Bobby's Table

The last time I went to Dunn's, I enjoyed it. My parents were not impressed, though. After doing some research, I found Bobby's Table. Based on some articles written, it sounds like Bobby's Table is a reincarnation of Nate's.



Anyway, on our way back from Blueberry Lake Resort, Andrew and I convinced my parents to try it out. Their location is past the Emerald Buffet (formerly known as Du Barry) on Montreal Road. It's just past Marier Ave. If you weren't paying attention, you could easily miss it.



We ordered two smoked meat sandwich platters to share. Since we arrived half an hour before they were closing, my mom had wanted us to get takeout, but that probably meant that we'd have to eat in the car. Instead, we chose to sit at one of the tables by the window and enjoy our quick snack.

When the two platters arrived, I immediately noticed that the sandwiches weren't as large as Dunn's. It's not all about quantity, though, so I reserved my thoughts. My mom wasn't impressed. She said that the meat at Dunn's tasted better, but it still didn't compare to the smoked meat at Kardish. She noticed that the pickles were the same as they served at Kardish, that the bread was from the Rideau Bakery, and the fries were home fries (my mom meant that they cut the potatoes on site).



I thought the flavour of the smoked meat was a bit lacking. There wasn't enough punch. I liked how the smoked meat was sliced real thin, though. The fries were also very good. I believe they came straight out of the fryer. I wish we ordered some of their homemade desserts, they looked so good! As for Andrew, the first thing he said was that he liked the coleslaw at Dunn's better. I asked for his thoughts about the sandwich and the smoked meat, but he was just starving and needed food so he couldn't tell how good it really was.

In the end, my parents reminisced about their days at Kardish Deli and how they used to eat the end pieces of the smoked meat (probably the most flavourful pieces), fries, gravy and coleslaw. They got so into it that we almost went to Dunn's to satisfy their craving. All the talking also got my dad thinking why we haven't been to eat Montreal smoked meat in Montreal. We've been to Montreal so many times, but have never tried Schwartz.

I can't wait to try to get end pieces at Dunn's. And I'm also eager to see if Dunn's will satisfy my parents. Schwartz is probably a few months away, so I'll try not to get excited about that too soon.

For all those Ottawa residents reading this, what is/was your favourite smoked meat experience in Ottawa?

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Bobby's Table
225 Montreal Road
Ottawa, ON
613-740-9333

Blueberry Lake Resort: Family Outing

The last time I went to Blueberry Lake Resort was during the Thanksgiving weekend. Last weekend, a bunch of our family went out to one of the cottages there. Most of the family went ahead on Friday and although I wanted to go with them, I had prior commitments.

Instead of leaving with them, my uncle, my cousin and I went up Saturday afternoon. At first, we were going to pick some snacks up at McD's, but since I didn't want to get car sick, we were going to get something half way. We ended up snacking on some beef jerky in the car - we were that hungry. Once we met up with the family at the cottage, a quick dinner was made.



There was leftover marinated meats, bok la hong, sa lo gako and gapit pao. My dad also barbecued some more marinated pork and some chicken. Now, I'm not a fan of rice so I went the sandwich route for dinner instead. I took some baguette (that my aunt bought from Costco), put some marinated meat, some chicken and some bok la hong. I tried to look for some pickled carrots, but was too hungry to look through the pretty empty fridge. Okay, so I was lazy.



My sandwich is like the Vietnamese banh mi, but Cambodian style.  I had to be careful and avoid all the dried shrimp. I just don't like the taste. Look at all the dried shrimp!



After making two sandwiches and inhaling them, while watching both the Sens and Leafs game and the Habs and Bruins game, I was very happy. Not only because the Sens won, but also because my stomach was filled.



That night, we played some pool in the basement and played cards by the fireplace. We relaxed in the hot tub outside and then made some warm drinks before playing more cards. I chose to make some milk tea. I wish there was vanilla extract somewhere, so I could turn my Earl Grey milk tea (sugar and coffee whitener) into a London Fog (sugar, coffee whitener, tea and vanilla flavouring).




I made another sandwich for breakfast, but instead of using the marinated meat or chicken, I used my grandma's legendary pork floss.

Everyone else had leftovers, breakfast sausages, eggs, and home fries/hash browns/potato.

We had breakfast, cleaned up the cottage, packed up and headed back to Ottawa. Despite there being a few too many people there aka not enough being enough beds (a few people had to sleep on the couch *ahem*), it was a fun weekend. Definitely too short, but a good weekend. We'll definitely be going back to the resort. I'm just hoping that when we do, I'll get to sleep on their comfy beds AND we won't have mainly Cambodian food.

Blueberry Lake Resort: Thanksgiving 2010

I've been to the Blueberry Lake Resort twice in the past month. The first time was with some friends during Canada's Thanksgiving (the weekend of Oct. 30th). While I went away during the holiday weekend with some friends, the family had an unusually quiet Thanksgiving.



