While I was commenting on an excellent piece by Makiko Itoh of the Food Blog Alliance, entitled "Startup costs for a food blog for all budgets", I discovered how much pleasure I take from writing entries on foodiePrints. Writing about food, be it learning about ethnic foods, preparing dishes, dining out, or commenting on the latest food trends, brings its own rewards. They have kept me from looking into monetizing foodiePrints. This is why foodiePrints carries neither ads nor sponsors. I blog to share my thoughts and experiences and to provide a point of reference to discuss with other like minds on such social networking services as Twitter.

This weekend, I encountered the worst fear of bloggers who are passionate about what they write: plagiarism. One of the foodies I follow, both on the blogosphere (sassyradish.com) and on Twitter, expressed consternation on Saturday about having discovered that someone had lifted, not only a recipe, but her entire blog (text, images and all), and deposited it on his own, pretending to be its originator.

I was shocked by the outright theft. Sassyradish writes wonderful blogs about food and takes some exceptional pictures of her cooking. She gives credit to recipes she sources and is generous with sharing her personal experiences. Take for instance her blog about Oreo cookies:

Home Made Oreos
In it, she describes how, as a child, she adjusted to American culture, embracing everything except the Oreo cookie because its filling disagreed with her palette. Armed with a recipe she found on the Smitten Kitchen blog, itself coming from Retro Desserts cook book, she baked her own and tried them anew. 52 comments and potentially hundreds of page views later, Google deemed Sassyradish's Oreo cookie blog her most popular. It is no wonder. Between its engaging prose and great photography, the blog betrays Sassyradish's talent as a baker.

Having taken so much time putting such a well received blog together, how would you feel if you were informed that someone appropriated your work?:

Ajazzar.com
The thief didn't even bother to re-appropriate the images, hot linking them from Sassyradish's Flickr stream!

The blog site with the stolen content belongs to one, Anthony Jazzar, and is connected with a portal that Jazzar built called AJazzar.com. Both the ajazzar.com (for the portal) and jazzaropolis.com (for the blog) domains are hosted from webspace, supplied by Yahoo.com.

Sassyradish left Jazzar a comment on the blog with the stolen content, asking him to remove it. Jazzar has since disabled comments. While the blog looks like a testing ground for content on differing subjects, including one copied from gizmodo.com and one copied from livescience.com, it would have been nice for Jazzar to respond to the request, instead of ignoring it outright.

Anthony Jazzar goes by @ajazzar on twitter. Please join me in tweeting him to remove Sassyradish's content and find content he has permission to test with.

Addendum:
Either the tweets or, more likely, Yahoo taking action saw Jazzar take down Sassyradish's content this morning. The link to blog id "180" above no longer works. The content from gizmodo.com and livesciences.com remain. Here is a tweet he sent back to me:

ajazzar Apr 28, 10:44 AM
@foodiePrints Opps, didnt mean to cross any lines, i just post on my site what i like, i'll pull it off. sorry =)

And, here is a link to another excellent piece from Elise Bauer of the Food Blog Alliance on the subject of "how to deal with copyright theft", including some safeguards. It was forwarded me by @shesimmers another fine foodie blogger. Incidentally, she also has some amazing cookie sandwich devices on her blog.

Word association in the food world tends to reflect the connections between what we've eaten and during what circumstances. For instance, when someone asks "When I say tortilla, you say _______", my initial thoughts turn to the soft tortillas that are served with chicken fajitas. I frequently eat fajitas with friends. I introduced the dish to my better half at the downtown Lone Star restaurant several hockey seasons ago. And yes, some of my thoughts are with the Canucks and their run at the Stanley Cup this season. With Montreal eliminated, I'm rooting for Vancouver, but I digress.

While some associate tortillas with soft shell tacos, more than likely not the "boil in a bag" mystery meat-filled ones served by Taco Bell (quadruple yuck), eggs come to mind for those familiar with Spanish cuisine. More commonly known as an Italian frittata, the tortilla de patatas or tortilla española is a rustic omelet, containing sliced potatoes for texture and ingredients like cheese, spinach, onions, and/or meat for flavour. As the a local foodie couple who writes the BeFoodled blog demonstrated last weekend, tortillas make great centerpieces for a tapas birthday meal.

I like making tortillas to help me clear leftovers from the fridge on weekday evenings when I am pressed for time and hungry for dinner. A wedge is almost a complete meal on a plate: veg, starch, and meat. The following images are of one I made after the Easter weekend.

Pan ready for broiling

Tortilla de-panned, after baking

Tortilla served, revealing its savory payload...
As you can see, the tortilla is a multi-form dish that is limitless with respect to ingredients. However, it builds on a solid foundation of eggs, sliced pre-cooked potatoes, and an oven proof, preferably cast iron, pan.

For the tortilla above, I took my treasured cast iron skillet and heated up some left over chopped lamb, chopped rabbit, and caramelized onions over medium heat in several tbsp of olive oil. To this, I added sliced-up baked potatoes, chopped green onions, and 5 eggs. Once the egg set on the bottom, I put the entire pan onto the middle rack of an oven set to broil. It was pre-heated to 350F. After 20 minutes, I began checking for doneness with a metal skewer. When no more liquid egg surfaced, I removed the pan from the oven and let is rest for approximately 3 minutes before de-panning, slicing and serving with rye-bread toast.

This tortilla also went well with slices of air-dried beef that has been marinated in red wine, salted, and aged until it turned dark red red in colour. The tradition originating in Valtellina, Italy, my little cache of bresaola came locally sourced from the Westboro's Piggy Market (400 Winston Avenue).

Slices of Italian bresaola

Sourced from the Piggy Market
At $86.45/kg, these slices of what can be seen as prosciutto'ed beef, are quite the splurge. However, the burst of concentrated savory flavor, punctuated with almost fruity side notes makes it worth it.

Particulars:
Piggy Market
400 Winston Avenue
(613) 371-6124
E-mail: thepiggymarket@gmail.com

Today, a good number of people celebrated Earth Day by bringing reusable mugs to Starbucks for a free cup of Joe. Armed with my daily regimen of home brewed Fair Trade coffee in an aluminium thermos, I chose not to let commercial promotions phase me on a day that is meant to "inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment." Like a lot of responsible Ottawans, I am already sensitive to the need to reduce my ecological footprint. As such, I prefer to observe Earth Day by celebrating my reduced impact and empowering others to reduce theirs. Interestingly, according to wikipedia, the United Nations (UN) observes "an" Earth Day during the Vernal Equinox, otherwise known as the first day of spring (usually mid-March).

Whether or not the UN recognizes the more American Earth Day (April 21), there are many ways each of us can lesson our impact on the planet. One involves realizing that many entertainment electronics are always on and chargers for smart phones and the like draw power even when the devices are themselves disconnected. The easiest solution involves disconnecting chargers when they are not in use. A slightly more invasive one involves purchasing switched power strips and/or timers to stem the unnecessary power drain. Several "intelligent" power strips can even manage the power drain themselves.

I enumerated a shortlist of my green measures on Andrea Tomkins' (@missfish) "A Peek into the Fishbowl" website.

...I use a stainless steel camp mug for coffee everyday. I carry my breakfast and lunch in re-usable containers. I buy no bottled water, opting for tap water in a BPA-free metal water bottle. I try to purchase fair trade certified ingredients for recipes. When I shop, I bring re-usable shopping bags with me. I recycle everything (paper, plastics, metal), reducing my contribution to the city landfill. I try to purchase publications printed only on recycled paper. Even then, most of the content I read is aggregated using Google Reader. All of my e-waste including non-computer electronic devices go to Ottawa?s own Computer Recyclers, where I pay for the assurance that it will be dealt with responsibly. Finally, I live centrally so that I do not require a car, preferring foot-power and public transportation...

The list enters me into a draw for an Earth Day giveaway of some nifty environmentally-friendly products. Given the popularity of the website, my chances of winning will be slim. I wanted more to share my experience and gauge those of others. When I went back later this afternoon, I was elated to see the sheer number of people and entire families who have also adopted green practices.

That said, my listing also promised that I would post a recipe for a vegan stuffed peppers to provide an alternative to preparing intensively reared meat for a meal. It follows:

Find yourself 4 lovely bell peppers.

A 5th pepper, an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 cup cooked rice, and ground meat make up the stuffing

Regarding the ground meat, pick up a 340 g package of Yves Veggie Ground Round.

Veggie Ground Round
The packs pictured come from the Superstore at the corner of Richmond and Kirkwood.

Textured Soy Product
Veggie Ground Round is a textured soy product that resembles and behaves somewhat like ground meat. It comes already cooked, so only requires reheating.

For the stuffing...

Chop up the pepper somewhat finely. It needs to mix together with...

1 cup of cooked long grain rice

Do the same with the other aromatics and gently sweat everything with a pinch of salt over medium heat
Once the aromatics are translucent, season to taste with salt, pepper, and cumin.

Add the beef and continue cooking on medium so that it takes on some of the flavors in the pan

Add the rice and continue cooking on medium until it softens
Afterward, move the pan away from the heat and allow it to cool. Meanwhile, cut the tops off of the peppers, eviscerating the seeds and other innards.

