a very bloggy thanksgiving

Did you seriously think we would let Turkey Day pass without a mention on the good ol' blog?
Of course you didn't. And of course we wouldn't.

Thanksgiving commands a very important place in my year. Forgive the apocryphal origins and bad pilgrim celebration stories. Ignore the football and the sometimes-awkward family and the fact that we usually end up wolfing-down our meals. And while it's true that for many families, Thanksgiving is more likely to come from cans and boxes than farmer's market stalls, it is still one of the few (only?) American holidays devoted to food. No matter whether that food is fresh or packaged, nearly everyone that I talk with has strong memories (usually fond) of the holiday primarily because of the central place that food takes in all the festivities. Food makes memories stronger.

One day in the year that we get off of work and focus on food. Maybe everyone doesn't have a gourmet feast, but as a victory for eating, I'll take what I can get.

A and I rarely make the same meal twice. The same holds true for Thanksgiving. A part of me always wants to revive old meals and continue traditions, but part of me is so curious about new tastes. So we strike a balance. We do some dishes from family recipes, we create some from memory and we make a few new ones from recipes that we've culled over the past few lead-up months.

Personally, I find it fascinating how much technology and culture have intertwined over the course of even my life (A finds it slightly less interesting when I wax philosophical on this subject). I never would have expected that so much of our family's meal would come from the internet and yet, last Thursday, we were cooking a recipe from A's grandmother alongside new favorites we'd found online. Luddism is far from my mindset, hell, we bought our pie from a blog, but there is a part of me that wants for the marginalia of old handwritten recipes. Maybe I'll scrawl the web recipes onto index cards and spill some leftover gravy on them to make them look well-loved. Or maybe I'll just start looking for new recipes for next year.

So, with links when appropriate, here was the P & A 2007 Thanksgiving:

Mesclun salad with dates, goat cheese & molasses-garam masala vinaigrette
(with adjustments to the recipe's dressing)
________

Cider-glazed carrots
________

Brussels sprouts with Renee's chipotle-glazed nuts
________

Coconut curried uchiki kuri squash (from Viridian Farms)
________

Calmyrna fig and walnut dressing
________

Mushroom & Fennel Bread Pudding
________

Granny B's Velveeta Mac & Cheese (we're not all highbrow around here)
________

Mashed potatoes from memory
________

Mushroom Country Gravy
________

Bacon-Wrapped Turkey with Pear Cider Gravy
________

Cranberry Sauce with Orange Bitters & Harlequin
________

Buttermilk Pie with Cardamom and Nutmeg from The Acorn
________

Marty's Sweet Potato Pie

The standouts were definitely the bread pudding, which was a great (richer) take on traditional stuffing and the turkey gravy, which was worth all of the extra effort of pureeing roasted pears and cooking down the turkey-bacon drippings with hard cider. This was A's first time helping to cook the majority (read: all) of Thanksgiving. Perhaps I got us in over both of our heads, but we managed to get through it with only minor gravy scalds on our legs. The end count: 13 dishes for 8 people.

the belly of the beast, pt. 2

Now, on to the food, already!

P: Walking into Beast, the interior is fantastically cool. The decor was like the kitchen we've always dreamed of - a little bit industrial, a little bit farmhouse, a little bit NoPo hipster. Beside a wall of blue tile, pots and pans were stacked on open metal post shelving with burners and ovens wedged within. All that separates the two spacious group tables (8-person and 16-person) from Pomeroy and her sous-chef is a large wooden butcher block island, upon which they do all of their preparations and platings. This space puts other "open kitchens" to shame - it feels more like sitting at a farmhouse table in the middle of a large country (albeit chic) kitchen.

Covering the full back wall of the restaurant is a blackboard of scribbled food quotes (from the anonymous "Praise the lard!" to De la Soul: "I've been know to sample soul food off the old school plates"), recipes (creme fraiche dough), lists of favorite local restaurants, phone numbers, and restaurant mile stones. It reads like a peek inside the inner workings of the chefs' minds. I think that the effect of restaurant's decor was best captured by what one of the gentlemen sitting at our table said to us. His fourth trip in as many weeks, he described his attitude toward the bistro as feeling like, "the 11th hour guest at a party full of strangers; you can come and enjoy your meal or you can reach across the table and meet someone new." While it isn't family style like some of Pomeroy's last ventures - the common menu and communal tables invite connections. It is an incredibly warm and casual place with just enough of an edge to draw the right mix of people for lovely conversations.

