Just In Time for New Years: Xavier Burini from Montreal Restaurant Les Trois Petits Bouchons Talks Natural Wines and Champagnes

Click here to download the interview I did for CKUT with Xavier Burini of Montreal Wine Bar Les Ttrois Petits Bouchons on natural wines and champagnes. These are not just "organic" wines.

Here are the links to the wines Xavier recommends and contact info for the restaurant:
At the SAQ:
Champagnes
Drappier Champagne: Pinot Noir Brut Zero-Dosage ($43.50)
Drappier Carte D’Or Champagne ($40.75)
Jacquesson Cuvée No 734 Brut Champagne ($60.25)

Other Wines
Chateau Le Puy Bordeaux Cotes de Francs 2005 ($24.45)
Chateau Le Puy Bordeaux Cotes de Francs 2004 ($17.15)
J P Amoreau

Private Importation:
Champagnes
Vouette et Sorbee Fidèle Vintage
Marcel LaPierre

Prosecco
Casa Coste Piane
Trois Petits Bouchons is located at 4669 St-Denis
Le Comptoir Charcuteries et Vins is located at 4807 St-Laurent

And here's the script of the interview, in case you can't download:

AW: You may have heard of organic wines or biodynamic wines, labeled “agro-bio” at the SAQ, but natural wines are in a league of their own. As Xavier Burini of Montreal natural wine bar Les Trois Petits Bouchons explains, your choice of reds, whites, and bubbles this New Years could make more of a difference than you think on how resolved you’re going to feel the Saturday morning after…

Xavier Burini: “My name is Xavier Burini. I’m a sommelier originally, but I’m a restauranteur.”

AW: At Trois Petits Bouchons wine is an integral part of the meal.

XB: “We believe that wine is ‘alimentaire’, that is to say it’s a social part of the meal. Everything you don’t actually want to find in meat – you’ll maybe avoid buying too much meat at the supermarket, you buy direct from farmers, you buy local, you maybe want an organic vegetable basket. You make an effort. Not everyone does it, because yes, it’s more expensive than the normal price at the grocery store, but all of that effort you make, most of the time because you’re not aware of it – no one ever told you - you buy wine that has all the products in it that you don’t want in food. And you’ll drink them and say, “I don’t feel well. I ate something that didn’t agree with me, etc.” People tell us. They come on a Wednesday night, they really have a good time at the bistro, at Trois Petits Bouchons. Then the next morning they get up at 7am and they feel fine. They’re a little tired because they celebrated the night before, but they’re fine. They don’t have a headache, or a stomache ache from what’s in the wine. Heartburn - often the sulfites do that. Not that it’s hard to breathe, but it burns a little. “

AW: So if you’re getting pounding headaches the morning after one or two glasses of wine, when you know you should be fine, natural wines might be something to try. All wines have sulfites, but natural wines don’t have any added sulfites. That’s an important differentiation when shopping for non-head-ache inducing wines. You may think that everything in the agro-bio section or everything marked “organic” is fair game, but “organic” wines can have as many sulfites added as your average $10 Australian Merlot, your $15 Californian Cardonnay, or your $35 Alsatian Reisling.   

XB: “But you need to know that “natural wine” encompasses everything. That includes the culture of the vine and most importantly the wine-making process. So a vine culture that has to be organic or something very close to it, so as to have the most beautiful grapes possible, with the best balance possible. So that you can skip all the chemistry – all the chemical products that are currently allowed in the wine-making process – all the sulfites, different acids that permit acidification, the de-acidification, the yeasts, the enzymes. There’s an insane pharmacological arsenal used to make wines these days.

Biodynamic refers to the culture of the grape, as with organic wines. Biodynamic wines are also organic, but it’s the culture of the grape that’s organic. But after that, everything I just mentioned could still apply for how it’s made. So how is it actually made? Did they just press the grapes? The grape started fermenting, then was placed in tanks or barrels, then add just a very small amount of sulfites when putting the wine in bottles, and that’s it? Or are you instead going to take average grapes? Then since the grapes are average you’re going to start to add products to hide the quality of the grapes? So you add a little yeast so the juice starts fermenting. Then you add enzymes to select the right yeasts. You add some sulfites to stop it from oxidizing. After, if there’s more or less acidity or no acidity then you’ll add potassium bicarbonate. They’re chemical products, but they’re products that are found a lot in wines. 98% of the volume is made - manufactured I mean, not let evolve – people don’t have a hands-off approach to making wine anymore. They manufacture it. It’s human intervention that takes place.

But we go against that (at Trois Petits Bouchons). We want to have clean wines, wines that reflect a terroir, a place, according to the enzymes, according to the types of grapes used, whether they’re red or white. So that’s “natural wine”, to not use all these products that mask the terroir, the expression of a vintage, and the taste, simply.

After having sulfites in high doses, that’s what’s responsible for your headaches. The big headaches where you’re not well on     the next morning, “Oh I’m not well. I didn’t drink that much!” That’s sulfites….Legally, wine makers are allowed to use 200mg per litre for white wines and 170-180 for reds.

AW: “Why the difference?”

XB: Because whites are less stable, they’re more likely to start re-fermenting because they often have a little more sugar. There are no tannins, so they’re more fragile even though they’re more acidic. The more you go towards a sweeter wines, the more sulfites it will contain. A little overly-sweetened cheap wine can have 350 or 400mg. The World Health Organization set the recommended daily amount of sulfites per average person at 25mg per litre. Any more than that is dangerous. So if you do a simple calculation really quickly, if you drink a little sweet wine every day that’s full of sulfites, you’ll easily hit your limit.”

AW: In a country that drinks a lot of cheap sparkling wine, New Years can be a bit dangerous. A way to hide the flaws of a lower quality sparkling wine or champagne is by adding sulfites and by adding sugar, but sulfites also stabilize the wine, and make transportation less risky. That’s why the SAQ requires a minimum amount of sulfites to be added to all wines. Because of this regulation you actually can’t find any wines in the province’s stores that have zero sulfites added. You can find them in private importation through several of the city’s wine agencies, however. Still, many producers that sell to the SAQ do keep to the bare minimum of sulfites required. In champagnes, Xavier explains that producers really don’t need to add as much sulfites to champagne as they do, because of the properties of the champagne itself.

AW: So if you’re going to be drinking champagne at midnight this New Years, you may want to consider the amount of sulfites in your cheap bubbly for health reasons, but you may also want to consider the amount of sugar. Any wine that leaves you dehydrated can give you a headache, despite your best natural wine, no sulfur-added intentions. You may want to look at the sweetness levels of the wines. A Brut champagne or brut zéro has less than 3 grams per litre. Extra-brut means less than 6 grams. Brut is less than 15 (the standard for fine champagne), extra sec or extra dry is 12 to 20 grams, sec or dry is 17-35 grams. And a demi-sec or crémant can be 33-50 grams of sugar per litre bottle of wine. 50 grams. A “doux” champagne, more like an ice wine, can have any amount over 50 grams!

XB: “There aren’t a lot of sec, demi-sec, and doux champagnes. What there are a lot of at the SAQ are bruts and extra-bruts. There are one or two doux champagnes, but it’s rare.”

AW: Now the important question for all those in Quebec: What champagnes would you recommend for New Years partiers?

XB: “Something that’s really nice at the SAQ is Domaine Jacquesson. It’s a big producer and it costs somewhere in the $60 range. Champagne Drappier. It’s a brut, natural, zero-dosage. Zero-dosage means that no sugar is added after the disgorgement, so it will be dry, crisp, right from the start, perfect for an aperitif.”

AW: So these aren’t cheap, but you definitely pay for quality. You probably won’t be drinking bottles and bottles of the stuff all night. There are other natural, or almost natural wines at the SAQ that will get you through the rest of the night at a much lower cost (in the $20 range) such as Domaine Le Puy Cotes de Francs 2004 for $17.15, or the 2005 vintage for $24.45. There is also a large selection from J. P Amoreau that runs from the low $20’s on up.

For less expensive bubbly options, there are also Italian Prosecco and Spanish Cava, made following the same traditional champagne-making method, but the terroir – the climate in France, Italy or Spain where it’s made - and the kinds of grapes used to make the wines are different.

