St. Andrew's Day Dinner

Haggis, white pudding, potato, and turnip dinner, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

November 28th, 2009

While we were hiking around in Jamison Valley our phones had no reception. On our way back into civilization, my phone alerted me to the fact that I had missed a call from Cheryl. I called her back and she invited us to dinner with some friends in the city. "I'm told there will be a haggis there," she said. That sealed the deal.

This traditional Scottish dish is a type of sausage of savory pudding made by mincing the "pluck" of a sheep (heart, lungs, liver) with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt ... then stuffing it all into the sheep's stomach. This preparation is then boiled in stock for a few hours and then served. In our case it was served with mashed potato, mashed turnip, and white pudding -- another savory pudding made with suet, oatmeal, salt, and spices.

I was the only one at the table who cleaned my plate. This was interesting because I am a notoriously picky eater. Well first of all I was really hungry... I also liked the haggis, but it was a little dry. Ian (our host) said it was overcooked, but I wouldn't have known the difference. I will definitely try it again if I come across it, but I won't go searching for it.

Thank you Ian for a great meal! Thank you Cheryl for introducing me to new friends! This made two non-Australian holidays I had celebrated in Australia in less than a week!

Thanksgiving in Sydney

On November 26th, after coming back from the Olympic Park and seeing the small railway museum inside Central station, we walked to Paddy's Markets for lunch. I had some really bad Japanese food and a Heineken. The food court food was mostly lousy, but I should have had something else. Matt had a kebab and it looked really good.

We took the tram from Paddy's Markets to the Sydney Fish Market where we walked around for a bit to see the market and then bought some Balmain Bugs, prawns, and scallops for Thanksgiving Dinner at Cheryl's house in Sydney.



After a glass of wine and a quick snack of some olives and cherry tomatoes, we put the seafood into my backpack (huge mistake in retrospect, the smell lingered for weeks and through several washes!!) and headed for Central station to meet Cheryl. She drove us to her house and we waited for others to arrive.

We couldn't get the grill working because it was out of gas and then we swapped tanks but the new tank didn't have the right fitting for the grill! We gave up and just used the boil and fry methods for the bugs, scallops, and prawns. It all turned out great though! Gaelyn and Anne Marie arrived with a turkey!!! Haggie and Mary Jane and Aerhylle came to celebrate with us. It was an awesome Thanksgiving, even though we weren't in America for the tradition.







We had turkey and potatoes, prawns, bugs, scallops, an abalone. Matt and Gaelyn played pool in the garage before dinner. The mosquitoes were pretty rough being the middle of summer, so we had the bug zapper on. My feet got a few bites that would annoy me for the rest of the week!

On Conveyor Belts and Sushi

Sushi is the traditional Japanese equivalent to American fast food. It's quick, convenient, and neat. There are the standard condiments, specialized restaurants, and even a number of popular franchises. In Chicago, sushi is a more American experience. Typically the restaurants are upscale and in trendy neighborhoods. The food is ordered from a server who then relays your request to the chef. The food comes after a wait and then you eat and pay a check that's been tallied according to prices on a menu.



In San Francisco I learned about a whole new way of eating sushi. Conveyor-belt sushi! It is common in Japan and elsewhere in southeast Asia, but not so much in the American mid-west. The idea is the chef is always preparing whatever he feels will be popular or whatever he likes to prepare, and puts it onto colored plates and onto a conveyor belt that snakes its way around the entire restaurant. As the plates pass the tables, diners grab what they like and enjoy. The prices are set according to the colors of the plates, so once you're done eating you go to the register and they tally your bill.

Sushi Train (Click for larger Photos)


This is SO convenient! I am not sure it will ever be particularly popular among Americans because of the way most Americans appreciate having personal service and regardless of the reality, they want to feel their food is as fresh as possible. The idea of eating foods that may have been on a conveyor belt for an untold length of time concerns people. The conveyor belt is actually refrigerated and the plates have plastic covers to keep everything fresh, and I ate conveyor belt sushi several times each week while I stayed in Sydney with no ill effect.

One thing I really like about this is the small size of the portions, so you can just pick what you want and not waste anything. Also the fact that you are seeing the food before you "order it" makes it a no-guess operation. I really enjoy trying new things and the conveyor belt leading from the chef to me brings me not only the things I like, but the things THE CHEF likes... and this is fantastic!

Sushi Roll (Click for larger Photos)




I tried raw scallops, seared scallops, different preparations of oysters, a few different desserts made from bean paste, and lots of miso soup. There were so many different conveyor belt restaurants in Sydney it was impossible to try them all. Just on Pitt Street near my hotel I found four different restaurants in short walking distance. I really started to like Sushi Train because of their adorable decorating and the apparent popularity (the place was always busy) .. I also like Sushi Roll because they had sake (a Japanese rice wine) on the menu, the perfect thing after a long day of work.

Takoyaki

Takoyaki, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

mmmm takoyaki!! This Japanese street food snack is very tasty and cheap! For $2.25 I got these 4 battered balls of octopus goodness that made a great breakfast snack. They consist of diced baby octopus and basically a savory doughnut batter that is fried on a special griddle purpose made for takoyaki. There were a few of these places on Pitt Street so I had this snack more than a couple times while I was in Sydney.

Softshell Crabs at Sandbar Restaurant

Softshell Crabs at Sandbar Restaurant, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

After lunch I headed back to the motel in Bradenton and took a nap. A few hours into my nap, my phone rang. It was Kevin! They had finished with the tux fitting and all the wedding work for the day and wanted me to come to their hotel so we could all go out for drinks.