Loosely pack the mixture into the peppers and set them into a slow cooker
Add a cup of tomato juice (or however much it takes to come halfway up the peppers), cover, bring to a simmer on high, and simmer for 45 minutes on low.

Done

To serve, carefully remove a pepper into a small bowl, gently displace its top, and sauce with a tbsp of cooking liquid.

Served

The recipe produces softened peppers and a somewhat waterlogged stuffing. Though, I have been told this is the appropriate texture. Tastewise, the stuffed peppers were surprisingly beefy. The veggie ground round and rice carried the Spanish sofrito flavours well.

Next time, I am going to par cook the eviscerated peppers in a steamer, stuff them, and bake them under the broiler with a cracker gratin.

Some of my loyal readers may recognize this recipe, as it was one I concocted as a response to failed all-meat stuffed peppers. This recipe came out much better and I attribute the relative success to assistance from another Twitter personality I follow, @jessrawk. It was her gallery of vegan dishes that inspired this foray into environmentally conscious cuisine. Thanks for your help!

Happy Earth Day!

Update: I won the draw! I have forwarded my mailing address to @missfish and am eagerly awaiting the package of environmentally friendly stationary. The compressed newsprint pencils really intrigue to me. Thanks Andrea. Cheers!

And here is the prize!

Prize
It arrived c/o Canada Post Tuesday, May 12, 2009.

Hello. My name is Don. I have been active on Twitter, where I go by the handle @foodiePrints, for 6 weeks now. I think I'm addicted. I smile at my growing follower list, wondering how many are spam accounts that will inevitably be found and deleted. I question the effectiveness of e-mail addresses having text behind the "@" symbol, because people should be able to be contacted without. I have given up on submitting support tickets because I know, unless the account belongs to Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey or CNN, very little attention will be paid to my lost tweets. Most importantly, I am very tired of seeing white whales carried by orange birds, an interesting metaphor from a social networking service that is still working out the kinks in providing 140 character micro-blogging to its growing user base.

According to Read Write Web, the Twitter developers' newly added status notification may be because the service is batching our rapid fire replies. You know, the text streams that experts recently said are increasingly making us amoral. Even, my former hero, author and renowned sociologist, Manual Castells, stepped into the fray, saying

the study has extraordinary implications for the human perception of events in a digital communication environment...Lasting compassion in relationship to psychological suffering requires a level of persistent, emotional attention.

Apparently, the human brain requires 6 to 8 seconds to fully respond to stories of virtue or social pain. Before we can fully reflect on tweets involving anguish or suffering, another is "already being read." Children could be particularly vulnerable as they are still in the throws of socialization and have not yet established their moralities. Castells, you had better keep an open mind on research you did not perform or I'm going to chase you with the harpoon that @Woensel promised to send me from Holland. It was meant for Moby Dick!

All joking aside, I question the veracity of the research as it seems to apply more to modern media than social media. Firstly, I have never seen my time line refresh on its own. I have to refresh it myself, so tweets don't flash by my eyes as if I were being brain washed in a bad Hollywood movie. Secondly, the research states that the human brain responds to signs of physical pain faster than social pain. Yes, a lot of tweets are about social pain: having a bad day; overcoming issues; visceral reaction to goading in a blog. But, these same tweets spawn multiple responses, compassionate or otherwise. It takes time to write responses. Reading responses also allows users to reflect on the same subject. Either should make up the required time. Thirdly, users often have sufficient time to reflect because Twitter regularly hangs 6-8 seconds during peek periods.

Besides, people on Twitter take breaks to enjoy its benefits. For instance, while allowing researchers the ability to question whether or not it is making us psychotic, Twitter also affords its users new recipes to try. This weekend, I attempted one from @FriedWontons4U, a wonderful Philly foodie, whom I follow both on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

Last Friday, she tweeted at @epicurious an entire recipe in 140 characters for comfort food to those of us who grew up eating Asian cuisine: ginger and green onion steamed chicken:

1)chop chicken w/ bones in pieces 2.mix in shoyu, sake, ginger, sugar, scallion, salt, cornstarch , & shitaki 3.steam #recitweet

Here is my interpretation of the recipe:

Disassemble a broiler fryer chicken into wings, drumsticks, thighs, and breasts.
The back and breastbone make great chicken stock. Freeze if you choose not to make stock right away.


Mix together soy, vodka, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar

Add sesame oil.
Since @FriedWontons4U included no measurements, I approximated 1/4 cup of soy, 1 tbsp of vodka, 4-5 tbsp of brown sugar, 1 tbsp balsamic, and quite a bit of sesame oil. Suffice it to say, I hadn't all of the ingredients required, so I improvised...


Add slivers cut from a 4x4 cm piece of ginger and 3 stalks of green onions


Pour everything onto the chicken and jiggle to coat well.

Steam for 25 or so minutes. I placed the chicken onto a trivet in a very large lidded saucier, containing 6 cm of water that was brought to a boil at medium-high heat and left simmering at medium-low heat.


Remove when the chicken is white in colour and the internal temperature of the dark meat reaches 165°F

This is definitely a weekday recipe, requiring less than an hour of prep and cook time. The chicken was savory, sweet, nutty, and aromatic. Accompany with rice and some veg and you've meal.

Next time, I am going to season the chicken with salt and pepper and sprinkle with 2-3 tbsp of corn starch before adding the sauces or aromatics, reducing the soy to adjust for the added salt. This should allow the chicken to take up even more flavors.

In the midst of pop (soft drink to the rest of the world) giant PepsiCo Inc. offering approximately $6 billion USD to takeover its two largest bottlers, Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas, two questions need to be asked. While PepsiCo has publicly stated that it wants to cut costs and secure control of its brands as it grows its non-carbonated drink line, what will happen to the cola drink that started it all? And, what precisely is the Coca Cola Corporation up to as the drink industry experiences a paradigm shift? While I have no answer to the former, regarding the latter, Coca Cola has started bottling Coke in aluminium instead of glass.

Originally announced in 2008, aluminium contour bottles were test marketed in night clubs and special events, coming in red, silver, and black for Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero respectively. I found the red one being sold in a corner store, nestled in a busy office building, across the river in Gatineau, Quebec. Costing a whopping $2.70 CAD/each (including taxes), I more purchased a bottle out of sheer curiosity than to quench my thirst.

Realizing, that none of my Toronto friends have seen Coke bottled like this before, I decided to perform a very unscientific comparison between the 250 mL aluminium bottle (cost: $2.70) and a more traditional 355 mL aluminium can (cost: $0.87). Here are the results:

aluminium bottle indeed holds approximately 250 mL of fluid
Cost-wise, purchasing Coke in an aluminum bottle is approximately 0.011 $/mL


aluminium can indeed holds approximately 355 mL of fluid
Cost-wise, purchasing Coke in an aluminum can is approximately 0.003 $/mL


mass of aluminum bottle is approximately 1.5 oz
The aluminium bottle was not at all malleable.


mass of aluminum can does not register
The aluminium can was exceedingly malleable.

Conclusion: The aluminium bottle, while holding 29.6% less drink, is made with significantly more aluminium than an aluminium can.

Apparently, this isn't the first time that the Coca Cola corporation has toyed with aluminium bottles. According to an undergraduate paper from a student at the Polytechnic University of Wisconsin-Stout, a less contoured version was test driven in Japan in 2002. In 2005, Coca Cola commissioned the design and release of five limited edition collector's aluminium bottles in Europe. Since the aluminium contour bottle I purchased resembles that of the "Magnificent 5 (M5)", perhaps it is fallout from the European marketing campaign.

Whatever the case, I am unconvinced that this preparation of Coca Cola's flagship product will grow beyond its niche as a premium product, providing a conversation piece until its novelty fades.

Personally, I prefer to purchase drinks in containers that feature more drink than container. Given that Earth Day (April 22, 2009) is fast approaching, I also wonder about the environmental benefits of the aluminium bottle. Does it being recyclable outweigh packaging smaller amounts of beverage in much more aluminium?

In a bid to counter poor results from repeated audits by the Ontario Auditor General, the City of Ottawa has responded with subsidizing the final year's tuition for environmental health graduates, raising inspectors' salaries by 9%, and increasing the accessibility of food inspection reports by putting them online. The shortcoming our municipality is trying to address involves provincially mandated inspection rates of restaurants. In 2007, it was met only 63% of the time. In 2008, it was met 69% of the time. The root causes? Non-Competitive salary for qualified inspectors as compared to other provincial jurisdictions and bad human resource planning. The result has been poor retention and low recruitment, increasing concerns as existing inspectors retire. Yesterday (April 17, 2009), the chief medical health officer was quoted in the Ottawa Citizen, stating that the relevant municipal department has 33.5 full time inspectors, but needs 40.

Regarding the subsidy, it covers the cost of tuition and books to a maximum of $8000 for students in their last year of an environment health degree program so long as they agree to work for the city after graduation. Regarding salary, pre-increase the pay scale maxed out at $63 000.

I feel for the inspectors, including the .5 inspector. These people have to perform rigorous assessments and render findings on the relative risks of potential injury to staff or patrons. Such factors as contamination of the work area, badly maintained equipment, or poor food preparation can easily compromise someone's health.

To my loyal readers, I know that having inspection results readily available increases your ability to make an informed decision about an eatery for your next meal. However, please look at the results of inspections with an aim of managing risk.

