National Post Review: Shingle with a shimmy and a shake (Breakfasts) When dinosaurs roamed the land,eating breakfast out was a cheap thrill. Any self-respecting diner could come across with Blowout patches (pancakes), Blonde with Sand (coffee with cream and sugar} Fry two, let the sun shine (two fried eggs) with Noah’s Boy (ham) and Sweep the Floor (hash) without the soup jockeys (servers) going into the weeds (breaking down). As I ate my austere breakfast of Hug One (oj) birdseed (grapenuts), boiled leaves (tea), on the city (water),and yogurt (a food unknown to the self-respecting diner) I had a sudden urge to go out and have shingle with a shimmy and a shake (buttered toast with jelly) – but where in a city awash with lungo lattes, caffe macchiato, double no fun (nonfat milk and decaf espresso) and thunder thighs(double moccacino)?    more »

Four Star Corn Bisque .....The corn bisque lays our fears to rest. We are embarked on the French food narrative. The French have a black belt in flavour-making. It is how the ingredients are treated that makes their flavour (taste and smell) more intense. The French used to feed sweet corn to pigs until they learned from the Americans that the blend of sugar and crunch was irresistible. Now anyone, well almost anyone, can make a tasty corn soup, but Mr. Challet has transcended the obvious chowder, he has bisque’d corn, crunched, pressed, pureed it so smooth that only a tiny nubbin or so is left, flavoured it gently with fennel. The toppings are a little crab cake and a fennel roulle, created by mixing a puree of potatoes and fennel cooked in fish soup, then added to a mayonnaise of garlic, saffron, piquillo pepper and fennel puree. The roulle is a mere squiggle but it’s impact is 1000% more. When I sip the pale gold soup, I have a mouthful of flavour – corn plus - informed by a dozen complementary tastes. After such food, we wax philosophical. The pureed corn is as deceptively spontaneous as Roger Federer’s forehand, the fennel roulle vibrates like Feist’s voice.   more »