XB: Yes it’s different. It’s like comparing a merlot from Venezia, Italy with a merlot from Bordeaux and a merlot from South America. They’ll be completely different. There’ll maybe be one – the wine-making process comes into play. You can have merlots that are really easy to drink. You can have merlots that are tannic, concentrated, or somewhere in the middle. There are really no rules. The truth is really in the glass. You need to taste. You can never say that’s like that, this is like this. There are so many factors that make a difference. There are no general rules.”

AW: Xavier mentions that Prosecco and Cava have the same ups and downs with sulfites as champagnes, but if you choose carefully you can find a good bargain.

XB: “We have a Prosecco here at Trois Petits Bouchons – Casa Coste Piane, that’s a private importation. Prosecco that’s not too acidic, not too sweet. Very balanced. Unfiltered. Almost no sulfites. We have that open right now. We’re really enjoying it.

AW: As Xavier said, there are so many factors to what makes a good wine, from the grapes, to the terroir, to the wine-making process, to personal taste. So what’s the perfect New Year’s wine?

XB: It’s the one you like, I think anyway. It’s up to your own tastes. There are people who love huge Bordeaux, big Bordeaux, some people love big Burgundies, some people love South African, some people love Australian wine.”

AW: And, of course when you’re speaking with a sommelier, you have to ask what they would drink. So I asked Xavier what he’ll be sipping on New Year’s Eve.

XB: “Personally I like whites, I really like bubbles. So for me, sparkling wines – vibrant, bright. I love champagne. Vouette et Sorbee, the Fidèle vintage from Bertrand Gautherot.  It’s magic. It’s very affordable. Drappier, it’s very good. Jacquesson, I mentioned before. It’s really good. In the SAQ , there’s Domaine Valette. The Macon-Chaintré is sublime.”

AW: So if you’re at the SAQ looking for something to drink this New Year’s Eve, or any other night of the year, really, since you should be able to wake up bright and early without a pounding headache after a bottle of natural wine, make sure you do your research first. It’s rarely indicated in the store or even on the bottles if a wine is natural. And natural wines may not be placed in the “agro-bio/organic” section. Also, notes Xavier, you may have concerns with the more well-known, larger producers of organic wines. One person can look after 4 to 5 hectares of vines. Two employees maybe look after 8 or 10. But the big vineyards, the kind you see in the southern hemisphere, they have 600 hectares and they say they’re organic. It’s less expensive to produce per hectare because there’s more land, but it’s still a little peculiar.

Still, it’s all about taste. So enjoy your last night of 2010 with whatever you choose to drink. Then maybe in the New Year your best bet would be to go to Trois Petits Bouchons for a few glasses of what they have open at the moment and let your tastebuds guide you.

Trois Petits Bouchons is located at 4669 St-Denis, just north of Mont-Royal. Another natural wine bar in Montreal with a sommelier as passionate about healthy wines as Xavier is Comptoir Charcuteries et Vins, located at 4807 St-Laurent, south of St-Joseph. Links to the wines recommended by Xavier are on the CKUT Friday Morning After blog at ckutmorningafter.wordpress.com.  For CKUT, this is Amie Watson.

Christmas in Newfoundland: Jiggs Dinner and Peas Pudding

This is the last radio segment I did for CKUT 90.3 FM on Newfoundland Christmas traditions. I interviewed a few Newfoundlanders to find out what their families do (eat, mostly) during the holidays. Thanks to Ed, Phil, Erica, Andrew, and the two friendly people at Coffee Matters in St. John's for letting me interview them. Thanks, also, to The Mountains and the Trees for the Music at the end. On the CKUT report the whole segment came out of the song as well.

Download to listen!

Amie

Mochitsuki 2010: Traditional Japanese Rice-Pounding

A legion of volunteers rinsed, soaked, steamed, pounded, shaped, and packaged (and ate...) these rice cakes. This is what they looked like in the end:


...and this is what they looked like in the beginning:

From 6:30am-4:30pm it seemed as though the entire Japanese community came out to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Montreal for this annual event. The fundraiser offered packaged bags of the steamed rice cakes to hungry guests who didn't even look into the enormous room where all the work was taking place. Here's the behind the scenes look.


First the rice was soaked in a large buckets. I don't want to think about how much rice was there. First we had to strain the rice and measure it into this wooden steamer. The bottom of the steamer was a bamboo mat, like a sushi-rolling mat but the pieces of bamboo were wider. So steam could still get up into it from below but the rice wouldn't fall through. The soaked rice water was collected and thrown out into the snow. About half the weight of the huge metal and plastic buckets was water.

Someone else had to wash the bamboo box bottoms in hot water and remove the sticky grains of steamed rice before they could be re-used.

In the bamboo steamers the rice had to be shaped into a donut so that steam could rise easily in the middle and in the corners. Then with a long wooden toothpick the rice that ahd fallen in the spaces between the wooden piece of the bamboo mats had to be scraped out.

Then out to the steamer:

Heated from below, a wooden steamer system was set up with just one box in an outside shed. After 4 minutes a second box was added. Another 4 minutes later another box. Another 4 minutes and a fourth box. Finally, 4 minutes later the first box was removed and a new box added. So 16 minutes total rice-steaming time for each box. This kept the production line-style system going.


It was pretty cold outside...So from 6:30am onward these guys sat and waited in 4 minute stretches before standing up, removing a box, hefting up a new box, and waiting again. It's a tough, tough job. Fortunately they had sake to keep them warm.

There aren't really any easy jobs in a mochitsuki, though:

The next part of the process involves pouring the steamed rice into this rice-grinding machine with some sea salt. Traditionally a giant machine isn't used, but you'll see why the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre invested in it in the next step:

The machine-ground rice turns into a dough. A rhythm is set and one after another a group of 3 people hammered the dough ("One!" "Two!" "Three!" "One!" "Two!" "Three!" "Ich!" "Ni!" "San!"). Then after maybe 15 seconds someone yells "Stop!" and that person steps in and flips the dough. "Go!" and they start again. 15 seconds later: "Stop!". Flip. "Go!" 15 seconds later the same caller takes the dough to the dough cutter and the hammerers start in on their next batch. Imagine people actually using their hands to work this dough! It would take forever, and it still takes forever if you only hammer it. that's why they use the machine, to expedite the process. Then the hammering doesn't have to be amazingly efficient and powerful but you keep the tradition alive.

Then a dough cutting machine spits out blobs of rice. You've got about 10 seconds to pick up that dough while it's still hot and shape it into a slightly flattened sphere. It can't be oblong. It can't be too flat and it can't have any creases. If you wait too long and it cools off the dough gets grainy on the outside where it should be smooth. In that case you throw it back into the cutter to be reheated a little and then you try to shape it again.

You can see the shape the machine spits out (just to the right of the wooden box on the left) versus the shape of the finished mochi in the boxes. I it takes you more than 5 or 6 seconds to shape a mochi it's not going to happen. Improperly shaped ones that got slipped into the boxes were sent back by the packagers.

Then the mochi had to cool on tables. They would cool on one side and then be flipped over to cool on the other. Finally they were weighed and packaged into plastic bags, about ten apiece. Then into paper bags and stapled. Done. $4 a bag.

The Timesheet: Every time a batch of dough was made it was written down on this chalkboard. 6:30am to 4:30pm. 149 batches. That's a lot of hammering...and a lot of sake.

These aren't even stuffed with anything. These are the easy ones! The mochi are served simply with soy sauce, sweet soybean powder, or wrapped in seaweed. They can be frozen and reheated by toasting, grilling or broiling. They'll never be the same as when they're fresh, but I wouldn't want to spend too many days hammering dough, so it's reasonable to enjoy it while it lasts and then dream of next year...

Longueuil Christmas Market, December 17-20

The Longueuil Christmas Market is about the quaintest Montreal Christmas activity ever. A 5-minute bus ride from Longueuil metro drops you off in front of a little wooden Christmas village filled with home-made caramel, ice ciders, Quebec chocolate truffles, tourtiere, pear cider, goats milk cheese, mulled wine, a big choo-choo train and a Santa Claus. Did I mention the alcohol? Isn't that what Christmas is all about?

