Land Of The Free, Home Of The Brave

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Val

Dos Equis’ Feast of the Brave taco challenge

L. A.'s Don Chow truck disguised as the Feast of the Brave truck

L. A.'s Don Chow truck disguised as the Feast of the Brave truck

Dos Equis recently issued a challenge across six cities across the U. S. to see which metropolis would step up to the plate and prove that they were the bravest food adventurers in a campaign bearing the title “Feast of the Brave”.  This mobile version of Fear Factor found established food trucks in Austin, Houston and Dallas, Texas; Chicago, Illinois, Miami, Florida; and Los Angeles, California sheathed in temporary Dos Equis skins and handing out free tacos for points – the more tacos consumed, the higher the stakes. With no prize stated, the payoff was obviously a tanker filled with Maalox and bragging rights that you ate The Most Interesting Taco in The World. Each city featured four tacos negotiated with the food truck owners, with the fourth taco welded shut in the Frialator in order to conceal the contents, undoubtedly the biggest secret to draw conjecture since The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults. The progressive challenge upped the ante for each taco, the first providing the truck (and the city) 10 points, with the stakes being raised 10 points for each subsequent taco (the assumption being that each provides a higher level of peristaltic difficulty). The house gave The Mystery Taco a generous 100 points for each consumed, and with no disqualification for blowing your groceries like at The Big Texan a city the size of Los Angeles seemed destined for victory – after all, it IS the de facto home of the taco with natives downing thousands of tortillas filled with everything from kimchi to grasshoppers on a daily basis.

The Los Angeles Feast of the Brave menu

The Los Angeles Feast of the Brave menu

Dos Equis’ Facebook page for the challenge provided the menu in advance with links to each featuring recipes allowing you to create these ghoulish gastronomic creations in the privacy of your own dungeon (should you be able to source the ingredients from your local Publix or H.E.B.). Had the Concorde still been in operation, I would have pulled a Phil Collins and sampled the offerings in each city; my only option appeared to be to take the Los Angeles truck head on with wingman and fellow bizarrenivore Eddie Lin in tow. In L.A., Dos Equis negotiated with the Asian/Mexican fusion Don Chow truck to sling the varmints. Chefs and owners Dominic Lau and Lawrence Lie were on hand, decked out in their “Feast of the Brave” in their unrecognizable mobile restaurant; they had negotiated on the low end to do a “bird gizzard” taco worth 10 points, progressing to a hog ear taco and finally a wild boar stomach and tongue taco for 30 points. Although the placard on the truck had a “Sold Out” sticker over the presumably 40-point ostrich taco, the mini-skirted Dos Equis representatives admitted that they weren’t able to procure the avian behemoth (I would have cheerfully directed them up to Ostrich Land in Buellton armed with flashlights and a big net).

None of the Los Angeles options seemed daunting, especially to someone who doesn’t bat an eye while placing wriggling octopus tentacles into his gaping, eager maw; the only thing I considered challenging was the prospect of trying to guess the contents of the Mystery Taco. In a city where one can easily procure blowfish soup or foie gras doughnuts, L. A. was sure to be the odds-on favorite, especially when considering the fare in the other competing cities:

  • Miami: Jack Garabedian’s Jefe’s truck dishing out goat, frog legs, and snails with huitlacoche;
  • Austin: Andrew Brooks’ One Taco providing hog ear, shark, and non-specific intestines;
  • Chicago: Salvador Alcazar and Evelyn Arroyo’s Taquero Fusion Chicago featuring wild hare, gizzard, and hog ear and tongue;
  • Dallas: James Quinonez’s Rock and Roll Tacos offering up rabbit and bacon, wild hog and chorizo, and shark;
  • and, Houston: Jason Hill and Matt Opaleski’s H-Town StrEATs slinging alligator, shark, and cricket

The menu in general seemed like a bedtime story to help Andrew Zimmern sleep; the only thing that could make the challenge daunting would have been substandard preparation, or having the taco meat filling a Dorito shell.

The slightly spicy and crunchy chicken gizzard taco

The slightly spicy and crunchy chicken gizzard taco

The 10-pointer billed as “bird gizzards” turned out to donated by the omnipresent chicken (pigeon or emu might have been a nice departure); I was prepared for the experience of having to masticate organs imitating the texture of pencil erasers, but to my pleasant surprise, the gizzards were relatively tender (they still had some teeth to them, a quality that is most likely unable to be cooked out). These were treated with curry powder and presumably flash fried to give the nuggets a crunch and spicy coating, and they were absolutely delicious.

