Created by Oatmeal
Monthly Archives: April 2010
News and links… and a contest!
- I am soooo excited. They’re going to make a Canadian edition of Top Chef! And the Food Network wants people to contribute their ideas.
- Article on food paparazzi (a.k.a. people who take photos of their food while at restaurants), and more detail from Grant Achatz himself. My #1 rule. DON’T USE YOUR FLASH. You generally get better photos without it anyway. And it prevents your camera from irritating other diners. Other things – turn off that annoying beep noise on your point and shoots. Ask permission if you think you might be rude with your photos/video. And who on Earth brings tripods to dinners??
- Anthony Bourdain and Frank Bruni discuss becoming too obsessed with your food
- Turkish doner kebab becomes Germany’s favourite fast food
- Author Michael Chabon’s Quest for Poutine in Toronto
- And just in time for Earth Day, The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators. If you hop on and make enough electricity you will get a free meal.
And lastly, I am happy to announce an official Brûlée Blog contest!
The kind folks at Sobeys have offered to give one of my readers 1375 Club Sobeys points, which works out to approximately $10.00 in free groceries. Yes, I said free groceries!
Club Sobeys is Sobey’s free loyalty card where you can earn reward points through your purchases and redeem them for groceries, appliances, gift cards, and Aeroplan Miles. Since September 2008, more than 2.2 million Club Sobeys members have collected over 6 billion Club Sobeys points, and redeemed them for over $26,000,000 in free groceries. If you don’t already have a Club Sobeys card, you can sign up for a free one right over here. Please note that the points (and therefore also the contest) are only available to residents of Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Ok so how can you win these wonderful points? Simply follow any of these three options:
1. Post a comment here. And make sure to include your e-mail address in the e-mail address line so that I can tell Sobeys who the winner is! If you don’t want to post a comment, feel free to send me an e-mail instead at bruleeblog@{no-spamming}gmail.com (remove the stuff between and including the fancy brackets).
2. Talk about this contest on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and post a link to it here in an additional comment. No limits as to how many of these you do.
3. E-mail your friends and have them mention your name when they post their comment.
This contest closes at end of day May 7th.
Disclaimer: I have not been paid anything nor given anything to promote Club Sobeys.
Kappacasein, London
Kappacasein, a food stall in Borough Market, is the first place where I ever heard of and experienced raclette. This is another place that I had on my “must visit again” list and I wandered the market until I found it.
Kappacasein
Wait, what’s raclette? Well I’m glad you asked. It’s a big ‘ole round of cheese, from parts of Switzerland and France. The cheese is melted and scraped (literally, as racler is French for “to scrape”) onto a variety of food such as potatoes, pickled onions and charcuterie.
Kappacasein counter
Look at all the cheese smeared over the pepper grinders! Kappacasein uses an Ogleshield cheese (which coincidentally comes from the Montgomery farm that I talked about in my Neal’s Dairy Yard post).
raclette sign
Neal’s Yard Dairy, London
I have found cheese nirvana and it can be found at Borough Market.
More on Bourough Market and their cheese stalls later. For now, I want to tell you about Neal’s Yard Dairy. I stumbled upon this place the first time I was in London and have dreamt of it since.
Specializing in farm cheeses from the British Isles, they have two locations in London – Covent Garden and Borough Market. The one that I like to visit is their Borough Market store as it’s so close to so many more food vendors. Just look at all the cheese in the window and at the entrance!
Neal's Yard Dairy
On a giant table by the door they feature a specific cheese and happily hand out samples. That day they were promoting Coolea cheese, a handmade Irish farmhouse cheese made from pasteurized cows’ milk.
Coolea cheese
And on the other side of the doorway was a giant display of my favourite cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy – Montgomery’s cheddar. A farmhouse cheddar made from unpasteurized cows’ milk, this cheese is a bit dry, crumbly, nutty, a tiny bit sharp, and oh so delicious.
Montgomery's cheddar
St. John, London, England
“If you’re going to kill the animal it seems only polite to use the whole thing.”
-Fergus Henderson
The first stop on my Magical Mystery Vacation Tour ™ was a few days spent in London, England. As soon as I knew that would be on the itinerary, I put a visit to the St. John restaurant as #1 on my to-do list in London. I’ve been to London before, but this was a place that I was not able to visit due to time, lack of funds, and the lack of desire of my travelling companion to eat there. This time, I vowed, I would eat there solo if I had to. Luckily, my two friends were interested in sampling the food too! For some odd reason, I didn’t write down any notes – during or after the dinner. But I’ve got notes on every other place I ate at during the month so I’m not quite sure what happened. Please bear with me if my memory is a little hazy on details.
St. John restaurant
Founded by English chef Fergus Henderson, there are actually two St. John restaurants in London – the original, which is the one I went to, and St. John Bread and Wine, which has a few different menu items and a bakery. The original restaurant won a Michelin star in 2009 and maintained its star for the 2010 guide. Their specialty is nose to tail eating, where they serve offal among other things.
The restaurant is rather nondescript from the outside and was almost easy to miss, especially because it is located in Smithfield, a neighbourhood full of restaurants and bars, as well as the centuries-old Smithfield meat market.
St. John exterior
The inside of the restaurant is very simple too – white walls, white paper tablecloths… even the waiters were dressed in almost all white. The first thing you see when you enter the building is the bar area which is a little more casual and has a number of tables and chairs for dining. The restaurant itself is up a small staircase.
St. John interior
St. John interior with view of bar side
The kitchen was open to the dining room and I was able to take a slightly blurry photo. If you look closely you can see the whole pig that someone pre-ordered for a party that evening!
St. John kitchen
