I have a passel of photos from my visit here, including from a trip to the Natural History Museum, where they have a lovely collection of fossils that include the transitional stages of whale and horse evolution. But today I’ll put up my two favorite subjects.
First, a late lunch on Thursday: an ELKBURGER (yes, real elk, farmed for their meat here in Ottawa). The location is The Works, a gourmet burger joint in town. I had cheese and bacon on mine. Burgers come with “die cut chips”, a cross between a french fry and a potato chip, something new to me but quite toothsome:
Washed down with a lovely local beer: Hop City 8th Sin Black Lager. A lovely and creamy pint. Hop City also makes a Barking Squirrel Lager, whose logo I’ve put below.
There are three cats where I’m staying: at the home of Seanna and Steve, members of the Ottawa Centre for Inquiry who kindly offered to put me up so that CfI could pay for my hotel in Montreal. They have three cats: a white cat named Russell (after Bertrand), a polydactylous tabby named Ampersand (for & toes), and a fluffy gray cat named Zeno (after the philosopher). Sadly, Ampersand and Zeno are shy and I can’t get near them, but Russell is very friendly and so I am getting my cat fix. He’s very fond of belly rubs, and doesn’t inflict the Sudden Bite during the act.
Here’s Russell and Steve in characteristic positions:
Russell on his own (note the snow; it’s cold here!):
Russell close up:
A sign in an apartment window near the museum:
And—poutine! This, at the Elgin Street Diner (a place well known to Larry Moran), is poutine with chili. The portion was so large that I couldn’t even finish it. I will have other poutine in Montreal, where I’m traveling tomorrow.
No cracks about the diet, please! I’ve also had two vegetarian meals since I’ve been here.
More photos tomorrow (I hope): fossils and beetles.
Creative cat names.
Glad to hear you are enjoying your time in our nation’s Capitol.
Pity you couldn’t get there before 2013, when the colony of feral cats on Parliament Hill was closed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Parliamentary_Cats
PS also wanted to let you know that WEIT is a multi-generational hit in our home. My precocious daughter read it with amazement when she was only 8, and continues to make comments based on its contents now that she’s approaching 13.
Oh, I was in Ottawa before the “Cat Condos” closed, and in fact posted about it here. I’m glad the ferals have all been adopted, though.
I do like the Barking Squirrel, Hop City has a nice selection.
Is that chili on your poutine?!?
I thought the purists (e.g., wikipedia) insist on just brown gravy.
At least you had the consideration not to show us pictures of vegan poutine. Yuck!
The Elgin Street Diner does all day bacon and eggs with a side of poutine. It’s best eaten at 2:00 in the morning after so much beer you won’t remember what you did, and feel shame, when you wake up.
Sounds like the ideal dish for your inner axe-murderer. Much traffic from priests?
So a little Montreal smoked meat sandwich up next then! Schwartz’s Deli is the grand-daddy — found their portions a bit diminished last time, but good quality & good ambiance anyway. Bon appetit! (Outstanding rotisserie chicken places in MTL too … The Chalet bbq at Sherbrooke & Decarie is worth the trip.)
The Works is a terrific burger joint. The menu is varied and eclectic:
https://www.worksburger.com/Menu.aspx#
Lots of location around Ontario, they’re not just in Ottawa.
The Works is not just in Ottawa anymore, but it was born here, and the elk for the elk burgers are locally raised.
Very good pictures and making everyone hungry.
The weather there appears more normal. Down here in Iowa it is 75 degrees F. That’s about 24 Celsius. Maybe a record, not sure.
My mouth is exploded into saliva.
Now that poutine looks delicious! It would fill you for a day or two!
Too bad you probably didn’t have time to sneak over to Hull, PQ to the Canadian Museum of History. I love that place! I went this summer to see the travelling Pompeii exhibit.
An elk story from Turkey.
Yes, Turkey. Elk.
One day I was wading through paperwork for exporting geology samples, at the shipyard. (On the WRONG side of the Bosperus, in two senses!) Some of my Noggin colleagues had just received an emergency supply of thin – sliced, smoked elk heart. But as an export it was spelt Americanly as “Moose heart, sliced”. Very toothsome, strong flavour, nibble between going out to sweat in the yard.