The sign says "hot wine", but I'm willing to bet this is mulled wine full of cloves and cinnamon. If you're not a fan of spice, stick with the Christmas Market's reds, whites, and ports
Or try the white or rose honeywines from Les Trois Acres. They're not actually sweet, so don't be scared off by the word "honey". the white, La Musicale, will fit right in with any musical evenings you're planning during the holiday season. You could also just try the un-fermented honeys from the farm.
You may recognize these wines from the Plateau Farmers' Market. You may also recognize some of the Ruban Bleu cheese. At the Longueuil Christmas Market, however, they have a lot more options, including spreadable things and frozen tourtiere that you don't even need to worry about spoiling or melting on the way home in the summer heat. It's so cold outside that you could grate this stuff (the essentially frozen cheese, not the tourtiere...)! I wouldn't, but I'm just saying it's possible.
If your interests are meaty, you've got a few other purchasing options including the lamb (antibiotic and preservative-free) from Ferme Lochette and 'everything duck' from legs confit to breasts to fois gras from L'Artisan
The fois gras was even affordable, as you could buy two small pieces of duck fatty joy, say, to top your steak in pure gluttony for about $7.50. All you do is dip them in cornstarch and saute them (in duck fat, of course) for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes per side, said the friendly man. There are recipe sheets for those in need. Also info on how to grill the duck breast and how to heat the confit legs. Basically Lochette has you covered duck-wise, and you can feel free to ask about how the ducks were raised as the man at the booth will actually be able to tell you.
Moving into sweets, you've got to try the caramel with fleur de sel.
There are also jams of local berries (blueberries) and less local fruits (figs), marmalades, jellies, mint sauces, marinades, vinaigrettes, and everything sweet that your little heart could desire...

...including cranberry shortbread cookies and dark chocolate covered cranberries...
...and hot crossed buns from my all-time favourite LaPerle and Son Boulanger. We were reunited again! Well, the hazelnut sourdough and I were reunited for a short affair, but my usual vendor was not there. The (relatively) new, younger generation had taken over the selling of cranberry chocolate sourdough and olive fougasses. As it should be, I guess.
The chocolate truffle and fudge Christmas gift bags: A La Truffe...local, beautiful, etc. You can even get hot chocolate made from their melted chocolate
Then there were the muffins, packaged in steamed up containers so they didn't dry out in the cold. I wished I was as well-insulated.
So for insulation you head back to all the alcohol vendors. The pear cider doesn't hit you with a hammer of booze; instead it's a mild, sweet flavour that warms you up from the inside.
After you've sampled a few spirits, make sure you watch out for the train that gives free rides to kids through the little Christmas village. It'll knock you over if you're not careful. This thing is chugging. It doesn't take the kids to the North Pole, unfortunately, but the view is scenic and the ride ends at Santa Claus.
Finally, watch the kids sit on Santa's lap. You're probably a bit old for the sitting yourself, but it's pretty cute to see all those little ones lining up. There's music, it's festive, there are Christmas lights everywhere. I'm not reconsidering kids, though. I'll stick to my laurels and say that as long as the kids are lining up for Santa and riding the speedy little train, there's less competition for you for the caramel samples. I'm always looking out for you, Poutiners and Poutineuses.
Longueuil Christmas Market
When: Thursday to Sunday, December 17-20, 2010
Where: Parc St-Marc, Longueuil (take the 8, 88, or 17 Bus from Longueuil Bus Terminal on the yellow Metro line. It costs $3 one-way for the bus in Longueuil, but it's better than wlaking the 20 minutes over the kind of confusing highway, even though the bus really goes straight down the main road. Get off when you see little kiosks with Christmas lights on your right. It really is a wooden, multi-coloured Christmas village (about 5 minutes on the bus)
How much: Free! (plus $6 round-trip bus fare from the end of the yellow metro line)
Why? Because it'll put you in the Christmas spirit??

Cuisine Bangkok: Best Pad Thai in Montreal? In a Foodcourt?

 "What's in the sauce on the pad thai?"


...Blank stare from the man behind the counter at Cuisine Bangkok in the Faubourg foodcourt...

"Is there ketchup? Tomato sauce? Tamarind? Soy? Lime?"

...more waiting...then: "There's no lime in it. Yeah, soy, fish sauce. I don't know."

 I look hopefully back at the people actually making the dishes in the half-open-kitchen behind the cash, trying in my polite Montrealer way to convince this guy with my eyes that perhaps he could ask them. No such luck.

What I did find out was:
1. There's MSG in the fish sauce, but probably no additional MSG added to the pad thai. My headache, flushed face, and anxiety attack-style reaction proved at least the first part of that was true.
2. I should have listened to my friend who told me only to eat here when the woman or the tall man was cooking. I'm not 100% convinced, but if I'm going to have pad thai, I want it to be at its best, and the best was when I went at lunchtime two weeks ago, not when I went for dinner last week. Sure enough, a woman was manning (pardon the pun) the wok at lunch, and next to her, a tall man.

Montreal's best pad thai is in a foodcourt? There was no way I could believe that, so for two years I never came here. Then, finally, I decided to go see what all the fuss was about, and see if Montrealers' opinions on pad thai were more apt than their opinions on "good" sushi. Thank goodness they were.

I had one of the best pad thai's of my life. I ordered the chicken version and it was the perfect balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet, the general rule for Thai cooking. There was tamarind in the sauce for the sour, it didn't taste like commercial ketchup-y sweetness in the tomato flavour, the fish sauce and soy were just enough without giving me dry mouth for the rest of the day, and the chilies were hot without taking away from the flavour of the dish. It was perfect. And if it hadn't been perfect there was extra soy and chili sauces next to the cash to adjust to your adjust. I always adjust. I always want it hotter or saltier because it's generally too bland or too sweet, and I always have to squeeze the lime over top and still I'm never happy with the sourness, but here...here I didn't change a thing.

I ordered the "XXXX" extra-spicy version. You can ask for one to four X's for your order, one being mild and four being extra-spicy. It was actually extra-spicy. Not a "she can't really handle it that hot" cop out. Here they figure if you order it you can have it, just don't complain afterward because they gave you what you wanted. I didn't complain.

So the sauce was perfect and plentiful (finally, no more dried-out take-out thai!), and really, it's all about the sauce, but what else made this the perfect pad thai?, The egg and tofu, believe it or not. The egg was fluffy and not overcooked for once because it came straight onto the plate from the wok. 15 minutes later it had kept cooking just enough to make it less perfect, but the first half of the meal was heaven. I never wax poetic about tofu, but these were little pillows of soft fluff that melted in my mouth a lot like the egg and were the perfect textural balance to the crispy bean sprouts. Actually, the dish was all about textures, from the softened but not mushy rice noodles to the crunchy peanuts and the chewy chicken. The chicken was the only let down. It was just big hacked-up pieces of meat whose only purpose was to add body to the sauce through its melted fat. Which is did nicely.

It was SO much pad thai. For about $7 you'll be full for the rest of the day. There's a lot of oil in it to balance the heat with the rest of the flavours and keep the noodles from sticking together, so it's maybe not wise to eat this all the time in its entirety, but it's tempting because you know it's not going to get better by sticking it in your fridge overnight. The foodcourt is the perfect place for this, believe it or not, since the wok-ing guarantees freshness (well, hotness...). No waiting for all your table's items to be ready and then having them sit under heat lamps until they're picked up by the server. The lunchtime rush here ensures everything comes out piping hot and you'll probably burn your mouth, which is ideal.

So, yeah, a foodcourt. "Not Cuisine Bangkok 2", the restaurant on Ste-Catherine just a little west of the Faubourg, as my friend had also advised. This time I'll listen to her advice, since her reason was that the same people aren't cooking, and that made all the difference in the world, as I found out.
See, I went back for supper. The foodcourt stays open into the evening, so you can get your pad thai fix for lunch or dinner, except when I went back with Greg Bouchard, my fellow Midnight Poutine podcaster and self-proclaimed Montreal pad thai afficionado, it just wasn't the same. I got the tofu pad thai because I'd loved the small amount of tofu on the chicken pad thai so much that it was time to see if a whole meal of the stuff was as good. Again, I got it extra spicy.