A: Before we dive into the food, we should mention that the service was the perfect compliment both to the warm and convivial atmosphere and to the perfectly synchronized meal. This, like the restaurant itself, is due to years of preparation. Our waiter, Daniel, has worked with Naomi for over ten years and is as much a part of this current project as she is. This experience makes him a friendly and attentive waiter, but also perfectly suited to the style of restaurant that Beast is trying to be.

Wait staff here (of which there are only two) are friendly in an extremely genuine way that I haven't experienced in other restaurants. Adding to the sense of eating in someone's home, both Daniel and Tracy spoke to us like friends, rather than customers. Upon first walking in, we immediately recognized Daniel and quickly realized that he had been working the Unearth dinner we had attended. Only after seeing him with Tracy did we realize that we had seen both of them somewhere else - the two had danced in "Ten Tiny Dances" for TBA 2007. In between courses, we talked about their choreography, TBA, and Daniel's experience working with food. Leaving Beast, we felt like we wanted to return just as much for the people as to taste a new menu.

But lest we bore you excessively with the background, onto the juicy (and salty, and richly buttery) details...

So the meal was five-courses. And to most, that would be enough. But at a place this fine, there's always a little something extra. The amuse bouche for our meal was a gougere - a rich, bread-pudding-like roll with a salty gruyere crust. Forgetting that after finishing these, we still had five courses to go, we each ate the entire thing, including any pesky crumbs that dared to clutter our plates.

P: When the first official course came, it was a steaming mug of French onion soup, which may well be my favorite soup. For some reason, A and I have gotten out of the habit of using beef stock when we make it and this bowl reminded us of why we that is an unforgivable concession to healthfulness. The broth tasted like the drippings from a perfect Sunday roast (or, at least, it would have if we hadn't scalded our mouths with the first bite [and the second and third]). It is just so classic, this dish, that you wouldn't want a single thing to be changed. I love the rich salty broth, A loves the way the gruyere leaves an impenetrably sticky coating on the spoon.

A: The second course was a Charcuterie plate with some old standards - country pate, chicken and duck liver mousse, cornichon, and stone-ground mustard - and some tasty standouts (new to us, at least) - steak tartare with a quail egg toast and some pickled vegetables that tasted distinctly indian (mustard seed, fenugreek and turmeric?). It was a nice, country-french addition to the hearty meal.


The main course for the evening was short ribs braised in armagnac prunes and aged balsamic vinegar with potatoes aligot and cabbage with bacon and shallots. meet fell off the bone, rich, dark sauce, potatoes were creamy and cheesy, like the potatoes at pied du cochon. I know P doesn't agree with me, but I think the short ribs were actually my least favorite part of the meal (which isn't to say they weren't tasty). I've strayed further and further from enjoying a cut of beef and, while the meat was cooked to perfection in a truly fantastic sauce (the armagnac prunes were a perfect, tangy accompaniment to the richly salty quality of the meat), I spent most of my time savoring the potatoes aligot. But seriously, who wouldn't? These potatoes were soooo creamy.

P: I wouldn't. I mean, I did, because the potatoes were good, but damn, those short ribs were tender and the armagnac/prune/aged balsamic combo was to-die-for. Only half-way through the courses, I mentioned to A how sick I was, and A, true to form, licked the sauce off her plate. "I feel like I could go for a run," she said. And then another course came to the table. A mache salad vermouth vinaigrette was paired with baby carrots and herbed creme fraiche. Tasting this dish, I felt like I'd taken the waters at Lourdes. Alone, it was an unremarkable dish, but it was such a contrast to the richness of the previous courses that it re-invigorated my appetite enough to fit in two more courses. It was clear that just like the competitive eater who falters on his 99th hot dog, I too had been a victim of flavor fatigue.

