Cage Match #4: Black Cat vs. Taylor's Wine Bar

...wherein your humble blogger tries to answer the age-old question, "Is a burger ever worth $20?"  And *spoiler alert* the answer is a resounding yes.

Full confession:  the Black Cat (428 Preston) is one of my favorite restaurants in Ottawa, and I am a bit of a restaurant tramp.  I love the ambience - elegant without being pretentious or stuffy; I love the food - sometimes, when I have a moment, I'll daydream about their truffled chicken breast; I love that the executive chef is a young woman in an industry that is still very much dominated by men (Ottawa Magazine had a very interesting article on this topic here).

Every Tuesday the Black Cat features a different burger; Richard's burger (the owner) is also available Tuesday to Thursday.  The Tuesday we were there, the special burger was the Backyard BBQ burger which was topped with caramelized onions and a home made barbeque sauce on a house made onion brioche bun.  Richard's burger is topped with smoked bacon, sharp cheddar, pickles and "secret sauce".  The accompanying frites were infused with sage and served with a truffled mayo.  We ordered one of each.

Hello, Lover.

They were....awesome.  So juicy and saucy and flavourful; Jon and I immediately started swooning and waxing poetic.

Jon:  It's so good I want to cry.
Me:  This burger has made me happier than I've ever made anyone else happy.
Jon:  This burger makes me sad because it's better than me.
Me:  Go accomplish something so you can be worthy of this burger.
Jon:  I will never be worthy of this burger.  This burger is so good I'm sad it'll leave me tomorrow morning.
Me:  ....
Jon:  Too far?
Me:  Yes.

It was messy, we really violated their white starched linen napkins:

The frites were amazing as well, perfectly crisp on the outside with their infusion of sage, and as good as any I've had in Belgium.

Final score:

Jon: 10/10
Me: 10/10

Next up was the Genuine Burger at Taylor's Genuine Food and Wine Bar (1091 Bank St.) the sister restaurant to the Domus Cafe.  Their burger is available on the lunch menu; it's $16 and topped with Blackburn cheddar, pickles and lettuce on a Rideau Bakery bun, served with mixed greens and roasted potatoes.  It came accompanied by a sweet tomato chutney and garlic mayo.

It was a thick, juicy burger, the patty was pinkish in the middle; I really liked the sweetness of the tomato chutney in contrasty with the saltiness of the meat, which was seasoned.  As a whole, though, it didn't cause us to become slobbering sycophants.

Me:  It's good, but it doesn't make my heart sing.  More of a low level hum.  Or maybe a bit of scatting?
Jon:  Your heart wouldn't scat.
Me:  It's not funky enough?
Jon:  No.

The roasted potato spears were so-so, the salad was good but it's hard to swoon over mixed greens.

Final score:

Jon: 9/10
Me: 9/10

Pop-Up Madness: Matt Carmichael's Pop-Up Venture at Mello's Diner

I'm a big fan of the casual, unpretentious diner vibe, but I'm not always crazy about the greasy diner food (because working out sucks, y'all).  Luckily, thanks to Matt Carmichael - chef extraordinaire formerly of Eighteen, Social and Sidedoor - we can have the best of both worlds: fresh food made with quality ingredients served in awesome plastic booths.  Carmichael launched what I think is Ottawa's first pop-up restaurant Monday night at Mello's Diner on Dalhousie.  Pop-up restaurants are basically temporary restaurants using random spaces (a private home, former factory, and in this case, greasy spoon diner that has been around longer than Coronation Street).  I'm always up for trying new things; sometimes this works out (zip lining!) and sometimes not so much (the Ottawa Carleton Regional Plow Match!)  So Ariann, Brandon and I grabbed our umbrellas and headed down for the 6:00 pm seating.


Mello's was gussied up with flowers, candles, and new lighting (sparklier lightbulbs?)

The menu was short and pretty seafood heavy.

After we ordered, they brought out a complimentary bowl of bourbon caramel popcorn:

It had a lovely, smoky, burnt caramel flavour, though I do think it could have been improved with the addition of a little Maldon salt sprinkled on top.

Me:  It's Cracker Jacks, grown up!
Brandon:  I must say, I am disappointed with the declining quality of Cracker Jack prizes.
Me:  It's Cracker Jacks, gone posh!  It's Cracker Jacks that have left their trailer park, went to Harvard and now live on the Upper East Side!  It's...I'll stop now.

Next, we had the black tomato and mozzarella salad ($12) and the cod fish taco ($8)

These, too, were amazing.  The mozzarella in the salad had the consistency of marshmallows, soft and pillowy and melt in the mouth.  The cod fish in the taco was crisp in its light batter, topped with jalapenos and greens and a mayonnaise based sauce.  It was everything that my taco at Tacolot wasn't - namely, flavourful.

