Ottawa Street Food Showcase 2015

On a cool sunny day, the crowds were genuinely excited for the street food season to begin in Ottawa. It kicked off yesterday with many vendors setting up shop at the Marion Dewar Plaza, in front of City Hall. The Street Food Showcase donated a portion of the proceeds to the Ottawa Food Bank. It was a win-win situation, really. Not only did the crowds have a chance to check out all the options, but they were supporting a great cause.

I invite you all to use the SFAOtt (aka Street Food Adventures in Ottawa) hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.



Andrew and I went there earlier than the official start time of noon to beat the crowds.

Street Food Ottawa Adventures: Streat Gourmet and Bap by Raon Kitchen

Ottawa's food truck/stand scene is still young and blossoming. There were 17 food trucks and cart permits that were given out by the city last year. Unfortunately, I've personally only tried a few of them. I've checked out the Street Food App before and seen the options out there, I just need to start planning some outings. I'm hoping to give more of them a try and thought that it would be great if I create a new label for the series. We'll call it the Street Food Adventures in Ottawa (or SFAOtt for short). There will also be a new "street food" label too. I invite you all to use the SFAOtt hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.


Where do I begin? Andrew, our youngest brother, and I planned to go downtown to meet up with Lucy for lunch. Richard was invited by declined to complete our sibling quartet. We arrived early to ensure that we'd have a choice of everything available at the food trucks and stands. We got their a little too early and got hungry, so we tucked into the Olly Fresco's Market inside L'Esplanade for a little appetizer.

Holy! It took every ounce of self discipline not to splurge and buy and eat everything in sight. There were pierogies with sautéed onions and bacon in their buffet pans, a few kinds of soups, lots of sandwiches, and sweets. Everything looked so good. I walked around and took it all in -- the sights I mean. I'll be returning for lunch in the future. Walking around that beautiful place while hungry was a bad mistake. In the end, Andrew and I shared a pastrami sandwich on a toasted sesame seed bagel.




There were a few spots that were burned, but other than that, it was a great snack. It made us feel less antsy. I picked up a few desserts for later too. There's a date square, a red berries square (I say it's raspberry, someone else said it was strawberry rhubarb, so we'll just generalize and call it red berries), and a piece of carrot cake.


After our snack, I went to get some cash on Sparks Street, while Andrew went to pick up some dolla drinks at McD. I had planned to grab some lobster mac and cheese from the Ad Mare food truck, but by the time I returned from the bank, they were sold out. My fault. Andrew and I met back up at the Streat Gourmet food truck on O'Connor and Albert.

Based on what I've read and seen first hand, Streat Gourmet's menu changes daily. The chef, Ben Baird, is constantly tweaking and experimenting to cater to more people. I admire him for that. It takes guts but he clearly knows what he's doing. Despite not having a regular dish on the menu, he's always keeping it interesting. Some of the main offerings in the past have included things like peameal bacon sandwiches, tacos, tandoori salmon burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and soups. Dessert options he's offered has been things like butterscotch pudding with bananas, graham crumbs, Streat cinnamon buns, cookies, donuts, and rhubarb upside down cake with whipped cream. Lots of variety.


When we arrived, they had the roast beef with potato roesti, horseradish gravy, with a salad of spinach and carrot ribbons. Andrew wanted to grab something else, so we continued to walk.


We met up with Lucy at the Bap by Raon Kitchen stand on Bank Street (between Albert and Slater). As their name suggests, they serve a Korean mixed rice (could be a mix with other grains too) dish called bibimbap.


For the protein choices, they offer tofu, beef bulgogi, spicy pork or spicy chicken. You choose to have all the toppings like egg, veggies and kimchi, or you can adjust it to your taste by telling them to leave stuff out.


Once they finish making your bibimbap, you can personalize your bowl furthermore by adding some toasted sesame seeds, sesame oil, soy sauce, and gochujang (aka Korean red pepper paste or Korean spicy sauce, as it says on the label). I'm not sure if other people like having to dress their meals themselves, but we love it because then we can adjust it to our taste.

If you aren't familiar with seasoning your bibimbap, I recommend using only a few drops of sesame oil, a few swirls of the gochujang, and a few shakes of sesame seeds. Soy sauce isn't necessary, in my opinion.


There was a bit of a line but it was moving steadily. Lucy went with the tofu bibimbap, while Andrew took the beef bulgogi route. We took our lunches and retreated indoors to a nearby food court to enjoy.

