Food festival in Montreal - Mondial gourmand

http://mondialgourmand.com/

Saturday I went to world food festival in Montreal. The venue is smaller than I imagined (that means I was expecting more exotic food, like Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia, etc. My big disappointment! ), but there are themed live music playing everyday. As the name says, you can find food from all over the world: Jamaica, Brazil, Cuba, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Greek, Italy, etc. Of course, there are variety of drinks, dessert and juices.

As usual, I am always looking for new food to try. For $3 dollars, I bought samples of sausage slices : Deer, boar buffalo, lamb. It is hard to say which one is my favorite, all of them are flavored with herbs or beer, how can that be not tasty?

In Brazil booth, I tried Alligator stew with rice on a tiny plate for $6 (consider I can buy a whole meal for $7 in T.O). I feel really being ripped off but since I am not planning to go to Brazil anytime soon, it is better to try it rather than regret it. The alligator stew taste like beef stew. The stew itself is tasty but the meat is a bit tough. Guess it is a well-aged one.

In Italian booth, I tried fried Zucchini flower. $4 for 2 flowers. The fresh yellow flower looks really pretty. It taste good too but I think the batter is a big old or maybe over fried. It is not really crispy outside. Since this is my first time experience, I have to wait till the next one to make a comparison.

Overall, it is expensive to eat full, even for a small girl like me (but I do have big appetite). There are live music stages with artificial sand beach corner. It is nice sitting under the giant umbrella listening to music, eat and drink all day.

Ilios – Greek restaurant in Montréal

Just a bit south of laurier street and St. Denis street, there is a Greek restaurant called Ilios. While I was waiting for friend coming from far away, I end up in that restaurant alone eating dinner at 6:30 pm Friday night. I have to admit it is not much fun to eat alone in a quiet restaurant.

For $18(before tax) I ordered one of their special menu, which include : Pikilia (various sample of food, see below) and fried calamari.

Pikilia includes:

Tzatziki – yogourt, cucumber & garlic (very refreshing)

Taramosalata – mash potato with carp eggs (it looks orange, maybe because of the carp eggs)

Dolmadadia – wine leaf with rice inside

Eggplant salad –(my new discovery! I love it! Never thought it can be so refreshing)

Skordalia – mash potato, garlic with vinaigrette

The calamari dish only comes with a little calamari, with rice and fried potato on the side. It is good but nothing special. It also comes with Lamb Bean stew with tomato sauce, which it is my first time. The bean is really soft and starchy; the tomato sauce adds a lot of flavor. I am wondering why it is called Lamb Bean?

Donus peach/ Saturn peach

The other day I saw donut peach in the supermarket, I thought it must be one of those American genetic modified mutant fruit. After researching on internet, I am surprised to discover more to the simple peach.

« The University of Florida has released its own variety of the flat peach, called the UFO. This new variety has several advantages over others. For those who want tree ripened fruit this is the one. It is even good for commercial growers because the flesh is firm enough to withstand shipping conditions.

The researchers inserted a gene to create extra-firm flesh into an Australian saucer peach. This resulted in very sweet fruits with extra-firm flesh. The name 'UFO' would seem to describe the shape, but it actually describes the flesh. The scientists are using the UF prefix for all firm-fleshed peaches and nectarines. The UFO peach is specially adapted to the warm, subtropical conditions of Central Florida from Tampa north to Gainesville. »

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fruit_garden/92737

Donuts Peach have white flesh and they say it has better taste than other peach varieties. It is very interesting in the link below, they mentioned this peach originated from china. I have never seen it when I was in China.

“Old-time Chinese orchardists treated peaches with such reverence that they could be planted only within the royal precincts of the emperor. Their peaches were classified in one of two ways: golden (yellow flesh) or silver (white flesh). To the tribe of rare silver peaches belongs the mouthwatering peento (originally pan tao), the intensely flavored and odd-shaped peach we now know in the United States as the ‘Saturn’ peach.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2006-10-01/Saturn-Peaches.aspx

One of the most famous Chinese tale is money king. The money king stole peach (Pan Tao) in the garden of sky queen and got punished. I thought that was just ordinary peach. Today I learned it is Saturn Peach.

You can read about top 10 reasons to try donut peach

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2006-10-01/Top-10-Reasons-to-Try-a-Donut-Peach.aspx

Now I know the story behind the donut, I have to try it!!!

