Merivale Noodle House, Ottawa gardening

Good morning,

I begin today by directing you to a post by the good people at Ottawa’s very own Gaia Organic Seeds. The federal government is planning amendments to Plant Breeders’ Rights Regulations, which would have dire consequences for farmers, market gardeners and small seed companies. It would also make saving seeds illegal and would drive up costs for farmers who would pay more for licensed varieties.  

Two questions: One, sound familiar? And two, Monsanto, anyone?

The proposed changes are far-reaching and are designed to benefit multinational corporate breeders who often design toxic pesticides like Round-Up (glyphosates) to work in tandem with the seeds they’ve genetically altered.

If you’d like to add your voice to the comments you can do that by visiting the Canada Gazette at this direct link to the proposed amendments. The deadline for public comments is October 18.

Now let’s grab a brew and dig in.

Ralf Joneikies, food and drink editor. [email protected]

VIETNAMESE

Merivale Noodle House refreshes its look and flavours

It’s rare that I land at a Vietnamese restaurant and not order a bowl of Pho. That’s what happened on this occasion, but I did make up for it with an appetizer which, while common in the Vietnamese kitchen, is not often seen in Ottawa’s culinary scene.

Merivale Noodle House underwent renovations a while back, and I was eager to see if a facelift would also mean a change in kitchen output.

Always on the lookout for singular spring rolls, I was heartened by the appearance of these three large, well-made rolls.

When you order pork spring rolls, you do expect a sufficient pork flavour and these, while tasty, were 90 per cent vegetables and noodles. I also feel I should add that the oil in which they’d been fried tasted clean and not bitter — a good sign.

The fun of eating quail is that it’s best done with your hands. It’s a little like eating wings, only with different moving parts to separate. Try eating a quail wing, however and you may find that it has greater utility as a toothpick.

You’ll find this appetizer in a few restaurants around town, but not often. As these are grilled, you do get that delicious summer BBQ char flavour. These birds had been thoroughly marinated, and the grill treatment had left them moist and tender.

Few dishes have me thinking of summer more than a fresh salad. Particularly, Vietnamese salads that feature chilled shrimp and green papaya. 

More than just the crisp flavours of lettuce, cucumber, papaya, carrot, cilantro and mint, it’s the fact that this dressing is done without oils and is both sweet and savoury. 

You have your choice of dried beef or pork in slivered jerky form and I enjoyed the firm but salty punch this added, along with the toasted peanuts for topping. 

I thought I would go with a fried noodle dish on this visit. Steamed rice vermicelli bowls or Pho are the more typical noodle dishes from Vietnam, but I was craving something a bit different and ordered a fried seafood rice noodle.

Sometimes it pays to stick with your go-to items. The noodles and vegetables were fresh and plentiful, and there was a light sauce, but it didn’t taste of anything. I honestly can’t tell you what it might have been.

There were nicely cooked shrimp but the remainder of the seafood came in the form of surimi, fish balls and a few bits of pineapple cut calamari that were inedible.

The element that stood out however, was the beautifully, perfectly executed white button mushrooms. Cooked all the way through, they still had a little resistance and biting into them, they exploded with warm mushroom essence. I wasn’t expecting that and if only all restaurants could give the humble mushroom this treatment. 

A fun family way of dining is with rice roll-ups, where you are served a plate of cooked and raw ingredients, which you then roll into the accompanying steamed rice paper. As with so much in Vietnamese cuisine, it’s full of flavour and low in fat and calories. It’s also a bit of work.

Unless you have experience and are adept at this, you may want to give it a pass. My lunch companion, however, was keen to give it a try and after the experience, will likely never go through the trouble again. 

If you do get the hang of making your own fresh rice rolls, Merivale Noodle House offers 16 different combinations and the BBQ pork and shrimp were simply delicious. The sweet char of the proteins married so well with the textures and flavours of the fresh vegetables, herbs and rice vermicelli.

Merivale Noodle House offers good family dining with considerable portions at fair prices. The food coming out of the kitchen was expertly prepared, and the service was both kind and attentive, particularly if they suspect you may not be familiar with this food.

I, for one, will be happy to return.

Suggested stories

• Noodle House 79 offers some of Merivale’s best dishes

• Yes to Yes! Mama Kitchen

• Scratch cooking at The Noodle House

GARDEN

Looking back on a mysterious Ottawa growing season

After this growing season, I asked myself, “what did I learn.” The sobering message may be that I don’t know as much as I think I do about gardening. That’s likely to be the case in most things we pursue, but learning is always, after all, a large part of the fun.

In this season, however, there wasn’t much to be done as many folks have been reporting on irregularities with their crops. There was just something off with the climate. 

