2014 Mardi Gras is shaping up to be Mardi Great!

Being a blogger to my mind is its own reward. When I write I normally have something to say or to bring to the attention of the masses, however now and then there are a few side perks that pop up.  Last night Dar and I were the guests of RAS Creative who are doing the promotions for the upcoming Winnipeg Mardi Gras celebration.  It was a media and blogger night to get a taste of the event, the colours, the atmosphere and of course the food!

From jugglers and drag queens, zydeco dancing, fancy southern cocktails and of course heaping helpings of Cajun and Creole food favorites straight from New Orléans.

Our evening started out simply shaking hands and getting to know the assembled crowd.  It turns out that one of Darlene’s co-workers is also a Winnipeg blogger and writes the webpage PegCityLovely.  From there our grumbling stomachs lead us on to the amazing food. I decided just to work my way around the room and try a little bit of everything.  My partner in crime Darlene humbly accepted the challenge of being the night’s beverage taster since I had to drive us home.

PegCityLovely

The first selection of the evening is a New Orléans classic sandwich, the fried oyster po’ boy along with a side of deep fried pickles the combo knocked it out of the park.  Crunchy and rich in flavour paired with the acidity of the deep fried pickle matched incredibly well together.

Next up was a stop to my most frequented stand of the evening.  Raw shucked Glacier Bay oysters, peel and eat shrimp and the most decadent rich and velvety smooth gumbo this wordsmith has ever eaten.  I love a good briny oyster, nothing fancy just meaty slippery goodness.  Even more than the taste is watching people’s reactions as you wolf down a dozen or so of these beauties.  Revulsion and abject horror often flash through their eyes.  Yummy!

Rounding the corner another set of tables loomed ahead, spaced perfectly with food, beverages, and food.  Needing some serious sustenance now a pasta dish looked to be the way to go and we were not disappointed.  The rosé farfalle pasta was amazing.  Complex flavours in a creamy sauce covering pillows of perfectly cooked pasta. The dish also included a oven dried tomato and a cheese crisp (chip) that added just the right zip to the velvety pasta and sauce.

Dar seemed to be up for a challenge as we worked our way around the room and was game for a shot of Fireball whiskey.  The lovely bartender encouraged her saying that the shot tasted just like a cinnamon heart candy.  Dar did the shot like a trooper and even got a souvenir flashing shot-glass to mark the occasion.

Seafood is definitely a way of life down in New Orléans so a dish like bourbon flamed garlic pepper shrimp on a bed of rice pilaf is a natural. Like everything else we had tried up to this point the rice and shrimp were simply mind blowing. The aromas coming from this table were incredible, frying garlic and briny shrimps being flamed in top shelf bourbon I’ll let your imagination do the rest.

One last turn and we were into Dar’s favorite stand of the night the mixed cocktails.  liking a sweeter beverage Darlene tried two of the house favorites.   The Agent Orange and the Southern Hurricane.  Darlene preferred the Agent Orange due to it’s fruity flavour and deceptive power.  “You can’t even taste the booze in this, it’s dangerous” she exclaimed!

But don’t think that’s where Mardi Gras stops as I said the party planners are bringing in top notch entertainment in the form of Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers.  Playing the best in washboard music and swamp pop that your ears have ever heard. I guarantee!

Come for the food, come for the fun and flamboyance. Come for the Ambiance and the Zydeco, how’s that for an A to Z fun time.  Come on down I guarantee you’ll have a great time.  It’s taking place at the Winnipeg Convention Center February 14 and 15th

If you live in Winnipeg and are a fan of Exploring Winnipeg and Beyond, I have some free passes to give away. But there is a catch.  Comment on this post and tell me how I got my start blogging.  It’s easy just go into the archives and look it up.  I’m looking for where I went (City) and the reason (event) I went there.
Comment on this blog posting an I’ll hook you up with some passes for Mardi Gras at the convention center.

Now do yourself a favor and check out the musical madness of Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers!

Rollin’ downtown for lunch with On a Roll Sandwich Truck.

With the Winnipeg summer heat soon drawing to a close and the inevitable onset of fall close at hand I set out to redouble my efforts and visit as many of the new food trucks that now dot the Winnipeg lunchtime streets.  Yesterday found me in familiar territory on Broadway Avenue where the majority of lunchtime food trucks are known to set up shop.

On a Roll Sandwich Truck

As it turned out my choice was an easy one, turning off Main Street the first truck that met my eye was a new to me, the On a Roll Sandwich Truck.  Painted an eye-catching bright green announcing “Bringing the flavours of the world to the streets of Winnipeg” was an offer I simply could not refuse.

Menu Board

The menu pasted to the side of the truck spoke of simple family favorites from around the world delivering on the promises of their motto.  Shrimp Po’ Boys representing the Louisiana coast of the United States, Jerked Chicken Sandwich giving a taste of Jamaican spicy influences.  For a more savory note a patron could try the ever popular, if confusing Chicken and Waffles.  Even vegetarians are welcomed with a falafel patty Banh-Mi sandwich representing the best of French and Vietnamese influences.

The Red Ember: Hot Hot Hot!

There are always a few things that I look for in a new eating experience, location, menu choices, the price of the items on the menu all rank high on how I form a first impression. But few things wow me like a serious line of hungry patrons waiting for service. The fact that people are cued up on a busy downtown street spending their lunch hour waiting in line screams eat here!

The Big Red Truck, AKA The Red Ember.

