Tuesday 11/7/00
 Sad news: Nicolas Jongleux, one of the top chefs of Montreal and certainly one of the most celebrated, has died at age 34. According to the Gazette, he was found dead yesterday in his restaurant, the Jongleux Café. There was no immediate comment on cause of death.
Jongleux came to Montreal from Burgundy, France. He served as the helmsman of the eponymous Caprices de Nicolas and then Opus II before opening Jongleux Café. Jongleux combined what he called "modern Gallic accents" with lessons he learned from master chefs in France.
"Don't overcomplicate things; if Mother Nature didn't intend certain foods to be mixed, why should we play God?" said Jongleux in an interview for Bon Appetit magazine.
He will be missed by the food community in Montreal.
Thursday 11/9/00
This place is actually a distant continuation of a BBS (Bulletin Board) called Babylon Montreal, which used to be run by the Mirror. There were a bunch of forums that the local pre-Web "hip" crew hung out on, and one of them was called Gastronomie Montreal, which was the inspiration for this page.
One of the "Babylonites," as we used to call ourselves, was none other than Avril Benoit, who used to host a CBC TV show called "Busy Bodies'" then later went on to do a morning radio talk show in Montreal which was very popular.
Alas, she has sinced moved to Toronto, the first place brains drain to in Canada. She is now the host of a CBC radio show called Here and Now.
I emailed her to get her Desert Island Dishes list of food things she missed about Montreal (and a few for Toronto):
Avril Benoit's Desert Island Dishes
Here's where I return to my roots in Montreal:
Best hang-out joint for coffee & newspapers: Open da Night
Best bistro to convey Montreal's appeal to visiting Torontonians: l'Express
Best patio brunch in my old neighbourhood: Café Souvenir
Best place to feel welcome home: Nantha's Kitchen, when Nantha's in
Best comfort soup: Zazium
Best grazing: Jean Talon Market
Best energy: Schwartz's
Best Chinese: Kam Shing, opposite the Côte-des-Neiges Plaza
Now, if you're a Montrealer planning a quick trip to Toronto, I recommend:
Best bistro to hear French at the next table: Ellipsis, 503 College
Best place to relax after working too hard: Irie Caribbean, 808 College
Best meeting place for high rent-impoverished freelancers: The Green Room, 296 Brunswick
Best zen-like, restorative brunch: Goldfish, 372 Bloor W.
Best diner to hang out with smokers: Lakeview Lunch, 1132 Dundas W.
Best Vietnamese fish head soup: Pho Hung, 374 Spadina
Best Cuban cantina for lively conversation: Julie's Snack Bar, 202 Dovercourt
Best Belgian, when someone else is paying: Cafe Brussell, 786 Broadview
Best steak frites & red wine: Le Sélect, 328 Queen W.
Best booths: Swan, 892 Queen W.
Best baguette & croissants: Bonjour Brioche, 812 Queen E.
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Saturday 11/18/00
 Hide your blondes alert: Woke up to a nasty surprise this morning—the smirking mug of retired murderer O.J. Simpson on the cover of the Gazette. He was reportedly having lunch at Tsirco on Drummond. I can imagine the poor chefs and waiters when they realised who he was (and now that his picture is plastered on the front page with the resto name prominently displayed.) However, such concerns may be unwarranted: I think if you look closely at whatever it is that he's having in the photo, you can see a couple of nails and a bit of wadded-up chewing gum hiding under the vegetables.
Misc Notes: Monday night am going to an olive-oil tasting with Barry and a montrealfood.com photographer. Will post impressions here.
Check out Flavourguy for some new additions, notably a letters section.
Tuesday 11/21/00
 "Popeye, ferma di importunare quella vergine di extra!"
"Stop messing with that extra virgin, Popeye!" is what I typed into the computer translator. While the result is somewhat less than gratifying, it neatly encapsulates the feeling I came away with from last night's olive-oil tasting at the Hotel Institute.