Risk is a function of likelihood and impact. Likelihood is the probability of a threat occurring to exploit a given vulnerability (usually a shortcoming). Impact reflects the intensity or pervasiveness of harm.

In the case of "food premises" inspection, the shortcoming could be "not having separate hand washing basin provided for food handlers." The threat may be cross contamination. However, likelihood of this threat occurring maybe low because not having a separate hand washing basin does not mean that staff do not wash their hands.

Wellington Gastro Pub
Hence, the non-compliance finding for the Wellington Gastro Pub (1325 Wellington) is "Non-Critical."

This leads to another facet of risk management, risk tolerance. Risk tolerance is the level of risk that is deemed acceptable. Qualified restaurant inspectors render assessments against formalized requirements. They measure a restaurant's compliance or non-compliance to these requirements. Only non-compliance is published online.

For me, so long as the non-compliance is "Non-Critical" AND few in number (2 or less), I will not be deterred from eating at the establishment. Such applies to the Wellington Gastro Pub.

However, if any of the non-compliance is "Critical", such as not providing an easily readable or accurate thermometer to check food storage, I will avoid the establishment until such time as the shortcoming is addressed.

Foolish Chicken
Such applies to the Foolish Chicken (79 Holland).

In other words, please do not judge a restaurant arbitrarily based on the sheer presence of any non-compliance. Manage the risk.

Furthermore, there are numerous restaurants that have not been inspected.

No Inspection Results Available
Many are inappropriately labeled on results from the god-awfully slow webs-application. While they are identified as having inspections older than January 2009, they opened AFTER January 2009. Restaurants that stood out include Credible Edibles (78 Hinton) and Aroma Meze Lounge and Wine (1335 Wellington). Aroma Meze hasn't even completed renovations.

That said, I have to ask a question of our municipality. Why precisely does the food premises inspection process require "Equipment Plans" be submitted in triplicate along with a food premises application form to Ottawa Public Health, located at 100 Constellation Crescent? Do related business processes need to be streamlined? Having insufficient staff is one thing. Having a monolithic assessment process, burdened with tedious work that can be easily automated is another.

Here is a link to query restaurants in the Kitchissippi area, which include the Wellington West and Westboro villages.

BTW, If you are interested, the relevant provincial law that applies is the Health Protection and Promotion Act.

Author and food writer Michael Ruhlman published a blog on April 3 about writing. It has encouraged some discussion in the food blogging world between those of us who have an equal passion for writing about food as we do food itself. Thanks to Shari of Whisk: The food blog, I came to read a well thought out rebuttal from Giff Constable, author of the Constable Larder blog. It is likewise thought provoking and I commend Giff for responding to Ruhlman.

The following is my rebuttal to the Giff's rebuttal. It is currently awaiting moderation as a comment on Constable Larder.

While I do not own any of Ruhlman?s cook books, nor have I followed him at any length, I think that his blog on the subject of writing has been somewhat misconstrued. Though, I will concede that his statement about cookbooks is arrogant, his seeing his books potentially being eclipsed by bad ones. I also think his view of blogs is myopic. People have been putting word to web since the Internet came into being. The difference now is ease with which to publish online content and added collaborative functionally such as these comments.

My take on the ?not me? is his encouraging ?fledgling writers? to be selfless. Writing in the third person, past passive, is indeed cold. Adding a personal dimension is engaging. At the same time, writers should be selfless and passionate, ignoring personal gain. This can produce well thought out and well researched ideas, be they deeply personal or otherwise. One of the characteristics that drove modernity is shared discourse. I think Ruhlman is trying to encourage quality discourse.

Regarding the opening line of his concluding paragraph, ?don?t write if you can help it?, I do not believe Ruhlman had any intention of discouraging people from writing. I think Ruhlman just wants writers to gage their convictions and put forth meaningful writing. Take for instance the sycophantic comments at the end of his blog. Most are short and uninformative. Very few, contribute to or develop the ideas he puts forward. Ruhlman seems to encourage the opposite; take the time to think critically; take the time to write critically.

If anything, I surmise that Ruhlman is trying to pick a fight. He purposely chose his words to encourage visceral reaction. I?m glad that Giff?s Rebuttal responds. Kudos to you!

Whether or not my take on Ruhlman's blog is naive, he raises some interesting points. So too does Giff.

I however have discovered why I sacrifice sleep and sunshine to blog on foodiePrints. I am compelled to.

Recently, I decided to put together a "star"-based rating system so that my readers can immediately determine whether or not a restaurant in the restaurantEats category is worth considering. However, like venerable Michelin, I feel that restaurants need to be categorized because they should be compared with their peers. For instance, one cannot and should not compare restaurants specialized in serving different ethnic foods. One also cannot and should not compare fast food with fine dining.

Further, I leveraged the Bryan Lambert(BL) restaurant classification system. In it, he breaks down the food service industry according to speed (fast or slow) and genre. It follows:

• LEVEL ONE FAST: Cheap. Greasy. Traditional. (McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken)
• LEVEL TWO FAST: Counter-service ?meal replacement? (Boston Market, Chipotle, Punch?s, Baja Sol.) The ingredient quality is a notch above Level One, as are the prices.
• LEVEL TWO POINT FIVE FAST: Counter Service ordering and paying, but they bring the food to you. Wild Noodles, Noodles & Company.
• LEVEL ONE SLOW: Applebees, TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays
• LEVEL TWO SLOW: Expensive chains (PF Changs, Cheesecake Factory)
• LEVEL THREE SLOW: Real restaurant.
• LEVEL FOUR SLOW: Real restaurant where you drop a wad.

Source: Piratenews.net

Accordingly, Levels One, Two, and Two Point Five Fast restaurants will be excluded. They are already sequestered to their own categories of the foodiePrints blog, either fastFood or foodCourtEats respectively. Please note that restaurants like "Toss it Up", which has been recently reviewed by Ottawa Citizen food columnist Ron Eade, fall into the foodCourtEats category. However, Level 2 or 2.5 Fast ethnic restaurants, that are not collocated in a food court, will not. This includes Lebanese Shawarma houses. Notations follow:

• Level Two and Two Point Five Fast Ethnic: ---$
• Level One Slow: ---$ (Denny's, Kelsey's, Swiss Chalet, St. Hubert)
• Level Two Slow: --$$ (Milestones, Keg, Outback)
• Level Three Slow: -$$$ (real restaurant)
• Level Four Slow: $$$$ (high-end expensive restaurant)

The remaining restaurant (BL) levels will then be sorted according to the following geographic-based taxonomy, creating categories.:
Ethnic Asian:

• Chinese
• Thai
• Vietnamese
• Laotian
• Pakistani
• Indian

Ethnic European:

• British
• French
• Italian
• Spanish

Ethnic Mediterranean:

• Greek
• Portuguese

Ethnic Middle-Eastern:

• Istanbouli
• Lebanese

Ethnic Central American:

• Caribbean

Ethnic South American:

• Brazilian
• Argentine
• Chilean

Ethnic North American:

• Aboriginal

Domestic North American:

• American Diner

Fusion:

• Combination of any of the above...

The michelin system awards a total of 3 stars per category. One star is given for a "very good restaurant in its category." Two, "excellent cooking, worth a detour." Three, "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey."

foodiePrints is not michelin. Our star system is based on five stars. It follows:

• Five Stars (*****): The restaurant's food and service are exceptional. Its front of house staff seems almost telepathic. Its kitchen staff works fetes of magic. The restaurant is worth a trek over treacherous terrain, risking being hunted by local wildlife. For context, please note that I'm Canadian. There are sometime wolves or bears in the woods.
• Four Stars (-****): The restaurant's food and service are excellent. Eating there feels like you are its only patrons. Its food should be praised and discussed amongst friends and colleagues. The restaurant is worth a special trip out.
• Three Stars (--***): The restaurant's food and service are good. The restaurant is worth a detour, so long as it is on the way.
• Two Stars (---**): The restaurant, its service, and its food are average, bordering on mediocre, but it has the potential to redeem itself. The restaurant is a good candidate for an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.
• One Star (----*): The restaurant requires more help that an hour long national television show can provide. Its food is mediocre, bordering on bad. Its service is either non-existent or somewhat offensive. Patrons have to wait as the kitchen "hatches the chickens", "mills the wheat", or "catches the fish" for their dishes.
• No Stars (-----): The restaurant should be avoided at all costs. Eating there would be a severe lapse in judgment. That is, unless you want to give your gastroenterologist a challenge.

Initially, I considered an integer-based star system, but my readers may deem minus two stars (-**) a typo. There are enough typos here. No need to create more.

Please note that existing restaurant write-ups will not be updated to include stars. They are grandfathered. Stars apply to new write-ups.

Particulars
Toss It Up
208 Sparks Street, at Bank
(613)216-2845

The microwave just blinked 8:00 pm (EST) on this, a restful, Easter Monday. The setting sun against a clear sky seems to corroborate the determination. The Easter weekend has ended. It is time to take stock of the holiday and share highlights with the masses, well my loyal few.

That said, Jenn and I decided not to run the Easter gauntlet this year as we did the Thanksgiving and Christmas ones, opting for a more low key holiday. We went to a newly opened sushi restaurant on Good Friday. We made a somewhat elaborate meal on Saturday for our neighbor, Viv, to celebrate her surviving yet another harrowing week at "the office." And, we served up decent bowls of noodles to family on Sunday.

