Lex Culinaria

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse

In case you missed my review of Ruth's Chris steakhouse on Edmonton AM last week, here's the link. And here's a heck of a lot more detail about our experience there.

I wasn't really expecting great things from a chain restaurant. Especially one from the States. I mean. This is the country that gave us Chili's. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.

The décor was well done and complete in a way that most restaurants (with a few notable exceptions) in Edmonton are not. It still felt a little "chainy" to me, but overall the dining room and the lounge have a sort of dark wood, gentlemen's club appeal, but without the lingering cigar smoke. Plus, women are allowed in.

I felt a little bad showing up for dinner on the opening night, knowing I was going to be reviewing them, and I was prepared to give them a little slack on things because of it, but they really didn't need too much slack.

They did manage to lose our reservation though, and we had to sit in the lounge, which is much more "gentleman's club-y" than the dining room. The lounge is not at all an unpleasant place to eat dinner, unfortunately we were seated at the singularly most horrible table. It's tucked away in the far back corner and is about 2 feet from a roaring fireplace which cause the side of my husband's face to turn red red after about 5 minutes, and 2 feet away on the other side from the waitress station at which there was a perpetual cluster of no less than 5 staff and noisy dishwasher. We eventually asked to be moved, but the waitress made it seem like it would be quite an ordeal for her. Mind you, she couldn't have been a day over 20, so perhaps she had not yet learnt the finer points of serving in a restaurant with main courses well over the $50 mark. 

The beverage menu is impressive, particularly the wine list. It's great to see a decent restaurant in Edmonton offering a range of great wines by the glass instead of forcing everyone to buy a whole bottle if they want something other than the crappy house wine. You can still buy good wines by the bottle if you want, you just don't have to.

A word of caution before we get to the menu and our meal choices. This restaurant, and its food, grew out of the culinary traditions of New Orleans. And some darn fine culinary traditions those are. One of those traditions, especially noticeable in the food at Ruth's Chris, is a deep and abiding love, nay reverence, for heavy cream and butter. Picture in your mind, the butteriest, creamiest meal you have ever had in your life, and then quadruple the amount of butter and cream involved. You might be getting close to the kind of butter usage I'm talking about here. Then again you might not be anywhere near it.

If you're a lover of rich food, go crazy. If you'd rather not consume the better part of a pound of butter in different guises throughout the course of your meal, heed my advice. You can, successfully dine at Ruth's Chris without eating buckets of butter and cream, but you need to make the right choices to do so. Don't get me wrong, the food it great, it's just that, if you hope to leave with the same size ass you went in with, you might have to plan your meal choices a little better than we did.

The starters range from about $15 to north of $20, depending on your choice. The two we ordered were prepared beautifully and were extremely tasty, but were also very heavy on the cream and butter. I had the New Orleans barbecued shrimp ($17) which, unless you're familiar with that particular dish from New Orleans, will surprise you. It's not barbecued the way you are thinking. It is broiled in a seasoned butter and white wine sauce. Don't worry. That's how it's supposed to be. And believe me, it is out of this world. If you order this you'll notice how the waiter discretely brings you a little spoon. It's because the sauce is that good. I have always had a soft spot for New Orleans barbecued shrimp, ever since I learnt how to make it (and subsequently ate a lot of it) in New Orleans. Ruth's Chris version absolutely kicks the ass of any I have had so far, even my own. But be warned. It is very, very buttery, so, if you're going to have this for a starter, I would recommend ordering your steak sans butter and having a salad for a side instead of one of the many creamy, buttery rich side dishes.

Cakes had the Oysters Rockefeller, which were also great, but heavy on the rich as well and very large and filling.

For a main course, I had the smallest steak on offer: An 8-ounce petit fillet for $39. It was positively beautiful. Tender, and perfectly cooked. And it should be! Ruth's Chris doesn't use regular old cooking apparatus for their steaks, but a custom made thingamajig (Apparently the founder, Ruth Fertel was an extremely accomplished scientist) that cooks the meat at 1800F!! Apparently this thingamajig (it is too a technical culinary term) is calibrated so that each steak for each order will cook in exactly the same amount of time taking into account that they may be different cuts, weights and requirements for doneness. I think that's pretty special.

Whatever you do, don't touch your plate! The 500F your plate is heated to may seem barely warm in light of the temperature at which the steak was cooked, but I assure you it is plenty hot to singe your fingers! The plate is served to you hot in order to keep your steak hot through the meal. Another brilliant idea. There's nothing worse than taking your time to enjoy your meal only to find it's gotten unpleasantly cold by the time you get to the end. I did find that the extra heat made the last few mouthfuls a touch more cooked than I would have liked, but as I'm a rare steak kind of girl, I can deal with that.

I thought my fillet steak was great, but that's the cut I usually prefer. A fillet steak is known for its tenderness more so than its flavour, so if flavour is what you're after, I'd try the Cowboy Ribeye. We didn't try it but it won hands down according to the diners at the next table and it looked gorgeous, if startlingly huge.