We went to a sports bar so that we could watch the Rays game. After being there for an hour or so, Kevin told me that Kristin's family had invited me to get dinner with them on Anna Maria Island.



The dinner was great and it was good to meet Kristin's family. I already knew her sister because she lives in Chicago but I had never met her friend Liz, who is absolutely adorable! I ordered the soft shelled crab with shrimp, red skinned potatoes, and asparagus. It was fantastic! Kevin said he wished he had ordered what I ordered.

After dinner, Kevin and I drove back to Sarasota to meet up with the groomsmen. After a few more hours of hanging around at a bar, we went back to the groom party hotel room. I was exhausted by that point, so I went back to my motel room and crashed for the night.

Crab & Fin Restaurant

Crab & Fin Restaurant, originally uploaded by zuctronic.

I'm going to go ahead and throw my gourmand image out the window and let you know that I had McDonald's for breakfast. I was in a hurry to get my day started and I get cravings for their breakfast burritos and hashbrowns.

To correct this culinary faux pas, I decided to have a nice seafood lunch on St. Armands Key. This lunch would have to involve oysters, so I used the rental car GPS to find a restaurant nearby featuring them. What it came up with was the Crab and Fin Restaurant, right on St. Armands Circle.

The menu featured six different types of oysters. For my appetizer, I ordered the oyster tasting which included one of each type. I chose the linguini with clams for my main.

I understand oysters aren't for everyone... I picked up this delicious... almost sinful craving a couple years ago. Now I cannot travel without sampling oysters. These are not local oysters, I'll get to those later... but they are excellent oysters.

Here we go:

1. Alaskan Canoe Lagoon - from an extremely remote pristine area, medium to large meaty oyster with distinct fruity aroma and a watermelon finish
2. Washington State Hama Hama - a medium thick shelled, beach grown oyster with creamy yet mild tasting firm meat
3. New York Montauk - ice harvested in only the winter months from Mecox Bay, a full sized meaty oyster with a big brine finish
4. Rhode Island Umami - small to medium choice, delicate meats that start off briny & slightly acidic, finishes mild and smooth
5. Connecticut Blue Point - cultivated in the wild in natural oyster beds, chock full of mildly salty, mouthwatering meats, one of their largest oysters
6. Virginia James River - medium sized, plump firm meat, perfect blend of brine and richness, with an earthy finish

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

The main course was small but tasty. All together it was the perfect amount of food for me. I also had the wine recommendation, it was a Riesling, if my memory serves correctly. After the meal, they served a complimentary pineapple slice dipped in chocolate.

Day 1 in Toronto - St. Lawrence Market, Cambridge Suites Hotel, Canoe Restaurant

Another crazy "internet sale" came up on airfare to Toronto, Ontario. Isabelle had a few days off and I used some paid time off to take a mini-vacation for 4 days. On Feb 4th we left, packing our bags and catching a taxi for the Jefferson Park CTA station where we grabbed the "Blue Line" to O'Hare International Airport.

To me, this trip is becoming routine: explaining to the cab driver where to drop us off at the transit station, watching for the train on the platform in between the in and out-bound lanes on the expressway, rushing from the train to the security line. Once we got on the plane, it was delayed on the runway on account of a malfunctioning gauge. After about 20 minutes we took off for Toronto and I watched out the window as the great white north stretched out beneath me. Isabelle fell asleep a few minutes after take off and woke up a few minutes before landing. I don't know how she does it.



When we arrived in Toronto, we picked up our rental car in the airport and tried to get the GPS to tell us where to go. The rental car garage is under a stack of highway ramps, so the device could not get a signal from the satellites. I finally just decided to start driving away from the airport and hope for the best. Of course it finally got a sync and I was driving the wrong way. No problem, it guided us to the hotel where I checked in. After parking the car we unpacked our things in the room.

The hotel, Cambridge Suites in downtown Toronto, was very nice. We stayed in a "deluxe suite" which was actually their standard room. It was two main rooms, a bedroom and a living room, plus a large bathroom with a separate toilet / bath area. There was also a bar and sink in the living room and two 37-inch LCD televisions. I quickly found the internet connection and verified it worked to my liking, then fiddled with the TV for a while - mostly commenting on the accents and local advertisements to an unphased Isabelle.



It was 5 degrees F and windy, causing us all kinds of distress as we walked the few blocks to the indoor market. I had planned to visit a bakery in the Saint Lawrence Market where they serve a sandwich made with ham and mustard. It sounded so simple, the perfect thing after a (90 minute) flight. Unfortunately when we arrived at the market I found the bakery closed due to a death in the family. I settled for some Japanese food that turned out to be remarkably bad. That's okay, the market was really cool and I'm glad we went. They had "Indian Candy" and birch syrup. Indian candy is apparently smoked salmon cured in maple syrup. Too bad that place was also closed when we got there.





We went back to the room after only eating a small snack because I had made reservations earlier in the week for Canoe Restaurant. This is Chef Anthony Walsh's critically acclaimed restaurant on the 54th floor of the Toronto Dominion tower. The view was fantastic, but difficult to photograph on account of the lighting. The meal was spectacular. The food was small, but adequate for me. The presentation was beautiful and meticulous. The flavor was outstanding! After all that praise I must confess the price tag was not small. This meal came to around $180 CAD with a glass of wine for each of us and a shared appetizer.



After dinner, we drove around the lakefront a little but it was sooo cold we didn't want to get out of the car. We went back to the room and cranked up the heat. The movie Australia was available on the Pay Per View, so we bought that and watched it on the "bedroom" TV. It is a LONG movie but I really liked it! We went to bed with plans for shopping and eating our way across Toronto on Thursday.