Happy new year! All the best to all my readers, haters and stalkers, lovers and other strangers. Now that the holiday season is winding down to an end and people are slowly rolling themselves to the gym, back to classes and cold office chairs that smell like the leftover coffee left in your mug from 2 weeks ago, it’s about time we got back on track. What track you ask? The delicious restaurant track where I’m going to show you some amazing spots to eat this year. We’re making big moves here at Shut Up and Eat and I”m excited to share all the up and coming news with you… when the time is right! I’ll give you a clue, it involves some major awesome with some kick-assness thrown in for good luck. So if you’re up to it, join me for the ride, cos it’s going to be a good one. So that being said, I’m going to start the new year with two of my favourite things, noodles… noodles and hot chicks, and wouldn’t you know it, I went to this noodle joint with one of the hottest!
Noodles
Let it be known, I don’t like soup. Why? I don’t know. I think it comes from when I was a kid and being forced fed soup… murky herbal and medicinal soups that smelled like a mix of the inside of a cedar chest and a damp math textbook. The concept of soup never made sense to me; why fill up on liquids when that’s just going to take up space and restrict the intake of actual food and deliciousness? As I grew up I reconciled with soup and have slowly let it back into my life in the forms of noodle soups and salsa. Letting the weather stipulate what I ultimately end up eating, I think it’s safe to say that Pho, is a winter-time meal – don’t get me wrong, by all means, eat it in the summer, because what you really want in 40 degrees with humidity is a bowl a steamy hot soup. A friend and I hit up this spot we both like to go to when cold is in the air and boots on our feet: Pho Tay Ho.
What is your relationship with food like? Do you have a favorite meal that you go to when you’re feeling down? Is there a dish that evokes certain memories and emotions that you can envision yourself in particular place and time? As I’ve come to eat my way across Montreal, I’ve created associations with restaurants and dishes that will either bring back a flood of delicious memories, or the horror and fear of getting stuck in traffic after an unpleasant run-in with a bowl of ice cream and a bottle of diet coke.
Little did I know, I would forge a very special relationship with a restaurant before I even stepped foot in the place; it’s been going on for the last 2 years. Someone suggested to me, Hwang Kum, a Korean spot on Sherbrooke. I went twice to check it out, only to find the place closed both times and I took it as a sign and decided to shun it off my list forever; if I’m not meant to eat there, then I’ll stop trying. Then it happened… from the corner of my eye, like spotting accidental cleavage, I notice the “OUVERT” side of the sign was facing the window, I parked the car and IT.WAS.ON!
