The Flying Tiger (January 6, 2008)

http://www.theflyingtiger.ca/

Two reviewers: ts and csc; [no review by js]

[ts]
The table was really small/narrow. Why am I mentioning this? Perhaps it will become clear later.

The server made a point of explaining that they had a "tapas" concept (again, very overdone and inaccurate, this "tapas" label); that is, that we were supposed to share the dishes among ourselves. OK, that's good and fine.

We chose 3 "smaller" plates and 3 "larger" plates.

Oh, the menu is on their website.

"SMALL"

Onion Bhadji
Crispy chick pea-coated onion fritters, cumin & coriander, tamarind & mint yogurt

[ts]
This came first. We were really happy with this. Normally, I don't like the "usual" batter that onion rings come in. But this (different/chickpea batter) was very nice. The dip was really good. The blend of flavors was just right. (Maybe a minor complaint, there was a touch to much salt in some parts of each ring.)

We were finished with this dish completely, but the second dish took a while to arrive.

Roti Canai
Malaysian fry bread, Malaysian yellow curry

[ts]
I don't actually know what the "bread" part of this is supposed to be like, so whatever came out was perfectly fine with me. The curry sauce to dip into was TOO sweet, though! Yeah, we ended up not really using that. I just dipped this bread in the chutney/yogurt dip from the onion rings.

Again, we finished this and had to wait a while before the next arrived.

Crispy Thai Squid
Crispy panko-crusted squid, fresh lime, sambal badjak, cilantro

[ts]
The panko didn't work for me. Each squid piece seemed too bulky as a result. I guess the dip in this case was made w/ the sambal badjak? Or, they made this sambal badjak to act as a dip. In any case, it was TOO salty! It would've been nice, too, since I like the combo of lime-fish-sauce-chilis, etc. But yeah, this was "OK", I guess, but not as successful as the onion rings, or even the roti.

Once again, I used the chutney from the onion rings as my dip for this one. That was the only one that had a nice balance of flavors.

"LARGE"

Vietnamese 'Nuoc Cham' Sablefish
Pan-seared smoked BC sablefish, green papaya salad, mushrooom & ginger-wontons

[ts]
I'm not too fond of smoked sablefish. I'm not sure if the nuoc cham can compete with its inherent smoked flavor, in this case. (That is, I couldn't really taste the nuoc cham; I just tasted smoked sablefish.) CSC liked the mushroom-ginger wontons. They were fried. I actually didn't remember what the filling was. I liked the green papaya salad, but it was a tiny bit salty.

Again, we were COMPLETELY finished with this dish and had to wait a while before the next dish came.

Pulled Duck Confit Crepes
Duck confit, Philipine lime, charred scallion, jicama & cucumber salad, Vietnamese coriander, mint, basil, sesame oil pancakes

[ts]
The "pancake" was basically similar to those wrappers for Peking duck. The duck confit did taste of Philippine lime (calamansi), but the whole mixture was SOOO sweet. Therefore, one couldn't put too much filling when assembling each bundle lest the sweetness of the filling overpower everything else.

I don't recall the jicama & cucumber salad being dressed any which way, they were just their cool, refreshing selves. The herbs were cilantro, mint, basil and 2 Vietnamese herbs, which I think were RAO RAM and RAO OM. (Basically the guy who brought it over mentioned 2 "rao" herbs, so I think those are it.)

(Oh, the rao ram and rao om: I don't know how to describe their flavor! Different. I can definitely say that I've NEVER tasted them before!)

For the amount of the duck confit filling (and how SWEET it was), there was TOO little of the jicama-cucumber salad, too little of the herbs and DEFINITELY too few "pancakes"! I think there were only 4, maybe 6. CSC was incredulous: "How is it even possible that you can use up that amount of filling using only those 4 (or 6) pancakes?!"

So we couldn't finish the duck confit filling and had it wrapped to go (thinking we can have it with rice or something). We just wanted the filling to-go, but the girl upsold us by repeating twice that we probably wanted an extra order of crepes to-go! (We mentioned "No" the first time, I believe.)

Again, we had this packed up and waited quite a while for the next dish to arrive! We even forgot that we had something else because it was taking a while.