Another word to the wise about the steaks, which range in size from 8 to 24 ounces: They all come served positively swimming in sizzling butter. You can ask for no butter (which I would recommend), or extra butter if you want, although I have a hard time understanding how anyone could possibly need more butter unless they are planning on taking it home to make a dozen pies for Christmas. My steak was sitting in a pool of at least 1/3 cup of butter and the flavour rather overpowered the delicate flavour of the fillet.

I wondered what Ruth's Chris would do to appease the angry mob who complained (before the restaurant opened) that it served only USDA beef, which you can imagine is a cardinal sin in a city like Edmonton where 90% of the vehicles on the road sport "I Heart Alberta Beef" stickers. As a nod in the direction of these peculiarly Albertan sensibilities, amongst the many USDA cuts of beef offered, there is one Alberta beef selection. The menu invites diners to order both and make the comparison. A risky proposition in these parts. I've got to say, I didn't think the USDA beef was any different from Alberta beef I've had around town. I am, however, slightly offended by the prospect of shipping meat for so long a distance where there is a fresh and ample supply right here. It seems a waste of resources really and not very responsible to the local economy or the environment.

Cakes had the stuffed chicken. Of course I tried some - that's been part of the deal ever since we got married! I have never tasted chicken so flavourful and tender at the same time. It was absolutely perfect. The large breast, with leg attached, comes stuffed with the perfect amount of savoury cheese and herbs. I am not exaggerating when I say I've never had a tastier piece of chicken- with gorgeous crispy brown skin and the tender-moist interior that the chicken. I suspect it was heavily basted with butter. Even if it wasn't it, like the steak, came in a sea of butter, which wasn't necessary at all.

Because the main courses at Ruth's Chris are a la carte, you must order your side dishes separately at $8 each. This adds up when you consider the average steak there runs between $45 and $50. There are eight to ten potato selections and a similar number of vegetable selections. Each dish would probably serve four people, but we ordered two between us. We decided to go with the selections marked as the Ruth's Chris specialties: Scalloped potatoes and creamed spinach. They were both good, but way too creamy and cheesy and buttery (the potatoes were positively swimming in a cream sauce and topped with a half inch of solid melted cheese!), especially on top of everything else. I really do recommend that you try to choose one of the lighter sides, or a salad if you'd prefer not to be uncomfortable by the end of the meal.

We were feeling so full and unpleasantly gorged by the end of the meal that neither of us wanted desert, which is like saying hell has indeed frozen over. But, we rallied long enough to take one for the team. I had the crème brulee and Cakes had the bread pudding. They were both excellent, if basic, examples of their respective genres. The bread pudding was exactly as I remember the bread pudding I learnt to make in New Orleans, right down to the delightfully boozy sauce. And the crème brulee, which must have been made with 40% milk fat cream, was wonderfully textured and beautifully paired with tart berries. But at the end of this particular meal it was just far too much. Next time I'd probably try the sorbet instead. That is if I had room.

The final bill was pretty pricey - just shy of $200 for three courses including tip, but without any wine.  This is a restaurant worth trying, but I'd save it for special occasions when you've saved up enough dollars and weight watchers points to justify it! It would make an ideal restaurant for entertaining clients or celebrating special occasions, but it's probably not an everyday sort of place.

Give it a whirl, and tell me what you think.

Le Dizzy Makes you Busy

So you've been wondering where I have been?

Montreal.

I spent the last week or so wandering around the streets of the Plateau in Montreal shopping and eating and drinking. And eating. And I loved it. This mini vacation was all about the food - because honestly, any vacation I take is all about the food.

We ate in several great little (mostly ethnic) restaurants amd the variety was positively stunning. We had Tibetan food at a little hole in the wall near our B&B, the most amazing organic spelt croissants (and the stellar not-so-wholesome white flour ones too) from a fantastic bakery on Laurier Street, unbelieveable Basque tapas meal. But I think my favourite meal was Le Dizzy.

We had our Sunday night supper at a local Iranian restaurant, Byblos, just down the street from our friend's flat.

We ordered Le Dizzy, which is Byblos' version of the traditional Persian dish Aab-goosht-e Lappeh. It's a divine meal, but also a form of high entertainment as the propritor goes to great lengths to show you how to eat le Dizzy.

You are given a beautiful, but empty, clay soup bowl and a gorgeous clay jug filled with a fragrant, steaming lamb and bean stew. You are also presented with a bowl of soft pitas and a bowl of toasted pitas, a plate of mint leaves, onion and baby greens as well as a large wooden pestle (or is it a mortar? - it's the handle/musher thingie, not the bowl thingie).

You use your soup spoon to hold back the meat in the clay jug and pour the gorgeous thick broth into your bowl. You crumble over some of the toasted pitas and fight back the urge to bring the whole bowl up to your lips to drink it in. You should use a spoon instead. It lasts longer. And no one stares.

Whaen you are finished your soup, you use the pestle (mortar?) to pound the meat and vegetables into a smooth paste. You eat flavourful rich paste on small pieces of soft pita, topped with mint leaves, onion and greens. Divine!

