Luca

This is my second time on Grand Cayman. I came here last March to visit my old roomie, Rachie, who is from here (one of the 12 people that are actually FROM here), her husband Carl and their little one, Nini! One of the things I remembered the most fondly was Boozy Brunch. OK, 'remembered' is a big word. Basically, they give you mimosas until you drop. And I did drop. When we got home, I passed out on their beach for 2 hours and got a huge sunburn. It was like, 'what is that, a tomato? NO, it's Marie'. Ya. Anyhoot, I really wanted to do that again so we settled on Luca's!

Luca is located right on Seven Mile Beach, in a building that comprises of long and short term luxury condo rentals. We had a table indoors because it was oh-so-hawt, but the view from outside was just jaw dropping. Well, pretty much everywhere you go in Cayman has jaw dropping views. I wanna live here. I wanna live here so bad. But enough about my moving day. The restaurant is quite big inside and has a big terrasse as well. It's a bit on the dark side indoors, with lots of dark wood and dark ceilings. It's a good thing I was wearing my hot AND sexy (ya, that's right) dress because the hot girls started pouring in right after we were seated. I say 'it's a good thing' like I was gonna hit that or something. I wish. I. Wish. 

You get in and before even entering the restaurant, the dessert table is there to tease the hell outta you, and when you get in, dang, there is, wait for it, a plethora of platters filled with seafood (hello!!!) and breakfast fixings and fish and meat. Oh my! Basically, everything that is good on earth (except mr unaffordable lobster). I am MADE for all-you-can-eat buffets: I totally prep my stomach for it. You know, like the people that enter pie eating competitions? Like that. The stomach is a muscle, people! The trick is I eat a bit less the day before and in the morning, I'll eat maybe an egg and a fruit. That's it! You get there and you eat slowly so that your stomach doesn't fill up so quickly. Follow me. Trust in Marie.

As soon as my ass hit the chair, we were asked if we were going to go all the way (with the mimosas, not with the waitress). The answer to this question is yes. Always yes! Don't even think about it and just nod in the right direction for bottomless mimosas!

My first plate was...seafood! Just FYI, most of my plates were seafood. Why? Hello!!! I want to have my money's worth, I eat the expensive stuff. Sheesh! I put some crab legs in there, shrimp, mahi mahi ceviche, lobster salad, and a devilled egg, because I likes me a good devilled egg. I don't even know what to say about the crab: it's crab... it's the second to best piece of seafood you can eat. With butta. Oh, the butta! I had crab on every subsequent plate. The shrimp were good, you know, your normal shrimp. They had like 4 sauces to go along with the yummy shrimp. The lobster salad, although very flavourful, was a tad on the squishy side. Meh. Hey, at least I had like 3000 more things to choose from! The mahi mahi ceviche was damn good. DAMN good. Which is why I had it at least twice more. The flavours were right on and they weren't overpowering either. Very citrusy, which is what I like, Nay, love. The egg made me laugh because who makes devilled eggs this way? My friend Little Boo, that's who! I had to send her a picture. For all you non-makers of devilled eggs, you usually cut it the other way, so that the egg is longer and more stable on the plate. It was good but not the best.

Oysters!!!! As some of you know, I used to hate oysters. Ugh, just the thought of having something slimy go down my throat was enough to make me gag. It's a good thing those days are over and I am able to fully appreciate those bad boys. I've eaten some from the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean... and my next words were going to be 'but never from the Caribbean' (she says with a big smile) but my friend has assured me that they probs got em' from the States. Damn YOU Donald Trump! OK, he has nothing to do with this, but...any chance I get...#FUdonaldtrump Point is, they were oh-so-good and juicy and just briny enough. Mmmm, just add a bit of tabasco and lemon, and you've got yoself a partay!

The salmon tataki had some cumin on it and was rather sweet, but not too sweet. It was really good. This, coming from a girl who used to be an expert at tataki (yes, I am many things). The tuna with sesame was good but not as good as the one we used to prepare at Sushi Taxi.

