Budget-Friendly Bites: Viet Subs!!!

Okay, so first of all, whoever hasn't had a Viet sub yet neeeeeds to have one. I can't believe I only started eating them in 2013! Where the heck have I been? Thank goodness for P!

For a really good Vietnamese submarine sandwich or "banh mi" for a pretty darn good price, people should check out Nhon Hoa 2 (10622-97 Street) in Chinatown, just next door to the Italian Bakery on 97 Street. Seriously. Like most places in Chinatown, it looks quite shady and small, and without prompting, one might not venture inside. Even inside, the place is rather modest.

I didn't actually know the name of this place until I took a look this time, (i.e. visit #4).

Even inside, the place is pretty modest as with most Chinatown business tenants. But things are kept quite clean, and food is always prepared and handled with gloves.  

They also sell various other Vietnamese foods, drinks, and desserts, which you could try as well :) I have at one time tried their salad rolls which are quite nice. I'm curious to one day try the sticky dessert rice just because I love me some sticky rice! 

Like in Subway, you have a choice of fixings to add to your sandwich. The best move is just to get everything - cucumbers, chili peppers, pickled carrots, and cilantro. For one, I don't like pickled carrots, but the whole thing put together in the Viet sub is perfect harmony. You also have the option of adding (or not adding) liver pate, which to me, doesn't really matter as the taste is quite faint. 

P and I headed to the Legislature grounds to have a picnic. As you can see, his modelling career has certainly flourished, for he now features his lower abdomen, his knees, and a smidge of foot. Oh how far he has come...

The sandwich pictured is Vietnamese Submarine Combination #3. It has the special combination of Vietnamese deli meats on a toasted and buttered baguette with all your fixings. All for a swell price of only $3.75 (including tax)! There are quite a few sandwiches you can get for about that price, and I find it more appetizing and surprisingly filling than a footlong that isn't always $5 at Subway. 

Am I trying to coax you into the land of Asian sandwiches? Yes. Yes, I am.

Doooo it.

-M

B-b-b-baking: Summertime Strawberries

I know I haven't been posting a lot lately, but I actually have a few incomplete entries that I'm working on...I'll have them up as soon as I can!

For now, to start off my summer baking spree, I've decided to go with something simple. I have a monthly meeting to go to tomorrow, and I always bake something for them, because well, it gives me an excuse to bake! My parents have a habit of buying large boxes of fruit in the summer because they're in season. But...they tend to go to waste unless I eat most of them, but then I feel bad for eating so many. Today, I noticed a lovely box of strawberries. Strawberries are great by themselves, on top of things, inside things, and infused in things... I love strawberries.

Things I have learned today about custard tarts:
- They are ridiculously simple to make.
- Like food in general, they taste best when eaten fresh, so preparing components ahead of time is a good idea. That way, assembly can be done in a snap :)
- I am still not clear on the distinction between pudding and custard. I always thought that pudding was the stuff that you can buy in Jello cups, but then the Japanese call creme caramel a "custard pudding", and then you have phenomena like Yorkshire pudding and bread pudding. Seriously, what the heck?
- Custard can be made using any kind of milk - heavy cream, whole milk, milk, soy milk, almond milk...yay for dairy-free custards! It is so unfortunate that full fat dairy products always taste better.
- Custard tarts work for any kind of fruit! Any kind of berry would be my go-to for summery baked goods ;)
- Even better with whipped cream...probably?

Inspired by a new favourite food blog of mine, "Hungry at Midnight" (that is so me), strawberry custard tarts seemed like a good direction to go in. I used some of my leftover puff pastry in the freezer instead of her crust recipe, so it turned out a bit differently, but in my opinion quite nicely. There was a little bit of salt in the crust, a hint of sweetness in the custard, and tartness in the strawberries, so everything was well-complimented!

I really liked the colour contrast of the red in the strawberries and the pale blue in the cupcake liners. I had to use pink ones for the remaining 6 because I ran out, but oh well.

Each tart was "uniquely shaped" because I did them all by hand and I'm an amateur. I think they looked presentable enough though...

Strawberry Custard Tarts (adapted from Hungry at Midnight)
*Makes 18 tarts*

4-5 fresh strawberries
Frozen puff pastry/a recipe of puff pastry (enough to make a standard sized pie top and bottom crust)
1 tsp pure honey

Custard
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp cornstarch
A pinch of salt

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Line 1 1/2 muffin tins with cupcake liners.
2. Roll and divide your pie dough to make 18 tart shells and place them in the cupcake liners. (I found that by using my circle cookie cutter to cut 2 circles and overlapping them made a good sized tart shell to fit into the cupcake liners.)
3. Bake the tart shells in the oven for about 20 minutes. Once finished baking, remove the muffin tin from the oven and set aside to cool.
4. While the tart shells are baking, assemble your custard. Add the sugar, eggs, vanilla, cornstarch, salt, and half of the milk into a medium sized bowl. Whisk until smooth.
5. Over medium heat, add the rest of the milk into a medium saucepan, and scald the milk (heat to just under boiling). Remove from heat, and whisk into the rest of the custard mixture.
6. Return the entire mixture into the saucepan over medium heat, and stir once in a while until the mixture has thickened. (I would suggest using a wooden spoon rather than a whisk at this point or you might get lumps in your custard.) Remove from heat and set aside.
7. Wash and core the strawberries, and divide them into quarters.
8. Once relatively cool, spoon some custard into each of the tart shells, and top each of them with a slice of strawberry.
9. Brush the surfaces of the strawberries with a little dab of honey. (This is in case the strawberries are a bit tart, and so that the sweetness isn't too overpowering.)
10. Enjoy! (And eat the extra pieces of strawberry.)

