Timbits Time

(Previously on our Great Lakes Road Trip: dinner at Sahara in Maumee.)

We woke up the next morning in Maumee ready for our next (and thankfully shorter) leg of driving to Chicago. A went out to get some Starbucks coffee, and having seen a Tim Hortons nearby, also decided to pick up some breakfast for us.

We've been big fans of Timbits ever since we first tried them in Canada about 7 years ago. They're similar to the Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, but the flavors are slightly different and there are more flavors to choose from. (As an aside, does anyone remember those toasted coconut munchkins DD had once upon a time? I miss those.)

The Timbits we got that morning were a combination of chocolate glazed, honey dip, original glazed, and Funfetti. As a big fan of Funfetti, and sprinkles generally, I was pretty excited to see that A got those. It really just tasted like a donut hole with sprinkles, but sprinkles make everything better. A liked the chocolate ones a lot.

With Timbits in our bellies, we finished packing up and getting ready, and then set out to grab a quick lunch in Maumee before getting back on the interstate. A lot of the Tim Hortons near us at home have closed, so we were glad we had the opportunity to get some Timbits on the road!

Week 50 - Canadian

Back from vacation, back to the 52 week cooking challenge! The theme for Week 50 of the challenge was Canadian. We did an entire unit of Canadian WorldEats (before we changed up our way of doing WorldEats), but I still wasn't sure what to make. After some searching and talking with A, maple-glazed salmon seemed like the perfect choice. Maple syrup is pretty much always associated with Canada, and there's tons of salmon up there. Even better, I found a recipe on a Canadian website and the best available salmon at Trader Joe's the day we went was - yup, you guessed it - from Canada. If maple-glazed Canadian salmon with a recipe from Canadian Living wasn't Canadian enough for this challenge, not sure what would be (other than poutine).

I decided to pair up the salmon with some greens and other vegetables we brought back from our recent Costco run. That seemed like a nice healthy and simple way to ease back into our cooking routine.

The salmon required very few ingredients, just the salmon ($8.44), 1/8 cup of maple syrup ($1.12), 2 tsp of whole grain mustard ($0.05), and 2 tsp of soy sauce ($0.10). The salmon portion of dinner was approximately $9.71 and the vegetable side was no more than a couple of dollars. I would have added some lentils or grains to the meal, but we had earlier indulged in some Shack burgers as a snack (easing out of vacation eating mode ... slowly), so we didn't need any more filling calories.

The salmon was super simple to make. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Add the salmon to a foil-lined baking sheet. Spoon glaze over the fish. Bake for about 12 minutes until flaky and done. I'm not sure if 12 minutes was the right amount of time for our oven and we don't make enough fish to really know what the right time would be, so I guess we'll keep experimenting. The edges were a little overdone and the middle was definitely not, but overall, it was fine and not too overcooked at that amount of time. It didn't come out looking very pink on the outside, but it was on the inside.

The glaze was pretty good. It was a little sweet from the syrup and a little salty from the mustard and the soy sauce, but other than sweet and salty notes, we didn't really taste each individual ingredient very much. I thought it was going to be very sweet like maple syrup, but it was pretty balanced and tasty.

This was a good way to get back to the challenge (and no, I didn't just skip Week 49 - I need to pick up some ingredients for it that I can't get to for a few days). We liked our salmon and power greens dinner.

TJ's Poutine

We're big fans of poutine (see here and here), so when we saw that Trader Joe's had started selling a frozen bag of poutine ($3.99), we knew we had to try it. We didn't think it would top the versions of poutine we previously had, but we hoped it would be good for a side dish or snack. M thought it might be a limited run or that it might sell out quickly, so she picked it up back in December the first time she saw it. It's still around so guess we didn't have to rush. We finally got around to trying it this week.

The poutine bag consists of fries and two pouches - one with the beef gravy and one with the white cheddar curds. You bake the fries in the oven until they're crispy, and thaw the gravy and cheese packages in a pot of hot water. Pretty simple.

Overall we thought this poutine was okay. The flavor of the beef gravy was good, but there wasn't enough of it. The cheese curds were good too, but could have used a bigger package to balance the larger amount of fries. That's one big difference between the poutine we've gotten at restaurants and this one - there is a lot more gravy and cheese in the non-TJ's poutine dishes. Poutine for us is all about the gravy and cheese. This was good, but just not as good as it could have been since there wasn't enough of those two things.

Buy Again? Probably not, since there are other frozen fries/potato side dishes we like more. But we are glad we gave it a shot and think it is definitely worth a try.

Canada

WorldEats Country #1: Canada

Victoria, 2007

For Canada, the first country in our WorldEats challenge, we sampled several different aspects of Canadian cuisine. We went for some Montreal specialties like smoked meat, bagels and poutine at Mile End Sandwich, and we explored the influence of Asian food in Canada (especially Toronto and Vancouver) by ordering up some Japanese hot dogs at Vancouver-import Japadog.

