The Week In Yum July 5-11 Mata, Patois and Fairmount Market and a Drive to Dillons Distillery
It feels like I have missed a year in yum when, in reality, it has only been a couple of weeks. I mean, I had plenty of yum going on but I just wasn't sharing it here, on the blog. If you follow me on instagram, facebook or twitter, I was certainly sharing...
HEY, I GAVE FAIR WARNING TO EVERYONE THAT I WAS GOING TO BE POSTING A SHIT TON OF PHOTOS FROM MY TRIP SO YOU CAN JUST SHUT IT.
Anyhoo, our trip to Portugal was absolutely amazing and we certainly ate lots of delicious things that I will be sharing over the coming weeks but for now, we will just start with the homecoming.
Our good friends, The Hoffelby's, are a mixed couple. Yes, the husband is Canadian and the wife is American. Since we came home on July 4th and we a trio of zombies all day, we went over to their house for a July 5th belated fourth of July dinner. I made these clams to go with their feast of smoked and bbq'd things, beautiful salads, an amazing ice cream cake and lots and lots of vihno verde and french rose. It all ended with a rousing game of beer pong so I think you can probably gauge the climate of the festivities from that alone.
One of my favourite PR companies, The Siren Group, sent me a nice gift package with chips from Neal Brothers and a beer from Great Lakes Brewery so you could say that the beer pong tournament was catered by Vikram Vij, Chuck Hughes and that chilled Winston guy down there. The chips are my kind of chip - both of them have a nice, spicy bite to them although I think Chuck Hugh's sriracha ketchup are the spicier of the two. I will definitely be buying both of these again - I love a good, spicy, savoury, super crunchy chip and the Neal Brothers have managed to hit all of my sweet spots.
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| I am going to make these every day for the rest of my life |
The lovely Mary Luz Mejia had extended an invitation to taste the offerings at a new South American restaurant out at Queen and Roncesvalles before I left for my trip, so I was excited to get right back in the swing of things on Monday. Mata is a petisqueria (shared plate dining) and is helmed by a culinary gang of five, heavy on the Brazilions and the fine dining experience.
I was still a bit jet lagged, running late (well, I wasn't supposed to be running late but I took the route that the TTC advised me to take and it took over 1.5 hrs instead of 51 minutes. Clearly the TTC is unaware of what is going on in the city right now and someone might want to clue them in that there is a road or two being dug up out there).
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| crispy smoked chicken hearts of a cauliflower puree with ancho chili oil |
A cold caipirinha was waiting to greet me the moment I sat down and that was quickly followed by a little bowl with some cheese bread and a lobster pastel. What followed was an array of South American classics fused with more Canadian treats like a beef cheek poutine with cassava frites, a slider with cachaca caramelized onion, a catupiry cheese made in house and malagueta pepper aioli and a ceviche with maple candied sweet potato. Little smoked, crispy chicken hearts were nice and tender and the cauliflower puree that they sat on was really delicious.
Probably attempting to cater to a more Canadian palate, all of the food was surprisingly mild so we all made good use of the trio of pickled hot peppers that we grabbed from the bar. I would like to see them kick up the heat a notch but everything was really fresh and tasty and a nice addition to the west end eateries, especially for the summer.
My personal favourites were the ceviche, the the Picanha slider, the delicious little lobster pastel and the pisco sour, one of my favourite cocktails which really deserves to become the next "thing".
I am going to be super upfront right now and tell you that Patois is not only a new, hot restaurant in the city's west end, but the first restaurant owned and operated by a very good friend, Craig Wong. I know that will make you think that I am just blowing smoke up his ass because I adore him but you would be wrong. If I didn't love his food, I would just give a few tweets in support, give it a polite nod here and move along. When I tell you that he is cranking out one the THE best plates of fried chicken in the city, I mean it.
You might wonder why a Bocuse trained, Frenchly fluent, Heston Blumenthal working, fine dining chef would want to make his very first place a plate sharing, Jamaican Chinese joint that slings his spin on a double down, jerk, akee and saltfish, dirty fried rice and sided with a plate of wakame waldorf salad, right?
This is the food he loves. It's the food he grew up with in his Jamaican Chinese family married with the food he ate growing up in Scarborough, coloured by his travels, filtered through the lens of his culinary training and then spit out onto a plate for us all to enjoy. A full review will soon come but, for now, just go there, order the O.G. Fried Chicken with addictive watermelon pickle with some of that waldorf salad, a cool rum drink and tell Craig I am hungry.
