Sunday 11.19
Our plan for lunch was to go to Mario’s and get a meatball sub. When we got there, the waiting area was packed so we ended up going back to Omar’s. Today we tried the Storm Crow, a Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich. I thought it was decent, but Kelly really didn’t like it. For dinner I made a Delmonico with asparagus. We also had a bottle of 2018 Ridge Demostene Ranch which we thought was delicious. I’ll probably have to eat light tomorrow. Maybe it’s time for a salad.
Monday 11.20
I’ve got this virus that keeps coming and going. Every time I think I’m better, I relapse. It’s nothing terrible, it just wears me down. So I didn’t have lunch today, and we got New London for dinner. New London is inconsistent, which is a shame because when it’s good it’s great. Tonight the chicken parm sub was just ok and the fries were pretty bad. On the other hand, the batter on my son’s chicken nuggets was excellent. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of those.
Tuesday 11.21
For lunch I grabbed a roast beef sandwich at DeNo’s. It was good. Their roast beef is always solid. On the way home I stopped at Crosby’s. I wanted to make soup for dinner and needed some ingredients. I was disappointed that they didn’t have the Argentine shrimp they usually carry. I got regular peeled-deveined instead.
I made a variation of the Avgolemono I experimented with over the summer. Instead of chicken I used shrimp and I also added some asparagus I had from Sunday night. I garnished it with fresh chopped dill. I really enjoyed it but wish I had better shrimp. I also needed to do a better job of tempering the eggs. I had a few strands of egg white floating in my soup. Last I tried adding more rice, but I think there was too much rice. It was still the best thing I ate this week so far.
Wednesday 11.22
This morning I went to Petsi Pies to get dessert for Thanksgiving. The line was out the door as might be expected for arguably the best pie in Boston. (I can confirm that tomorrow.) While I was waiting my turn, I watched as they erased apple and then pumpkin from the board of available varieties. I ordered a Brown Butter Pecan, but then as I was waiting to pick it up and pay, I overheard a conversation between two employees about one more apple pie. I grabbed the woman who took my order and asked if I heard right and ended up with the last apple pie!
After that, I swung by Concord Market to get wine for tomorrow. From there, I went to meet up with Kelly at Karma for lunch. We got some of our usual dishes: gyoza, spicy lobster bomb, and sushi, spicy yellowtail maki and ebi nigiri. I also had a mai tai.
Thursday 11.23
Happy Thanksgiving! Today’s food was pretty traditional and I wasn’t in charge of cooking anything. My plate was turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, canned peas, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a dinner roll. The real excitement was when the oven gave out half way through making the turkey. Fortunately the broiler still worked so we used that to finish the job. It all turned out really good.
My job was to bring wine and pie. I brought two pies from Petsi Pies in Somerville, a Brown Butter Pecan and an Apple. I only got to try the pecan pie but it was excellent and everyone said the apple was very good. For wine I brought a very nice Duckhorn, a Ridge which never got opened, a Muscato for my mother-in-law, and three bottles of Gruner which were demolished. A very successful holiday!
Friday 11.24
For the second year in a row, we took advantage of the long weekend to go to Montreal. We stopped at the McDonald’s in Lebanon, NH, which is becoming a regular stop for our trips north.
For dinner we went to Gibbys which was highly recommended by my godfather. We had oysters rockefeller, steak, and key lime pie, but the best part of the meal was the gravy. In the land of poutine, they really know how to make great gravy.
Saturday 11.25
Today was our full day in Montreal. We went to the Biodome which was great, but by the time we were done I was absolutely starving. They have a cafeteria there called Vego and guess what, it’s vegetarian. Now I’m not saying all vegetarian food is bad, but their falafel was below average. If you specialize in vegetarian food, shouldn’t you be good at falafel?
Dinner more than made up for it. I had tried to get a reservation at Joe Beef when we were in Montreal last year, without success. This year I made sure to get one well in advance. It was fabulous. I don’t even know what my favorite dish was because between the clams, the duck and the banana dessert, I really loved them all. Even their bread was amazing. We also had a spectacular local wine. I will definitely be back!
In between lunch and dinner, I stopped at the SAQ and bought a new gin and two bottles of maple cream. The gin was called Gin Matante and I had it on my last visit at Au Pied du Cochon. The maple creams were Coureur des Bois which I love and Sortilege which is new to me. After dinner, I used my free drink ticket to have a new gin (St. Laurent) at the Alice Bar in the hotel. Then by good fortune I ended up with one more free drink ticket and had another new gin (Gin-ette). So despite the bad falafel, it was a very good day.
Top Three
I’m going to cheat a little here and hopefully you will forgive me. If I had to pick just one thing at Joe Beef it would probably be the clams, but maybe dessert, but maybe the duck breast. But I don’t have to pick one thing so, here are the three best things I ate:
3. Thanksgiving Stuffing (Thursday)
2. Gravy at Gibbys (Friday)
1. Dinner at Joe Beef (Saturday)
Links:
Mario’s
Omar’s
DeNo’s Pizza and Subs
Avgolemono
Gibbys
Joe Beef
Return to Weekly Roundup
Concord Culinary Lyceum 
Leave a comment