Ascending to the 20-point level, I sampled the hog ear taco. I wasn’t sure if these were going to be Asian-style (cold and rolled in thin strips), Colombian-style (sautéed into a leathery membrane sandwiched between two gelatinous layers of skin), or deep fried into a crackly chicharrón. The presentation was described by Chef Lau as “Listen-Up: Pig Ear 2-Way”, which was braised on the bottom and fried on the top. After cooking whole, the ears were then sliced into thin strips – the contrast in texture was amazing; one side was soft and moist with the opposite side having a crispiness that lead someone to dub the dish “ear bacon”. The crispiness added a wonderful complexity to the taco, and the fact that it was crispy made the strips crumble easily between my teeth, saving me the typical labor of having to chew the life out of it.

Ear bacon - crispy fried and sautéed pig ear

Ear bacon - crispy fried and sautéed pig ear

At the supposedly fearsome 30-point level, the wild boar stomach and tongue ended up being my personal favorite. Chopped bits of the tender and fatty tongue played well with the slightly chewy, tripe-like hog maw, and the blend soaked up a considerable amount of savory broth that emanated forth with each bite while not disintegrating the taco. I had previously had both ingredients in tacos elsewhere, but none compared to the amplification of flavor present here. I was somewhat disappointed to hear from Chef Lau that the taco was only available during the “Feast of the Brave” promotion as the prep time made it prohibitive to an option on the truck.

Don Chow chef/owner Dominic Lau discusses tacos with a rep from Dos Equis

Don Chow chef/owner Dominic Lau discusses tacos with a rep from Dos Equis

The final entry (the Mystery Taco) was deep-fried so as to conceal its contents, and on the plate it looked like a thin, flat empanada. The Dos Equis reps and Don Chow chefs asked if we could guess the contents, offering only that they were “vegetarian”; I was anticipating a burst of funk from stinky tofu or durian but encountered a pasty semi-fluid with the consistency of oatmeal that to me was reminiscent of reconstituted powdered eggs. There were several small bits of a slightly rubbery, translucent substance that almost tasted like jellyfish (although that theory was quickly shut down by the staff). Eddie Lin took a bite and remarked that he was getting the taste of tofu, but not much else. Under threat of harm to our families for divulging the secret ingredient prior to the end of the contest, Chef Lau confirmed that the Mystery Taco contained a blend of 1,000 year-old egg and tofu (which accounted for the rubbery bit my tortilla offered up).

Nothing we had sampled came close to requiring much bravery from either me or Eddie; in fact, since the tacos were free, we decided to represent for Los Angeles and had two or three more. It seemed that some of the competing cities had more hardcore Mystery Tacos –  Chicago’s entry featured chapulines, which must have been instantly both identifiable and shocking at the same time; Dallas’ Mystery Taco featured iguana, which forgivably could have been dismissed as chicken. Houston had the entry that epitomized the spirit of bizarre cuisine – scorpion (a taco that I can only surmise must have been absolutely delicious, if fried). I have to wonder how the organizers could have possibly thought that Austin’s jalapeno taco and Miami’s ox tail could even be considered a mystery after the first bite – I have no doubts that the Cubanos in Miami filled up on repeat servings of the dish.

A savory combination of wild boar tongue and stomach

A savory combination of wild boar tongue and stomach

When all was said and done and the points were tallied, Miami was the winner by a landslide, garnering an astounding 258,270 points. And on the Left Coast alma mater Los Angeles squeaked in at 80,190 points, finishing dead last, a humiliating showing for the taco capital of the U. S.. Although on a personal level I found the challenge not-so-challenging, I enjoyed the tacos as prepared by Don Chow and feel that if they were made widely available in that format, these cuts that are considered by some as unapproachable might find appeal and recognition with the general public. In hindsight, I have to wonder which taco Jonathan Goldsmith would have found the most interesting.

GALLERY: See images from the Don Chow truck’s participation in Dos Equis’ Feast of the Brave taco challenge in Los Angeles

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Maple Leaf Rag

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Val

Cabane à sucre (sugar shack)
Québec Province, Northern New England

A typical sugar shack dinner

A typical sugar shack dinner

Unless you were whelped and spent your formative years in the northern extremities of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont or in lower Québec Province, being misinformed as to what a sugar shack or sugar house (cabane à sucre in Nouvelle-France) is can be dismissed as a forgivable offense. In popular American culture, the term or title “sugar shack” has been applied to “gentlemen’s” clubs, coffee houses (thank you, Jimmy Gilmer), pastry shops, and even the Ernie Barnes painting that served as the album cover of Marvin Gaye’s, “I Want You”; in fact, the sugar in question is the lifeblood of your neighborhood IHOP – maple syrup. You get a pass if you’ve been underwhelmed by the lackluster viscous fluid that in some places can only be legally called “syrup”. The closest that the Mrs. Butterworth, Aunt Jemima or Log Cabin syrup you’re liberally decanting across your processed white flour pancakes came to a maple tree was the one the delivery truck parked under. These commercial brands differ in their composition, but share primary ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, cellulose gum, caramel color, sodium hexametaphosphate, and natural and artificial flavors. Log Cabin has the sincerest form of flattery, with their “All Natural” syrup containing a whopping 4% maple.