The proprietor kept us amused all night with his assessment of our technique and his genuine concern over whether we enjoyed it or not. Our enthusiasm must have been well received as we were rewarded with several desserts on the house! He brought us a gorgeous warm chocolate tart and some homemade ice creams: blueberry and apricot and a warm rice pudding type dish made from ground buckwheat. We topped it all off with some traditional Persian tea.

The best part, aside from the food and the charming service, was that the staff were totally content to let us just sit and enjoy each other's company for as long as we wanted after we were finished - until bedtime actually - without complaint. It was definitely one of the best evenings out I have had in a very long time. I can't wait to go back next time we're in Montreal.

In the meantime, I've found several recipes for Aab-goosht on the internet, and am looking forward to making this delightful meal at home.

When you're next in Montreal, you positively must try Byblos on a Sunday night (that's the night they serve Le Dizzy although it is runored that you can get it other nights even tho9ugh it's not on the menu).

Wild Tangerine Mobile Cusine

Main Floor, Manulife Place

Okay. So I have been putting off writing this review since…oh, I don't know, April? May? And I keep writing and rewriting it in my head to see if it comes out any differently. But now it's more than half way through July and I can not avoid it any longer.

I don't like Wild Tangerine Mobile Cuisine.

At all.

There.

I said it.

As you know, I love Wild Tangerine (the original). Unfortunately Judy and Wilson Wu have totally missed the mark on the new store. Wild Tangerine Mobile Cuisine is all about marketing and commoditization of lifestyle - sadly, it's apparent that good food didn't really factor into many of the business choices they made in forging ahead with Wild Tangerine Mobile Cuisine (WTMC).

Wilson and Judy appear to have, without much thought at all, jumped on the "good food to-go for busy professionals" bandwagon that is currently careening out of control in North America. Even in Edmonton "portable food" is all the rage, with "make-a-meal" type venues (some good, some not so good) and fancy-schmancy takeaway ventures (think Soul Soup in Rice Howard Way or Culina's TV Dinners") are popping up everywhere! And with good reason, because, let's face it we Albertans have even less time than your average schmo as the economy here is a frigging juggernaut. Witness my lack of blogging for the last several weeks! Sheesh. I could use a vacation….But I digress.

Wild Tangerine Mobile Cuisine is all about the "Concept" and not about the food. The menu's not great and they appear to have no actual cooking facilities other than a toaster and a couple of convection microwaves, which - ugh. Have you ever tried spring rolls cooked in a convection microwave? Trust me. Nothing good can come of it. Maybe that's because they took over a retail space with a great location but which was not set up with the proper vent system to operate a restaurant with...oh, I don't know…maybe some stoves? And oven?  Like I said: WTMC is all about the Concept (Great location! Great décor!), not about the food (micro waved spring rolls = unnaturally, unpleasantly chewy and tasteless).

Wait. Did I walk in to the salon by mistake? Nope. I guess not. In addition to the misguided comestibles WTMC sells (for Pete's sake!) hand cream and other "aromatherapy lifestyle products".

Even without the poncy hand cream, WTMC suffers from what, in my view is a common and fatal flaw of restaurants (especially in Edmonton) - It doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it an ice cream parlour? Is it a b-grade "Asian-inspired" fast food place? Is it a frozen soup store (seriously folks - there's like 3 stand up freezers full of frozen soup!) Is it an overpriced salad bar (8$ for a salad I could buy in a bag at Safeway and a couple microwaved spring rolls? Really?)? Is it an Aveda Concept Store? Is it a bulk granola shop?

The décor is great, but that's about all that's great. The product selection is arbitrary at best and totally misguided at worst. Food clearly plays second or even fourth fiddle to "Concept"  and "Attitude" and "Flashy". Which, I don't know about you, but I generally go to a restaurant for the food, not the "Concept" or the "Flashy".

If I were you, I'd head straight to Sunterra in Commerce Place or one of the restaurants in Rice Howard Way rather than head to WTMC because, as any Albertan might say, WTMC is "Big hat, no cattle".

Rating: Food - 2/7 stars, Service - 4/7 stars, Decor - 6/7 stars

Wild Earth Bakery and Coffee

(On 99 Street just down from the IGA)

It seemed like the "experienced baker wanted" sign hung in the window of the un-opened Wild Earth Bakery for ages. Apparently Norm Joly, Wild Earth's owner was waiting for the right baker. Seems he found what he was looking for.

Wild Earth opened last week and from all appearances on the Sunday morning Cakes and I visited, things were all running smoothly. The place was positively packed. As I've often said, Edmonton lacks enough good coffee/cafe type places where you can pop in on a weekend morning, read a paper, have a decent coffee and just chill. I'm glad to say that Wild Earth fits the bill perfectly. And I guess that shouldn't be a huge surprise, as Norm is not a stranger to the food business in Edmonton: he owns the IGA on 99th Street, just a few doors down from bakery.

Cakes and I both had a latte, which was good by Edmonton standards but not necessarily world standards. Maybe I'm just clinging too furiously to memories of coffes in Melbourne...where even cheap lattes from dodgy corner stores have a beautiful crema around the edge of the milk froth and a much deeper, richer taste...

