Chez Boulay

COVID time is here. Ah, all the fun we're having, am I right? I'm kidding, of course. Ugh. Anyhoot, I'm temporarily out of retirement to write what it's like to eat in COVID times. And of course about the food. Duh. Restaurants officially reopened about a month ago, and as a restaurant goer and food lover (and blogger), I was due to go!

I know everyone hates COVID, but I HAAAAATE COVID. I loathe COVID. COVID is my enemy. I work for an airline customer service so.... ya....'nuff said! Since restaurants have reopened, they obviously have to abide by certain rules pertaining to sanitary and health. Everyone has to wear a mask and there has to be at least 2 meters between tables. I didn't think I would appreciate this, but it actually wasn't THAT bad. Just use common sense: you get up, you put your mask on. You come in, you purel your hands (I love how 'purel' has become a verb recently). Hey, you don't want to wear a mask, stay the f*ck home! You Don't want to purel your hands, stay the f*ck home! No food for you! They disinfected the table as well as the seat before I sat down. Obviously, there weren't as many tables as usual, but between having a bit less tables and having a closed restaurant, I choose less tables.

OK enough about this pandemic (sigh). Let's talk about this resto! Bistro Chez Boulay serves up a mix of Terroir and French, which is one of my fave mix :) It has some tables outside in front, and quite a large dining room. OK, I guess it SEEMED larger because of the lack of tables, but still. The lighting kind of reminded me of Nacarat, in the Reine Elizabeth: sexy and cool. That's right, I went there. Hi, I'll take some sexy lighting please. And thank you. The one thing I would change is that the table was a tad too high for me. I really hate that. I mean, I'm short, I get it. But I'm not exceptionally short. Come on. The ambiance was very nice: the waiters were hustlin' and bustlin', and it was just loud enough. I hate it when I feel like I'm eating in a club. Ugh.

Le food. This was my first course. So visually appealing! Le Charlevoix: tartare de boeuf. Yum-my! Angus beef tartare, crunchy hemp, sheep cheese, daisy capers, wild mustard seeds, cured egg yolk. This was melt-in-your-mouth good. No, it was damn exquisite. Just freaking delightful. OK, enough with the adjectives. All the flavours just popped in my mouth! POP POP POP! Seriously, my eyes were wide open! I kind of looked ridiculous. And yes, the fact that it was Angus beef made a difference. Hey, I go for the higher quality of meat. That's the kind of carnivore I am. The hemp gave a great crunchy aspect to the dish and a nice pop (here I go again with the pop), and it's always nice to get a contrast of textures! I would not have known that it was hemp per se, but it was lovely. The cheese was soft and smooth and a bit salty, which married well with the other flavours. That's right, I said 'married'. One thing I wasn't a fan of is that it was cut in uneven pieces. If you're going to serve a tartare THIS good, do it right, yo! My ITHQ profs would not have been pleased :p The daisy capers (wtf, this is a new thing to me) were so cute and weren't too salty like, you know, capers...capers ;) The cheese added a bit of saltiness, and overall yumminess (that's the technical word, of course). All in all, this dish was a hit. A big hit. I'd go back in a second if I could, and order the same thing over and over again. And for y'all that have never tasted beef tartare (shame on you!), you should definitely start HERE.

Second course. I felt like going veg for this one. They had ONE option...which is, well, not that much. In my opinion, they should have at least two. The number of vegetarians and végans are growing and in many restos, it seems like the dishes catered to them are not. It was called 'Ferme de la Grive': fresh and smoked heirloom tomato from Mélanie's farm (you know, Mélanie!), buffarella with blackcurrant, fermented shallots, homemade focaccia crouton, chervil. I must divulge...this was a bit of a letdown. Pouet pouet pooouuuet. I mean, it was pretty, sure! You eat with your eyes first...blablabla. The tomatoes that had lots of kick were the smoked! Mmmmm! The bread was literally drowned in butter (or something buttery). That was a bit too much. The cheese was marinated in blackcurrant, which gave it an extra oumf, but extra oumf on nothing... is not WOW. Was that clear? Fermented shallots were great, and the big thick slices of heirloom tomatoes were good and juicy, but this was not worth 25 dollars, I'm sorry. 18$ at best. Don't ask me how I calculated that.

Except for the wait before getting into le resto, service was on par the whole evening. I was asked if I liked my meal during the first and second course, the pitcher of water was on my table 1 second after I sat down and my Eska (haha: MY Eska) arrived very quickly too. And you know what, even with masks on, I FELT like the waitresses/waiters were smiling :)

And now, les scores!

Food:7.5 (10 for the appetizer)

Service:8

I'm going back fosho if I'm in Québec city again. And I'm telling ERRYONE to go, too!

