound status.

The Highs
• The thick beef patty still tastes more like a homemade burger patty than a fast food patty.
• The vegetables come bright and crisp.
• The new bun is not as dry as the original.

The Lows
• The excellent cheddar cheese is now replaced by the bland processed cheese.
• The mayo overwhelms and dominates the burger.

The Lowdown
This rendition of the Angus Burger takes a significant nosedive from its prototype. The processed cheese takes the special zip out of Angus and the massive mound of mayo masks the tastes of the Angus beef. Although still tastier than a Big Mac, this Angus is no longer special.

Wendy’s
Six locations across Winnipeg
http://www.wendys.ca/

Claims
“We don't cut corners with our hamburgers…our fresh, never frozen beef is always served hot off the grill. Our tomatoes are hand sliced…real quality taste starts with real quality ingredients.”

The Facts
Wendy’s is the only chain that has not introduced a “premium” burger. Wendy’s maintains that all of their burgers are premium and the standard single, quarter-pound burger with cheese rings in at $4.89.

The Highs
• The vegetables come fresh.
• The beef tastes like homemade beef.

The Lows
• The patty tastes a little dry.

The Lowdown
Wendy’s lives up to their claims. The vegetables look like they’re freshly picked and the tastes reflect it. The patty tastes like the beef you would get if you buy ground beef and make your own burgers. The patty is a little thin and thus, quite susceptible to drying out. As is, this is a very good burger; if Wendy’s would boost this burger to six ounces, and add considerable thickness to retain the juiciness of the meat, this would be a great burger.

LOCAL FAVOURITES – TAKEOUT OF COUNTER SERVICE ONLY

I didn’t expect much from the chains but I found some surprisingly good burgers, but now that we have the formality over with, let’s take a look at some of our local fast-food joints and see how good some of the “best burgers in Winnipeg” really are.

The Burger Place
1909 Portage Ave, (204) 831-7967

Claims
“Our burgers are made fresh daily.”

The Facts
All burgers come with chilli ($4.45) and the deluxe comes with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayo ($4.75).

The Highs
• Burgers come with fresh, shredded lettuce and fresh tomatoes.
• The combination of sauces is nice tasting and very goopy.
• The meat is fresh, not frozen.

The Lows
• This is one of the messiest burgers I encountered.

The Lowdown
Although the meat patty isn’t daunting, the addition of vegetables brings the sandwich to an almost unmanageable thickness. Add the generous sauces and you have yourself a big, gooey mess. Often, I can’t stand messy food but when a burger tastes this good, I don’t mind having my hands dripping with sauce.

All the burgers come with chilli but the deluxe adds the vegetable component. This is a twist but I guess the carnivorous purists don’t want their meat tainted with anything green. I would find the plain burger boring but the deluxe gives you the perfect combination between vegetable and meat. The only change I would make is to add onions. The meat is well done, but not dry.

The Burger Place is the prototype of “hole in the wall” but sometimes, the holes make the best food. This is definitely one of those places.

Daly Burgers
619 Corydon Ave, (204) 269-3259
1151 Pembina Hwy, (204) 452-3259
http://www.dalyburgers.com/

Claims
“The ingredients are of the highest quality, including 100% pure beef patties and hot dogs (no frozen patties), double thick slices of real cheese, fresh chopped onions, hand sliced beefsteak tomatoes, pickles and mustard.”

The Facts
The deluxe cheeseburger is a sizable creation that comes with chilli and rings in at $5.25.

The Highs
• The crisp and fresh vegetables stand out in this burger. You know when you get a burger with stale vegetables: the wilted lettuce sometimes sports brown spots and the soggy tomatoes fall apart in your palms.
• The chilli tastes subtle and adds a nice dimension to the burger. Some burger palaces serve chilli that overwhelms the burger and dominates the flavour.

The Lows
• The thick slab of beef is overcooked and dried of all its juices.
• The bun is too thick. Bread should act as a container only, and not fill you up.

The Lowdown
Daly puts out a good burger but there’s room for improvement. While I enjoy this sandwich, I would not label this as the best burger in Winnipeg.

Dari-Whip Drive-In
383 Marion Street, (204) 233-5144

Claims
No claims made.

The Facts
The hamburger costs $4.75 and the cheeseburger costs an even $5.

The Highs
• Nothing to report.

The Lows
• Nothing to report.

The Lowdown
The highs/lows say it all—there’s nothing offensive about this burger, but there’s also nothing great about it. The ground beef is unprocessed, which is good, but it’s slightly overcooked and over-salted. Dressings include the standard mustard and catsup. The big chunks of onions are nice but the big chunks of pickles overwhelm the burger. That’s the extent of vegetation on this burger, which leaves the sandwich a bit bland and lacking.

Junior’s Restaurant
558 Portage Ave, (204) 774-6370
785 St Marys Rd, (204) 256-6571
1019 McPhillips St, (204) 589-6777

The Facts
The Fat Boy is somewhat self-explanatory and goes for $4.45.

The Highs
• This massive burger satisfies all but the most gluttonous of gourmands.

The Lows
I don’t know where to begin.
• There is so much goop and sauce that it completely drowns the meat. You can throw a slab of chicken, fish or yak in there and no one would know the difference.
• I know when people order a “Fat Boy,” they have a certain expectation. This Fat Boy offers no shortage of fat. The burger oozes with grease drippings from the first bite to the last squeeze.

The Lowdown
This burger is a mess, literally and figuratively. There’s so much junk in this burger that it doesn’t taste like a burger. If you really want a jolt of fat, just take a big bite out of a lump or lard—it tastes about the same.

Mrs. Mike’s
286 Tache Ave, (204) 237-3977

Claims
Mrs. Mike’s doesn’t make any claims but many local reviewer consider Mrs. Mike’s burgers the best in Winnipeg.

The Facts
All burgers come with chilli, mustard, onions and pickles and the cheeseburger runs $5.25.

The Highs
• Lots of onions give lots of taste.
• Nice ratio and combo of sauces.

The Lows
• The regular burger has no vegetables except onions; the Superburger costs a steep $7.00.

The Lowdown
The taste of the chilli is slightly overpowering but it’s hard to tell since both the chilli and patty taste unbearably salty. Check your blood pressure after this burger! The pickle flavour manages to poke through the burger because of the large wedge that slices across the entire bun.

Note: All burgers come with chilli but if you order the chilli burger, you get a burger in a cup smothered in chilli. How do you eat this? I try a weakly plastic spoon from Mike’s counter to prod into this gastronomic mess. I end up digging through the chilli to get bites of burger goo.

The Red Boot Drive Inn
1866 Ness Ave, (204) 888-1506
info@theredboot.ca
http://www.theredboot.ca/menu.html

Claims
“Real burgers…real good: All our beef hamburgers are homemade using 100% ground beef with no additives.”

The Facts
All burgers come with mustard, onions, pickles and homemade chili sauce. The Boot Special also includes cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo and rings in at $5.10.

The Highs
• The vegetables, especially the tomato slices, come garden fresh.
• The chilli tastes delicious.

The Lows
• The patty is thin and overcooked.
• The pickle is sliced lengthwise and a little overpowering.

The Lowdown
Over all the burgers that come with chilli, the Boot offers the best chilli, which tastes subtle yet flavourful. It’s hard to call one of the messiest burgers around “subtle” but that’s what this burger is—subtle. All of the flavours blend together wonderfully and none really stands out, except the pickle that I ate separately. The Boot has put together the perfect combination of sauce, onions, vegetables and chilli; alas, the meagre patty drags this burger down. Most of the other drive-inn, counter joints pride themselves on their monstrous patties and if the Boot would boost the size of their meat content, this great burger would become an extraordinary burger.

V.J's Drive Inn
170 Main St, 943-2655

Claims
The Special Burger comes with chilli, cheese, shredded lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions and condiments; the regular hamburger does not have lettuce or tomato. The Special Burger rings in at $5.

The Highs
• The vegetables look fresh.

The Lows
• This sandwich is a gooey mess.
• The generous slop of chilli overwhelms all other flavours, except the pickles.
• The burger comes with huge strips of pickles, sliced lengthwise.
• The meat patty is thin and way overcooked.