Friday Sushi
On our way back from our culinary excursion through the Wellington and Westboro villages, we stopped by the newly opened Sushi Umi that was once Amate on Wellington (1311). There, we had a chat with its chef/owner and took a take out menu, promising to return.

Sushi Umi

That evening, we think we were its only patrons. The restaurant was unfortunately empty. Its tables and chairs were untouched since we visited that afternoon. Its Asahi Beer sushi a-la-cart menus were gleaming and unmarred by hot cups of fragrant sesame tea.

Untouched Seats in Sushi Umi's red interior
On the bright side its chef/owner and his wife lavished their entire attention on us and served a very decent meal.

We started with a pretty good miso soup, which is so common as to be cliche, so I won't bother you with pictures. For starters, my better half had the tempura. I, the sashimi martini.

Tempura ($5.95)

Martini Sashimi ($7.95)
Jenn found the tempura fresh, crisp, and pleasantly crunchy. The magic to tempura is impossible light batter, encasing carefully cooked vegetables and shrimp. It was executed well here. As was the martini sashimi. It was a wonderful concoction of whimsy, marrying both form and function. Martini glasses are meant to keep cocktails cold by sequestering heated palms to the stems. Sushi is, as much texture, as flavour and must be served chilled. Regarding the glass' contents, both the surf clam and salmon sashimi were fresh. The tamago (egg) and shrimp were pre-cooked and chilled. I didn't care for the shrimp as it tasted like the bad cocktail variety (overcooked and watery), but I forgave the shrimp for the presentation. I honestly was hesitant to eat such a feast for the eyes.

For mains, Jenn had the salmon terriyaki bento. I, the "Wellington" combo. Hers came with a tail piece of salmon, two freshly fried beef gyozas (dumplings), salad with a squirt bottle of dressing, two cali rolls, and rice.

Teriyaki Bento ($19.95)
Regarding the squirt bottle, the restaurant was newly opened and the chef couldn't find a smaller container, so he gave us his bottle. In it was a very pleasant sesame and ginger dressing. Jenn seemed to have enjoyed her meal, making only one negative comment. The salmon was slightly more done than she preferred. I tried a sliver and pointed out that she clearly hadn't eaten salmon at any big box restaurants recently. I found the salmon done but quite tender. I also enjoyed the piece of gyoza that Jenn put on my plate, crispy skin with a soft and savory beef filling.

For my main, the chef/owner apologetically came to me to tell me that they had no tuna. Having enjoyed my salmon from the martini (never imagined ever typing that phrase), I asked him to substitute more fresh salmon.

Wellington Combo ($11.95)
The fish (salmon and red snapper) was fresh and served at the appropriate temperature. Though, I've never been served nigiri long and narrow before. The rice in maki rolls and nigiri beds were loosely packed and neatly made, so they fell apart in my mouth as I ate them. Don't worry, I used my soya sauce and wasabi prodigiously, as the chef already placed some wasabi in the nigiri. I was sated, but, if you are truly hungry, I recommend opting for Jenn's bento box.

All in all, it was a decent sushi outing, good by Ottawa standards, average by Vancouver standards. In the coming weeks, the chef/owner told us that he plans multiple menus per dinner service. That evening, he operated from the take out menu as his hired cook was off because of the Easter weekend and not all of his supplies had arrived.

Saturday Shawarma
Between picking up duck confit and Niagara bresola (more on this later...promise!) from the Piggy Market (400 Winston Avenue) and preparing dinner for our neighbour, we had takeout for lunch: two trios to go from Istanbouli Shawama House's newly opened Holland Avenue location (81).

Istanbouli Take-Out Trio
Here's a picture of the unwrapped sandwich from another outing.

Istanbouli Eat-In Trio
Think succulent crusted chicken with fresh vegetables and pickles in slightly toasted pita. Accompanying is fresh (sometime microwaved hot) and always crispy potatoes with creamy garlic sauce. There's enough carbs here to fuel a couple days of cooking, let alone the couple hours that followed. Jenn burned off the rest of the calories with a bout of Wii tennis. Me, I attacked the dirty dishes, pots, and pans.

Saturday Dinner Party
Yes, we served rabbit Saturday evening. No, I don't think it inappropriate. Bunnies are celebratory in pagan rituals and have very little to do with the Christian holiday that is Easter. That said, the following images may disturb some (Ryan), so I am going to include pictures of Saturday's meal after the jump.

More after the jump...

As I watch the game of "pitch and toss" that is restaurant ownership east of Westboro, I am reminded of the first four and second last lines of Rudyard Kipling's "If."

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;...
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it

Of its 32 lines of verse, that have born both books and film, these five apply to eateries in the Wellington Village (aka: Wellington West).

Island park marks the beginning of the transition zone where the bohemian (Wellington Street, from Holland to Island Park) turns into the yuppie (Richmond Road from Kirkwood to Woodroffe). Merchants east of the trendy Westboro Village are facing what the Ottawa Business Journal deems "gentrification." Essentially, the area, replete with one and two story buildings and formerly entry lots, is predicted to "mature", following the example of its posher neighbor to the west. Severe road work was performed last summer, widening the walking spaces and laying down interlocking stone. High end loft condominiums are breaking ground in multiple locations. An inopportune property re-valuation before the onset of the recession caused property taxes to increase. Where once landlords felt lucky to be able to charge $10 or $11/square foot, today the same tenants can expect to pay $30/square foot in rent. As a result, businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to cope.

Ever since the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC) opened its doors, significant business turnover has occurred. Some Wellington regulars have moved either nearby into Hintonburg (Heaven's to Betsy, now 1111 Wellington Street) or out of the area (Cakes, Catering & Party Supplies). Others have been replaced, one by large chain drink purveyor, Booster Juice. Another, by a high end clothing shop. Age old Alexander and Co.'s Label Factory and House of Staples closed.

Label Factory and House of Staples for Lease
The former Destination Hair location (1335 Wellington Street) will become a Greek Tapas restaurant called Aroma Meze

Aroma Meze
Destination Hair moved down the street on Wellington into a smaller space in a converted house.

Several of the most vulnerable businesses, eateries, have failed altogether. Indian restaurant DiWali's (formerly Roses Cafe) changed hands and has been closed by its landlord.

Diwali's bright red Restaurant Signage

Diwali's Street facing Signage

Notice of Closure
The property is now for sale.

For Sale

The owners of Amate (formerly the Trillium Bakery) closed the doors to their authentic Mexican food venture.

Amate

Out Of Business

The Istanbouli Shawarma House (35 Richmond Road) and its neighboring Indian Food Centre and Convenient Store (33 Richmond Road) are being forced to relocate because their land owner feels it more profitable to replace its tenants with yet another 6 story "mixed use" luxury condo building and potentially a baby store underneath.

Site Proposal
Now the landlord has put the property up for sale as a development opportunity.

Site Development Opportunity For Sale

As the owner of the Harvest Loaf Bakery (Wellington 1323 Street) remarked in Ottawa Business Journal, he hopes that the landlords will maintain the eclectic range of businesses that have kept the Wellington Village vibrant. He moved his bakery from Westboro to the Wellington Village nine years ago because of the gentrification challenges he faced there. He is more than likely facing the same today.

Interestingly, the former Harvest Loaf Bakery location in Westboro was taken over by Derek Watkins who opened the Westboro Bakery - Bread of Heaven. He too was eventually forced to leave Westboro when, within a 5 month span, rent increased from $700/month to $3500/month. In a rather public conflict between he and his landlord, Watkins was quoted in the Ottawa Citizen, likening owning a business in Westboro to returning to medieval times, serfs just working to pay rent. Despite a petition to the landlord, he eventually moved and opened the now failed Allo Allo bakery in the Wellington village.

For now, there are signs that the "eclectic" range of businesses will remain. A family owned and run Japanese sushi restaurant opened in Amate's place this past Good Friday. My better half and I saw the new restaurant owner remodeling the interior the week before.

Announcement

Open
We also went to Sushi (Cafe) Umi during their opening night. The food was good. The staff, very friendly. A write-up will follow.

Also, an environmentally conscious business has replaced the former Allo Allo bakery at 78 Hinton. When we found it, Credible Edibles was still renovating the location.

Credible Edibles

Under Renovations
According to the latest edition of the Kitchissippi Times, Credible Edibles has since opened and sells "slow foods for fast times."