We arrived at the beautiful cottage on Friday and had a whole wheat pasta dinner. The next morning, we made bacon, scrambled eggs, breakfast smoothies and bruschetta.



To make the bruschetta, tomatoes and garlic were diced, then simmered for about twenty mintutes with a few herbs from the spice rack. A sprinkle of salt was added to adjust the flavour and then the marinara sauce was taken off the heat to cool. Slices of baguette were toasted, topped with the marinara sauce and slices of prosciutto before consumption.





For the breakfast fruit smoothies; milk, orange juice, bananas, strawberries, and some ice cubes were blended up. This was such a brightly flavoured smoothie - perfect for breakfast. The bananas weren't too ripe so the banana flavour didn't overpower the strawberries. I don't know why our family doesn't make breakfast smoothies. It's so simple and delicious!

For Thanksgiving dinner, we made everything from scratch - which was a first for me. Before this Thanksgiving, I helped chop stuff up for my mom and help with little things here and there, like making the garlic bread. VN had made Thanksgiving dinner before so the two of us were making the whole dinner based on my experience with cooking and her experience of making the turkey dinner a few times. I wasn't worried at all. We'd be fine.



Mashed potatoes from scratch. Boiled potatoes, butter, milk, and a bit of chicken bake.



Asparagus with garlic and red wine. A believe there was a bit of lemon juice, too. This was grilled on the BBQ.



Stuffing from scratch. Celery and onions were diced up and sauteed with butter and oil. We dried out some bread in the oven and ripped them into larger chunks so that the end result of the stuffing wasn't a paste, but rather something solid. The bread was added to the sautéed vegetables and then poultry seasoning and other spices were added with some hot water. The main spice in stuffing is poultry seasoning. The rest is up to you. I can't remember what I put, but it turned out real well. Just taste and season as you go.

When my family makes Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, we bake the stuffing separately in a baking pan. We've stuffed the stuffing into the turkey once a while back, but it didn't turn out as well as we had hoped. We had to scoop out the stuffing out of the turkey because it wasn't cooking. We ended up scooping the stuffing out from the turkey cavity and into a baking pan - the way we've always done it. From that point on, our family has always baked the stuffing separately.



It was decided that we were going to stuff the stuffing into the turkey this time. Great. DG bought a stuffing bag, though, so no one would be scooping the stuffing out of the turkey. VN and DG put the bag in the turkey and filled it with stuffing. The turkey was massaged with butter and then placed in a pan that was lined with onions, celery, carrots, a few potatoes, olive oil and some thyme. It was thrown into the oven for a few hours and came out looking... uh.. appetizing... yes...



Is it supposed to look like that? Hahaa! I think the poor turkey was over stuffed. We took the bag of stuffing out of the turkey and it looked like a thing of haggis. Bleh. It didn't look bad when we took the stuffing out of the bag-sock-thing.

Oh, the turkey gravy was made with the drippings, a bit of gravy mix and roux. It was a bit on the salty side, but it was very good nonetheless.



Oops, I said that we made everything from scratch, but I kinda lied. Kinda. The caesar salad dressing and croutons came out of a jar and box. But VN and I didn't put it together, so it wasn't a total lie. The turkey was over done. It was a bit on the drier side (you can tell by the amount of turkey shrinkage in the photo of the turkey). Other than that, everything else was fine.





For dessert, we had both apple and pumpkin pie. I don't think I've ever had pumpkin pie before, since our family usually just makes apple pie. The cold pumpkin pie tasted of gingerbread cookies with a bit of pumpkin. Quite tasty! The warm apple pie was pretty good, too. Despite a bit of drama, Thanksgiving dinner turned out alright.


Disclaimer: I wasn't asked to write about the resort or paid in any way. My friend booked the cottage for the holiday back when there was a special price on a site called travelzoom. It's an amazing place. I definitely recommend it.

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Blueberry Lake Resort

4801 Chemin St Cyr

Labelle, QC

819-686-1413

Bok La Hong a.k.a Cambodian Papaya Salad - Nov. 17th

We don't post nearly enough Cambodian dishes, which is weird, because I swear I've taken a lot of pictures of them.



Anyway, this will be a short post about the Cambodian style papaya salad called bok l'hong or bok la hong. The papaya used for this salad isn't soft and sweet, but rather crunchy and sour.

The papaya is first peeled and then shredded. Fish sauce, rehydrated dried shrimp, lime juice, and sugar are added and mixed together with beans and tomatoes.



That night, we had a plate of stir fried baby bok choy with garlic and oyster sauce. There was also a plate of braised pork with eggs, cabbage, and sliced bamboo shoots to go with the steamed rice.