The Lowdown
If you Google-search the best burger in Winnipeg, you find VJ's burgers consistently sit near the top the lists-and I can't understand why. When a burger tastes great, you don't mind having some sloppy goo all
over your table. When you have a sad-tasting burger, cleaning up the mess just adds insult to injury. This is a very sad burger. The chilli tastes so overpowering that it wipes out all the other flavours, except
the pickles, which comes in monstrous chunks. If you want a chilli and pickle sandwich, this is the place, but if you want to taste a hamburger, forget it. The pitiful wafer of dried and overcooked patty is completely lost within the sopping and disintegrated bun. I can't tell what the condiments are and I can't taste the cheese-and frankly, I don't care

White Star Diner
58 Albert St, (204) 947-6930
whitestardiner@shaw.ca
http://www.whitestardiner.ca/

Claims
“Everything we serve is made from scratch, in keeping with true diners where frozen fries or mechanically deboned alfalfa burgers would have never been served. It may be simple diner food, but it is delicious simple diner food made with quality, fresh ingredients and seasoned just right to bring out all the flavour.”

The Facts
The White Star Burger starts at $4.75 and available dressings include Canadian cheddar cheese, Dutch edam, crisp bacon, sautéed green peppers, and sautéed mushrooms, each at an additional $1.35.

The Highs
• The patty is perfectly cooked—seared on the outside and dripping, juicy on the inside.
• The cheese is real, and all other options are fresh and generous.
• The burger comes with a great combination of sauces.

The Lows
• The lettuce is wilted and the tomato is fresh but bland.

The Lowdown
The perfect burger should have the complete package but if you deconstruct the process, some aspects of the burger outweigh others—namely, the patty is the most important part of the burger. White Star has it where it counts. Here we have the perfect patty sitting on some wilted lettuce. It wouldn’t take much for this great burger to become an outstanding burger.

The White Top
409 Manitoba Ave, (204) 589-4419

Claims
No claims.

The Facts
The Fatboy Burger includes chilli, vegetables and comes to $4.95.

The Highs
• The impressive pile of vegetables is very fresh.
• There is lots of goop in good proportions.
• The slices of pickle are very thin, providing just enough for an accent, rather than a domination.
• The patty is nicely seasoned.

The Lows
• The beef is very thin and overcooked.

The Lowdown
This could be a great burger. The meat is wonderfully seasoned with a touch of spiciness. The crumbliness of the patty indicates a tight rein on the amount of breading used, which is a good thing. The only problem is that there isn’t enough meat on the patty. The patty gets thin and easily overcooked.

Zax Drive-in
1184 Portage Ave, (204) 786-0908

Claims
All burgers starts with a freshly-made patty and chilli, onions, mustard, pickle and cheese come standard.

The Facts
The basic burger starts at $4.50 and comes with a quarter-pound patty.

The Highs
• The burger comes mile-high, stuffed with vegetables.
• The patty is thick.
• The burger comes with just enough delicious sauce.

The Lows
• The bun top is cold—refrigerator cold.
• The tomato has no taste.
• The shredded lettuce has lots of brown edges.
• The burger is very messy to eat.

The Lowdown
The perfectly blended sauce makes this burger, although the generosity of the vegetables doesn’t hurt; the brown spots must go. The meat comes a little overdone but it’s not dry, mainly because of the brawn of the thick patty. This patty easily outdoes its quarter-pound claim. The chilli acts as a nice accent without overwhelming the taste.

LOCAL FAVOURITES – PARTIAL SERVICE

Blondie’s
1969 Main St, (204) 338-0185

Claims
“Every burger comes with cheese, bacon, onions (raw or fried), lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard and relish.”

The Facts
There’s nothing official be we suspect that Blondie’s weighs their burgers AFTER cooking. Here’s the price list:

1/8 pound: $4.95
¼ pound: $6.25
½ pound: $12.95
1 pound: $17.95
2 pounds: $29.95
3 pounds: $35.95
6 pounds: $47.95
9 pounds: $62.95 (the largest burger available in Winnipeg)

The Highs
• The lettuce and tomato slices are very fresh.
• The sauce is common, but nicely proportioned.
• The bread tastes fresh.
• The proportions are monstrous.
• The owner is a volatile character that threatens to erupt at any moment.

The Lows
• The meat tastes a little too salty and the bacon exacerbates it.
• The patty is a tad overcooked.
• The owner is a volatile character that threatens to erupt at any moment.

The Lowdown
The amount of food you get for your burger is insane. The ½ pound burger spans 6”–7” and the full pound burger spans 9”–10”, with considerable thickness. The patty tastes a touch overdone, leaving the meat moist, but no longer juicy. People will often overlook the details of this burger when faced with its mass, but great care is placed into its ingredients and assembly. The patty falls apart quite easily, due to a low ratio of breadcrumbs in the mixture—between meat or crumbs, I’ll take extra meat and a crumbly patty any day.

Boon Burger Café
79 Sherbrook St, (204) 415-1391
info@boonburger.ca
http://www.boonburger.ca/cms/pdf/boonburgermenu.pdf

Claims
“We make all our burgers, buns...from scratch. All our burgers are served on ancient organic whole-grain buns and include a dill pickle and a raw vegetable garnish. [The Boon Burger has a] grilled mushroom-rice patty, mayo, Dijon, red pepper peach chutney, caramelised onion, sliced cucumber, tomato and lettuce.”

The Facts
This ingredient-filled vegan burger comes to $6.95, or you can add “bacun” for an extra $0.95.

The Highs
• The “ancient” whole grain bun falls apart in your hands to leave you with sloppy palms but even the sopping fragments of bread tastes delicious.
• All the vegetables come garden fresh and the cuke makes a great sub for the ubiquitous pickle.
• The perfectly blended sauce tastes wonderfully exotic.

The Lows
• The patty tastes a little floury—while nice, I’m sure the carnivores will never buy this rendition of a meatless patty.

The Lowdown
As a package, this wonderful burger delivers almost everything you could want from a burger. The magnificent sauce and the delicious caramelised onions dance in unison with the wonderful bun. I can’t quite make out the red pepper peach chutney but the sauce has an exotic flavour and I attribute it to the chutney. The patty—even with nice seasoning and flavour—may be the weak link in this chain. The texture tastes like a meat patty with too much flour or breadcrumbs. The grilled patty tries too hard to emulate a meat patty when it doesn’t have to.

For many years, Underground Café’s Sun-burger set a stellar standard for meatless burgers. From reputation alone, every vegetarian burger will get inevitable comparisons to the Underground sandwich—and with good reason. The Sun-burger stands as a entity of its own without trying to imitate its meat cousin. The Boon Burger could learn a lesson from the Sun to move from “very good burger” status to “great burger” status.

George’s Burgers & Subs
6 locations across Winnipeg

Claims
Made fresh

The Facts
All burgers come with chilli, onions, mustard and pickles; the Fatboy also includes lettuce, tomato slices, mayo and cheese. The Fatboy rings in at a downright cheap $3.90.

The Highs
• The Kaiser bun is fresh and huge.
• The burger has just enough chilli.
• The mayo and mayo sauce is a nice, proportionate combo.
• The tomato slices are very fresh.

The Lows
• The patty is overcooked.
• There isn’t very much finely shredded lettuce.
• It could use a little more onions.

The Lowdown
This is a great burger for the price. The subtle-tasting chilli acts as a nice complement to the burger without taking over the tastes. Even though the patty is overcooked and dry, the chilli and sauce compensate so that the overall sandwich tastes delicious. The bun is a little too large for the burger; people want to eat what’s between the bun, not necessarily the bread.

Kay’s Delicatessen
339 William Avenue, (204) 949-0424
Fax: (204) 949-0442
http://kaysdeliwinnipeg.wordpress.com/

Claims
“A delicious homemade veggie burger with carrots, lentils, potatoes and pecans on an onion Kaiser bun smothered in our own mango dill yogurt sauce or sweet chilli sauce, topped with red onion, cucumber, tomato, and crisp romaine.”

The Facts
Kay’s Veggie Burger sets you back $5.75.

The Highs
• The fresh vegetables highlight this veggie burger.

The Lows
• The sauce has no taste.
• The patty exemplifies what meaties expect from a meatless hamburger.