A cheese course of 4-year aged gouda, pink lady apples and pistachio shortbread followed the salad. While it was a pretty basic cheese pairing, the pistachio shortbreads were a nice buttery and nutty substitute for nuts. And when it comes down to it, I cannot get enough of that aged gouda - it has this rich caramel flavor and these great crunchy crystals in the shards, its like cheese candy. That has got to be my favorite cheese (Everything here seems to be P's favorite. I thought this was my birthday meal. -A).

Finally, out came the dessert: a lemon pudding cake with thyme tuille and soft vanilla whipped cream. For some reason we never order dishes like this in restaurants - we always gravitate towards the nut or chocolate desserts. But this cake was moist and topped by an incredibly light custard, like a softer lemon curd. Paired with the light herbal bite of the cookie, it could change our minds about lemon desserts.

On our way out, we noticed a copy of the Au Pied du Cochon album up on a shelf of other cookbooks and we immediately saw an affinity between the two restaurants. Both chefs take classic preparations and break them down into their comfort food basics, serving them in the atmosphere of a friend's home. We asked Naomi if she had been to Au Pied and told her of our recent trip to Montreal. She and her sous-chef's eyes widened and we left them scheming up a way to call a flight to Montreal a "business trip."

A: We think (know) we'll have to go back soon. Besides, the three-course meal for $32 a person, where you can share a charcuterie plate and a salad, and each get a first course, main course, and a choice of dessert or cheese plate, sounds like a pretty great week night deal to us. Maybe just about every night of the week. Anyway, we're pretty tired of cooking after that extravagant Thanksgiving meal we made. But that's a story for another day...

the belly of the beast, pt. 1

A great painting by Evan B. Harris
Since we don't want any of you to forget just how much this blog is a joint effort between P & A (often necessitating awkward 3rd person grammatical ploys), we're going to be tag-teaming this one. We wrote all of our Montreal posts together and we always bounce ideas for posts off of one another; so just ignore those little "posted by" tag lines at the bottom. It is a funny experience to co-author writings - we see the differences in our voices while trying to make them blend into something coherent. If it was snarky, it was probably P; if it was punny, it was
probably A's doing. So for this one, we're going to try a little back-and-forth, which may just degrade into bickering.

P: Right after saying how infrequently we get to new restaurants, we're at it again. Just a little over a month ago, Naomi Pomeroy (formerly of Ripe and Supper fame) opened a new restaurant, BEAST, with an intriguing premise - one prix-fixe menu per night of her signature French by-way-of-Portland-farmer's market fare.

Apparently, it was so intriguing that it turned up in Willamette Week's 100 best restaurants in Portland after only a few weeks of service. The early accolades made me skeptical - not necessarily about the caliber of BEAST, but about WW's standards. Just skimming through this year's guide, A and I immediately came across a handful of such poor editorial calls. Too many of the reviews sounded like apologies for the poor quality of a restaurant (Nostrana, Red Star, and don't even get me started about how mediocre Pinocchio sounds) and one review was even of a place that had sadly closed prior to publication.

I love Portland, and I love Portland restaurants, but I'm sorry, there are not 100 superlatively good upscale restaurants in town. Don't scrape the barrel just to get a newsstand worthy number; including sub-par restaurants only makes Portland look like we have a poverty of worthwhile food, which is far from the truth.

A: The reason for Beast's immediate success requires back-story, because unlike other restaurants that might falter out of the gate, Beast is the product of the continual refinement and clarification of a culinary idea. We've had Naomi Pomeroy's food a few times before, but never in a restaurant setting. Naomi used to be half of Portland's epicurean dynamic duo, arguably a major impetus behind Portland's push into the food scene big leagues.

In addition to a handful of restaurants, Naomi and her ex-husband started Ripe, a family-style supper that began in their home as an invitation only event. In the very beginning, guests brought a chair to the table in exchange for their meal. Oh, how we longed to attend. We eventually got to a Ripe dinner when they were a part of TBA in 2005. The meal was amazing - I still can't get the cherry tomato, haricot verts, and shell bean salad with pounded basil and aoili out of my head - and sharing meals with strangers really does make one feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The next time we had the pleasure of tasting Naomi's food was much more recently, after her empire had a sucker-punch of a collapse. (This may sound like a lot of gossip, but this is Portland after all, and these are the closest we have to celebrities. -P) About a month after I started working at Ecotrust, the events staff re-introduced an event called the Unearth dinner. While the name was a little obtuse, the concept of the dinner was intriguing - a local and highly seasonal dinner made by a Portland chef. This time, the chef was Naomi Pomeroy. The cuisine was the essence of late spring with copper river salmon, early summer berries, chicories, spring lamb, braised baby fennel and cherries. Again, the food was served family style and we spent the evening eating our fill, drinking good wine (with the wine makers) and quickly becoming friends (or maybe just drunk) with everyone around us.