My raspberries this year were half the size of all previous seasons, and rather than the usual two crops, there was only one, and the yield was half.

When it came to tomatoes, fruit started to show in late July, and while some tomatoes started to ripen, others, on the very same vine, remain entirely green to this very moment.

This year, I added fresh organic triple mix (black earth, sand, peat moss) soil to all the garden beds and it was a good call. Given the uneven ripening, I expect that my results would not have been as good as they turned out to be.

Mizuna ranks among my favourite salad greens. It’s delicious and super healthy and, outside of a few farmers markets, rarely available. It’s also very easy to grow even when you plant them close together. Plant it once in May, and you will be harvesting it regularly until October. One of the very best greens you can grow and that includes balcony planters.

The Tortarello cucumber (pictured above) was a new variety I planted, and it will now feature regularly in my garden. It’s a pale, ridged cucumber that has a tender skin and is satisfyingly crunchy without a single trace of bitterness. It has a pleasantly sweet, mild citrus and minerally character and is terrific in salads.

Its lack of bitterness means it’s safe from the scourge of the cucumber beetle. These pests are attracted to a bitter compound (cucurbitacins) in cucumbers that the Tortarello lacks.

Across the board (with the exception of Mizuna), everything in my garden was wildly off. My elderflower had both buds and fully bloomed flowers on the same cluster. The list is long, and early in the season, I was very hopeful. I did learn a few things, however, and I share them below.

Gardeing tips

When it comes to tomatoes, most of us have always understood that vine-ripened tomatoes are best. We leave them on until they are fully red. Not so fast.

It makes more sense to harvest your tomatoes when they are halfway red/orange. At this point, they have everything they need to fully ripen indoors. It saves them from being bitten by squirrels and from splitting due to excess rain. Once they split they are also prone to disease.

With the recent deluge we had, even some of my green tomatoes split and that was unavoidable. So I do recommend pulling them off their vines early for best results. 

If you have an abundance of green tomatoes by the time the weather turns consistently cool, take your tomatoes and wrap them individually in newsprint and store them in one layer on a cardboard flat. Place the fruit in a cool, dark area and check it periodically for ripeness. 

As it turns out, cucumber plants love producing fruit and the best way to ensure a good harvest is to pick your cukes while they are still young. 

If cucumbers get too large and start producing viable seeds, the plant starts to shut down because it thinks its job is done by producing all those seeds. Pick those cucumbers early and you’ll be picking more often even into the late summer.

One of the better growing tips I came across this year involved putting a three-inch layer of wood mulch around the base of every cucumber plant. 

Cucumbers require a lot of water, and adding mulch prevents rapid evaporation, and it keeps the roots of the plant much cooler. They do much better when their roots remain cooler than the outside temperature.

As you might guess, I’ve been getting my fill of great salads and tomato soups, but I dread the work ahead of me when the canning of plum tomatoes begins. For that, there’s always a glass of wine, I suppose.

QUICK BITES

• Harvest: A Feast of Fall is taking place on Sept. 17 at the Ottawa Art Gallery. This fundraiser goes to support YouTurn Youth Services who work with at risk youth.

• The very good noodle house Meet Noodle has opened a second location at 1482 Merivale Rd.

• Here’s a lovely recipe for Vietnamese papaya salad to wow everyone’s palate. [Full of Plants]

• One way to curb (just a little) our unhealthy habits is through education. This history of sugar doc is a good, and sobering place to start. [YouTube]

LOOKOUT WINE

Lovely, lighter summer wines from Liebling Wines

Translated, “Liebling” (Leeb-ling) means Darling and is a reference to family patriarch Matthias Oppenlaender. Growing up Matthias was Oma's (grandma’s) favourite and the label has been created by his daughters to commemorate her and to honour their father.

Matthias Oppenlaender left Germany 40 years ago to begin what is now a respected grape-growing operation in Niagara. He was, in fact, my teacher for the grape-growing portion of my wine-making education.

I met both Alison and Jessica Oppenlaender this past February at the Canadian Culinary Championships where they were pouring the wines of their new project: Liebling Wines.

As I enjoyed both the wines and hearing about their project, I decided to profile their wines as the first in a series about Ontario wineries.

Given their history, it’s understandable that the Oppenlaenders are making wines from grapes that do exceptionally well in southern Ontario (aka cool climate): Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Gamay Noir. 

They also produce a Cabernet Franc (another grape that grows well in Niagara), and there are approximately 80 bottles kicking around in the Ottawa LCBO stores for those who enjoy a more robust red. All their other wines can be ordered directly from their website.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

Divisoria Resto Bar is perfect Filipino family dining, including ample leftovers

For those looking to explore Filipino food (and leave with enough for a second lunch) then this Filipino spot checks all the boxes

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