A food and entertainment blog for people passionate about cooking, travel, and dining experiences
We are excited to announce the launch of our new “Provisions” line of small batch food products featuring fresh, high-quality, and locally sourced ingredients. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to perfect our product line and we are confident that we have found a unique set of products and flavours that our foodie friends and followers will enjoy.
Check out our Provisions page for more information and details about where to purchase.
Although I’m still reluctant to call myself a “chef”, I feel that I have learned some very valuable cooking lessons from my time in the kitchen. Whether it be in a cooking role, or back when I worked as waiter, there are a few crucial things that every home cook should know.
Remember when I said that the definition of a foodie is someone who doesn’t hesitate to travel for hours just to try a new restaurant? Well, this was one of those situations. In early March 2021 we made a long-awaited pilgrimage to Cambridge, Ontario (a mere 5 hours and 500 kilometers from our front door), to visit Langdon Hall – billed as one of the top restaurants in the country. And you know what – it was well worth the trip.
Our return to normal began on a cold and snowy February night with a trip to Whalesbone on Elgin Street in downtown Ottawa. This was our first in-restaurant dining experience since the Fall of 2020 and there was no way that a few inches of snow was going to stop us. We had been wanting to visit Whalesbone for months after hearing several great reviews from our foodie friends and this restaurant didn’t disappoint.
Way back in August (seems like forever ago) we had the privilege to attend a 7-course collaboration dinner at Les Fougères restaurant hosted by two of the hottest chefs in the Ottawa Region – Yannick LaSalle and Imrun Texeira. Chef LaSalle is the resident chef at Les Fougères and was the 2019 winner of the Canadian Culinary Championships and Chef Texeira was a top-four finisher in the 2020 edition of Top Chef Canada and former sous chef at one of our favourite Ottawa restaurants – Stofa.
With Spring just around the corner (despite having 2 feet of snow on the ground), I thought it would be fun to talk about backyard gardens. Last summer one of the home DIY projects that we took on was the construction of a vegetable garden. We had been wanted to do something like this for a few years and the pandemic lock-down seemed to provide the perfect window of opportunity for the project.
Back in July we had the opportunity to visit sEb L’Artisan Culinaire in the small village of Mont Tremblant (not the ski resort) in Quebec. The namesake of talented Chef Sébastien Houle was opened in 2006 has been gained momentum and accolades ever since. The restaurant now boasts a CAA Four-Diamond rating and is considered to be one of the top establishments in the Tremblant area.
At the best of times the kitchen can be a confusing, chaotic place. Among the many things that I’ve learned from Anthony Bourdain, the importance of being prepared to cook is the one that has resonated the most. As I look back on my cooking journey I can recall several “oops” moments where I was forced to scramble to prepare a last minute ingredient or where a critical component was forgotten altogether. I’m sure most cooks have been in this same position which is why the concept of “mise en place” is so important.
Voted as Ottawa’s top restaurant according to the Canada’s Best Restaurant list for 2020 (#26 on the list), Riviera is a restaurant that we’ve had at the top of our “must visit” list for some time now. As with most, previous plans to reserve were put on hold during the pandemic, but we were extremely happy to book a table now that things are returning to normal.
I first became interested in bread and bread making in the Fall of 2019. You see, I had always liked to cook, but the baking side of things never really took hold with me. It wasn’t until I returned home from a trip to Ireland that I began to see what all the fuss was about. While there, we were introduced to an incredible Rustic Potato Bread at Aniar restaurant in Galway, Ireland, as well as to an 8-year old sourdough starter named “Hugo” at Ox restaurant in Belfast.