As the last person on earth without a Facebook account, the only thing I didn't like about Niche was it's lack of a website. Other than that, the food was delicious and reasonably priced, service was good, and the interior both modern and cosy. And had I had access to Facebook I would have also known that they give free parking passes to customers (instead I drove around in circles and was late for the reservation).
Above, quinoa salad with roasted vegetables and mixed greens with a lemon tahini vinaigrette. Below, braised pork and lentil soup.
Above, Spring Creek braised beef cheeks in a wild mushroom cream with broad egg noodles. Below, roasted pork tenderloin with blackberry gastrique on mashed potatoes.
Below, brownie with salted caramel and lemon whipped cream.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Niche
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Nomiya - New Japanese!
Courtney is so mean to me! :( That's why she didn't get to come when I visited Nomiya (3803 Calgary Tr) earlier today. I was super excited to hear about new non-sushi Japanese in Edmonton. They still have sushi on the menu, but the main draw is the ramen. They also had a good selection of standard Japanese fare that is typically not found at other local restaurants.
Sunday lunch hours end at 2:30 (they reopen for dinner at 4:30) and we arrived just past 2pm with about 4 groups of people ahead of us. We luckily sneaked in just in time as we were the last allowed to be seated at the bar after a 30 minute wait. Who knew it would be so popular?
We started with the chicken karaage which was extremely tender and made with fatty chicken resulting in juicy bites of meat cooked to 
perfection. For mains we had the shio (salt) ramen and miso ramen. Both were delicious and had a rich tasty broth with a generous portion of pork. I'll definitely be back - likely on my Ikea runs as I don't often get that far south. Next time I look forward to trying the Curry Katsu.
I've added photos of the menu even though I couldn't get good shots, and none at all of the ramen menu unfortunately (there were six: shio, shoyu, miso, spicy miso, tan-tan... and one more I can't recall).
Thursday, March 17, 2011
St. Paddy's Risotto
Doin' it! Posting for real! Take that Brooke, I am the queen and you are the loser (okay, Brooke isn't actually my little sister and I'm not 7, so maybe I should take that back). Okay, it's been forever, so I know this is a bit sucky, but it is a start. I have done posts previously on how to do a basic risotto. This is the same generally, I just did it with peas and goat cheese thinking my little one would eat it since she eats rice, peas and strongish cheeses. How silly am I to think then that she would eat a combo of the three? Pretty silly apparently. I even pureed some of the peas so the risotto would look a bit green and St. Paddy's-ish. She ate a bit and then gave me a look that clearly conveyed that she would rather be eating a big pile of Cheerios. I like it though :-) Sorry the idea comes too late for most of you to use it to green up your dinner tonight.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Eat Alberta Conference
Okay, we are terrible bloggers who never post but always think we are about to start posting regularly again (maybe next week? haha). Anyway, I am a day late on this, but I want to support it because it is being organized by a number of my internet friends. Stop laughing, I am not a nerd for having internet friends - in fact, if you are reading this you might actually be one of my internet friends. Take that nerd. Seriously though, this event sounds amazing, and I will definitely be going provided I can get a sitter.· Sausage making
· Cheese making demonstration
· Apple pie and pastry making
· Bread making
· Pasta making
Tasting sessions include:
· Fruit wine tasting
· Honey tasting
· Coffee tasting
· Canadian wine and cheese pairing
· Goat Cheese Tasting
There will also be opening and closing keynote sessions on urban gardening and urban homesteading, respectively.
What the day looks like:
· 8:30 to 5 p.m.
· Continental Breakfast followed by the morning keynote
· Two morning break out sessions (choose from 8 different sessions)
· A charcuterie and cheese tasting lunch with artisan breads
· Two afternoon break out sessions (choose from 8 different sessions)
· Closing session followed by a “wine” down
Is it redundant to say that you had me at "wine" down?
Monday, November 22, 2010
Eating in Kyoto
Kyoto was the second stop on my Japanese adventure. It was so different from Tokyo. Where Tokyo is all about modern Japan, Kyoto felt like it was all about traditional Japan. What better place to try okonomiyaki?
We stayed at a great little hostel called the Capsule Hotel that had showers right in the room with blue lights inside them (romantic? sexy?). They also gave us a little guide that showed local restaurants that were near where we were staying, economical, and had various types of Japanese food. It was so helpful! The first night we went for okonomiyaki at Chabana. The one above is seafood and the one below is chicken and leek. It is like a savoury pancake - batter poured over "fillings" and cabbage, topped with Japanese mayo and a sweet sauce. They were really good, but very rich, so by the end you feel crazy full.
After, even though we were stuffed, we stopped at a "standing bar" and couldn't resist splitting tempura ice cream. To die for!
While in Kyoto we visited the Nishiki Market. It was crazy! Read the sign below the octopus lollipops. We saw a guy buy three! Also, check out the sack of fish row. It was the size of a small salmon.
In the middle of our big temple and shrine touring day we stopped for our favourite: Tonkatsu.
One evening we went to an amazing Yakitori place. Basically Yakitori is grilled skewers of chicken, but not just chicken breast, all sorts of chicken parts. We had chicken skin, chicken meatballs (middle right), chicken hearts (top right), a lot of chicken thigh and leek, and then we took a break from chicken and had some mushrooms wrapped in bacon (bottom left), and some littleneck clams in a wine and butter sauce (yup, as good as it sounds - bottom right). Oh I wish I could have more.
In the mornings we didn't have breakfast buffet like in Tokyo, so we stopped at a little bakery. The one on the bottom was almond paste in a pastry that was dense like a bagel, and the top one has eggs, bacon and cheese baked in. I liked that one the best.