My lunch from the Streat Gourmet food truck was still warm when we began to eat. The tender slices of roast beef sat on top of the potato roesti, which was a potato pancake, was quite enjoyable. As a gravy snob who loves gravy made with pan drippings and fond (the sticky caramelized stuff left on a tray after baking), I was disappointed with the gravy. I couldn't taste the horseradish at all. The gravy, which was packed in a small cup, also had a slight sweetness. I kept going back to it throughout the lunch because I tried to like it. In the end, I left the rest of the gravy alone. The final element of the lunch was the spinach and carrot ribbon salad. The salad was crunchy and the simple vinaigrette cut through the heavy flavours really well. Despite the gravy letdown, lunch was great. Other than the gravy, I finished everything -- before Lucy and Andrew even finished eating -- which is unheard of! (I'm the slowest eater of the family.)

Andrew dressed his bibimbap with all the toppings. Once he mixed everything and tucked into his lunch, he mentioned that he would've loved to add less soy sauce and more gochujang if he could redo it. Lucy used everything but the soy sauce and happily devoured her bowl of bibimbap, with the help of the Streat salad.

It's only the second season for a lot of the food trucks/stands, so they're still working out the kinks. Even if there are bumps along the way, I'll try to support them. You should too. Go Ottawa!

~*~

Addresses:

Olly Fresco's (Located inside L'Esplanade Laurier Building)
181 Bank Street
613-596-3860

Leftover Lunch - Korean food

In the last part of summer and early fall, we were on something of a Korean food phase, and it seemed like every other meal we made had some Korean ingredients incorporated into it. We bought a very large container of kimchi from Arum Korean Market on Bank Street, so this encouraged us to make other Korean dishes. The lunch above comprised of leftover soondubu jjigae (soft tofu stew) from the previous night's dinner.

 

As you can see, there is a fair bit of kimchi in it, so I'm not sure if it actually qualifies as a soondubu jjigae or if it is more of a kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew). Regardless, it turned out to be one of the best Korean stews I've ever made, since I finally made the effort to buy dried anchovies to make a proper broth. For this lunch, I heated up the leftover soup and added some Shin Ramyun instant noodles -- without the seasoning packets -- to bulk it up a little.

 

As a side dish, since I was apparently feeling quite fancy that day, I also made a kimchi omelette. I was a little overzealous and added too much chopped kimchi, so the omelette fell apart somewhat in the pan. It was still pretty delicious for a quick leftover lunch.

 Now that I am taking the time to come home for lunch, I have even more incentive to cook dinner. Great dinners typically turn out to be the best lunches on the next day. Now the challenge is to keep this habit up and continue posting about homemade food!

Kongnamul Muchim, Seasoned Soy Bean Sprouts

On a rainy Saturday night, we decided to throw together a comforting meal of kimchi and mandu stew, seasoned soy bean sprouts (kongnamul muchim, 콩나물무침) and stir-fried cabbage.  It was a simple and quick meal that took about 30 minutes to put together, not counting the time it took to boil chicken broth and steam rice.

One of my favourite types of banchan (free side dishes to accompany the meal) at a Korean restaurant is kongnamul muchim, so I was excited to see that the recipe was relatively simple and easy to recreate at home.  The recipe was adapted from Maangchi's video.

It only took a few simple ingredients from my pantry (not including the soy bean sprouts themselves), including soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, garlic, and green onions.  I had to reduce the amount of seasonings since I was only making a small batch to test the recipe.

It was a very forgiving recipe (adjust seasonings to taste), and it was one of the most successful Korean dishes I've been able to replicate.  This is now going to be one my favourite dishes to bring to friends' houses and throw together for those impromptu dinner guests!

Mid-Autumn Festival 2012

We'll be celebrating the mid-autumn festival (aka moon festival) with family this weekend. The holiday is called Chuseok in Korean, Tet in Vietnamese, and Tsukimi in Japanese. It's also known as the moon festival or Chinese Thanksgiving. It's a holiday where families gather, pray to our ancestors, as well as offer them food. And just like the North American Thanksgiving holiday, we too, load the dinner table with delicious food coma-inducing foods.


See what I mean? Let's take a closer look at some of the dishes, shall we?

Koreana in Chinatown and a Rant

Nobody felt like cooking on a Friday night late last month, so we (Mom, Richard, Andrew, and myself) had dinner at Koreana in Chinatown. I had previously heard of good things from the family.

The first time I ate there was on Canada Day, where VN and I had the stir-fried kimchi with tofu and jja jang myun (Korean version of the Chinese black bean noodles), along with the banchan. I was surprised at how large the serving of jja jang myun was. The flavour of the black bean sauce was too plain for my tastes. Everything tasted the same to me after two bites. If it weren’t for the slivers of cucumbers, I wouldn’t have been able to stomach more than a few bites. I’m not sure how legit their version is, but I do know that I’m not a fan. VN’s stir-fry was better, though I found there to be too much sesame oil.

