Schwartz's ~ Montreal QC

JUNE 2013

Montreal has a few foods it's known for: Montreal Bagels, Poutine, and Montreal Smoked Meat (MSM). And when you say smoked meat in Montreal, you are talking Schwartz's.

This place is an institution, with people coming for smoked meat since 1928. And not a lot seems to have changed. There is ALWAYS a line up outside that can stretch around the block. On this particular day, it was raining, and there was a street festival, so the line was shorter than I've seen it before. And because it was just LJ and I who were surrounded by big groups, so we got in quick.

That doesn't mean you are getting a table to oneself, oh no. This is communal sitting for sure. They seat you where you can fit. This makes for this total experience of going to Schwartz's.

The menu is pretty strait forward. Well strait forward in mostly French. It's a pretty simple menu, and you know you are getting smoked meat.

You can see how crowded the place is, with old men, families, hipsters etc. You don't know who you will be sitting with or near. The above photo was more to point out the blonde mum sitting in the chair. Notice the baby on her back, covered with a towel? Ya I didn't at first either.

A natural pairing drink to MSM is Cott's black cherry cola. I love cherry cola, and as cherry cola goes, this is a good one - crisp, sweet but not too sweet.

With our sandwiches LJ and I shared an order of fries - fresh cut, crispy but unseasoned. We also got a kosher pickel. This is a jumbo, super sour dill that crunches when you bite into it, but also soaks you with a tone of brine. Prepare to pucker up!

The key here was the Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich - which wikipedia defines as:

is a type of kosher-style deli meat product made by salting and curing beef brisket with spices. The brisket is allowed to absorb the flavours over a week, and is then hot smoked to cook through, and finally steamed to completion.

Although the preparation methods may be similar, Montreal smoked meat is cured in seasoning with more crackedpeppercorns and aromatic spices, such as coriander, and significantly less sugar than New York pastrami. Montreal smoked meat is made with brisket, while pastrami is more commonly made with the navel/plate cut.[1] The meat is typically served in the form of a rye bread sandwich slathered with yellow mustard. While some Montreal smoked meat is brine-cured like corned beef, with spices applied later, many smoked meat establishments prefer dry-curing directly with salt and spices.

The above is a medium (you can get lean, medium or fatty) and it is stacked high. Schwartz's is a drier cut - and while purists will often say this is the way it should be, I prefer a thinner, wetter sliced cut for my sandwich. That being said, this is still a very tasty sandwich. Served with yellow mustard and on rye bread. This is a hearty meal anyway you slice it.

Schwartz's is great and I think everyone should go if they are ever in Montreal. It truly is an experience, but I won't lie, after you've been here, there are other places with no lines and lots of table space with equally good smoked meat.

Schwartz's Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen
3895 Boulebard Saint-Laurent, Montreal QC
schwartzsdeli.com

POUTINEVILLE ~ Montreal QC

JUNE 2013

Back in June 2013 (yes last year, this is the first of many delayed posts, please bare with me!) I was off to La belle province, Quebec, Montreal specifically, for a conference. That was awesome I have to say. I took the weekend before with LJ to have some time together, and then after she left, I had some time on my own to do some culinary exploration. 

I was looking to see if I could combine 2 loves, wings and poutine, and my search discovered Poutineville. This small chain took me away from my hotel and a chance to explore Montreal transit. The location I went to was in the outer Gay Village part of downtown Montreal. The place was hard to miss, and with a little bit of rain it was great to find some cover.

The lunch crowd was there in force, so I felt this was going to be a tasty place. I got seated in one of the big window seats. I sat facing in to take better photos, but I kinda missed looking out on the street. The crowd was mixed from families to people on lunch from work. The place kinda feels like a pub, with a focus on fries. My server was Laurie, and after butchering my French, she happily switched to English, gave me an English menu, and off I went.

Poutine is the specialty here, and the way it works is they give you a card with pencil, and you fill out what combonation of poutine you want. The choices are staggering, from 4 different types of fries, to the type of cheese, sauce and tons of toppings. How do you decide?

While I wanted to try the house Crushed potatoes, I went with fairly traditional with shoestring fires, cheese curds, poutine sauce, and bacon.

I went with the large not because I was hungry, but because I wanted leftovers (I love leftover poutine).

The poutine was a-mazing. Fries were crisps, the gravy had just a hint of peppery spice. The cheese curds were squeeky and fresh. The bacon, mounded on and was crispy but got soggy eventually with the gravy.

Each mouthful was heaven. This was everything I love about poutine. It smelled good, it looked good, it tasted good. Poutineville was definitely a neighbourhood in Flavourtown.

And how could I pass on ailes poulet (chicken wings) when I had the opportunity?

Wings come in orders of 6 for $8 or 12 for $14.

 I was looking for a snack with poutine being my main, so I just went with 6.

These wings are listed as 'Jumbo' and they are a jumbo wing. Huge. There in lied the problem: the wings were mega rubbery, tough and difficult to eat. The first problem is that they are baked, and that they aren't baked hot or long enough. The skin was also soft and rubbery, and no one wants to eat that.

There are 2 sauces to choose from; BBQ or 911. I went with 911, but these were maybe a medium. And truth be told, this tasted very much like a BBQ sauce. My guess is that they take the BBQ sauce, add some chili's and call it 911. It was sweet and tasty, but the chicken was so tough to eat, it put a damper on it all.

FINAL SCORE: The wings are a major pass. Rubbery, tough and just poorly made. Sauce was ok though. Deep frying would have really helped in my opinion. Now the Poutine, that's the thing to get. I highly recommend, especially the shoestring fries with bacon as my choices.    Wings: 3/10

Poutineville
1365 Rue Ontario East, Montreal QC
poutineville.com

RETURN of Lord of the Wings!