I struggled to get my Noggin colleagues to play along with me to convince our Turkish colleagues of the 3m tall Norwegian Mouse, into whose heart everyone was tucking. I mean, the Noggins saw the joke, understood the pun, but didn’t see the humour.
[SHRUG]
I mean, if we’d got a bite, then I had a whole new Edda of Thornton and Loki against the Mouse of Doom. But … no bite. Damn.
Cannibalism? Poutine is French for Putin… 😀
When I was living in Stockholm, my little neighborhood butcher’s store sometimes had elk (älg) available during the hunting season. It is very good meat, very healthy and low on fat. One year, I ordered a large piece of elk for a Christmas roast which the butcher kept for me in his deep freeze, the hunting season being in the autumn.
The Swedish Älg is what we call moose in North America (Alces alces). As far as I know, moose aren’t farmed, so Jerry certainly had what we call elk, also called wapiti (Cervus canadensis). I don’t think wapiti are found in Sweden. Both Älg (moose) and elk (wapiti) are prized game meat.
The reason for my confusion: https://naturetravels.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-a-moose-and-an-elk/
I’m European, of course. 🙂
This is why Jerry insists on scientific names (for which he was negligent in this case).
🙂
We have a The Works here in Oakville. Must get out and try the elk burger.
Barking Squirrel is great beer!
Just noticed there’s one out my way too!
The lips on Russell’s close-up freaks me out for some reason. Moist, pursing, and quite human-looking.
Why hasn’t poutine emigrated to the states? Looks like perfect pub/bar food to me. Anyone living in the US seen poutine on a menu?
Not a recommendation, mind you: http://hackthemenu.com/kfc/secret-menu/poutine/
There’s a great poutine place near me (in Baltimore) — of course run by expatriot Quebecois.
They’ll also make you a great hamburger with smoked meat on top OH YEAH
I’ve seen poutine in a few places here and there, but it’s pretty rare. I mean, it is a pretty silly food.
hahah, poutine at KFC
In Montreal it’s totally on the regular menu– but of course you won’t find any KFC’s they are PFK’s
(poulet frites Kentucky, gotta keep the language police at bay)
But no one goes to PFK for poutine, there are plenty of good places to get it.
I remember huge Pollo Kentucky Chicken signs in Caracas in the 70s. A tad redundant.
A lot of products are labelled like this in Canada, for example Dentifrice Crest Toothpaste.
I was just going to say that Russell’s lips were Freaky, yes, with a capital “F”, and I read your comment – too funny!
don’t look like cat lips at all!
I think it’s a tongue.
I tried, unsuccessfully, so see it as a tongue…Maybe it’s those funny candy lips you see at Halloween??
Jerry told him to make a silly face.
Apparently poutine has made it to some of the ski hills in the US. (It is a common item at ski hills in Quebec, being a cheap item that can be mass produced.)
I think my stomach would feel like a ton o’ bricks after eating the poutine and I’d feel more like having a nap than skiing. On the other hand, the bracing air might wake you up.
Jerry, you’ll have some great eats in Montreal! Bagels and smoked meat! mmmmm
I used to live there and still visit pretty frequently, and I’ve made a special study of chocolate croissants all over town (a dangerous hobby). (called ‘chocolatines’ here — as opposed to “pain au chocolat” in France.
My favorite ones are from this bakery/lunch place on Sherbrooke in NDG with the completely unlikely name of “Chez Fred”.
oh man they are good
(all the pastries there are suberbe! (other food is fine, but not stellar))
A good chocolate filled croissant simply can’t be beat. Although I do also enjoy an almond filled croissant.
I hate to be the curmudgeon here, but Jerry’s photos of enormous servings of high-calorie food remind me of this web site: http://thisiswhyyourefat.com
Perhaps it is the European in me who is complaining, but one should always remember that daily caloric requirements of an adult are 1800-2500 kcal. The plate in the last photo itself contains at least 4000. An extreme health hazard for anyone other than an endurance athlete.
