Spencer's at the Waterfront (Burlington, ON)

1340 Lakeshore Road
Burlington, Ontario
905.633.7494
website

There are a number of reasons for a restaurant's popularity. Sometimes it's the food, sometimes it's the ambiance and sometimes it's the location. I've been wanting to go to Spencer's at the Waterfront for its location. It was built right on Ontario Lake and so offers really nice views. I talked to a few colleagues who had been there and were not too impressed by the food and thought the restaurant was loud. Keeping that in mind, I asked to be seated on the heated patio. I have to agree that the brief time I spent inside was quite noisy - not sure whether it's the design that makes it worse.


View from the patio.

My boyfriend A and I dined at Spencer's before he headed out to work in Montréal for 3 weeks. How lucky was he?! I started out with a cocktail that I chose for its name - something like rosy cheeks because that's how my cheeks turn when I drink! It was actually quite tasty, with watermelon and lychee flavour. Spencer's also offered a large selection of Niagara wines.


My cocktail with Lake Ontario as a backdrop.

Our waiter brought out complementary bread that was hot, always a good thing. A started with a salad after finding out the the soup used chicken broth. His organic greens salad greens ($8) topped with sunflower seeds and wild blueberries looked good but a bit expensive for what it was.


Bread and Salad.

I started with the seared scallops ($12), served with pieces of fried polenta on a bed of goat cheese. It seems that the chefs at Spencer's like blueberries because a blueberry sauce was served. I ordered this because it's hard to resist a scallop dish but I wasn't sure of the combination of ingredients. It was surprisingly good. The scallops were cooked perfectly, and the hint of sweetness from the blueberries paire well with them.


Seared Scallops & River Edge's Goat Cheese.

For our mains, A and I each ordered pasta. He ordered the daily pasta ($20) which means I don't have a description online. I do remember there was corn and rocket, and that the pasta was a square-shape macaroni! When the waiter offered adding chicken to the pasta and finding out A was vegetarian, he nicely offered to add mushrooms instead. I initially ordered the appetizer size ricotta gnocchi but my waiter convinced me to go for the dinner size ($21) because the smaller portion was very small. He may have been right but the ricotta in a butter sauce was quite heavy. I should have stuck to the appetizer portion. It was very good, but again a very heavy dish.


Daily pasta and ricotta gnocchil.

It's funny that I had previously written about not ordering dessert often when I went out with A, and he asked if I wanted to share a dessert (and no, he doesn't really read this blog!). So we shared the hot chocolate fondant ($9) with ice nougat and raspberry sauce. Very good, nothing extraordinary, but very good!


Hot Chocolate Fondant.

The verdict? I think you pay a premium for location, dining at Spencer's. The food was solid and it was really nice to sit on the patio overlooking the lake. It started raining while we ate too, which made for a very relaxing sound. The service was attentive. I would steer clear of the dining room if possible. They also offer Sunday brunch. Definitely a very romantic spot!



For a couple of other Burlington,ON restaurant posts:
* Bahn Thai Restaurant
* West Plains Bistro

Potato Salmon Cakes

Another potato recipe! With the leftover dill from the potato salad, I made chả cá (Vietnamese fish with dill) but I still had dill left. Dill is sold in ridiculously big bunches! Luckily, I found Chef at Home's potato fish cake recipe that used dill. This recipe was very easy and quick to make, not to mention salmon is a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids!



The recipe calls for cooking a salmon fillet and mixing it with potato, dill and green onion. It makes very big cakes because I only had 8 oz. of salmon and two small potatoes to make 4 regular size cakes. There's a horseradish sauce in the recipe but I just dipped my cakes in tartar sauce. I really like the flavour of the dill and it makes the cakes look so pretty with specks of green. And I have finally finished with the dill!


Salmon is simply seasoned, fried and added to potatoes.


Potato salmon mixture made into cakes.

Classic Potato Salad

Last week, I went over to my friends T & R for a barbecue and a long poker game. I offered to make something and R requested potato salad. I think the rare times I do make potato salad, I use a vinaigrette dressing. However, I figured R wanted the classic creamy potato salad. So I referred to my Williams-Sonoma Salad book. I really liked the addition of pickle and the robust flavour of dill in this salad. It was perfect as a side to our hamburgers and sausages.



Classic Creamy Potato Salad - 8-10 servings
I adapted the Williams-Sonoma's recipe to my taste. The original recipe called for eggs but I was not to keen on that. My friend R doesn't like red onion, so I replaced it with green onion. I didn't have Dijon mustard so used honey Dijon. The recipe states to preferably use homemade mayo but since I knew of one our friends was pregnant, I used a store bought one. I really liked the addition of sweet pickles and added more than the recipe called for. One last note, it stated the recipe makes 4-6 servings. If this is just a side, I think it's way too much potato salad so I would make a smaller portion.

