Tasso, mezze bar

A few days ago, I was migrating haphazardly down St-Denis from Dix Mille Villages in the general direction of Camellia Sinensis. It was snowing lightly, as it had been all day, on and off. Everything was deserted on the dark cold Sunday night--we were the exceptions to deserted, but not to cold. Window-shopping the empty stores, we passed Tasso--mezze bar. It had a lighted menu outside and looked pleasingly warm and candle-lit. I've passed a lot of restaurants on St-Denis and promised to go to them someday, this one being no exception. Because of the aforementioned circumstances, however, the lure of a light meal was too great, and in me and my party went.

Mezze is, to but it bluntly, a Mediterranean version of Tapas. (Tasso serves Greek food, but mezze itself is not exclusively Agatean.) The two are of course wildly different, because the cuisines are totally unrelated, but the idea of many small plates is the same. Flatbreads and Flavours (by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid) portrays it ideally as a cornucopia of savoury delicacies, meant for a large group, abnudant with flabreads and everything else from olives to kebabs.

This kind of place always looks deceptively cheap, at 7 or 8 dollars a dish (saving the occasional 12-buck exotic seafood dish). But small is not a misnomer, and two or three dishes are required to amount to a normal serving. We were, however, on the lookout for a light meal. As such, we ordered only one plate each. It was less than we'd have liked to eat, so mouth-watering proved the menu, but such is life.

The place was all but empty upon our arrival, but friendly nonetheless. The tables are cork and the ambiance classy. The white-washed walls and idyllic fishing pictures are meant to recreate, to the lowest common denominator, of course, a gleaming Greek fishing village. Cork is a decorative theme. I approve. The service, I will take the time to say, was extremely good: speedy, courteous, informative, enthusiastic. I do not think waiters should make or break a restaurant, although they can earn significant bonus points. The main idea is the food, and here we go.

The meal was started off, for free, with bread and olive oil. It was an extremely promising beginning. The bread was really, really good. I would guess, in my fangirl way, that it is baked in-house, then toasted before being served. The toasting is clearly done on the grill, a significant asset. Nor was the olive oil unworthy of its recipient. We were given the choice of two kinds, even; the waiter gave us the skinny on the "light" and "dark" oils and bid us choose. The description was detailed and accurate: its finish was indeed peppery, its body in effect smooth, its flavour fruity. Olive oil is yet another liquid, if not a beverage, that begs a root to stick -philia onto.

We ordered a selection of dips as our first "course". We ate them with more bread. There were four kinds. The tzatziki, a dip we're all familiar with, was excellent and somehow different from store-bought or even home-made kinds. The chef apparently uses ouzo (an anise-flavoured Greek liqueur) to pull the flavours together. It's something I'll have to try. It gave it an unparalleled roundness, almost sweetness. There were three other dips: a delicious, creamy black olive tapenade, a puree of feta and red peppers called tyrokafteri (good, but my least favourite; it tasted like feta cheese transposed to a smoother texture and slight pinkishness), taramosalata, a real delicacy made of red caviar and various flavourings, superbly light, thoroughly delicious.

We ordered grilled quail, too. Because, I presume, of the rarity of the main ingredient, the serving was really pretty puny. (The presentation was cute, though. The pieces were propped against each other on a mini cast-iron skillet.) Still, the meat was succulent and the skin perfectly crispy.

I loved the fried eggplant and zucchini with garlic sauce. Both vegetables were their respective -ish adjectives, and were sliced very thinly. The fragility of the pieces perfectly matched the airy batter in which they had been deep-fried. The garlic sauce, not dissimilar to the the tzatziki, was exquisitely creamy and flavourful.

We also had vine leaves. They were a little disappointing. The rice didn't seem up to snuff with the ethereal-quality standards of the meal, and the leaves were a little tough. They would be my only complaint about the restaurant, but a minor one. Vine leaves are so ubiquitous that I hardly think they necessarily reflect a Greek restaurant's quality. In this case they didn't.

The plates may have been small, but I was actually quite satisfied, and had a truffle instead of a scone at the teashop afterwards. After all, when you've only got two beautifully browned quail wings left to eat, you find yourself at no small pains to eke out every last morsel of grilled deliciousness from the tiny bones. Eating slowly fills the mind--it's the placebo effect for the stomach. Besides, with enough bread, dips are really very filling.

I will go back here, and as soon as possible. I enjoyed it immensely.

