A Food Court Gem: Yuki Ramen

Yuki Ramen is a diamond in the rough, an unexceptional-looking restaurant in the food court of Montreal’s somewhat run down Faubourg shopping centre. Now, I wouldn’t normally expect to find any blog-worthy food at a food court, but there are always exceptions. I discovered it while running errands in the area one day and wanted a bite to eat. As I scanned the small selection of restaurants in the food court that were actually open, I was uninspired until my eyes settled on Yuki Ramen.

I’ll be more specific: my eyes settled on the large window next to the restaurant’s cash register where a man stood spinning a long rope of dough between his hands. I couldn’t believe my luck: I had found a hand-pulled noodle shop. My research hasn’t been overly extensive in the subject, but from what I’ve seen and heard, these places are somewhat hard to come by in North America. Needless to say, I knew right away what I would have for lunch.

I first heard of hand-pulled noodles from a wonderful post and video from Tiny Urban Kitchen. I found the video fascinating, and I really wanted to try these noodles, but I never got the courage to actually attempt to make them myself since I predicted it would take several failed attempts and a lot of frustration before I actually achieved something edible. So, as you can imagine, I was quite excited to find a place that actually serves hand-pulled noodles.

I had a good feeling about Yuki Ramen before I’d even tasted their soup. I loved what had drawn me there in the first place: the window that allows you to watch the cook at work as he pulls, twists, and spins dough into perfect, thin noodles. Watching the whole act is mesmerizing and appetite-whetting all at the same time. I liked that the menu was simple: numbered pictures displaying the different soup choices, and that’s all. There is no messing around with other menu options to please more palettes: ramen soup is what they do, and they do it very well.

Andrew and I have been back several times as we’re in the area every Saturday, and it has quickly become a favourite. The contents of the different soups vary slightly, but in general, the ramen soup consists of a big bowl of mushrooms, bok choy, seaweed, coriander, your meat of choice, and, of course, beautiful, fresh, hand-pulled noodles, all floating in a clean, savoury broth. The noodles are soft, but have a slight spring to them. Their flavour is simple, but are absolutely addictive when soaked in the delicious ramen broth.

Andrew’s favourite is the barbeque pork, which comes with the broth on the side for you to pour over yourself.

I’m a fan of this one too: the pork is moist, and lightly seasoned with a barbeque spice blend.

I’ve also sampled the short rib ramen.

The ribs melted in my mouth and combined with the rest of the soup components, made for a hearty winter meal. A few of the pieces I got were a little more tendon-y than I would have liked, but I got enough good meat to not mind very much putting those pieces on the side.

I like the vegetarian one as well, despite the fact that all the ones I’ve tried that have meat have been amazing.

The vegetarian option has more mushrooms and other vegetables, and a cleaner, clearer broth. It’s lighter, but in my opinion, just as filling.

Like I said before, I’m not normally one to sing the praises of food court restaurants, but this one is well worth a mention. With quick service and reasonable prices (all soups are under $10), it’s a great student meal. Student or not, though, try this one out. During these cold winter days, I think you’ll find it’s just what you were craving.

Yuki Ramen

1616 Ste-Catherine W. (in the Faubourg food court)

FoodLab

Being back in my beloved Montreal means that I have a long, almost overwhelming, list of restaurants I plan to try. Some are well-established favourites, some are hidden gems I’ve heard whispers about, and some are new and hot on the scene. Andrew and I embarked on this momentous task last weekend when we checked out the brand new FoodLab.

FoodLab opened in November, and it is a restaurant, but it’s not like other restaurants you’ve been to before. It is housed in Montreal’s Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), an organization focused on research, and was created partly to help the society become more well-known in the city. What makes FoodLab so unique is that it is not-for-profit. This means that chefs Seth Gabrielse and Michelle Marek (formerly of Laloux) get to experiment, take risks, and make the food they want without having to worry about the bottom line. It also means that they can charge as little as $6 (and no more than $12) a plate for this top-quality fare.