I actually made these for a board meeting I was attending the next day. These tarts are really simple and easy to make, but they look nice! Great for those days when you want to seem impressive, but really, you're just lazy :D

-M

Love for the Locals: Leva Bar

Leva Bar is one of my favourite small establishments in Edmonton. While it appears to be more like a cafe, Leva offers a full dinner menu and gelato shop. The nice thing is that it's open late until 11pm Sunday through Wednesday, in case you're in the mood for something that isn't fast food or bar food at night :)

I very much like the interior of the place. The space encourages the use of mostly natural light so that it is very bright during the day time, while they use candles to subtly light the tables during the evenings...(I could have sworn I took pictures of the restaurant layout itself, but I have yet to find them. Since I plan to go back to Leva at some point this summer, I will definitely add photos to this post!)

P and I actually had one of our first dates at Leva which consisted of tea and gelato in the morning! We opted for strawberry and pistachio :) Mmm... and a nice cup of Earl Grey to go with it... Thanks to the endorsement of my blog, P has become an aspiring hand model.

We have since been back for what P calls a "pre-dinner" date. I'm pretty convinced that tiramisu before dinner is going to be the next big thing, because it is down right fantastic for my tastebuds. The cakes at Leva are actually quiet light and not too sweet, which pairs quite nicely with a cup of tea. The tiramisu was light, creamy, and oh so yummy with strawberries in it. Oh, how I love my strawberries.

More recently, we sat in for a nice dinner of salad and pizza. The pizzas are more contemporary with thin crust and sparse toppings of more than just your average pepperoni and such. I very much appreciate that the crust is both crispy on the outside, but tender on the inside, and the cheese is spread to nearly the edges of the pizza.

We started with a salad to share - Pear, Strawberry, and Arugula - essentially what it is. Complete with almond slivers and a vinaigrette dressing. Tasty, although a little pricey for what you get, but you do get pretty much what they say you will get, so fair is fair. *end run-on*

Behold! Leva's Proscuitto Cotto with Rapini and Funghi :) It's one of the only two pizzas with mushroom, and this would be your Pizze Rossi (pizza with tomato sauce) option. I'm curious to try the Pizze Biance (pizza with garlic cream or pesto sauce) but it has potatoes on it?...I have yet to have a pizza with potatoes on it. Gotta add that to my bucket list!

Leva Bar has a very calm atmosphere to it, where it's not necessarily buzzing (while not empty, mind you), and you can have a decent conversation with your date without having to yell at the top of your lungs. I've already told P that I plan to return (with or without him) for more Leva pizza! If you're in the campus area at any time of day between 7 in the morning and 11 at night, you should definitely give it a try!

-M

Love for the Locals: Belgravia Hub

After 5 long and expensive years of post-secondary education, I finally got my fancy piece of paper! Following the ceremony, P took me to Belgravia Hub to celebrate over a nice dinner.

Only less than a month old, Belgravia Hub is located just a 2 minute walk west from the McKernan/Belgravia LRT station. It's a small contemporary fixture with locally created flavours, somewhat on the fine dining end, without the fine dining prices. Although the menu (at least for now) is a bit limited, there is enough diversity in the menu for a lovely dinner. An ideal atmosphere for a nice date with your significant other *wink wink nudge nudge*

P and I arrived around 8:00pm, and the place was still pretty packed! Luckily, we had a reservation. Belgravia Hub is only open for dinner (at least for now?) from 4:30 until 10 or 11 on most days, but is closed on Mondays.

Note: You are going to get a variation in the quality of photos because P took pictures of the food with his fancy shmancy camera, and the others, as usual, were taken with the camera on my Samsung Galaxy SII.

I really love the layout and the colour scheme of the restaurant. It gives it such a lovely ambience with the raindrop shaped lights hanging from the ceiling, and the natural light coming in from the windows.

I know this isn't a great picture, but here is a view of the bar. This was the best I could do as the place is quite small, so the table right next to us was looking at me strangely already. :/ Ah, so is the life of an amateur food blogger.

I found it intriguing how instead of your typical lemon wedge in a glass of water, they placed a thin slice of cucumber in it. Have you ever heard the saying, "as cool as a cucumber"? Well, cucumbers have a similar cooling effect like mint does.  I thought it was clever, and quite refreshing.

For our appetizer, we opted for their Flatbread with Veggie, Pesto, and Goat Cheese, and it was delicious. The crust was tender on the inside, but crispy on the outside. The cheese was only slightly melted, so you could get a good flavour. I found it interesting how they basically placed a salad with a light vinaigrette on top of the flatbread, but it you know what? It worked rather well!

P chose the Blackened chicken with Buttered Leek Mash and Fennel Slaw.  The slaw was quite colourful and interesting. The chicken had a nice slight char on the outside, while tender and not overseasoned on the inside. The mash...well, I'm a sucker for mash. What can I say? I looove me some potatoes! :D

I opted for the Mushroom Risotto with Roasted Mushrooms, Asiago, and Balsamic Glaze. I was a little curious about the balsamic glaze and the rich, creamy cheese, but it worked together amazingly. Before this, I had never eaten a risotto, but now my standards might be a bit high.

With the sun in the right place, P managed to capture this beauty as I was about two thirds of the way through my risotto. Boy, was that yummy...

For dessert, we chose what was called the "Chocolate Pot" consisting of a dark chocolate torte-like pudding topped with whipped cream and strawberries, with an almond biscotti on the side. 

So, if you're interested in a slightly fancy date with your significant other or even with friends, I'd encourage you to try out Belgravia Hub! Quite a nice addition to the area surrounding the University :)

-M