lobster – Michael Eats

A Decadent Meal at Joe Beef

Published on October 30, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2491 Notre-Dame Street West, Montreal, Quebec
Website: https://joebeef.com/

Joe Beef is frequently called one of the best restaurants in Canada, so if you find yourself in Montreal and you don’t mind splurging a bit (okay, a lot — it’s pricey), it’s a must.

I tried a few things. The first was… some kind of tart? This wasn’t on the regular menu and I forgot to take a picture of the blackboard where they wrote down the specials (I also forgot to take a picture of the inside of the restaurant — I’m really good at blogging, as you can tell).

I’m not even sure how to describe this thing. It was somewhat souffle-esque, and it was absolutely drenched in an ultra-rich, buttery sauce. It was outstanding. It’s exactly the type of dish you’re hoping to eat at a really nice restaurant; it’s a delightful alchemy of luxe ingredients and high-end techniques that you could never possibly replicate at home, or even in a normal restaurant kitchen. Every bite was pure magic.

Next up was the “côte de veau sauce ‘vieux téléviseur'”, which was a veal chop covered in an ultra-rich, buttery sauce (ultra-rich and buttery is definitely a theme at Joe Beef). This was just as good as the tart, with the tender beef being absolutely jammed with flavour, and with the rich sauce complimenting it perfectly. It seems relatively simple, but holy moly, the extent to which this was better than pretty much any other steak I’ve ever had was insane.

The side was some kind of braised greens (this also wasn’t on the menu, so I’m not sure exactly what it was). This was a pretty standard version of this dish — tasty, but not mind-blowing. My photo of this turned out pretty blurry, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It was just a pile of greens on an oblong plate, so not much imagination is required.

The only big let-down of the night was, oddly, one of Joe Beef’s signature dishes, the lobster spaghetti. This was perfectly delicious, but the heavy cream sauce was one-note rich, and the chunks of lobster were overcooked. It certainly wasn’t unpleasant to eat, but coming from a restaurant of this caliber, it’s a disappointment.

Quick Bites: Nani’s Gelato, Fishman Lobster Clubhouse, and Bakerbots Baking

Published on March 3, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate gelato from Nani’s Gelato

I’ve written about Nani’s Gelato a couple of times for this blog, and it continues to be fantastic. Both flavours were top-notch, and the gelato itself is as rich and creamy as ever. Alas, they’re currently closed for the season; apparently a permanent location might be in the cards, so fingers crossed that they’re able to make this happen. Clearly, gelato of this calibre needs to available all year round.

Lobster mountain at Fishman Lobster Clubhouse

I don’t have much to add about this place since I wrote about it last — but come on. Look at that thing. That’s a photo you have to share. And that’s the impressive thing about this place: it seems like it’s expressly designed to impress on social media (and yeah, it clearly is), but it’s also surprisingly delicious. It’s meaty and perfectly cooked, and the way they fry it makes it a bit more interesting than standard boiled/steamed lobster, but still allows the meat be the star of the show (it’s fried in the shell, so the majority of the meat isn’t battered). It’s so good.

Orange Cardamom ice cream from Bakerbots Baking

Hot tip: Bakerbots Baking serves a decent assortment of Bang Bang ice cream flavours, so if you ever feel like a scoop of Bang Bang without the line, head to Bakerbots. And the orange cardamom was exactly what I was hoping it would be: creamy and orangey like the best creamsicle you’ve ever had, but with a nice hit of cardamom flavour. It’s a quality scoop of ice cream.

Climbing the Lobster Mountain at Fishman Lobster Clubhouse

Published on November 21, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4020 Finch Avenue East, Toronto
Website: https://www.flctoronto.com/

Is it even possible to see the impressively enormous piles of lobster or crab at Fishman Lobster Clubhouse and not want to immediately go there? I don’t think it is!

I’ve been drooling over those piles on Instagram for some time now, not to mention on David Chang’s amazing Netflix show, Ugly Delicious. But you need a big group to really do the place justice, so I had to bide my time until a large enough group could be assembled.

I recently went with a group of ten, and yeah, we did the place justice.

We started with a few different dishes — soup, braised beef, greens, fried rice, noodles — and they were all tasty enough, but that’s not the reason you’re there.

We ordered a twenty pound pile of lobster, which consisted of two enormous beasts that they actually brought to the table before the meal started (a lot of people like to pose for pre-dinner photographs with their lobsters or crabs, which felt like a bit much to me).

Later, the mountain arrives. And it’s an awe-inspiring sight: a seemingly endless amount of deep-fried lobster chunks, a whole bunch of fries, and enough crispy fried garlic bits to launch a vampire genocide.

It’s so good. The lobster is cut up into easy-to-eat chunks; it’s still on the shell, but the meat is accessible without the need for any shell-crunching tools. Which is good, because there’s a lot of lobster there — there’s no time to mess around with cracking shells. There’s a whole bunch of lobster to eat.

It’s more lobster than I’ve ever had in a single meal, and it’s so tasty; the meat is tender, garlicky, a little bit sweet, and has some nice fried crispy bits. That’s not to mention the fried garlic, which is surprisingly addictive (you’re going to reek of garlic for about 24 hours after eating here; deal with it).

I ate an insane amount of lobster. I was so full. It was one of the most memorable meals I’ve had in a while.