Somewhere amongst the velutinous flow of olios and cratching crick of orecchietti I discovered wondrous, glabrous olive-oil, she of the Extra Virgin, she of the sun-drenched olive groves of Liguria. But not until having tasted some pretty ordinary plain old Virgins.
The tasting was by olive oil producers Mastri Oleari, and was ostensibly given to promote their "HS: High Standard" system of olive oil production. I and my "photographer" arrived late; fashionably late, or so I thought, but actually just plain late. Just my luck—normally being a punctual sort of fellow, I was just a little bit tired of showing up places ten minutes early and milling around whispering in corners and this time I wished to teach the tardy world a lesson. Unfortunately, this was one of those rare events that ended up starting at 6:30 on the millisecond. We were rewarded by being thrust into the middle of the hushed, expectant banquet room and seated next to the stage, the only two at a table for six. On our left was a tableful of Armani-suited Italians, the representatives of The Corporation. Since I don't remember their names, I'll have to refer to them with imaginary ones. There was the Consiglieri, a lawerly-looking fellow with silver hair and double-breasted grey suit, the Chemist, a trim, hatchet-faced man in a dark suit, dark burgundy shirt and grey tie, and there was the Don, a portly but distinguished-looking-in-a-faded-sort-of-way older fellow, whom one could imagine had just been flown in from the campagna to testify—as to the purity of his olive oil, of course.
 How does one taste olive oil? Alimentarily, my dear Giovanni. While the dapper Consiglieri made a long speech about olive oil and marketing in general, gesticulating and addressing the rapt crowd in faultless if heavily accented French, servers came around with trays of small plastic tumblers of oil and placed them on paper placemats in front of each guest according to a printed and numbered legend (see photo.) I wasn't quite sure what the Consiglieri was on about, but it was entertaining enough to watch him stride to and fro, delivering his convoluted adspeak about importation triangles and customer-satisfaction ratios, so the thumb-twiddling factor was kept to a minimum. A few shameless guests, however, unable to restrain their boundless enthusiasm, were already picking up and even sampling the wares.
Then the Don took over. He trundled a beat-up old slide projector over to the center of the stage, replacing the Consiglieri's slick PowerPoint presentation. The slides were charmingly off-center and his French was sprinkled with many exhortations of "Questo! Questo!" as he pointed out the various filtering and growing processes of the olive trees. The young chap who was helping interpret for him was frequently cut short by sweeping chopping gestures as the Don overrode the poor fellow's obviously inadequate efforts and waved at pictures of filtration machines and yelled "Questo!"
 By this time, about an hour and a half of speeches later, the Chemist (who actually was a chemist) and his small group of corporate colleagues were looking a bit impatient to get to the "huil-y good part," so to speak, and the Don was himself overridden by a resumption of the PowerPoint show. By now there were ten little tumblers of oil in front of each guest. "Some of these samples," explained a new fellow, whom I'll call the Lieutenant —well, make that the French Lieutenant, because his French was perfect—"are disgusting."
"Oh, right we are," I whispered to my companion, "now the fun begins." He went on to explain that only four of the ten samples were actually of good quality (being from Mastri Oleari, of course,) and that the rest were readily available in stores in Montreal. A series of slides numbered from one to ten began to appear on the screen. "Rancid" was the title of slide number one, and we were instructed to "smell, but not taste!" the sample. Of course, the more perverse among us swilled it eagerly. There was a general murmur among the tasters. It was pretty vile.
The next few slides were successively more depressing—by number four or so, they said "Dangerous—contains poisonous chemicals" and "Artificial—a FRAUD" in big letters, as we dutifully sipped and sniffed. Funny, I thought, it tasted like the usual stuff I buy at the store.
