Burgers are getting more and more pimped and this – by Birmingham slingers, The Original Patty men, and winner of a recent burger-off – is wearing the full shiny duds. With its pork scratching crumbs, peppered salami crisps and the rest of the kitchen sink, it seems pointless. How could you taste the “5 week aged longhorn beef 4 cut blend patty” with all that going on? White bbq sauce – the Alabama sauce in question – is a new one on me, in its native form, mayo loosened with vinegar, mustard, garlic, horseradish. Overkill. But I confess I’d give it a red hot go in, er, the name of research.
The reedy, pistachio-coloured stems, the pine-cone-shaped swollen tips – wild asparagus is the most elegant of found bounties. Its flavour is more delicate than cultivated, but so alluring – it’s the greenest of tastes, best served simply. Here, Montreal restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman has let it shine with only shavings of red onion and a beautiful plate to frame its slender beauty.
Twitter account @getinthesea is a self-appointed arbiter and judge of modern, well, wankiness is the best word to describe it. I couldn’t agree more with this one. I can’t bear wackaging, that style of marketing where every smoothie label is your new best friend. I’m surprised that Lindt – who really should know better – have joined in with this particularly egregious example. “Every bit makes crum crum crum”? No, no, no.
In a week where – once again – a restaurant getting rave reviews on shilladvisor … sorry, Tripadvisor, has turned out to be a fake*, restaurateur Mitch Tonks, of Rockfish and The Seahorse restaurants, vividly demonstrates his opinion of the crowd-generated site upon receipt of their ”certificate of excellence”. Hear the applause of his co-chefs and people who are fed up being on the receiving end of burblings written (largely) by idiots. My personal favourite, of an establishment local to me, reads: “I recoment the Lasange, and the great Fist and Chips.” Burn it, Mitch, burn! Caveat: it’s marginally useful for hotels, if you filter out Americans who cannot cope with European plumbing.
*This one was created by Italian publication, Italia a Tavola, to hijack Tripadvisor’s ”reliable source of information for those who plan a trip anywhere in the world”. And they succeeded in getting all the way to the top of the list.
There’s no doubt that, in a life lived eating out in too many places much too often, one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever been was the Pied de Cochon cabane à sucre (a maple syrup sugar shack, or traditional Québécois winter restaurant, in the snow-covered Canadian countryside) owned by chef Martin Picard. My heart still beats painfully fast at the recollection of the tourtière, a pie stuffed with more meat than an abattoir and glazed with maple syrup; cretons studded with boudin noir and sweetbreads; soufflé omelette stuffed with a whole lobster; and tire sur la neige – freshly tapped syrup poured over snow until it toffees. It is gasp-making, once-in-a-lifetime excessive. Gabrielle Rivard-Hiller, the pâtissière at the restaurant, posted these beautiful dumplings. I have no idea what is in them, but I want them anyway.
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