Winnipeg Restos Winter 2014-15

Winnipeg in the winter - all you can do is stay warm and eat good food, right?  Diet starts in the spring....  Here are some of my favorite places in Winnipeg right now, including three at the bottom with lots of potential.  I've also added one place that disappointed...

I'm lucky that my job allows me to work from the 'Peg from time to time, in a heritage building in the Exchange District. 

 My work lunch fav, and what I consider one of the hidden gems in Winnipeg, is Taste of Sri Lanka in the food court in Winnipeg Square - the perfect place to go for lunch in this underground maze of shops and restaurants under the famously cold and windy Portage and Main.

Sri Lankan cuisine is amazingly complex - the flavours are so unique.  Make sure you order the Kotthu Roti - a mixture of different curries, heated up on the griddle with a rotti chopped and mixed in, scramble an egg to tie it all together and VOILA!  Don't forget to get the spicy tamarind sauce.  This order will feed you for 2 or three meals - spectacular.

My other favorite lunch spot that I always try to drop in on when I'm in the city - the teeny White Star Diner, again in the Exchange District.

The owner, Bruce, lovingly produces classic burgers and sandwiches that will make your eyes roll back in your head.. my favs are the Double Oink (pulled pork and bacon with awesome coleslaw) and the Reuben (comes with Thousand Island dressing - is that a Winnipeg thing?  Love that I don't have to ask for it....).  The burgers and fries are delish as well.

Haven't had the guts to wash it all down with one of their milkshakes.  Sound like a meal in itself.

The Crusty Bun is another hidden gem - this time in St. Vital.   To begin with, it is an amazing European bakery - breads, pastries, the most amazing Christmas stollen, and of course, the crusty buns (my favorites are studded with pumpkin seeds and drizzled with cheese - they are truly crusty with a soft chewy interior).  In addition, they serve simple European-style lunch (read - small but perfect portions) of soup and sandwiches - it is always full which speaks to the quality (and not to mention the tastiness of the dessert you know you have to have).  Don't forget to take a number when you come in the door!  

Parlour - having spent a lot of time in Montreal going to Third Wave coffee shops, Parlour's coffee quality makes me smile.  Yes it's trendy, minimalist, and full of lumbersexuals, but it's quaint and heartfelt.  Love the location on Main Street in the Exchange District... gives you a feel for this historic city centre - worth the sprint out of the rabbit warren.

Now for three restaurants I tried for the first time.

Vera Pizzeria E Bevande is a recently opened pizza joint on South Osborne - remember Woo's Cafe?  The space is cozy and warmed by the open kitchen and (natch!) pizza oven. 

Small and simple menu...

The salad was tasty although a little droopy with all of that dressing...

The Napoli style pizzas were delish - high quality toppings (fior de latte, homemade sausage, etc.), not overloaded, chewy crust - pizza reinvented!  And anyone who tops off a pizza with Maldon salt gets my vote.  Simple but nice wine list.  Looking forward to trying everything on the menu.

Boon Burger - Who would have thought that a prairie town could support a vegan burger chain?  Love their cruelty free and enviro groovy vibe. And did I mention the vegan burgers?  "Boon" means bean, but also a blessing or something to be thankful for in Afrikaans.  And I am thankful to be eating this healthily but also get some real flavour - you choose from the mushroom based Boon patty, the spicy chickpea Buddha patty, the tofu filled White patty, or the beany Black Bean patty.  Then the hard part - so many toppings and condiments... including cheez and smokey bacun!  I'm excited to try more of their combos on my next visit.

Had the opportunity to go to the recently opened Canadian Museum for Human Rights - I've watched it grow over the years.  It was packed, and overwhelming, once you realize that we will probably always have human rights issues to deal with...

The museum restaurant, Era Bistro, has a cozy vibe and an interesting menu, including lots of small plates and local treats (pickerel cheeks, arctic char, bannock, etc.).  We only had time for a freshly baked apple tart and coffee.

One miss this past trip - had heard the buzz about The Tallest Poppy in its new home on Sherbrook, nestled in the front of the Sherbrook Inn.

Funky decor in a cold and dark space - we froze in the front window (okay, it was -20C!), and the long line of hipsters holding the inner doors open didn't help.  Thinking back, neither did the icy, slightly flippant service.

Matzo ball and cabbage soup, pickerel po'boy (not a lot of fish)... in general the food was alright, but we were underwhelmed overall.  This doesn't seem to affect their draw - the place was hopping!

Looking forward to my next trip this spring - to be continued....

Irrrrashaimaseeee!!!!!!! Welcome to Imadake!

Izakayas - those amazing restaurant-bar-communal dining/drinking establishments that only the Japanese could have invented.  My favorite type of establishment to eat and drink with friends when I lived in Japan... hard to recreate anywhere else.

Imadake ("only for now"), 4006 St-Catherine Ouest in Montreal, does a pretty good job of recreating that vibe.  Welcomed by a deafening "Irrashaimase!!" (or "Greetings, welcome to our humble establishment and let us provide our services to you!!" (basically...)), the young and efficient staff get you seated in this cosy but lively, "nigiyaka" restaurant.

An izakaya is a bit like a tapas bar in a drunken party atmosphere.  Lots of small plates to choose from - a varied menu that gives you a taste of all sorts of different types of Japanese bar food from okonomiyaki, yakitori and gyoza, to their amazingly succulent grilled black cod (a must!), to fresh and tasty salads and belly filling bowls of ramen.  The traditional seating arrangement is at long communal tables that give you the opportunity to get to know your neighbours and share all the tasty treats that keep coming...  In Japan you would slip off your shoes to climb over people you didn't know to squeeze next to the rowdy drunks around the table...

And of course the drinks!  Beers! Cocktails! Sake! Wine!  You can't go to Imadake without having a Sake Bomb!  Trust me, your whole table has to order this drink.... 

"IF I SAY "SAKE" YOU SAY "BOMB"!

"SAKE!!" "BOMB!!"

"SAKE!!!" "BOMB!!!"

Making muu shu pork - worth the effort?

My old friend Carol came to visit me from Winnipeg and we decided to recreate one of our long standing traditions - starting in 1984, we used to go to the old Szechan Restaurant on Pembina Highway and order the chicken with cashews (with chilis and baby corn) and the muu shuu pork.  If you've never had muu shuu, it's a crunchy stirfry that you mound onto sesame oil infused pancakes, slathered in hoisin sauce and a dab of hot sauce, eat like a mini burrito - sweet! 

Rather than simply finding a restaurant that serves this dish, we decided that we should try and make it ourselves.  I found this Fine Cooking recipe which started with a hunt for unusual ingredients in our local chinese grocery store... cloud ears (dried mushrooms), golden needles (dried lily buds) and bamboo shoots all added interesting flavours and textures to this complex dish.

Unfortunately it was a crazily complicated recipe - lots of chopping and soaking and stir frying... We even went as far as handrolling the mandarin pancakes and making the mandarin sauce - exhausting!

making the pancakes...

Spread on the mandarin sauce

Pile on some of the stir fry

Don't forget the hot sauce!

Roll it up - like a burrito

Enjoy!

  I'd suggest looking for an easier recipe....or just eat out!!  The pancakes were delicious, but super labour intensive. The crunchy texture was there, but sadly, after all of that effort, the flavour of the stir fry was a bit underwhelming... of course if you slather on enough hoisin sauce, anything tastes good!  (Thanks to Donald, the dishwasher....)