Tubing carrying maple sap to the pumping station

Tubing carrying maple sap to the pumping station

There’s a popular ad campaign by the corn industry that claims “sugar is sugar” and “your body can’t tell the difference”, and while it’s true that your body processes sugars as glucose, what is passable to your bloodstream gets failing grades from your taste buds. When you’re gliding down the aisle at the Piggly Wiggly in your Sunday best, paying up to 75% less for that bottle of pancake (or table) syrup is going to be easier to swallow when the kids are emptying it onto their waffles like the Saint Laurence flows into the Atlantic. It would be easy to say real maple syrup is more expensive because it’s worth it, and while it’s true that once you start squandering Junior’s college fund on the real deal, you will probably never go back to Hungry Jack again; the fact of the matter is that maple syrup is expensive to buy because it’s expensive to make.

A diminutive maple toffee shack in the lobby of the Loews Hôtel Le Concorde

A diminutive maple toffee shack in the lobby of the Loews Hôtel Le Concorde

Harvesting real maple syrup is a painstaking, manual process that is largely seasonal. Many commercial producers may own or lease acres of land dense with sugar or black maple trees; smaller, family-owned producers will likely have érablière or sugar bush (a stand or cluster of maple trees) somewhere on their property. Most Québecers will share with you that almost everybody knows somebody with maples on their property that knows how to collect and process the sap, if only for personal use. Land with a more substantial concentration of maples will likely have a sugar shack on the property. Until recently, the collection process involved hammering a tap into the tree from which a bucket is hung to collect the light golden sap that is excreted. Workers gather the buckets and bring them to a shed or barn where the sap is boiled down to the desired consistency through evaporation (less boiling produces a light amber syrup, while cooking the sap down longer results is a dark, thick product). Today, it is more likely that a less labor-intensive spider-webbing of tubing and pumps are employed with the interlaced maple raceways looking like some bizarre arboreal intravenous system. Although maples produce sap from early winter through the beginning of spring, there is a relatively short sugaring window, thanks to Mother Nature and physics. In the freezing winter months, extracting the liquid is impossible; when the temperature rises above freezing all day and night, the tree stops producing. The high period for processing maple syrup is between the last two weeks in March and the first two weeks of April.

Communal dining in the sugar shack

Communal dining in the sugar shack

In addition to bottling and canning, maple syrup producers also make maple sugar, candy and even distill maple-infused alcoholic beverages which are sold on the premises and commercially.  To make maximum use of the property, the public can pay what is typically a nominal fee to experience the sugar shack, an age-old tradition that goes back as far as the late 1600s. Some sugar shacks have non-maple-related activities to attract customers including petting zoos, steam train or hay rides, sled races and virtually any other activity you can think of that can be executed in a wooded area; most include tours of how sap is collected and syrup is made, but the true draw is the dinner. The sugar shack itself is a large hall or converted barn where guests dine communally; the prix fixe menu is largely traditional with a few variations, although for around $60, Martin Picard (the Willy Wonka of Québec cuisine) offers a Canadian gastronomic acid trip at his Cabane à Sucre Au Pied du Cochon featuring foie gras, lobster and the occasional squirrel sushi. The typical table d’hôte will probably contain free-flowing portions of the following:

  • Canadian pea soup (typically a white bean with tiny chunks of ham);
  • baked beans in maple syrup (a recurring theme);
  • tourtière (a savory meat pie that can contain ground pork, veal, or a combination of the two);
  • maple-smoked ham or sausage;
  • Oreilles de crisse (loosely translated as “crunchy ears”, but essentially fried pork rind, or chicharrón);
  • an oven-baked omelet (possibly with a baked-in pool of maple syrup on the top);
  • home fries, or cottage potatoes;
  • cretons (a pork and onion spread);
  • bread and butter pickles;
  • some variety of pancakes or crepes;
  • and, a maple-rich dessert such as sugar pie (employing butter, vanilla, cream and maple syrup) or pouding chômeur (“poor man’s pudding”), a cake of flour, water maple syrup and brown sugar.

Naturally, there will be a bottle, pitcher or jug of maple syrup at the ready should you decide to sweeten the deal; there’s no shame to be had in accessorizing any of the dishes, since the Québecers in attendance will freely admit that they liberally apply maple syrup to everything; absolutely, everything.