* 2-½ red potatoes
* salt, to taste
* pepper, to taste
* ½ cup mayo
* ½ cup light sour cream
* 1 tbsp pickle juice (from sweet gerkhins)
* 1-2 tbsp honey Dijon mustard
* 3 green onions, sliced thinly
* ½ cup fresh dill
* ¼ cup minced sweet pickle
* 1 tsp paprika

Cook potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes, or until cooked.
Cut the potatoes into cubes.
Mix together the mayo, sour cream, pickle juice and mustard.
Add to the potato cubes and mix.
Add the green onion, fresh dill, pickle, salt and pepper.
Again, mix thoroughly.
Garnish with paprika.
Tada!


Cooked potatoes and cubed.

Creamy dressing and the addition of green ingredients.

Vegetable Pot Pie

For the main dish of my dinner with my old colleagues S and L, I decided to make a vegetable pot pie. I had leftover puff pastry in the freezer from making the Tarte Tatin I made before Christmas. I thought a pot pie would be a hearty main dish.



I followed the same recipe as the Curry Chicken Pot Pie, except for the filling. I roasted some vegetables instead for the filling. The recipe was easy as pie, pun intended!

Vegetable Pot Pie - Serves 4-6
Adapted from Alton Brown's Curry Chicken Pot Pie.
You can really use any combination of vegetables you like. I tried to go for a colourful combination. I had initially thought about cooking potatoes and squash first, then quickly stir frying them. At the last minute, I thought of roasting them. I am sure either way is fine but the vegetables should definitely be pre-cooked. I accidentally added quite a bit of chili but I really enjoyed the nice kick; alternately, you can add curry powder.

* 2 large potatoes, diced small
* ½ butternut squash, peeled and diced a bit larger than the potatoes - since I found they cook faster and soften very much
* 1 carrot, diced small
* olive oil
* salt, to taste
* pepper, to taste
* dried chili flakes, to taste
* dried/fresh herbs: oregano, parsley, thyme, rosemary
* ½ bunch of asparagus, sliced in 1" sections
* 1 onion, finely diced
* 3 celery stalks, sliced
* 3 tbsp butter
* 3 tbsp flour
* 1-½ cup vegetable broth, homemade or store bought
* ½ cup milk - I used skim milk
* corn and peas, 3/4 cups each, thawed
* puff pastry

Toss the potatoes, carrot and squash with olive oil, salt, pepper, chili and herbs.
Roast until the potatoes are nearly cooked (about 30 minutes at 350F).
Add the asparagus and roast for another 5 minutes.
Set the vegetable mixture aside.

Diced vegetables to be roasted.

In a little pot, heat up the broth and milk.

Cook onion and celery in 1 tbsp of butter, in a separate large pot, until they have softened.

Add 2 tbsp of butter until melted.

Add the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Ladle the hot milk mixture while whisking.

Season the mixture with salt (1 tsp), pepper and some parsley.

Cook until the mixture has thickened.

Add the corn, peas and roasted vegetable mixture and mix.

Add asparagus at the end of roasting and stir fry some celery.

Pour into a 9x9" deep baking dish.

Top the dish with puff pastry - rolled down if required.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 400F until golden brown.

Tada!

Colourful vegetable mixture topped with puff pastry.

The filling was creamy with a small amount of milk and butter, no cream!

Breakfast at my Sister's

Not only was I fed by my mom during the holidays but my sister and her boyfriend D also made a tremendous breakfast. They had my favourite breakfast item, bacon, and other yummy things. There's nothing like a hearty breakfast to start the day.


My breakfast plate.

My sister and D went out early to buy ingredients for scones. My sister has a thing for scones. She says I was the one who started it but I think I've only made them once. She uses Ina Garten's recipe from my Barefoot Contessa cookbook (that I lent her while I was in Vietnam). D was responsible for the crescent rolls and did a good job stuffing them with chocolate. Yum!


Crescent rolls, some stuffed with chocolate.


Maple Scones.

My sister loves to refer to Williams-Sonoma for recipes. She found this Frittata with Zucchini and Goat Cheese. She did well considering she didn't have a frittata pan (?!) like the recipe called for. We all enjoyed the tangy goat cheese addition.


Frittata with Zucchini & Goat Cheese.


Cross-section of the frittata.


Potatoes are also a must!


Fancy cut pineapple.

If you're wondering if all this food was for 3 people. No, we're not that bad! My sister also invited a couple of her girlfriends. As you can see, there was no worries about my starving during the holidays. I only have a couple more holiday posts and then it will be healthy, boring posts, so enjoy while it lasts!

Beef Stew, Dumplings and Pancetta Mashed Potato

I like to repay favours with meals. So I promised to have my friend J over for dinner. I left my car at his place for 7 months, then 3 weeks and now again for the holidays. I’m also getting a ride to Montréal with my roommate G and he lives with me, so I included him too. I have promised many more meals in the new year for various things.