You must be new here? Criticizing the healthiness of the food pics PCC often posts is verboten. Please read Da Roolz (see side bar, at top).
And do you honestly think anyone here is unaware of what you say?
OK, I didn’t know that. I really don’t like that rule, but I will abide by it.
As for the awareness, honestly I don’t know. I didn’t criticise the healthiness of the food itself (I am no health food freak), just the serving size that is simply too much for any single human being to consume in a single sitting (other than an athlete just about to burn it all).
Well, I certainly agree with you about serving sizes these days. If only they at least had a range of sizes–Small, Medium, Large, say. As it is, I generally end up taking half my dinner home from most restaurants.
But as Professor Coyne often points out, he doesn’t usually eat like this, just in his travels or while entertaining visitors. And he’s as trim as can be. 🙂 What we don’t appreciate here are the “food police.” And I guarantee you, this is a very intelligent commentariat. Stick around! 😀
Thanks, I will 🙂
As for serving sizes, yes, somebody coming from Scandinavia to North America is always taken aback 🙂 What might help, in addition to different serving sizes, is to have a calorie content estimate of each dish. I have seen that in Japan and in some restaurants in the UK. Imagine that: menu item Poutine with chili: 4200 kcal (210% recommended daily intake)…
A few restaurants do that and I often find it helpful. I’m afraid, though, that those most in need are least likely to pay attention to them. It’s hard to really figure out what the answer to our obesity problem is, given how much information is available to everyone. I’m afraid its larger than just an education problem, as the rates of obesity are generally negatively correlated with family economic status.
You will find here that Scandinavia is frequently put forth as a model we could afford to pay attention to. And that Jerry thinks most strongly that increasing our social safety nets–improving the quality of life for so many–is the only ultimate, humane approach.
I agree wit everything you say.
As for Scandinavia, I do not think that the food here is particularly “healthier” (there is a lot of pseudoscience about what it is exactly that makes food “healthy”) – kids in Scandinavian daycares regularly get served frankfurters with fries and ketchup and similar fast food(-like) items. It is just that the kids are almost indoctrinated against overeating – they are taught that it is impolite to take more than they will eat and also never to overeat. After a while, the kids end up lecturing their parents against eating too much 🙂
You can’t stop yourself about the putine, can you?
I posted this before your warning. Sorry again.
Oh dear Lord, here come the food police again. If you read the website, you should pay attention to the Roolz, particularly #19.
My comments on your Leisure Fascism, Mandible:
1. If you don’t want to be the curmudgeon, why are you doing it? OF COURSE you want to be the curmudgeon and try to police other people’s diets.
2. I don’t care if you don’t like the rule or not; follow it or you won’t post here any more.
3. Do you SERIOUSLY think that me eating a plate of poutine (which, as I said, I didn’t finish) constitutes an “extreme health hazard” for me? All I can do is report that I felt fine the day afterwards.
One more post like that and you will have to go elsewhere. In the meantime, read the Roolz, which include this one:
Got it. I apologize, I had no idea.
Most of us don’t eat like that all the time and chastising us in general is the reason eating disorders exist.
That all looks delicious Jerry.
I was hyped on trying The Works when they came to Toronto, and especially since one opened up around the corner from me. Unfortunately they failed to bring their quality levels to Toronto and it closed fairly soon. (Though some other locations here are ok).
A guy I worked with was a hunter and sometimes brought in bags of elk meat, from which we made burgers. Not bad. Not really my thing though. I prefer the classic beef.
When you are in Montreal, I hope you are able to try some of the famous bagels. As you may be aware, there’s the never-ending dispute as to whether St-Viateur Bagel or Fairmount Bagel Bagel represent the best bagels. I like both, the St-Viateur being the smaller, denser, slightly sweeter of the two – though more recently my trips have taken me closer to the Fairmount baker and I also enjoy the bigger more bready style.
For my money, if I were taking someone to try a Montreal bagel, I’d take them to St-Viateur Bagel. The taste of a St-Viateur Bagel right out of the fire oven is a bit more special and unique IMO.