Belgravia Hub

After celebrating my dad's birthday at my parents' earlier in the afternoon, Charles and I stopped in at Belgravia Hub for dinner on the way home. Since my grandmother (Nanny), parents and aunt and uncle all living in the neighbourhood, it turned into a bit of a scouting mission that we were, of course, happy to take on.

We arrived for our 7pm reservation to a relatively full space. Although it was a little chilly, I was happy that the front windows - probably my favourite feature of the design - were still wide open. The rest of the space is beautiful, and takes full advantage of the natural light.

Drinks wise we opted for a bottle of Yukon Red each. While they have a few beers on tap, we were told the Alley Kat Amber had just been switched out for Sleeman's Honey Brown - A little disappointing. Other than the Grapefruit Squeeze (also Alley Kat), the rest of the beer offerings were standard fare. Here's hoping it's something they can work on.

For food, we skipped the 'Fill Up' section, opting to share items from the extensive Beginnings' list. Everything arrived at our table shortly after.

Lamb meatballs.

Fries and a very delicious sweet-smokey ketchup.

Mixed greens salad with pancetta and a perfectly poached egg.

Short rib sliders topped with a very enjoyable fennel slaw.

While I'm going to miss having a 'little bookstore' in the neighbourhood (some incarnation of it has held fast in that building as long as I can remember), this is a great addition to the neighbourhood. Throughout our visit, residents and neighbours clearly made up the majority of patrons, making the space incredibly friendly. Additionally, we found the prices accessible, meaning we wouldn't hesitate to stop for a drink and snack at the bar.

We are already looking forward to our next visit to Belgravia Hub (and I'm also hoping that brunch is in their future plans).

There is a bike rack on the side of the restaurant. Thoughtful!

Lunch at The Local Omnivore

Although it was very wet and snowy today, Claire and I held fast to plans to walk up to The Local Omnivore for lunch. The truck was ready for lunch a little after noon, already serving up soup and sandwiches to a small line up of patrons.

The order of the day seemed to be the special. We didn't deviate, both opting for the potato and bacon soup with a grilled cheese sandwich for $8. Service was fast - My order came up in no time at all, and we waited a few minutes longer for Claire's to come up in the next batch of specials. Wet and slightly cold at this point, we ducked into the nearest building to enjoy our lunch.

We were both impressed with the grilled cheese. Pretty classic, with sliced cheddar, but pushed over the top with incredibly crunchy yet tender bread, and some sort of herb butter/spread. While we enjoyed the texture of the soup, and appreciated its warmth on such a cool day, we agreed that a little more salt would have helped to round out the flavours.

Claire and I wouldn't hesitate to head back - The menu changes daily, giving us lots of options. I'm looking forward to venturing a little further for a fried egg sandwich on the way to the office next week. You can find The Local Omnivore at 100 Ave. and 108 Street (Drift's old spot) for breakfast and lunch, and on Whyte Ave. Fridays and Saturdays, from midnight to 3pm for late night snacks. The menu is updated daily via their Twitter feed.

On a related note, Tanya and I cooked up a pack of their bacon last weekend, and while I wasn't a huge fan of it's sweetness alone, it worked much better in their soup (and I imagine it would be excellent on top of a fried egg sandwich, or something else super savoury, at breakfast). You can purchase packages of their very smoky-sweet bacon directly from the truck for $5.

Easter Breakfast.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the easter weekend. We ate a lot of eggs; both the chicken and chocolate varieties. There was also a satisfactory amount of ham and bacon.

We rounded things off with breakfast yesterday morning at our place. Claire came to join us, armed with juice. I made these beet pickled deviled eggs from Not Without Salt, and Bill Granger's Coconut Bread that was recently posted on Smitten Kitchen. Charles cooked some bacon and I cut up some grapefruit to lighten things up... just a little.

I neglected to pick up the camera, but Claire took a photo of the situation:

This type of breakfast is our favourite. There's a good variety, and it's easy to prepare, since nearly everything is served at room temperature. More breakfast dates like this are definitely in order.

Some cookies. And a little ice cream.

Right after my January/February cake phase, I quickly moved on to cookies - Our little oven needed to be tested. First up were the Quinoa Cloud Cookies from 101 Cookbooks... Sadly they didn't turn out, though with nearly a kilo of quinoa flour left over, I'll be trying them again to fix whatever mistake I made (I suspect it was measurement of the flour; I should always use a scale is the weight measurements are there).

Moving on, I picked up a copy of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich early in March. With easy access to great ingredients (I settled into a lovely "off-festival-season" gig at Provisions by Duchess), the desserts in this book, featuring the flavours of a great chocolate, fresh cream or fruit, nuts and grains, are exactly what I want to make when I step into the kitchen.