En vedette : le « lemon curd »

Ai-je dit qu’il était l’hiver, le dernier poste? Je le répète, puisque la ville a maintenant le paysage et le service de bus qui siéent vraiment à la saison. Pour l’instant, je trouve encore la neige belle. Et je profite du moment de l’année pour acheter des pommes grenades et des agrumes.

Le « lemon curd », bien que j’en aie entendu parler auparavant, m’a été introduit par Le Chimie du Dessert, une livre que j’adore. Pleine de recettes, d’astuces, de labos et d’explications scientifiques, elle rassasie ma curiosité sur les aspects chimiques de la cuisine. Bien des choses qui m’étaient jadis des mystères (les confitures, les biscuits à l’avoine, la crème pâtissière) me se sont expliquées, le « lemon curd » inclus. Il s’agit de quelque chose qu’on tartine sur n’importe quoi, les rôties, les scones, la crème glacée. Il est délicieux car il contient deux bonnes cuillérées à soupe de zeste et trois quarts d’une tasse de jus de citron et de lime. Ce choix-là de fruits est le plus traditionnel sans être le seul. À date, j’ai fait un « curd » classique et un à l’orange-pamplemousse, mais je tiens à en faire un avec des oranges sanguines ou peut-être des clémentines, puisque nous en achetons tant.

La première étape est de zester et juter vos agrumes. Ça prend du temps, plus même que la préparation actuelle. (Les limes, moi, je trouve ça impossible à zester—la pelure est trop mince et elle déchire plutôt que de rendre la surface du fruit savoureuse et parfumée voulue.) Ensuite, il faut y mélanger des jaunes d’œuf et du sucre et fouetter le tout pour obtenir un mélange lisse.

Pour cuire et épaissir la crème au citron, vous avez le choix entre une casserole sur feu doux ou un bain-marie (c’est la méthode que je préfère). Une fois sur le feu, ajoutez-y le beurre coupé en dés. Il fondra au fur et à mesure que vous remuerez. La cuisson complète prend une dizaine de minutes à peu près. Il faut remuer constamment pour éviter les grumeaux. N’attendez-vous pas à ce que le curd devienne épaisse comme une crème anglaise. Il devrait tout simplement napper l’arrière d’une cuillère en bois. Ce n’est pas en vérité grand-chose, et le mélange, à ce stage, est encore un liquide dans lequel. Votre fouet n’y fera pas de spirales. Si vous avez un thermomètre pour bonbons (ou à lecture instantanée, etc.), vous pouvez l’utiliser; lorsque vous lisez 185°C, la cuisson est finie.

Pour conserver, laisser tiédir le mélange avant de le réfrigérer dans un bocal bien scellé. Il se conserve pour un mois à peu près, et il se congèle bien. C’est après la réfrigération que le curd adoptera une texture de confiture. (Le beurre ajouté se solidifie.)

À quels fins utiliser ce curd? Il sied aussi bien à un muffin anglais le déjeuner qu’à un dessert élégant. Moi, j’adore ça sur la crème glacée et sur les scones, mais sur les meringues, c’est incomparable. L’effet est encore plus joli et savoureux si vous saupoudrez quelques graines de pomme grenade sur le dessus. Amusez-vous : ce délice est aussi versatile que savoureux.

Lu An Gua Pian

It's winter, folks. The season for which we are famous has begun in its usual fashion, if a little late. There is always one early, slushy, rainy snow in mid-fall. (Remember it? It was the one where everyone groaned with cries of "It's not even November yet!" while clambering about the drippy window, being glad they weren't outside.)It snowed in earnest last night, though, with big fat snowflakes ideal for tongue-catching, swirling in the street-light's glow, blanketing the late-night world with quiet, and all that rot--the silver-bells ambiance fading when the snow stopped, just in time to prevent people from actually wearing boots. Today it settled down to a more familiar bleak. Little stingy snowflakes sticking to the sidewalks just enough to make them slippery, cold, grey, dusky, the whole package.

That said, what better time to enjoy, oh, say, a fig-chai oatmeal cookie and a Chinese green?