But I digress.

Cakes and I had worked up quite an appetite as we'd gone for an hour-long stroll through Mill Creek Ravine. He ordered and devoured a feta & dill scone (which I sampled of course) and it was fan-bloody-tastic. I had an apple and cranberry muffin which was loaded with fruit, moist and not overly sweet, in a word - muffin perfection.

We also cleverly (or not so cleverly if you take into account the calories...) purchased a selection of the six other items pictured above for sampling at our leisure at home. I was astounded that the six items cost us only around $8. What a bargain!

My favourite of the six was definitely the raspberry danish. Not too sweet, beutifully creamy custard cream and the pastry was flaky but still very moist. Cakes favourite (surprise!) was the apple strudel which was incredibly apple-y and again not overly sweet.

We didn't really like the trail-mix cookie, which was quite cake-y and dry. I definitely prefer my cookies chewy and moist. The filling in the mixed berry tart was way too sweet for my liking - like jam with sugar added - it was, however, packed with intense berry flavour. Pastry was nice and moist but there was way too much of it. with the result that, it looked like a tartlet but tasted rather alot like a thick slab of pastry topped with a dollop of oversweet jam. I probably won't be buying that one again.

If there is a continuum at one end of which is a cupcake and at the other is a an oat bran muffin of the sort my mother used to make when she was dieting, I'd have to say The blueberry and lemon muffin is very, very close to the cupcake end - very close to a sweet white vanilla cake with some fruit in it. Which is great if you're a cupcake rather than muffin person, but I think I'd prefer my muffins to taste a bit less like dessert if I'm eating them for breakfast! I have to maintain at least some illusions for myself. I suspect that the apple cranberry muffin I loved and the blueberry/lemon one I didn't were probably made with the same batter. I just think the tart and plentiful fruit in the apple and cranberry one overcame the sweet cakey-batter better than did the blueberry and lemon.

The cheese stick was very cheesy, but perhaps a bit less than fresh as it was quite hard and tasteless. Probably wouldn't buy that again either.

All in all, not a bad showing for having been open only a handful of days. Drop in, say hi to Norm and grab a raspberry danish and a feta and dill scone and some coffee and just hang out for a while.

If first impressions are anything to go on, Norm and his "experienced baker" need to do a bit of corrective work oin some of the recipes, but if they do get it right, they'll be around for a while.

The Red Ox Inn

9420 91 Street, Edmonton Alberta 780.465.5727

Last Wednesday, the staff at the Red Ox Inn were baffled I'm sure. For a tiny establishment - it only seats 25 or 30 people - there were an unbelievable amount of birthday sparklers required. Between 6:30 and 8:30, there were 5 couples celebrating 5 birthdays and 1 anniversary! Greedy individuals that Cakes and I are, we contributed one of the birthdays (mine!) and the anniversary. We had a great laugh with our fellow dining companions about the endless procession of sparklers. And everyone there is your fellow dining companion, owing to the tininess of the dining room. Normally, I would be a bit put off by that, by the prospect of such intimacy with total strangers while dining, but at the Red Ox, it's a perfectly collegial and homey experience. Besides, it gave me a great chance to perv at other people's plates.

The decor is understated and really well thought out in a way that most Edmonton restaurants, even some of the good ones, are not. Its crisp clean white walls are lined, almost on all sides, with gorgeous black leather banquettes. All this is, of course, only apparent once you've done your homework and secured a reservation, because tables in this joint go fast and if you turn up without a reservation, even on a Wednesday night, you probably won't get a seat.

The menu is lovely and succinct. Not too few choices, not too many. It gave me a sense of confidence in the chef's abilities to see that he was not trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, as is so often the case. Edmonton restauranteurs seem, from time to time, to forget that they do not need to produce 25 main dishes to find one that appeals to everyone, and are far better served carefully selecting a few that they do really well...and then spending the time perfecting them. Red Ox appears to have avoided this fault quite handily.

Cakes and I both had a hard time choosing. Everything on the menu sounded so good. Although we tend not to order starters in addition to mains, we couldn't help it once we saw the menu. Cakes had the grilled scallops, chive infused herb salad with carrot butter sauce and crisp potato chips. What appeared on his plate were five perfectly seared and brown scallops in just the right amount of sauce and some interesting accoutrements. He ate them so fast I didn't get a chance to try any, so you'll have to take his word for it that they were marvellous. I chose the warm goats cheese salad with cranberries and almonds. It was certainly delicious, if not necessarily challenging, with a generous round of breaded and fried goats cheese perched on top of baby spinach and topped with a great tangy port dressing.

For the main course, Cakes had the Marinated duck breast with Moroccan carrot sauce, house gnocchi, spaghetti squash gratin (again) and zesty caponata which came presented in a nifty looking, but not really ergonomically designed bowl which was a bit difficult to eat out of gracefully. The sides were lovely - particularly the caponata (a kind of salsa), which appeared to have some black olive in it. The gnocchi looked home made and the duck was gorgeous, although medium rare, which is apparently the thing to do with duck these days, although I must admit it still makes me a little nervous.