Gilles Gosselin leads volunteers in a wooden spoon jam session

Gilles Gosselin leads volunteers in a wooden spoon jam session

To enhance your regional dining experience, the dinner is often accompanied by live traditional or folk music, although some sugar shacks cut corners and pipe in canned music (which is fine if you like your tourtière to the strains of Celine Dion or Rush); other activities may include dancing, or at the sugar shack I visited, the playing of what is generically referred to as “Québec wooden spoons”. Any sugar shack worth their salt will end the festivities with the unique confectionary treat known as tire d’érable (maple taffee or toffee) – maple syrup is boiled down past the syrup stage, and (while still hot) poured out into lines on snow or crushed ice-filled troughs. A stick is pressed into one end of the hardening amber goo and then rolled, resulting in a sweet, chewy roll of maple candy flecked with ice crystals. In March you can’t sneeze without hitting an impromptu standalone shack, cart or stand throughout Québec Province (including in metropolitan Montréal and Québec) offering up this sticky treat.

Rolling maple toffee onto a stick

Rolling maple toffee onto a stick

Some sugar shacks offer other activities throughout the year, including Halloween celebrations in the spectacular setting of multi-hued maple trees in full autumn splendor, but if you have some flexibility you’ll want to be present in the early spring to partake in the traditional and cultural experience of the sugar shack. Sweet dreams are made of this.

L’ Érablière du Cap
1925 Chemin Lambert,
St-Nicolas, QC G7A 2N4
GPS Coordinates:  46°39’26.70″N 71°23’23.29″W

GALLERY: See images from Val’s visit to L’ Érablière du Cap, a sugar shack in Saint Nicolas, Québec, Canada

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Victory Will Be Mine

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Val

The Victory Bar
Portland, Oregon

Tin ceiling and paper shades give The Victory Bar a vintage look

Tin ceiling and paper shades give The Victory Bar a vintage look

Crossing the threshold at Portland’s The Victory Bar gives one a sense that they have entered into a fictional world colored in sepia from the lamps filtering light through the paper lampshades that hang from the tin ceilings. Colors are faded and muted; the lighting is dim, and although the patrons carry on spirited conversations, they seem to be guarded from prying ears. Retro imagery abounds from some imaginary wartime existence, from the colorless burlap curtains with newsprint slogans such as “Long Live the Proper Republic of America” to the paper stencil candle covers on the table that boast silhouettes of fictional political figures – The Victory Bar is a speakeasy where The Brotherhood convenes to talk of revolution in The Party.

The Victory Bar, your late night drinking and dining spot

The Victory Bar, your late night drinking and dining spot

References to George Orwell’s 1984 appear to be intentional, from the imagery to the menu offering of the Sloppy George (featuring “secret spicy BBQ sauce”) and the obligatory Victory Gin (which I didn’t try but undoubtedly would be a favorite of Winston Smith). As dark and faded as the decor is, thankfully the food is a far cry better than the black bread and synthetic meat provided by The Ministry of Plenty. The Victory Bar misses the literary boat on the menu – with a variety of international items such as gruyere cheese spätzle (reduced to the newspeak “mac-n-cheese”), the Victory Ruben and an Americanized poutine, the offerings are too interesting to be Orwellian. The inclusion of Freedom Fries is a nice nod of the hat to the Inner Party that the U.S. Republican congressmen appeared to belong to in 2003, although sadly Robert W. Ney and Walter B. Jones were not fictional characters.

House-cured anchovy fillets hiding in a cloak of Dijon mustard

House-cured anchovy fillets hiding in a cloak of Dijon mustard

Blending in with the other Proles that permeated the small dining room, I chose the house-cured anchovies imported from Spain to open. These fat, eel-like filets were draped unceremoniously over pyre-stacked fingers of focaccia and then smothered in a thick Dijon sauce that completely obscured the fish. Finished with sliced radishes and sprigs of cilantro, there was a proliferation of strong flavors, the least of which (unfortunately) was the anchovy. The slightly briny and acetic flavor peaked through occasionally and the fact that there was a little give to the flesh saved the dish, but the anchovies seemed to hide from view repeatedly much like the thought police.

The Victory Bar's renowned venison burger

The Victory Bar's renowned venison burger

The main selection was never in doubt. According to the Ministry of Information (Portland Monthly), The Victory Bar’s venison burger was selected as one of the top 30 burgers in Portland, narrowly missing the top spot in the Non-Beef category. The thick slab of Bambi arrived hot with slightly pink innards, and I was impressed with the juiciness of the patty (whereas venison is a lean meat, it tends to be on the dry side unless prepared with a more “richly marbled” animal flesh or marinated). The meat was mild with less of a wild taste than most venison and the fried threads of leek sticking up out of the Cheddar like a balding Mohawk added a nice, crispy texture to each bite. The sauce was interesting in a familiar way, and although the menu touts it as Worcestershire aioli, my server bluntly stated that it was a blend of aioli and ketchup.