I started with her recipe for Whole Wheat Sables, though I swapped out the whole wheat flour for spelt, as suggested, since that's what we had on hand. The dough comes together easily, with just a few ingredients, and is then shaped into a log before being refrigerated over night. I found I needed to cook them about four minutes longer than the suggested 12-14 minutes to get that perfect sandy texture, and to bring out the nutty flavour of the spelt flour (again, our oven...). I made Tartine's Lemon Cream to serve atop the cookies after a lamb dinner made my Rachel.

Next up were Nibby Buckwheat Cookies - Definitely the best of all the cookies I've baked this month. If I can get buckwheat flour into something, I will (these scones, for instance), and I was happy to see it featured prominently in this book. The pairing of buckwheat with cocoa nibs is genius. The flour has a wine like flavour, and cocoa nibs, depending on the brand and origin, often have a fruity flavour that compliments the flour well. She also notes that the buckwheat flour acts like cornstarch - but with better flavour - to give the cookies a fine, sandy texture. Alice Medrich knows her stuff. You can find the recipe here.

Now that things seem to be on the up weather wise, we've found a permanent spot in the freezer for the ice cream bowl. At Cally's Teas the other day, I found dried Lemon Verbena, and picked up a little to make a mint and lemon verbena ice cream also found in the book. This was my first attempt at "Philadelphia" style ice cream, without an egg based custard. The base is made with a fifty-fifty cream-milk mixture, along with a little sugar, and then your flavourings of choice.

I took my pint of ice cream into work on Monday, and I think everyone enjoyed its freshness, particularly since it happened to be the first real warm day since last week's storm.

Cookies and ice cream. Clearly the next step is ice cream sandwiches.

Chocolate and Pear Cake

I've been stocking up on pears. They're my favourite winter fruit by far, and they will sit in our fruit bowl throughout the week while I slowly consume them (this is key since we now have a tiny apartment refrigerator - whatever can stay at room temperature, does).

Yesterday, I peeked into the fruit bowl to find three pears, a little too soft for my liking. With that in mind I headed over to Smitten Kitchen, where there is a great recipe index searchable by fruit, vegetable, season, food type, etc., etc. Under 'pear' there were tempting recipes, like pear and almond tart or the more recent roasted pear and chocolate chunk scones; in the end I went with the bittersweet chocolate and pear cake, which would utilize all three of my Anjou pears.

For the chocolate portion, I used a 60% Hispaniola bar from The Jones Chocolate Company, along with a bar of 64% Maralumi from Michel Cluizel. While the flavours worked well (especially the earthiness of the former), increasing the percentage of the chocolate to tone down the sweetness would have been a better choice.

The cake batter itself came together easily, though as others noted in the comments, the pieces of pear and chocolate didn't really become enveloped in the cake as they were meant to. Maybe a little less would have given the batter the additional room necessary. These things aside, the egg-y base provides a lovely canvas for the pear and chocolate, and we will happily enjoy as the snow falls.

I thought I'd include a few shots from Deep Freeze yesterday. We made it over with our friend Claire and had an incredible time. We enjoyed the perfect weather (as Sharon notes here, 2011 was freezing and last year's warm temperatures weren't any better), taking advantage of fire pits scattered throughout the site, skating and Bailey's poured through ice. Thanks again to the Arts on the Ave crew for another great year!

We ran into Tanya and Tom and Willow

The Village Pig

Lately.

Oh how this space was neglected in 2012. Just 28 posts. 28. Here's hoping for a more solid number in 2013.

We had one of the strangest fall and Christmas seasons ever. I started my 'winter job' at the end of September; always a bit of an adjustment. Then, in November, a friend and long time staff member at Folk Fest passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer; needless to say this was and is a difficult hit. Finally, about a week into December, our landlords let us know that they wanted to put the Oliver unit we moved into last year, up for sale. Instead of waiting until February, we found something (unfortunately not in Oliver, but, fortunately, downtown), and three weeks later, we moved. We did have a great view of the New Year's Eve fireworks:

We have still been eating... a lot.

A few weeks ago we stopped in at Canteen (10522 124 Street) for dinner after hearing rave reviews from coworkers who had attended the soft opening the night before ('That was probably the best lamb I've ever eaten.'). Opening night kinks aside, the food was wonderful. I had a salad with fried chicken livers, arugula, spiced yogurt and an anchovy vinaigrette followed by the Moroccan lamb chops (how could I order anything but?), which were, indeed, lovely. Charles chose the citrus cured salmon with potato followed by the most tender, rich, comforting dish of beef short ribs. I received a gift certificate for Canteen for Christmas, giving us an excuse to head back soon (brunch sounds particularly lovely).

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Earlier in the week, we stopped by Sloppy Hogs Roed Hus (10406 118 Ave.) with a couple friends; it was a visit that had been in reschedule mode for the past two months. Although my initial intent was to go with a sandwich, the server suggested we order the Game Day Platter ($75) for the table, which would allow us to try each of the four meats they offer (ribs, chicken, brisket and pulled pork), each type of BBQ sauce (there was a classic, berry and mustard) and the sides (coleslaw, baked beans, fries and cornbread).