The meat! They had a table with a rather good looking man, serving up manly meat. I'm not straight, I swear it! Anyhoot, I had the rack of lamb and the ribs. The beef Wellington wasn't ready yet. As soon as I got back to the table, Carl asked me why I had taken the really REALLY fatty ribs. My only answer was that it is automatic for me to have the ribs. I see ribs, I want to eat ribs. But they were on the fatty side and not uber tasty (my life is over!). The lamb saved the day: juicy, tender, perfectly cooked and full of flavour. I was pacing myself so I had only taken one piece but man, I could've gone for at least another 4 (or 8). I saw someone bring the beef Wellington (not pictured) to the table and I may (or may not) have tripped, trying to get there faster. I gots to say, it was very good. BUT the dough around it was a tad on the undercooked side. 

The duck carpaccio. It was really really good. With a bit of sweet mango on top, this hit the spot. You know, THE spot. Nothin' else to say but YUM!

Not pictured is the beef carpaccio, with some wasabi butta, man! That butter made the dish, and then some!

The winners for me were the craaaaaaab (mmmm, put some clarified butta on that sh*t) and the mahi mahi ceviche. Mahi mahi is not a fish with much flavour, so koodos for making it so damn tasty!

Let's not forget dessert. As you can attest, I did not go overboard (taps herself on the shoulder). I had a tiny lemon tart (how tiny can one be?), which had just the right amount of lemon without being too tart, the sweet brownie with crunchy chocolate on top, the cheese cake with soft berry mousse that was just melt-in-your-mouth awesome and the meringue pop on a stick that was just so cute! Well, it was good too: crunchy and sweet as a meringue should be!

Service was 150% on par the whole way. We got seated in a second, got water and drinks in a minute. Our mimosas were filled every couple minutes which made for a very happy (and drunk) Marie. We could hear them opening prosecco bottles left and right. That is the sound of heaven, right there. They took our plates away as soon as they were empty. Now THAT's service, my friends!

And now, the scores!

Food: 8.5
Service: 9.5

I really want to say that I'll be back but, let's face it, I don't live here. Sadly. And with roughly 115$CAD (including tip) a pop, I can only do one boozy brunch per visit. Last time was at Agua, this time at Luca's, next, we're heading to the Ritz baby!

Archibald

Life is hard and Daiz and I were heading to Brussels to see our home girl Ju on my passes. Yes, I'm THAT person now. We used to be so annoyed at my bro for working for Air Canada and travelling around the world left and right. Well, baby, now it's my turn!

We had quite a while before our flight and Daiz was starving (and I can always eat), so we decided to hit up Archibald because it looked so damn charming from the outside. It was like entering a nice middle-of-the-woods cottage. It was borderline Christmasy for me but I ignored that fact. There were (hopefully fake) moose heads, some tartan placed here and there, big comfy sofa chairs and wooden walls. You know, like a real cottage. Very warm. Very cozy. It was a very big restaurant. Huge, really.

We started with a deer tataki. Fitting, right? See a deer, eat a deer. It was very fresh (which is usually what you want in a tataki) but pepper was a bit too present and I had a hard time breaking down the bigger pieces because of too much sinew in the meat. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't le best. Good thing about this dish was that mesclun (argh) was nowhere to be found, it was arugula. YES! I win! The peppery taste of the arugula went very well with the peppery sauce on the deer. Deeeeeeeeeeer. I just love me some good game meat, you know? OK, I'm sorry, vegetarians. I feel some comments coming my way.

I had the frites cochonnes or dirty fries. Diiiiirty. Between you and I (and everyone that reads this blog), nothing about this dish screamed 'dirty'. The fries were, for a lack of a better word, mushy, the peppers were too big, even for a giant, the lardons were good but few and far between, and there was a pool of grease under all this shtuff. There were two different mayos: regular and spicy. But the fries were so on the opposite realm of crunchy that dipping them just made them even more unpleasant. Oh and they put sage in there. Who puts sage in anything but meat? Who puts sage in anything, for that matter?  Daiz said that it would be the thing you'd eat if you were dying of hunger. Yish.

Fondant au fromage. This was good: crunchy on the outside, uber soft and cheesy on the inside. It reminded me of when I was in love with parmesan fondue. Ah, the good ol' days.

Service was good. We were quickly seated at the first table by the entrance which was just perfect. He checked on us, gave us water and was a good little boy. Hahaha! Sorry, but I felt like we were being served by an adolescent.