When our family arrived for dinner on the Friday night, a table had just left so we didn’t have to wait very long at all. We spent quite a bit of time deciding what to get. Mom doesn’t like Korean food much, but came because she told Andrew to pick where to go for dinner. Lesson learned? lol

After we gave the waitress our order, she brought us some complimentary bowls of miso soup. Once we were finished, she set down the banchan of pickled bean sprouts, daikon radish, potatoes in a sweet gloopy sauce, kimchi, and seasoned seaweed. I typically love the sweet potatoes at Korean restaurants but the sweet gloopy sauce ruined it for me. It didn’t taste homemade.

To start off the meal, we got an order of haemul paejon aka seafood pancake. Mom was disappointed because the pancake wasn’t crunchy and crisp. I had to remind her that Korean pancakes are chewy like this and not flaky like the Chinese version. Unlike the loaded seafood pancake at Nak Won (in Toronto), there wasn’t a lot of seafood in the pancakes we received.

Our main dishes began arriving not long after we began with the seafood pancakes. The mul naeng myun (aka cold noodle soup) arrived in the familiar stainless steel bowl as the jja jang myun I had previously. I knew that the soup was supposed to be seasoned with vinegar and mustard, but the cold soup just tasted like the pickling liquid of the daikon and carrots. I thought the soup was supposed to be a cold beef broth with just a bit of vinegar. I didn’t get any mustard, though I could’ve just asked for some. Mustard wouldn’t have made it anymore tasty.

Richard wanted to order the sukiyaki, but since Mom wanted that, he went with the unagidon aka BBQ eel over rice. He looked like he enjoyed it since he ate it quietly.

Andrew was craving the stir-fried kimchi with tofu. I’m pretty sure it was the same dish as VN’s, but the flavours were well balanced this time. There were pieces of pork, kimchi, green onions and tofu. This was a favourite at our table.

The other favourite was the sukiyaki that Mom got. The beefy soup was sugary. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be like that, but it was strangely addictive. We all kept taking bites of Andrew’s stir-fry and then sips of the sukiyaki.

Though Koreana isn’t the best Korean restaurant in Ottawa, we’ll still come back for their stir-fry of kimchi, tofu, and pork.

On a somewhat related note, I need to vent about the people who review restaurants (small restaurants specifically) and complain about horrible service. I usually check sites like Urbanspoon to see what other people think about restaurants, but I mostly read up on what certain food bloggers think. There are always people who comment more about the service than the food. I want to know how good the food is, not the service. My blood pressure slowly rises whenever I see those comments.

Pot Roast Dinner

One weekend, sometime last year, Dad made some pot roast and invited some family over for dinner.

I’m not sure which cut of beef was used, but it was amazingly tender and moist. I was expecting a dried-out sawdust-like overcooked chunk of eye of round beef. This was the opposite. As you can tell from the picture, the beef was almost falling apart tender. My mouth is watering now…

Using some of the pot roast nectar, we made the best gravy ever. This was one of those times where I wished we had a recipe. The gravy was full of beefiness and it was fragrant from the carrots, onions and bay leaves.

To go with the pot roast, some loafs of frozen bread (bought at Costco) were turned into garlic bread.

Two cans of beans were also warmed up, along with some buttered sugar snap peas.

One of my uncles liked it so much that he asked for the recipe. Dad was glowing that night, as he was lavished with compliments from the family.

Seriously though, the braising liquid could’ve been jarred and sold. But it’s so tough to exactly recreate something in the kitchen when you don’t/rarely cook with a recipe, which our family is guilty of.

I forgot to mention that someone brought over some roast duck from Chinatown (not pictured). We had made rice for those who don’t like Canadian food.

There was also some leftover Korean-inspired soup made from kimchi, nappa cabbage, mushrooms, gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil and eggs.

The next morning, I found some leftover pot roast in the fridge. I had one thing in mind for lunch: a hot pot roast sandwich with a side of beans.

I scooped some of the braising liquid into a smaller pot and mixed in a slurry of flour and water. Over medium-high heat, the braising liquid slowly thickened into gravy. Some pieces of pot roast was tossed into the gravy to heat through.

While the gravy was heating up on the stove, I warmed up some leftover beans and toasted some toast.

I slathered the luxurious pot roast gravy between the slices of toast. There was a bit leftover gravy so it joined the party on the plate.

Lunch couldn’t taste any better.

Hong Kong Harbour Front and Korean BBQ

A stunning part of the Museum of Art.

We spent a leisurely day in HK the day after we arrived from Guilin. There’s no surprise here, but we had dim sum once again.

I can’t remember what the restaurant was called. It was in a building where each floor had a different restaurant. That doesn’t help much but that’s fine.

We tried the steamed chicken feet with black bean sauce, youtiao cheung fan (aka zhaliang), and the beef cheung fan. There wasn’t anything special about these three dishes, they’re just your standard dim sum fare.

