Summer Snacking: Pot Ang and Chinese-Style Chicken Wings

A few weeks ago, Grandpa bought some corn and dropped some off at our house. He likes to stock up on groceries that are really cheap and then distribute the goods among our extended family. Grandpa originally told me over the phone that he picked them from his garden, but when I passed on the message to Mom, she gave me a look. When I saw that look, I knew that Grandpa was trolling. We were going to a family potluck picnic at the beach, so grilling corn would be a perfect snack in the heat.

Two dishes come to my mind when I think of corn: pot ang (grilled corn) and a corn dessert with small tapioca pearls. While I already wrote about pot ang, I thought I’d give a revised recipe.

6 tbsp coconut milk

3 tbsp fish sauce

1/3 cup sliced green onions

1 tbsp sugar

Mix all four ingredients together in a bowl. Taste it. You should get hit with the coconut flavour first, quickly followed by the fish sauce and then at the end, there should be a little sweetness. That's with these proportions anyway. Once you're happy with the taste, you're ready glaze your grilled corn. We had 10 ears of corn and we had just enough. You can also water the glaze down a bit if you have more corn.

And with all recipes, you can tweak the measurements to cater to your family’s tastes. You can still taste and smell the fish sauce in this glaze, so if you have family members or friends that are sensitive to seafood, you can cut the amount of fish sauce down to 1½ tablespoons instead. Substituting fish sauce with salt won’t work, but perhaps you can try miso or something else with umami. I'm not saying it'll work. But it might.

Tennessy Willems - Remarkable Pizzas in Ottawa

It’s been so long since Lucy and I have had some sister time. Last weekend, I made some reservations at Tennessy Willems one hot evening. Having previously eaten here with some friends, I recommended that we go have the pizzas at the restaurant in Hintonburg. I didn't know that Hintonburg began on the east side of Island Park Drive. I just assumed Hintonburg was part of Westboro. Woops.

We sat right by the large window and enjoyed the cool breezes. Lucy wanted to get everything off their specials menu but decided to get the carpricciosa pizza in the end. I wanted to try the wild boar. I tried the duck confit pizza last time. It was really good, but I wanted to try their other pizzas.

Iced tea for two.

Breakfast at the House of Gourmet

On the morning after Andrew’s open house at Wilfred Laurier University, Dad, Andrew, and I found our way to Toronto's Chinatown. It was weird seeing the streets in Chinatown so quiet. I think I’ve gone to Chinatown before ten in the morning, maybe twice?

There weren’t many stores open when we walked out of the parking garage. It was quarter past nine after all.

Banh Mi Nguyen Huong was buzzing with activity though. People were loading and unloading stock. We picked up twenty regular sized banh mi (Vietnamese subs) to bring back to Ottawa. We asked for the herbs, pickled veggies, and peppers to be separately bagged.

If you find yourself looking for banh mi in Toronto’s Chinatown, I’d highly recommend this place. We’ve been buying their banh mi since I can remember. They have a couple of other locations around city too.

As for Vietnamese desserts, the Banh Mi & Che Cali is the place to go. When Dad feels like something sweet, he always buys some dessert from this place.

We dropped off the banh mi back in the car and then went to the House of Gourmet for breakfast. Doesn't that dragon graffiti look so amazing?

Dad and Andrew were both surprised when they walked through the doors because they haven’t seen the renovated interior (as of a few years ago). The restaurant is more inviting now and no longer looks like a hole-in-the-wall shop. The washrooms are nicer too.

Popeyes Chicken in Waterloo

Andrew had an open house session at Wilfred Laurier University (WLU) two weeks ago, so Dad, Andrew and I went on a road trip to Waterloo, Ontario. There was a heat wave hovering around southeastern Ontario during the first week of July. But we got through the heat with help from the air-conditioned car, water, iced coffee, and lots of shade.

Leaving ourselves plenty of time, we left Ottawa as the sun began to peek over the horizon. We briefly stopped for breakfast at Tim Hortons in Carleton Place. I had a toasted sesame bagel with strawberry cream cheese, Andrew had a bacon breakfast bagel, and Dad had a sausage biscuit sandwich. We ate in the car and continued on the Trans-Canada Highway 7 toward Toronto.

We arrived in the Greater Area of Toronto (GTA) around 9am and decided it would be safe to grab lunch in Waterloo. We arrived in Waterloo around 11am, drove around town, got lost in Kitchener, and then finally found our way back to WLU.

Although there were plenty of other intriguing lunch options like Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Greek restaurants, we settled on Popeyes Chicken. I remember the first time I heard of Popeyes Chicken. My cousin, Jennie, asked me if we had Popeyes in Ottawa a few years back. We (Ottawa) have a few Popeye's stores, but they sell nutritional supplements instead of fried chicken, baked biscuits, and sweet iced tea. I believe the closest Popeyes Chicken location to Ottawa is in Kingston.

Given all the items on the menu, we agreed on their Thursday special: 3 Piece Bonafide Chicken ($3.99). For a split second, I thought about getting the Louisiana spicy tenders like I did in Detroit. We bought two of those combos with spicy chicken, plus a side of mac and cheese, coleslaw, and two fountain drinks. I’m not sure why I asked for mac and cheese. I knew it was going to taste like plastic. I wanted to avoid the mashed potatoes, french fries and biscuits because we were going to be walking around afterwards. If I had gotten those sides, we would've needed to sleep lunch off before visiting WLU.

The chicken's batter was very crisp and crunchy. It was quite salty though. More so than usual. As for the chicken, it was spicy and juicy, but there wasn’t much flavour after the heat went away. Maybe we were unlucky and got a mediocre batch.

It would’ve been difficult to eat the salty chicken if we didn’t bring some bread. But it wasn’t just any ordinary bread. No, no. It was half a caramelized onion potato dill dynamite loaf that I brought along. I had just bought it from Art Is In the previous day at the Bayshore Farmers' Market. The moist chunks of fluffy potato in the bread tamed the salty chicken breading remarkably well.

The dynamite loaf was easily polished off. I wish I had brought more bread. It wasn’t nearly enough. Andrew began getting shifty half-way through lunch. He was pumped.

Once we finished filling our bellies at Popeyes, we joined up at WLU and did a full campus tour. The small campus reminded me of Humber. All the buildings were so close and the people involved in running the tours were very welcoming and helpful. WLU gave off a small, tight-knit community vibe. I kind of wish I was the one going to WLU. Andrew, have a great time at WLU! We won't be that far away... just a quick text or Skype call away.