For us, these two meals captured two themes that make Beast what it is: a place that emphasizes both the seasonality of food and the conviviality of sharing it with others.

After P's rant and A's little history lesson, we've realized it is late and this post is running long - we'll devote our entire next post to the actual food....

p & a love pdx (and p loves maps)

In addition to all of the changes I've made around the site (because I can't leave well-enough alone), I have finally cleaned up our map feature and incorporated it into this page, instead of relegating it to a separate blog. It is still accessible from a link in the sidebar, and we will dutifully try to keep it up-to-date with the locations of our favorite places that we've written about.

I've been steadily compiling quirky web-based maps of Portland for some time now, intending to share them once we'd gotten all of that wedding business out of our systems. Now seemed like a perfect time to start posting about them, having just updated our own map. And then I looked down at my list. All of these maps seemed tailor-made for summertime pursuits - it would take a particularly hearty sort to go out adventuring in the rain, especially for an ice cream tour. Trust me, they only get more fair-weather from there.

But reading over the maps I'd collected, I came across one that seemed like it could still be able to rouse a few of us from this dreary weather malaise - happy hours! I'll leave my house in a hail-storm for half-priced drinks and snacks. This is maybe a tad over-dramatic since it only rained yesterday morning; it isn't quite time to pack it in and hibernate for the season. And honestly, it shouldn't take the promise of a drink to get me out during the fall and winter - that doesn't speak very well to my character.

So to dispel the first cold rains of the autumn, and to encourage those of you in PDX to get out and take advantage of our fair city (myself included), I share with you a handful of the great online maps I've come across.

unthirsty.com Happy Hour Map: For a user-generated database filled in by drunks, it's surprisingly accurate and informative. It lists hours and specials with the aid of some morbidly adorable little cartoons.

Willamette Week's Homemade Ice-cream Map: WW runs down their favorites of local ice-cream (not gelato) parlors. I see a few omissions that could lead to A and I needing to do some "research." Best for a global-warming winter day.

Hidden Portland Small Museums Map: Carrie Bye, the artist behind the Red Bad Press line of woodblock greeting cards has compiled an online guide (OK, I know, no map) to Portland's quirkier small collections. A museum of velvet paintings is a good rainy-day activity, right? Especially when it is around the corner from some Cuban food.

Bycycle.org Bike Route Map: How did you think you'd get to all of the places on these maps? By bike, of course! This clever site cross-references your directions request with Portland's local bike route maps, determining the safest route for cyclists.

So think of these as a jumping off point for Wintry explorations. As we come across more worthy guides and maps to Portland, we'll be sure to post them here. And who knows, maybe we have a few food tour maps of our own in the works....

deli dreams

For how much we both love trying new food - A and I do not tend to be people who make it out to a new restaurant during its opening weeks. We tend to let it languish on our list for some months while we talk persistently about how we should be going. This is probably the same part of us that misses so many movies in the theaters, only seeing them months after our friends have watched the sequel. So, keeping this in mind, it was pretty unusual how proactive we were in visiting Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen on their third official day.

Blame it on Montreal. Schwartz's ruined us for other delis and left us with a pastrami-shaped hole in our hearts (stomachs?). When we had heard that two Portland chefs were resurrecting their famed pastrami sandwiches as part of a full-fledged cafe - we knew where we would be for lunch. As did the rest of Portland. The scene that Friday was what hype looks like. Who would have guessed that the butcher paper signs ("Mmmmm...pastrami.") hung in the windows during construction would be enough to get locals pouring out onto the sidewalks for 35 minute waits for to-go sandwiches? We quickly gave up hopes of a table and staked out a place in line to order take-out.