Yes, the Lord of the Wings is back.

Sorry folks, the blog has been sorely neglected. I've been eating wings, and reviewing, but I haven't been writing. Things changed quite a bit for me in 2013, and 2014 hasn't been too much different. I've been swamped in my day job, which regularily bleeds into my night. I love it, but it does interfere with my time and energy to write. Personally I've also had a few health problems, slowed me down before, but I'm happy to report I'm doing much better. And on a personal high, I got engaged recently and I know that's going to impact my time writing.

I won't lie, I have a LOT of reviews from 2013 - and I'm slowly working on getting them up. I will continue to put the old date in the top left corner. Once I get through, it's going to be late, but I will get my best and worst list out (even if its 3 months over due). And I will continue to post my 2014 wing reviews.

I'm trying to work on how to post my reviews more efficiently, without sacrificing the quality I hold my work up to. It may not seem like it to some, but it actually takes a long time to create each post.

I've been away from the blog far too long. I miss it terribly. I miss hearing from you and about your wings. I can't guarantee I won't fall behind again, but I need to come back and restore the crown of wing online media that is, Lord of the Wings.

Wing Long and Prosper
Wing King

Thanksgiving Wings & Mashed Potato Poutine

I'm on my own for Thanksgiving again this year - working over the weekend - which meant declining two Thanksgivings outside the city. But that's ok because it's also nice to spend some time solo, and cooking. A few years ago I did the same and I made a Turkey wing. I felt I would do something similar but I wanted actual wings . . . but what if I made them Thanksgiving style? What did that mean?

When I think of T-Day, I think turkey obviously, but the other flavour of this holiday for me is stuffing. Stove Top stuffing to be specific. So what if I combined that into a chicken wing breading?

Here are my ingredients:

• 7 Chicken Wings (fresh, split)
• Salt & Pepper
• Cajun Seasoning
• 1 Egg
• about 1/4 package of stuffing (Turkey flavour)
• flour 

I prepared my breading station.

The stuffing mix is basically breadcrumbs and seasoning. Seemed like a natural breading. But would it work?

1. Pack wings in flour/seasonings on wings to give egg wash something to stick to and give some underlying flavour.
2. Dip dusted wing in beated egg.
3. Roll said wing in dry stuffing mixture. Coat well.

Well that looked like it was going to be a big crunchy wings. If it works. PS: those are some jumbo wings even before the breading. I got them from St Lawrence Market. Awesome fresh jumbo wings.

I put the 7 wings on parchment paper and baked them in the oven at 450 degrees for 40 minutes, turning once. I baked them because a) I thought deep frying might burn the bread and b) You roast a turkey in the oven right? Well these should be roasted then.

I gotta say, the smell in the house was roasted poultry and stuffing good. They wings came out and they were lighter in colour than I expected, but the crispy coating looked good. The breading actually stuck on there too!

I like my wings with spice, or at the very least some sort of bold flavour - so I feared that the stuffing flavoured wing (even with some Cajun seasoning) might have been a bit boring. So I made a sauce.

Now I didn't have cranberry sauce, which I thought would be the best accompanyment for this wing. Instead I looked to a pepper jelly sauce, that I have experimented with before (but haven't yet logged on the blog). It's simple; those three ingredients boiled down. The bottle on the right is Third Degree Sauce.

This sauce is sweet, tangy, and zingy with heat. The pepper jelly is my secret ingredient for a wing sauce. Guess the secret is out. Dang.

I decided the wings should be drizzled with sauce and not tossed - partly as to not soggify the wings, but also to make sure the breading stayed on.

Guess what I found at the grocery store? EGG NOG!!!! I can't get enough of this stuff. And for my Egg Nog Project - the Irresistible brand is good - creamy and eggy. Mmmmm.

So at St Lawrence market I picked up some cheese curds. I bought some potatoes and decided I would make poutine. But I got lazy to make fries, and decided to experiment and make Mashed Potato Poutine.

The ingredients above are almost too similar in colour to tell apart.

I used a St Hubert poutine gravy packet - this was some good gravy! Poured over the hot mashed potatoes and the cold cheese.

Now that's a Feast for 1. I also forgot a salad I made and was in the fridge. Oh well, it will go over well with leftovers . . .

The colour palate of the meal was very autumn-like but without the salad, lacked and greenery. But dang it was a good meal.

The mashed potato poutine was a hit. Good potatos, warm soothing gravy. The only complaint was the curds weren't that squeeky, and not all of it melted because I put them on cold.

The Thanksgiving Wings worked out pretty well too.

Structurely they held up really well. The Stove-Top breading clung on well, and the drizzled stinger sauce was just right. Actually, more sauce would have been better. I expected a stronger flavour from the stuffing, but it was kind of mild. But the stinger sauce really kicked these wings up. Sweet and stingy.

These wings truly recreated the experience of a Thanksgiving Meal. 

And as I said the last time:

I am thankful for family

I am thankful for friends

I am thankful for my job and my coworkers

I am thankful for my health

I am thankful for chicken wings

I am thankful for the wing nation and for those of you that read the blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Abdominal and The Obliques - A Brief History of the Chicken Wing

You know what can be a hard thing to sing about? Chicken wings.

There are a lot of chicken wing songs out there, but they are not that great. But the group Abdominal and the Obliques sent me a link to their video " A Brief History of the Chicken Wing" and, well I think it's excellent. And informative!




The video is great as well!

Sriracha Wings @ St Louis

Having some Sriracha wings from St Louis Wings and Ribs at the Atrium. 

Crispy, tasty, and wet. So scandalous!