Turkish Delight: Avesta Café

There is a dim little place next to Cacao 70, where you can always see a lady making bread in the window. This is Avesta, a quaint Turkish café/restaurant with discreet decor and interesting food. If you have never had Turkish before, you're in for a real treat! 

The menu may be a bit hard to understand at first. First, they have a wide selection of mezzes, which are small-portioned appetizers. You can get them individually, or in a combo. We had the 2 mezzes with 1 börek, for 8.99$. 

Our Stuffed Dolma Leaves were nice and fresh, and rather different from the Greek variety I am used to. The flavour was good, though I found it lacking a bit of a kick. We also had the Walnut, Pine Nut and Pomegranate Paste, which you dip with the complementary crispy flatbread. Really liked this one... Only wish they gave more, since we ran out of paste before we finished all the bread. For our third selection, we chose the Spinach and Feta Börek. It was a crepe-ier version of spanokopita, soft and spongy. Tasty!

The other side of the menu contained their main courses. They had sandwiches, specialty dishes and full meals.

M tried the Beef Tava Kavurma, for 12.75$. The dish itself is essentially sautéed onion, beef and eggs -- not worth going to a restaurant for, according to him. The side of bulgur (a type of grain similar to rice) was very good and well-flavoured.

I had the Manti for 13.99$, and boy was I in for a treat. This dish is their specialty! It is essentially dozens of tiny dumplings drenched in yogurt, then drizzled with herbs and pepper oil. The dumplings are ridiculously cute and small, and have a tender, well-spiced beef filling in each one. Each one is handmade by the lady in the front, and the flour shells are really thin! The yogurt itself was tart and flavorful, though near the end, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sourness. That's no reason to get you down though, because this dish is just simply amazing.

All in all? Great place. A bit pricey, but totally worth it if you are in the mood for something new. Next time, I will be sure to try their Turkish tea and some desserts! And I actually think they do have Turkish Delights. 

2077, St-Catherine Ouest

(514) 937-0156

www.restoavesta.ca

Fu Lam XP: Asian Scores Knockoff?

It's been a long time, maybe a year, since I'd been to the St-Charles food area in Kirkland. In an attempt to show M more of the West Island, we had our Thanksgiving dinner at Fu Lam XP. Lemme tell you all about it.

From the outside, you couldn't see much. Peering through the window, we saw what appeared to be a buffet counter. It's been a really long time since either of us had Chinese buffet, and so we went inside with enthusiasm. The large, spacious restaurant was nearly empty, and the hostess gave us a table near the windows. We had another look at that counter -- not buffet. It was a salad bar. Wait, what?

Yeeaaah. Raw vegetables, macaroni salad, lettuce, the works! And we looked around, realizing with a sinking horror that the restaurant was essentially a Chinese knockoff of Scores. The seats and the tables all had the same style. The only thing they couldn't mimic was the number of customers, though this may because most people eat at home during Thanksgiving. 

Now, the salad bar is not all bad. The menu had salad bar for 8.95$, if you don't buy anything else. If you happen to be vegetarian, you can get a basic choice of vegetables, two kinds of soup, some fresh melon slices, canned fruit and store-bought desserts, unlimited! One thing I must praise if their hot and sour soup. They add nice, soft, plump tofu pieces and sliced shiitake mushrooms! Beware, though, their pastries are stale. 

We ordered one of the combo meals for two. It included chicken fried rice, spring rolls, sesame beef, szechuan shrimps and assorted vegetable stirfry. We both opted to get salad bar, because with the combo, it was only a couple of dollars extra. 

According to M, the spring rolls were the best part of the meal, and they were just regular spring rolls.  

The seasame beef was atrocious, heavily battered and deep-fried for who knows how long. After gnawing on two pieces, my jaw hurt and I had to take a break from eating it. There's very little beef, too. 

The szechuan shrimp was pretty bad too. The sauce was way too sweet, and the shrimp tasted like they've been partially cooked and left out, only to be reheated with the sauce. The onions were good, but if a cook can screw up onions in this dish, then he should be in jail for mal-cooking. 

These are our vegetables. I actually liked this dish, because they had the courtesy of including baby corn and water chestnuts. The vegetables were also relatively fresh. This dish was a good break from the rest. 