I’ve never made roast chicken and the idea appealed to me, especially because our meal was on a Sunday. I still gave G two options: roast chicken or a stew. Being the WASP that he is, he picked a stew. I asked if he wanted mashed potatoes and he said his (British) mother made dumplings AND mashed potatoes. I’m sorry but I’m Asian; I only eat dumplings at dim sum! But for G, I found a recipe for dumplings that I made and ate for the first time.

Beef Stew – 4 servings

I grew up eating an Asian version of beef stew that we called ragoût, or bò kho in Vietnamese. I make beef stew on a regular basis in the winter. I follow a pretty basic recipe: beef, carrots, vegetable and red wine. This time I tried to “fancy it up” with butter and bacon. I referred to a few recipes, and combined two of them. This is a perfect “make ahead” recipe. I made it the night before and heated it up the next day.

Adapted from
Ricardo’s Slow Cooked Beef with Red Wine
Laura Calder’s Beef with Carrots

* 3 strips of bacon, cut into pieces
* butter
* flour
* salt and pepper, to taste
* 2 pounds of stewing beef cubes
* 1 large onion, sliced thinly
* 4 garlic cloves, sliced roughly
* 1 cup of red wine
* 1-½ chicken broth
* 1-½ diced canned tomatoes
* bay leaf
* 3 sprigs parsley
* 3 sprigs thyme
* 4 peppercorns
* 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
* sugar
* dried chili flakes, optional

In a big pot, cook the bacon until crispy and remove them.
Meanwhile, mix flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder.
Dredge pieces of beef into the flour mixture.
Add butter into the pot and brown the pieces of beef in batches. (Note: I cooked the beef in the bacon fat but found it created blackened, burned pieces so you should use separate pots, or give it a quick clean before browning the beef).
Repeat until all the beef is browned and set aside.

Slicing the bacon into pieces.

Cooking the bacon.

The three key ingredients.


Stewing beef cubes and then dredged.

Browning the beef.

Browned meat always looks good!

Add a bit more butter, and sauté the onion and garlic.
Add the wine and scrape all the brown bits (and hopefully not black!).
Add the chicken broth and tomatoes.
Bring to a boil.
Lower the heat to a simmer and add bay leaf, parsley, thyme, peppercorns.

Add back the beef and bacon.
Add red wine vinegar.
Let simmer for 4-5 hours until the beef is fork tender, adding water as needed (you can also cook this in the oven; I just don’t have an oven proof pot).

Add the potatoes and carrot with about an hour left to cooking.
Taste and season with salt, pepper, chili flakes and sugar, according to taste (I added sugar because I thought the tomatoes and vinegar made it a bit too acidic).

Sauté onion and garlic.

Adding the beef and bacon back in.

Hmmm! I like stew!

Anna Olson's Fluffy Dumplings
As I mentioned, dumplings is a foreign concept to me. Luckily, I found a very easy recipe and it worked out perfectly. I like how the use of the herbs give flecks of green that make it so pretty. I halved the recipe since we were only 3 people.

From Fresh with Anna Olson:

Fluffy Dumplings


Drop spoonfuls into the simmering stew.

Cover for 10 minutes and voilà!

The dumplings grew on me!

Pancetta Mashed Potatoes - 3 servings
Is it embarrassing that I get all my recipes from food TV shows? Why stop here? I knew that I wanted bacon in the potatoes since my friend C loved her bacon mashed potatoes at The Bison Mountain Bistro. So I looked for a mashed potato recipe with bacon. I have a not so good history with mashed potatoes. Growing up, I went to daycare that served lunch. Every day, we were served mashed potatoes, a meat and overcooked vegetables. I absolutely hated mashed potatoes (or patates pilées as I knew it). I don't eat it really anymore except in shepherd's pie but bacon (or cheese) does make it much better!

Adapted from:

Paula Deen's Fried Bacon Mashed Potatoes

* 3 large potatoes

* 50 g (2 oz.) pancetta - I got pancetta at the deli counter of my supermarket because I didn't want to buy a package of bacon

* 3 tbsp garlic butter
* green onion

* ¾ cup full fat milk

* salt and pepper, to taste

Boil potatoes until cooked.

Meanwhile, cook pancetta until crispy.

Cook green onion in melted garlic butter (I happened to have some and thought the extra garlic flavour would be good).

Turn off the heat and add in milk.
Mash the potatoes.
Add the milk mixture to the potatoes and mix. (I would add the milk a bit at a time. I think mine came out too liquid-ey).

Add crumbled pancetta to the mashed potatoes and mix.

Season with salt and pepper (after adding the pancetta because it is quite salty!).
Tada!

I find pancetta so pretty!

And I love crispy, super salty pancetta!

Green onion in butter!

I just mash the potatoes with a fork.

Finished product!