Patois
794 Dundas St W
647 350-8999
5pm til late every day but Tuesday
On Wednesday, a little tweet arrived asking if I wanted to come and have a little tour of the Fairmount Farmer's Market on Upper Gerrard St East, just a block from Coxwell. I am ashamed to admit that I happen to live a 15 minute walk away from this market and have not yet stopped by so there was no way I could refuse such an offer. From the street, it's easy to miss. It's down at the bottom of a long hill that leads to a public school, a wading pool and a community centre and it's possible to drive right by it a hundred times without seeing that something is going on down there but, now that you know, make the effort to look down there.
The onigiri at Abokichi were fresh and tasty and a unique market offering, to me anyway, and I took a trio of them home for The Kid to snack on. I fried up the last one on Friday for his lunch and it was still fresh and tasty and although I do make my own onigiri, these were much nicer than mine and will become a regular purchase to go into his lunch box once he starts summer camp in August. You can find their products all over the place so check out their website for a list.
It's not a big market, but it's a lovely market, with a small group of really great vendors offering their wares, kids splashing around in the wading pool and lots of green space where kids and dogs can play while you shop. You can get some produce, a bit of meat, a coffee, a snack, some ice cream and then a bottle of wine to take home to go with dinner and really, that's all you need. There is also an awesome book swap where you can bring in the stuff you have already read and trade it for something you haven't and they also offer a bike delivery service if your eyes get bigger than your arms and you buy more than you can carry home yourself.
This week, there was a lovely young lady singing and playing her guitar while I strolled around, chatting with some of the vendors like the gentleman from Cedar Hedge Farm who makes the trek in from Cambellcroft Ontario with his fabulous produce. Cedar Hedge has a really interesting approach the CSA that I am going to look into - instead of paying x amount of money for a weekly produce box that comes on a regular basis, you pay a flat rate into your account and then you work down from there. This way, if you don't want a delivery this week, you don't have to get one. If you go on holiday for three weeks, you don't take delivery for that time but if you are having a big week of entertaining, you can get a double order this week. I love that!
The one treat that surprised me the most was the Mnandi pie stand, fronted by the lovely and talented Evis Chirowamhangu. She was inspired by the memory of a monthly treat of a flaky, tender meat pie that her mother would bring home in Zimbabwe on pay day and has finally perfected the treat here in Canada. I will admit, it didn't look like much and I almost passed on it until I was encouraged to get one by a devoted fan. Promising to take it home and heat it up as it was cold, straight from the cooler and their little oven contraption wasn't hot yet, I put it in the fridge and promptly forgot about it until Friday. Along with the onigiri, I popped this in the oven, expecting the worst since puff pastry doesn't always hold up all that well and I was sure it was going to be all soggy but at least I would get the idea.
WRONG!
It was so buttery and flaky and insanely delicious and now I have to get one just so I can eat it fresh because if it was that good two days later, I can't imagine how great it's going to be.
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| Mnandi means delicious in Ndebele, the language spoken in southern Zimbabwe |
You can subscribe to a newsletter called This Week At The Market which will let you know who will be there each week. I now have this market on Wednesday, the East Lynn market on Thursday and the Lesliville market on Sunday, all three within a comfortable walking distance. Hurray!
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| Dino's Pizza in Etobicoke for the drive out to Beamsville to get some gin always hit's the spot |
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| Popped into the distiller for a booze tasting |
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| Two of the last bottles of Cherry Gin from a small batch they made and a bottle of the unfiltered Gin 22 found it's way into the car |
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| I held out til Friday when I had to hop on my bike and pedal out to Caldense Bakery for some Pasteis de Bacalhau and Rissois. Be on the lookout for my first batch of Pasteis coming this week. |
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| the week ended like it started. Sharing a big bowl of buttery garlic clams with friends. |
Pin of the week: I don't even know if i want to drink it as much as gaze upon it
Facebook share of the week:
Tweet of the week:
If there were presses, I'd stop them..
http://t.co/33BKBhrB7w
#gimme via @iamafoodblog pic.twitter.com/ctcfhXnEjY
— HonestlyYUM (@HonestlyYUM) July 9, 2014