Well folks The Red Ember pizza truck at the far end of Broadway Ave down by the legislature on Kennedy was packing in the masses for lunchtime on Thursday for sure. It’s hard to miss this transformer like mash-up of a bright fire engine red and big rig styled wood fired pizza joint on wheels. Many of the apartments in the tenements on Broadway no doubt are smaller than this monstrosity and I can pretty much guarantee that the food coming out of those kitchens can’t hold a candle to the applause worthy pies coming out of The Red Ember’s wood fired pizza oven. Yep, a wood fired oven on a truck in Winnipeg, grab your skates and sticks, Hell has officially frozen over folks!

Chez Sophie sur le pont: Magnifique!

As my long-term readers will attest I am a fierce supporter of local cuisine.  One case in point is a favorite bistro that Darlene and I frequent fairly regularly both for the fine French bistro food they serve there but also arguably the best thin crust pizza within 200 miles of Winnipeg.

Chez Sophie a tiny but highly regarded St. Boniface institution has expanded in a very ambitious way, opening a second site on a bridge over the mighty Red River.  Yes dear readers I said on a bridge, but not just any bridge, the Esplanade Riel to be exact.  Itself the subject of many of my photo essays and stories over the years.  Let me an Anglophone living in the Francophone quarter of Winnipeg be the first to shout it out it’s about time!

Chez Sophie sur le pont from the Base of Esplanade Louis Riel.

Chez Sophie sur le pont serves food that could grace the table of any fine dining establishment in Winnipeg in a unique setting that only a few other rooms can compare to.  Darlene and I planned our evening with a nice walk in the French Quarter of St. Boniface and enjoyed the cool evening air as we headed out over the bridge.  Looking out over the fork of the Red and Assiniboine rivers hand in hand anticipating our Friday night together.

Luckily we managed to get a table without calling ahead, this location although bigger in scope than the mother ship Chez Sophie still has a high demand for table space.  We were seated next to the floor to sky windows of the panoramic dining room overlooking the majestic Red River flowing steadily underneath us.

Our server gave us expert consultation on the menu before we ordered our beverages and quickly returned to take our orders. One thing I had been missing terribly since the demise our go to restaurant Paladin was an all-inclusive meal.  Bread, soup, salad and a main without the pain of having to order every item separately and to the pain of the bill at the end of the meal.

Chez Sophie sur le pont delivers that in spades. Supper meals here include both a salad and a soup course as a part of the entrée.  Our meal consisted of a delicious mushroom soup with a glorious chunk of home-baked baguette.  Finely chopped mushrooms with a hit of fresh chopped parsley bathed our senses in earthy richness.  The soup with baguette and butter could have satisfied me right there for a meal.

The Salad was plated delightfully in a square bowl with a tiny “tea-pot” of dressing included inside.  The thick and rich home-made dressing is a great treat and accompanies our house salads with honor.

For our mains Darlene chose the Steak sauce à la poivre (Beefsteak with peppercorn sauce) and I opted for the  Magret de Canard (duck breast).  Both dishes being within $4 of each other it was hardly bank breaking to enjoy the normally out of price duck that features on other restaurants menus.

The mains were cooked as advertised, my duck breast medium rare and succulent in a sauce of balsamic reduction.  Which at first I thought overpowering for the duck but upon more tasting found myself wanting more of to balance the rich game flavours of the duck breast.  In all it worked beautifully.  The beans and bacon could have used a bit more salt and punch from the their sauce but all in all worked well to counter balance the strong flavours of the balsamic gastrique.

Darlene had a completely different flavor profile on her plate, cream sauce and pepper dominated and co-mingled with the juices from her beef to wonderful effect.  She reported a well cooked piece of beef to her liking, and a delicious accompaniment of sauce. Much like my only issue hers came with the vegetable accompaniment.  The peppers in her mixed veg being a bit to pronounced for her liking.

All in all a very good night as we strolled down the bridge to the Forks Market with a delicious meal in our bellies and warm thoughts in our hearts for Chez Sophie sur le pont.

Broadway Bound: The food truck wave finally hits Winnipeg in a big way.

The food truck/cart industry has always been a staple on the Winnipeg summer landscape. From the chip stands of the early 1930’s right up to modern smokie hotdog carts that dot the Winnipeg summer landscape like dandelions on a prairie field. So why all of the interest in what could be called nouveau gourmand food movement of bringing typically high end restaurant fare and serving it curbside out of a mobile trailer?

Hot Dog carts dot the Winnipeg Landscape

Personally I think it’s about the whole democratization of food, the idea proposed by so many of the crop of new talented cooks and chefs in typically high-end, high pressure jobs. Patrons are starting to suffer from white table-cloth fatigue, the idea of getting dressed up and paying high-end prices for everything but the food is wearing thin. Just think about it, if you go to say 529 Wellington and order a meal you’re not only paying for the food you’re paying for the cost of maintaining the building, the staff, the food supply chain and on and on. Winnipeggers are a fiercely cheap and efficient lot, we brag about how little we paid for something rather than how expensive something is. It only seems to reason that eventually it would filter down to our food choices.

Now I am not saying that Winnipeg invented the high-end food truck, that phenomenon has gone on for years in other enlightened cities having only recently caught on in a big way here due to City Hall’s reluctance to let the inevitable happen.

On any given weekday lunchtime during Winnipeg’s all too brief spring and summer one can wander downtown to Broadway Avenue, the heart of Winnipeg’s open air food scene.  As the office towers break for lunch thousands of hungry men and women emerge ready to see the delights awaiting them where grilled smokies and hamburgers once dominated the dining scene.

One sunny spring day I took an hour out of my day and investigated the food truck landscape of East Broadway; here is what I found.