And now, the scores!!

Food: 6.5
Service: 8

Well, I'll be at the airport more and more since I get to go on reaaaaaaaaaaally cheap trips with my new job BUT I'll pick another resto next time.

 

Chez Victoire

One of my pals at work, Margo, knows someone that works at Chez Victoire, therefore knew about their super awesome Sunday night special: table d'hôte 4 services for 30$ instead of 45$. That's the kind of deal I like. Excuse me, LOVE.

I went with ma gurl Vino, whom, by the by, I don't see nearly enough. On top o that, she's such a fun dining partner! Chez Victoire is located on Mont-Royal near Pap (that's cool talk for 'Papineau'). It's quite a large restaurant, with booths on one side and tables on the other. It has uber high ceilings, like, 3 storeys high. I swear. The place has a nice classic look with moldings on the ceiling, wooden tables, and leather booths. While we were there, I think they played the whole Gorillaz CD, which was much appreciated.

We could choose one dish out of three for every service save for the dessert where it was carrot cake. Just dandy with me!

Cream of butternut squash, shishito, pumpkin seeds, crème fraîche au pimento. Yes, this description is bilingual, deal WIT it. First off, the bowl was hot, which is always a winner in my book. This was good. Like goo-hood. I believe what came out of Vino's mouth was 'mmmmm'. It was soft, sleek, buttery, and all that goodness! The croutons weren't too hard OR too soft and they were also oh so full-o-butta. Mmmmm. Butta. The crème fraîche was right ON and somewhat tasted of smoked salmon which was awesome paired with the cream! All the flavours, although all very distinct, went really well together. This was a WIN.

Veal tataki, grapefruit, fried clams, miso, coriander. The veal was excellent, with just a touch of miso on top, which gave it even more flavor (hello, umami). The fried clams were there for NOTHING. Literally, nada. I was actually a bit angry that they were in there. Why? Why ruin a perfect dish? On top of it, those little balls tasted like nothing. And they didn't fit. AND they were over fried. Basically, all bad things. The grapefruit gave a bit of acidity to the dish and it married well with the meat. The coriander was just, well, hello. All in all, a great dish, but f*cking clams had no reason being there.

Pleurotes with thyme, hazelnut, red onion petals, pain brioche. I loves me a good pleurote. Especially with thyme. Thyme and mushrooms, in ma head, is a match made in food heaven. They could have been warmer though. They were in temperature limbo: they had been somewhat heated up, but just not enough. They'd been sautéed, most likely with butta, so, you know, YUM! I would have liked the bread a bit crispier and more grilled (grillier?). The cute little onion petals could have been more present. Le cheese. I gots to say, usually, I ain't no fan of strong ish type-o-cheese. But this was niiice! It was in a mousse too. I'm a fan of mousses. Yep. That lovely mousse on a bite of bread and mushroom was just T--H--I--S awesome. You may have noticed the long 'this': well, it was THAT good. Sometimes, I conjure perfect bites. And there it was. It was a great mix match of tastes.

La meatball. That was one big meatball! It was big, it was moist (watch out, it's getting sexual), it was full of herbs (end of sexual talk).The crispy chicken skin on top was way too salty on its own but was bearable with other components of the dish. The sauce was a bit too simple for our VERY REFINED palates. Hehehe. But seriously, it just tasted like store-bought tomato sauce, which is not really what you look for when you eat at a restaurant. The polenta was a bit dry but added a certain je ne sais quoi to this. The harissa yogurt (or should I say harrisa-ed yogurt?), was excellent. Just a bit on the spicy side, which is a side that I like. Everything worked, but there were still a bit too many components here. It's like: 'what do we have in the fridge today?'.

Pasta! I rarely eat carbs. Actually, the only place I'll eat pasta or rice or bread is at a restaurant because I don't even have any at home. I actually gave away my toaster recently. Ya, that's how rarely I eat it. Cavatelli with ricotta, duck confit, lardons, sage, butternut squash and parmesan. I'm sure you guessed it but this was a major 'what do we have in our fridge today' kind of dish. Actually it was THE 'what do we have in our fridge today' dish. A blind person could have picked better ingredients. I don't know if this makes sense but I'm stickin' to it. The whole time we were eating it, we were looking at each other like 'waiiiiit, what the hell iiiis this?'. It wasn't totally bad but it wasn't the best thing either. To have some squash puree on top of your pasta is, like, WAY too much. Something else was way too much: having duck AND lardons in there. Again, why? The noodles were perfectly cooked but the whole dish was too salty and the sauce wasn't consistent enough. Needless to say, not our fave dish.