I had the saddle of rabbit stuffed with wild mushrooms on top of spaetzle and with a confusing side of edamame beans mixed with green beans and a couple of cooked carrots. All the veggies were cooked perfectly, but I thought the combination a bit odd and perhaps it suffered a little from the most deplorable (in my book anyway) condition I commonly refer to as "doesn't know quite what it wants to be". The rabbit was good, although my favourite part of it was the sauce and the mushroom stuffing. I was hoping for something a little more spectacular quite frankly, and the rabbit, although physically interesting, was not overly exciting in the taste or texture departments and perhaps a little dry.

Our dessert was definitely the highlight of the meal. We had the warm chocolate cake to share and the chocolarte sauce used was clearly made of little morte than melted chocolate and cream - which is the only way chocolate sauce should be made in my opinion. None of this Hershey's Syrup for me. Or for the Red Ox Inn, it would seem.

In all our bill for two starters, two mains, one desert and a half carafe of reasonably good shiraz was in the neighbourhood of $115, which is not outrageous. I don't think I'd go there palnning to spend as much again as it's not worth $115 in my opinion, but I'd certainly go there for a main and shared dessert - which would have run us more like $70. Will we go back again? Probably, but more for the atmosphere and stellar service than the food. Don't get me wrong. The food is quite good by Edmonton standards, and perhaps we didn't choose the right things to order, but it just wasn't quite as good as I'd been lead to believe by all the raves I've heard about it. It does have the aspect of a place run by people who love food - which is the chief requirement in a good restaurant - but maybe they need to shake up their game a little....

Rating:

Food - 5 stars, Service - 6 stars, Decor - 6 stars

Hours:

Open Tuesday - Saturday from 5 pm

Payment:

Credit cards, interac, cash

Atmosphere:

trendy casual

Cusine type:

ecclectic, homey modern

Price:

$125 for two courses for two with drinks and tip

Ratings Key:

1 Star - Horrific in every way
2 Stars - Simply awful
3 Stars - Average on a good day
4 Stars - Better than average, but only just
5 Stars - Pretty good, I’d go back
6 Stars - Yum, give me more!
7 Stars - Exceptional. outstanding. bliss

PS: Don't forget about the summer BBQ challenge - It's up at the end of next week so get cooking and get your entries in! As an added incentive, there will be a random prize (BBQ themed) for the entry that my cat Fitzroy likes the best. I'm going to print out all the recipes, lay them on the floor in a circle and put Fitzy in the middle. The first recipe he sniffs will win the prize. How's that for a contest!

Tasting notes from my breakfast table

The labour of love is finally producing fruit. I've been compiling notes on assorted breakfasts I've eaten in restaurants around Edmonton over the last few months. It's taken me a while to find a few reliably good breakfast spots around town, but I have now.  If you click on the link below, you'll get access to my excel spreadsheet with all my comments on the decor, service and food at a number of Edmonton breakfast spots. I'll bet you're surprised about which ones I like and which I don't.

I've included information about what we ordered and how many times we went. The fewer times we have visited, the more room there is for error. If we've only visited a place once, we recognize that some of the things we didn't like may have been due to a bad day or some other one-time thing, so bear that in mind.

I'll try to update the spreadsheet from time to time as we try new things and new places. When I do, I'll put a note about the update somewhere visible on my blog.

Happy breakfasting... Just in time for the weekend too!

Click here to

Download edmonton_brekkie_table.xls

Salt Spring Island Cheese

On our autumn vacation, Cakes and I visited the Salt Spring Island Cheese farm. They herd their own goats and have a small dairy/cheese plant on site, with a capacity of 450 litre per day, which is quite a small amount of cheese. There are windows in all sides of the cheesemaking room so you can get a good look at what's going on. The cheesemakers didn't seem all that interested in a chat, so we had to make do speaking to the woman at the counter who diodn't know much about the cheese at all, having only worked there 3 days!

Despite that, we tasted some yummy cheeses. Rather than produce a large variety of cheeses, they seem to stick to three sorts: soft chevre, a goats milk camembert and a semi-hard white mold cheese.

I really do love the way goats cheese is so white in comparison to cows or sheeps milk cheese, it just looks creamier and pure-er, and more striking. A goats milk camembert always look more inviting to me than a cows milk one. It looks pristine.

Although they also produce a sheeps milk feta, the best feature of their cheese is in what they do to the chevre. It's all packaged attractively in little clear cylinders with assorted herbs and spices pressed into the top of the cheese - we especially liked the garlic and rosemary. The sample you see above lasted about 24 hours at our house. We ate it perched on top of thick slabs of toasted French bread with a sprinkle of sea salt and pepper and, maybe, a slice of tomato. It really didn't need much at all. I probably would have eaten it with a spoon given half a chance.

We've been eating the mild white-mould semi-hard cheese (pictured behind the chevre) sliced thickly on a toasted multigrain bread and it is perfect. It's quite mild and not nearly as goat-y as some I have had, but it's only about 6 weeks old so maybe it'll et goatier given a bit of time. I reckon it'd make the perfect melted cheese sandwich.

