Restaurant: Raja Fine Indian Cuisine

I was up in Stratford today, seeing A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum with the 'rents. It was funny with good performances all around except for the mother. The bar at intermission didn't even have completely outrageous markups, actually relatively competative vis-à-vis certain bars. Their premium wine seemed overpriced though, it was something like $9 for a glass of Jackson-Triggs (I guess "premium" has a different meaning in the theatrical world?) Afterwards we went to Raja, which my boss had recommended to me.

The waiter brought over papadum with chutneys, including an excellent cilantro one. Still smarting over the "potato incident" at Massey's I made sure to push for getting dishes with a lot of potatoes.

We got the Aloo Gobhi, Sag Aloo and the Mixed Vegetable Dupiaza. All with potatoes and all very good. My parents vetoed dal, as they are of the opinion that I eat too many lentils as it is. The only quibble I would have is that I was hoping that the dupiaza, at least, would be a little spicy. But I guess they know their audience and don't want to rock the boat spicewise. I should have asked for it to be hot, which probably wouldn't have worked but at least I'd have known they made the effort. It was a nice place though and apperently they opened up a twin restaurant in London. So I can agitate for that one if people want to go for Indian.

Raja Fine Indian Cuisine
10 George Street W, Stratford, Ontario

Tofu Stir-Fry

I like stir-fry's quite a bit. Traditionally, I adapted a recipe from the Moosewood but this one is from Mark Bittman's book. The adaptation is very loose though, as such the recipe listed below is not intended to be comprehensive, there are so many different vegetables that can be added. So I talk about baby corn, but water chestnuts or bamboo are awesome substitutes (or really any vegetables). That said, I really like all the ingredients listed below. I love the bright green colour that broccoli turns when you cook it and it makes a welcome change from my usual colour schemata.

Tofu Stir-Fry with Broccoli

1 block tofu, cubed

3 large mushrooms, cubed

Oil

1 onion, chopped

1 head of broccoli, floretted

1 can baby corn

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

1 chili, diced

1/4 cup Shaoxing wine

1/3 cup water

2 tablespoon soy sauce

Cook the onion in some oil for a couple of minutes on high and then add the broccoli and the water and cook for about 5 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and add some more oil. Add the tofu and mushrooms and cook for a few minutes until browned. Add the baby corn and the wine and cook until it evaporates. Return the onion/broccoli mixture, add the garlic, the chili and the soy sauce and cook for a few minutes. Serve over rice.

Serves 2

Tragedy struck when preparing this meal. I had lovingly diced the red chili I mentioned below and was about to add it into the frying pan when the fragments jumped off the plastic cutting board and on to the floor. Only a few pieces loyally stayed on board. As a result the stir-fry was underspiced. The bites I had that contained red chili were excellent, the other bites couldn't live up to them.

Housekeeping

During the year I'll probably be updating this blog not as frequently as I did in the summer. I'm considering picking a day of the week and making sure I have an entry on that day but I'm not sure. I'll keep you posted.

My parents drove up to see me (went to Veg Out with them) and provided me with some groceries. I haven't really been able to take advantage of it because there have been lots of free food/meals out in the last week.

On that subject, I went to Massey's Indian Restaurant. Ordered the Alloo Paratha which is supposed to come "with smooth potato stuffing". There was, in fact, no potato stuffing – smooth or otherwise. I was very disappointed.

I was really lazy one night (home late and had had snacks) so I just had a can of chickpeas and chili flakes. Surprisingly tasty.

Finally, I have an awesome looking red chili growing. Isn't it a beaut:

A Roast Of Garlic

I usually buy five-packs of garlic bulbs for about a buck. The problem is that if I'm away for long periods of time, the garlic isn't really keeping up at top quality. I solved that problem a while ago by planting some of the sprouting/mushy garlic – but there's only so much garlic I'm going to put in my garden. My solution was roasted garlic. When roasted garlic loses its pungeny and becomes a rather sweet mushy food. The recipe is from Mark Bittman:

Roasted Garlic

Head of garlic

Oil

salt
Preheat the oven to 375°. Take a head of garlic, remove some of the outer coverings and cut off the top. Drizzle with olive oil and salt, put on a baking pan and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for about 40 minutes.

Roasted garlic is great added to other dishes or used as a spread, but I even had some cloves as a snack. They pop right out of their coverings, there's no need to peel. I mentioned that at Veg Out we had the roasted garlic appetizer. It came with some very nice garlic toast, but honestly the roasted garlic tasted pretty much the same as mine. So, roasting garlic gets you something classy and interesting that's quick, easy and provides restaurant quality.

Restaurant: Veg Out

I wanted to go to Veg Out before, but they were closed on Sunday evenings. Which was somewhat annoying, so I was leery about trying again as I didn't want to reward that sort of behaviour. But, I'm glad I did (plus I don't want to tell them how to run their business). Veg Out is a relatively new restaurant, it has a nice simple menu that gets the job done. Plus, I believe it is London's only vegan restaurant if that's your thing. After sitting down with the parents, I decided to order the Chipotle Black Bean Burger.



The actual burger tasted somewhat similar to the burger I made but it was topped with all sorts of things I usually don't have access to at the same time: a ripe tomato slice, sprouts, guacamole and a chipotle aoili. Also, and this is important with burgers, the bun was quite good. You need a bun strong enough to hold the burger in place, but not too tough to be a detriment. We had the roasted garlic with toast as an appitizer (more on that later!) and split a chocolate cake for dessert. One of the parentals had a pâté sandwich which I tried and thought tasted like dirt, but then again, I think a lot of pâté tastes that way. The bottom line was that its a pretty solid restaurant and very professional for a place that could've been very granola (not that there's anything wrong with granola).

Veg Out Restaurant
646 Richmond Street, London, ON