Related Links:
Hintonburg Community Association
Wellington West Business Improvement Area
Westboro Beach Community Association
Westboro Community Association

The Globe and Mail sure has a lot to say about social networking. The following is but a sample gathered April 2, 2009:

• According to a study by researchers from the University of Melbourne, people who use the internet for personal reasons at work are 9% more productive than those who do not. According to the study's author, Brent Coker, workplace Internet leisure browsing (WILB) helped to sharpen workers' concentration. Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading news, playing games, and watching youtube videos. Reuters correlated WILB to popular social networking services Twitter and Facebook.
• According to Canadian author and noted cultural anthropologist, Grant McCracken, dismissing social networking technology like Twitter or Facebook as a shallow means of connecting with people is incorrect. According to his new book, Chief Culture Officer, noted British anthropologist Robin Dunbar's 150 person social circle limit for quality interaction is flawed. Instead, social networking should be viewed a vehicle to assemble pools of engaging and meaningful interactions that will make the world a "less accidental place." This is because these technologies allow us to selectively acquaint ourselves with people we genuinely like. Conversely, opponents contend that social networks degrade our relationship and turn our communications into "cheap, superficial substitutes for face-to-face conversations."
• According to Globe and Mail columnist, Claudia Day, cheating can extend to e-mails. While there is no "carnal transgression", which she refers to as "evolved expression of betrayal", consumptive correspondence can be no less intimate. In the information age, an illicit affair can comprise of lovers "straying without touching" if typing fulfills them. It is no less of a challenge to an established relationship and can compromise trust. While Day refers to the "age of the Blackberry", a detestable innovation of ubiquitous information, it does not take much to extend her determinations into social networking where e-mails are traded for tweets or messages.
• According to Globe and Mail columnist, Zosia Bielski, Facebook and Twitter have become the pre-eminent eavesdropping tools for stalking your better halves, current or otherwise. Author Hal Niedzviecki will even publish a book on the subject this May. Entitled "The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and our Neighbor", Niedzviecki explains how harvesting intelligence is addictive, causing people to regularly monitor both themselves and others. With Social Networking, the permanence of information on the world wide web, and its increasing accessibility of said information, initiating surveillance can begin with a simple Google search.

Time magazine capped off my read on social networks that day with a piece entitled "Why Social Networks Are Bad Businesses." Accordingly, social networking services like Facebook or MySpace are able to gather large numbers of people together because they offer their users opportunities to befriend one another, share their stories, and voice their opinions. They are great venues to leave messages, announce upcoming events, or organize get togethers. However, they are increasingly demonstrating themselves inappropriate to advertisers because no one knows exactly who users are or what they want. Social networks break from the traditional model that brought marketers to the Internet. They do not permit advertisers to targeted by subject.

Me, I hooked myself up to one social networking service, Twitter. It has afforded me contact with people, both local and abroad, whom I would not have met otherwise. My network has not grown beyond the 150 person effective limit and I take care in maintaining contact with people of like interests.

Since establishing foodiePrints on Twitter a month ago, I have been able to load my google reader with dozens of blogs belonging to foodies both professional and amateur. The time some of these people pour into what I would like to call a shared passion for food has produced quality that defies published media. Content is produced faster and social networking allows everyone to collaborate. Best of all I have been able to learn about new dishes and how to make them. Take for instance "frog's legs."

Because of Twitter, I came across and now follow a writer turned culinary school student who is training to become a chef. She tried frog's legs for the first time in her first semester. From another tweet, I was recommended "Whisk: a food blog." It is written by a fellow Ottawan, named Shari, who is going through the "Le Cordon Bleu Home Cookbook" and the online curriculum from the culinary school that wrote it. The day that I found the Globe and Mail's many pieces on social networking, Shari had posted an attempted recipe for frog's legs. The recipe borrows from both Cordon Bleu's techniques and brings me full circle. Shari refered to a favourite cookbook of mine, called Chocolate and Zucchini, which itself originated from a blog.

Whatever the case, I initially approached social networking to help me find readers for and gage whether or not I should open up comments on foodiePrints. Instead, I have encountered people who have led me to rich new sources of culinary information. It has been a profitable endeavor for me.

While I am extremely grateful to be employed, cubicle life keeps me from enjoying much of the morning sunlight. After March's daylight savings time change, the sun rises as I hop out of bed to start my morning routine. After taking a crowded bus to the office, one of my cube's walls butts up against the windows, effectively blocking the sun.

It being sunny this Good Friday, what do you think my better half and I did to enjoy it? We took the opportunity to wander from the beginning of the Wellington Village to the end of the Westboro Village. We ate at our favourite restaurant for breakfast. We stopped by the local butcher's to set aside something for tomorrow's dinner. We picked up some sweets for Easter. And, we checked out a newly opened purveyor of artisanal meats and ice cream.

Aroma Meze:
First off, we checked to see if Aroma Meze had opened its doors. I have heard good things about its downtown location, so I have been faithful about checking each week.

Old Destination Hair Signage Still Up

Not Open Yet
Next: bunny

Bunny for Easter:
This year's new year resolution is to visit our local butcher's, Saslove's (1333 Wellington Street), more often. Today, that's where we purchased a whole rabbit. For Easter, I decided to forgo the more traditional lamb or turkey and chose to serve the Easter Bunn..er rabbit. The staff at Sasloves found the idea somewhat disturbing, but not at all uncommon. Of the 3 fresh rabbits in the case, we chose one at random, paid for it ($20.62 before taxes), and asked to set it aside for pickup later on that afternoon.

Saslove's

Rabbit for Easter
Next: breakfast.

Breakfast at John's:
Jenn and I can't say enough good things about John's (1365 Wellington Street). To us, it is "hands down" the best place for breakfast in Ottawa. It's lunch isn't too shabby either, but breakfast was extended today past 11:00 am to accommodate those of us who slept in.

This time around, we sat at the bar and chatted with longtime restaurant owner John, whose young granddaughter was visiting the restaurant. Jenn had her regular, the 2 egg breakfast: scrambled eggs; sausages, not bacon; and dry toast with jam. Me, I asked the waitress for whatever she had just served one of the booths across from us. It turned out to be the breakfast club.

Breakfast Club $9.95
It tasted as good as it looked, with wonderful textural and flavour contrasts. Its bottom layer had melted shredded cheddar. Its top, a thin spread of real mayonnaise to protect the toasted bread from the tomatoes. There was plenty of bright tomato, crisp lettuce, fried egg, and salty bacon in every bite. A hallmark of breakfast at Johns, the home fries were not at all greasy. They were however seasoned with paprika and made to order. The beans, on the other hand, more than likely came from a can. I'm not holding the beans against the meal. It was wonderful and filling.

During our meal, John told us that his restaurant is "famous" in Ottawa for its club sandwiches. After re-thumbing through the menu, we discovered that John's serves a long list of club sandwiches, all on platters for $9.95 each. Having thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast club, I can understand why patrons would like John's club sandwiches. The next time I dine at John's, it's going to be for lunch and I'm ordering the smoked meat club. There is also a tuna club, ham club, chicken club, turkey club, and much more.
Next: Loeb

Loeb's renovations:
The Loeb in the Wellington Village had announced its renovations weeks in advance. Apparently, after Metro's purchase of Loeb from the former Provigo a decade ago and Loeb becoming a subsidiary of A&P in 2006, Metro has decided to include all stores under its banner. Already, the Loeb website has been subsumed by Metro's. Jenn and I surmise that the scheduled renovations at Loeb are to add the Metro branding to the store itself.

Loeb's side signage had been taken town

Street signage has a placeholder for something else
Next: Sweets

Easter Sweets:
With the sheer number of Easter chocolates in the stores, it is difficult not to pass an easter weekend with sweets. As such, Jenn and I stopped by Truffle Treasures (314 Richmond Road). There, we picked up something to taunt the bunny with ($6.95) and some hand made candy chews ($0.65 each), one lime and the other lemon.

Chocolate Carrot and Citrus Candy Chews
While I have read that the truffles are of "contentious" quality, the candy chews were pleasant, not cloying sweet and gently flavoured with citrus.
Next: Wesboro's newest foodie destination

Piggy Market:
Having read about it in the Ottawa Citizen last week, I was excited to visit the Piggy Market. According to its profile, it is a butcher shop, a local food store, a caterer, and purveyor of ice-cream. If you think this an odd combination, go visit the store at 400 Winston Avenue, just off of Richmond Road.

Road Signage

Store Signage
There, you will find that its owners, Pascale Berthiaume, Dave Neil, and Warren Sutherland, have opened a foodie's paradise of a "general store", selling everything from classic charcuterie and artisanal meats to preserves and premium ice-cream. All goods are locally sourced, most within "100 miles" of Ottawa. Everything is made fresh and with care. Best of all, Dave (don't call him "sir") Neil and Pascale Berthiaume are enthusiastic about their products and extremely friendly.

Berthiaume makes high quality ice cream with real cream and natural flavourings like vanilla from vanilla beans, which she is proud to show off along side her Italian-made stainless steel ice cream makers. When she's not making ice cream, she happily doles out samples and answers questions, even those from a wide-eyed and slightly giddy writer of foodiePrints.

Ice Cream Makers

Sample Vanilla mixed with Malted Chocolate
Hers is not Philadelphia-style ice cream. The half litre containers that bear Berthiame's name and likeness contain ice cream that is made with eggs. This means that the ice cream is rich, carries flavours well, and has a very slow melting profile. This is full flavored ice cream the way the French and the Italians like it. It is not aerated like supermarket ice creams, heavy not light on the tongue. Jenn and I sampled vanilla and malted chocolate flavours. Without exaggeration, we were relegated to giggly children, tasting ice cream for the first time. Damn, it's good!

Jenn and I dropped a tenner for a tub of Passion Fruit Ice Cream to spring on friends this weekend.

One Tub of Passion Fruit Ice Cream
Next time, we're torn between vanilla or the salted caramel. We may end up buying both...

