Montreal: Le Café Falco

Le Falco is all modern Japanese sensibility. Removed from major traffic and city noise, it’s a quiet siphon bar and café  with an industrial and minimally designed space by Mile End. Any harshness from the grey bricks are softened by striking pops of white and the warm, woodsy colours of their terracotta potted plants; the large windows streaming in vast amount of light gives the interior an airiness not easily duplicated in cramped coffee shops. The music when we went that day was barely discernible, and alongside the sounds of the siphon bubbling up water as it brewed coffee, it was an altogether soothing and relaxing visit.

Typical of most cafes, Le Falco serves breakfast and lunch. We tried their onigiris, one made with salmon and the second with edamame and purple rice. Leo went for their cold drip (Nicaragua), which had a tea-like quality similar to the coffee cherry tea at Blue Bottle Chelsea, and I had a cafe au lait (Rwanda), very light and bright.

Photos are from myself and Leo with some photoshop level boosting here and there from me! (We’re like a real team now.) The black and white photo was taken on the trusty Canon AE-1 using Ilford Delta 400 film. So far, I can’t tell if that film is naturally grainy or just the cheap $3 scan I got…

Le Café Falco
5605 Avenue de Gaspé

There’s always room for ice cream

I spent the summer eating a lot of ice-cream (Leo can attest to that), but no milkshakes. This was quickly remedied with an after work snack at The Big Chill on Monday. We don’t think it’s the best ice-cream place in Toronto, but it’s close to where I work. (The sweltering heat did not motivate.) There’s plenty of flavours to choose from, but most of them are just okay. (Do not go for the pistachio kulfi, just don’t.) We tried the brownie toffee crunch and coconut milk ice-creams for our shake. It would have been considerably better with a shot or two of bourbon…

As it’s the last week of August, I have great plans to go through my summer to-do list. We’ll see. I might just end up painting my nails a bright colour or going to the library to pay my fine pick up another magazine book to read. Here’s to the beginning of the end of summer!

The Big Chill
367 Manning Avenue | Website | Yelp

Happy Monday!

Leo and I went off for a weekend trip to Montreal. We left on Friday morning and came back a bit past midnight on Monday. We had a blast, and as usual, we planned it all around food. :)

Happy Monday: Chocolate Banana Muffins

I tried to make Hervé This’ Chocolate Mousse on Friday, but it didn’t turn out exactly as planned. I used baking chocolate from Mast Brothers Chocolate, which turned out too bitter to use without sugar. Since my family found it inedible and I couldn’t finish all of it by myself, I threw it in a banana muffin batter the next day. We ate the last muffin this morning. T’was very good. Baking isn’t that hard!

Without much further ado, here’s what’s making me happy today:

1. Knowing Light: a photo blog has soft focus pictures that only film can create. Katie, a plant biologist living in Portland, doesn’t update the blog very much, but her flickr and twitter accounts are pretty active.

2. Globe and Mail’s Food & Wine section has a David Chang recipe up. It’s Korean sticky ribs.

3. The Arancia Project aims to document the best North American coffee spots. Since they’re based in Brooklyn, it’s mostly New York coffee shops and restaurants. I happily recommended Cafe Myriad to them last year when they were visiting Montreal. ;)

4. The Hakka Cookbook: Chinese Soul Food from the World comes out in October! If you’ve ever had Chilli Chicken and grew up eating Preserved Mustard Greens with Pork Belly and meat stuffed tofu, you know why this is so exciting. Mostly, this will be the first time I’ll have the English names for things my grandma cooks for us.

5. Not food or picture related at all, NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour is probably the only radio show I’ve ever been excited about….other than CBC’s Metro Morning with Matt Galloway, obviously.

Dinner at The Queen & Beaver

Look who made it to The Queen & Beaver last night with a digital camera on hand! We sat on the upstairs patio with a pimm’s cocktail and a beer, and then proceeded to eat a lot of chips. We ordered the scotch eggs, roasted sticky quail, halibut, the hand chopped burger, and a scoop of their housemade bailey ice-cream. It was a pretty hefty meal with a hefty bill, and the food, as pub food is, was salty, but decent. Better suited as a casual spot to have a few drinks and small plates.

The Queen & Beaver
35 Elm Street | Website | Yelp