This time there was heat and no flavour balance. The sourness was gone. There were no condiments to adjust for that. It was a little dry, too. Turned out it was because it was the vegetarian version since Greg's version of the chicken pad thai (just XXX - "spicy") was almost as good as my lunch pad thai had been. I think it was because the fat from the chicken made it juicier, but it was also more sour, thus better, which you wouldn't think would be dependent on the chicken or tofu choice.

The other most popular item on the menu was the chicken and eggplant, said the server. So I tried that too. Huge let-down. The same hacked-up chicken pieces couldn't fix this sauce. I got it extra-spicy again, but it just tasted like heat and salt. There's no lime or tamarind involved in the plate, so it's not supposed to be sour like the pad thai, but it was just a bit...boring. Eggplant sucks up oil like an vacuum, which is what makes it so delicious, but these big pieces were just bland since the sauce didn't really add much to the vacuum effect. I also think this dish had a ton more MSG, since my lunch pad thai hadn't given me a crazy headache like I got after this second meal.

Verdict? Come here for lunch, but only when the "woman or tall man" are working. It's easier to tell when the woman is working than figure out who the "tall man" is, so maybe just stick with her. I'm sure everything else on the menu is decent, but it's all about the pad thai. The green curry is also popular, but it's made from a jar of green curry paste, as it is everywhere, so it's just not going to be as unique as the flavour balancing act of the pad thai. Sure, every meal of pad thai you get here is going to be a little different since it's made individually to order, and the wok-er doesn't taste each one to adjust the tastes. And it's not a McDonalds where everything is pre-sized, pre-mixed and pre-packaged, so if you're looking for cookie-cutter Thai, I can't believe I actually have to say DON'T come to the foodcourt. Weird...

By the way, Greg says the pad thai here has nothing on Cash 'N Curry, a Malaysian BYOB on the Plateau...I feel a throwdown coming on.

Photos: "Chicken Pad Thai (medium spicy, please)" by Mister Sleep from the Midnight Poutine Flickr Pool 

"Cuisine Bangkok Reborn" by bopuc from Flickr

Cuisine Bangkok (the foodcourt, not the restaurant)
Le Faubourg, 3rd floor
1616 Ste-Catherine West
Hours: Mon-Sat 11am-9pm, Sun noon-5?
Cost: About $7, plus a quarter for a large take-out container. Small ones are apparently free...so you could get your meal on a plastic plate and then a mall styrofoam take-out container for the leftovers and kill the environment even more but save some money...
514-935-2178

Interview with Atigh Ould of La Khaima Restaurant: The Montreal Nomad Festival - Oct. 12-17th, 2010

Here's a link to download the interview I did on CKUT 90.3FM a ways back with La Khaima Restaurant owner Atigh Ould. In a city of festival's, his was one not-to-be-missed. When else could you learn to make traditional Mauritian bread or participate in a slow-food Bedouin brunch complete with a mindful-eating exercise courtesy of Myrite Rotstein of TastyLife. You could probably expect a similar experience to the one I had at the blindfolded taste test workshop at the Concordia Sustainability Fair - savour the nigella and the baobab...

www.nomadefestival.com

Basmati Rice, Biopiracy, and Geographical Indications

Basmati Rice, the “queen of fragrance”, the “perfumed one”, "the only thing my Indian engineer roommate knew how to make". When you eat rice every day, as most people do in South-East Asia, the preparation becomes an art form in itself. My Indian former roommate didn't cook very often. When she did she always made rice, perfect rice, the kind where each individual grain was tender, fluffy and stayed away from its neighbouring grains as if it had a cold. It was never over-cooked and there was never a rice cooker involved, just extensive stove-top experience to the point where making rice became second nature. To make it poorly would have been difficult for her. We got along very well, she and I, but this expertise was not something we shared. I coveted her rice skills.

So why did she grow up with these skills and I didn't? Somehow I was never taught to wash the polish off the rice under several changes of water, or to let the rice sit in water for at least 30 minutes before letting it touch heat. Sure, I was taught not to peek and to let it cook with the lid on, but I've burned far too many pots of rice by following that rule to call myself a firm believer.

My roommate grew up in the right environment to learn perfect rice skills. Basmati has been a cherished food staple and cornerstone of Southeast Asian food and culture for thousands of years. My European roots mean my family has been eating it for only a few centuries. So my roommate really did have a good head start on me. In my family rice was just rice, no matter what kind it really was, but in India this is definitely not the case. While Southeast Asian farming communities have developed and conserved over a thousand distinct varieties of rice, the foothills of the Himalayas are the world’s veritable basmati breadbasket. Though at-home cooks and restaurants alike often substitute less expensive jasmine rice for basmati, to rice connoisseurs there are differences in smell, taste and texture. Jasmine, for example, will try very hard to cling together after cooking. My roommate would have given me a very disappointed look if I'd suggested she borrow some of my jasmine rice for dinner if she'd somehow made it through her ten kilogram bag of basmati before being able to lug her rice-toting grocery cart to the store for more.

In India, as I learned, rice is eaten as the foundation of almost every meal, either served on the side, or as a bed for the rest of the meal. It's often served in addition to breads; there is nothing French about the amount of carboydrates in a traditional Indian meal. Rice is also found in many Indian dishes, like biryanis (elaborate mixed meat, vegetable, and yogurt dishes) and pullaos. It's pulverized or used whole in Indian rice pudding, dosai (crepe-like wraps for spicy potato mixtures), and idli (small steamed disks to be dipped in coconut and chutney and sambar), and it can accompany just about every curry, masala, and pulse (a lentil or bean dish).

Rice is so important to everyday life in India that it's intertwined with religion and happiness. Long before North Americans threw grains of rice over newly-weds post-wedding ceremony, Hindus believed that a similar act of pouring rice over the heads of the young couple would bless both the married pair and the pourer. No need to get married yourself to ensure a life of rice and happiness, since you could just bless other happy couples and give yourself a blessing at the same time.

So if you ate rice every day, even with all the variety, wouldn't you get sick of it? How much flavour can rice possibly have? It’s all relative. Compared to the sticky short-grain rice used in Chinese, Japanese, and Thai cooking, basmati is actually considered bland, but the mild nutty flavour and the aromatics in basmati - the smell of popcorn - are completely unique. Besides, can you ever get sick of popcorn? Like rice, you certainly don't eat it plain all the time.

India’s easterly neighbours like it when their rice sticks together, and it’s true that the stickiness makes it easier to pick up with chopsticks. How many times have you been frustrated by all those grains that sit in the bottom of your bowl covered in sauce, refusing to make the journey to your mouth via chopsticks? Indians got around this problem by eating without utensils, using only their right hand. Meals may be messy operations, but each grain remains separate despite miraculously fluffing to twice its length while cooking instead of staying short and sticky. Practical considerations aside, basmati is so intrinsic to Indian food culture that no amount of arguing would convince a woman from the Punjab in Northern India to switch to sticky rice if given the choice, just as my former roommate would scoff at jasmine.

More than being a local staple, basmati is one of India’s best-known exports, and is more common in North American markets than other prized Indian varieties of long-grain, aromatic rice found throughout India, like ponni, hailing from the south, or maharashtra, from the west. Unfortunately, because of its international popularity, basmati has become the victim of biopiracy and intellectual property theft. A basmati knock-off first appeared in supermarkets in 1997 when an American company called RiceTec Inc. was granted a patent to label and sell their rice as “Basmati”. Suddenly Indian basmati had to compete for the stomachs of consumers around the world who may have only noticed the difference in price between two basmati options (RiceTec's costing less), not the difference in origin. India argued to the World Trade Organization (WTO) that based on the Treaty on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which the US and India had both signed, the US should recognize the Geographical Indication (GI) of basmati and not sell what India viewed to be a basmati impersonator. This meant that India had to convince the WTO that basmati was a good whose "quality and reputation were attributable solely to India". To be called “basmati”, the rice should have to be produced within a particular area and achieve a particular standard. As champagne is to France, they asserted that basmati is to India, and just as American producers are not allowed to label their wine as champagne, Americans should not be able to label their rice as basmati. Unfortunately, even though RiceTec did lose its patent, the same rice is still sold to consumers as "Texmati" and "American Basmati". Each country that signed the TRIPS is allowed to administer its own Geographical Indications protection, making it difficult for India to protect its products from other countries playing with different rules. In Canada, based on our country's Trade-Marks Act, it's illegal to pass off a product as something it’s not, but Texmati is still available in supermarkets, so it seems that it's legal to import products from other countries that produce these products, even if the production itself would be illegal in Canada.