Though we took our lunches back to our jobs - the atmosphere inside the deli was great. Huge windows with hand-painted and foiled lettering wrap the corner of the bottom floor of the Ace hotel. The walls are a bright yellow and the tables are those classic diner types rimmed with chrome. On the take-out side, there are baskets of bagels hanging on the wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with mustards and soda pops and a large cold case holding house-cured fish, homemade coleslaws and schmears, and a big jar of half-sours.

A ordered the gravlax on a poppy seed bagel. It was perfectly soft and had just the right amount of fishiness behind its briney-cured flavor. There were some sweet-pickled red onions and a healthy scoop of capers to sharpen the whole thing. I already knew that I wanted the pastrami and when I saw the menu, it was immediately clear which sandwich I'd be getting. Enter the Ken's Special. This place has gone above and beyond the call of duty (and probably good sense), adding chopped liver, coleslaw and Russian dressing to their stacked pastrami sandwich. The liver really is a masterful move - adding a rich, minerally sweetness to the dry saltiness of the meat and the tang of the dressing. At the risk of offending my East coast relatives, I'm going to say that the pastrami itself was pretty amazing.

Now, full disclosure, I have never understood the bitter feuds between sibling food cultures. I understand on an abstract level the pride in place and style, but vehemently defaming another city's pizza? That I do not understand. I am sure that at this moment, there is a New Yorker who is posting an irate comment about K & Z's meat on some NYC online deli chat group about how it isn't authentic. Why does it have to be from NY to be delicious? I mean, can't we have our own Portland-style pastrami? Don't we deserve it? These guys take it seriously enough for it to count - they cook it five days, smoke it for 10 hours and steam it for three. That is delicious. What I am saying is probably heretical, but then again, I fully admit that I would eat any style of Southern BBQ and be quite pleased with it. Dry-rubbed, basted, sauced, injected, pork, brisket, mutton. I know their differences, but you can't deny that all of them are good.

With that said, K & Z's pastrami is amazingly good, even though it isn't like a NY deli. It was sweet and the edges had almost caramelized, making the meat taste like a candied jerky. It wasn't too fatty, but that also means it didn't have that melt-in-your-mouth quality of Schwartz's. Along with the crisp acidic bite of the coleslaw and the half-sour, it was a pretty satisfying sandwich experience. For how lovingly they craft their pastrami, it really is just the tip of iceberg. Their menu is filled with smoked fish, kugels, bialys, stuffed cabbage, and chopped liver - high-grade deli comfort. They're only in their 4th week of service and we are already planning on going back and trying to get a table.

so long, and thanks for all the poutine

When we awoke on Sunday, we both knew what had to be done. We would return to Au Pied in order to sample the remaining 30-odd dishes we had missed on our first visit. P would spend the rest of the morning practicing his French and psyching himself up to call the restaurant and make a reservation. A would spend her day dreaming up possible appetizer-entree combinations to make the most out of one last trip.

To make room for the meal that lay ahead, we set out to the base of Mont Royal to finally begin our hike to the top. Though it wasn't the peak of fall foliage, the colors were crisp and striking to people coming from the evergreen Northwest. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape architect behind Central Park, and it showcased his highly natural style. A lake at the top of the hill provides a space for paddle boats in the summer and ice skating in the winter. Just a pretty view for us. Despite the balmy morning, which made for a stunning view from the hilltop, we ended up huddling under the single umbrella we were lucky to have brought with us.

By the time we were finished trekking up and down the park, we realized that it was well past lunch time and, quite possibly, the longest we had gone without food on the entire trip. We ran (we did not walk) to the other side of town and made it into Euro-Deli Batory minutes before they locked their doors. Your basic neighborhood Polish go-to store (doesn't every neighborhood have one?), Euro-Deli was packed with Polish toiletries, Polish food and Polish DVDs. A had been craving borscht for what seemed like years, because of P's cruel moratorium, so she knew exactly what she was getting. P had a soft spot for Pierogis, likely a result of his Polish (and Ukranian) heritage. The Borscht was excellent - a strong, earthy beet flavor countered by a generous dollop of sour cream - and P happily "helped" A with her meal. The Pierogis were plentiful and delicious with yet more sour cream on the side. On our way out, we grabbed a poppyseed kolachi and then wandered up to Marche Jean Talon. We grabbed a few bottles of ice cider (Quebec's wine industry has recently been receiving recognition, but their ice cider has long been praised) and said good-bye to Olive et Epices.

