The Week in Yum April 11-17 Road Trip to Montreal Right After Eating At Chris Jerk

You know how you can go eat somewhere that you haven't been for ages and then remember why you used to eat there all the time in the first place? That would be Japango in the Beach for The Kid, right now. After our tasty Easter Sunday dinner last week, we returned for more unagi sushi pizza to end the week.

Chris Jerk

On Saturday, Shack and I were out doing errands and found ourselves peckish in Markham. The first couple of regular haunts were packed so we started to drive south and I frantically searched for somewhere new and tasty to try out between there and home. As he often does, Shack just sort of pulled into a strip mall on Birchmount in Scarborough, got out of the car and started walking towards Chris Jerk. I asked if he had been here before and he said no, but he has heard good things so I followed him into a bright, spotless little place where a full house was waiting patiently for take out orders. The smell, alone, made me very happy that all of our regular noodle houses had been too crowded for us to find a table.

At first, the Jerk Shwarma menu freaked me out but then I thought
"Why not? I am the one who makes Butter Chicken Sopes and Chile Verde Pastitsio, so who am I to judge?"

Well, as it turns out, Jerk Chicken Shwarma is brilliant. You get all the great jerk flavour but wonderful texture of chicken shwarma. We ordered the Jerk Shwarma plate, some jerk shwarma poutine and a chicken soup.

I am very picky about my rice and peas and hate nothing more than being served dried out rice, or rice that was cooked with too much liquid that is fully of mushy clumps but this was not a problem at Chris Jerk. The rice was perfect and the jerk shwarma chicken was moist and full of wonderful flavour (if you are looking for intense heat though, you better ask for some hot sauce). Skip the steamed veggies and opt for the vinegar based coleslaw instead. Next time, Shack will try a wrap but this time, I wanted to really taste the chicken so I made him get the plate and it was more than enough food for us to share.

The poutine was so good that I forgave the sin of grated cheese sitting in for cheese curds. Crispy fries smothered in a delicious, most likely oxtail gravy, gooey, melty cheese and a generous smattering of chicken is a meal in itself.

The soup was so rich and meaty (I even thought it must be beef at the beginning) that I couldn't really eat more than a few spoonfuls but I brought it home and saved it for lunch the next day. It's primarily a take out spot but it does have a few tables lining the side where you can sit down to eat it if you like.

On Monday night, Shack realized that he finally had a few days off and told me to clear my week so we could take off on a little getaway. We spent hours on the internet, scouring for a fun trip that we could take and had almost settled on a 3 day getaway to Austin when I had the fore sight to check the weather. It seems that it was to storm all week long (someone told me there was really bad flooding as well there) so Austin was off. Next up was Charleston, South Carolina and, again, before I got my credit card out I checked the forecast and , what do you know, it was raining there all week as well.

By this time, it was 9pm and I was no longer feeling good about doing laundry, packing and then getting up at the crack of dawn to be at the airport for an international flight so we decided to get up, throw an overnight bag in the car, put the top down and drive east.

Because Tuesday was so warm and lovely, once we were on the highway we just kept going and the next thing we knew, we were in Montreal.

As always, our first stop, after settling into our hotel, was The Dominion Square Tavern  for a couple of their exquisite Pimms Cups and a snack. We ordered a small charcuterie plate and an order of Braised Beef on Mashed Potatoes, had a couple cocktails and settled in.

 On Wednesday, we didn't really want to play total tourist so after a trip to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see the Orientalism Exhibit, we popped on the subway and made our way to Mile End/Little Italy so that Shack could have a big old plate of old school spaghetti and meat sauce at Pizzeria Napoletana . Since we were on holiday, we also grabbed a bottle of chianti to bring along to share.
WHAT??
If you can't drink some chianti with your spaghetti on your mid week holiday, why bother?

A quick coffee at Caffe Italia on St Laurent gave us the strength to get back to the hotel where we napped until it was time for our dinner date with a dear Yvonne and an old friend of hers at Jatoba, a newish restaurant from the guys behind Flyjin and renowned Chef Antonio Park. It's sleek, packed with a sophisticated crowd who can afford to pay top prices for delicious, but small plates of what they are calling Chinese influenced Japanese food. I have some good things to share and some not so good things to share but you will have to stay tuned and read my Montreal restaurant round up of reviews coming in a day or two.

On the way home, we ran into Smoked Meat Pete for a couple of Super Specials where $17- $23 will get you 1 lb of the best smoked beef around, a loaf of rye bread, a giant vat of pickles and another of vinegary coleslaw to go. (prices vary with cold/hot and lean/regular smoked meat)

Pin of the week: Always fun to do some restaurant research before a trip

Instagram of the week: Molly Yeh's feed is guaranteed to make you hungry

Facebook share of the week:

I was part f this robust conversation that my friend, Kelly Light Hines is referring to. It's a good discussion for...
Posted by The Yum Yum Factor on Monday, April 13, 2015

Tweet of the week:  

My love of all things in meatball form #recipeoftheday https://t.co/mOZvXhwC5K
— The Yum Yum Factor (@SMmamashack) April 10, 2015