Being a basmati rice producer is not all fun and games. It's actually a little easier to produce basmati than sticky rice, since the long-grain basmati is more tolerant of drought, insects and disease, but basmati is more resistant to the use of chemical fertilizers, making it hard to produce on a large scale. It's also much harder to harvest basmati by machine than by hand because it grows over five feet in height and tends to fall over into the mud, making the job a little messy. More labour is required to produce less rice than other varieties would yield, so basmati is a costly product. "American basmati" is actually a hybrid of Indian rice and a more disease- and insect-resistant variety that can be machine harvested, making it less expensive to produce, but the hybridization, the nontraditional production methods, and the different area of production area mean it's not exactly basmati anymore. This is where the importance of Geographical Indications comes into play, since consumers may be willing to pay more for products that have a certain known quality, like splurging on champagne instead of buying a cheaper but less prestigious sparkling wine. A Chardonnay from Australia, for example, would never be thought of as the same wine as a chardonnay from France. In India's case, if the term “basmati” can refer to both the traditional Indian product and the mass-produced, less expensive American product, it may be hard to tell the products apart, and more importantly, to tell if Indian basmati is worth the extra cost.

A double standard also exists for GIs of wine and spirits. While countries are permitted to label rice as “basmati-style” or “American-grown Basmati”, no wine can even be sold with the word "champagne" on the bottle. No wine can be sold as  “Champagne-Style Sparkling Wine” without having baguette thrown at his or her head.

So if anyone can call their rice “basmati”, more "basmati" rices will appear on the market, and competition will increase. What happens then to the Indians who suffer from the loss of the market for their product? There will always be consumers who seek out the heirloom variety, the highest quality, or the luxury item of any foodstuff, but this clientele alone can't sustain the small-scale basmati farmers and their unique, indigenous and culturally important food. Indian producers stand to lose their incomes, their traditional cultures, and their way of life, and consumers stand to lose the quality guarantee that comes with a purchase of true basmati.

There is hope being offered by the EU, which in cooperation with developing countries like India is rallying to implement a registry system for products with recognized Geographical Indications, like basmati. Affluent countries like Canada, China and Australia are very much on the “against” side of this debate. There is as yet no resolution in sight and all the while India’s basmati rice farmers continue to suffer through competition with America’s more affordable, mass-produced, basmati-labeled rice.

The next time you're looking for traditional, quality-guaranteed basmati, check for an indication of the country of origin. If it says Texas, put the rice down and look a little harder for another option. Traditional basmati should be aged, and it should smell like popcorn, even before you cook it. It will probably be more expensive than the other available types of basmati, because of the cost involved in the traditional, small-scale production, but it’s the real, traditional, culturally-rooted deal.

Further Reading:

Much Depends On Dinner by Margaret Visser

What's In A Name? - The Economics, Law and Politics of Geographical
Indications For Foods and Beverages by Tim Josling

Geographical Indications and The Trade Related Property Rights Agreement: A
Case Study of Basmati Rice Exports by Kranti Mulik

How To Make Perfect Basmati Rice

My favourite Indian cookbook, Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, has four basic rice recipes. Four! That doesn't even include the spiced rice recipes like rice with peas, pullaos, and one authentically elaborate recipe for biryani. Just as every good French chef can make broth, every good Indian chef (and most Indian mothers) can make perfect rice, but I am not an Indian chef or mother. I needed Ms. Jaffrey's traditional basmati recipe planted directly in front of me the entire time.

What you'll need:

3 cups Indian Aged Basmati

A lot of water (4 cups for the cooking, 7 1/2 cups for soaking, and a whole lot more for rinsing the rice)

Since I needed all the help I could get, I knew I had to start with the best rice I could find - Indian 6-year Aged Basmati from Rube's in the basement of Toronto's St. Lawrence Market. There were so many kinds of rice, but when I smelled the aged basmati, I knew that was the one I needed. The aromatic was incredible - delicious popcorn. I happily brought it home, after being congratulated by Rube for making a good rice choice. I put my 3 cups of rice in a pot, covered it with water and gently moved the rice kernels around with my hand until the water turned cloudy. The polish on basmati rice is there to act like a kind of preservative, to allow the rice to age without going bad. So you need to wash it 4 or 5 times, until the water is clear after swirling it around with your fingers. I poured off the water into a strainer (to catch the escaping rice), returned the draft-dodgers to the pot, added more water, swirled, strained, added water, swirled, strained, repeated, repeated, repeated. Patience…

Then I added the 7 1/2 cups of water to the drained rice in the pot and let it soak for 30 minutes. This is the magical step that keeps the rice grains separate when they cook. After the 30 minutes I drained the rice one last time.

Back into the large pot went the adequately drained rice and the final 4 cups of water. I brought the pot to a boil, covered it with a lid, turned the heat to VERY low (as the recipe emphatically instructed) and cooked it for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I lifted the lid to fluff the rice with a fork, only to discover that the rice was starting to stick to the bottom of the pot! I got scared. That wasn't supposed to happen to my perfect rice! It was still supposed to cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, covered, before it would be ready!

What should I do? What should I do!

Well, I had 3 options. I could:
A) Add more water
B) Turn off the heat now, set the rice aside, and eat it as it was, maybe a little under-cooked
C) Do exactly what the recipe said and put it back on low heat for another 5-10 minutes, fully expecting the rice on the bottom of the pot to burn

I took the first option of adding more water and letting the rice cook another 5 to 10 minutes, thereby destroying the perfect fluffy texture of the rice and turning it into a dense mass of mushy (way past sticky) rice. This option seemed like a good idea because probably the rice needed more time to actually cook thoroughly, so it needed more water to absorb. Probably the heat had been too high during the initial cooking (despite being VERY low) and the water that the rice was supposed to absorb had just evaporated. Option A was the easy way out. It was the easiest clean-up and the only guarantee that I'd actually end up with fully-cooked rice. Unfortunately, the rice became mushy and stuck together in big, wobbling jello-like tower of rice when I scooped it out of the pot. I resigned myself to my mushy fate and broke it up with a spatula. I could have cut it into geometric shapes, it was so gelatinous. In spite of everything I'd ended up with sticky rice, but worse, so I knew no Indian Chef would be proud of me. No Japanese or Thai either. If I were a newlywed, dense mounds of rice-glue would have been torpedoed at my head as punishment. If I had been serving grilled fish or meat on top, I would have been in trouble, since my jello rice mistake would have been obvious, and more importantly, unappetizing. The nice thing about Indian cooking, however, is that despite all the care put into making perfect rice, often a thick, rich, and spicy sauce will mask your mistakes. Good company also makes a difference, since everyone who ate my not-so-perfect basmati was too Canadian and too polite to be offended by, or to insult, my poor rice-cooking skills.

Next time I will turn the heat to VERY, VERY low, fluff my not burning rice with a fork, and let it cook the last 10 minutes without being drowned in emergency water, and when I take it off the very, very low heat, it will be perfect.

Serves 10-12.

"Kidnapping the Queen: Basmati and Biopiracy" - My Basmati Rice Article in Spezzatino Magazine

Click here to download "Kidnapping the Queen: Basmati and Biopiracy", an article I wrote for Spezzatino Magazine in Toronto on the champagne of India - Basmati rice.

The article has everything you need to know on why you should never buy "Texmati", "American Basmati", or anything from a company called RiceTec. If it's not from India, it's not Basmati.

Boulangerie Guillaume

Montreal, Canada
November 13, 2010

Dear Guillaume,

We've never met. To be honest, I wouldn't even recognize you on the street. If we happened to be in the metro together I would avoid your gaze like every other polite Montrealer is instinctively supposed to do when riding the metro, except I imagine you're the kind of person who would turn to me and offer his seat when he saw how many groceries I was carrying, as I'm oft to do. The only change in my grocery-laden life is now that I'll have less back pain because bread is lighter than watermelon, and all I want to buy is loaves and loaves of your bread. Fruit is an over-rated food group, except when it comes stuffed inside your baked, slightly-fermented delicacies.

