ETHICAL GOURMET / Remind me to Tell You About the Time I Looked in the Heart of an Artichoke

Double Happiness — Authentic Chinese Food in London, Ontario Please send me a list of your contenders for the best Chinese take-out in London. ethicalgourmet@yahoo.com Double Happiness Redux A distinction should be made between regionally-inspired Chinese restaurants and the ubiquitous Canadian-Chinese immigrant-owned diners that are still the norm across Canada. Canadian-Chinese cooking grounded in Chinese tradition, quickly adapted to the food and taste preferences of whatever locale Chinese immigrants established for themselves. The improvised dishes they created, like chop suey, have been dismissed as “not Chinese” by experts of the culture. In relatively recent times, when Canada’s explicitly discriminatory race-based barriers on Chinese immigration grew less stringent, restaurants serving more authentic Chinese cuisine started to replace the hybrid Canadian-Chinese restaurants, especially in larger cities. These restaurants crossed regional borders, fusing Cantonese

A BRIEF GUIDE TO INNOVATIONS IN LOCAL BAKING By BRYAN LAVERY Artisanal food is locally-sourced, hand-crafted and produced in small batches and, more than likely, in a traditional manner. It’s anything from cheeses, preserves, honey, olive oil, maple syrup, cider, charcuterie and more. There continues to been a lot of talk about the artisanal food renaissance — think small-batch baking, home-made condiments or bean-to-bar chocolate. In the same manner, now hand-crafted bread is getting its well-deserved renaissance. London and Stratford are no stranger to top-notch baking and great pastry-specialty establishments like Covent Garden Market’s Petit Paris Creperie owned by Nicole Arroyas and partner Nathan Russell. The city is home to a number of exceptionally talented pastry chefs, bakers and artisanal bread makers, such as Michelle Lenhardt of the River Room, Rhino Lounge  and North Moore Catering , and Sharon Hachey-Landry of Village Harvest Bakery in Wortley V

Break Out The Blinis and Caviar. Bacon-Flavoured Chocolate is Out. Roasted Cauliflower is in and Kale is Out. What’s Trending in 2014. BY BRYAN LAVERY Bacon-flavoured chocolate is out. Roasted cauliflower is in and kale is out. And, if that is not enough, those who sold their souls for a bit of transitory fame by using foams, liquid nitrogen, carbon dioxide and emulsifiers are also on their way out. Unless of course, you are a serious molecular gastronomist, Nordic, culinary modernist, or have a death wish. There has been no spotlight shone on the diversity of Russian cuisine in the mainstream press. The iconic caviar topped pancakes called blinis should be having resurgence in popularity. It is a perfect a union as eggs and bacon. (Sustainable caviar that is.) Chimichurri, poultry, variations on eggs benedict, regional Italian cuisine and anything remotely barbecue are still in; ramen noodles, pickles (can pickle juice really stop muscle cramps?) and the Southeast Asian

From Noodles to Spring Rolls and Where the Pho is a Sure Thing in London, Ontario Vietnamese Restaurants     Tamarine by Quynh Nhi B y BRYAN LAVERY The genius of Vietnamese cooking lies in the adaptation of foreign influences to develop a distinctly unique and subtle cuisine with contrasting flavours and textures. Sour flavours are balanced by salty ones, and sweet notes are tempered by heat from chilies and ground pepper. There is a dependence on rice; noodles figure prominently, a profusion of fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables with a minimal use of oil. As in China and East Asia, the Vietnamese serve their rice in bowls with chopsticks. Meat is an accompaniment rather than a central offering. The Vietnamese custom of wrapping fresh rolls and spring rolls in lettuce leaves and fresh herbs are a remnant of the original cultures that occurred before centuries of Chinese influence. The wide-ranging tastes found in Vietnamese cuisine are credited to the influences

LONDON ONTARIO`S RESTAURANT ROUNDUP    Please Go To Our Latest Update   London is acknowledged as a great culinary destination with chefs, restaurants and farmers’ markets dedicated to a developing a regional culinary identity. An increasing number of the city’s gastro- culture are part of the new wave of collaborative chefs and cooks who source ingredients locally and embrace the tenets of sustainability, seasonality and accountability. BEST CHEF – Danijel `` Dacha`` Markovic, Kantina Restaurant: Markovic is an uncompromising artist and culinary innovator. Chef was an early adopter of the modern farm-to-table culinary repertoire. He is not just advancing “eating and sourcing local” and “eating seasonal,” he is vigorously and ingeniously enhancing and developing a new region-specific cuisine in the tiny kitchen at Kantina on Talbot Street. By the age of seven, Markovic’s precocious skills were already developing, from cooking and working with h