If you'd like to know more about the guy who makes the cheese, read this great article.

On Hollandaise and Sauce that is most definitely NOT Hollandaise.

I love breakfasts out with my husband on a weekend. He (invariably) has pancakes. I invariably have eggs. Most probably I will order some sort of egg with Hollandaise dish. In the last 6 or 7 years since I truly started dining out for weekend breakfasts, I have eaten probably litres and litres of Hollandaise sauce. I have discovered, during this time that there is good Hollandaise, there is great Hollandaise, there is crappy Hollandaise, and then there is sauce that is not Hollandaise at all. This last kind has a tendency also to be vile beyond belief.

This morning, for the second time in a month, I was served the latter kind. At the highly recommended Friends & Neighbours Cafe on Whyte Avenue.  The first offender was the Route 99 Diner on 99 Street.

This morning, I ordered the delightful sounding "Eggs Benedict - with a white wine Hollandaise". I could not believe it when I was presented with the exact same sick orange-looking, onion powder smelling, cornstarch-thickened-milk-looking sauce covering otherwise perfectly poached eggs.

Bearing in mind that this is the second Edmonton restaurant to do this to me in a month I was shocked. I thought, as I stared uncertainly at the gloop on my plate, "surely this is not the exact same crap as I was served at Route 99?" Sadly, it was. It tasted exactly the same as the stuff at Route 99 Diner.

While the staff at Route 99 Diner at least admitted that the crap they served came from a box ("Of course this is Hollandaise, It says so right on the box!"), the staff at Friends & Neighbours Cafe up swore and down that this sauce was not made from powder that came out of a box labelled (terribly misleadingly) "Hollandaise Sauce". They swore it was home made. I swear to you now that it was not. It could not have been. And, moreover, it had never, ever in its short, putrid life, seen even a hint of egg yolk, butter or lemon.

Restaurants of Edmonton, hear me now! Please do not advertise as Hollandaise sauce something that is most definitely not Hollandaise sauce. Advertise it as whatever you want : "Mock eggs Benedict with gross orange crud on top"...whatever. Just. Don't. Call. It. Hollandaise. For the love of God and all things good in this world!!!

For those Edmonton restaurateurs who seem to think that sauce is Hollandaise just because that's what it says on the box, here's the time-tested recipe that I have always used. Try it. Please.if you'd rather try another - just search "Hollandaise" on Epicurious.com. Seriously.

• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Dash of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 3/4 cup hot melted (unsalted) butter
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Melt butter and set aside. Combine all other ingredients (except lemon juice) into blender and while blending add butter in a slow steady stream and continue to blend until thickened, about 30 seconds. Add lemon juice in a thin stream and then turn off blender. If you need to reheat this or thicken it further do so in a metal bowl over simmering water, whisking constantly.

For good Eggs Benedict and the best Hollandaise I've had in Edmonton so far (other than the stuff made at home) try Rick & Alice's Grill on 109 Street in a little strip mall off 72nd Ave (across the street from The Soup Stone).

Wild Tangerine: cucina domestica

10383 112 Street Phone 780.429.3131

The other day over lunch, someone asked me what my favourite Edmonton restaurant was. I said I hadn't found it yet. Well now I have. Although to be fair, I have not visited many of the restaurants recommended to me so far.

Brother and sister team, Judy and Wilson Wu have managed to achieve what no other restaurant in Edmonton has: a perfect balance of outstanding food, well-thought and executed decor, stellar ambiance and knowledgeable, courteous staff.

All these elements came together for us on the night we visited.

We were greeted at the door by Wilson, who showed us through the gorgeous, east-meets west dining room, past dark wood panels to a table by the brown and grey Mosaic tiled back wall.  The dark tables were set with tangerine, raspberry and lime coloured napkins (too bad they were paper) and little jugs of chopsticks. Unlike almost every Edmonton restaurant I've been in so far, the design of Wild Tangerine was complete from top to bottom. Nothing in the decor left me with a sense that it was lacking something or was unfinished. All the other restuarants I have visited, where an effort was made at design at all, there was clear evidence that the restaurant owners got to a point (well) short of completion of the decor and said, "That'll do."

Wilson sat down with a lady who had come in behind us. She was dining alone and when Wilson sat down I thought it was because they were old friends. They were chatting so animatedly and seemed to be having a grand time. It wasn't until he paid our table a visit that I realized he didn't know her any better than he knew us! He was simply being his effusive (if somewhat quirky) self. How delightful.

He asked whether we were enjoying our drinks and it was a pleasure to say that we were. Immensely. Cakes had the Ginger Comfort ($6). A fabulously crisp, refreshing and slick concoction of jasmine green tea, ginger syrup and gin over crushed ice and fresh mint leaves. I filed that away in my head. I can see that drink getting copied at our house a fair bit this summer.

I had Wilson's new addition to the menu: the Wild Vespa ($7). A dreamy, smooth blend of mango and vodka with a slight bitter edge to it.