So you don't know me, but you've already done me the ultimate kindness, whether or not you give up your metro seat. You've saved me the trouble of making my own sourdough bread. When summer ended I lost my baker. Well, really, he always belonged to LaPerle (the lucky woman), but she was good with sharing. Bread-less, I resigned myself to growing my own sourdough starter so I could have a little of the tangy flavour of LaPerle's Boulanger's bread all winter. I'm not a maternal person, though, so keeping something in my house alive indefinitely is intimidating. I'm not even good with houseplants, and those need water even less regularly. It's disgraceful.

So when I found you, the weight lifted from my shoulders. I loved you instantly. I saw the list of ingredients in all your breads so I didn't even have to spend 10 minutes of my or your salesperson's time asking what was in each loaf. No milk, no butter, no additives, and half the loaves used sourdough instead of yeast. Oh, Guillaume, it was wonderful. My favourite LaPerle loaf was a hazelnut sourdough, and when I saw your walnut loaf I knew I'd make it through winter in one piece. The walnuts, like LaPerle's hazelnuts, were perfectly toasted. The second time I had this loaf the nuts were softer, a little less intense, but the bread was sponge-y, light, and chewy. I don't know if it's better than LaPerle's Boulanger's, but I consider myself an equally lucky woman, along with the rest of the Montreal population that should get to know your bread and your boulangerie.

Bear with me, Guillaume. I just finished reading a book by the Wall Street Journal's wine columnists who started something called "Open That Bottle Day", where readers would plan a special occasion to open a bottle they'd been saving for whatever reason. After the day passed, they received tons of letters from readers who had participated in the event with friends, family, or by themselves. The thing was, Guillaume, that most of the readers' letters weren't about the taste of the wine itself, but about the experience of opening and drinking the bottle - the story of the bottle, the memories. Sometimes the wine wasn't even very good, but it didn't matter. The wine often transported them back to a special moment when they bought it or received it - a wedding, a trip, a conversation, a last family Christmas, a first job celebration, the family member whose bottle that had inherited from a long-hidden collection.

Your bread, for me, was like a bottle of wine. It brought me back to the summer's sunshine, Sunday mornings of heat, abundant fresh fruits and vegetables, music, and calm. It brought me back to the last farmers' market of the season when the man from LaPerle's Boulangerie at the farmers' market said to me, "Thank you for coming back all summer," as he looked straight into my eyes with a profound, sincere expression on his face. "No," I smiled and laughed, "thank you for coming back each week. It makes my Sunday." What do you say to someone who becomes such a part of your life's routine? Maybe it's silly. I barely knew this man, but maybe you, Guillaume, can understand how important this bread was to me.

I'm loyal, Guillaume. I love your bread itself and I love where it transports me.

In respectful friendship,
Amie

Boulangerie Guillaume
17 Fairmount East
Montreal, QC
Hours: Tues-Sat 7am-7pm, Sun 7am-2pm
514-507-3199

Don't Have a Baby, Have a Market: Marché St-Jacques

Wait! That's not the series name! Haven't I spent the summer and fall extolling the value of markets over babies? Well, the world got a little turned upside down when I walked into the muzak-playing, sterilized air-pumping, recently renovated and re-opened Marché St-Jacques, and suddenly babies, by comparison, didn't seem like such a waste of space.

When I first heard about the new Marché St-Jacques, I thought someone on high had heard my plea for more markets and opened (well, re-opened) a new public market in the Centre-Sud at rue Ontario and rue Amherst, but no, turns out that in 2006 the Ville-Marie borough sold the over 100-year old market to the private sector, to a company called Rosdev for $2.3 million. The Montreal Public Market Management Corporation (CGMPM - it's in charge of the Jean-Talon, Atwater, Maisonneuve, and Lachine markets) couldn't afford the price tag, and neither could the previous ground floor tenants of the Marché St-Jacques building afford the new rent.

Who could afford the rent? Gourmet food stores.

Who can't afford the market? A good chunk of the people who live in the area, a generally low-income neighbourhood that includes the Habitations Jeanne-Mance, one of the country's largest subsidized public housing units. There is a big upswing in condo building nearby, though, and Rosdev is probably banking on their business.

There's nothing wrong with a specialty store. In fact, I love Olive et Olives who have an outlet in the new space, but the mandate of a public market (which this originally was before the 2006 sale) includes providing accessible, affordable food purchasing options for local residents. That usually means being able to buy staple goods directly from local producers and discount sellers (think those enormous $7 bags of Quebec carrots at Jean-Talon. Organic they're not, but well-priced and local they are). Compared to Marché Jean-Talon and even Atwater (which recently did its annual winter down-sizing, getting rid of most of the outside vendors and leaving residents and market-goers with fewer local, farm-fresh options), Marché St-Jacques feels like a private club...you know, one where you have to wear all white, never smile, play lots of tennis, and pay a ridiculous membership fee, which is what you essentially will be doing by buying anything here (the money part, not the tennis. The smiling is up to you I guess).
If you read French check out the Rue Frontenac article by Marie-Eve Fournier on le Marché Claude Plouffe, one of the former market stores, now moved across the street to rue Amherst south of Ontario. Ever had a lease that was supposed to run until a certain date and then you get notice that you have a year to get out? Sucks when it's your apartment, but it also sucks when it's your business. Moving fees are not included in the less-than-polite upheaval.

So should you shop at this market? Well, it's a tough call. The coffee and tea shop is beautiful, the preservative-free fresh pasta sauce shop (the pasta itself was ambiguously not described as "preservative-free" by comparison) is run by a very nice man and offers an incredible looking lamb sauce made from something ridiculous like 12 lamb shanks, there's a Poissonerie La Mer outlet (but it's better to go to the original shop down the road at René-Lévesque and Papineau for selection and a wealth of fish knowledge from the staff), a fruit and vegetable place with a smaller and only slightly less local selection than Marché Claude Plouffe down the road, a Fromagerie Atwater outlet (guess they couldn't really change the name), and a Première Moisson, with several empty shopping mall-like slots in the building for future businesses (definitely not local farmer stalls).

BYO-headphones though, because I've been in elevators with better music than this place.

Montreal Oyster Throwdown: Le Club Chasse et Pêche, Joe Beef, L'Orignal, Maestro SVP

Criteria: Freshness, Variety, Price, Atmosphere, Accompaniments, Drink Pairing, and "Because Sometimes All You Need is a Good Shuck". A grand total of 13 different kinds of oysters, 4 glasses of wine, 3 days, and 1 very, very long night of oyster crawling later, here are the results...

Humour me for a second. I'm a little obsessed with sustainable seafood, to the point where I won't take a free sample of Atlantic salmon at Jean-Talon market, I'm freaked out by BC's "naturally raised" Creative Salmon, and I get in fights with fishmongers over the origins of the halibut they're trying to sell me. So to help us all navigate the confusing world of sustainable fish and seafood, I'm going to do a series of  throwdowns about it. As it turns out, oysters both are pretty sustainable and, compared to a lot of other seafood, surprisingly affordable.

Fish are going through tough times, "just like oysters did about 150 years ago", says Daniel Notkin of L'Original, but oysters made it through. Well, some kinds did, and now oysters are generally considered to be sustainable. They actually clean the water where they live, but you want to be careful about whether they're farmed or wild, what's in the water, and especially whether or not they're fresh.

Why This is a Horrible Throwdown: You should also know that as much as this is a throwdown, it's probably the most docile one ever. Think instead of "throwing down the gauntlet", these restaurants are all getting together in a ring and gently placing a pillow down each to create a sharing circle so they can chat over tea.