Neil, former sous chef from the Sweetgrass Aborginal Bistro, fills his display cases with mouth watering products. When we visited, he was doling out pulled pork in plastic containers. He fills his display cases with delicacies that those of us who enjoy charcuterie can only read about.

Meat Display
What caught my eye were the cured meats, freshly made sausages, and duck confit. Now that I think about it, his duck confit looked like the "real thing", dry cured duck legs that were slowly cooked in fat and left to cool. How do I know? They're not individually plastic wrapped and sport a thick layer of duck fat. That does it! I'm going to pick up a pair for dinner tomorrow!

All-in-all, I think the day was well spent!

Business Cards follow after the jump.

More after the jump...

The pig is a wonderful animal that can be eaten, nose to tail. Don't believe me? Take a look at Woman's Day magazine's website. On February 25th, James Hickey, writer, illustrator, and blogger, put together an image that typifies the North American approach to eating pork.

Operation Pigified
Borrowing from a classic 80s board game made by Milton Bradly, which is now a subsidiary of Hasbro, the image is actually a map to recipes on Woman's Day magazine's website. With standard fare like bean soup flavoured with bacon, pork with apples, glazed ham, ham and cheese strata, and stew, I find the selections rather pedestrian. However, the recipes cover a good proportion of possible cuts from a pig's anatomy: ham, belly, chops, shoulder, and ribs.

I prefer the French approach for more extensive coverage, oink included. Take for instance the following French-themed pig lexicon, coming from an Italian-themed edition of the Food and Wine magazine:

• Boudin Noir - spiced blood sausage
• Cochon de lait - milk-fed baby pig, whole roasted
• Fromage De Tete - head cheese, made form the meaty bits of the pig's head
• Grattons or Grattelons - small frizzled cubes of fat and pork, similar to cracklings
• Jambon Persille - molded dish of cooked ham pieces
• Pate de campagnes - rustic pork terrine
• Pieds de cohons - pigs' feet, halved, slow cooked, then coated with bread crumbs and pan grilled
• Porchetta - spit-cooked whole pig
• Rillettes - pork belly cooked in lard then finely chopped until it resembles a smooth pate
• Saucisson - Fresh or cured pork sausage

Source: "a pig lexicon", Food and Wine: Easy Italian Entertaining", April 2003

And here's another French addition: Pork Belly Rillons. The following technique/recipe to make rillons is adapted from one that comes from an older episode of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage television series on Channel4 in the UK.


Take 4.37 kg - almost 1 3/4 lb - of pork belly

Cut it into 2-3 cm pieces, reserving any leftover pork skin

If there is no leftover pork skin, use unsalted fat back, which is easily available in most mega-marts or, better yet, your local butcher's shop. Cut the pieces of fat laden pork skin (or fat back) into strips and render it in a pot on medium-low heat. Continue cooking the pork skin in the rendered fat until it shrivels and crisps. Once it crisps completely, you've chicherones (aka: cracklings).

Chicherone

Retrieve the chicherones, salt liberally, and add them to the pot of a slow cooker.

Chicherones

Brown the pork belly cubes in 2 tbsp of rendered fat in batches, making sure each side crusts. For me, I used an aluminium-clad stainless steel pan on medium heat with a splatter guard. The process took approximately 2 minutes/side.

De-glaze with 2-3 tbsp of red wine between each batch. I used a Canadian pinot noire. BTW, I have no nose for wine. I just wanted the tannin flavours and acidity. Besides, red wine was requested by the original recipe.

After each batch, pile both the browned belly cubes and deglazing liquid into the pot with the chicherones.

Browned

Once all of the meat is browned, season with salt and pepper and toss gently.

Season with salt and pepper

Create a mixture of 1:1 water:red wine and add enough of it to the pot to come half way up the meat. Use common sense for this step. Everything depends on the shape of the meat and the size of the slow cooker's pot. Both can vary widely. The original recipe calls for glassfuls. At foodiePrints, we do not recognize "glassful" as a valid measure. I apologize for being a little vague. However, when you cook, you need not use every measuring utensil in the kitchen!

Place the pot into the slow cooker. Cover and heat on high until the liquid simmers. Then switch to low and simmer for an hour.

Once braised, remove the belly cubes and place them in a single layer on a flat bottomed container with a tight fitting lid. The rillons are still quite fatty and pickup off flavors readily.

Retrieved Belly Cubes

Remaining Liquid

Let the rillons cool. Refrigerate overnight.

Cooling Belly Cubes

Serve chilled.

Served for lunch

The rillons are meltingly tender and the fat sets up when chilled. Both fat and lean pickup flavours from the braising liquid. Eaten with a piece of toast or sesame seed bagel (as per the picture), the rillons are surprisingly warming. They are also quite rich, so halve or quarter each piece. The next time I make this, I'm dropping a couple dried chillies to the mix and adding a little soy and balsamic. The heat, increased umami, further brightness and sweetness, and added salt will make the rillons even tastier.

Aside: If you've leftover red wine after a dinner party and you've no pork belly for rillons, may I suggest using it to make a balsamic reduction/glaze/sauce? The following "untried by me" recipe comes from Chef/Owner James Taylor of Domus, care of the Ottawa Citizen's Ron Eade. It makes approximately 3/4 cup of sauce that reportedly goes well with meat, fruit such as fresh berries, and ice cream.

What you'll need:

• 2 cups (500 mL) supermarket (read: cheap) balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups (500 mL) red wine
• 1 small cinnamon stick
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 clove
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) brown sugar

Method:

1. Simmer all of the ingredients, save for the sugar, in a pot that can accommodate approximately 4 cups of liquid on medium heat, stirring occasionally, and reduce by three-quarters to the consistency of syrup. According to Eade, this takes about 40 minutes.
2. Add brown sugar and stir to dissolve.
3. Once dissolved, remove from heat. The syrup should coat the back of a spoon.
4. Remove and discard clove, cinnamon stick and vanilla bean, and let cool.

During the tail end of 2008, the 1000 Awesome Things blog posted a guide to mastering the art of the "all you can eat (ayce) buffet." Accordingly, there are 6 steps to success:

1. Do a "Walk-Through"
2. Drink Later
3. Put together a "Sampler"
4. Stagger Your Trips, working with a designated "Lookout"
5. Always Reach for Full-Sized Dinner Plates
6. "One More Egg Roll"

Source: 1000 Awesome Things Blog

In Ottawa, I have found the "dedicated" ayce buffet concept extended to include other ethnic foods, beside the genre served at the North American Chinese buffet house. We have two ayce dim sum buffet restaurants, the Emerald Buffet (formerly DuBarry's) at 33 Selkirk Street and Buffet Yangtze at 1547 Merivale Road. Both serve borderline passable dim sum, somewhat oily, starchy, and, at times, over-sweetened. Though, I hear that eating at Emerald can fuel a long distance runner. Ottawa has a more westernized buffet and salad bar called Tucker's Marketplace in the Byward Market (61 York Street). At last count, we also have 5 ayce sushi houses: Banc Sushi (919 Montreal Road), 1000 Sushi Islands (1696 Carling Avenue), Sakura Sushi (99-1568 Merivale Road), Sushi Kan (1440 Merivale Road), and Hockey Sushi (4055 Carling Avenue). Interestingly, 1000 Sushi Islands and Hockey Sushi seem to be affiliated. Their menus are almost identical, same items, very similar layout, and very similar font.

My friends and I frequent 1000 Sushi Islands when we crave "buffeteria"-style sushi, in the vein of what we encountered in Toronto. Unfortunately, 1000 Awesome Things' 6 steps to success do not apply well to ayce sushi. Neither do "klangklangston's tips" from a thread on metafilter.com, which was re-posted on @missfish's "A Peek Inside the Fish Bowl" blog. Why? Since food is ordered, made, and served plated, there are "no trips to the buffet counter." There is no need for a lookout. There is no "hassle" from frequent comings and goings. And, there are no full-sized dinner plates to reach for. Tea between courses is also a great palate cleanser.

Instead, new strategies have to be employed. Here are few suggestions:
Firstly, find a popular ayce sushi restaurant and go during peek periods. Large turnover during peek periods, means that food cannot be stockpiled and will more than likely be fresh. 1000 Sushi Islands fits the bill. There, if you do not make reservations on Friday or Saturday evenings, the wait can be 45 minutes to an hour in its sparse lounge.

1000 Sushi Islands

Can't miss the restaurant from the road, it glows in the dark

Secondly, be sure to go in groups of four or more people. There are two reasons. Firstly, the front of house staff are more likely to check on bigger parties of patrons because orders of food will run out faster. Secondly, there are more people to enjoy the typically strange juxtaposition of furnishings and decor that make up the dining room of the restaurant. This is particularly true at 1000 Sushi Islands.

Decorative Baby Grand

Main dining Room

Booths

Sky Light
As "I Foodie" recommends in the same metafilter.com thread that originated klangkalngston's tips, "you are paying for the caliber of the dining experience, not to have a contest to see how expensive you can make it for the restaurant." Surround yourself with friend and have some fun.

Thirdly, the advantage of ayce sushi is the variety of food that can be served at a fair price. Normally, the menu at an ayce sushi establishment has much more than fish, including meat, vegetable tempura, noodles, and other rice dishes, so sushi-phobes can also enjoy the revelry that can be the dining experience. The following are flat rates for lunch and dinner at 1000 Sushi Islands from 2007.