The Lowdown
The mango dill yogurt sauce has so much potential, but when I taste it, I can barely tell it’s not just plain mayo. The patty also has great potential but the potato ends up dominating this creation. The excess of starch makes this patty resemble a latke (potato pancake). The pecans add lovely texture but the ingredient proportions of the patty needs some adjusting.

The vegetables taste crisp and fresh but the real star of this burger is the onion Kaiser but with cheese. Kay has the basic foundation for a great burger but as it stands, there’s room for improvement.

Red Top Restaurant
219 St. Mary’s Rd, (204) 233-7943
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=141114742595359#!/group.php?gid=141114742595359&v=info

Claims
“Our hamburger is made daily in our own kitchen from fresh lean ground beef.”

The Facts
The regular burger comes with mustard, chilli sauce, onions and dill pickle; the Lot-O-Burger also includes cheese, lettuce, mayonnaise and tomato slices and runs $4.29.

The Highs
• The vegetables taste fresh, but not special.

The Lows
• There isn’t very much onions, barely enough to notice.
• The two slices of pickles are huge and stacked on top of each other, leaving the remainder of the burger pickleless.
• The patty is very thin, overcooked and over-salted in some areas.

The Lowdown
There is really nothing special about this burger that would elevate it over any regular burger from a fast-food chain.

Salisbury House
Over 20 locations: http://salisburyhouse.ca/locations.html
http://salisburyhouse.ca/index.html

Claims
“All those tastes begin in our unique Commissary. Virtually all ingredients for our menu items are created in this centralised facility and delivered FRESH DAILY to all Salisbury House location. This process allows us to guarantee fresh, consistent, high quality food to our guests with each visit to any Sals location.”

The Facts
Salisbury House coined the term “nip” to denote a hamburger. The Mr. Big Nip costs you $4.99 and comes with raw onions, a slice of processed cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and Sals Sauce.

The Highs
• Sals promises fresh ingredients and indeed the vegetables come garden fresh. The lettuce tastes crisp, the onions are clean and the tomato slices firm. Unfortunately, tomatoes aren’t in season right now and they are mostly tasteless.

The Lows
• The wafer thin beef patty is dry and tasteless. The Mr. Big Nip is big in vegetables but little in meat.
• The slice of processed cheese is so thin that I had to search dedicatedly to find it. I’m still not quite sure it was ever there.
• Although every table supports salt and pepper shakers and catsup, I don’t think the burger itself has any condiments. Although the Nip purports to have Sals Sauce, I can’t taste anything but a dry meat on a dry bun.

The Lowdown
If I ordered a vegetable sandwich, I would have been very happy with what I got. I ordered the “famous” Nip and ended up with a monumental burger disappointment. This burger does not match up to any fast food chain’s staple burgers.

Super Boy’s
1468 Main St, (204) 589-8437

Claims
All burgers come with chilli, mustard, onions and pickles, the Super Boy comes with mayo, lettuce and tomato slices in addition.

The Facts
The Super Boy comes in at $5.00.

The Highs
• The patty is thick and wide.

The Lows
• Too much mayo covers the burger.
• The tiny slice of processed cheese barely covers two square inches (which is completely lost against the monster patty).
• The patty is slightly overcooked.
• The patty tastes doughy, indicating a lot of breadcrumbs in the beef mixture.

The Lowdown
At $5.00, your money gets you a lot of food for this oversized burger. The abundance of mayo turns this burger into a sloppy mess, and turns all the vegetables into a soggy heap. The shredded lettuce looks quite fresh but the inclusion of the brown core makes the entire pile look stale.

The Underground Café
70 Arthur St, (204) 956-1925
http://theundergroundcafe.ca/

Claims
“Our burger is a compilation of toasted sesame and sunflower seeds, vegetable protein, mozza and cheddar cheeses, rice, eggs, and assorted spices, baked to perfection. Served on a toasted bagel with lime-dill sauce, romaine, green peppers, onion and tomato.”

The Facts
“The Fabulous Sun-burger” is a meatless burger that rings in at $5.75.

The Highs
• The lime-dill sauce is a ray of genius! This could well be the best sauce a burger can face.
• All vegetables come very fresh.
• The patty is thick and moist, and has wonderful texture.
• The toasted bagel is not too dense and complements the burger package nicely.

The Lows
• The hole in the bagel causes messy hands and a shameful waste of sauce.
• The patty has lots of thickness, but not much diameter.

The Lowdown
I tried to convince some hardened carnivores to try the Sun-burger but some people’s prejudices run soul-deep. It is a true pity for them since they’ll never experience this truly innovative burger. The crunch of the sunflower seeds adds a wonderful, extra dimension to the patty. If you didn’t know it, you may have a fair time ascertaining that this patty contains no meat. Although the delicious patty is thick and juicy, it’s not very large. The jaw-breaking burger gives the impression of being a stomach stretcher, but the smallish diameter of the patty doesn’t leave you stuffed silly. The patty itself could use a bit more seasoning but the wonderful lime-dill sauce makes up for it.

FULL SERVICE RESTAURANT BURGERS

Finally, we have some full-service restaurants throwing their buns into the ring claiming to have the best burgers in the city. These are usually a little more expensive and often they claim to put more care into crafting your sandwiches.

529 Wellington
529 Wellington Cres, (204) 487-8325
http://www.wowhospitality.ca/restaurants/wellington_menu.html

Claims
“[The] 529 Prime Burger [comes with] ground prime beef tenderloin served with mayo, Dijon mustard, lettuce, tomato and fried onions.”

The Facts
The basic burger rings in at $11 but adding cheddar brings the price to $13.

The Highs
• The onions are nicely sautéd.
• The genuine cheddar is just melted.
• The vegetables are as fresh as they come, including the garden-like tomato.
• The well seasoned and thick patty is beautifully seared on the outside and just pink on the inside.
• Dijon mustard adds a nice tangy accent.
• There is just enough mayo to keep the bread moist.

The Lows
• None I can think of, except the $13 for a cheeseburger is the most expensive I encountered (for this size category).

The Lowdown
With food preparation, sometimes you want to exert your creative genius—and sometimes you want to return to basics. When I want a burger, I just want the basics. There’s no real secret to doing the basics well: just use great, fresh ingredients, season/spice well, proportion properly and prepare to detail. The 529 burger has all of those factors ground down to perfection. The flavourful meat comes seasoned marvellously and the bun/vegetables are fresh as morning dew. With everything in harmony, this could be the best burger in Winnipeg.

Bailey’s
150 Lombard Ave, (204) 944-1180
Fax: (204) 944-0449
feedback@baileysprimedining.com
http://www.baileysprimedining.com/

Claims
“A [sic] 8 oz. pure ground sirloin patty with tomato, mayo, onion, lettuce, mustard, crispy smoked bacon and cheddar cheese.”

The Facts
The regular burger has an eight-ounce patty and runs $9.50—add cheddar and bacon and it comes to $10.95. The sandwich comes with fries, a cup of soup, or a side of house salad.

The Highs
• The burger comes with very fresh tomato slices and lettuce.
• The bun comes nicely toasted.
• The combination of sauces complements the burger well.

The Lows
• The thick patty is nicely seared, but overdone.
• There melted cheese slice is so thin, that it looks almost transparent.

The Lowdown
Overall, the burger has nice flavour and good potential to be a great burger. However, overcooking the thick patty compromises the entire package.

The Chocolate Shop
268 Portage Ave,
(204) 947-9109, fax: (204) 944-8207
http://www.thechocolateshoprestaurant.com/Home.html

Claims
The Beefalo and Bacon Burger consists of a “beef and bison patty with homemade bacon and cheddar on warm focaccia, aioli and smoked corn relish.”

The Facts
This untraditional burger from this unlikely burger contending restaurant comes to your table for $10.

The Highs
• The thick patty comes perfectly sear-grilled on the outside and juicy moist on the inside.
• I normally don’t like bacon in a burger but their subtle homemade version works wonderfully.
• Real cheese takes any burger to a new level.
• Aioli in place of mayo—genius!

The Lows
• The patty tastes a little bland, needed a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

The Lowdown
Who would have expected to find a great burger from The Chocolate Shop? The honest truth is that I happened upon this delightful surprise in the midst of my burger research. I would not have included this entry except that this burger tastes so darn good! The substantial Angus burger comes perfectly made and the delicious Italian take on the bun barely contains the patty so you inevitably end up with a handful of tasty goop. I can’t promote this burger any more than what the Highs section already propounds, except that this is one of the best burgers in the city.