Risotto! I loves me a good risotto! The crab des neiges was, if there was any, broken up in very tiny pieces. I don't think I managed to actually taste it. Vino tasted it a bit, or so she thought. For all I know, there was no crab in there. The mushrooms tasted almost meaty, which is what I like when I eat a mushroom. They were oozing flavor. Getting a weird image here. The rice was a tad on the overcooked side for risotto but I like it that way. The cream on top was too much, I found. A bit less and it would've been perfect. The whole thing tasted of lemon, which was nice and refreshing and gave some lightness to an otherwise heavy dish (when is risotto NOT heavy). There was a bit of pesto which was actually very good mixed with the other flavors but there was too much cheese. Put cheese, yes. Don't put TOO much.

For dessert, it was supposed to be carrot cake, and then they brought us chocolate fondant and I was happier. I LOVE carrot cake, but I have a special place in my heart for fondant. I'm not even going to go into details but that sh*t was GOOD. OH. And there was ice cream on top (as it should be every time fondant is served) and tasted special. We wondered what it was for a good 8 minutes. The waiter came by and he told us it was bay leaf ice cream! What! I have neva eva EVA heard of that. It was very good, and just herbal enough. Awesome ice cream. YES!

Service was OK. I have to say that it was rather slow between courses and it took us a long while to get our first dish. You know when it takes so long that you start turning around to see where your food's at? Ya, that long. We were having soup (obviously ready) and tataki, most likely already cooked... SO. Water was on table and service was very professional. But it was slow. We just didn't understand because when we got there, the resto was almost empty.

And now, the scores!

Food: 7.5
Service: 7

I enjoyed going there and getting four dishes for 30$. I will also enjoy other restaurants for the same price. Just sayin'. Not totes against going back but hey, as I've said before, so many restaurants, so little time.

Nozy

I go to restaurants a lot. Like, a LOT! With this blog and all, I feel like it's a second (unpaid) job. That I love. I usually try to go to budget friendly restos, but once in a blue moon, I wanna splurge. Splurging is good. It cleanses the soul. Or some shit.

Nozy had been on my radar for a little while so when Lea mentioned we should hit it up, I was totes down. BTW, for those of you wondering why it's called 'Nozy', it is for chef Nozomu Takeuchi. The restaurant is quite small with about 30 seats, and mostly everything is white. I kinda liked it, it looked very pure. White walls, white chairs and white pieces of cloth hanging from the ceiling made for a nice and calm ambiance. As a contrast, the tables were black and there were tiny wooden things hanging on the walls that kind of looked like pasta portioners. 

There were seats at the bar and a table located at the front of the restaurant that made for such a cute little nook. Jazz music was quietly playing, and at some point, it totally became awesome with some old 90's Janet Jackson! Hahaha! Weird, but awesome.

As per usual, I knew what I was having: the Omakase menu: a series of dishes selected by the chef. According to the internet (the whole internet, yes!), it was about 6 courses. We told the waitress we wanted it to be a surprise. On their FB page (side note: I'm not uber fond of the fact that many restaurants now don't have actual websites, only FB pages), it said that it was 50$ but when we got there, we noticed that it was 60$. OK, not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless. I still had to go for it though. And Lea followed suit. Just a little note here: the drinks could be more original. I mean, litchi martini, cucumber cooler, bloody caesar? Been there, done that.

Miso soup. A nice little starter in any Japanese restaurant. This costs about minus 5$ to make. Seriously. It was good and simple and effin hot. I think I burnt my tongue to the second degree with this bad boy. Of course, Lea waited until it wasn't as hot. Wise girl.