We walked back towards our B & B and ended up at Chocolat de Chloe, one of the cutest chocolatiers we had ever seen. Chloe infuses all her own ganaches with fresh herbs, fruits and spices. As we salivated over her wares, laboring over how much chocolate we could fit into our suitcases, Chloe herself was busy decorating sugar skulls for Dia de los Muertos. We finally decided on a bag of drinking chocolate fish, a bag of caramel tablets (like a decadent Caramello), and Caramel au Vanille et Buerre Sale (the most incredible caramel sauce made with salted butter, so it has a distinct salty flavor to compliment the buttery sweetness).

When we'd returned from Chloe's, P mustered it up in himself to call and make a reservation at Au Pied. Excitement led him to make it for incredibly early in the evening. So we shortly left for the restaurant in broad daylight, hoping that we wouldn't be the overeager first ones to the restaurant on our second trip in four days. One thing P had done correctly was to specify a place at the bar when he'd called. It had been recommended that we sit at Au Pied's bar for the full experience of the open kitchen, and it was wise that we did. It isn't easy to understand just how much foie gras this restaurant goes through until you see it for yourself. In between placing the final touches on various dishes, the sous chef would absent-mindedly lob lobes of foie gras into a pan to melt for sauces or chop off thick slabs as toppings. The chefs themselves all wore mechanic's button-up shirts with embroidered name tags above the pocket - no chef's whites in sight. In keeping with the rag-tag pirate crew demeanor of the chefs, P got to sit in a bar stool that had a stag's rack in place of a seat back.

But seriously, we didn't return to Au Pied for dinner theater. P went straight for the house beer, brewed by St. Ambroise and A had a glass of the local hard cider. We had staked out the menu through our cookbook and already knew what we would order. A got the poutine au foie gras, which had been our prime reason to return. After all of the other poutines we had sampled, how could we pass up one this decadent? Not only were the fries perfectly crisp and golden with a clear potato flavor, but they top the whole thing with a slab of foie gras. But that, friends, is not enough. In addition to the ubiquitous poutine sauce (brown gravy), Au Pied smothers the entire pile in melted foie gras. For balance, they have a parsley garnish. P could see the tears running down A's face. Or maybe it was perspiration. IT WAS THAT GOOD.

P threw caution to the wind and ordered the canard en conserve:

Duck in a can from stumptownpanda on Vimeo.

The chefs separate the fat from the meat on a duck magret and stuff foie gras in the middle. They then place the stuffed breast in a can with buttery cabbage and demi-glace. After sealing the can, they boil it to order, slap a label on it and bring it to the table with a plate of crusty bread and celeriac puree. They pull out a can opener and, well, the rest is pretty self explanatory from our video (sorry for the orientation - we were excited). Watching them open the can with such grace and finesse was something to behold - you could tell you were in the presence of truly masterful waiters.

What better way to end a rich meal than with a dish even richer than the main courses? There was no question as to which dessert we were ordering. Last time, we had been distracted by the romance of the maple tart for two (we were on our honeymoon, after all), but this time, we went for the true Quebecois classic: pouding chomeur. If anyone has ever tried the British standby, sticky toffee pudding, you have a sense for what this Quebecois dessert is all about. Sugar, butter, and sugary-butter sauce. Au Pied's version was borrowed from a Montreal cafe, "Soup Soupe," and they are lucky to have the recipe. It was like eating butter and maple syrup cooked together and baked to a molten heat. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we didn't even feel the painful burns. Luckily, we now have the recipe, so our scars may never fully heal.

This meal may sound less decadent than our first - there were, indeed, fewer courses - but pound for pound the dishes were richer and even more satisfying. We left Au Pied du Cochon (for the second time) feeling stuffed and euphoric, our cholesterol levels glad to finally bid Montreal adieu.

