Notable Nosh: Nasu Eggplant

I was served the dish you see pictured above a little while ago in Ottawa. It was called ‘Nasu Eggplant’ on the menu (which is rather a redundancy of sorts as ‘Nasu’ is actually the Japanese word for eggplant) and was described as eggplant ‘grilled with shrimp and scallop and served in a sweet miso sauce’. A few Ottawa visits before this last one, I sampled Vietnamese dish that also featured eggplant done with scallops and shrimp , so I was rather curious to try a Japanese style dish with these ingredients by way of comparison. I must say, after reading the description, I was rather expecting something along the lines of a ‘Nasu Dengaku’ (eggplant grilled with a Miso glaze), except with scallop and shrimp as an accompaniment (and presumably grilled the same way). As it happened, what I was received was something completely different…

As you can see, the dish I was served was very nicely presented but, instead of the grilled eggplant slices I was expecting, it consisted of sections of eggplant that had been hollowed out and stuffed before grilling. The filling did indeed contain scallop (and their flavor came through nicely) but the shrimp were not apparent either visually or in the flavor. In addition to these, and not mentioned on the menu, were short-grained rice, and some mushrooms that I am fairly sure were a small Shimeji variety. These last can be very tasty but, unfortunately, there were too few of them in this preparation to add much more than visual appeal.

Anyway, as I say, the dish was very pretty, and the grilling was done well, but the overall effect was a bit lacking. My main disappointment was that there was absolutely no hint of miso anywhere at all. There certainly was no ‘sauce’ to speak of, and I couldn’t detect any miso flavor in the eggplants themselves or the filling. Indeed, there was an obvious lack of saltiness that I had to remedy with a little splash of soy. It’s a shame, really, that the execution of this dish was a bit of a failure, but, overall, I can say that I am glad I tried it as I thought the idea was excellent and one I could have a great deal of fun playing around with at home…

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Notable Nosh: Grilled Octopus

I have featured Octopus in several ‘Notable Nosh’ posts in the past, as well as including several dishes in restaurant reviews, but this particular offering  that I enjoyed at Brothers Bistro in Ottawa deserves a special mention. In that same city, I have eaten grilled Octopus at both Greek and Portuguese restaurants before (and these are cuisines that make Octopus a specialty), but the Bistro effort you see pictured above really outshone them all.

Firstly, the actual grilling, in this case, was done to perfection. I often find that grilled octopus is over-cooked in many establishment, chiefly, I believe, from cooking too long at too low a temperature. The taste isn’t especially diminished thereby, but the texture of the meat usually suffers badly. Here, the outside of the single tentacle was charred in many places, adding to the overall flavor, but the flesh within was delightfully chewy with the ‘elastic’ bite that makes octopus a pleasure to eat.

The other aspect of the dish that makes it so deserving of mention was the unique flavoring. The meat was served with fingerling Yukon potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and a house-made chorizo, and all were bathed in a lovely ‘vinaigrette’ made with Tamarind and Mint. I was almost going to forego octopus on this occasion (despite it being  a favorite) as there were some other interesting selections on the menu I wanted to try as well. However, the idea of using mint with octopus seemed so (doubtfully) unusual that I couldn’t resist giving it a try.

Happily, the pairing turned out to work very well indeed. First of all, the chorizo, which was more in the form of ‘loose’ sausage meat rather then dense slices, made for a nice umami counterpoint to the marine flavor of the octopus, and it wasn’t the overly hot-spicy as I half-expected it to be. As for the sauce, the Tamarind gave the overall dish a lovely sweet and sour quality (which went especially well with the potato too), while the mint flavor blended with it perfectly to the point that it took me a few seconds to even be able to identify ‘mintiness’ as an individual quality. I am not sure what variety of mint was used (peppermint, possibly) but it was added with a deft touch and the overall effect was excellent.

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Notable Nosh: The Lobster Roll

One cannot visit the maritime provinces without sampling the fresh lobster and, at the very least, a lobster roll is in order. The best of these I ever had was at Connolly’s Lobster in St. Andrews, New Brunswick some forty years ago,  but unfortunately, I have not tasted their match anywhere since. On my recent visit to Charlottetown, PEI, I scouted out likely places to try a local effort but so many seemed to try to ‘improve’ on the basic theme with citrus aiolis and the like. I wanted just the original chunks of lobster in plain mayo and, after a lengthy search, I found one at the Lobster on the Wharf.

The version here is served with a wide range of sides (Connolly’s only came with potato chips, which was all you really needed) and I chose potato salad and coleslaw. The roll itself was actually pretty decent (at least as compared to most),  and they are generous enough with lobster to give you a good meaty taste instead of the vague tease you usually get. Was it as good as the Connolly’s version? Well, sadly not… The restaurant of my youth sat beside what was then the largest lobster pound in the world and they could afford to stuff their rolls with the choicest tail meat, rather than the bits the restaurant didn’t use for other dishes. This was a close second maybe, but like every lobster roll since, it inspired more nostalgic longing rather pure enjoyment. Ah well….

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Notable Nosh: Water Buffalo Sausage

I don’t exactly have a ‘bucket list’ of animals I want to eat, but I do like trying new things whenever I can.  There are some things I have read about and long wanted to try (snake comes to mind), but there are others whose possibilities as a dinner feature have never occurred to me before. Accordingly, when I came across sausages made from Water Buffalo at the Brother’s Bistro in Ottawa a while back, I was both surprised and intrigued.

The sausages in question are a dry cured variety made with Water Buffalo meat and cranberry (which are just visible as tiny brown flecks in the sausage, if you look carefully enough). Alongside the thin slices I was served, there were some nice crispy herbed-bread triangles, creamy Dijon mustard, and a selection of pickles in the Italian Giardiniera style that featured onion, carrot, asparagus, and Garlic Ramps. All of these accompaniments would be terrific alone, or with each other but, unfortunately, they were not well paired with the sausage…. Read more

Notable Nosh: Chinese Beef Burger

I have been playing around with a little ‘snackie’ sort of dish I tentatively call ‘Shanghai Sliders’, which is essentially a tiny little steamed ‘burger’ made with Pork. I was therefore interested to come across the sandwich you see pictured above at small Chinese restaurant in Halifax, where it was actually called a ‘Chinese Beef Burger’ on the menu, and was described as ‘Beef Shank in Nang with Sweet Bean Sauce’.

I pretty much guessed that the ‘Nang’ was the same thing as ‘Naan’ and this turned out to be the case. Indeed, it turns out that ‘nang’ is a variant on the name common in the Xinjiang region of western China. The meat was clearly from the shank, or shin, which, when red-cooked (as I believe this sandwich meat to be), is often served cold on Chinese appetizer platters,

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty good and the meat nice and tasty. The sweet bean caught me by surprise a little bit because, at the first bite, I actually could have sworn that they had used mayonnaise  on the bread (which wasn’t the case at all). I usually like lettuce on sandwiches and burgers but I didn’t care for it here and I took it out after second bite. There was nothing wrong with it all, I just found it interfered with my appreciation of the meat. I also enjoyed the naan and I think I shall use it for sandwiches more often in the future.