Although it is located on St. Laurent, in the Quartier des Spectacles, a prime restaurant spot, you won’t stumble upon FoodLab unless you already know it’s there. The restaurant is inside the SAT building, a rather institutional-looking structure. Andrew and I entered the glass doors to a large, empty echoing space. There is a reception desk, though, and the person sitting at it seemed to know right away what we were looking for, and instructed us to go to the third storey. So, up three flights of concrete stairs we went, and that is where we found FoodLab.

The restaurant is located in another large, echoing space, but this one is far more inviting than the reception area. The room is dimly lit, and sparsely furnished with simple high tables and metal stools. A bar takes up space on the back wall of the room, and the open kitchen takes up about a quarter of the restaurant. Separated from the rest of the room by a counter that diners can sit at, the kitchen is very simple with minimal equipment. Andrew and I could watch Gabrielse and Marek work with one other assistant on the large island taking up the centre of the kitchen, and the two household-grade stoves on the back wall. It didn’t look anything like any restaurant kitchen I’ve been in. I kind of felt like I was at someone’s house and they were cooking dinner for me. And I liked that.

We took our seats and quickly learned that ordering is all done at the bar. The menu changes every week, and this week, the theme was French Winter. As for libations, a nice selection of wine is available, as well as a few beers and ciders.

We started with the French onion soup.

There is so much that was good about this soup: the broth was rich and flavourful, and had a unique quality that I hadn’t tasted before in onion soup. The taste was deeper and more complex than other onion soups I had had in the past. The bread was chewy and delicious soaked in the broth and topped with melted Gruyere. There was one thing that was not so good about this soup, though: the temperature. Unfortunately, the soup was tepid when it was delivered to us, and as much as I can understand how easily this can happen when working with the equipment and manpower FoodLab has, it really took away from my enjoyment of the dish.

Next, Andrew and I split the salad with apples and walnuts.

This salad was simple and unassuming and I really liked it. It consisted of a mix of lettuces, sliced endive, toasted walnuts, and apples, all tossed in a sweet and slightly tangy vinaigrette. The apples had been cooked and cooled, and were soft and sweet and velvety. I would have happily eaten a serving of them alone.

We each ordered the main dish, Cornish hen with buttered cabbage and acidulated apples.

This dish was absolutely the star of the show. The hen was cooked sous vide, and then the skin was lightly seasoned and crisped in a pan. It was wonderful: the flesh was juicy and tender, and the skin was perfectly crisped and deliciously seasoned. The buttered cabbage was a winner as well, an unctuous mound of rich, buttered goodness, and the tart apple provided a refreshing contrast to the heavier components of the dish.

We also split the Potatoes boulangère.

This is a classic French dish in which thinly sliced potatoes and onions are alternately layered in a shallow baking dish, covered in stock, and then baked until soft inside and golden on top. These were excellent, and I suspect some butter was involved in making these potatoes so creamy. I wasn’t complaining though: I just vowed to do a few extra sit-ups at the gym the next day.

At this point, Andrew and I were completely stuffed and decided that we would have to miss out on the remaining three items on the menu: marinated house made goat cheese, far Breton (dessert), and the baguette. I had hoped that we would still have room to sample these, but it seemed like a bad idea to be ordering more food when we were already full.

Our experience at FoodLab wasn’t perfect, but I definitely hope to go back. The venture is still very new, and I know that some kinks in the system still need to be worked out. Also, with a menu that changes every week, it seems criminal to not go back and see what else they come up with.

FoodLab
Wednesday-Saturday 17:00-22:00
1201 boul. St-Laurent (3^rd floor)

Adventures in Grocery Shopping: A Guided Tour

When I blogged about returning to Montreal, I told you that I would write not only about what I am cooking, but also about what where I shop for food, what restaurants I go to, and what kind of food events I attend. I want to start doing that today by telling you about the little grocery store where I buy at least half of my food: Rocky Montana. Now, if you are a Montrealer who lives, or who has ever lived, in NDG, you’ve probably heard of Rocky Montana. I won’t make any assumptions as to what your opinion on the establishment is, but even if it isn’t your favourite place to shop, you would probably at least admit that it is an interesting, albeit strange, store. The reaction I get when I tell people where my new apartment is located is often: “Isn’t that right around the corner from Rocky Montana? I love that place!”