 

Caribou Gourmand

I was invited to the [rather soft] opening of le Caribou Gourmand last week by Cat, a girl I used to work with at Juliette et Chocolat, also known as my worst professional mistake, aka the bosses were butts. I'm being nice here. Anyhoot, getting back to the Caribou! 

It's located in the Mile-End/Outremont. Who knows now with the extended boroughs and the neighbourhoods and the adjacents and what have yous. Point is, there are around 8000 restaurants around just looking for yo love. And they will do whatever is necessary! This is why every single establishment that opens its doors must be damn special and have a damn good idea.

It wasn't the most awesomest (oh, it's a word) of days to have this event. It was raining and flinging flanging cold and winter had decided to come back in June. JUNE, people! My homegirl Lea was meeting me and her bus was running late so I actually had to go in before dying of hypothermia. I'm being totes serious here. 

The space is actually quite small and rather cozy. There is a long bar that transforms into a high table, so you feel like you're kind of PART of the bar. You know, like, if you reach far enough, you could actually serve yourself your own drink! Hahaha. Dudes, I totally have to try that! The front wall completely opens up and that would have seemed 1000% cooler (no pun intended) if it wasn't -8 degrees outside. I'm exaggerating, it was -4. Oh but I must mention that when two girls started smoking right outside, I felt like I was smoking both their cigarettes. At the same time. So that wasn't too awesome. I've smoked. I've been there, I've done that. I dson't wanna dso it anymore.

There's slate everywhere, or I guess slate colour. It's actually nice, it fits. I felt like taking out my chalk and drawing on the tables. Cause, you know, I's got a chalk reserve in ma bag. And there I go, babbling again. It seems rather 'industrial' with pipes everywhere but also kind of the opposite, with a wall made of tree trunks, plants on the walls and big ass caribou antlers on another one. There's about 25 seats in all, but I'm sure there's more on a regular night. OK, hopefully there's more on a regular night.

Aight, so basically, beer was 3$ and wine was 5$, which I thought was just about right on. Some itti bites were going to be offered so that we could get an avant-goût of their menu. Seriously, I've been to huge mother freakin' restaurant openings where soooooo much money is spent on all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink and then BAM, they close. Just like that. I'm just gonna go ahead and name Kyozon and Vicolo as examples.

Beet carpaccio: pecan, grapes, maple and tarragon. Tasted really fresh and the grapes were a perfect match. The beets were cut into perfect cubes, which made it that much better. For me, anyway. I had a hard time finding that maple vinaigrette tho. The pecans were good but any nut would have been good in there; it was there for the texture more than the taste, I found. Oh, I sound so sophisticated. OMG, I should totes meet the queen. Or... not? Moving on...

Salmon rillettes with pink pepper corns and tarragon. Oh, except it was definitely dill in there. Yep, I know dill when it's dill. Does that make sense? No. Was it tarragon? No. Anyhoot, I've grown to love dill over the past couple months so I liked it. The pink pepper corns were awesome in there, again a great match. Points for everyone! The bread got kind of soggy with all the waiting time in the kitchen, I can only presume. And although this was good, I felt like it needed more originality. This will not get you waves of people. Waves. People. Disclaimer: I swear I haven't taken any drugs.

PICTURE #3 --MISSING

Yes, this dumbie forgot to take a pic. I'm gonna blame Lea, it's easier that way (sorry gurl!). Chicken liver mousse. Which, by the by, sounds about 800 times more refined in French; 'mousse de foie de volaille'. No? It was close to perfect and smooth as a baby's butt. You know, people say that all the time. Well, damn it, it's true. I can honestly say that all the babies' butts I have touched (wow, how creepy do I sound on a scale from 1 to 1 million?) were uber duber soft. Hence, this was damn smooth. Little gerkins, very thinly sliced added some texture and a briny flavour that paired really well with the richness of the mousse. Mmmmm. Mmmmousse. 

PICTURE #4 -- MISSING

Damn it Lea! Last bite was beet coulis, dijon mustard 'mousse' and cracklings. Cracklings: funny word. Ha! Cracklings: pork meat that has been roasted and then confit (confied?).  The bad thing about this was that the vessel for this dish was a spoon (you know, those appetizer spoons that look like it could be for your wonton soup) and so it was really hard to get everything in your mouth in one shot. So then I had to pick at it with my hands and that was on the 'meh' side of things. Anyhoot, the meat was really nicely cooked and was oh-so-tender (A+), the beet was nice but a bit too earthy for this and the mustard was overwhelming. You know... too much of a good thing (I loves me some good mustard).

Service was good. I mean, we were seated right by all the waitresses so it wasn't that difficult. I was kind of disappointed  that we only got to taste four things and even more disappointed when the waitress would pass by with the same bite we had just had. 

And now, the scores!

Food: 7.5

Service: 8

There are about 127 restaurants on my to-go list so I'm not sure this made the cut. I'll get back to you on that ;)