Park Tower Family Restaurant
1 – 2015 Portage Ave, (204) 889-4271

Claims
“Our homemade burgers…come with chilli, mustard, pickles & onions.”

The Facts
Although sizes aren’t provided, I suspect the cheeseburger to weigh ½ pound ($6.75) and the deluxe cheeseburger includes tomato slices, lettuce and mayonnaise ($7.75).

The Highs
• The meat patty has wonderful flavours, including bits of onion built into the ground beef.
• The vegetables are quite fresh, but unspectacular.

The Lows
• The thick patty was very overcooked.
• The Tower uses processed cheese.

The Lowdown
The Tower has the foundation to make a great burger, but they fall just a little short. Overcooking the patty is a huge blunder, especially when the patty measures almost an inch thick. Looking around the table, some of my companions have patties that look more moist than mine but the one I have can’t be called anything but a failure. I hope this is just an off attempt.

I expect the drive-ins and fast food joints to use processed cheese, but once I enter the doors of a sit-down, full-service restaurant, I prefer to find real cheese, rather than processed. Switching out the cheese and using more care in the cooking of the patty would elevate this burger to elite status.

Peasant Cookery
100 – 283 Bannatyne Ave, (204) 989-7700
http://www.peasantcookery.com/

Claims
The Cookery makes no overt claims but when the former owner/manager first introduced the burger, he spent 15 minutes explaining the process of making a burger, and the reasoning behind it. I remember his passion like he explained it just yesterday.

The Facts
The burger comprises of a mix of short rib, brisket, chuck on a brioche bun runs $8.99.

The Highs
• This substantial burger is ultra-thick, juicy and cooked to perfection.
• The vegetables taste fresh and crisp.
• The “homemade” mayo tastes rich.

The Lows
• The brioche bun is too thick.
• The meat doesn’t have enough seasoning.

The Lowdown
Let me summarise the detailed description that the owner/manager gave me. The restaurant grinds the meat on demand. After the grinding, the chef takes extreme care to mould the meat with as little manipulation as possible—too much handling spoils the purity of the meat. The chef carefully selects the blend of beef cuts based on meat flavouring and intensity.

I understand the theory behind the method but I don’t think I buy it. The chef intentionally leaves the burgers lightly seasoned/spiced (only a little bit of salt and pepper) to preserve the unadulteration of the meat. In every other respect, Cookery took the right steps to make this the perfect burger, but in not using enough spices/herbs, the meat ends up tasting bland. If you take your best cut of beef (and I’ve tasted Kobe), you still need something to accelerate it to the next level. Of course, you don’t want to overwhelm it, but you want to have enough complement to make it perfect.

Unfortunately, Cookery’s hesitation in applying the little additions prevents this from being the perfect burger. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about smothering the burger with catsup or Dijon mustard; I’m talking about just a little bit of spicing to accentuate the beauty of a solid foundation for a burger. At $8.99, you pay more than the average burger, but you get more than the average burger—but it’s not quite the perfect burger.

Promenade Bistro
130-C Provencher Blvd (204) 233-7030
Fax: (204) 231-4869
http://www.360winnipeg.ca/Restaurants/LocalCuisine/PromenadeBistro.html

Claims
The Organic Beef Burger comes with fries.

The Facts
The basic Organic Beef Burger costs $8.50 but you can add either cheese or bacon at $1.25 each.

The Highs
• The slices of tomatoes and baby lettuce leaves come fresh.

The Lows
• The beef is over-seasoned (too salty) and a bit overcooked.
• The puny slice of processed cheese is lost in the burger.

The Lowdown
I expect fast food restaurants and cheap burger dives to use processed cheese. When I dine in a sit-down restaurant and pay premium prices for a burger, I expect “real” cheese. Especially when the cheese comes at a $1.25 tack-on, I expect more than a 2-square inch piece of processed cheese on the burger. This is a serious shortcoming.

The lettuce leaves come nice and crisp; while the tomato slices come equally fresh, they have little more taste than your typical tomatoes off the grocery shelves. The caramelised onions add a nice facet of flavour but alas, the saltiness of the meat patty drowns out most of the other ingredients. The tiny slices of red onions are completely lost in the concoction.

Muddy Waters Smokehouse
15 Forks Market Rd, (204) 947-6653
http://www.wowhospitality.ca/restaurants/muddywaters_menu.html

Claims
“A half pound of our homemade beef patty grilled to perfection and topped with mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and a pickle spear on the side.”

The Facts
Muddy Waters’s most basic burger runs $10.99.

The Highs
• The freshly formed patty comes perfectly cooked and juicy.
• The vegetables come fresh and crisp; the red onions are a nice alternative to the usual.

The Lows
• I don’t see much wrong with this burger.

The Lowdown
Muddy Waters named this the Holey Burger because of the hole that they piece in the center of the meat patty. They purport that the hole provides extra cooking surface and thus, evenly cooks burger from the outside in, and from the inside out. This reduces the amount of time the burger needs to stay on the grill and maintains the moisture in the meat.

I can’t argue with the juiciness of the meat but I do question the effectiveness of the hole. A small puncture in the burger cannot possibly provide any extra cooking area—after all, this isn’t a doughnut. If anything, I wonder if the hole permits juices to escape. Regardless, Muddy Waters manages to generate a very enjoyable burger.

Rae & Jerry’s
1405 Portage Avenue
(204) 783-6155
fax (204) 783-5797
http://www.raeandjerrys.com/

Claims
None

The Facts
The eight ounce cheeseburger is served on a toasted bun tomato, lettuce, melted cheddar cheese with a dill pickle side. The cheeseburger runs $10.75 while the cheeseless burger goes for $10.25. The works includes mustard and relish; catsup comes on the side.

The Highs
• The very fresh lettuce comes as one whole leaf.
• Plenty of raw onions provide great bite.
• The generous slice of pickle comes on the side, for your choice of inclusion.
• The thick patty must over-tip the 8-ounce scale.
• The lightly toast bun offers just enough crunch in the texture.
• The burger comes with real cheddar cheese.

The Lows
• The meat could use a bit more seasoning.
• Though the extra cheese only adds $0.50 to the price, there isn’t very much cheese.

The Lowdown
The burger comes open-faced, the way it should be, so the vegetables stay cool and crisp. After you put the two sides together, the sandwich is thick enough where you have trouble engaging the entire works.

The patty is cooked perfectly, with just a touch of pink in the very center of the meat. There’s probably not enough pink to give you salmonella but enough to keep the meat very moist and palatable.

Star Conservatory Restaurant
(at Assiniboine Park)
15 Conservatory Drive
Phone: (204) 897-7827
Fax: (204) 897-2087
http://www.stargrill.mb.ca/conservatory.html

Claims
The 100% beef goldenrod burger comes with either salad or Starfries.

The Facts
This burger runs $11.95, plus an extra $2 for mushrooms or $3 for bacon and cheese.

The Highs
• The fries comprise of both yam and potato sticks. Both are hand-cut and not greasy.

The Lows
• The glass bottle of catsup—some traditions have to go and this container should have went a long time ago (this has nothing to do with the burger; it`s just a personal rant).
• The thin beef patty resembles the pre-fab you get at the grocery store, not the handmade, restaurant type.
• The tomato slice looks fresh but there’s no colour (and no flavour).
• The lettuce looks fresh but Star includes the lettuce ribs. The ribs are speckled with brown spots, so even though the leaves look fresh, the presentation makes it appear stale.
• I love red onions, but there’s too much. I shouldn’t tear when I bite into the burger.
• The entire lower bun is covered with pickles—too much and too overpowering.
• The Kaiser bun is extremely thick.

The Lowdown

There’s lots of substance to this burger, but unfortunately, there’s little meat. The thick bread and vegetables fill the stomach void nicely but you barely notice any beef.

THE ANALYSES

As a general rule, I find restaurant burgers out weigh, out class and out price the local burger joints and the chains. Alas, the Star Conservatory Restaurant provides an expensive exception. Let’s look at the components:

Best Bun: Kay’s Deli’s cheese and onion Kaiser bun injects wonderful flavours where most buns act only as a container for other ingredients.