Segovia – the fine food of Spain

Thanks to tomes dad, we discovered a really nice Spanish restaurant. It is located at 5 St Nicholas street in downtown Toronto.

www.segovia.ca

The restaurant is strongly decorated with Spanish flavor, high contract color theme, interesting empty wine bottles, bull-fighting paintings, Spanish china and guns on the wall, etc, which all show slices of the Spanish history.

As for food, they have both main dish and tapas. We ordered tapas so that we can try more varies. Starting with seafood soap, it is a small portion, but full of real good stuff: fish, shrimp, etc. that is a real seafood soup should taste like. You can even taste chef’s love in the dish.

Our second dish is monk fish with saffron flower. I am so surprised the monk fish is very tender and buttery. I can’t really taste the flavor of saffron flower though. I do know it is very important spice in Spanish cooking and very expensive. If you want to read about it : http://www.indianetzone.com/1/saffron_flower.htm

The third dish is quail. Besides it is tasty, I have no extra thing to say about it. As for paella, it is full of goodies, but the taste is ordinary. I won’t say that is the best one in the restaurant. The flank dessert is not too sweet, nice and fluffy. I love the beautiful red color, I guess it is a raspberry sauce.

Oh, did I mention that their sangria is really tasty too!!

Overall, I love the place and food. At Friday they have performance such as Spanish singers. The price is not too expensive. With all the tapas and 2 glasses of sangria, it costs us less than $80 before tax

Chinese Pie- Pâté chinois

Chinese do not cook pie traditionally. When i first heard of that name, it
was 2007 in montreal. One of my colleage Nicola mentioned it to me and it
purked my interests. (Pâté chinois as a french canadian dish, sound weird, isn't it? ).
But if you know the history of the dish, then you will understand.

Pâté chinois is made of layered ground beef, diced onion, topped with
canned corn for middle layer and mash potato on the top. All ingredient
are found easily and cheap in Canada during the building of north american
railroads in 19th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pie

i did not have opportunity to try it until this year 2008 august in
piedmont, quebec. One of my colleage's wife cooked it for me as a
surprise. I really appreciated it ! it tastes nothing like chinese food,
but i love very layer of it. it is such a confi food. The name itself is
more interesting than the actual taste. I am so happy i tried it finally.

Korean Pork Bone Soup

I know I only been away from home for 2 weeks, I already missed Korean Pork Bone
soup. As the convience of living close to little Korean town, I go to Korean
restaurant often in Toronto.

The Korean restaurent I often go to is called KA Chi. It has two locations, one is
in little Korean, the other is in Kensington market. For less than $8, pork bone
soup comes with a bowl of rice and other free small dishes. When it is cooked right,
I love the pork so tender that falling off the bone. The meat is juicy and soaked in
mild spicy soup. Sometimes it comes with potatos, sometimes don’t . But it always
topped with sprouts.

I am so addicated to the pork bone soup, but not the rice. I don,t know what kind of
rice they are using, but it is always too much water and sticky. Maybe it is a
Korean style? I am not sure.

The restaurant is often packed with young Koreans and Chineses. One reason is
because they are cheap food. The raised price a little bit after the expension, but
it is still very good price.

Even I tried to cook it at home with all the Korean ingredients, it just not taste
like in the restaurent. I hope they do not use MSG in the stew, or it will break my
heart.

Seaweed

Seaweed is not really in North American’s daily diet. Staying in Toronto
for many years, I started to miss some of my favorite food: seaweed is one
of them.

In China, kelp (large type of seaweed) is commonly used in the soup or
hotpot. When I was a child, my mom always makes sure that I eat enough
seaweed. She said it is healthy, but can’t really explain the scientific
reasons. If you are interested, to read more:
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/seaweed.htm
http://www.naturalnews.com/006586.html

It is amazing Japanese and Koreans find many ways of using seaweed in
daily diet. There are various types of seaweed, mainly Kombu (large
seaweed), Wakame (often in miso soup or as salads) and Nori (thin dried
seaweed sheets).
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2310.html

My favorite Wakame(generic name) is Kukikame (stem seaweed). Wakame salad
is easily found in Japanese restaurant in Toronto. However they never
specify what kind of Wakame they are serving ( I bet most of them have no
idea either). If I am lucky, I will get Kukikame, it is almost like thin
noodles with various green shades. (See Pic1)

I also love Japanese Aonoli (thin seaseed). My friend Saoli bought it for
me from one of Japanese store at Finch Ave (See Pic2). In Manpuku
restaurant (see last month’s blog) put Aonoli on top of octopus YaKi and I
really love the special flavor. I put little bit on rice as topping.