We had reached sample number six or thereabouts when a raucous woman in the back—I'll call her "Mama"—stood up, proclaiming she was from Le Devoir, and "What am I supposed to tell my readers? That these olive oils that they buy are poisonous? What are the names of these samples? I demand to know what they are!" and then the Italian contingent were on their feet as one man and the fragile crowd decorum degenerated into laughing, shouting mayhem. It was obvious that several of the distinguished guests had been sampling a bit more than oil before the tasting.
"He is sweating!" cheerfully pointed out my wife the photographer, meaning "They are sweating," as the Chemist tried gamely to explain what they meant by "poisonous," the Don argued heatedly with the young man and the Consiglieri thanked Mama for the "excellent question." Barry's helpful shout of "Une huile, une ville" didn't do much to quell the general clamour and by that time it was all over.
Somehow, in the middle of it, I found time to savour the various specimens, and indeed, as they had said, the four from Mastri Oleari were very good. "Grassy," Barry would say later, "somewhat peppery . . . the taste hits you a few seconds after it's gone down the back of the throat."
After the tasting we retired to the restaurant for a decent four-course dinner and further tastings of Mastri Oleari from the bottle, best sampled sopped up with French bread.
I'll leave the erudite comments to Barry when he comes out with his Gazette article, and I'll leave the discussion of the difference between virgin and extra-virgin to the Don and his compatriots, and I'll leave you with a peppery aftertaste and a "Questo!" to wash it down. I found my virgin among the olive groves, and I think the whole experience was summed up when someone at my table sipped his sample, swished it around in his mouth a little and took a deep sniff of the tumbler and whispered to me "What do you think?" Well of course I told him I thought it was "a bit too oily to judge."
Thursday 11/23/00
Isakaya: Japanese restaurant actually run by Japanese gets medium marks
Saturday 11/25/00
In this weekend's Gazette restaurant review Lesley Chesterman trashes Tsirco, O.J.'s hangout of choice when he is in Montreal. Apparently this place (1075 Drummond) is an L.A.-style Italo-confusion joint . . . no wonder O.J. gravitated to it like a fly to— well, anyway, among its numerous shortcomings our favorite critic was made to sit in the lower-rent area and also was followed by a waiter afterwards who claimed she'd underpaid her bill. Tch tch! Considering that Lesley almost ripped off the wig and sunglasses at this point, it would appear that at Tsirco, overpriced food and bad service are the real killers. . .
Letters dept. Steve Wong of Montreal writes to Barry:
"You had a very similiar experience at Nantha's Cuisine restaurant (checking out your recent review of this restaurant in Montreal Food) as myself. I had a very, very, very bad experience at Nantha'a Cuisine. It was on a weekend, and the owner was not available that night. The Asian soup that was to contain shrimp among other things, contained just the bland liquid (no shrimp and absolutely nothing else). The noodles were very sub-par. Like you, I had the shrimp chips—which came straight from the box. The service was just as bad.
"About your Montreal Steak Spice piece: my understanding is that the McCormick's spice company originally developed Montreal Steak Spice, specifically for Schwartz's restaurant (as their house brand). The McCormick's company still makes Montreal Steak Spice, but it's part of their regular product line. It has been one of their best sellers for many many years.
"Currently, my interest focuses on Montreal-style pizza; meaning the cheese is on top of the other ingredients. Everywhere else in the world, the cheese is near the bottom (just above the sauce). I'm looking for the exact origins of Montreal-style pizza. Recently I discovered that the first pizzeria ever in Montreal is Pizzeria Napoletana, that started in 1948. The restaurant still exists. I just went there on Monday. How they layered their toppings is totally different from any other pizza restaurant in Montreal. The tomato sauce is on top of the cheese! The other ingredients are usually below the cheese. My understanding of Montreal style pizza is that the sauce is usually sweeter and the pepperoni is spicier, if compared to a New York-style pizza. Do you know more about Montreal-style pizza?"
Thanks for writing, Steve. We're always in the mood for a pizza quest!
Also today: When the night yields misery, go for comfort food. Review of Chalet BBQ.
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