Prices
According to its website and menu, these prices have not changed.

Fourthly, arrive hungry. Try not to eat earlier in the day. This ensures that you have the appetite to "get value" from the flat rate charge of dining at an ayce sushi establishment.

Fifthly, pace yourselves, staggering orders with lively conversation. At 1000 Sushi Islands, this isn't a problem as the time between orders can be substantial, allowing you to digest a little.

Sixthly, waste is looked upon especially badly at ayce sushi restaurants. Many charge heftily per item leftover, so keep orders manageable. The first order can be a "walkaround" the menu to try various categories of dishes. Subsequent orders can build on intelligence developed from the initial sampling.

Seventhly, while I contend that starchy or oily foods tend to fill the stomach, do make orders resemble entree courses of a traditional meal, including meat or seafood, rice or noodle, and some veg. This allows you to enjoy texture or flavour contrasts that come pairing dishes.

Eigthly, leave a little room for ice cream. Ayce sushi restaurants stock ethnic ice creams or other like desserts. You need not limit yourselves to savory courses. 1000 Sushi Islands serves both red bean and great tea ice creams.

Red and Green Tea Ice Cream
One ayce sushi restaurant in Toronto, actually serves ice cream floats, made with any variety of pop they have.

That said, here are highlights from a couple rounds from my first two times to 1000 Sushi Islands for inspiration.
Round 1

Hand rolls with fall-apart Cali-Maki

Really hard to bite through Hand Rolls

Fried Gyoza, aka pork dumpling

Pork Cutlet (Tongkatsu) with Teriyaki sauce

More rounds follow after the jump:

More after the jump...

As @askaroundottawa tweeted, many Ottawans were taken aback by this morning's freak blizzard. It being two weeks into April, she asked her followers, "Who ordered the snow?" She then suggested that it was perhaps mother nature proving those of us presumptive who put away our winter gear.

I want to go on record saying, "It wasn't me!" I recall specifically asking mother nature to tell her over-achiever, Jack Frost, to knock it off. And no, the unamusing weather was not a dream, restricted to some unlucky few.

Evidence from Environment Canada
Apparently, our snowy weather system is also moving south, causing farmers in the American mid-west some worry.

For those of us caught ill-prepared, I propose the following dish to shall we say "warm the cockles": chicken dumplings in chicken stock with shredded lettuce and sliced char-siu (Chinese barbecued pork).

Bowl of Chicken Dumplings
The idiom is British and means "make you feel happy." I picked it up from watching too many cooking shows from the UK. Damn BBC and Channel4 (pre-9:00 pm) for putting on such great television. Much of what's on the Food Network pales in comparison.

Anyhow, bowls of dumplings in broth happen to be what my better half serves up to her friends and family "to cure whatever ails you." This particular batch of chicken dumplings was home made, as was the stock.

Plate ready for cooking

Dumplings cooking

Cooked and ready to plate

Slicing up some barbecued pork
The recipe for the dumplings follows that of the pork variety that was posted on foodiePrints a little while ago, only the folding was a little different as we used pot sticker wrappers from Chinatown. Since it was post Christmas (hence the festive tablecloth), Jenn felt that we needed a change from turkey and sliced up some char-siu to accompany. The char-siu was store-bought, but shipped by friends from Markahm to Ottawa.

To make your own bowl of instant comfort, you can easily pickup frozen dumplings from the local mega-mart or Asian grocery store. Cook them up as instructed, usually directly from frozen. Heat up some ready-made chicken broth from a carton and plate it up...erm "bowl" it up. Garnish with chopped green onions and you may be able to put up with Jack Frost for a little while longer...

Yesterday, Juniper's general manager Paul Munroe made food writer Ron Eade of Omnivore's Ottawa aware of a "suspicious serial complainer" who has been allegedly scamming higher end restaurants in Ottawa.

Accordingly, a total of 7 Ottawa restaurants received "form" e-mails, all sent approximately two and a half weeks ago. Each contains similar verbiage, including "we wish to celebrate our pregnancy", the offended patron and his fiance work in the area, and they always vowed to to eat in the restaurant, but never found the chance to until "Friday." The complaint itself involves poor service:

• waiting too long to be seated
• others arriving after being seated first
• hostess forgetting to place their names on the waiting list
While Eade points out that the e-mail, which he posted at the end of his blog, does not ask for monetary compensation, Munroe was willing to offer a $200 gift certificate if the complaint were substantiated. Restaurants are willing to offer "goodwill" gestures, rather than risk their reputation. Eade states that these "gestures" are more the "rule" than the "exception."

Although I am troubled by how technology is being used to exploit what few higher end restaurants we have in Ottawa, there are other issues at hand that bother me.

Complaints After Service Are Suspicious
Firstly, the particular complaint is common-place during the dinner rushes of restaurants with high turnover. Munroe, who was "off duty" when the alleged incident took place, believes that, as a responsible restaurant, they take concerns seriously, but this one was immediately questionable.

If a customer has a complaint then it happens immediately, not with a follow-up letter or e-mail...if a person has left, the only way to address it is to offer a gift certificate. If the customer is still in house, normally one would offer to make her happy right then and there.

There is flaw to Munroe's generalization. As a comment to Eade's blog point out, some patrons, myself included, prefer to save feedback until the next day, after we have had time and opportunity to reflect. To us, this is courtesy, as fair and open discussion can be had without disturbing other patrons. The issues I have may be specific to my meal and not others. There is no reason to raise a scene, unless the transgression is so heinous as to require immediate attention.

In my experience, busy restaurants rarely have time to discuss anything in a clear or rational manner during service. My threshold includes shellfish smelling of ammonia, unopened mussels or clams, undercooked pork or poultry, shards of glass or hair (curly or otherwise) in my food, and severely confused orders. I am also not shy about calling over the waiter or a manager if I specifically point out in my order that I am allergic to peanuts and, after a bite, I have to reach for anti-histamine. Even though I specifically avoid dishes that are traditionally made with peanuts, it happens. Minor issues end up either on my blog or in conversation with friends or colleagues.

Further Deterrence to Raise Issues with a Restaurant
Secondly, I am afraid that publishing this issue demonizes patrons who complain and serves as further deterrent to raise issues with a restaurant. As another comment to Eade's blog points out, such scams are perhaps a symptom of the economy. Unfortunately, I have to add, so too is reluctance by a restaurant to take complaints seriously or compensate patrons. The restaurant industry operates within small margins of profit. More restaurants fail than succeed. Newly opened restaurants rarely make a profit within the first several months of opening, which is why I always pay in cash at newly opened eateries. I want to ensure positive cash flow as one their first patrons. Regarding complaints, too often, accounts involving poor service or issues with the food are dismissed off hand because it is expensive to compensate complainants. Worse, either front or back of staff retaliate.

I completely disagree with Eade's response to a comment that reputable restaurants like Juniper refrain from doing horrible things to its clients. Restaurant management cannot police its staff 100% of the time. Back of house staff work ridiculously long hours and they are often poorly paid. Front of house staff work in shifts, but have to deal with innumerable patrons, some extremely unfriendly. Treating either poorly or making them work unnecessarily can and will result in retribution. There are blogs, pieces in the media, and books on the subject, not just single horror stories. One particular book that has caught my attention is Steve Dublanica's "Waiter Rant", which stems from his blog of the same name. Dublanica recently gave tips to the New York Times and MSNBC on how to avoid getting "spit" in your food. If reputable restaurants in other cities are not "immune to spit", why would Ottawa's be?

Me, I am aware that front and back of house staffers are people who are trying to make a living. Some, to feed their families. Others, to put themselves through school. I tip well. I am also deathly frightened of sending plates back. I do not even raise issues during service unless they threaten my immediate health, hence the established threshold above. Now, I have to worry that my complaints either by blog or in person will end up circulated to other restaurants or published on the website of a popular local newspaper. Eade's Omnivore's Ottawa is part of the Ottawa Citizen website.

To Paul Munroe of Juniper, if you feel that only issues raised during service should be taken seriously, I am left to wonder if you care about your restaurants' reputation, its employees, or its customers. Feedback after service in person, by e-mail, or in writing should not immediately raise suspicion. While, I sympathize about someone trying to scam your restaurant, I'm not sure I want to dine at Juniper anytime soon.

On a related note, here is a summary list of suggestions for how to handle poor service from a bad waiter. It comes from the Bon Appetite Magazine. It was reprinted in the Panama Star newspaper.

1. They're servers not servants. Smile. Be nice to them and they'll be nice to you. Never snap your finger or whistle at a waiter.
2. Not everything that goes wrong in a restaurant is the servers' fault. Though a good waiter will always apologize for delays and give you regular updates on your food.
3. One way to avoid bad service is to eat at the bar. The server/bartender never leaves your sight, which makes it really hard for them to ignore you.
4. If you do get a waiter-from-heck there are a few courses to take. You can grin and bear it, take the abuse, and eventually show your displeasure with their tip. Another option is to inform the manager and politely ask another server. Management at any restaurant worth returning to will oblige.
5. Write the restaurant (the owner) a letter explaining the situation.
Source: Panama Star newspaper.