Dining in an atmosphere that gives the impression that you’re a character in a dramatic social satire enhances the dining experience, where you can find yourself forgiving The Victory Bar for providing a dimly lit space that makes identifying your menu selection somewhat difficult. The room itself is a great conversation starter for the drinking crowd, who can find the strength in feigning ignorance that Imbibe Magazine voted The Victory Bar one of the 100 best places to drink beer in Oceania. On a cold and rainy evening, once the literary atmosphere set in I knew that I had won the victory over myself: I loved The Victory Bar.

The Victory Bar
3652 SE Division Street
Portland, Oregon 97202
GPS Coordinates: 45°30’16.92″N 122°37’31.84″W

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Smoke Signals

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Val

smoked meat
Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen
Montréal, Québec, Canada

The moist and meaty smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s

The moist and meaty smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s

Canadian popular culture has been fraught with conundrums throughout the decades – friendly debates that quickly escalate from checking to high-sticking such as who was a better player, Jean Béliveau or Wayne Gretzky; which band deserved the title, Rush or Mahogany Rush; and, who in Montréal makes the best smoked meat sandwich.  One sure way to start a way to melee bigger than a knock-down, drag-out outside Peel Pub is to ask someone where to find the best Montréal smoked meat (unless you’re on 7th Avenue in Manhattan) – if you’re in the capital of pastrami’s arch-rival, you need only refer to it as smoked meat (or, for more points, viande fumée). Smoked meat typically starts by curing (brining) a whole beef brisket with special spices, unique blends that most purveyors will take to their graves with them. The saline soak can take anywhere from several days to a week, after which time it may be soaked with a second application of spices. The cut gets its designation from the smoking process which changes the outside coloration of the meat to somewhere in the range between dark brown and black (although according to Montréal chef David McMillan, a great deal of it isn’t even smoked any more); it is usually steamed to finish cooking and to keep the meat hot for slicing. There are several preparations (including on poutine), but the most sought-after and competitive production method is the smoked meat sandwich.

How much is that smoked meat in the window?

How much is that smoked meat in the window?

A traditional smoked meat sandwich is stacked with hand-cut meat that crumbles at the cut end into little bits on the plate. The substrate of choice is rye bread, with the variety often referred to as Montréal rye typically being bereft of caraway seeds. While some delis will ask if you want mustard, it is an assumed condiment and usually arrives at the table slathered on the top piece of bread. Bone up on your smoked meat jargon so when your waiter asks how you want your meat you can be specific – you’ll generally catch the hang of this as you see sandwiches arriving at the nearby tables with a wide variety of fat content and inside color. Since the whole brisket is used, there are different sections that have their own endearing qualities – the plate (also called the flat, or first cut, typically the section used to make pastrami) the point and deckle (or second cut). If you’re looking for a healthy choice, you shouldn’t be here in the first place, but asking for the ends will provide you with a sandwich where the lean, darker meat is more thoroughly cooked, as well as derisive looks from those around you. The standard method (and cut usually recommended by your wait staff when you leave the recommendation for your selection in their capable hands) is medium, with a nice balance of fat and meat and generally considered to have the best taste. On the far end of the spectrum you can ask for the fat cut, which will sport glistening globs of beef fat throughout, a rich and powerful mouthful if that’s the way you swing.

The line outside Montréal's Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen

The line outside Montréal's Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen

As with delis in the United States, the pickle is your friend, with the nuked cukes generally trending towards sour; French fries are the side dish of choice but in the established and obviously non-Kosher joints you may want to consider going all-Québec and junk and ordering poutine on the side. There’s relatively little difference in the presentation, so the hardest choice is which deli to hit. In my younger days, I frequented the spot that is said to have brought the dish to Montréal in the first place, Ben’s De Luxe Delicatessen & Restaurant; sadly, the house that Ben Kravitz built in the first decade of the last century folded after a nearly 100-year run. Asking a Montréaler where the best place to get your smoked meat on will get you a variety of answers based on their personal favorite, although most will point you towards last man standing, Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen. Schwartz’s still stands at the original location established by founder and Romanian immigrant Reuben Schwartz in 1928; although it looks like it has been modernized, it appears the improvements may have been installed in the 1960s. You can’t miss the narrow, cramped deli – the line out front is a dead giveaway. Like most of the other purveyors of smoked meat, Schwartz’s wears their heart on their sleeve (or rather displays their meat in the front window, an act one would expect on St. Catherine Street). It is assumed that you’ll want to window shop before queuing up for your smoked meat fix. Main Deli Steak House (directly across the street) never seems to have a line, and although you’ll undoubtedly get a quality sandwich there without having to sit elbow-to-elbow at a community table after an hour wait, Schwartz’s is the smoked meat destination. Locals will talk to you in line and tell you that there’s better to be had in Montréal, but if your time in the city is limited, you’re in the right place.

