I have watched with envy in various cities but especially New york, when the supper hour arrives and people pop in on their way home from work to pick up supper.  This has never been a part of our lifestyle until recently.  I was on my way home from my baby hugging shift at the hospital and D’s tennis game had been cancelled due to rain.  I decided to stop at the Little Saigon Restaurant for soup-just soup, I kept telling myself as I remembered my favourite menu items and even their menu numbers by heart:

#1 Spring Rolls, #5 Charbroiled pork with rice vermicelli and fresh vegetables, #21 Deluxe Won Ton Soup and #80 Salt & Pepper shrimp with the shell off.  Just soup, just soup.

I did it.  I placed the order for 2 portions of #12 Deluxe Beef & Rice Noodle Soup.  They had to pack the containers in a handled bag for me to carry it out to the car.  And that bag was heavy!

Two containers included the lovely, rich broth with slices of spring onion floating on top.  The other two packages (where the weightiness came in) were filled with the noodles, bean sprouts, rare shaved beef, a lime and a sauce of spicy hoisin.

We placed our fixings in the bottom of a huge pasta bowl and poured the broth over top.  It took 2 hands to carry each bowl to the dining room table without spilling.  Savoury, so satisfying and amazingly, it was just soup.

Kath’s quote: The smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us…..”-Marcel Proust

We love  New Orleans.  The city, especially the French Quarter is a fascinating place to stay and the eating adventures are unequalled.  So when we were invited to a New Orleans themed party recently, thrown by CN to celebrate the success of the Canadian Women’s Open, we were thrilled to attend.

Upon arrival at a banquet room at the Delta Hotel, we were escorted down a cavern filled with card readers and fortune tellers.    The next stop was to dress up in beads and boas to further set the tone of the evening.  Overhead were persons “of the evening” calling out to us and throwing more beads.  From there we girded up with a cocktail called a  Hurricane, served in impressively tall glasses (but not quite so tall as the ones we were permitted to roam Bourban Street with).

There were duplicates of restaurant fronts reconstructed around the room with cafe tables set out as if out on the patio.  We choose a high bar table by a fountain.  From there we took turns going back and forth with samplings for each other.  There were little brown bags of chips and breaded pork along with sliders and sausages at one;  chicken skewers, jambalaya and cajun shrimp served in a jester’s chalice at another.  Fried banana peppers added some firey pops and BBQ meatballs and ribs made for deliciously messy eating.  For us though, the highlights were the prawn poh-boys, corn bread in a savoury broth, fried bananas in spiced rum sauce and bread pudding with Carmel sauce.  Alas, no oysters on the half shell…..

Saxophone and horn players wound through the crowd and on stage was a band flown in from Louisiana.  It was hard to believe that we were still in Winnipeg when we left the hotel that evening and drove up to the cottage.

Kath’s quote:  “New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.”~ Mark Twain

This year’s theme was Italian and LB arrived in her Italian made shades, shoes and hip hugging skirt.  M came as the barefoot contessa (bare feet are in evidence in the corner of this pic).  I wore a beach cover up that I bought on the beach in Positano.

As we waited for everyone to assemble we had a selection of cheese and Italian meats from De Luca’s.  The next course was a Caprese salad made from tomatoes and basil from LB’s garden.

I was on deck for the pasta course.  I was taught this recipe by my friend Concheta in her kitchen in Sicily.  We asked her to feed us authentic Sicilian recipes but her family there chided her for cooking “peasant” food for us-we were delighted!

Next step was preparing the veggies as D put the Swordfish Siciliana into bake.

M&R prepared the salad course.  A refreshing and colourful salad of fennel and apple.  The leftovers were equally tasty.

By this time my memory of the evening becomes a little clouded but I do know that we moved out to a large table that I had set up in the backyard.  Limoncell0, fresh figs and many kinds of grapes accompanied what was teasingly called hamburger dessert because they were little amaretti cookie sandwiches filled with a sweetened mascapone that resemble little burgers.

I’ve run out of space to include recipes here.  I’ll do so in part 3.  The hilarity continued to the extent that we forgot to put out the intended espressos and anise candies.  The evening was over way too soon…until next summer, my friends.

Kath’s quote: “We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friends, so we buy ice cream.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I write this snapshot of our time at The Ivy Dining Room and Lounge, I am reflecting upon all the reasons that people gather together to dine (besides the obvious-hunger).  This would be an interesting perspective for servers to think about before they approach a table.  We were pretty wound up.  We were only in town for the day to pitch a very important piece of business.  We had our luggage and presentation materials all around us, so it was pretty obvious.

This building holds a lot of sentimental importance for me as it was the former home of The Keg and I was in the restaurant on opening night.  We had travelled by motor home from Winnipeg in the dead of winter to help celebrate the milestone.  I love that Ivy left the original round fireplace but added contemporary touches that contribute in a calm way to the dining experience.

We sampled crab cakes and the prime rib dip that day.  I “stress” eat and had polished off the shoe string fries before I even knew it.  I do recall that the cakes and sandwich though were carefully prepared and quite satisfying.  Although I could not taste the goat cheese that was promised as part of the topping.  The next time I would like to try the California Baquette.

Kath’s quote: “Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man is starving.” -O. Henry

I also sampled the Ceviche de Atun con Camoranes which was citrus marinated (and therefore not cooked over heat) tuna and shrimp.  This was a delicious attempt although I prefer more lime juice and fresh (never frozen) seafood but I was in NY city not the Yucatan Peninsula so what did I expect?  Both these appetizers were part of the featured 3 course dinner menu.  The other untasted offering was Tortilla Soup.

Main dishes of Chicken Enchiladas and Steak Tacos came next.  Although our gang was underwhelmed by the Enchiladas, the tacos were a huge hit.  The skirt steak was grilled to a perfect medium rare and had been rubbed with guajillo and pasilla chiles, garlic, cumin and black pepper.  The mini cast iron pan that it was served in was accompanied by red bean-chorizo chili, corn esquites, chile de arbol salsa and freshly made warm tortillas.  We requested flour over the traditional corn, which they readily provided.  What made this dish exceptional was the bed of gooey Chihuahua cheese that the freshly carved steak was laid upon.

Under normal circumstances, dessert would not have been requested but since the third course was included in the flat price, we dutifully choked it down (lol).  OMGoodness…Pastel de Queso-cheesecake filled with baked apple-cajeta sauce and pecans and Pinquino-a Mexican chocolate cupcake filled with hazelnut mousse and topped with crème fraiche whipped cream and an espresso-piloncillo-chocolate sauce.

Food before drinks $35.-  a deal anywhere, an absolute steal in Manhattan.

Kath’s quote: “I’ll have my steak medium rare with no pink.”
anonymous restaurant customer