Aunty recommended the steamed sticky rice. She said it was just like the stuff in lo mai gai. Mom thought the dish was really fragrant and seasoned very well. I had some, but as you probably know by now, I don’t typically like rice unless it’s in the form of congee or rice noodles.

I thought these were red bean-filled sesame balls, but, to the delight of everyone at the table (except me), they were actually filled with a sweet taro paste. I shared a quarter of one. To be honest, it wasn’t bad at all. It was quite a nice change.

We took a nice stroll along the Avenue of Stars after lunch. The weather was a tad muggy, but since we were walking along the harbour front there was a nice breeze. I could’ve spent the day along the harbour front.

A stop at a tourist magnet was included. It was in the middle of a tourist area so it makes perfect sense.

We walked a few blocks and ended up on the top of a parking garage. It was a perfect view for taking night shots of the HK skyline. Aunty said that the spot would be a great spot to watch the nightly light show. It was getting close to dinnertime, so she suggested that we go grab some dinner before coming back. But I wanted to be there for the sunset as well. In the end, we rested our tired feet and waited for the sun to set.

Although my legs were screaming for some rest, I couldn’t help but watch a few young hawks through my camera lens.

Long Weekend @ Toronto: Libretto and Thumbs Up

The next day, I met up with Liz, Sarah and her cousin for lunch at Libretto.

I remember reading about Libretto’s goal to get certified by the Vera Pizza Neapolitana a few years ago. It looks like they’ve succeeded!

The complimentary bread with a side of olive oil, chili oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping was barely touched. We were all saving our stomachs for the pizza.

Just like the last time I went to Libretto for lunch, I chose to share the Lunch Prix Fixe with Liz. Sarah shared hers with her cousin, Nicole.

Liz and I decided to get the arugula salad (which included walnuts, pears and parmesan shavings) as our primi.

Sarah and Nicole got the brushetta. I think it was a red pepper with goat cheese and pesto brushetta.

The pizza was beautifully blistered and tasted amazing with the bright tomato sauce. The other pictures of the pizza were really blurry, so I just posted the picture of my margherita pizza from my previous visit to show the blistering. It was pretty much the same.

The marinara pizza was just as I remembered Libretto’s pizza to be. The thin and slightly chewy crust had a lot of character. The basil and thinly slices of garlic provided bursts of flavour with every other bite. Sarah and Nicole had the margherita (not pictured) and really liked it!

We ended our amazing lunch with a bit of gelato (not pictured) and then parted ways.

I met up with my uncle in Chinatown and then headed down to Lakeshore to meet up with my cousins, aunt, and grandma. We picked up some french fries for them on our way down.

My uncle had originally ordered two french fries and a poutine, but we ended up with two poutines and an order of french fries. Despite everyone saying that they weren’t hungry, the three orders of greasy fries were all inhaled before any seagulls had a chance to fly over.

The weather was really nice that weekend. We ended up chilling by the Humber River Bridge during the afternoon and then walked along Lakeshore a bit. No one wanted to cook dinner that night, so we decided to have dinner at my cousins’ go-to restaurant in Koreatown (the one along Bloor St. W).

The Thumbs-Up Korean Fast Food restaurant is their favourite. They love how quick the service is, how good the food is, and above all, how cheap everything is. I’m guessing “Um Ji” means thumbs up in Korean?

The waiter immediately brought out the banchan after my cousins placed our order. From the top; a slaw, string bean salad, glazed potato (gamja jjorim), and the obligatory kimchi.

My cousins got us two orders of the Korean dumplings (goon mandu). I prefer Chinese pot stickers to be honest.

The gamjatang (pork bone soup) tasted fine.

The haemul paejon (seafood pancake) was pretty good. We also ordered a plate of chap chae (not pictured). The restaurant must've made a new batch because the chap chae wasn't as flavourful as it usually is. There was also a small pool of seasoning liquid that the chap chae sat in.

My favourite was the yummy (braised beef bone). That's what the dish was called. Seriously. Anyway, the rice that was served with the dish was so delicious! I could eat this rice any day – and this is coming from someone who doesn’t like rice. It was so starchy and fragrant! The rice reminded me of sushi rice. Are they the same?

Everything fed 8 people and the bill came up to under $40. To be fair though, weren't very hungry to begin with. Still, the portion sizes would please any Korean. After dinner, we walked down Koreatown to help with digestion. We dropped by a Korean grocery store. I picked up some fresh dukk (rice cakes for dukkboki), and two large containers of goochujang (red pepper paste) and doenjang (miso-like bean paste). We walked a few more blocks before heading back to my cousins’ place for the night.

~*~*~

Addresses:

Pizzeria Libretto

221 Ossington Ave.

Toronto, ON

416-532-8000

Thumbs Up

615 Bloor St. W

Toronto, ON

416-536-4106