Tight quarters for Montréal's most popular smoked meat sandwich

Tight quarters for Montréal's most popular smoked meat sandwich

The menu is rather limited; you shouldn’t expect the kind of dishes you’d find at the Carnegie, 2nd Avenue Deli or Katz’s, but then that’s not why you’re here, is it? The atmosphere is similar to Washington D.C.’s boisterous, crowded and florescent-lit Ben’s Chili Bowl, and like Ben’s, you stood out in -1° cold for an hour, packed in like a pickled herring for the privilege of polishing off what can arguably described as Montréal’s signature dish. The sandwich is diminutive in comparison to New York skyscraper sandwiches, but the piquant and savory stack is satisfying in every way. If you asked for a medium, you can look forward to slightly briny, thick irregular slabs of meat that break apart with each bite; gone is the sometimes offensive odor of anise (incidentally if you’re that way inclined) in the bread, and present is the spicy bouquet of the moist and flavorful meat, cut with the liberal application of the mustard. I make no recommendations for any of the other sandwiches on the menu – save that for your next trip to New York. Schwartz’s is open relatively late (until around midnight), but if the smoked meat sandwich didn’t fill that void in the deep, dark recesses of your digestive tract, you can always head on over to Gibeau Orange Julep for something tasty to wash it down.

Smoked meat sandwiches are a source of pride for Montréal and the restaurants and delis that make them, and trying to choose which to enjoy can be as competitive as the contest for Lord Stanley’s cup. Whether you enjoy Schwartz’s or one of the nearly 100 delis in Montréal competing for your business, make it a point to savor a smoked meat sandwich on your next visit to Montréal… then you can get the puck out of here.

Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen
3895 Boulevard Saint-Laurent
Montréal, QC H2W 1L
GPS Coordinates:  45°30’58.61″N 73°34’39.75″W

GALLERY: See images from Val’s visit to Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen in Montréal, Quebec, Canada

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Where’s The Beef?

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Val

Joe Beef
Montréal, Québec, Canada

The original restaurant with chalkboard menu

The original restaurant with chalkboard menu

Charles McKiernan was an Irish immigrant of near mythical stature who in the late 1800s opened a tavern in his adopted city of Montréal with the unusual moniker of Joe Beef’s (a nickname given to him while serving in the British army). In addition to maintaining a menagerie of wild animals in his establishment to the amusement of his patrons, McKiernan never refused service to anyone, regardless of their station in life; his pub was known as a place where the workingman could quaff a pint and enjoy a bite (preferably not from one of the wild cats he kept on the premises). In 2005, Chefs David McMillan and Frédéric Morin partnered with Allison Cunningham to open Joe Beef, a gastropub in the Petite Bourgogne (Little Burgundy) section of Montréal as a nod to McKiernan, offering a cornucopia of dishes inspired by traditional local cuisine and presented in a boisterous but casual environment. After several years they had opened luncheonette and wine bar McKiernan in the adjacent property, but after Joe Beef’s popularity skyrocketed to where it was booked to capacity a month in advance, the trio opted to expand Joe Beef into the space.

The humble front of Montréal's Joe Beef

The humble front of Montréal's Joe Beef

Today McMillan and company find themselves in the same predicament – after visits from a slew of food writers and media personalities including the Travel Channel’s dynamic duo of Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern and with the runaway popularity of the 2012 James Beard award-nominated book “The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts”, they once again find themselves with reservations booked solid for a month and a half. Chef McMillan finds this to be a blessing and a curse – with no immediate plans to expand the Joe Beef name into an empire, he regrets that in addition to turning away customers who have become regulars over the years, they can’t even squeeze relatives of the staff into the tight quarters. McMillan has a deep appreciation for the locals who have faithfully returned on a regular basis to savor dishes from the ever-changing menu, a pick list that changes so frequently based on availability of ingredients and the whimsical imagination of the chefs that it is written on a blackboard daily. Although there are some favorite dishes that remain relatively unchanged, others transmogrify into variations on a theme. What appears on the menu one day as Pojarsky de veau (a traditional Russian dish featuring a veal meatball fried in butter) may on another occasion be made with sturgeon (an odd sight with what looks like a pork rib bone sticking out of it).  Savory disks of pressed and grilled veal face with sauce charcutière have been shelved and brought back several times due to popular demand.