For the mains, we had the caramelized black cod with peas and morels ($22), which was served in a aluminum take-out container:

and the steak frites with peppercorn sauce ($22):

The cod, for me, was the hit of the night.  The fish was light and flaky, the sauce slightly sweet and the peas done al dente.  The steak frites, in contrast, were, as Brandon described, "deliciously average".  Cooked medium rare (the server didn't ask how we wanted the steak) it was a little on the chewy side; I would have liked the frites crispier though Brandon said he liked them mushy.

Ariann:  Everything else just slid down, then with the steak we had to... (*makes manic chewing motions*)
Me:  The steak is definitely not the road less travelled.  Not only is it not the road less travelled, it's a 400 level highway. Complete with Timmies.
Brandon:  (wistfully) It's a dream that never grew wings.

We tried the one dessert offering, a coconut caramel pot du creme:

I took more shots of our food that night than I have of various UNESCO World Heritage Sites around the globe.  The Imperial City in Hue, for example, got one shot.

I'm generally not a big fan of custard, but this was beautifully creamy but light, with caramelized banana chunks sprinkled with coconut cookie crumbles.

The Mello's pop-up will be running from Sunday to Wednesday, starting at 6:00 pm, for an indeterminate length of time.

Photos were taken by myself and Brandon.

Cage Match #3: Hintonburger vs. Baja Burger Hut (with a side of Tacolot and Suzy Q)

Up today: a heavyweight battle featuring the acclaimed Hintonburger vs. the 2011 winner CTV Ottawa's "Best Burger" contest, Baja Burger Shack.  Hintonburger has moved into the old KFC building on Wellington, and they've awesomely kept the bucket sign:

Does anyone remember Mike Myers' Colonel Sanders rant from So I Married and Axe Murderer - "Oh, I hated the Colonel with his wee beady eyes, and that smug look on his face.  "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken!  Ohhhhhhh!!!"  Anyhow, we got the Hintonburger with fries ($8.75) which is a 6 oz bacon cheeseburger with their "signature BBQ sauce".  We asked for garlic sauce as well.

It's a good burger - moist but slightly charred on the outside, your classic barbeque burger.  In fact, it tasted just like a burger a friend would grill up for me at a backyard barbeque - a friend who really likes me, granted, but not really superior to that.  Jon agreed - good burger, but not great.

Scores:

Jon: 7.5/10
Me: 7.5/10

After sharing the burger we wandered over to the Tacolot, which we've been meaning to try for a while.

 Unfortunately, it was after 8 pm and they only had beef tacos left.  We got the platter (two tacos, rice, salad and fruit, $10):

There was melted cheddar cheese on the bottom, then pulled beef topped with chopped tomatoes, onions and cilantro.  The beef wasn't seasoned whatsoever - not even salt and pepper - and the whole thing was rather bland.  Other than the bit of cilantro, the vegetables weren't dressed with anything either.  The rice and beans were similarly tasteless.  Never having been to Mexico, I don't know if this is what authentic tacos are supposed to taste like; I've tried the tacos at Corazon de Maiz in the Market Mall and it was pretty, blandly similar, though at least there you had five different hot sauces to try.  Other than that, my experience with Mexican food is pretty limited.  The last time I was at an actual sit-down Mexican restaurant was years ago at Mexicali Rosa's on Clarence St. and it was wretched, as you might expect.  We gave our order, the server took away our menus and immediately brought out our (terrible) food, leading me to picture a bunch of dishes lined up in a row, waiting to be microwaved (as an aside, I went to use the washroom and didn't realize that Mexicali's shares their restrooms with Haveli next door, located off a common hallway.  I came out and picked the wrong door, and ended up in this Indian restaurant, thinking, What happened???!!!  Alas, I had not stumbled into an alternate dimension, my life is not that glamorous).

While we were waiting for the tacos, we went next door to Suzy Q's donuts, located in the Hintonburger's former home.  An employee (owner?) walked out holding this beauty:

Hello, lover

He told us they had closed at 8, but we were welcome to have this white chocolate raspberry donut.  Well, we wanted to be accommodating.  I've tried Suzy Q donuts before; I picked up a half dozen over Easter and  while I find their flavours creative - I enjoyed the margarita with lime glaze and salt - I thought the toppings were more delicious than the actual base donut (which did not vary between varieties).  The texture is airier and spongier than I like, and - dare I say it - a bit bland.

Baja Burger Shack is a concession stand located at Britannia Beach, and you can't really beat the view from the patio:

I guess the grass fringe makes it a tiki bar?  More hint o'Tiki.  Tiki light?  Memories of Tiki.  Okay, I'll stop now.  We ordered the Baja cheeseburger with fries and a bottle of water ($12.40 with taxes).

The patty was slightly pink, and while it was soft it wasn't mushy like the one at Vera's.  It was also moist and juicy and SEASONED and oh so lovely.  However...

Me:  The bun's really pale.
Jon:  It tastes pale.  And doughy.
Me:  It tastes like everything we've been indoctrinated about white bread in the past ten years rolled into one doughy bun.
Jon:  You have the soul of a poet.
Me:  You know what doesn't have soul?  Or poetry?  This bun.