Best Sauce: The Underground Café’s lime-dill sauce is innovatively inventive and out-of-this-world daring. If the meathead majority would only try this veggie burger, this may become a common alternative to the regular mayo-based sauces.

Best vegetables: The 529 burger’s slice of tomato simply tastes like I just plucked and sliced it from my own garden. Normally, I prefer raw onions but this subtly sautéed slew has just enough caramelising. The meticulously selected lettuce leaf fits onto the bun perfectly. This assembly of vegetables is a work of art.

Best Patty: Seared perfectly on the outside with a touch of pink on the inside, 529’s patty comes as close to perfection as you can expect from a hamburger.

Best Burger: Here’s how they stack up:

As you can see, I found 529 Wellington to make the best burger in the city; however, they also charged the most for their sandwich. Breaking down the value, where can you go to get the best burger for your buck? The final column in the table shows you how much it costs to earn one star rating, the lower the amount, the better value for your burger--to wit, the burger at the top of the table gives you best value, and the burger at the bottom of the table gives you the worst value for your buck.

Restaurant Review: Bailey's Restaurant

2011-05-03T16:10:00.001-05:00

Bailey’s Restaurant
185 Lombard Ave
Tel: (204) 944.1180
Fax: (204) 944.0449
Email: feedback@baileysprimedining.com
http://www.baileysprimedining.com/

April, 2011

As much as possible, I try to pay multiple visits to restaurants prior to publishing a review, especially if my review is less than favourable. I always try to give benefits of doubts and not rate poorly unless it’s absolutely deserving. Many of the places I visit are mom and pop establishments. If Earl’s loses a few customers, no big deal, but if a small eatery loses income, it could spell doom. However, as much as I want to give a restaurant a fair shake, I also want diners to get the best for their buck. If a restaurant consistently gives bad food or service, I don’t want people to waste their time and money visiting.

Bailey’s Restaurant entrenched itself in the Exchange District 40 years ago and has been a business/theatre crowd fixture since. I visited Bailey’s seven times in recent past and each time, I searched for something good to say about it—I finally found a couple of things:

1. The bacon and cheese burger tasted pretty good; and
2. The bartender did his best to serve me well.

The sirloin burger is a generous-sized sandwich made from deliciously fresh vegetables, a thick patty of beef, and a neatly toasted bun. Although the patty is slightly overcooked, the nice combination of sauces re-injects moisture into the sandwich. The burger comes with your choice of fries, a cup of soup, or a side salad.

The salad of mixed greens comes with a variety of the usual dressings, including the house specialty, a raspberry vinaigrette. I love raspberries but the sickly-sweet dressing doesn’t show much of its vinegar side; instead if reeks of raspberry jam. The delicate taste of the greens are completely lost in this sweet mess of goo.

Bailey’s seafood chowder tastes almost as sweet, and not in the good sense of sweet. A great seafood soup derives its sweetness from the wonderful meats, shells and bones of the sea. You taste the essence of the ocean in great chowders but this one tastes obviously sugared for sweetness. The sparse little shrimps swimming in the cream add nice texture but the main ingredient of the soup is pollock. I love pollock, honestly, but it’s not crab—and everyone knows it. You won’t find many people who’ll be fooled by this obvious attempt at imitating crab chowder. The soup also claims to have clams and scallops but I’m hard-pressed to find either snapping around.

My visit today comes over the lunch break. Downtown restaurants recognise the need for most diners to dine and depart from lunch within the span of an hour. Today’s soup took over 40 minutes to arrive at my table and the burger took over 50 minutes to come. I certainly don’t expect ladling a bowl of soup to take almost ¾ of an hour to prepare and no burger should take 50 minutes to slap together. I’m certain today’s bartender feels bad about the delay as his prompt attentiveness is much appreciated.

I can’t say the same about past service I received from Bailey’s. At best, I received sporadic service from Bailey, including downright bad service from a rude, derisive and condescending server with a parlour trick of tipping the glass with the bottle while he pours the beer. Imagine yourself as a customer getting your hand slapped out of the way because of a parlour trick.

Back to the food, here are some of the substandard fares that Bailey’s put across my table in the past:

• Cardboard-thin and terribly well done (ordered blue) New York steaks;
• Dried and overcooked racks of lamb;
• Paper-like veal in veal scaloppini;
• Pasta with chicken in a tasteless white sauce.

I don’t mean to be overly harsh but I have never walked out of this restaurant with a satisfactory experience. Bailey’s has been an institution for four decades and I can’t understand how they stay in business. With all the exceptional establishments in this city, I can find better almost anywhere else.

0/5

Restaurant Review: Cafe Savour

2011-04-04T17:33:00.001-05:00

Café Savour
956 St. Mary’s Rd
Tel: (204) 254-4681
Email: cafesavour@shaw.ca
http://www.cafesavour.com/

April, 2011

Dinner served Thursday – Saturday from 5:30 pm, last seating at 8:00 pm

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED

With the most limited menu in Winnipeg, Lulu’s only offered four mains and daily special. If you want your menu to be a tome, and you want to take your time scouring through a hundred selections, Lulu’s definitely wasn’t for you—but if you want down to earth good food, Lulu’s was the place. They didn’t offer much but what they offered was out of this world. It’s not a bad credo to only serve a small selection, but make what you serve the best. Then Lulu’s closed her doors and I was afraid that owners Louise Briskie de Beer and Faiz de Beer finally called it a career and retired.

I later found out the Louise (Lulu) and Faiz took a sabbatical to travel and bring new ideas back to the menu. Their travels brought influences from across the world, including New Orleans, where I found some of the greatest foods on the face of this earth. Returning to Winnipeg, they revamped the menu and changed the name of the restaurant. Welcome to Café Savour.

The décor changed little; the walls still glow lime green and the occasional mounted photograph adorns the sparse setting. A small refrigerated case shows off the desserts and beverage selections. Savour offers an adequate selection of wines and a fair assortment of local microbrewed beers, including the Half Pints and the Fort Garry lines. No one would call the ambiance elegant, and some may even call it obnoxious—but we’re not here for the view, we’re here for the food.

The new menu offers a $35 prix-fix selection of soup or salad, an appetiser, a main and a dessert to finish. Salad choices include garden, Greek or Caesar and you have no choice on the soup—the daily special is what you get. Chef Lulu offers five appetisers and four mains, plus a special from which to choose. Dessert also comes from a selection of four options.

All meals start with the Amuse Bouche, literally translated to mean “amusing the mouth,” although the understood usage is pre-appetiser. In actuality, the amuse bouche is the bread starter, which comes with thin slices of pumpkin oatmeal and whole wheat bread, soft, fresh and delicious. The dip is a simple olive oil and balsamic combination with bits of red onion—simple but delicious.

The simple garden salad comes with lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, with a tangy, creamy dressing on the side. The greens taste fresh from the garden, which isn’t surprising, but the tomato chunks also taste like they came from your garden, which is surprising since it’s Winnipeg in spring.

Today’s soup special is pea soup with ham. Pea makes the primary taste in most pea soups but here, the pea acts like a canvass to hold the smattering of other ingredients. I can’t begin to make out all the ingredients in this complex soup but I definitely discern the sweetness of pumpkin. The smokiness of the ham shreds round out this soup to be the greatest pea soup I ever tasted.

The quiche appetiser comes with two mini quiches; today’s specials include a spinach with cheddar quiche, and an asparagus quiche. Both come wrapped in a crispy phyllo, baked to perfection. My only complaint here is that the quiches are a little too small and I can’t get enough of the taste in the tiny cups of quiche. The South African combo appetiser offers three tidbits:
• Dhaltjie: a pea flour fritter with Indian spices
• Tuna Frikkadel: fish masala flavoured patty
• Beef Samosa Roll: Cape Malay flavour with green peas
The Dhaltjie is a delicately fried fritter that has some lovely flavours through the spices. The frikkadel looks like a little scallop that houses a pleasant punch of tuna. The light breading adds a subtle crispness to this wonderful morsel. The tiny samosa roll looks like a miniature Chinese spring roll and has a wonderfully earthy flavour, wrapped in crunchy, fried pastry. Both the quiche and the South African selections come dressed with a deliciously sweet tamarind sauce. The sauce is quite powerful so a small dip will do—a big dollop would drown out the delicate tastes of the appetisers.