The appetizer. It looked just beautiful and very colourful. I love colours on my plate. It makes me want to eat it more (the dish, not the plate!).  Fresh snapper sashimi. Get IN ma mouth! Now. It had finely shaved dikon, radish and ponzu sauce, which, for anyone interested, is a citrus-based sauce. Not a seafood based sauce like the waitress informed us. Citrus. Her brain may have made a wrong connection like ponzu-citrus-seafood... or something :) There was a hint of sesame oil in there, which was a bit too heavy for such a light dish. The ponzu was nice but there was a missing element, like salt perhaps. The fish was awesomely fresh though and absolutely and irrevocably melted in my mouth. 

Our waitress then arrived with 2 rectangular boxes, one on top of the other. I found that really cool. She placed them one in front of the other and opened the first one. A+ for presentation. My first thought was 'f*ck, I should've told them I am not a fan of wakame'. Shizzle. I just really am not fond of that texture. The taste is OK, but the texture is not. I know a lot of people like it. I am not one of those peeps. Anyway, I'm a good [food] sport, so I tasted it and apart from that stoopid texture, I can tell you for sure that this was one of the best wakame around. You know, around. It had a lovely sesame taste and wasn't as hard to chew than others (I REALLY have a problem with weird textures, I do realize this!). 

In the middle, a trio of three sashimi: snapper, red tuna and white tuna or hamachi as it should also be called. All super duper uber fresh. I'm pretty sure they were caught out at sea about one hour before our arrival. It's possible, right? Right? They all just pretty much dissolved when they hit my tongue. Man, that was fresh fish. This may just have been THE freshest and best sashimi I've ever eva tasted. The white tuna was my favourite. Perhaps because i rarely have any. F*ck me that was good. I'm sorry about the cursing but this deserves it :) It was accompanied  by fresh wasabi from the freaking root. The rooooot! This is a very rare occurrence. And one I oh so appreciated. It was hot as all hell but a little bit on each piece of sashimi made it even better! Right under, there was a nice little not overly dressed salad with a great big shiso leaf. Mmmmmmshisooooo. If I'd be a Kung Fu master, my name would totes be Shiso. Oh wait, I just stole that from Kung Fu Panda, didn't I?

In the third bowl, beef tataki in ponzu sauce + secret ingredients. I like secret ingredients. It was so tasty, again with the raw meat just melting away on my palate. I thought that the use of ponzu was good here, but that it was a bit of a repeat from the appetizer and lacked seasoning. 

Yuk, bad lighting. Sorry.

Second box! This is exciting! Lets start on the right with the karaage chicken. I've had karaage before. Many a times, it can be dry and many a times it can have an amount of fat on there that is... unflattering AND many a times, it lacks in spices. Well, this one was purrrrfect. No, it's not a cat people, it's chicken. I'm getting off track here. First of all, usually (OK, MY 'usually'), you have white meat in there. This was brown meat. Much much moistier. Is that a word? I think SO. The spices were a mix of ginger, garlic and hot pepper. A winning team, I'd like to say. With a bit of soya sauce, that chicken won every chicken contest. Crunchy, moist, spiced just right, seasoned correctly. 

In the middle, mashed potatoes with pork. I like to say that it was a cloud of heaven, those potatoes. Wow! So soft, I think they put it through a fine sieve about 8 times. The dish kind of looked very Christmasy to me. Not Japanese. Christmas. Japanese Christmas? Anyway, the braised (I presume for many hours) pork needed no cutting because it broke down as soon as I touched it. So damn good. A bite of potato mousse + pork transported me back to, you guessed it, Christmas! i don't even know why. It was really tasty and well executed but I don't know how well it fit in with the other dishes.

Miso marinated salmon. Miso? Yes. Salmon? Yes. Put em' together man! The salmon was so tender and it was oozing miso. Yes, oozing. Just by looking at it, it was flaking off. Is that a thing? Anyway, it was simple, yet very tasty. Just like most things should be.

Salmon X 3. Salmon tataki, salmon sashimi and salmon tartare. On rice. Although the rice was perfectly cooked to perfection (did I say that twice?), I don't know how I feel about eating cold fish atop hot rice. I'm not sure I'm fond of it. It feels weird to me for some reason. The tartare had a miso and tomato sauce and was really spot on. The naked sashimi (hihi, naked) was as on the ball and as fresh as the ones we had in the first place and the tataki was tatakied (new verb guys!--put it in yo dictionary) with nanami, an Asian spice that is akin to chili powder but with sesame seeds and other spices in there. Iz hot yo. AND good. AND smoky. But again, it felt funny to eat warm tartare. No? 