So all that was separating this burger from greatness was a better bun.  The fries were okay; I personally prefer my fries a bit crispier, though the portion was pretty generous.

Scores:

Jon:  8/10
Me: 8.5/10

Field Trip! Belgium: Chocolate, Frites, Waffles and...Blackface

So, I was away on a short holiday across the sea.  I visited with some friends in London, rode a Death Coaster in Brighton (it was, erm, my first time riding a roller coaster than goes upside down, and I was disconcerted by the obvious signs of rust on the track) and took the Eurostar to Belgium, where the streets are paved with chocolate.  I'm not kidding, there were chocolate shops everywhere.  And oh what chocolate it was, ranging from the small and jewel like...

...to the abundantly gushing.

Forget the marshmallow.  If you don't want to stick your mouth right under the faucet you're no friend of mine.

Whereas the designs ranged from the classy...

...to the Klassy.

Well...at least it's multi-cultural.

The Belgians - and actually Europeans in general - take their chocolate very seriously.  The EU stipulates that in order for a product to be labelled as "chocolate" it has to contain at least 35% pure cocoa, and Belgian chocolates must be made with 100% cocoa butter, instead of the cheaper palm oil found in many lesser chocolates.

Frites are also much beloved - did you know that French fries are actually Belgian?  The story goes that during WWI some Belgian soldiers - currently 40% of Belgians speak French - offered fries to some of the Americans, who probably just assumed they were French.  The frites are thicker cut and double fried - first for about 8-10 minutes, allowed to sit and sweat, then fried again for a couple minutes just before serving.  Believe me when I say that they are happiness in potato form.  You can buy them on the street served in a white paper cone with mayo for dipping, which I never got around to doing seeing as I was eating fries with every meal.  I did hit up the Frite museum in Bruges, and was deeply despondent over their lack of frites to try.  Avoid it if you're ever in the area, as it contained absolutely nothing that you couldn't also see, read and learn by googling "frites" and "history of the potato" on the internet.

The waffles were equally lovely:

This was light and melt in my mouth, and needed nothing more than a bit of powdered sugar.  There were waffle trucks galore (I heard there's one here in Ottawa at Bank and Fifth, must go check it out), but I found that they weren't as good as the restaurant one above, probably because they tended to have been pre-made then re-toasted.  They went for two euros each topped with your choice of caramel or chocolate sauce.

The day I arrived in Bruges was Ascension Day, which is a national holiday in Belgium and, to my intense annoyance, this meant that most shops would be closed.  I did arrive in time for their Procession of the Holy Blood parade, which they've been doing every year since at least 1350.  When I walked by at around 2:00 people were waiting around for it, so I joined them, figuring that since it starts every year at 2:30, it would be only about half an hour of standing.  What I didn't realize was that we weren't near the starting point, so it took a while for the parade to get down to us.  I was standing with this very sweet elderly German couple, so I thought, well, if they can stand here for hours, I can too.  The man looked at me and asked:

Man:  Where are you from?
Me:  Canada!
Man:  Are you Japanese?
Me:  No.  I'm Chinese; my parents were born in Hong Kong.
Man:  My daughter studied in San Francisco.  There are lots of Japanese people there!  But they don't have faces like yours.
Me:  ....that's probably because I'm not Japanese.
Man:  The town where I live, in Germany, has lots of Japanese people!!
Me:  ....that's great.

Anyhow, the parade finally made its way to us, and it was awesomely, randomly bizarre.  It began with a band, horses, and girls in white dresses:

And proceeded on to Adam and Eve, if they had decided to forgo fig leaves in favour of cave man style fur tunics:

And also included sheep...

...camels...

...donkeys...

...random dude in a soft serve ice cream hat (awesome)...

...bagpipes??!!!!....

Call me crazy, but did they have bagpipes in the Bible?

...and blackface.

Sorry, was too frozen in shock to get a head-on photo.

This was from a different parade, on the Saturday in Brussels.  I still reeled.

Why why why why why??!!!!  Is it because I'm approaching this from a North American viewpoint?  Seriously, if this had happened in the States, there would have been violent rioting.  Something else I discovered this trip, from a Dutch friend living in Brussels: apparently the Dutch Santa, called Sinter Klaus, has a helper named Black Piet.  Who is a dude in blackface, wearing an Afro wig and big painted pink lips.  He throws candy to the children, so they love him, and the Dutch are very defensive, saying that it's just a harmless children's tradition.  A harmless, racist, children's tradition, rooted in Dutch colonialism.  And something which Flemish culture has at least partially embraced.

I need some pretty pictures of Bruges to calm me down.

Bruges really was gorgeous, and not as relentlessly touristy as Venice - at dusk you can walk the deserted streets alone, and watch the lights shimmering in the dark waters of the canals.

Will hopefully hit up some more burger places this weekend, and be back to our regularly scheduled programming.