We settled on three small dishes to share, plus mains. It was too much food, despite the fact that the Wu clan's portions are far more sensible than the usual bigger-is-better North American standard. I think I'm going to have to start inviting more people out for dinner with us when I'm reviewing a restaurant as there never seems to be enough stomach space between the two of us to eat everything I want to taste. Never was that truer than at Wild Tangerine. Everything on the menu looked spectacular and I just did not want to stop eating.

We couldn't pass up the shrimp lollipops ($7 for three, $9.50 for four), which everyone recommended. We ordered four, rather than the standard three, so we wouldn't have to argue over who got the extra one. It's a good thing we did. otherwise it may have come to blows. They arrived upright in a little white cup: these frizzy masses on a stick, they reminded me of Julie Racz. Julie had enormous frizzy blond hair and used to sit in front of me in ninth grade English class. It was like sitting behind a great golden cloud. These shrimp were skewered on bamboo and then wrapped with angel hair phyllo and deep fried until golden. They were served with an exquisite wasabi yogurt. Divine, but the messiest thing in the world to eat. When you bite into them, the tiny little pastry strands go shooting all over the place. I was very thankful that Cakes and I are married. He is legally obliged to go home with me at the end of the night even though he's just seen me with strings of pastry stuck to my lips, all down my front and scattered across the table. They look spectacular, and they taste fine, but were a bit too heavy and fried for my liking. Maybe that's because I was a pig and ate two.

Next Cakes and I shared the egg rolls with sour plum sauce ($6). They were a gorgeous chewy-soft blend of rice, shitake mushroom pieces and hot red pepper wrapped in soft spring roll wrappers thankfully not deep fried. The wrappers retained their lovely soft, spongy texture and the flavour of the exotic mushroom infused the sticky rice. The spicy plum sauce was the perfect counterpoint to the delicate mushroom flavour.

Cakes and I fought over the last piece.

Next up was the rainbow noodle cake ($4) - a fried disc of wiggly Chinese noodles beautifully crisp on the outside and soft and warm, but still chewy on the inside.  It held its shape and even stood up to slicing into smaller portions for sharing. The noodle cake was delicately flavoured with Italian spices including oregano and basil. Perfect. Simple.

Our mains were no less impressive. Cakes had the Lemon chicken breast stuffed with red dates, ricotta and spinach ($15). It was very lemony and had a spicy bite to it thanks to the black basil seeds scattered throughout the sauce. The stuffing was divine and the chicken was very moist. Despite the strength of the lemon, the chicken flavour still shone through. Cakes really liked the strong lemon taste, but I think I would have preffered that it be toned down a bit.

My main was the winner. This in itself is notable. If you have read a number of my reviews, or you know me and Cakes personally, you'll know it always seems that Cakes gets the better meal. Not this time. My Siao Hseng Wine Slow-cooked Ardrossan Bison Short Ribs  ($20) were outstanding. The meat was fall-off-the-bone tender and the jus, which seeped into the sesame sushi rice below, was rich and dark and full-bodied beyond my wildest dreams. It had sweet tobacco undertones and the kind of rich tang a sauce only gets having been slow cooked with plenty of wine. I think I may actually have moaned out loud.  Coincidentally, the bison for Wilson and Judy's short ribs comes from the very same farm that Ian and I visited last weekend and from whom we bought some amazingly tender bison t-bones. Next time we go out to pick up bison, we'll be getting some short ribs!

We had to call it quits before we could get to desert though, so no review of the sweeties. I guess that'll give us an excuse to go back soon... not that we needed another reason.

Rating: Food - 6 stars, Service - 5 stars, Decor - 6 stars

Hours: Open 11:30-10:00 M-Th, 11:30-11:30 F, 5:00-11:30 Sat, closed Sun.

Payment: Credit cards, interac, cash

Atmosphere: trendy casual

Cusine type: Asian fusion

Price: $70-80 for two with drinks and tip

Ratings Key:
1 Star - Horrific in every way
2 Stars - Simply awful
3 Stars - Average on a good day
4 Stars - Better than average, but only just
5 Stars - Pretty good, I’d go back
6 Stars - Yum, give me more!
7 Stars - Exceptional. outstanding. bliss

La Tapa

10523 - 99 Avenue NW, Edmonton, AB  T5K 0E7 tel: (780) 424-8272 fax: 424-0897

I love tapas. Can I say that again? I LOVE tapas. Because of this deep and abiding love for tapas, I was very excited to finally have a chance to visit La Tapa with a good friend last week. A few months ago I attended a function catered by La Tapa and the few items I had were quite good. So I was pretty excited about this trip. Everyone I had talked to about La Tapa told me fantastic things about it. I thought it would be a good bet for a good meal with a good friend. Unfortunately, the only 'good' thing about it was the patio (lovely!) and the white wine sangria ($13 half and $21 full carafe) which is stellar.

Before you read the rest of this review, bear in mind that, very early on in the evening, the server noticed me taking notes and asked whether I was writing a review. I said yes.

Okay. Now that you know they were aware I was writing a review and that they still served me what they did...you may now proceed.

My companion and I decided to forgo the entrees and mains, including some nice looking paella ( we gawked at what was being served at the table next to us). We settled instead on several selections of tapas - traditional small Spanish dishes for sharing.  Unfortunately, none of them were particularly Spanish and none of them were particularly good.