Which brings me to the whole "tapas" thing: if it were tapas, shouldn't we have at least 2 dishes out at the same time so we can share them among ourselves? I don't get the dishes coming out one-by-one like that, and slowly too. One reason I thought of was it was perhaps because the table was SOOO small! I guess only 1 plate can fit in comfortably. But still! Weird.

Grilled Korean Kalbi Ribs
48-hour marinated beef short ribs, Korean gochujang chili, cucumber, and sui-choy kimchee

[ts]
The cucumber kimchee and sui-choy kimchee were "OK"; not as good as "real" kimchee, I guess. (Or at least, kimchee I've eaten in Korean restaurants, or even Chinese restaurants, haha.) I guess they weren't as flavorful and were the tiniest bit bland.

The kalbi was quite disappointing. It was really, really tender (which was very good), but it was TOO salty! Yeah, that can't really be remedied.


[ts]
So yeah, all in all, they seemed to have a hard time finding a balance of flavors in their dishes. It was too sweet or too salty. I don't know if it was because they had their "B Team" in the kitchen (seeing as it was a Sunday night, presumably not a busy night). I wonder if the food will be better on a Friday or Saturday night?

[csc]
Overall, this restaurant to me was a disappointment, even with my already “lowered” expectations, (ie, ts said that their “Homba” may NOT be exactly like the ones that I’m used to from our house or other restaurants, etc).

[ts]
I wanted to like this. I may even go back again to try the other dishes: the "Adobo" Chicken Wings -- just because adobo is such a staple dish that I'm interested to see what they're going to do with it -- or the "Humba" Braised Pork Belly, again to see how they take the familiar and make it their own.

Otherwise, I think I can get good Indian food or Chinese food or Thai food or Japanese food at their respective restaurants.

[csc]
The only thing that I thought was good was the onion rings and the truth is, I really don’t go for onion rings, but the dip here was pretty tasty so that was good.

The rest was just one disappointment after another. Either too sweet or too salty or just not right. Usually, the first bite is ok, but then you get the saltiness or the too sweet flavors lingering… just didn’t like the dishes.

So I don’t think I’ll even go back to try the other ones.

(Of course again, I am pregnant, so this might be my “Aurora” this time round, but I think ts and js agree with me this time).

[ts]
I wanted to like this, but there were too many inconsistencies in the food.

I guess a rating of 6-ish/10 in that I like these Asian flavors, but really, more like a 5/10 because of the seasoning mistakes.

(This and Marrakech are about the same.)

Le Marrakech (January 4, 2008)

Just me, ts; [no review by js]

[ts]
I actually made reservations to this restaurant in November. When we arrived, the place seemed to be closed. They had the sign there and everything, but no lights and a locked door. We also saw Cobre across the street and looked, but they also seemed closed. So I thought that perhaps they were closed because of Remembrance Day, but failed to indicate on their computerized reservation system.

Fast forward to January 4. We discovered that they also had an entrance on the NEXT street. Now I doubt myself. Could they have been opened that other time?! But why would they have a restaurant sign at the back if people can't go in through the back door? A mystery. I just hope I wasn't the idiot the last time. ;D

Anyway, their menu is here: http://www.diningoutguide.com/Menus/LeMarrakech_Dinner.pdf

I'll just note down the actual items we ordered.


First of all, I take SERIOUS OBJECTION to the seating!

Basically, the concept is that they have lower tables and, of course, lower chairs. But, our table was against the wall and there was a banquette OF NORMAL HEIGHT against the wall. Meaning, when I sat there, the table only came up to me knees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG -- SOOOOO UNCOMFORTABLE!!!! Imagine eating like that!

Anyway, other notes re ambience: yeah, not bad. There was a belly dancer a little later during the dinner. But, as you know, it's all about the food.

STARTERS
Les Salades De Fez
Zaalouk, oven roasted eggplant+ 3 others (the menu above is not the latest version, I don't think)

I must say, the menu above is not very accurate at all. Maybe except for the eggplant one?

There were 4 little dishes of salad. I think the pricing is a little off on this.