I'm not really pitting these restaurants against each other, since when it comes to oysters in Montreal there's a fair bit of inter-restaurant support and amity. Places in the city such as Joe Beef, Liverpool House, L'Orignal, Lucille's Oyster Dive, and Garde-Manger all shuck high quality product and work with each other very closely to spread the oyster-related good word. Think of them as shellfish preachers, the kind that sells something better than encyclopedias. Joe Beef, for example imports Carr's Family oysters directly from the cultivator and sometimes supplies these other restaurants, so Carr's Family oysters could end up at Lucille's Oyster Dive thanks to Joe Beef, and along the same vein Chopper's Choice oysters from Massachusetts could end up at Joe Beef thanks to Daniel Notkin from L'Orignal, etc. Chef David McMillan of Joe Beef stresses that, like him, representatives from these restaurants are the ones going out and importing their own oysters, which is a sure way to guarantee freshness and quality. If you're working with a distributor there are a few more stops along the way to the store shelf and there's no guarantee you should want to eat those oysters. Midland Transport ships oysters to Joe Beef and their tea party restaurants, leaving PEI on Friday, arriving in Montreal on Sunday, and getting oysters to the restaurants Monday. McMillan says Joe Beef will serve oysters for an entire week but it's not like fish where the quality degrades substantially each day, so whether you eat oysters there on Tuesday or Friday is not a big deal. I wouldn't eat sashimi that had been sitting in a crisper for a week, but I would definitely eat an oyster that had been placed between two damp towels in that same crisper, as long as the fish wasn't in there too.

Money: But then there's the money issue. Oysters aren't cheap, right? Actually, they're not bad, despite how chichi they seem. Even at the heavy-weight Montreal restaurants that I'm "gently placing"-down, the average oyster cost just $3.50. So you can have a light meal or an appetizer of oysters and a glass of wine to start your night (special occasion or not) at one of these high-quality establishments for about $30. Yeah, it's more expensive than a pizza or nachos, but it won't cost you the $100 a head that you'd expect to spend on a four-course dinner at these restaurants (though I do encourage a good splurge sometimes) and your guest, friend, or significant/insignificant/slightly less significant other will probably be pretty impressed.

I'm getting there, I swear, but there are a few things you need to know about oysters if you're just starting out:

1. There's nothing fancy about an oyster, really. It's a piece of flesh sitting in a shell that gets cracked open and slurped into your mouth. It's packed with protein, low in calories, and high in aphodisiac zinc, you know, for the entire "others" category, independent of their significance...

2. There's no "right" way to eat an oyster. If you've never had one before, try your first plain. Just pick up the oyster half-shell that's been opened and loosened from the shell (shucked) for you, and pour the oyster juice (called "liquor"...but it's not alcoholic) into your mouth. Let your tongue absorb the salty flavour before biting into the meat of the oyster. Please chew your first one since the sweetness of the meat generally increases the more your chew, and it might take some chewing to overpower the saltiness.

3. Words to describe oyster flavours include fruit (ex: melon), floral, vegetables (ex: cucumber), mineral, nutty, metallic, or mushroom flavours in addition to the briny hit of sodium you get upon first slurping since they come from saltwater. It all depends on the climate and the water - how warm it is, where it is, what's in it - and if the oysters are farmed or wild. Since farmed oysters are cultivated on trays at different depths in the water, the depth also makes a difference. Pacific oysters grow much faster than Atlantic oysters, McMillan explains, and PEI oysters have tougher lives in the Atlantic ocean than say BC oysters over in the Pacific. Atlantic and Pacific are also two different kinds of oysters altogether (Atlantic: "Cassostrea virginica", Pacific: "Cassostrea Gigas") so you can expect different qualities.

4. "Where oysters come from, lemons don't grow there," says John Bil, oyster shucker extraordinaire, but some people like to squirt a bit of lemon, horseradish, or mignonette (traditionally a mix of red wine vinegar and shallots) directly into the half shell of oyster, and as I said, there's no "wrong way"...there are just less good ways. Purists either don't like these accompaniments at all, or like them more as palette-cleansers, to remove the taste of the last oyster from your mouth before the next one. Basically that's so you can taste the next one better by contrast. My oyster crawl partner made fun of me for biting into pieces of lemon after having an oyster and then taking a sip of wine, kind of like a backwards shot of tequila, but in very slow-motion since I would never shoot an oyster. The lemon made the wine taste sweet by comparison. Then I'd have to have more lemon before the next oyster to get the sweet wine taste out of my mouth. All this meant was that I could take a dry wine and turn it into a dessert wine by sucking a little lemon first, so two wines for the price of one and a full course meal: appetizer (bread), main (oysters and wine), sides (lemon and mignonette) and dessert (wine). Almost.

I also would caution you about the lemon and horseradish since too much can overpower the flavour of the oysters, and probably they were traditionally only used because they're antimicrobial. Oysters are most often eaten raw, but you shouldn't really need any of these things if the oysters are fresh. It's the same way wasabi makes it less dangerous to eat raw fish in sushi, but still, better safe than sorry. And wasabi, like horseradish, is an acquired taste. Unfortunately, also like horseradish, you can add too much wasabi and wreck the food.

5. Traditionally you think champagne and oysters, but that's half a practical idea and half just an elitist thing. The bubbles are refreshing and shouldn't mask the flavour of the oyster, but champagne is unnecessary and also generally pricey. A dry sparkling wine (a good prosecco or cava), or even a dry white wine (a chablis or a sancerre - though sancerre is a bit pricey too) works perfectly. Don't drink? That's fine, since the reason sancerre works is generally because of its mineral qualities, so I say mineral water or sparkling water is okay too...and cheaper...though maybe not as fun.

6. About taste and freshness: Taste is completely subjective - you'll like what you like - but freshness is something you really want to be careful with; an oyster shouldn't look dry, and you actually want to see some green algae outside. It's a living thing until it gets shucked, after all, so something growing on it is generally good.

7. "A bad shuck": Well, this can best be described as kind of rough since there's no liquid inside, and 'KY' doesn't have a solution for that. It's also bad when the oyster meat gets gnarled by the knife and you lose the flavour of the oyster. That one's not really meant to be a metaphor...but think as you will.

Okay, I'm done.

Variety: Maestro SVP
There were 12 kinds of oysters on the menu here. Lucky Limes, Malpèques, Peasant and Raspberry Points from PEI; Beausoleil and Chippigane from New Brunswick; Chef's Creek and Marina Gold from British Columbia; Merigomish from Nova Scotia; Glidden's from Maine, Mystic Rivers from Connecticutt; and Galway Flat's from Ireland. If you're looking to sample different kinds, this is where you want to come. Just make you ask which are the freshest, though (when they came in and travel time - ask to see the box to check the packing date if you're really skeptical), since oysters have a relatively short shelf life and there's no way they can keep all of these stocked at their peak. So variety is maybe not what you should be after in the first place, but it is the spice of life, so it's a tough call...and it's your digestive tract.

Price: Maestro SVP and Le Club Chasse et Pêche
You can get 12 Beausoleil oysters at Maestro SVP for $13 any day from 5pm to 7pm, and all evening on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That's hands-down the best oyster deal in town and it means that the Beausoleils at Maestro SVP are probably among their fresher offerings because of the higher turnover. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Beausoleils are the best bang for your buck, but Beausoleils ($2.00 a piece) are actually really good right now. At any given time of the year they could be good or less good since the water environment is constantly changing. Maestro SVP also happened to have the most expensive oysters, with the Irish Galway Flats checking in at $8 a piece and the rest averaging around $5 an oyster, so choose wisely. Joe Beef and Liverpool House will have the Galways later in the year too, which probably means so will a few other places in town with whom they'll share a cup of tea...

As for the rest of the oysters at Maestro SVP, I liked the Gliddens from Maine, but at $6.00 a pop you'd be better off having the $3.50 Colville Bays at L'Orignal or the $3.50 Carr's Family oysters at Joe Beef.

Then there's Le Club Chasse et Pêche where you get 6 oysters for $20, which noses in just slightly under $3.50 an oyster. Though there's only one kind of oyster offered (Caraquets from New Brunswick when we were there) they're served them three ways:

Best Accompaniments or Presentation: Le Club Chasse et Pêche
Here you order "oysters with personality", says the menu. That evening "personality" meant you could mix and match your half dozen oysters from the following options:

1. Mignonette (cute?)
2. In matsutake mushroom broth (slightly bitter?)
3. With basil oil and champagne foam (Um...I wish I knew what a basil-y and champagne-y personality was, but I would never argue with the Chefs of Le Club Chasse et Pêche)

You can also get them au naturel, and there was, of course, lemon (though I don't see any lemon trees 'round these parts...), but this was the best mignonette (a)round. Well, the first one was. They brought out a new dish of mignonette for the second half dozen oysters we ordered, and that time the vinegar was more pungent - a fresh batch. I preferred the muted crunch of the shallots and the mildness of the acid the first time and hope that mellowness was intentional, but it's just a matter of personal preference.

