Oyster Shmoyster in Toronto

I can't write a post about lobster and then forget to tell you about Rodney's Oyster House in Toronto. It's been well over two years since I was there, but the memory lingers on. I do love my oysters...

Rodney's is a paradise designed especially for me and my bottomless gullet.

You walk in through a sober enough entrance: it's candle lit, with mariner's memorabilia all over the place, a huge tub of live crab and lobster on display and a gentleman's club-style horse-shoe bar where you sit and drink stout, or champagne, and in front of you are racks upon racks of crates filled with oysters from all over Canada and America; nova scotia tumthamps, british columbia flat oysters and prince edward island rock oysters. Point at the ones you want, and the number you want and the staff will prepare an ice platter for you, with lemon, fresh grated horseradish, seaweed salad and shallot vinegar and serve it up at the bar. They also do clam chowder, roast scallops on soda bread, pickled swedish herring on rye bread, and spicy vongole soup. To die for.... We had 12 oysters, and the herring and some prosecco and it came to about £23, and sat in the 26 degree evening sun (!!!) watching Torontonians go by...

Rodney's Oyster House
469 King Street West.
Toronto

Get Ready for LobsterFest at Belgo!

Lobster, that fine fellow of a crustacean! Delicious served simply with melted butter, delicious cold with homemade mayonnaise, delicious full-stop... June sees the arrival of LobsterFest at Belgian moules-frites-bières chain Belgo and the Itinerant Epicure is signing up for the feast.

The preview menu is here:

STARTERS:

Lobster Bisque

£4.95

A rich lobster and brandy bisque served with cream and chives

Lobster Thermidor

£8.75

Half a Canadian 1lb lobster, grilled with a light cheese, mustard

and Orval beer sauce

Red Thai Lobster

£8.75

Half a Canadian 1lb Lobster baked with a lightly spiced and nutty red

Thai curry sauce

MAIN COURSES:

Grilled Whole Lobster

£16.95

A whole Canadian 1lb lobster, halved and grilled with garlic and Pernod

butter. Served with frites and salad

Surf & Turf

£16.95

Half a Canadian 1lb lobster, grilled with garlic and Pernod butter and

served with a 6 oz* ribeye steak, frites and salad

Whole Surf & Turf

£23.95

Whole a Canadian 1lb lobster, grilled with garlic and Pernod butter and

served with a 6 oz* ribeye steak, frites and salad

Lobster Salad

£16.95

A whole lobster salad with crisp spring onions, green beans and carrots

tossed in a light port and lemon dressing

This week Beau eats... Moules Marinières!

WOOF WOOF!

Ah, ladies and gentledogs! This week I bring you a classic favourite of mine which reminds me of my youth, holidays beachcombing in Brittany, hoovering crèpes and cider in cosy kennels up and down the Normandy coast. Moules are also an inevitable element in any trip to Brussels (some might argue the BEST reason for going to Belgium, beers aside...). Frites are a great accompaniment, as is good, fresh piping hot baguette or pungeant soda bread to dip in the sauce.
The best "Moules" I ever had were served to me on my last night in Dublin, after losing all my money and spending a night sleeping at Dublin airport. My friends and I scraped together the last remaining coins we had and headed back into the centre looking for a celebratory last meal and pint. The pub name escapes me, but it was near the Temple Bar, in the first year of the euro, before Dublin went hyper-crazy. The wiater brought us a steaming bucket of mussels, in white wine, garlic and fresh parsley with a chewy sourdough soda bread hunk and three creamy pints of the black stuff. With diddly-diddly music, the combined love of 35 drunken tourists and the warmth of the pub log fire, we nearly died and went to Moules heaven.

Here is the simplest recipe, for fool-proof Moules Marinières:

CLEAN YOUR MUSSELS (even better, buy them cleaned, or get the fishmonger to do it for you!)
-pull off the beard-like hairs sticking out from the mussels, and scrub them with a nail brush under running water.

Ingredients:

2 kg of fresh mussels
one fat clove of garlic
two shallots, chopped finely

2 large glasses of dry white wine
a big bunch of flat leaf parsely
freshly ground black pepper
large knob of salted butter

optional (but absolutely unnecessary): large dollop of crème fraiche or double cream

Method:

Heat the knob of butter in a large casserole ( we have a Le Creuset, only the best for hip dogs like me!).

When the butter starts to foam gently, throw in the garlic and shallots and the glass of white wine. Cook until the shallots soften and become translucent. Bring the whole lot to the boil and toss in the mussels, mix around to coat the mussels in all the juice. Cover and steam for 2-3 minutes, until the mussels open up. If any mussels haven't opened, throw them out, DO NOT force them open or eat them!!!

Strain the liquid and set aside, put the mussels into a serving dish.

Return the liquid to the pan, heat again and add the fresh parsley and if you really want, a dollop of double cream (mucho fatty and seafood snob dogs will look down upon you...)

Pour the liquid back over the mussels and bring to the table!

Serve with great bread or crispy, golden frites!

CHOW DOWN DOGGIES!

Spaghetti con le vongole - Spagghetti with clams

(photo courtesy of http://labellacook.blogspot.com)

Put your fresh clams in a large bowl or sinkful of cold, salted water and leave them for an hour to purge them of any sand or grit. Pull the clams out of the water, do not drain in a colander. Scrub clams free of any other dirt, barnacles etc. 

Spaghetti con le vongole - in bianco 

Put some salted water in a deep pan on to boil and in it cook some linguine or spaghetti until al dente.

 In the meantime crush a couple of cloves of garlic with the flat blade of a knife and drop into some olive oil to fry until they turn golden brown. Remove from the oil and discard. Add the clams and cook for 2-3 minutes on a high flame until they have all opened. At this point, remove half of the clams from their shells and discard the shells. Save the rest of the clams, with their shells on, for decoration and put them aside. Put the shelled clams in the garlicky oil. Chop some fresh parsley and add it to the clams along with a pinch of salt and some crushed chilli pepper (depending on your tastes). Add your drained linguine to the pan with the clams and stir it around to coat the spaghetti in the flavoursome oil, parsley and clams. Serve on a plate and top with the clams you set aside that still have their shells on.

Eat accompanied by a crisp, chilled, white Falanghina wine. 

in rosso...

A variant of this is with tomatoes. I personally like to simply chop some juicy small cherry tomatoes, pachino for example, and cook them in the olive oil before adding the clams, smashing them once soft with a spoon.