Mochica, Montreal: a call to llamas

Our other fab meal in Montreal was at Mochica, a Peruvian restaurant on Rue Saint-Denis. This meant we got to speak English, French and Spanish all in one meal.



We ate there on our previous trip; that was my first encounter with Peruvian culture, and were I less well-educated, I'd have come away with the impression that the Peruvian diet consisted largely of llama and pisco.

Oh, and, at least according to the (non-work-safe) statuary in the restroom, that Peruvian men are extraordinarily talented.

It turned out we were lucky to get a table on this occasion; they were expecting a party of 21, a graduation celebration, which would occupy half the restaurant. This is their table, but really it's just an excuse to show you the cool wall work:



The waitstaff were lovely all night, beginning with the point at which our waiter, referring to the imminent arrival of the large group, said, "You might want to order now, if you can; I'd hate for your order to get lost in the crush."

We started with the rellenos de papa de llama:



Rellenos de papa are a Puerto Rican favorite: fist-sized balls of mashed potato, stuffed with meat and deep-fried (here's a recipe; check out this vid of chef Wilo Benet's easy instructions for putting them together).

At Mochica, they're loaded with llama and olives; the potato is light and fluffy, with the lightest crunch on the outside.

Our other app, ceviche de pescado, is also popular in Puerto Rico. The difference at Mochica is that rather than serving the fish in bite-sized chunks, they slice it paper-thin—almost translucent—so it melts on the tongue with a bright bite of lime.



(By this point, the large party had arrived and spent an hour taking turns in giving speeches, from which I am forced to conclude that Peruvian dinnertime is traditionally a long and overly formal occasion.)

Then to our mains; sadly (as may be evident from the above images) the light in the restaurant wasn't quite bright enough for photos, so you'll just have to take my word for it that everything was lovely. The Boy's dad had llama a la parilla, a generous grilled llama steak with rosemary; The Boy went for goat stew, which came tender and warmly spicy and (for a nice change) had very few bones.

I had llama a la Cuzqueña, a spicy, complex llama stew. On the menu it noted that the llama was "from Compton," which I assume means this Compton, rather than this Compton.

Only The Boy's mom wasn't completely happy, in part because the food was spicier than she liked, and also because it wasn't quite what she expected. She'd been hoping for something closer to the simple, hearty, home-cooked meals of her childhood (which sounded fabulous) rather than this light, modern take. But otherwise, the evening was lovely.

And a final example of Mochica's customer service: The Boy's dad couldn't find his gold chain, and thought he might have lost it in the restaurant. I called Mochica the next morning and left a message, explaining we were leaving for Boston so needed a rapid response. The co-owner quickly got back to me to say they'd searched the place but couldn't find the chain, and he hoped that hadn't spoiled our experience, and wished us a safe trip home.

(We found the chain in the car later that day; it had fallen off and slipped down the passenger-side seat. D'oh!)

Montreal, like New York, is so generously stuffed with restaurants that it would be easy to eat at a different place every night. But along with Au Pied de Cochon, I think of Mochica as becoming one of our defaults: a restaurant we could easily visit on every trip and try something new and interesting.

(But more importantly: are all the guys like that??)

Au Pied de Cochon: pig-out, Montreal style

The Boy's birthday coincided with our trip to Montreal, so when I asked where he wanted to go for his celebratory meal, he had an immediate answer: Au Pied de Cochon.

Both our previous Montreal trips had included visits to this palace of porkiness; it's one of those restaurants that, when brought up in conversation, causes a Pavlovian reaction for us. And we were pretty sure The Boy's parents would approve. (They did. Oh, boy, they did.)

Au Pied de Cochon is a long, narrow, noisy room, with clusters of tables at both ends and a bar that runs the length of the intervening space. If you sit at the bar, you get to watch the chefs at work in the tiny kitchen.

On past visits, we've sat at a table in front, squished between other diners and subject to waiter traffic. This time, we got a table at the back of the room, which felt a little calmer (though no less cacophonous).



We started with a plate of cochonailles (which, as we learned from the pig-fest at Craigie Street Bistrot, kind of translates to "little bits of porkular loveliness"). And then to the main event.

The Boy's mom went for the signature dish, a fabulous plate of pig's foot braised until fall-apart tender, with pommes purées and a crispy mushroom-cream-filled cake.



The Boy's dad had the lamb shank confit.



Do I even need to say how gloriously moist and juicy and fatty it was? (Wanna make it yourself? Here's a recipe. Stock up on duck fat.)

I had the PDC Melting Pot, a crock stuffed with pommes purées topped with garlic pork sausage, blood sausage, pork belly and bacon, as well as a couple of sweet roasted onions. Yes, it looks obscene. No, I couldn't eat the whole thing, though I gave it a damn good try.



And The Boy?

