August 17, 2009 4

The Must Bar (Downtown)

//// By Freda in 06: Downtown LA

I often drove by this dark looking bar The Must (illuminated only with a neon sign) at the gallery district in Downtown. The ghetto Skid Row adjacent neighborhood put us off trying it for awhile until now.

Turns out the interior is nicely decorated with amazing looking straw mat wall hanging, and the vibe is casual and hip. Black Sangria, made with black berries, yum!

I was baffled by my friend describing this place as gourmet white trash cuisine at first. I finally understand what she meant when I saw Soy Hamburger Helper on the menu.

Cheese Plate (St. Andres Double Cream Brie, Double Glouster Cheddar, Manchego w/ Fig Almond Cake Humboldt Fog) $15 and Mini Chicken Sliders – Crispy fried chicken breast, smoked mozzarella, ranch dressing, pickles on a mini brioche 3 for #10. The later was junky tasting.

They also have the option for ‘Ghetto Cheese Plate” served with sliced Velveeta, Ritz crackers & salty NUTZ. 😉

Roasted Brussels Sprouts – Sauteed with bacon & mustard sauce $6 This is recommended by the waiter (who made a disclaimer “this might sound gross”), and I love it! The texture is crispy and crunchy, and the roasted aroma and flavor of bacon + mustard is just so GOOD!

Coca-Cola Pork Chop – Bone in oven roasted Pork Chop w/ coca-cola brine served over pink lady apple sauce with wilted arugula $14. So tender and juicy! The coca-cola gave a touch of sweetness in the meat, very yummy!

Chicken Pot Pie a la Mode – wild mushrooms, root veggies & snap peas in a light cream w/ a homemade biscuit $12. Good comfort food, but not wow.

Elbow Mac & Cheese – w/ bacon $7 very comfort tasting, enhanced with a touch of bacon. The dessert is Fluffernutter– Smoked almond & roasted peanut butter, marshmallow fluff and bananas on grilled brioche with dark chocolate ganache $10. So so, taste no different from smearing peanut butter and Hershey’s chocolate syrup on toast.

They have free birthday ice cream cakes for the birthday girl in our table, and the happy hour seems like a great deal. I love the humor and friendly vibe of the place. Though the walk back to our parking lot at midnight was err…”eventful” (with fireman trying to break down some door few doors down, cops handcuffing a homeless guy…).

The Must (213) 627-1162
118 W 5th St. Los Angeles, CA 90013-1418

Tags: hip, Wine, Winebar

August 11, 2009 3

Khyber Pass (Montreal: Plateau)

//// By Joan in 00: Canada

Ok finally down to the last entry of our Montreal report. On our last night at Montreal, we wanted something completely different: Afghanistan food at Khyber Pass. I know Montreal isn’t known for Ethnic cuisine, but my friend strongly recommended the lamb at this place. The restaurant got a catchy facade. It’s BYOB so we went to the wine shop down the block and got a bottle of red and a bottle of white.

Freda and I shared the Table d’hôte #1 which includes a soup or salad, a choice of the appetizer, choice of main course, dessert and tea or coffee.

For appetizer, we got the Mantoo – small steamed pastas stuffed with ground beef and chopped onions, served with garlic yogurt and ground beef and tomato sauce. It’s tasty. Thin pasta skin stuffed with ground beef is basically kind of like Asian dumplings.

For main course we chose the Lamb Kabab with 3 different basmati rice and salad.
The Lamb was incredible! Tender and flavorful. The portion was well enough for the two of us. The rice was really good too.

My friend got the Sabzi Chalaw: Spinach with lamb served with 3 different basmati rice

Another friend got Kabuli Palaw: Chicken served with brown rice flavoured with Afgahan Spices, raisins and sliced carrots. I love this very much. It’s both savory and sweet with each bite. The chicken was good too. Another friend got Kafta Chalaw – Beef meat balls cooked in tomato sauce which I forgot to take pix of.

Our dessert that came with the set was Rose pudding with pistachio sprinkles. I’m not a fan of rose flavor in general. It does clean our post-meat palette well though.

Back to LA restaurants from next entry on!

Khyber Pass
506 avenue Duluth Est, Montréal, QC H2L 1A7, Canada
(514) 849-1775

Tags: Lamb, Middle Eastern

August 11, 2009 3

Cluny Artbar (Montreal: old port)

//// By Joan in 00: Canada

cluny artbar

Sorry we’re behind in blogging, gotta wrap up the Montreal entries first. On our last day of Montreal, my friend took us to all the touristy places we missed so we’re back at old town Montreal. She took us to this restaurant/gallery/bar called Cluny Artbar that’s nearby where she used to work at the old port area. It’s inside a converted old industrial building and is super hip. I love the interior a lot, extremely high ceilings, giant window panels, concrete walls and floors…etc. It’s nice that they kept some of walls and ceiling as they were.