Let me preface the rest of this review by saying that, given the large selection of tapas, I would normally be inclined to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt by wondering whether we had picked the wrong ones, but all the items we picked were specifically recommended by our server as popular and excellent. I can't see why. I should have been prepared for what was coming, when I asked the server whether the ham used in the croquetas was jamon. She didn't know what jamon was. I had to explain that jamon is a Spanish ham similar to Italian parma ham. She said, no, she though is was just "regular ham like in a sandwich". Oh dear.

Each of the tapas dishes we chose ranged from $6 to $8, except the olives, which were cheaper. The dishes were delivered in Tapas style, which is to say, not all at the same time, but one by one, seemingly randomly.

we were first served the Ensalada a la Mancha -  described as a salad of tomatoes, artichokes and red Spanish onion in balsamic vinaigrette, which sounded delightful. I think it's always a wise move to order a salad dish when eating tapas, as so many of the tapas are rich or fried. Unfortunately this was a pretty sad salad, and so I really didn't want to eat it t all. The tomatoes looked like they had never seen the sun. There are simply tonnes of gorgeous tomatoes available from the hot houses of BC at the moment - for less than three dollars a pound you can get beautiful, rosy red, plump, juicy tomatoes. So you can imagine, when I spied the sad, barely pink flavourless wedges, I immediately felt like La Tapa did not care at all about the sort of food it served me. If they did, they would not have served those tomatoes. They also would have provided more than the single token artichoke wedge, which my friend and I had to fight over!

After the salad came the croquetas - deep fried, barrel-shaped potato cakes, which ostensibly contained chicken. I couldn't bring myself to order the croquetas containing "regular ham,  like in a sandwich". They held their barrel shape pretty well, which I found surprising as they were mushy beyond belief. Oh yeah. And bland.

Next up were the olives - which appeared for all the world to have been fished out of the bottom of a glass bottle from Safeway. They tasted like the olives my grandma used to put in cocktails in the 1970's, when the only kind of olives you could get came from a bottle in Safeway and tasted horrible.

The fourth dish to arrive at our table was the cheese stuffed mushrooms that our server, who wore what was quite possibly the shortest and tightest skirt I have ever seen, said were fantastic and that everyone loved them! They simply took me back to 6th grade, when my sister discovered the company's coming series of cookbooks and incessantly made these horrid stuffed mushroom caps with mayonnaise, grated cheese, powdered onion and dehydrated parsley flakes in the toaster oven. My sister's were better than these. The cheese was chewy and inedible, the mushrooms weepy and bland and sad.

The fifth dish we were served, the Gambas a la Plancha, was the highlight of the meal. These were fantastic, shell on grilled shrimp, split down the back (in order to facilitate the removal of the shell) and almost perfectly done. The weren't over cooked by any stretch, but could have used a few seconds less on the grill. Nonetheless, they were quite good. Compared to the rest of the meal, they were outstanding.

We were then served the Fabada con Chorizo (white beans with Chorizo sausage). I love white beans and was telling my dining partner, who had never eaten them before, how rich and creamy and gorgeous they could be if they were done well. These were not. They managed to be both watery and mealy all at the same time. The sauce was bland and the chorizo was nothing like any Chorizo I've ever tasted - in fact it tasted of absolutely nothing.

Lastly, we were served the Patatas Bravas - roasted potatoes with spicy red sauce. I had previously eaten their roasted potatoes in aioli, which were quite good, so the fact that these were awful came as a surprise to me. These potatoes, which I'm sure were crispy at some point in their lives, as evidenced by their browned little outsides, managed only to be limp and tasteless. They were smothered in a spicy red sauce that tasted for all the world like a half and half mixture of Sunspun ketchup and Louisiana pepper sauce. I don't know if that is what the sauce was made of, but whatever it was, it sure as heck came out of a bottle.

We decided that, with 40 minutes to go before our movie (only 2 minutes away), we could probably afford to have a quick dessert, to try to redeem the meal. Unfortunately, the server took so long to return with the dessert menus, that we didn't have time to order desert and were actually late for our movie!

While I think La Tapa would be fine for a carafe or two of white wine sangria on the patio of a summer evening, I won't be going there for tapas again any time soon, and although I want to give them the benefit of the doubt by returning to try their Paella, I just can't see that ever happening.

Payment: Cash, All Major Credit Cards, Debit Card (Interac)

Rating: Food: 2 stars, Service: 2.5 stars, Decor: n/a

Hours: Mon-Fri 11:30am-2pm, 5pm-10pm; Sat 5pm-10pm; Closed Sun

Atmosphere: Great patio for summer

Cuisine Type: Spanish

Price: $60 for tapas for two, including a half carafe of white wine sangriaRatings Key
1 Star - Horrific in every way
2 Stars - Simply awful
3 Stars - Average on a good day
4 Stars - Better than average, but only just
5 Stars - Pretty good, I’d go back
6 Stars - Yum, give me more!
7 Stars - Exceptional. outstanding. bliss