Joe Beef's signature dish, the Foie Gras Double Down

Joe Beef's signature dish, the Foie Gras Double Down

Chef McMillan loves the history and culture of Québec province, specifically its cuisine; he laments the fact that young, up-and-coming chefs study abroad and then return to their homelands prepared to turn traditional fare on its ear. As an example he imagines the reaction of a food adventurer who fulfills his lifelong dream to visit the Burgundy region of France to partake in the legendary cuisine, only to encounter a rock star chef having studied at a culinary school in New York who was so impressed with Thai cooking that the dishes now feature ginger, coconut milk and lemon grass. While McMillan has become the poster child for Montréal’s culinary culture, he also shows a great deal of humility, quick to recommend visits to other establishments representative of the local fare.  Having been initially directed to Joe Beef to try the foie gras poutine, McMillan explained to me that his signature dish is the decadent and near ominous-sounding Foie Gras Double Down (a foil-wrapped, generous slab of maple-drunk smoked Cheddar and bacon with “chicken skin mayonnaise” sandwiched between two hefty cakes of deep-fried foie gras); he is quick to point out that foie gras poutine is the specialty of the house at legendary Chef Martin Picard’s Au Pied de Cochon, a restaurant that McMillan insists no visit to Montréal should be without. Extolling Chef Picard’s prowess, the topic of Québec’s cabane à sucre (maple sugar shack) culture comes up and Chef McMillan asks if I’ve seen Picard’s book, “Au Pied de Cochon Sugar Shack” which he has one of the staff fetch from nearby. He opens to a page that features a beautiful, full-color glossy photo of one of Chef Picard’s dishes from his sugar shack – a black squirrel on a plank, gutted and stripped of its fur except for the head, feet and tail and served as sushi, an image that is both enticing and horrific simultaneously.

The ultra-popular lobster spaghetti (Spaghett Homard-Lobster)

The ultra-popular lobster spaghetti (Spaghett Homard-Lobster)

Once McMillan gets started on regional cuisine, the conversation has my rapt attention as he touts the charcuterie at Restaurant DNA, then changes course to recommend trying guédille (a vegetable-laden hot dog in a bun sans hot dog) and a variety of poutines including poutine Dulton (made with ground beef, onions, and sometimes sausage), Michigan poutine (featuring sliced hot dogs), and the turkey-laced poutine Galvaude. He explains that although he has an affinity to foie gras, he recalls fondly that when he was in his Wonder years, foie gras was a traditional seasonal dish, served during the holidays in December and January. Taking advantage of a brief smoke break, Chef McMillan gave me an impromptu tour of the premises, showing me the custom-built smoker on the patio that can comfortably house the three little pigs, as well as the winter-bare vegetable and herb beds that would soon provide a bounty of fresh produce that will find its way into the kitchen. With reliable and trustworthy staff in place, McMillan has reduced his time on premises from what was almost residency to five days of normal human being hours.

Spit-roasted and pressed "truck stop" suckling pig with chicharrón and smoked gravy

Spit-roasted and pressed "truck stop" suckling pig with chicharrón and smoked gravy

The kitchen is relatively small, and the ability to move food out quickly defies physics (visualize a softball trying to make its way through a garden hose) and as artistically plated dishes whizzed by, I stood in slack-jawed, drool-soaked ecstasy – crispy, golden orbs of cornflake eel nuggets with tartar sauce, honey mustard and BBQ sauce; a simple, classic strip loin steak; falling-off-the-bone confit of Guinea hen; the ultra-popular lobster spaghetti (Spaghett Homard-Lobster, a tongue-in-cheek name that translates to Spaghetti Lobster-Lobster) coated in a creamy beige bisque; and a pair of massive, thick rib steaks (côte de boeuf) on the bone that could take down Andre the Giant.

The borscht egg's yolk cascades across the dish

The borscht egg's yolk cascades across the dish

Surprisingly, Chef McMillan detailed how the price and availability of wine and lobster is directly affected by consumption in Las Vegas; when the demand is high as poker stakes, the price for even regionally sourced luxury items ramps up. Price is a factor in one of the dishes I had the pleasure to try at Joe Beef –  filet de cheval à cheval (roughly translated as “horse on horseback”). McMillan doesn’t get the furor surrounding the consumption of horse meat, a practice in French-bred Québec for centuries; Montréalers are accustomed to having access to many of the same cuts of the large mammal as beef. He explains that if he goes to market for meat and horse is at an economic advantage for a certain cut, it finds its way onto the menu. If a customer is offered a horse filet or beef tenderloin – they choose the dish by cut rather than content. The filet (which may also have been a filly) came to table bordered in bacon, smothered in a thick but light-colored Cafe du Paris sauce (made with chicken liver, cognac, truffle, parsley and cream) and crowned with a couple of sprigs of watercress. The dish was accessorized with thick French fry blocks Jenga’d on the side of the plate, perfect hand-held devices for mopping up the sauce. In terms of taste, Chef McMillan predicted with accuracy that it’s about the cut, not the mammal. The flavor was basic large farm animal; although (as McMillan points out) horse is a healthier alternative to beef in that it is lean, the meat was tender, juicy and delicious; the giveaway is most likely the scarcity of fat.