And the service? Well, the waitress filled our water when we put our empty glasses on the edge of the table, although this was toward the end of the meal, and our glasses had been empty long before that. Since we were sitting in those booth seats with sofa chairs, she might have simply not noticed. One thing struck me as very disappointing though... I am Chinese. I look very Chinese. I was never given or offered chopsticks. If that doesn't scream un-authentic and unprofessional to you, I don't know what does. 

The total cost us around 40$ plus tip. Did we get a lot of food? Yes, I had leftovers for lunch and dinner the day after. But was it good? Gosh no. 

2762 boul. Saint-Charles,

Kirkland

(514) 694-8668

Taiwanese Food and Best Bubble Tea in Town: Nos Thes et Cafes

There's a tiny hole-in-the-wall on St-Mathieu street, near Concordia University. It is a Taiwanese tea shop, marked by their sign on the sidewalk. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but I swear: they have the best bubble tea on the island, and their food is fantastic too. Everything is under 10$!

As their name suggests, they offer specialty coffees and different teas. They seem to be all loose leaf, none of that bag business around here. I haven't tried the hot drinks, but I think I will, now that it's October and cold winds and frosty mornings are coming around. One thing I know is that their bubble tea is AMAZING.

Lemon and kiwi

O tried the lemon flavor, and I had the kiwi. These aren't milk bubble teas, but rather flavored drinks with a good tea taste to them. I wasn't sure if they used real fruit juices or commercial syrup for these, but whatever. Other places use the horrible powders. These were very tasty, and not sickeningly sweet like you find everywhere else.

Their tapioca bubbles were lightly sweet and had the perfect texture.

Oh, this place has unusual flavors. I remember things like grapefruit, so you might want to ask them which are the milky teas, if those are your thing.

M had the taro bubble tea. I've had this before. They use real taro, yes, REAL TARO. Little bits of it floating around in your drink. Delicious. A must have if you even remotely like taro. Mmmm.

For food, M got the popcorn chicken combo. Mind you, this isn't American popcorn chicken -- they just gave it that name because it was vaguely similar and also very tasty. Comes with green salad, a bit of pancake, rice, and julienned carrot and potato salad. 

I had the Zhajiang noodles. It's regular, machine-rolled noodles with various toppings and a sauce made with fermented bean paste and ground pork. This was a real treat, it's been a really long time since I had this dish anywhere. 

O had the beef noodle soup. The noodles looked really big and exotic! I stole a few spoonfuls of broth and it was so flavourful. My Taiwanese friend (J) who introduced us to this restaurant swears by this dish, so I've really got to try it now!

This was a good experience. The food was served by an Asian grandmother-like lady, and everything tasted like home cooking. It's a fantastic and quiet place to hang out, and it doesn't cost you much at all either! I'm definitely coming back.

2160 St-Mathieu,
Montreal, H3H 2J4
(514) 931-4074

Cream of Broccoli Soup (with Chicken!)

One of the first things I learned to cook was soup. It's extremely easy: chop, add water, turn on stove, wait. I've always been curious how creamy soups were made, and I had my first try today.

Here is the original recipe which I've adapted. The soup turned out watery, since I dislike using roux, and I put more water than called for. I also added chunks of chicken for some extra heartiness.

Cream of Broccoli Soup (makes 4-6 servings)

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 heads of broccoli
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 4 cups water (use 2 1/2 cups for a creamier soup)
- 2 stalks of celery, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cup milk (use 2 cups for a creamier soup)
- 1 skinless chicken breast

Preparation:
1. Rub chicken breast with salt, bake at 350°C for 30 minutes.
2. Break broccoli into florets, and cut the stem into half-inch chunks. 
3. Melt butter in a pot on medium heat, and cook celery and onion until onion is transparent. 
4. Add stock, water and broccoli to pot, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes. 
5. Turn off heat, ladle soup into blender, filling half of the pitcher at a time. Purée the soup into a separate pot. 
6. Cut the baked chicken into 1-cm-sized chunks. Add to the purée. Add milk. 
7. Heat and serve. 

Yummy and nutritious! This a great if you don't like the taste of plain broccoli. I usually hate broccoli, and can only eat it if I smother it in cheese. No longer!