On our first visit, he'd considered getting the poutine with foie gras because it seemed so decadent. On our second--having actually tried poutine--he thought about it but passed for something else. And then we made our own version of posh poutine at home, and he came to fully grasp its potential.

When we started to talk about taking his parents to Montreal, he mentioned the poutine with foie gras. When we discussed going to Au Pied de Cochon, he observed that they had poutine with foie gras.

And so, finally, he got what he wanted. It may look like hell, but it tastes like heaven.



Au Pied de Cochon is a fun, lively place. (And loud. Did I mention it's loud?) The crowd is young and hip, the staff are cute in a tousled punk/pirate sort of way, and the restroom is awesome:



Yes, that's a full-on dishwashing sink with rinsing nozzle. And yes, the hand towels are in a steam table.

Oh, and they have a dish called canard en conserve--or, en anglais, the less-romantic-sounding duck in a can. The adorable chef/waiter couple from Toronto, sitting at the next table (close enough that we could follow their conversation, apparently) ordered it, and we got to watch as it was served. From the can. A can-opener is involved.

I wasn't able to take photos, so I direct you to Claudine's gorgeous frame-by-frame reveal on Flickr. And take a look at the rest of her PDC set; her camera skeelz are much better than mine!

Anyway, we have to go back. We still haven't tried the duck carpaccio, or the bison tongue, or the venison tongue, or the (gasp!) pied de cochon stuffed with (gasp!) foie gras, or ...

This ain't the Ritz

We ate at a lot of interesting places over the last week, and I'll get to the best in due course.

But first, a word about the Ritz Carlton Montreal.

I'd never stayed at a Ritz before (heck, I don't think I'd been inside one), but The Boy found rooms at insanely low rates, so it seemed crazy not to check in.

As it turned out, there was a reason for the good prices: the Ritz was closing at the end of the week. So we were able to experience a little of the Ritz's faded elegance as it was being taken apart around us.

The lobby:



The lighting:



Our room had more storage space than our apartment (and the closet light went out when you closed the door, like a fridge). I loved the bathroom, whose size was a luxurious novelty: enough space for a full-length streeeetch-out tub and a secondary make-up applying area. And why yes, that is a fabulously thick bathrobe hanging on the door.



There was a scale in the bathroom and an umbrella in the closet. At night, someone left chocolates on the bed.

Breakfast happened out in the garden, overlooking the duck pond:



But tomorrow the Ritz closes so that luxury condos can be added above the current structure. The ducks in the garden pond will return to the farm from which they came. The staff, including the doorman who has worked there for 35 years, have to fend for themselves.

Even as we stayed there, rooms were being emptied, dumpsters filled, "No Entry" signs posted. On our last night, we had a drink in the bar. The Boy ordered Patrón. "Ah, there's just enough left in the last bottle," said the waiter. "You get the final shot."



(Note how the room in the background is empty.)

When we went down to the lobby the next morning, the bar had been closed off.

I can't hold claim to anything about the Ritz from a nostalgic or romantic perspective; frankly, I was not aware of the existence of a Ritz-Carlton in Montreal until a couple of weeks ago. But there's still something poignant about a grande dame being stripped down and having her belongings auctioned off so that someone (not the maids or the front-desk staff or the bartenders) can make more money.

Here ends your social criticism for today.

Puerto Rican friendship cake

The Boy's parents arrived from Puerto Rico, smuggling all kinds of contraband through customs: lechón from Guavate, morcilla, orchid cuttings from the back yard and an entire friendship cake. More on the former later; today's discussion is about that cake.



This is one of those times I wish my blog had smell-O-vision functionality; there were some pretty potent sugar fumes emanating from the cake, practically misting up the lens while I took photos.

It's incredibly moist and heavy, but at the same time it's airy, rather than stodgy.



While we tasted the cake, The Boy's mom outlined the recipe:

Combine a can of peaches in syrup, a cup of sugar and a fruit juice such as fresh apple cider (she uses mavi, a lightly fermented drink made from tree bark) in a glass jar. Cover and stir once a day for ten days.

Ten days.

Then add maraschino cherries and more sugar. Allow to sit, stirring every day for another ten days.

Then throw in a can of fruit cocktail and more sugar. Sit and stir.

On the last day (or therebouts; by this time, I was busy trying to calculate sugar content and/or alcohol volume), throw in some raisins. And possibly brandy.

Oh, there were pineapple chunks in there somewhere as well.

Then make up a batch of yellow cake mix from a box, using your new concoction in place of the instructed liquid. And throw the fruit in as well.

Of course, you're not going to use up the entire quantity of liquid in one cake; this is where the friendship part comes in.

You decant the liquid into jars and give them to your best buddies, along with the recipe, so they can make their own moist, potent sugar bomb.

My first question: who came up with this idea? Which ingenious housewife decided, "You know, I bet if I threw together a whole bunch of fruit and sugar and let it sit for a month, it would make a butt-kicking cake?"