I’m kind of starting to love it too. It’s definitely the sort of place that grows on you, and I’ll admit, I was not all that enchanted by the store the first time I went to it. It’s tiny and crowded and a far cry from the shiny, wide, well-lit aisles of a typical chain supermarket. If you go there with a specific list, it is unlikely that you’ll find everything on it, even the items that you would expect every grocery store to have. What you will find, though, are spices, sauces, and a variety of other products that you can never find anywhere else, and for a fraction of the price that fancy speciality stores charge.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Rocky Montana is the type of place that suburbanites who are used to driving to the store and getting all of their groceries in one spot would not like very much. For city folks who walk, bus, or metro to get their groceries, and often shop at several different, smaller places, RM is a favourite go-to.

So, let me take you on a tour of this fine establishment. The first thing you need to know, before you’ve even entered the store, is which door you must go through, because the answer is not obvious. When you walk up to the two doors under the sign, enter through the door on the left, not the one on the right, as you would normally do. Why the owners of the establishment decided that the doors should be reversed, I have no idea, but just accept it and move on.

Once you’re through said door, you’ll be greeted by the sounds of Indian music and the sight of the register station directly in front of you. To your left are jam-packed shelves of baking staples, almond and soy milk, and organic broths. To your right are shopping baskets and carts. Don’t take a cart. There are few places in the store where a shopping cart actually fits and you will regret it. Instead, opt for a basket. If you’re planning on buying more than what fits in the basket, don’t. Just come back tomorrow and get whatever else you need. Walk through the shelves of nuts, seeds, and dried fruits (or grab a few along the way—the prices are unbeatable), and hang a right at the fruit stand. You need to pass this stand to get to the main fruit and vegetable section, which is no problem if isn’t someone standing there perusing (or restocking—there’s always someone restocking) the fruits on display. If there is, you’ll need to squeeze past this person, and you’ll probably end up bumping him or her with your basket, or stepping on his or her toes. Just say a polite, “Excusez-moi,” and carry on. You may want to pause for a moment to grab something from the alcove opposite the fruit stand where the impressive collection of Bob’s Red Mill products is kept, but don’t linger. That passageway can get hairy.

Now, you’re through to the fruits and veg, an impressive part of the store. In this section, the Indian music is accompanied by a soundtrack of running water and chirping, tropical-sounding birds. I guess these calming sounds are supposed to make you want to purchase more fruits and vegetables. It kind of just makes me need to pee.

The selection here is good, and you’ll want to take advantage. I only have two issues with the RM produce: none of it is organic, and among the nice, fresh, quality products, you’ll often find a number of fruits and veggies that are past their prime. Neither of these problems stops me from shopping there, though: for the products that I want to buy organic, I can go elsewhere, and I don’t have a problem with sorting through the less-than-fresh to find the good stuff. Also in this section is a fridge with a small selection of cheeses and dry sausage, and the impressive spice collection. You know that spice in that recipe you really want to try calls for that you can’t seem to find anywhere? They have it here.

After maneuvering your way back out of the produce section, you can investigate the rest of the store: four aisles, with not a millimeter of space wasted. Along the right-hand and back walls of the store are fridges containing a variety of products, but the real treasures can be found in the shelves of dry goods. Once again, be careful, because the aisles are narrow, and your path will often be blocked with boxes that have yet to be unpacked. Don’t be annoyed: it’s part of the charm of the place.

Now, there is no way I can itemize every type of product that is sold here, but let me give you a sample: a huge variety of Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, etc.), Mexican, and American sauces and condiments, oils, vinegars, dried beans, grains, a nice selection of gluten-free products, quinoa, a number of canned fish products, a variety of chips and cookies, nearly a quarter of an aisle full of tomato sauces, three shelves full of different types of honeys, and almost anything you can think of (and a lot of things you probably never thought of) that can come in a can or jar. Oh, and I can’t leave out: an entire wall of the store dedicated to different pastas and noodles.