The matsutake broth was the most unique option. It wasn't a hot broth, since that would cook the oyster, but the slightly bitter, warm mushroom flavour complemented the caraquets.

The basil oil was way too overpowering, but if you want to taste basil and not oyster, this one's for you; say, if you're on a date and you figure it's a good idea to order oysters to seem posh but you actually hate the idea of pouring a barely dead thing into your mouth...but you really like pesto, then go with this kind. The champagne foam gets lost in the mouthful, but champagne goes with oysters, so it at least didn't get in the way of any of the oyster flavour. 

Runner-Up: Horseradish at Joe Beef
Yeah, I know it's weird I'm singing the praises of horseradish, but it was better here. It was freshly grated in front of us, sure, but I think it was just that the horseradish itself was a little sweeter, a little richer. Can horseradish be richer? Maybe it can with glass 3 of wine...

Atmosphere: L'Orignal
If I was going out for an evening and wanted to find an unpretentious restaurant for oysters, this is where I'd come. The place isn't cramped like Joe Beef, the whole room seems warm and inviting, sitting at the bar felt like being around a big group of friends I'd just met, and service was warm and so very much not "Old Port stuffiness".

But I'll be honest, Le Club Chasse et Pêche completely surprised me. Again, we were treated with the utmost respect. I mean, I don't look like a person who knows the first thing about oysters, but I felt comfortable enough to ask questions, and by the end of the night my oyster crawl partner and I were speaking with the Maitre D', the sommelier, and a server about oysters, fennel, and dry white wine...not together necessarily, although...

Then there was Melissa at Maestro SVP who walked us through the entire menu and described each oyster without sounding the least bit pompous about it. She was honest, clear, and respectful, and her own curiosity and education about the oysters shone through. This isn't really fair to Joe Beef, though, since they were packed the night we went and it really wasn't the time to make friends with the obviously friendly, though busy, oyster shucker/bartender. Liverpool House next door is also owned by McMillan and there's more space and a relaxed atmosphere that seemed much more appealing. You might not get the furry buffalo or the Newfoundland fishing boat door in the bathroom, but next time I'll reserve a highly-coveted seat at the Liverpool House bar instead and hope for some other decorative whimsy in the washroom.

Drink Pairing: Le Club Chasse et Pêche
While I prefer the sancerre you can get at Maestro SVP, $15 is a lot to pay for a glass of wine. The only other decent option there is a glass of prosecco that goes for $11.25 and tastes like it should cost you no more than $5. Alcohol is where these restaurants are going to suck your bank account, so you need to be choosy. Prices were around the $11 per glass mark everywhere but the best deal was actually at Le Club Chasse et Pêche where a $9 Muscadet was plenty dry enough to stay out of the way of the oysters. I wouldn't want to drink it on its own, but it's funny that myself and other foolish people like me will pay $9 to have a drink stay out of the way.

I personally think the Chablis they offered was too sweet for the bivalves, but

1) that's just me, and
2) they probably want you to go with the $25 glass of champagne, so it kind of makes sense. And really, it's considerate of them to have the less expensive option. 

Because Sometimes All you Need is a Good Shuck: Joe Beef (Liverpool House) and L'Orignal
This is an oyster video. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Really you want to have your oysters shucked by John Bil but nowadays you can only catch him working at Liverpool House when he's in town. Bil now has his own place in Darnley, PEI with mussel-grower Stephen Stewart but fortunately for Montreal the restaurant is closed for the rest of the season, so word is that for the next two weeks, Bil can be found at Liverpool House.

Why should you go out of your way for him? Bil is a three-time Canadian oyster shucking champion whose record is 18 perfectly shucked oysters in 1 minute and 26 seconds. Still, Daniel Notkin of L'Orignal is a very good shucker, and I've been told that Garde-Manger and Lucille's Oyster Dive have their own employees who are skilled with a shucking knife. I have it on good authority that McMillan and Ryan Gray at Joe Beef are no shucking novices either, but would they get in a shucking throwdown or just a sharing circle with Bil? 

Speed is important, but so is quality (remember the gnarled oyster imagery in point 7 above). At Maestro SVP we waited forever for our oysters. We did order quite a variety, and we were entertained during our wait, but they weren't even shucked in front of us, and that's really part of the appeal. Le Club Chasse et Pêche's oysters came quickly but they had extra preparations to make with the basil oil and foam business so they also weren't shucked in front of us. So Liverpool House if Bil is spotlighting, and L'Orignal when Notkin is working.

You've never tried a...?
My personal favourite oyster was a British Columbia oyster called Marina Gold from Maestro SVP. That doesn't mean Maestro SVP is the best place for oysters, just that it was the only place serving this one kind of oyster that I loved. Just one cost $4.50, but it tasted like risotto - a creaminess that's characteristic of Pacific oysters. McMillan says they'll be getting them at Joe Beef in January, February and March, once they can't get the Atlantic ones anymore. They're not the kind of oyster you maybe want to eat 6 of, but they're a real treat. As a lactose-intolerant person I dream about cheesecake and mousse, but now I'll dream about the creamy tang of a Marina Gold. Ridiculous, I know, but they won't make me sick...unless I get a fourth glass of wine and start thinking about that horrible episode of Mad Men. There's a reason I stopped watching that show.

My second favourite oyster was at Joe Beef. That night they had Carr's Family Oysters which come from Stanley Bridge, PEI where Carr's Wharfside Market, oyster bar, and seafood restaurant sell about 500 raw oysters and ship about 1000 daily. These oysters were the perfect, simple, sweet, salty balance with a full meaty flavour. They didn't have the shock value of the Pacific oysters since they taste like what you probably think an oyster should taste like (all the Atlantic oysters are actually the same species, but take on different flavour characteristics based on where they're cultivated - PEI, NB, NS, Maine, bays, inlets, etc.). The half dozen we got was a mix of bigger ones and smaller ones, though, so you've just got to hope your order gives you the big ones.

Overall Winner: Maybe this is a cop-out, but I wouldn't turn down an offer to go to any of these places, and neither would I turn down an offer from a good shucker/ami(e) who invited me over to try a whole variety from Poissonerie La Mer on Papineau, or Aqua Mare or Poissonerie Atkins/Les Délices de la Mer in Jean-Talon market. But I would check the packing date on the box and want to know where the oysters are coming from. Still, you're not going to find the Pacific creamy oysters I loved at J-T, at least until later in the year, and you're definitely never going to find the Carr's Family oysters there. So I'd go to Le Club Chasse et Peche when I want to sit in a crazy fancy restaurant and feel as though I can afford it, get great service and learn about oyster personalities, I'd go to Joe Beef when it's less busy and I want to feel like I'm in one of the city's hippest places (but like I said, next time Liverpool House, especially if Bil is shucking), and I'd go to L'Orignal to feel welcome, at home, and in good company at the bar with amazing and well-priced oysters.

Wow, we made it. Now, completely bombarded with information you can stop being intimidated by oysters and go explore some of the city's most exciting restaurants. Ask questions, enjoy the experience, and most importantly, find yourself a good shuck. 

For more info on how to buy, store, and shuck oysters at home, check out Bil's advice here.

Le Club Chasse et Pêche
423 rue St-Claude
Hours: Tues-Sat 6pm-10:30pm
Expect to Pay: $20 for 6 oysters plus tax, tip, and a glass of wine
514-861-1112

Joe Beef
2491 Notre-Dame West
Hours: Tues-Sat 6:30pm-close
Expect to Pay: $21 for 6 oysters plus tax, tip, and a glass of wine
514-935-6504

L'Orignal
479 Saint-Alexis
Hours: Daily from 6pm
Expect to Pay: $21 for 6 oysters plus tax, tip, and a glass of wine
514-303-0479

Maestro SVP
3615 boul. St Laurent (at Prince Arthur)
Hours: Mon-Wed, Sun 4pm-10pm; Thurs-Fri 4pm-11pm; Sat 4pm-midnight
Expect to Pay: From $13 for 12 Beausoleils to $27 for a mix of 6, plus tax, tip, and a glass of wine
514-842-6447