Le Filet, Montreal

On our first night in Montreal, Fougoo and I grabbed dinner at Le Filet, a recently opened restaurant located near Parc Mont-Royal. It's run by the same people who run respected Montreal restaurant Le Club Chasse et Pêche, and it has a menu that highlights a lot of seafood.
We began with a couple sets of Canadian oysters: Eel Lakes (Nova Scotia) served with soy & citrus jelly and briny Beausoleils (New Brunswick) prepared slightly warmed with Hon Shimeji mushroom, truffle oil, & oyster cream.
We also had a second starter of raw fluke with wasabi, Japanese plum, & cucumber. The fish was very fresh, and the I loved the plate's simple preparation.
For our larger courses, we selected two items from a part of the menu called "Amphibians" as they combined seafood with proteins from land animals. First was sweetbreads, lobster salad, mozzarella, and eggplant puree. The pairing of sweetbreads and lobster was just right. They both have similar textures and sweet flavors. Fougoo noted that she really liked the puree.
Our second main was a spicy grilled octopus, bone marrow, and cherry tomatoes. It reminded me of Spanish tapas. The octopus was smoky with a hint of char, and I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of marrow in the dish.
For dessert, we shared a slice of rhubarb pie with white chocolate ice cream. It was tart, fresh, warm, sweet and cold all in one dish, a beautiful ending to a great supper.


219 Ave du Mont Royal W
Montréal, QC
(514)360-6060

Gus' Famous Red Hots, Plattsburgh, NY

We started our now annual Montreal roadtrip last week with another stop in Plattsburgh, NY, an hour from the Canada border. On this ride, we stopped at Gus' Famous Red Hots to try their version of the Michigan dog.
The offered them using a Glazier Redskin frankfurter, a red skinned natural casing hot dog from the region. The Michigan sauce was a little zesty. The redskin really made the dish for me. It was great. We also agreed that their macaroni salad was good as well.

2 Cumberland Head Rd.
Plattsburgh, NY
(518)561-3711

King's Fried Chicken, Baltimore

Here'a hoping everyone has a nice holiday weekend. The entire TIGBG crew is going to be in Montreal for Canada day.
In the meantime, here's a pic from King's Fried Chicken in Waverly in Baltimore. They are a halal fried chicken joint serving a slightly spicy fried chicken without a heavy batter. It was nice and juicy on the inside as well. While their greens were not so hot (no pork), they take orders for 100 pieces of their tasty chicken.

3300 Greenmount Avenue
Baltimore, MD
(410)338-0609

Nando's Peri-Peri

A few of my friends work or have worked in Malaysia, and I remembered that one of their regular go to restaurants in Kuala Lumpur was Nando's Peri-Peri, a chain that originated in South Africa. They serve Portuguese flame grilled chicken smothered in sauces made with African Bird's Eye Chili peppers. When I discovered that they had several branches in the Annapolis & DC area, I wanted to try them out. I had dinner at the branch in the Annapolis Mall.
I order a quarter chicken, dark, with a side of fries and perinaise and macho peas, a pea mash with mint, parsley & chili. I could not resist order a side of chicken livers as well. I did not know how spicy the sauce was, and the waitress told me it was really hot, so I opted for just the hot. However, it was not spicy at all to me, so I grabbed the black Extra Extra Hot sauce bottle to give the flavor a kick. I liked that much better.
All and all, not a bad meal- reminded me of Boston Chicken but with more spice.

The Roseda Beef Farm Tour & Cookout

Fougoo, Redneckhunter, & I went on a Slow Food DC event at the Roseda Beef farm in Monkton, MD in Baltimore County one weekend. It included a short history of the farm and business, a hayride to their cow pastures, and a BBQ cookout.
Roseda raises Black Angus cows to specific genetic standards with no hormones, and they age their beef 2-3 weeks before going to market.
In the pasture, the cows gathered around our trailer, grazing peacefully.
For dinner, the hosts had slow smoked the beef. We tried several cuts, the tenderloin, the shoulder, and the rib. My favorite cut was the very rare piece for shoulder I got on my second round of meat.