After that, we really debated whether or not we should have dessert. After the waitress told us that the ice cream that was part of one of them was not homemade, I lost my dessert erection. 

Service was great throughout our meal. Our dishes were quick to arrive and our waitress answered my 600 questions. She knew I was writing an article (I never say it but this time, I asked her to explain our dishes 'slowly, so I could write it down') so I'm not sure if we got special treatment or not. Anyhoot, water was on the table right away and we could just serve ourselves which was nice. She was very attentive and checked many times throughout our meal to see if we were satisfied. 

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: the scores!

Food: 8

Service: 9.5

Will I go back you ask? Hells yes. I've already started putting money aside for it. True thang.

Les Enfants Terribles

I went to Les Enfants Terribles about a long time ago (i.e: I don't remember) with my aunt and my memory of it was that it was great food, well executed, in a very loud dining room. The dining room hasn't changed (as if my very loud dad had multiplied himself), but this time, we sat outside on their patio. My sista from another motha, Mona, was in town on a layover (she's fancy like that) and Tacha, another high school girl, works right in front of this resto. 1 + 1= let's meet there! 

The place is pretty big with quite the dining room and bar inside and a nice big patio on the side of the restaurant. The vibe is happenin' and this is where you'll find most cool Outremont people. OK, I don't really know what those look like. 

As soon as we sat down, we had water and a menu. 2.5 seconds later, we were asked if we were ready to order. Sheesh, calm down woman! Well, while we were deciding, we just had to think it over a lunch time drink! Duh. Mojito, hello.

Well, it was diddely-damn perfect. except the brown on that lime. Come on people. As a restaurant worker meself, and someone that orders for my restaurant, I understand that, right now, limes aren't top shape. They either arrive half brown or get like that in a day or two. 'Tis life. But you know, use those narsty limes for the juice and the nice ones for deco! Sheesh, must I teach everyone everything? Anyhoot, enough about ugly limes. This was a real mojito. Like, a real one, you know? Like a how-did-I-get-to-Cuba-so-fast mojito. The bubbles were right, the sugar was right, the lime was right and the mint was right. Just. Plain. Right. I'd treck up to Outremont right now for one of those bad boys.

I was sharing calamari as an appetizer with Mona. Calamari is very easy to f*ck up. Cooked too little: f*cked. Cooked too long: f*cked. Well, these...were... perfect! With a splash of lemon, and a bit of mayo, they were just great. I mean, when can you go wrong with fried stuff? NE-VER. Speaking of the mayo. Mmmya, you kind of over did it there, right chef? You got carried away, didn't ya? It took over half the plate! At first, Mona thought it was a design on the plate! Hahaha! But seriously.

Albacore tuna tataki salad. On paper, this sounded like just what I needed in ma mouth. Watercress: check! Strawberries: check! Tuna tataki: check! Oh but wait.... WRONG. The watercress was not cut in any way, shape or form and so I was struggling to fit it in my mouth. I'm not asking you to cut everything... but it should be bite size. I hate having to actually cut salad. The strawberries were great and obviously from here, which is even greater! They were sweet and were perfect in salad format. The vinaigrette was most likely wafu and quite overwhelming. It was thick and there was just too much of it. A little bit less and it would have been awesome. In this case, too much was just too much. And now for the pièce de résistance, the tuna. Let me say that I am not one to mention it to the waiter if I don't like my food and, seriously, this time, I was disappointed in myself for not doing so. The tuna was ridiculously expired. I mean, it must have been at least 6 days old. It tasted fishy and the colour was so uninspiring! The only good thing were the steak spices with which the tuna was tatakised (We totes use that verb at work. As in: 'vas-tu tatakiser le saumon?') and that's it. Very, very disappointing.

Service was ok. It wasn't wow and it wasn't shitty. It took a while to get our food... but then again that is mostly the kitchen's fault. They were in a big hurry to take our orders but then they lacked in speed. It's a week day lunch time guys; speed it up!

And now, the scores!

Food: 5.5 Obviously because of the fishy tuna
Service: 7

Well, the tuna salad has inspired me to just NOT go back.