Adesso Bistro

more on Toronto after this guest post!

When my blogger friend, Joy Luck Club, suggested I do a "guest spot" I figured I was up for the challenge.  However, I have learned a great deal from my experience and will strive to do a better job next time.  Plates would arrive at the table and we'd start digging in...only to realize I had missed the best photo opp.  So, please excuse the poorly executed food photos and the lack of other photos for the venue.  I'll do better if I'm ever invited back.

Dee


Adesso Bistro
1906 Haro Street
Vancouver, BC V6G 1H7
(604) 568-9975

A Bit of Nostalgia and a Bit of Good Food

For those of you who have been experiencing the Vancouver restaurant scene for a number of years you will be familiar with the location that now houses the Adesso Bistro.  A recent Groupon brought Garden Guru and I in for what turned out to be a great meal.  Adesso takes up the ground floor of a small building on Haro Street that was once a hotel.  The small courtyard on the east side serves as a lovely patio in the warmer months.  Here's where the nostalgia comes in (those of you who used to be regular consumers of martinis and great food in the 80s and 90s have already figured this out) ...this is the original location of Delilah's.  Although Delilah's is now closed, many of us remember it as a dining icon in its day (esp back in the time of its Haro Street location).  Walking down those few steps to the front door and entering to see the reception desk still in its original location had us thinking that we would find the "paper check-list menus" still on the tables.  But this is now Adesso, so I will suppress my fond memories and fill you in on our evening...

This is an Italian restaurant.  You feel it in the menu, the staff and most importantly the food.  Our server was knowledgeable about the menu and her descriptions helped us to make our choices.  We ordered a bottle of Liberty School Cab and then were pleased when an 

amuse bouche was served - a wee serving of fried gnocchi.  

I love BR and BR Loves Pepperoni Pizza

Happy Birthday BR!


Made with LOVE........

Pasta Aglio e Olio, Pasta with garlic infused olive oil and chilis ...aka BR's Pasta

BR's Pasta

My recipe is a slight variation on the traditional versions.  The addition of tomato paste is my signature ..........it's my own twist and we love it this way!  

Fresh Pasta....it's so tasty and easier than you might think!

I have always been a lover of good pasta but frankly a little nervous to try my hand at making the noodles from scratch.  Well let me tell you......I have overcome my fear.
I have been making fresh pasta for about a year now and it's fabulous and it really isn't difficult.

Nothing beats the taste and texture of fresh homemade pasta.  Compared to the dried stuff....I think it's definitely worth the extra bit of effort.  We rarely buy pasta anymore and Fresh Pasta seems to appear quite often on the menu around here.

Spatchcock Tuscan Chicken

Spatchcock, you say?  

In my case, it was say "spatchcock" over and over again.... Just count how many times I can use spatchcock in this post!

To spatchcock your chicken, cut down the back and remove the backbone.  Lay your split chicken open (bone side down) and press gently on the breast to flatten it out.  The purpose of spatchcocking is to promote even quicker cooking. Our 6 lb roaster cooked in 40 minutes.  The breast meat was perfectly juicy as were the legs and thighs.  One of the greatest advantages to spatchcocking is the perfect, all-over crispy skin!

Ciao Tuscany, Ni Hao China!!

Well it's finally here.  We are bidding a fond farewell to Tuscany for now and eagerly anticipating our arrival in China.
It has been a busy week all around not to mention preparing for our trip.

One of the final chores in Tuscany was picking the last of the tomatoes and harvesting as much of the herb garden as I could.  So what to do with all of this?  Well really it was a no brainer, gorgeous tomatoes and fragrant basil became this tasty Marinara Sauce.


Here's the Recipe:

Marinara Sauce
A whole bunch of tomatoes off the vine (20 or so), quartered
1 TBSP olive oil
5-6 Cloves chopped garlic
Hot Chili flakes (to taste)
A big handful of Basil leaves
1 small tin of Tomato Paste (156 ml)
Salt and Pepper

Heat the oil in a sauce pan, toss in the tomatoes and garlic, leave on med-high heat until the tomatoes begin to break down, approx 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste, chili flakes and season with salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to low and let this simmer for at least 30 minutes.  I like to treat this like most Italian Mamas.....just leave it to simmer all day.
If tomato skins annoy you, drag out the immersion blender and zuzz it up.  Just before serving, snip up the basil and add to the sauce.  We like this over pasta drizzled with a tiny bit of fragrant olive oil.

I've got this ready for the freezer.  I have a feeling that BR will be very happy to have this waiting for him after three weeks of Asian food.

That's all for today, hopefully next time you check in we will be posting from China.
Zaijian for now!

A Communal Birthday Celebration

It has become a tradition for 3 dear friends to celebrate their birthday together.  We were all born the same year, all attended the same secondary school (a long time ago!) and all continue to stay in touch...........that has to be good reason for a celebration!

So Happy Birthday Dee and M....here's to many more.

Since our birthdays fall in different months, we averaged the days of the year and came up with "our" birthday as sometime in late August.  Life is busy, but we finally got together and marked this auspicious occasion.

This year's theme happened to coincide with the happenings in the back garden.  So it's no surprise that our lovely wine paired meal was Tuscan inspired. Tradition has been that we celebrate in a grand fashion with a lovely tasting menu paired with yummy wines.  Some of the meals have lasted hours.  This one was no different.  In fact we had so much fun, it turned into a slumber party.  Who said old farts can't party?

We each prepared a course or two each and selected lovely wine pairings to compliment each.

My course was very interactive;  interactive, not out of design, but necessity!!

Have you ever experienced things suddenly breaking down in your home?  Well that happened around here.....and as with most things around here......it happened in a big way.  Over the course of 2 days we lost the dishwasher, microwave and yes, the very well loved and often used pasta roller attachment for the KitchenAid.  With the menu planned and no time to shop, I resorted to hand rolling the pasta for this dinner. Well actually, I coerced my two birthday buddies into hand rolling the pasta for dinner.

In the true Tuscan tradition,

Hand-Rolled Pici with a Hearty Ragu (click on Pici to view the recipe)

With antipasti to nibble on and luscious wines to sip we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. I think we have stumbled upon a new tradition.  The Pici was fabulous and the process was rather amusing.

Check out the video to see the Pici makers in action.   You also get a glimpse of Garden Guru working away in Tuscany.

So that's how 3 friends and a few of their guests enjoyed their birthday this year.  Fun times, good food, yummy wine........great friends!

Life doesn't get much better than this.

Tuesday Pizza

BR is a very lucky boy.
Recently I have been committed to better eating habits (translation = less) and so BR has not had much to choose from.  I relented tonight and decided it would be a good night for pizza.

Our favorite is Pizza Margherita.  In fact, such a favorite, it was gone before I could take a photo of it.

It was pretty easy to put together.
No Knead Dough in the fridge (I'll post this recipe later, promise)
Tomatoes ripening on the vine
Basil hanging on for dear life in the herb garden

OK, we didn't really scarf down an entire pizza in 3 minutes by ourselves.
We had help from M and R.
Since we were entertaining "guests" I also came up with a couple of other combinations.

"Hot and Spicy" .....Spicy Calabrese Salami and Mushrooms

Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Onions and Green Pepper

So would you agree with me?  BR is a lucky boy isn't he?