Analytical Donairs

I've been in Ottawa for a while now and haven't been blessed with the East Coast donair gods since the days when you could leisurely drive to Smith Falls, pick up some bulk chocolate at the Hershey factory and finish your drive with a stop at Pizza Delight. Once seated in the familiar environment we all grew up eating in, I'd order a Donair with extra donair sauce and garlic fingers to share, which also comes with donair sauce.

Gone are those days.. now they've shut down the Hershey factory *tear* and Pizza Delight *streaming tears of fury*, and I've been reduced to bi-yearly donair visitation rights when I go home to New-Brunswick. I hear the king of Donairs is, well, the King of Donair in Halifax, but I grew up swearing up and down Champlain St. that Pizza Delight's and Acadia Donair's version of the sauce was bar-none. It's all about the sauce topping the meat, tomatoes and onions, but here are a few key differences.

Pizza Delight's donair is piled high on a tough and chewy pizza dough and comes with a steak knife because frankly, it's unfold able and there's no other way to eat that bad boy.

Here's a close up for good measure.

The donair meat is crispy like crisp bacon, but cut too perfectly, like crisp chicken bacon, or as I call it, fakecon. Also note the iceberg lettuce which is atypical for donairs. Nonetheless, it's so tasty I refuse to order anything else from PD, including the world's best Caesar salad (ask a Maritimer), but not limited to Garlic Fingers. For the uninitiated, garlic fingers are pizza dough slathered in a supremely garlicky mélange and topped with oodles of cheesy goodness, then sliced into easily shareable rectangles about the width of two fingers.

Acadie Pizza's donairs can be gargantuan creations by a now famous local donair maker who's little restaurant has stood the test of time. Almost ousted from his location, fans now leave a token of appreciation, usually a hand written napkin note praising his efforts to stay open.

Pardon the blurred cell phone picture. This small version of the Halifax Donair also comes monstersized, which is not unlike the size of a football. No need to attempt a dripping disaster, you can also purchase extra pita bread and sauce, reconstructing the larger donair into about eight smaller ones. Trust me, it fed three and we had leftovers.

Enough about my history with East Coast Donairs.. I now bring you..

Halifax style Donairs in Ottawa!

Yes, the rumors are true, Centretown Resto Bar on Bronson St. makes fabulous donairs with East Coast (ie Halifax) style donair sauce, or the closest thing I've found to it in O-ttown..

Their donairs come in small or large, you can pick up, get delivery or eat in and watch the game. I don't care how you get yours, but consider running. Don't forget extra napkins on your way out.

Food notes from abroad..

I recently received the first e-mail from a friend who has left Canada in search of a lengthy world experience. For a non-foodie friend who used to eat spaghetti 7 days out of seven, he wrote of such vigorous food thoughts that I could not mask my surprise at his bold statements and asked if I could post his message.

Such, his journey begins in New Zealand..

"So I've beem here 9 days now. On day 4, I met a British guy that wasn't really a foodie but was accustomed to eating good meals in his family. He asked me what I thought of the food here in NZ. I hadn't really thought about it too hard. I'd only tasted a few things. I shrugged and said it's alright. He said he thought it was bad. Just bad. Like everything tastes slightly different, but in a bad way. Since he said that, I started noticing it everywhere. I've hardly had a good meal. I've purchased a few meals that looked amazing but turned out to be mediocre or even just plain bad. What's the concensus among foodies? Is NZ known for bad food? What doesn't taste like shit here?

Thanks,"

Uhm, bold statement, P. Since I haven't traveled there I don't have an opinion, but surely it's not ALL bad, right? Must have tapped into his foodie sense, so far I've received nothing but food related e-mails, all escalating in hilarity and sounding more and more like a cry for help. I'll try and find you something.

Big Banana Ice Cream Fail

I was quite shocked to hear that crushing frozen bananas in a blender could make one ingredient creamy ice cream, according to the Kitchn.

Probably so, just as long as you're using a food processor that was manufactured post the 1980 date and that you have not used it to chop endless amounts of basil right prior to it's current use. Both cause my ice cream's demise.

For starters it was too dry so I added a bit of water & yogurt. (I blame that on my processor.) The texture improved, but there's just no way to hide basil in banana!

Can you imagine that I couldn't bring myself to throw this horrible mistake? It's still in my freezer, yet I wouldn't even feed it to a cat. Well.. I would, but only so I could find out if cats make the same bitter-faces that I make.

It's not that hard you guys.. it's just Reese's..

I had a hankering for peanut butter cups over the last Christmas holiday back home, which is pretty surprising considering I made ten varieties of cookies over two weeks, as well as truffle coated cherries (which the dog ate in it's entirety). So there I am, staring at my dad's extensive pantry, wondering if it's possible to make these little poppers.

Chocolate coating in little cups: doable with melted Callebaut chocolate disks and mini foil cups, both of which I had on hand. But.. what's in a Reese's peanut butter cup.. what's in the middle? Crisp and sweet, it can't just be PB. Let's ask Google.. a two second search tells me it's... wait for it... graham cracker crumbs! (gasp!) The stars had aligned in my father's kitchen, ingredients were on hand with my incurable craving. I was on a mission without a recipe.

what you'll need (I heart Bulk Barn):

Callebaut chocolate
graham cracker crumbs

tiny foil cups

peanut butter

First, I assembled endless mini foil cups on a baking sheet and refrigerated it, as to not give away what I was doing should anyone pop into my kitchen-lab.

Next, I melted little Callebaut chocolate disks on a makeshift double boiler. (A metal bowl placed over a pot of simmering water.)

Then I lined the cups with chocolate by dropping in a little spoonful, twirling and spreading it as necessary until the bottom and sides were thinly covered, and popped them into the refrigerator until hardened.

Meanwhile, I melted the pb and added crumbs until it was thick, but not instant-cookie thick. (ftw are instant cookies...) I kept in mind that pb will eventually harden, rendering my lil concoction to a paste like consistency wrapped in a thin hard cocoa shell. To prevent a dry mixture once hard, it needed a proper balance of crumbs. It's a bloody guessing game folks. Taste it in the process. Spoon into the lil cups, leaving enough room for a thin chocolate coating. Refrigerate until hard.

Melt more chocolate, yada yada yada, apply thin coat to the top of cups, and why haven't I posted a single picture yet. Refrigerate.

They're done when they feel cold and hard. I kept them in the fridge until an hour before serving them, thus protecting them from the choc eating German pointer beast.

He's in fact a super nice dog... as sweet as these homemade PB cups which the friends called "more addicting than the real thing". And there you have it, bite marks and all.