We also enjoyed some salad, baked beans and grilled corn on the cob with a selection of butters including wasabi and maple syrup (from syrup taken from trees on the farm).
Dessert was a strawberry shortcake made with fresh local berries and a lot of Redi-whip. It was a beautiful evening to have dinner in the Roseda Beef farm barn.

Eating at Baltimore's Greek Folk Festival

On the second weekend of June, I went with a group of friends to the Greek Folk Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Baltimore. My friend Tom told me he comes every year and orders the charcoal grilled octopus platter with olives, cucumbers, tomato and feta cheese. It was good and simple- smokey, with a little lemon.
I also ordered a side of deep fried smelt fish.

We shared several desserts. I ordered a baklava sundae made of vanilla ice cream topped with shredded up baklava. You could also top it all off with either caramel or chocolate sauce. I opted for caramel.
Tom & Jamie got several loukoumas, deep fried balls of light dough smothered in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.

Baltimore Burger Bar

A couple weeks back, I went to the Baltimore Burger Bar located on the Avenue in Hampden for dinner. Their burger menu changes from week to week, presenting a variety of "burgers" including scrapple and rabbit, as well as a variety of interesting toppings and sides.
I order their straight up grass fed beef burger. For my toppings, I got American cheese, a fried egg, stuffed squash blossoms, and strawberry-rhubarb ketchup. It was a tasty burger, and the brioche style bread was nice. The addition of the stuffed squash blossom was particularly good. I hope to return to try other combinations and in particular, their toppings.

830 West 36th Street
Baltimore, MD
(410)878-1266

Smorgasburg, Brooklyn, NY

The best part of the Brooklyn Flea was always the food, so when the Flea organizers decided to open another market solely for food, needless to say we were thrilled!

Brownie and I went to Smorgasburg in East River Park in Williamsburg one Saturday, arriving around 10:30 am when the crowds were still thin. We first did the rounds of the purveyors of food products to take home (more on those goodies later in the post), then when our friend arrived, we got serious about the eating. Others had the same idea - by 11 am, the crowds were starting to show up.

We tried to not duplicate going to vendors we'd had before at the Flea, but we just couldn't resist getting a pupusa from Solber (from the Red Hook ball fields). It did not disappoint - in fact it was still probably the best thing we had - the pickled cabbage slaw is just the perfect accompaniment to the hot crispy-soft masa of the pupusa.

The second best thing we ate was Mimi and Coco's spin on Japanese takoyaki. We tried all 3 flavors - sausage, shrimp, and potato. I loved the sausage and shrimp, but could pass on potato (starch wrapped in starch).

We were disappointed by the bahn xeo from Queen's Dahn Tu. The crepe wasn't crispy, the filling was bland. Next time, I think I'll try the other Vietnamese vendor Bep.

We were also disappointed by the "dumpling pancakes" from Bite Size Kitchen. Despite the name, they were basically bing filled with pork, but I think because of trying to turn them out quickly, they were just gummy inside. They made us miss Roll & Dough. I also decided I should just make them at home (don't worry Brownie, when I do, I'll bring some over for you).


We were hoping for more baked good vendors, but we did get a few great things - one was this fig and onion hamentashen from Weekend Girls, washed down by their refreshing cucumber juice.

We also got a great vegan bar from SCRATCHBread. Their take on sticky buns (served as mini buns in a cone) looked interesting, but a little too much given our grazing.

I did bring home a Momofuku corn cookie for later, plus a coconut donut from Dough for Redneckhunter. Not as good as Doughnut Plant was his surmisal.

I also brought home Rhubarb Hibiscus jam from Anarchy in a Jar. Brownie opted for the super-fresh and delicious strawberry balsamic. We also were surprisingly pleased with the Spiced Beer Jelly that we tasted.

I was also happy that the Hudson Valley Duck Farm had a booth, so I could bring home a smoked breast and tub of rillettes. Along with some cheese from Bardwell Farm, and a roast pork sandwich from Porchetta, Redneckhunter and I had a nice dinner.

Next time, I'd like to try a biscuit with either fried chicken or sausage gravy from King's Crumbs, and get some bacon from Landhaus (they were only selling BLTs at this point, but told me they'd sell slabs of bacon later on this summer).