For mains, the denningvleis is a slow roasted lamb shank flavoured with tamarind and cranberries. The wonderfully moist lamb falls off the bone with the slightest poke of the fork, and melts into the perfect blending of sweet and earthy spices. The perfectly cooked basmati rice adds an al dente texture that brings this dish to atmospheric heights. The vegetable side includes simply steamed zucchini slices and cauliflower florets. Although I rarely rave about simple sides, there’s something to these vegetables that set them apart from the usual.

One of my all time favourite foods is genuine, New Orleans jambalaya. You rarely find authentic (or good) Cajun/Creole north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Whenever a Northerner claims to serve a Creole dish, it often means simply adding a pre-mixed Louisiana spice or dashes of Tabasco sauce. If it’s spicy, it’s Creole. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Chef Lulu doesn’t purport to reproduce Louisiana jambalaya; she’s puts a local twist to it. Her Jambalaya Manitoba Style features double-smoked kielbasa, rather than andouille sausage, and pickerel cheeks instead of crawfish. Andouille sausage is absolutely one of my favourite sausages, the kielbasa acts as a nice substitute. As well, one of my favourite overall foods is crawfish; pickerel cheeks is a nice stand-in, but it can never replace the pungently pleasant crawfish tails. However, the task here is not to compare Lulu’s jambalaya with Crescent City jambalaya, and as its own entity, this jambalaya is a wonderful, Northern rendition of the Southern staple. The pickerel cheeks sit atop the rice dish, separating itself from the powerful rice, where their delicate tastes could be overwhelmed. The kielbasa is buried deep in the rice, diffusing its smokiness to the rest of the ingredients. The rice itself has an unmistaken Louisiana taste, exemplifying Chef Lulu’s ability to reproduce authentic Creole rice. Magnificent.

Finally, I was not born with a sweet tongue and consequently, I rarely indulge in dessert. My motto is, “if I have room for dessert, I’d rather have another appetiser.” When the cheesecake dessert comes, I can hardly resist this moist and rich finisher.

None of the courses come with an absurd amount of food, which is what you often see in pre-fab, North American restaurants. Even though each course comes with what appears to be a diminutive serving size, by the time I traverse all the courses, I sit satiated. The small serving sizes deceptively turn into a considerable amount of food. The efficient and professional service ensures that you have just enough time between courses when the next serving arrives. Owner Faiz will remember you forever after your visit, so expect to be greeted personally when you return. And return you will, as Café Savour quite simply serves some of the best food in Winnipeg.

***** /5

Restaurant Review: Desperado

2011-04-04T17:29:00.000-05:00

Desperado: Mexican Rest & Bar
570-C Sargent Ave
Tel: (204) 415-2870

March, 2011

Although I’ve never been trained by the CIA nor the Cordon Bleu, and my articles may be little more than the ranting of a ravenous rube, I have a solid food background which started as a babe under the roof of a chef. Through my life, I absorbed tomes of culinary literature and expressed countless hours of practice. Although I’m well versed in many genres of culinary cultures, I admit that my runaway weakness lies in Mexicanood. While thousands of Manitobans flock to Mexico to escape the ice-covered tundra in winter, my experience with Mexico limits to lumbering the streets of Tijuana, rocking back rotgut tequila.

While everyone I know lauds the authentic and maligns the ersatz, I can’t honestly tell you what’s real Mexican and what’s Taco Belled. I don’t know the differences between burritos, enchiladas and tacos—but I know what tastes good and what’s a sham. For this review, you’ll have to put faith in that alone as I certainly don’t have the experience or knowledge to assess Mexican cuisine.

My experience with Mexico sits confined to dilapidated buildings lining busted up roads, television portrays Mexico as a lively and colourful country that bursts with energy and excitement. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between but Desperado certainly shows off its décor in vibrant and vigorous colours. The lively Latino music completes the dynamic dining room.

There isn’t much of a selection in wines so we opt for the homemade sangria. This delicious concoction comes perfectly balanced—not too winey and not too fruity. The Desperado painstakingly cubes the citrus into tiny chunks for maximum interspersing of flavours. Deceptively light, this beverage can leisurely lull you into a lost afternoon of lounging.

We start with taquitos for appetisers. Essentially like little Chinese spring rolls, these fried tortillas taste a little bland on their own, having your choice of beef or chicken exclusively as the stuffing. They come with sour cream, guacamole and salsa as accompaniments in jazzing them up.

I use certain foods as benchmarks against restaurants. For dim sum, I use the shrimp dumplings and for sushi, I use the California rolls as quintessential staples that must be made well. My companion mentions using salsa as the measuring stick for Mexican foods and I can’t think of a better standard. As boring as bottled salsa is, great salsa is equally easy to make. Good salsa starts with large, fresh chunks of tomatoes, fresh herbs and a nice zing from chillies; what you add afterwards makes salsa great. Desperado indeed makes a fine salsa with crisp and zesty vegetables. I’m not sure where you find fresh tomatoes in Winnipeg in spring, but their source yields good products. The guac could use more and larger chunks of avocado, and both can come more generously. We only have a little dish of each and for dippers like us, we prefer bowlfuls of sides.

In continuing my education on Mexican food, I learn that the stuffing essentially remains the same (with some variation) and the naming of the basic foods determines the covering type and cooking method. The burrito comes with a flour tortilla, stuffed with either beef or chicken and refried beans with cheese and scallions. We choose the chicken, which comes darkly seasoned and flavourful, although it’s a little lost in the pungency of the beans. Melted cheese and scallions is a common Mexican finisher and why not—it’s a delicious combination.

The enchilada uses a corn tortilla, and here we try the beef option. The spiced cubes of beef have a nice earthy base, which fit in well with the stuffing standards. Again, the dish tastes more complete with the salsa and the guac. Finally, the taco comes wrapped with a corn tortilla as well, but the stuffings include lettuce and tomatoes. With our tacos, we ask for ground beef instead of cubed beef. Again, the good fundamental ingredients contribute to a good final end product. Any of the meats taste wonderful with any of the wrappers but my favourite is the ground beef in the taco—the extra vegetables add an extra facet of texture.

In the end, I haven’t learned if Desperado’s food is authentic Mexican or Canadianised Mexican, but I did learn that it’s solidly good food and a great way to spend an afternoon. I’ll have another glass of sangria with my taco please.

***½ /5

Restaurant Review: Noodle Express

2011-03-25T11:52:00.002-05:00

Noodle Express
107 – 180 King St
Dynasty Building
Tel: (204) 943-9760
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6495643958#!/group.php?gid=6495643958&v=info
(Facebook entry)

March, 2011

Compared to other North American cities where Chinatowns grow like China itself, Winnipeg’s Chinatown has remained relatively stagnant over the past few decades. A recent spike in immigration boosts ethnic numbers but urban sprawl takes those immigrants away from Winnipeg’s core. Thus, Winnipeg’s Chinatown limits to a few buildings over a decaying city block. Although the area looks rundown, don’t mistake it to be unsafe—the streets bustle with people during business hours and despite the desolated appearance at night, there isn’t an abundance of criminal elements in the area.

The Dynasty Building sits among the smattering of urban outcroppings. One of the grandest structures in the area, Dynasty stands as a pagoda in the heart of Chinatown, complete with an Oriental garden and courtyard. Chinese festivals and special events center here during the outdoor months.

For years, Wings sat on the main floor of the Dynasty Building and acted as a hub for quick and popular “Chinese” food. The City Hall crowd populated Wings and the phrase “I’ll have the special” echoed through the lobby. While the daily special gave you little more than the usual Canadianised slop, the menu/whiteboard offered genuine, authentic Chinese options—including lo mein and congee. During the lunch rush, they only prepared the special and if you wanted something else, you had to wait at least an hour!

Wings shut its wings in 2008 and the present occupant, Noodle Express, takes a completely opposing approach. You can order anything off the extensive menu and they’ll get you out the door in plenty of time to return to the office. If you have any doubt about the authenticity of the foods, have a look at the dim sum and the regular menus.

In addition, they have a special board where three of the four offerings include chicken feet, duck and eel.