Timbits in Ontario - we now have these in NYC but they are better in Canada, as is the coffee

Canadian cuisine was a bit tougher to explore than we thought it would be. We weren't able to find any sort of "Canadian restaurant" in our research (Tim Horton's does not count for this purpose and we did not go there for WorldEats as we had previously visited TH's on both sides of the border), so we couldn't just "go out for Canadian food." It took a little more work to identify dishes or types of food that we wanted to try and search them out. Since the country is so large and diverse, it's a little like "American cuisine" in that you have to look for specific things (like BBQ, Southern, Tex-Mex, etc). But in the end we're pretty happy with the results. We tried two places that had been on our list to try for some time and the food was really tasty. I'm sure we'll be back to those spots. After all, we've already made repeat visits for the sake of these posts!

I was looking through my pics for Canadian flags, and this one from Victoria has plenty!

As the recaps of our "official" Canadian exploration come to an end, we saw news yesterday that an Ontario burger chain, Big Smoke Burger, is on its way to NYC, bringing with it all sorts of delicious sounding burgers (I'm quite intrigued by the namesake burger as well as the crazy burger) and our favorite poutine. I guess someday it will be easier to find "Canadian cuisine" here in the city. I'm pretty sure we'll be checking it out when they open!

Mile End Sandwich

In our continuing World Eats quest, M and I continued our trek through Canada by visiting Mile End Sandwich to partake in their Canadian smoked meats and that most Canadian gutbomb, poutine. We visited twice so as to try more food options before we wrote this review, but the two constants were the smoked meat sandwich and the poutine. We did, however, learn valuable lessons about eating here during our first visit that we used in our second visit.

In our first visit we ordered the smoked meat sandwich, the Beauty, and an order of poutine.

Smoked Meat Sandwich

The smoked meat sandwich was the main reason we visited and one of their specialties. It's also a representative dish for Montreal's cuisine. Prior to Hurricane Sandy, Mile End had its own kitchen in which they smoked all of their own meat. The kitchen was damaged and flooded pretty badly, and neither of us is sure if it's back up and running. Such as it is, the smoked meat was amazing. I had never had real pastrami (which Montreal-style smoked meat is most similar to) before moving to NYC, and I've done what I can to eat as much salty, smoky meat as I can to make up for that fact.

Mile End's offering is a little saltier than most pastrami that I've had, but it was still extremely delicious. The meat had the right amount of fattiness and grease to give it a rich, soft texture. The mustard added a bit of spice and sourness to balance out the salt. It was a delicious sandwich and one that we were looking forward to trying again.

The Beauty

The Beauty is a Montreal-style bagel stuffed with lox and cream cheese, red onions, tomato, and capers. From what I could tell, Montreal-style bagels are wonderfully soft and chewy while having a nice bite with the crusty, sesame seed covered exterior. The lox, similar to the smoked meat, was a little on the salty side, but M and I are suckers when it comes to lox and cream cheese on a bagel, and we certainly enjoyed this one. The bagel really makes this menu item special.

 Poutine

Poutine is a Canadian delicacy consisting of french fries covered with cheese curds and then smothered in brown gravy. (You may remember our poutine stop in Saint John, but these were better.) It's a heavy side dish that fills you up. The fries are standard thick cut fries, but adding the squeaky cheese curds and brown gravy made this a dish to remember. As delicious as it was, M and I ran into a serious problem. Now, the issue we had isn't that the poutine tasted bad, it was just too much food. The "side order" is probably enough to feed at least 4 people. Sadly there were just two of us, but we somehow still finished the whole meal.

Fatty feast!

After a few months when we finally digested all of the poutine we had ordered, we decided to go back to refresh our memory on some of the food we tried the first time while also trying something new. We repeated the smoked meat sandwich, but this time we were smart and did the "combo meal" option that came with pickles and a single-person serving size of poutine. We also ordered the chicken salad sandwich as our second dish. For this part of the review, I won't go back into a review of the smoked meat because it was really tasty but also the same as the first time.

Chicken Salad Sandwich

The chicken salad sandwich comes with gribenes (chicken cracklins), pickled peppers, and new pickles all on challah bread. The chicken salad itself was very light. It wasn't heavily laden with mayonnaise like most chicken salads you'll find in regular delis, and the vegetables were very fresh. The gribenes added some crunch to the sandwich as well as a little extra salt. M wasn't a huge fan of the cracklins and thought the sandwich would be better without them, but I disagree. I mean, who doesn't like cracklin?

Manageable Poutine Size

The combo meal for the sandwich comes with a MUCH more shareable size of poutine for two people. It was just as tasty as the monster sized variant we first got, and this one came with pickles! I like pickles a lot so this made me happy. I think as a combo, the poutine is still too much for just one person, but it's a good amount for two people.

Mile End was a restaurant we had wanted to try ever since they opened in 2009, and the opening of Mile End Sandwich which was so much closer made it that much easier for us. It was everything we expected it to be and more, and we're definitely looking forward to our next visit.

Japadog

In early 2012, Japadog opened its doors in the East Village, giving everyone an opportunity to try their Japanese-style hot dogs that had become so popular in Vancouver. We were excited to try their hot dogs with savory toppings like Japanese mayo, seaweed, bonito flakes and miso.

Yes, they have ice cream "hot dogs" too!