The giant platter

The BBQ itself was great, with the spicy ribs taking centre stage for most of us. The sides were less impressive, particularly the coleslaw, which was lacking in flavour. Although the sauces were all good, we were surprised at the tiny portions that arrived at the table - just a couple tablespoons of each between the four of us; with the meat on the dry side, a little more definitely would have been nice. We also agreed that next time, we could leave the fries in favour of more cornbread, with its sweetness balancing the meat well.
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I also haven't mentioned any of our stopovers at Underground Tap and Grill (10004 Jasper Ave.). We ventured over during their 'soft opening' in October with high expectations. They were definitely still working out the kinks with both food and beer - their final food menu was still in the works and many of the beers listed simply weren't available yet. In November, we tried again. With their full menu in swing, Charles went with a bowl of curry chicken, while I chose the classic burger. Charles found his curry okay, but commented on under seasoning, in terms of both salt and spices. I found my burger a little dry and overcooked, and the crumbly bacon served atop the patty didn't help much.

While we haven't returned for food, we've been back a few times since for beer and are happy to see things have solidly improved on that front. Awhile ago they dedicated 12 more tap lines to the rotational section, bringing the total to 24; there was a definite change in the selection between our last two stops. There are lots of beer tasting boards to choose from (in terms of numbers and the types of beer included) and it's nice to see more events coming down the line - their first cask night with Alley Kat, featuring the newest of the Dragon series - Plaid Dragon - will be taking place on Tuesday, January 29th at 6pm.

I'm not sure we will ever find the atmosphere at Underground as cozy as Sugarbowl or Next Act, but with the most interesting beer selection in town (of both local and imported brews), we will continue to head over.

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Beyond that we've been enjoying a very slow couple weeks. Unpacking, coffee dates, trips to the antique mall, multiple batches of these brownies. Last night I broke out the Dutch oven (because it always starts with that) and made these stout braised short ribs with a bottle of Rogue's Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout.

My mum has been wanting to check out Under the High Wheel for awhile, so earlier in the week we went over for lunch. I ordered the portobello burger while my mum went for the vegetable panini. As before, the portions are generous and their salad served alongside was excellent.

We hope the first couple weeks of 2013 are treating you well too!

Some state of chocolate

Nearly eight months after Kerstin's Chocolates closed its doors, I'm happy to see such great things going on chocolate wise around the city. Well known by now, Kerstin's sister, Angie, has picked up the Kerstin's house brand, Chocophilia, and you can find bars, Caviar and drinking chocolate and other treats at farmers' markets and events around the city. Locals and dates are shared here. And of course, Jacek Chocolate opened their first boutique in Sherwood Park a couple months ago.

That said, there are some other great things happening that I thought were worth mentioning too.

The Jones Chocolate Company

First off, we have our very first bean-to-bar manufacturer in Edmonton. Curtis Jones launched The Jones Chocolate Company in early October. He sources cocoa beans from farmers around the world, paying more than fair trade prices. The roasting, winnowing and conching of the beans happens right here in Edmonton, and beautiful bars of single origin chocolate are the result.

*Photo from their website

I ordered a couple bars from the first batch - a 70% dark chocolate made with beans from the Dominican Republic. The chocolate had a beautiful balance of smoky, tobacco like flavours, along with fruit notes to finish. Definitely impressive. At Make It, I picked up a 60% dark milk bar made from Dominican beans, along with a 70% bar made from Venezuela beans - I haven't cracked them yet but am certainly looking forward to it.

You can find the full collection of bars online here.

The Violet Chocolate Company

You might recognize Rebecca Grant from Kerstin's, where she made bars and confections for a little more than two years. She's now launched her own venture, The Violet Chocolate Company, which features her amazing hand made confections and flavoured bars. She changes up the confections each month, and will be doing a feature bar in addition to her regular line up (it's currently a salted caramel pecan... If you find it, grab it!).

Currently the bar line up includes flavours like Clover Honey and Rosemary in a 49% dark-milk chocolate, Caramel Toasted Coconut with Valrhona's decadent Carmelia chocolate and Toasted Sesame and Ginger. You can check out all her flavours here.

Rebecca (aka. Becca) can be found at events around the city, and you can currently find her line of bars at Evoolution on 104 Street. Make sure you keep an eye on her Facebook page for further details.

Provisions by Duchess

Hopefully you've had a chance to swing by Provisions, next door to Duchess Bake Shop. They carry amazing preserves, spices and other baking additions, flours and grains, butter and loads of books and baking gear.

You can also find shelves full of Theo Chocolate's bars (Phinney and otherwise) and salted caramels, as well as bars from François Pralus, Amedei, Bonnat (if you haven't had any of their dark-milk bars, you're missing out) and my favourite, Patric. These bars are perfect stocking stuffers, with shelf lives from 6 (milk chocolate) to 18 (dark chocolate) months, so make sure you get there early.

So there you have it. Lot's of exciting options chocolate wise this year.