On a more common note, the keep-warm counter has vegetarian fried noodles (chow mein), fried rice, spring rolls, a vegetable combo (broccoli and cauliflower), chicken balls and barbecued chicken. Even though they want to promote the authentic, I guess they still have to recognise their bread and butter. A four-item combo from the vegetarian options goes for only $4.99 and the inclusion of meat brings it to $6.99 – an unbeatable deal. You leave immediately with the counter items while they bring the menu items to your table in short order.

The fried noodles don’t offer much out of the ordinary but you should avoid the fried rice. The entire complement of my rice portion consisted of a blend of dried rice and crusty rice. Two possible factors contribute to crusty rice: too much time under a heat lamp or bottom-of-the-pan burning. Since the hectic business here precludes a lot of time under the lamps, I safely assume that this rice has been scraped off the bottom of the pan (which I normally reserve for the garburator). The thin springrolls taste a little greasy but otherwise, entirely palatable.

Off the dim sum menu, the beef balls come pre-sliced in little wedges. Normally, beef balls taste sharp and slightly tart from either vinegar or Chinese rice wine. These taste a little bland but not unpleasant. The shark’s fin dumpling is a pan-fried wrapping of usually pork with some vegetable (like chives). The Express includes black fungus, of which I’m not a huge fan (but that’s a matter of personal taste). The staple shrimp dumplings (har gow) come with whole shrimps, steamed just to doneness. With the growing popularity of shrimp dumplings, this dish is quickly becoming a ubiquitous item but that means that you also find a lot of bad shrimp dumplings. The Express serves good—really good shrimp dumplings.

As I almost always do, I recommend that you stay away from the counter foods and go straight for the dim sum menu. Happy hour starts at 2 pm if you want a break, and Noodle Express opens to 8 pm to accommodate an early dinner. The cramped and austere dining room doesn’t do a lot for extravagance and the seating area is small, so if you’re a noon nosher, you better get in the doors early before they fill up.

**** /5

(for the dim sum)

Restaurant Review: Hermanos

2011-03-25T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hermanos Restaurant and Wine Bar
179 Bannatyne Avenue
Tel: (204) 947-5434
Email: info@hermanos.ca
http://www.hermanos.ca/

March, 2011

For years, Gilroy’s sat in the middle of the Exchange District and threatened guests with a garlic assault and bad breath for the rest of the day. I love pasta and I love garlic even more. I put garlic in almost everything I make and it never fails to improve the taste. That leaves me with the question: how could I have hated everything I tried at Gilroy’s?

Unsurprisingly, Gilroy’s failed and A Taste of Sri Lanka occupied the space next. Sri Lankan cuisine reminded me very much of Indian cuisine; unfortunately, this restaurant offered no choice but to dine off the buffet, which sunburned all of its contents—contents which didn’t have much flavour to begin with. Along came Hermanos, which focuses on the exotic tastes of South America. The dark wood and brick atmosphere, combined with the Latino-inspired photographs adorning the walls, throw you into a yearning for Brazilian beef. So far, Hermanos sees success that neither of its predecessors could hope to achieve.

The first time I visited Hermanos, I tried the unlikely combination of crab and black bean stew, which spelled disaster in my mind. Black beans have a pungent and powerful taste that I expected to overwhelm the delicate crab. Hermanos happily proved me wrong and provided me with a ridiculous dish that had no earthly reason to taste so good—yet there it was. The only disaster lies in that Hermanos no longer offers this dish.

The lunch menu tempts you with a wide variety of goodies but the paella from the dinner menu almost jumps off the page, begging for me to try it. Alas, dinner doesn’t commence until 5 pm. Back to the lunch menu, a recurring theme implants the idea in my head that I must have something with black beans. I start with the Corn, Black Bean and Sausage Chowder. This clear soup boasts generous chunks of a dense sausage, with a consistency similar to smokies. The soup also bounds generously with vegetables, especially carrots—possibly too generously if you’re not a veg-head. As well, I taste a bit too much vinegar, making the soup a tad tart and acidic. While the soup teems with various ingredients, it lacks in black beans, which I expect to form the backbone of the broth. Pity. The dense side bread ideally sops up the leftover liquids; however, this isn’t the kind of soup where I would painstakingly mop up every last drop.

Hermanos follows the fad formula of having attractive 20-something servers in shortish skirts. Half the time, the formula yields flirty bar-babe bimbos but my server is quick, efficient and properly friendly. She suggests the Chivito as the most popular and palate-pleasing lunch serving. Who am I to argue?

I expect kettle chips to come fragile, crisp and crunchy but most of the chips come damp and some taste almost soggy. Skip the chips as the gargantuan sandwich should dominate your attention. Get ready for the ingredient list: provolone cheese, thick slices of beef, ham, bacon, boiled egg, romaine lettuce, hot peppers, and olives, all enveloped in slabs of bun. The mile-high monstrosity is much too thick to negotiate so I end up mangling the sandwich with knife and fork. I would love to try the entire combination of ingredients for the holistic impression of the product but unfortunately, I end up tasting the components discretely. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts but I can’t eat the whole so I can only describe the parts to you.

Beef with white cheese is a classic combination which originally attracted me to this dish, and as expected, the hefty slices of beef deliver a definite, pungent punch. This alone could have been the basis for a beautiful sandwich but the abundance of assorted other meats clouds the clarity of the beef. Firstly, there is too much ham and the associated salt content dominates the dish. Secondly, I believe that bacon complements almost everything and it always adds a welcome dimension. However, adding bacon to this sandwich’s already salt-laden stack can push your hypertension over the top. Reiterating, as a whole, the vegetables could have eased the saline content but as components, the fragmented ingredients taste polarised. If you can manage to distend your jaw and eat the sandwich whole, you might think about sticking a few slices of the kettle chips between the buns to add a facet of texture. For me, the last thing I want to do is make this sandwich even thicker!

Reading back on this review, I sound rather harsh about Hermanos’s food, and I don’t mean to be. My previous visits here left me with stratospheric expectations and I’m a little disappointed they didn’t meet those expectations. That isn’t to say that the food is not good—it’s great. I just expected it to be exceptional and it’s not quite there on this visit. Don’t let that stop you from visiting Hermanos. Add in the wine menu featuring a wide variety of South American wines and you’re assured a good afternoon or evening.

**** /5

Flavourful Grilled (BBQ) Corn on the Cob

2011-03-07T20:29:00.003-06:00

Grilled Corn: Cooking Tips

Looking outside, I understand that outdoor cooking still lies months in the future; however, the hankering for grilled foods grows stronger by the day. Whenever I refer to barbecuing (grilling – see note below), most people think right away of meat, especially steak. As most people know, your grill can handle a lot more than just t-bones. Since you already have the grill fired up and the flames flickering, why not put your sides onto the iron too?

The most common method of grilling corn comes complete with tin foil and sometimes husks. Many people do things because “that’s the way it’s always been done,” often without even knowing it. Instead of doing something because that’s the way it’s done, let’s step back and think about why. Why do people wrap their corn in foil before throwing them on the top level of their grill? Same with potatoes.

Before we answer that question, let’s take another step back and find out why grilled meats taste so much better than meats pan-fried on the element. On the stovetop, you apply heat directly to the meat and the smoke evaporates harmlessly up and through your vents. High heat caramelises your meat to give it flavour. When you throw your meats onto the grill, the actual grill bars provide direct heat but the spaces between the bars allow the flames to touch your meats. The flames and iron bars caramelise your meats but you have the added bonus of having the fats drip down into the fire. As the fat hits the coals or heat shield, it gives off a burst of flavourful smoke. This smoke rises past your grilling meat and essentially smokes your foods. The smokiness adds the extra dimension to grilling.

What happens to the corn when you wrap them in foil?

Right, nothing! The foil prevents any drippings from hitting the flames and also shields the corn from getting any of the smoke. If you leave the husks on, you add another level of shielding between your corn and the smoke. Essentially, you only steam the corn. As the foil heats, the wrap creates a humid atmosphere which steams the kernels. There’s nothing wrong with steamed corn, but it’s certainly not grilled corn.