Camellia Sinensis has changed its menu. None of the pages are falling out anymore; there are no more "épuisé" stickers (although I shouldn't imagine it'll be long). The pictures are different, and the technique this and that photos are in color. (The tea-sorting baby orangutans from Darjeeling or possibly Assam are gone. Pity.) The menu has been switched around quite a lot really. Some teas are the same, but there's a large percentage have been removed and replaced. The pu-er selection is half-again bigger and includes two vintages from '80 and '76. I'm dying to try them although they're splurges at 12$ a pot. The black teas are quite different, and few of the oolongs remain the same. Some Vietnamese greens have set up shop, and the range of Japanese greens is wider.

I'm pleased. A few of my favourites got the ax--Cingshin 1991, for one, but some, like Sencha Ashikubo, were kept. The menu is neater, and has some really great-looking stuff. It's got me flipping through the pages, reading the descriptions over and over, deliberating endlessly, just like I did when I first walked into the store.

The Lu An Gua Pian I had today is new on the menu, of course. Its leaves are lovely. Blue-tinged green with a sheen of silver. Rolled, ridged, smallish leaves, no stem or twig, medium-sized leaf sections. They smell invitingly spicy. Once unrolled, tiny insect bites are visible--a sign of quality, as Teamasters has taught me. They retain their sea-greenitude when wet.

The tea is a nice yellow. Its texture is thinnish but smooth and genteel. The smell of the rising steam carries out the description's promise: sweet, vegetabley. I shied away from a professed "vegetable character" until recently, fearing sharpness or astringency. Not so, at least in most cases. In this case it communicated freshness and soupçons of avocado. ("Avocado" is from the mouth of Cam. Sen. They always seem to be able to pick specific vegetables. I never seem to, but I'm trying.)

The liquor has sweetness and a good kind of sour, not citric but like an underripe plum or something. My main vegetable pick is asparagus (cooked) and raw stringbeans for the aftertaste.

The second and third infusions are similar but bitter. My fault: the tea likes short infusions. 10s and 15s produced better results. The sourness receded and the throat presenced filled out. Some of the sweetness of the smell seeps in while crunchy string-bean character takes precedence.

This was an excellent tea. The leaves really are things of beauty. The tea itself is very tasty and mild with the theanine--a good evening tea.

(It didn't upstage the fig-chai cookie, but then, what could?)

Vous savez que vous êtes montréalais(e) si...

...vous vous demandez si Algorithme Pharma va bien cesser son étude clinique une de ces décennies.

... « BonjourHi », « AlloBonjour » et « Puis-jevousaiderCanIhelpyou » sont pour vous des mots parfaitement propres et nécéssaires dans la vie quotidienne.

...l'obtention d'une siège sur le métro ou sur le bus est un art qui nécessite le plus développé des sixièmes sens.

...vous maintenez une relation amour-haine avec la STM. Même si vous avez parfois l'impression qu'elle forme une cabale contre vous, vous laissant choir quand vous en avez le plus besoin, même si votre carte opus s'est déja cassée trois fois, même si vous haïssez la saleté des cars de métro et les graffitis sur les fenêtres des autobus, même si vous avez marre du « Mouvement collectif », eh bien, ...eh bien, vous avez comme une familiarité avec elle.

...vous parlez souvent à une caissière ou autre personne semblable dans votre langue secondaire, une action de politesse, croyez-vous, (vous aviez été trompé par son « BonjourHi ») et découvrez subséquemment que c'est la langue secondaire de lui ou elle aussi--mais rendu jusque-là, vous vous sentiriez con à changer de langue.

...votre sens de la géographie de la ville a plus à voir avec les quartiers francophones et anglophones que les noms de rues et les points cardinaux.

...vous vous gardez d'utiliser le mot "malade", car vous ne savez pas, même à cette date, si elle est censée être une bonne ou mauvaise chose.

...vous savez distinguer les clientèles distinctes des cafés. Java U, par exemple, se voue aux jeunes branchés qui payent les salades et sandwichs chers et les patates frites délicieuses. Starbucks accueille des types plus variés et plus pressés, même chose pour Second Cup, avec une emphase sur les étudiants. Caffe Italia est rempli d'Italiens, de shoppeurs à Jean-Talon, et d'enthousiastes de café. Café Art Java, lui, sied aux gens de McGill, glissant une pause café-travail dans leurs horaires chargés. Shaïka réunit les jeunes artistes, musiciens, gens cool, et riffraff de la région. Café Crème attire les aisés de Westmount, les propriétaires de chiens, et des amis réunis pour causer. Ainsi de suite.

...vous vous obstinez: Mont-Royal n'est pas une colline, c'est une montagne.

...vous adorez inconditionnellement votre ville.