In the morning we would also get ourselves vending machine drinks. I like the iced coffee, even though at home I don't really drink coffee, because it was heavily sweetened. My husband got hooked on Royal Milk Tea, which is basically half tea, half milk, sugared to within an inch of its life. It is served cold as well.
And what is a trip to a foreign country without a stop at McDonalds to try things we don't have at home. We got a Salt and Lemon chicken sandwich (left) and a German Sausage Chicken sandwich (right), neither of which we were very impressed with. We also got a Shake-a-Shake-a Chicken (a breaded filet with a package of seasoning in a shaking pouch). It came in pepper (good), cheese (a bit too Kraft dinner for me), and lemon (didn't try). My husband loved the white grape drink.
Unlike Tokyo, I feel like I have "done" Kyoto now, so I am not sure I will be back, but it was really nice and some of the cultural sites were amazing! It was also cute that we were approached by many groups of school children asking us to do a quick interview in English. How did they know? Haha.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Almost Pocky
I thought it would be a cute idea post-Japan to give home-made Pocky out as a Christmas treat, so this weekend I roped Court into helping me out. As she said, our efforts were "not quite Not Quite Nigella" (whose recipe & instructions I pinched). The dough was not the easiest to make without a stand mixer but I managed, and the results are remarkably close to the real thing. It also made for a fun afternoon of decorating, even if our artistic skills are approximately Grade 4 level (and I'm being generous here). For toppings, we had dark, milk, and white chocolate, and some green tea chocolate made by mixing matcha into white chocolate. Everything else was whatever I could find in the pantry: - dark chocolate shavings - yellow & pink decorating sugars - cashews - dried cranberries - ground almonds - candied ginger - kinako powder - sea salt - pepper - chili powder
Monday, November 15, 2010
Eating in Tokyo
I went to Japan! It was amazing (and much too short, but better short than not getting to go at all). For those of you that read and actually know us, it should be noted that Brooke also went to Japan, for much longer than me and has been back more than long enough to have posted first.... Anyway, here are some food pics from Tokyo. I loved Tokyo. The food was great and cheap, and the people watching was unreal (but the fashion didn't translate well for 30somthings in Canada). The above was from one of many 270 Yen places. It is 270 Yen for anything on the menu (just over $3). We had chicken skin and chicken thigh skewers, sushi, and fried shrimp (which turned out to be fried shrimp heads).
We ate a ton of Tonkatsu. This one was from a vending machine restaurant and only cost about 700 yen.
Speaking of vending machines, getting drinks anywhere at anytime was no problem. Here are some of our favourite alcoholic selections (the Chu-Hi was like a cooler but not sickly sweet like the ones here can be).
One day we went to a place called NamjaTown (which seemed to be some sort of kitty themed amusement place). It contained GyozaTown and Ice Cream City, both of which we gave a try.
When my brother was on tour in Japan, they visited Yamachan a lot for wings and then insisted we go too when we got there. It was a good recommendation. How to describe their wings? Sweet, salty and spicy all in one in perfect proportion.
A tempura restaurant on the restaurant floor of a mall.
Mmmm fried chicken (they keep a lot more fat on their meat than we do, and it is a good move taste wise) and BBQ beef in a Korean BBQ sauce. Korean BBQ sauce is everywhere and delicious!
and just for laughs, this was part of the breakfast buffet at our hotel (the B Ikebukuro). I am pretty sure it is just rice and milk, but calling it gruel is pretty funny.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Rainbow Cake
My baby's favourite colour is rainbow (okay, my favourite colour for her is rainbow), so I went with that as a theme for her first birthday (how is she one already!?!?). I know, I know, it's not exactly new anymore, but I wanted to do something cute without spending hours piping little icing rosettes all over a cake. I just don't have time to spend 5 hours making a first birthday cake that she won't even remember. This rainbow cake is a great solution because it takes about 2 minutes more than any normal cake. I used a nice sugary, buttery cake recipe that has gone over well in the past. It freezes well, so I got to make it a couple of days in advance. All I did was put the batter into 5 cereal bowls and coloured each one with different food colours (yellow, orange, red, green, and blue). 
Then I drizzled each colour into the cake pan. 
Unlike marble cake, I don't swirl the colours because I want them to all be visible themselves. 
To finish, I iced the cake with a plain white buttercream icing. I just wanted it to look really plain on the outside so that it would be more of a surprise when it was cut. My daughter stuffed as much of a full piece as possible into her mouth and gobbled it up, so it went over well with the target audience.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Waffles - Homemade Eggos
I really like waffles. I figure an Eggo waffle on a regular basis is probably not the most healthy choice though, so the other day I decided to make my own buttermilk waffles - tons of them! - and freeze them like homemade Eggos. I guess it may have also had something to do with the fact that I accidentally bought a big thing of buttermilk instead of homo milk. Why are they almost the same!?!? Anyway, this is my favourite waffle recipe, and freezing them and then toasting them in the morning worked out really well. I got the recipe from the Epicurious website:
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Salmon Salad
I still exist! I'm going to go ahead and assume most of our readers have jumped ship under the assumption that we did. I'm still here, still cooking and baking, still eating, just have not been posting thanks to my little one's need for attention and her love of my laptop (I need to keep it hidden or risk losing keys). This is an oldie from the summer, but I wanted to pop something up during nap time so that I can try and get back into blogging. Nothing fancy, just took some leftover BBQ salmon (BBQ'd with butter, lemon and dill) and flaked it on top of spinach and mixed salad greens from my garden. I added some dried cranberries and goat cheese because I like adding those to most salads, and then topped with a quick balsamic dressing. Yay for posting! I hope to keep it up over the next little while again since I have realized a few recipes I use a lot need to be added.