Ta Da!

montreal journal - day 5

We awoke to sunny weather with plans to finally hike up to the top of Mont Royal Saturday afternoon. However, by the time we'd stepped off at our first metro stop, we were in the midst of the worst rain of our trip. Maybe Mont Royal was out of the picture for today, but a little rain certainly wouldn't stop us from eating. On the other hand, the fact that it was only 10 in the morning and we'd just finished breakfast might slow us down, so we headed to L'Oratore St. Joseph to see the view. The oratory is a massive church on the Western side of Mont Royal whose Romanesque exterior belies the spare, cavernous, and a tad dated 60s chapel inside. From the top of the dizzying stairs, there was an expansive view of the West, from which we could spot one of our later destinations (hint: it's big and round and orange).

Somewhat nonplussed by the architecture, we headed out to the more impressive landmark that we'd seen from the stairs. But first (because it was a decent hour for lunch) - a little Trinidadian pick-me-up after all the stairs we had climbed. Amidst car dealerships and chain thriftstores like Village du Valeur, we found Mister Spicee tucked away in a tiny basement storefront. Walking inside was like stepping into a foreign country, but not because of the Trinidadian heritage. Everything was in English! Wow, we had forgotten how easy it is when you speak the native language. We honestly spent a moment trying to decipher the menu from French before realizing we understood it. We both ordered "doubles" - two chickpea flatbreads sandwiching spicy curry stew, smothered with hot sauce and tamarind sauce. A got the chicken and potato and P got the goat and chickpea. We shared a ginger beer - the spicee-est either of us had ever tasted. It was a bit too harsh on its own, but it stood up perfectly to the spicy curry. Since we noticed that everyone who came in left with some coconut bread (cakey, nutty cookies), we made sure to get some on our way out.



Gibeau Orange Julep from stumptownpanda on Vimeo.

Gibeau. Apart from our love of foreign strip malls, this was the reason we'd traveled so far from the city center. It's like a giant orange was dropped from space sometime in the 50s just to bring us joy, but the taste of this drink was anything but alien. The Julep was like what you always wished an Orange Julius would be - pulpy, fresh juice and oh-so-creamy froth. In fact, maybe it was alien, because we both agreed it was totally out-of-this-world. Aw, snap. Plus, the teenagers who served us squeezed the drink from a silver tube that seemed to originate from somewhere in the giant orange overhead. A wanted to set up her home inside the orange and live our her fantasies of a citrusy future (A and the Giant Orange?). P was tired of sitting out in the wind and rain with a drink that was more refreshing than warming. Well worth the trip to what was basically Montreal's strip mall outskirts.

After getting back to the downtown, we thought a walk around the McGill campus might be nice in the torrential downpour. It wasn't. But we didn't stop. We passed a wedding on the way back and thought to ourselves, "Suckers."

Since the rain didn't appear to be letting up any time soon, we escaped into a bar to drink it off. Despite the fact that it was a Saturday afternoon (edging into the "happy" hour) and the weather was miserable, the bar was completely deserted. Le Cheval Blanc is the older sister bar to Bily Kun, which we had visited earlier in the week. The decor was a mix between retro 50's and Asian hipster, with formica tables and red, Chinoiserie lanterns. We enjoyed our cream ale and house amber (all the beers are so smooth here - where are the hops?) while listening to the lone bartender sing along to Bob Dylan and bluegrass.

Nap.

We went back up towards the Jean Talon market to Le Petit Alep, which we had passed earlier in the week and made a note to return. The hipper side cafe of Restaurant Alep, they served Syrian-focused Middle Eastern dishes. Many of the items were familiar to us (mezze, kabobs, etc...) but were inflected with unique flavors like pomegranate and walnut. We started with plates of moussaka (tomato and spice-stewed eggplant) and muhamara (pomengranate syrup, walnuts, cumin, bread crumbs and garlic), which was possibly our favorite part of the meal. For mains, A had a grilled pita stuffed with spinach and cheese and heavy on the garlic and P ordered the shish taouck - tangy grilled chicken kabobs between two buttery flatbreads. Over the course of dinner, we spoke more and more urgently about how much we both enjoyed Au Pied de Cochon and how we had barely skimmed the surface of their offerings. And that was how our plan began to form.