Every type of noodle, from Italian to Asian and everything else in between, is represented on this wall. It is for wonders like this that I love this store.

So have I enchanted you, or do you think I’m crazy for loving to shop at such an odd little place? My shopping habits have definitely changed since moving out of Redmond, or, that is to say, moving out of a suburb and into a more urban environment. I walk to the store, and I often get my groceries at several different places. I discover new shops every day, from the snobby fromagerie in Westmount, to the hippy co-op in my neck of the woods. I generally only buy what I need for one or two days, and go to the store way more often than I did before. It may sound like more work, but I don’t think that it is. It requires less planning, and I stress less about forgetting something when I’m buying food.

I think Rocky Montana is kind of unique, but maybe I’m wrong. Do you know of a similar place? Would you rather shop there and at several different establishments, or are you more of a one-stop-shopper, preferring to get everything in one big store?

Fruits Rocky Montana

5704, rue Sherbrooke O
Montreal

Bring Your Appetite Comes to Montreal

The end of November is a time of transitions: the final leaves are falling from the trees, the air is getting colder, and winter approaches, as does a new year. This November is time for a major transition for Andrew and me. To say that the last month has been busy would be an understatement. “Chaotic” also fails to capture all of the insanity that the past few weeks have entailed. I’ll settle with saying it’s been chaotically busy, and it isn’t over yet. The reason is that after over three fantastic and enriching years in Seattle, Andrew and I have moved back to Montreal. We have loved living in a different country, on a different side of the continent, in a place that is breathtakingly beautiful, full of lovely people, and, of course, rife with great restaurants and great food. Montreal is home to us, though, and we’re thrilled to be back here again.

The final days leading up to moving day always feel a bit surreal. The rooms that you had grown accustomed to looking a certain way, filled with your furniture and your belongings, are slowly emptying out, while boxes start to cover the floors and stack up against the walls. You go get yourself a glass of water, then remember that you packed the glasses an hour ago; you look at the bare walls of your living room and know that they’re different, but you can’t quite picture how they looked before. Your home is no longer your home, and even when you know where you’ll be living next, you can’t see yet in your mind what it will look like once you’ve properly moved in. It’s all very exciting, but at the same time, you feel a little lost, a little unsteady. You look forward to being back on solid ground.

I’ve found that this particular move has felt especially surreal. Andrew and I knew when we moved to the States that we would eventually be coming back to our home country, and hardly a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about coming back to Canada. After three years in the U.S., though, it is now taking a while for the fact to sink in that we are leaving Washington. It’s a bittersweet feeling: as homesick as I’ve often felt while I’ve been away, I’ve loved this part of the world, and I’ve made some amazing friends who I will miss dearly. At the same time, I’ve been yearning to be back in my favourite city in the world, back closer to my family, and closer to my oldest friends for a long time, so I’m ecstatic to realize that it is happening at last.

This big change in my life will mean some changes for this blog as well. I’ll still post about the food I cook, and though it will be from a different kitchen, that will be more or less the same. I hope to post more about my culinary life outside of my kitchen as well, though. We will be living in NDG, a neighbourhood in Montreal that is positively teeming with great food, from many different ethnicities. I want to post about the “fruiterie” around the corner, the amazing pizza place a few blocks away, and the food co-op down the street. I want to talk about the fantastic culinary experiences that Montreal has to offer, from bagels to poutine, and from Schwartz’s to Joe Beef. If you live in this city, I want to give you ideas for places to eat and shop; if you’ve never been to Montreal, I want to introduce you to how delicious this city can be.

Today is our first day back in Montreal, and the city is welcoming us with a blanket of fluffy white snow. It’s supposed to melt tomorrow, which is fine with me, but for now, I’m admiring it as I sit writing this at my parents’ dining room table. In a little over a week, Andrew and I will move into our new apartment and start to truly settle back into this place that for me, feels more like home than any other place in the world. Readers, bienvenue à Montréal. I think you’ll like it here.