I liked the eggplant dish. Basically it was mashed up. I don't know what the flavours are exactly (you know, being all "exotic" and all), but it was nice. I ate that one, mostly.

Carrot salad: It was OK, didn't particularly care for it.
Celeriac: It was OK, didn't particularly care for it.
The both of them were very underseasoned.

Then there was some sort of radish with some sort of FLOWER flavor. YUCK!

That ROSE TEA incident just came flooding back. I couldn't force myself to eat any of it after the first bite. I don't know if it was rose or something else. My sister said that perhaps it was hibiscus or something, but I don't know. Basically it was VERY flowery. Again, it was like eating potpourri!

Bastilla B’Diala
Marinated then dry aged oxtail, braised with Moroccan spices and dried fruits. Servedon saffron brique pastry

This was pretty good. I mean, it tasted beefy and had nice flavors, etc. I was just disappointed at the "pastry". Basically instead of a bastilla where the filling is inside phyllo, they just had the "pastry" (which was basically a very thin sheet of something similar to phyllo) alternately layered with the filling to make a tower. It was a little hard to eat. That is, just cutting through won't get you a taste of both filling and pastry as they just come apart. So, it was "pretty good," but nothing special.

Bread & Cured Butter
The bread tasted familiar, but it was just bread. Average. It was warmed, though, always a plus. The cured butter was just salty.

MAINS
Tagine Djaj M’Hammer
Oven roated Cornish hen, house preserved lemons and olives

Not bad/pretty good. I'll leave js to describe it more.

Le Magret De Marrakech
Pan seared duck breast, apricots and pistachios, carrots harrissa sauce

This was pretty good as well. l liked this better than the chicken (or cornish hen, pardon me), but that's just personal preference. The duck had some spices crusted on it. I think there was also some other sauce aside from the carrot harrissa sauce... something FLOWER-y! I avoided it.

We were given some condiments: toasted cumin seeds and salt, and harrissa. The harrissa was good and spicy! It was actually good on the bread.


All in all, it was a decent meal, but more or less average. If we were to return, it would be a while.

Rating = 5-6ish/10

New Year's Eve 2007

Disclaimer: Really crazy-horrible pictures. Please bear with us. =)

APPYS

WATERFALL BEEF SALAD
grilled flank with green leaf lettuce and cilantro, mint, Thai basil

So good! But we forgot to put the toasted rice! It wasn't added until about 5 salad tosses later.

SMOKED SALMON PLATTER

w/ dill cream cheese/yogurt cheese, capers, pickled red onions, cucumbers, gherkins, lemon wedges

(Whoa, the picture is so red!)

TABBOULEH

bulgur, parsley, tomatoes, onions, lemon, olive oil

This was too bulgur-y for me; I would've liked it prefer it with more parsley. =)

MAINS

CHINESE BBQ TURKEY (from Hon's)

This tasted like "Savory Chicken" from the Philippines. =) I still would've liked CHICKEN better, though. Teehee.

We served it with CRANBERRY SAUCE (homemade, of course).

GRILLED LEG OF LAMB (rosemary, lemon, garlic)
served w/ TZATZIKI

My tzatziki was so good. Quite a zing with the garlic! (Used it as a dip when the lamb was all gone.)

SOY-PINEAPLE-GUAVA PORK TENDERLOIN

w/ jus & CHIPOTLE-HONEY-GARLIC GLAZE

It looks so dry here, but it wasn't. Glaze not pictured.

SIDES

CELERIAC-APPLE MASH

BRUSSELS SPROUTS W/ BACON

BROWN BUTTER MASHED YAM/SWEET POTATO

ENGLISH "ROAST" POTATOES

The semolina makes all the difference!



ROAST CAULIFLOWER

This picture is so dark! The cauliflower were whiter than this. =)



CREAMED SPINACH & GREEN ONIONS

DESSERTS

MAMA'S PHILIPPINE-STYLE FRUIT SALAD (not pictured)


JASMINE GREEN TEA RICE PUDDING



CROQUEMBOUCHE w/ gelato-filled profiteroles
Still have a lot more caramel sauce to go!


Drizzling the caramel. Didn't get to take a picture once it was all encased in the caramel.