The answer had to be online somewhere, right?

Okay, so I couldn't find an individual culprit. But I did find a number of variations on the theme that suggested it may have been originally a German recipe that made its way to the US with the Amish.

And even then, there are two versions of Amish friendship cake: one with the Lord's own fruit cocktail and one with yeast.

Other variations involve the fruit and the yeast. And also, sometimes, instant pudding mix.

Did it arrive in Puerto Rico with some Midwestern army wife? Or brought over by well-meaning missionaries or federal do-gooders? We may never know.

So the mystery deepens, especially as recipes appear on sites around the world, though all with the same basic elements of sharing the sugar rush.

If anyone has any clearer clues, I'd love to hear 'em.

Cake, anyone?

First salad of the season

A little late, I know; somehow we kept forgetting we had an enthusiastic crop of mixed greens and spinach in the garden.



The tomatoes are not ours, not yet. We have one brave plant, which came back from a near-devastating nomming (shakes fist at squirrels) and is now recuperating nicely, but doesn't yet have flowers. The above are called candy strawberry tomatoes and yes, they're very sweet. Perhaps too sweet.

This was our first attempt at growing salad greens, and I realized I should have thinned out the rows a little; better to have fewer leaves growing vigorously than many leaves fighting for space. But this is a (fun, delicious) learning process, and the next crop will be better.

What happens when you neglect your Papa

I've never liked those good news/bad news jokes.

Good news: Your doctor says you have 24 hours to live.
Bad news: He meant to tell you yesterday.

Bad news: Your blood is all over the crime scene.
Good news: Your cholesterol is way down.

See? Not funny. Depressing and lame.

Why am I cranky?

Because I was looking through this new booklet the T has produced, which lists discounts and freebies for CharlieCard holders.

And I saw something that said:



"Ooh," I sez to myself, I sez, "Macanchee on a stick? That merits investigation."

Google searches brought up no results for the business (tsk, tsk!) but there was a Chowhound thread on Boston-area mac and cheese recommendations that seemed to offer a clue.

I scrolled through and found this:



"Where Beard Papa used to be"??

If you missed my earlier paean to Beard Papa's light and delicious cream puffs, or if you're not lucky enough to live in New York or California, you won't understand why this is bad news indeed.

Beard Papa's website confirms that there are now no outlets in Massachusetts. None.

It was bad enough when they took away Krispy Kreme and replaced it with Kelly's Roast Beef (no, not cool).

But this?

The Boy, of course, says we're responsible. If we'd picked up a dozen vanilla puffs every day, Beard Papa might still be in business. He has also decided that even though mac and cheese on a stick sounds like a wonderful thing, on principle he will not be visiting the Green Organic Bowl (which doesn't even have a website) to try it.

Maybe that is the good news.

Sabur, Somerville: it's all a blur

This week I had a complaint (a complaint, I tells ya!) that I hadn't posted any pictures of food in more than a week.

My excuse? I keep eating in dark places.

I'm not a professional photographer (as you may have noticed), and even though I try to take photos of as many dishes as possible, it's hard to get good shots in restaurants with ambiances that are romantic, moody or just cheap and underlit.

Take last night, for example, when we braved the 85-degree humidity to go to Sabur, the Mediterranean restaurant halfway between Davis and Teele Squares in Somerville.

(How humid was it? So humid that we elected to sit in the air-conditioned interior instead of on the intimate outdoor patio. That humid.)

The decor at Sabur is simple and rustic: highbacked wooden chairs, an open brick grill, beaten copper tables. The lighting, while pretty, is similarly low-key:



Which means I had two choices, snapshot-wise. I could sit the camera on the table, which produced shots like this:



(Doesn't that tomato-cucumber-feta salad look lovely?)

Or I could hold the camera and balance my elbows on the table, which produced shots with a less-than-appetizing blur. This photo does nothing for the grilled Balkan sausages, which are tender and juicy and spicy:



Likewise, Sabur does zucchini and feta fritters that have a light crunch on the outside and a soft, yielding center. They're sitting in ajvar, a roasted red pepper and eggplant spread that's both fresh and complex. But you wouldn't know it from this shaky shot:



The round pastry in back is burek, which is close enough to a Cornish pasty that it satisfies my occasional cravings.

I should point out that any shakiness is purely the result of the slightly irregular surface of the beaten copper table, and has nothing to do with this:



Mine was the one on the left, a cocktail of house-made fig-infused vodka and pomegranate that was both refreshingly light and earthily complex. The dark fruit lurking in the bottom of the glass is an entire vodka-soaked fig: a potent little bomb.

So I asks you: which would you prefer? Clear, well-lit images that appear only occasionally, or a regular cavalcade of blurry, dark, confusing shots?

'Cause let me tell you, I got plenty of those.