To properly grill corn, you must first shuck the corn (strip the husk). Make sure you pull all strings off the corn as well; these strings will char and leave a burnt taste. Now you can coat your corn with a layer of butter or oil (I like using olive oil for an extra dimension, or corn oil works fine as well). Now that your corn is greased up, seasonings will adhere to the kernels nicely. Use whatever seasonings you like. I find seasoned salt a simple but delicious seasoning. I stick with seasonings or spices; herbs will easily burn in high heat. Place your corn directly on the grill and allow the grease to drip into the flames. Watch the corn and slowly turn them so that all sides of the cob see the flames. When your light yellow kernels turn deep, golden yellow, your kernels are cooked and ready to be turned. Some people prefer a little more colour to their corn and leaving them until they turn brown before turning, which is perfectly fine. If you want to let them cook to black, that’s all right too—then you have blackened corn. If you blacken your corn, make sure you remove them as soon as they blacken, or you end up with burnt corn. Outside of Louisiana, most cooks don’t know the difference between blackened and burnt, but cooking on your own, you have all the control.

Finally, after you rotate your corn thoroughly, they are ready to eat. At this point, I put them on the second level of the grill to stay warm. Now I grill my meats. The smoke from the meats must travel through the corn, thus adding another level of smokiness. Before serving, you can add extra butter, although I don’t find it necessary.

Note: As northerners, we refer to most outdoor cooking as barbecuing. Southerners call foods cooked on the grill as “grilling” and “barbecuing” refers to slow-cooking in a smoker. To be correct, what we just made is “grilled corn.” Barbecued corn is a whole other article.

Happy Grilling!

Wine: The True Panacea - A Commentary

2011-03-05T13:32:00.004-06:00

I love wine.

How many things on this earth taste good, are good for you and have “good” side effects? For a long time, I thought about writing an article about all the goodness associated with wine. While I love all wines (excepting perhaps the tasteless white zinfandels), red wine purportedly holds the most healthful benefits. As I begin to write this article, I am reminded of an insightful article that my friend Mo Razik, Proprietor of Fenton’s Wine Merchants at The Forks, wrote back in 1999. Although the article is over 10 years old, the information in it still has relevance today. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I reproduce key excerpts from Mo’s article for your enjoyment.

Based on all available research data, it has now been concluded that individuals who consume red wine regularly and in moderate amounts have fewer heart attacks than those who don’t drink at all. Although the “scientific research” is relatively new, the “conventional wisdom” through the ages has been that moderate intake of wine is consistent with long healthy life. Louis Pasteur said, “Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages,” [and] Plato remarked, “No thing more excellent or more valuable than wine was ever granted to mankind by God.”

Although epidemiologists, scientists who study the causes of diseases and ways of preventing them, have known for many years that a moderate amount of red wine seems to be protective against coronary heart disease, the North American red wine mania was not unleashed until late 1991…Morley Safer of the television news show 60 Minutes shocked the North American public when he told the viewers about what has been known as the “French Paradox”: the fact that French people have low rates of coronary heart disease despite a high fat diet and many other risk factors such as smoking and a total lack of aerobic exercise. Interviewing the two leading researchers on the topic…the facts unfolded that in spite of the high-fat diet, the high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the French outlive North Americans and suffer from 40% fewer heart attacks.

How do they do it?

• They are regular consumers of healthy amounts of red wine with their meals.
• They eat more fresh fruit and vegetables.
• The Mediterranean diet base[s] heavily on wheat, olive oil, more fish than red meat, and more cheese but less whole milk.
• They take longer to eat and snack less.

Of these numerous hypotheses, the one that has received the most scientific support points to the fact that the French consume large amounts of alcohol on a regular basis, particularly in the form of red wine.

To understand the role of red wine in preventing heart disease, let me first simplify the conditions associated with heart trouble. Atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis [corrected] is the gradual “silting up” of arteries that occurs so commonly in Western civilisations and can often lead to heart attack. Coagulation or clotting of blood within the arteries contribute[s] to the second factor in heart attacks: thrombosis. It is usually a blood clot plugging up a narrowed artery that precipitates a heart attack (number one killer in North America) or stroke (number three killer in North America).

Is it “wine consumption” or “alcohol consumption” in general that acts as a preventative?

Studies showed that wine consumption has a higher correlation than alcohol consumption with the prevention of heart disease. However, there was a concern that other lifestyle factors associated with wine consumption influenced the results.

The latest research however suggests that alcohol in any form affects the blood fats—it increases HDL cholesterol, the “good cholesterol” that lowers the risk of heart disease, and it tends to slightly decrease the LDL cholesterol, the “bad cholesterol” that is the major contributing factor to atherosclerosis.

But alcohol also favourably affects the coagulation. We know that alcohol, especially red wine, will decrease the stickiness of blood platelets, which form clumps that lead to blood clots. Researchers are rapidly accumulating new data that indicates that many biologically active substances (other than alcohol) in red wine—tannins, phenols, resveratrol, and quercetin are powerful antioxidants which reduce blood clotting….studies on dogs and humans have shown that similar amounts of white wine or other types of alcohol do not have the same effect.

What is “moderate consumption?”

The levels of drinking at which wine lowers death rates are still open to dispute. Researchers defined this as low as one drink per day or as high as six drinks per day. The new US guidelines indicate that men should not drink more than two drinks per day and women should not drink more than one per day. But the British government has set its limits for sensible drinking to four drinks for men and two to three drinks for women…

As important as the amount of alcohol is, the pattern of drinking is of prime importance. Consumption must be on a “regular” basis. The effects of alcohol on thrombosis are short term; they only last a day or so. The platelets go back to their usual sticky state after that and may even “overcompensate.” Should you follow this lifestyle, it may be worse to go more than a day or so without a drink. Furthermore, wine may be especially beneficial to one’s health if it is consumed with meals. Unfortunately, many North Americans tend to drink nothing all week and then binge on the weekends. In contrast, many Europeans have wine with their meals everyday, so their platelets never show the rebound effect that may relate to an increased risk of heart disease.

Are there red wines that are more suited than others?

Research done in 1998 at the University of Glasgow on 65 different types of red wine suggests that thick skinned red grape varieties such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot yield wines with higher flavonol contents than do thin skinned varieties, such as pinot noir, gamay and sangiovese. Also grapes growing in sunnier climates, such as Chile, had higher flavonol levels than those grown in cooler regions such as Northern France and New Zealand. Surprisingly, other New World regions with similar climates, such as California and Australia, scored considerably lower than Chilean wines as well…

Which other diseases may be prevented by red wines?

One of nature’s most potent cancer fighting compounds, quercetin, has been isolated in red wine. Laboratory tests on mice at Cornell University demonstrated the potential for wine to prevent cancer. Wine has beneficial effects on glucose and insulin level, which may reduce the risk of diabetes, which is also a major contributor to heart attacks. Furthermore, wine was found to increase oestrogen levels in women. The oestrogen tends to lower the risks of osteoporosis and fractures. The French National Health Institute published a recent large-scale epidemiology study that associated moderate wine drinking with a reduced frequency of Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly…

Even though, as Morley Safer put it when he revisited the French Paradox in 1995, “you can’t pick up a paper without reading that this food or that medicine is good for you. Then a few weeks later, they tell you it’s bad for you. Medical science changes its mind almost weekly about what you should or should not be doing. One thing they have not changed their mind[s] about is wine!”

How many physicians in Canada are rewarding the consistent findings of all research by prescribing to their patients “a little wine to lower the risk of heart disease?” Not many! They rather keep asking their patients for what is impractical to achieve, such as to lose 10 to 20 pounds of weight (and keep it off).

Mo goes on to outline reasons why our medical professionals are loath to propound the virtues of regular wine consumption. Reasons include the fears that people will justify excessive and irresponsible drinking. As well, public health officials would look contradictory issuing “just say no” campaigns in conjunction with a “no means just a little everyday” campaigns. Health officials will always lean towards caution.

While visiting France, I asked our tour guide if a drinking age limit exists in France. She said that people don’t usually start drinking until the ripe age of three. At three, they start with a small glass of wine, half diluted with water. By the time they reach school age, they have a full-strength glass with meals. Unfortunately, our North American puritanical minds view alcohol as a sin, an excess of pleasure. What does having an alcohol age limit mean? It means that as soon as you turn legal, you drink until you drop that very day. Thus starts your lifelong journey of weekend binges. People, especially children desire what they cannot have. Because Europeans don’t forbid it, wine isn’t a coveted mystique. While we hammer our “no tolerance” policies, Europeans sip on a glass over lunch. Who’s more civilised?

Cheers!