"Filet de cheval à cheval" - horse on horseback

"Filet de cheval à cheval" - horse on horseback

One of the other popular items I was fortunate enough to try is billed as “truck stop ham”, although I’ve yet to hit a truck stop that matched the aesthetics and taste of Chef McMillan’s creation. To create the specialty, suckling pig is spit-roasted, separated and pressed and then cut into blocks. The seared porchetta cube arrives wading in a shallow pool of smoked gravy and accompanied by wagon wheels of puffy, fried chicharrón and mashed potatoes. Since the meat was a conglomerate of chunks representing a wide array of porcine body parts, the cake was a jumble of wondrous tastes and textures – soft, fatty blobs; chewy, gristly bits; and salty, pink islands of lightly-fibered pig flesh, all sealed inside the substrate with a light char.

I was also intrigued with what McMillan described as borscht egg; the colorful dish was a party surrounding a perfect, flat-topped oval of beet aspic with a soft-boiled egg in its translucent center. Shavings of cold, pickled tongue lapped up against the gelatin while dollops of dill-garnished sour cream ran beneath; tiny cubes of red and golden beets were strewn about the landscape and two flat slices of crusty, airy bread stood at the ready for clean-up detail. A fork-side slice was all it took to release the yellow cascade of yolk across the plate, flavoring the dish with its rich, creamy lifeblood. I marveled at how they were able to shell and set the soft-boiled egg without breaking it and wondered how many tries it took before mastering that art. I initially thought the tongue to be a strange accoutrement, but in the resulting mélange the fatty meat worked exceptionally well.

The Food52 Piglet award for "The Art of Living According to Joe Beef"

The Food52 Piglet award for "The Art of Living According to Joe Beef"

While in the kitchen, Chef McMillan pointed out two lonely, naked disks of pressed veal face browning on the grill; we seemed to agree that some of the tastiest morsels of animal flesh can be found on the face and head. Served sans sauce, the dish showed off the almost blackened sear on the exterior; accents seemed to be an afterthought with cornishes, capers and deviled quail egg seemingly dropped in place. Like the truck stop ham, the veal face combined a variety of textures and taste, each of which were a pleasant and flavorful adventure in my mouth. Throughout the meal I nursed a bottle of Joe Beef Special Pils, a 5% beer bottled exclusively for Joe Beef by local brewery Bierbrier Brewing. Although I am admittedly a novice when it comes to pairing food with beer or wine, the brew had a light, almost sweet taste that didn’t obliterate the flavor of any of the dishes, a welcome quality appreciated more since I was foraying into a culinary landscape unlike any I’ve ever encountered.

A great many of the dishes mentioned are featured in Morin, McMillan and Erickson’s “The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts”. The large-format volume is part cookbook, part historical reference, and part non-fiction drama about the birth and formative years of Joe Beef, with a look towards the future. On the end of the bar in the original room sits a golden trophy cup topped by a gilded pig; Food52.com‘s Piglet is awarded to the last cookbook standing after enduring a grueling competition judged by a panel of influential food industry folks. “The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts” is the first Canadian entry into the competition; the book edged out Christina Tosi’s Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook in a final round judged by Alice Waters to win the 2011 Piglet. Although the insightful document provides the play-by-play on what goes into the creation of some of Joe Beef’s most popular dishes, my favorite aspect is the irreverent take on the recipes; nowhere is the dry humor more pronounced than in the recipe for Le Grand Setup de Caviar (on page 91) – I’m not about to spoil the fun here.

A recommendation from Lindy and Grundy

A recommendation from Lindy and Grundy

Chef McMillan is the consummate goodwill ambassador not only to Joe Beef, but to the rich history of the unique cuisine of  Montréal and Québec province; my visit was an unparalleled gastronomic adventure that will not soon be forgotten. If you’re planning a trip to Montréal, plan ahead and at least jockey a seat at the bar – Joe Beef is the odds-on favorite to be one of Montréal’s preeminent dining destinations.

Joe Beef
2491 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest
Montréal, QC H3J 1N5
GPS Coordinates:  45°28’58.73″N 73°34’31.02″W

GALLERY: See images from Val’s visit to Joe Beef in Montréal, Quebec, Canada

NOTE: This cost for this meal was provided by the restaurant. The content provided in this article was not influenced whatsoever by the owners or staff of Joe Beef.

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