Wow! This page has been up for almost three months. To tell you the truth, the first update has been a scary creature since I put the page up. What to write? How to top the Grand Opening? Well, the Grand Opening was nothing more than a furtherance of my initial objective, i.e. just get a new page up that would deal with the food scene in our little town and to hell with the logistics.
The logistics, however, are scary. You can't be buzzing around the dot.com universe these days with a "montrealfood.com" moniker unless you have more to say than the folks at montreal-food.com, bless their ponted little e-hearts.
Well, jeez. Let's just say I got lucky with the food.com thing. Torontofood.com is already a busy delivery service. I haven't investigated the rest, but it seems that while I was busy with this, everyone else was busy making everything else.com go away--just look at what can happen.
Hmm. . . .what the other folk do is not a problem here, as there's only me to deal with in my little dot.com world, and as long as there's a very large cup of espresso>turkishgrind>filter on my desk we don't have the rest of humanity to worry about, do we?
Welcome to the world of montrealfood.com's first update. There will be many more after this.The reason for the long delay before this one has been the usual blah-blah-blah that you're not interested in: I've been working for Air Canada Cargo producing incredible graphic works of art and also going to Japanese school at McGill, trying to make sense of the "squigglies" that Oriental folk call literature. And it's been busy.
Most of the email I've gotten so far about the site has been good. Lots of email has been about errors in the initial unveiling. I duplicated a couple of reviews for completely different restos. I'm surprised there weren't more errors! I apologise in advance for any, but there is only me checking, and there are a lot of data. The old incarnation of this page, Boulevard Montreal, reported back in May about adventures undertaken by myself (Nick Robinson) Barry Lazar and a fellow named Robert Sietsema. Basically, Robert, the food critic for the New York Village Voice, was hired by Gourmet magazine to scout out various restaurants for their "Restaurant Issue." This assignment included our little corner of the world, so for some reason Sietsema asked me to join him on his Montreal quest. I dragged Barry into it. It was a critics' world! Not something I'd happily be a part of on a regular basis, but what the hell!
The evening arrived. The evening arrived, folks, show some excitement! I sure as hell was freaked out.
Robert was definitely on a Quest—there was no small-talking him into being a part of an ordinary dinner. He had that rubberised critic's stare and we basically all gave up at Caprice de Nicolas after he ordered a glass of water after the first glass of wine. An ay yay yay!! evening it was not to be.
At the end of it, Robert bullheadedly asked for a copy of the menu. Hmm, perfectly reasonable, thought we, but the powers that were--and if recollection serves me correctly, were wound tight as a new snare--declined. Not even a lousy mimeograph! I secretly know that's why Robert did not mention Caprices in the Gourmet roundup. To the powers that be: spend less time choreographing the waitstaff and more handing out the bounty. God knows I took advantage of the bounty at the subsequent Ferreira . . .
Thursday 10/12/00
Whaddya know, a breathing space, and time to get the Flavourguy page up. Flavourguy (with a "u", as Barry was sure to remind me) is a column that Barry's been running on and off for the Montreal Gazette for, let's see now—hmm, as far back as I can remember! Anyway, there are 70 some-odd of them and there will be more to come.
There's been a little excitement recently in Montreal as the biker saga continues. The Hells Angels are mired in a struggle with the Rockers and the police, but they've recently had some well-publicised sitdowns at local restos . . . I thought their choice of venues was very interesting, though no one will be accusing them of having gourmet tastes: the Bleu Marin, on Crescent St., and then the Hells leader Maurice Boucher was apprehended leaving a Nickels. Maybe we should take up a collection and buy them some apostrophes. Maybe we can organise some sort of Biker Food Tour. Maybe Céline Dion could be the tour guide—she owns Nickels (a reader points out that this is no longer so. I guess with the baby on the way and all, she's too busy to cook. Hubby Réné at least owns firegrill, though!) Don't know who owns the Bleu Marin. Barry, ya wanna review it? I'll spring for the bulletproof vest.
Also in this update, Barry takes a nosh at Nantha's Cuisine and, at long last, the venerable Schwartz's Smoked Meat/Deli.
Tuesday 10/24/00
Feedback dept: Barry received an email recently about his Le Latini review from a reader now living elsewhere in Canada. Here is the gist of it, reprinted with permission:
"While surfing the Net I came upon your review of Le Latini. I had mixed feelings about this review when I read it. It hurt me to see such a hard review of Le Latini but at the same time I knew it is a true review. I worked at Le Latini for 17 years as executive chef and I still have it in my heart.
"I left Le Latini because one time I was told basically that "there is one star here, and that is not you." So I said "Great, you do it!" and left. However, I see they are still using my recipes (rapini and clams, for example).
"A good friend of mine, a fellow chef, of (a major Montreal restaurant), told me one time that Le Latini used to be something, but now all it is is an old lady with lots of cosmetic surgery.
"One thing I learned in my years of work is that in the kitchen you need a leader to set the examples, and to execute. Those guys work very hard in the kitchen and I think you should not be blaming them. I have a lot of respect for your article—it speaks the truth. It is very rare that someone writes a review so true to the fact. I will be following your work in the future, for I am no longer living in Montreal, and I tell you, I miss the restaurant scene in Montreal! I return to Montreal 4 to 5 times a year. I like to keep up with what is going on in Montreal. So please keep up the good work and the honesty of the restaurant business so you keep the restaurateurs on their toes."
All I can say to that is "Wow!" More emails like that one, folks.
On the updates front: There are a bunch of new articles in Barry's "Off the Back Burner" section, and also a couple of new Flavourguy pieces. Barry wants to emphasize that all of his pieces have not necessarily previously been published in the Gazette. (Some of the "Back Burner" pieces come from his book "Tea With Mr. George," a delightful volume of anecdotes and essays for which I can only find this address to order. You may of course email him yourself to ask where it might be available.)
Churlish gripes dept: It's come to my attention that certain folks question the veracity of the "vegetables" in the illustration of Barry on the Flavourguy page. I'll have you know that they're spices, and each one of them has a name. If you want me to send you a legend of the illustration with the name of each spice included, send a stamped, self-addressed email to iratedesigner@montrealfood.com.
Sunday 10/29/00 Snow snow snow!
Happy Halloween (on Tuesday.) For your viewing pleasure I created some Halloween creatures to follow your mouse around. They were created using Photoshop, an animation program and DHTML. Ain't life grand? (To see that page, which came down after Halloween, go here.)
I finally found some great software to start our very own Bulletin Board! Now you can post your comments or recipes, ask questions of other surfers or just lurk. You have to register (I can't do away with that) but it's painless. Flavourguy will be around, and we all know Flavourguy is the expert on all things food in Montreal, so go ahead and ask where the best place is to order an X-rated cake for your hubby's birthday.
Bet you didn't know the webmaster was a musician. Download some ancient MP3s from his home studio here.
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November 2000 Archives