Although they're Japanese hot dogs, we planned to visit for the Canadian portion of our WorldEats challenge. Japadog started in 2005 as a street cart in Vancouver and steadily grew to multiple street carts and 1 restaurant there. It's not cheap but the hot dogs are loved and famous in Vancouver. Also, since Asian cuisine is a big part of the Vancouver eating scene, for us that made Japadog a perfect stop for our Canadian exploration.

Imported from Vancouver

Since they opened last year, we've been to Japadog twice, most recently in December. It looked like they tweaked the menu between our two visits, adjusting for things that sold well and also newly available ingredients (I think they didn't have kurobuta yet on our first visit). We went the second time because we wanted our memories of the hot dogs to be fresh for our WorldEats post, but here we are in April posting about them. Time to do it before we have to go for a third time!

The menu, last December

The Japadog menu has lots of options and it's difficult to choose between so many things that sound so tasty. On our second visit, we saw this handy flow chart that helps you pick based on how hungry you are and your other preferences.

I really love this flow chart! Everyone should do this...

The hot dog I heard most about before Japadog opened was the terimayo. On our first visit, we got the classic beef terimayo, but on our second, we opted to try the kurobuta terimayo, advertised as a top seller.

Kurobuta terimayo

The terimayo consists of the hot dog (beef/kurobuta), topped with fried onions (although they seemed more stir-fried than crispy fried), teriyaki sauce, Japanese mayo and seaweed.

Terimayo cross-section

From what we remember, this was good with both the beef and the kurobuta. The combination of onions, seaweed, mayo and teriyaki sauce went well together, so we could see why it had become so popular.

The second dog we got on both trips was the okonomi, which consists of pork sausage (probably not kurobuta on our first trip), fried cabbage, Japanese special sauce and bonito flakes.

Okonomi, March 2012

It looked a little different on our two trips (the dog from our March visit above and the one from December below), but I'm pretty sure they were both the okonomi as we were drawn to the bonito flakes.

Okonomi, December 2012

The kurobuta sausage worked really well here with its richness and saltiness. We love bonito flakes and eating that on top of a hot dog was a lot of fun. Bonito flakes just add so much flavor and made this a really tasty hot dog.

Okonomi cross-section (March)

On our second visit, we opted for a third hot dog instead of fries and picked one from the "heavier" portion of the menu - the croquette dog.

Croquette hot dog

The croquette dog had Arabiki pork sausage, fried cabbage and mashed potato croquettes. That's right, potato croquettes inside a hot dog roll. Starch on top of more starch!  If you don't want potato croquettes, you could always opt for your double starch through the yakisoba dog.

Croquette dog cross-section

This hot dog was heavy. We love potato croquettes and these were good, but it was kind of like having 2 different things - a hot dog and a croquette. Not sure how well those actually went together but they were tasty separately. The cabbage was good because it added some nice crunchy vegetables, which you really need after all these hot dogs!

On our first visit, we opted for a side of fries. They were just regular thin crispy fries (a little dry), but topped with a choice of seasonings. We opted for the shichimi (basically hot pepper/togarashi) and garlic powder, which was tasty, but in the end they were just fries, so we didn't get them again. You could also get sauces on the side like ketchup and wasabi mayo.

Togarashi fries

Japadog isn't the only Asian hot dog place in New York (there's also Asiadog) and isn't the only creative hot dog place in the East Village (can't forget Crif Dogs!), so it faces a lot of competition. But the Canadian import is a nice place to stop if you're looking for a Japanese hot dog snack!

Japadog is located at 30 St. Marks Place (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues) in the East Village.

Canada, Eh?

Canada, our neighbors to the north. The planned first stop for our WorldEats challenge (which we have still not yet begun). Our cruise destination back in August. The next stop on our food and wine festival journey.

Canada kiosk on Monday. Add lines in both directions and at least fifty people and that was what it was like on Saturday.
We had heard a lot about Canada's kiosk before we got to the festival. People love Canada. Here's their menu:


And here's what we tried:

Maple and moosehead beer-glazed salmon with barley salad ($4.50):


We usually prefer our salmon on the medium rare side in a dish like this, but this salmon was well done and not very juicy. The barley salad included vegetables. The sauce was a bit too sweet, but the barley had a nice bite to it. Overall A thought that it wasn't that great of a dish. M thought the dish was OK but didn't need to have it again.

Chicken chipotle sausage with sweet corn polenta ($4):


We had heard about this dish before going to the festival. M really wanted to like this because she loves chicken sausages and polenta, but found this to be really salty. With all the good reviews, she wondered if she was missing something and wanted to try it again if we had the chance (but we never did). A thought this dish was amazing. The sausage and polenta together were a little salty, but the caramelized onions sweetened and tempered the saltiness of the dish and finished it off beautifully.

Canadian cheddar cheese soup ($3.75):


We had also heard about the soup before going to Epcot, as it is one of the highlights of the festival and also served at the popular Le Cellier restaurant. The soup definitely lived up to its hype. It was rich and decadent, full of cheddar cheese, bacon and beer, but so tasty.

Favorite dishes at the Canada kiosk:
A: Cheese soup
M: Cheese soup