A Bear-y Special Visit: Festival du Voyageur

Winnipeg is blessed to have the largest Francophone population outside of Quebec in Canada. And with these Francophone came French and Quebec traditions and food. One of the hallmarks of French culture in Winnipeg is the annual Festival du Voyageur, where, seemingly, the entirety of St. Boniface is morphed into a winter wonderland. Celebrating French culture, food and music, we knew this was a must-go, despite the bone chilling frigid conditions.

The principle site for Festival du Voyageur is the Voyageur Park, a large enclosed space featuring fun activities and festivities outside and, thankfully, inside nicely warmed tents. The first striking thing you will notice is the snow sculpting competition featuring international sculpters creating their fanciful works of art in the frigid cold using nary but rudimentary ingredients.

A Quebec tradition in La Cabane a sucre (Sugar Shack), these stemmed from traditional cabins in Eastern Canada where sap is collected from maple syrup trees to make maple syrup.

Truthfully, we were there just for the Maple Taffy. A traditional snack involving taking warm fresh maple syrup, loading it gingerly onto ice, letting it harden on a popsicle stick, and rolling the entire concoction to make a popsicle taffy. Delicious! Sweet and slightly warm, the taffy is the perfect way to brave the cold.

Poutine is another classic French food that one cannot miss. Even with the taffy warming our tummies, we had to frequent La P'Tite Bottine for a taste of traditional poutine.

Poutine consists of a base of French fries with cheese curds and finished with a beef based gravy. The key lies in the cheese curds, which must have a "squeaky" consistency when bitten. These were dynamite. Crisp fries and a smooth gravy round out the definite squeak-ing cheese curds.

While not traditionally French, we had to try to the Bannock Shack for their rendition of traditional Native American cuisine. Bannock, the staple of Native American meals, refers to any type of flat bread that is baked or fried crisp. As the main source of calories and bread, it would form the basis of any meal.

Aptly named Bannock Taco, this was a large taco salad esque dish with bannock at the bottom topped with lean ground beef, vegetables, salsa, sour cream and cheddar cheese. It was a bit difficult to taste the bannock as the rest of the ingredients were so reminiscent of taco salad flavours.

Our friend had to try the Moose Balls. Essentially a Bannock fritter it is topped with syrup and brown sugar. Delicious! The balls were fried nice and crisp on the outside but smooth and light on the inside.


And the rest will be pictures showcase the venue and some of the activities available.

Dine About Winnipeg 2015 - Resto Gare

French cuisine is one of the oldest and most influential of modern food. During my youth I spent a lot of time watching the Food Network. During the weeknights there would be a syndicated Japanese cooking show called Iron Chef. It featured one (of three) iron chefs who would take on a challenger in a 60 minute cooking showdown with a featured/theme ingredient. One of my favourite Iron Chefs was Hiroyuki Sakai, known for his French cuisine. I was always impressed by the beauty and simplicity of his dishes while drooled over the depth of flavour he would be able to create. Thus one of my missions has been to find great French food in Winnipeg and when Dine About featured Resto Gare, I knew we had to go.

Located in historic St. Boniface, Resto Gare attained notoriety both through its menu, touting traditional French cuisine, and through the retrofitted train car that is used as one of the dining rooms. Exuding class and elegance, Gare attempts to take diners back when traveling by rail was commonplace.

Look at gorgeous it looks! Plush seating, bright lighting, solid oak tables and classy wait staff all make up the olden day rail cart experience. It was obvious that Resto Gare took great care into the details and making sure that all aspects of the service were taken care of. It is refreshing to find a restaurant focus so much on the overall dining experience for its customers!

For Dine About 2015, Resto Gare created a $28 or $38 menu featuring traditional French ingredients and dishes. Peeking at the main menu revealed an even larger range of offerings available. Ranging from the famous Onion Soup to Frog Legs as the starters, to Duck Confit as the main and the classic Creme Brulee to finish, the main menu really shows how pervasive French culture and food have become in everyday Western cuisine. Nevertheless, as we were there during Dine About, we opted for the following dishes!