Tag(s):

Lately, I have been following a wonderful blog on parenting, called "a peek inside the fishbowl." It is operated by writer, parent, and one of Westboro's own, Andrea Tomkins. She has been blogging for ten years. In other words, despites it modern look and feel, her blog predates Web 2.0. She micro-blogs too. Those of us on Twitter, know her as @missfish. There, she has several hundred followers, myself included. At the moment, she has been asked to guest write for the Canadian Family Magazine's "Family Jewels" blog. It is also worth the visit.

Before anyone asks, Westboro neighbours on the Wellington Village, where my better half and I make our home. Andrea is very familiar with this area of Ottawa and her blog has useful tidbits on things to see and do, including many that are food related. Most are family oriented.

On Monday, she asked her readers what are their favourite sources for Easter chocolate. Some of the accounts forwarded will end up in a piece she is writing on the subject. I replied with something borderline nonsensical

For chocolate, Easter or otherwise, there?s a decent chocolatier across from Promenade du Portage in Gatineau (aka: Hull). It?s next door to La Joie shawarma house.

As someone who appreciates good food and the care that goes into making it, I intend this entry to remedy the situation.

Since I have spent the last five years working in Gatineau, just across the Ottawa river, I have had to find a nearby source of chocolate to sate my cravings. When I was working at Place Du Portage, I found a little shop, owned and operated by Master Chocolatier Nathalie Borne, on Promenade du Portage (173). It is called "Miss Chocolat: Petits Douceurs Chocolatees."

Ever since, I have dropped by from time to time to buy little bags of artisanal chocolates, usually 2-3 per bag. Today, I picked up a random 7 piece sampling to demonstrate why I keep going back.

7 piece bag of chocolates

seven expertly crafted chocolates by expert hands

chocolate identification
Some are made with quality dark chocolate. Others, creamy milk chocolate. Their fillings can be outright daring. If, you are adventurous like me, let the person behind the counter pick for you. Amongst the seven are pairings of dark and milk chocolate with ginger and cardamom; milk chocolate ganache with star anise; dark chocolate ganache with beer; and dark chocolate ganache with a masala spice mix.

Of the seven, two sated my chocolate appetite, so I will have to savour the rest later.

Azteque

Douceur a l'orange
Each chocolate was an exquisite taste experience.

Chocolates from Miss Chocolat tend to be experiences. Some temper bitter dark chocolate with spice or fruit. Some balance sweet milk chocolate with herbs. Others are boxed chocolate classics, only done really well.

Please bear in mind that Miss Chocolat sells artisanal products. Each chocolate costs $1.50, easily the cost of a chocolate bar from the local corner store. Trust me, with their dark chocolate at 72% cocoa and milk chocolate at 38% cocoa, there is no comparison.

To my chocoholic readers, forget the Hershey bar, take two of these and call me in the morning.

To @missfish and others, Miss Chocolat also makes a line of diabetic chocolates. They make seasonal chocolate, including Easter one's. They teach the art of chocolate making.

Here is their business card:

Front

Back

Particulars:
Miss Chocolat: Petits Douceurs Chocolatees
173 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau
(819)775-3499
Website

A little over a year ago the Ottawa Sun, our local edition of the Sun Media newspaper, published a piece entitled "Bug cuisine", eschewing the benefits of entomophagy, the practice of eating insects.

Culturally, eating insects is only taboo in western cultures. In South America, Mexico, and Asia, eating insects is widely accepted. My being born in a western culture, however has me wondering about the flavour and texture that prepared insects could take. Their nutritive value has already been argued at length.

Bug Cuisine

When I discuss "bug cuisine" with other foodies, I find I have to remind them that lobster isn't very far removed from crickets. The way I see it, if British restaurants can serve grey squirrel in higher end restaurants, as the foreign and invasive species is quite the prolific vermin across the pond, we can be open minded about entomophagy.

Alas, the only place I could find insects prepared for eating is at Sugar Mountain, a chain of dedicated candy stores that stock insect treats as gag gifts. In fact, when I selected my box of salt and vinegar crickets from the display that included scorpion lollies and chocolate covered ants, I found the cashier eying me suspiciously.

Crickets

Nutrition

Ingredients

American manufacturer
When I went to purchase it, she asked me if they were for me or a practical joke for somebody else. I told her that if one of the lovely tweeps I follow can overcome her preconceptions about pork and eat the dishes she prepared in culinary school, I can dare to expand my diet as well. She wished me well. My better half shook her head.

Inside the box came whole crickets, probably roasted and then tossed in copious amounts of flavouring.

Seasoned Roasted Crickets

Unbagged
I found the artificial flavouring so intense I could not taste any of the nuttiness that is characteristic of roasted or fried crickets.

The texture however was a cross between potato chips and carbon paper.

On the whole, the experience was not at all unpleasant, but if we are what we eat, I guess I'm adventurous. Though, for a week after, I found I could discern cricket song in the evenings more clearly. It was probably a co-incidence.

According to this weeks Real Canadian Superstore flier (March 27-April 2), 9 pieces of fried chicken at the "Meals to Go" counter is on sale, almost 10% off ($9.99 instead of $10.99).

9 Piece Fried Chicken
It is my opinion that the "Meals to Go" counter makes some of the worst fried chicken that I have ever eaten. I do not recommend it.

Don't get me wrong. There are foods there at the "Meals to Go" counter I enjoy, such as the vegetarian pizza. The fried chicken, not so much.

Here is an account of meals that my better half and I purchased at the Superstore at Richmond and Kirkwood after our trip to Vancouver, a little under two years ago. Essentially, we were on an expedition to restock our fridge. Jet lag kept us from cooking up anything substantial so we decided to eat out for lunch.

Hers: A Chicken Strip Meal

Chicken Strips and Fries
Looking at that picture, one has to wonder about the 3:1 potato:meat ratio. That said, the strips are moist, slightly salty for my taste, and crispy. That is, so long as you get a batch fresh from the fryer. If not...

Mine: A Fried Chicken Meal

Two Piece Fried Chicken and Fries
The potato:meat ratio is slightly better, but the meal is by no means healthy in any way shape or form. The chicken is also horrendous.


Dry, harsh, and Salty Chicken
The meat is dry, harsh and stringy, and over seasoned. White meat portions, anything involving the breast, should be avoided at all costs. Dark meat portions are slightly better, probably owing to their being fattier. Somehow, they survive the process of frying, freezing, transporting, and frying from frozen better. I didn't think it possible to overcook a breaded dish this badly.

Suffice it to say, after spending two weeks sampling food in what Chef Anthony Bourdain called a Canadian city with a highly developed foodie culture, that lunch brought me back to reality.

Unfortunately, this is no April Fool's joke. If it were, I'd be seriously unhappy about being made cautious about two of my favourite foods solely for someone's entertainment. I normally have a cache of smoked salmon in the freezer for dinner parties. Pistachios are one of my guilty pleasures, having sworn off other junk snack food like potato chips.

News of the pistachio recall broke yesterday in the United States when a California pistachio processor, Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., released information about potential salmonella contamination. The voluntarily recalled pistachios were shipped on or after Sept. 1, 2008.

Setton recalled specific lots of bulk roasted shelled pistachios and roasted unshelled pistachios in 2,000-pound, 1,800-pound, 1,700-pound and 1,000-pound bags sold to wholesale customers. Setton is also recalling its Setton Farms brand roasted salted shelled pistachios in nine-ounce bags with a ?Best Before? date between Jan. 6, 2010 and Jan. 19, 2010, distributed in seven American states.

Unfortunately, since the pistachios were also used as ingredients in a variety of foods, the recall impacts composite products. The FDA has yet to recall composite products.

The FDA, however, counseled that consumers avoid eating pistachio products until further information. Today, it's Canadian equivalent, the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency (CRIA) and snack food giant Frito Lay Canada , have recalled Munchies brand Pistachios because they contain recalled pistachios. According to the CFIA website,

the recalled product is sold in 50 g packages, bearing UPC 0 60410 04595 4, and a date between 04AUG09 and 15DEC09. The date is located on the front of each package.

More information is available from the Globe and Mail website.

Regarding smoked salmon, the CRIA and Niagara Smoked Fish Ltd. have recalled several smoked salmon and gravlox products in Canada over concerns they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. According to the CRIA website, the recalled products follow:

• Strubs branded Bagelox Norwegian Style Sliced Smoked Steelhead Salmon (56 g with UPC 0 71217 69999 8 and 300 g with UPC 0 71217 69997 4)
• Strubs Scottish Style Sliced Smoked Atlantic Salmon (300 g with UPC 0 71217 69975 2)
• Strubs Danish Style Sliced Smoked Grav-Lox Steelhead Salmon (300 g with UPC 0 71217 69991 2)
• Niagara Smoked Fish Ltd. Steelhead Salmon Cold Smoked Sliced (454 g with UPC 6 28063 04457 3)
• Niagara Smoked Fish Ltd. Steelhead Salmon (300 g with UPC 6 28063 04300 2)
• Niagara Smoked Fish Ltd. Atlantic Salmon (85 g with UPC 6 28063 01003 5 and 454 g with UPC 6 28063 01016 5)
• Ocean Jewel Smoked Atlantic Salmon, sliced (party pack) (300 g wiht UPC 0 59371 77)

These products have been distributed in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. Again, more information is available from the Globe and Mail website.