Cluny operates like a cafeteria, we line up with trays and got food from the counter. I got a vegetable plates since I was craving vegetables.

Freda got a chicken sandwich. It was so-so.

Very good chocolate mousse and bread pudding.

A cool place to grab a quick meal at the old town part of town that’s near the water. Be sure to take a stroll by the water afterward!

Cluny Artbar
257 rue Prince, Montréal, QC H3C 2N4, Canada

Tags: hip

July 30, 2009 7

Au pied du cochon (Montreal: Plateau)

//// By Joan in 00: Canada

Ever since I saw the Montreal episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No reservation I wanted to try this place. Au pie du cochon is a well-known Quebecois restaurants that’s known for heart attack-inducing dishes. Prior going, my friends warned us that we should make sure our stomachs are empty and that we should share the dishes. This is the kind of place where they have 8 different foie gras dishes on the menu and foie gras were used as ingredients many other dishes.

Five of us ordered one appetizer, three main courses and one side.

We started off with a Cochonnailles Platter. The cold cut platter: sausages, Tongue and pates. I like the tongue a lot.

PDC’s Melting Pot
It’s a “melting pot” of several of their meat dishes. There’s blood sausages, sausages, foie gra, Pork, Mashed potatoes, cheese, onion and mushroom. A very hearty dish but not too rich or heavy. The blood sausages were excellent. It was our favorite of the night.

Duck in a Can. Too rich and too fat! The picture speaks for itself!
We ordered this because of the name. The waitress brought over a can and a plate with bread on it. She opened then can and then poured the content out onto the bread in one fluid motion. We were awed by the whole thing, and then more awed by how rich the dish was. It had very fatty duck (which I found a bit overcooked) with foie gras and lots of lots of grease. The sauce was tasty though.

Plogue à Champlain – buckwheat pancake with potatoes, bacon, foie gras, cheese and maple syrup.
Yes Foie gras with Bacon, cheese and maple syrup….definitely a heart attack combination. An interesting dish, multiple flavors. Though I could only had few bites of this. I’m glad we didn’t also get the foie gras burger or the foie gras poutine!

Everyone had to get coffee or tea by the end the meal and we had no stomach for dessert unfortunately. My friend got the Brazilian coffee which had amaretto in it. Tasty!

It’s a satisfying and filling meal. I don’t eat rich and heavy food like this often, but I can see it being really satisfying during the bitter cold winter in Montreal. We took a long long walk on our way home. Interestingly, everyone had some sort of nightmare or weird dream that night in our sleep.

Au pie du cochon
536 rue Duluth est, Montréal (Québec) H2L 1A9

Tags: Duck, Foie Gras

July 30, 2009 2

Byblos Le Petit Café (Montreal: Northern Plateau)

//// By Joan in 00: Canada

Our friend took us to this Persian place Byblos at her neighbourhood for brunch. It’s a cute place at a cute residential neighbourhood. I love how people in Montreal appreciate the summer a great deal that they would open all their window panels and let in fresh air.

All of us got the same thing: sweet bread, jam, omelette with choices of feta, tomatoes, oriental, dates. We each tried a different flavor for the omelette.

There were also 6 different choices of Jam to choose, we got pistachios, grapefruit and rose. I like the pistachio one the best. The sweet bread were really good, I wish there were more of them instead of the pita bread.

I got the Omelette with Feta cheese. The “omelette” is more like a scramble egg. The feta cheese were mixed in with the egg so it didn’t taste like egg. It’s quite tasty and easily the best out of the three.

Vero abd Freda got the Oriental omeltte and Date omelette. Oriental is basically rose water and cinnamon. Both taste sweet. In fact the date omelette taste almost like brown sugar oatmeal. Although tasty at first, the sweetness get tiring after awhile.

We ended our meal with mint tea. It made us feel good after eating all the eggs and sweetness.

Since I’m not familiar with Persian food, I cannot tell if this is authentic at all. The cliente all seems to be non-Persians and the neighourhood is predominantly white so I figured this place is probably not so authentic. From my not-so-insightful observation of Montreal in 4 days, the most prominent ethnic food in Montreal is definitely Japanese. There are sushi place EVERYWHERE, in fact I felt like I saw more sushi restaurants than Montreal-french place. There were quite a number of Vietnamese places too.

Byblos Le Petit Café
1499 Laurier Est, Montréal, Québec
(514) 523-9396

Tags: Breakfast, Middle Eastern, Persian

The Must Bar (Downtown)

Khyber Pass (Montreal: Plateau)

Cluny Artbar (Montreal: old port)

Au pied du cochon (Montreal: Plateau)

Byblos Le Petit Café (Montreal: Northern Plateau)

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