Dining as a quartet that night we opted for a nice bottle of wine. A recommendation from the house, the Armas de Guerra Mencia was a bold flavoured red wine with a hint of fruitiness. A strong and stiff drink by itself but a welcomed accompaniment to the forthcoming meal.

Resto Gare provides complimentary soft crusty Bread with a balsamic and olive oil dressing. The sharp and sweet vinegar matches well with the smooth oil here and works to whet your appetite for the forthcoming meal.

Traditional French Onion Soup was the appetizer of choice for all of us. The classic was well prepared here! The beef broth, accentuated by onions and wine flavours, was strong and full bodied. The soup itself was topped with a load of tender bread and melted cheese. Overall small in size but enormous in flavour!

I had the Coq Au Vin. Chicken braised in wine, root vegetables and mushrooms. Thoughtfully prepared, the half chicken was expertly cooked with a crispy skin on the outside and tender meat on the inside. The accompanying root vegetables and mushrooms in their gravy added a luxurious component to the chicken. Finally the mashed potatoes provided starch to balance out the savoury components.

Two of my fellow co-residents had the Boeuf Pot Au Feu. Brisket, winter root vegetables in a veal broth, this was equally well done. The brisket, a moderate portion, was exquisitely tender and matched well with the light and refreshing veal broth. Here I thought the vegetables and potatoes added little to the dish and could have been cooked a tad more to infuse the richness of the protein and the sauce.

Finally a co-resident had the Melange Fruits De Mer Etouffe. Mixed seafood, rice and vegetables in a Creole stew, this dish was a disappointment. The seafood consisted of bland shrimp, tasteless muscles and rubbery (from frozen) fish. The chef does a good job with the creole sauce and infuses all the flavours into the rice, but I have to be discontented with the poor protein offering here.

Two of us had the Banana Fosters Cream Pie. Accompanied with an toasted almond meringe, this was a light and fun finish to the meal. The tart pie was well paired with the almond meringe and finished off with a bit of caramel.

Fried Chocolate Bread Pudding was the dessert of choice for the other two. The bread pudding had a nice contrast in the crispy outer layer with the ooey-gooey moist chocolate centre. It was accompanied with a creme anglaise which added needed creaminess and smoothness to the luxurious chocolate.

Overall Resto Gare is a strong showcase of traditional French cuisine in Winnipeg. I have to commend them on their focus on detail and making sure the customer is taken care of from beginning to end of the meal. The food, poor seafood aside, was overall good and resembles a best-of list of classic French dishes. Therefore Resto Gare has to be a recommendation for anyone wanting to try French cuisine; make sure to sit in the rail car to complete the experience!

A special friend visit - Bistro 7 1/4

One of the joys of being in medicine is the relationships you can forge within the community. I was lucky to meet a number of incredible people during my training in Edmonton and have built strong relationships with a good chunk of them. With me moving away, I was honoured to welcome a special friend to Winnipeg. So this next series begins the food eating adventures we had.

This individual and I share a common love for food. Even before I moved to Winnipeg we had been researching a number of popular Winnipeg establishments and came upon Bistro 7 1/4. What a joy it was to subsequently dine there.

We started off the meal with Oysters. These were the chefs selection and their location escapes me. What I did not forget was the briny-ness and smooth flavour of these oysters. The true test is to eat them with a couple drops of lemon juice, and these passed with flying colours.

I had ordered the French Onion Soup as a conversation piece. My dining companion mentions that he has difficult finding a good "onion soup" at restaruants. Well, much to his pleasure, we found the version here wonderfully robust, well seasoned and luxurious.

This whopping mess of Moules et frites represented one order (yes it is enough to feed at least two by itself). Bistro 7 1/4 has a number of flavours but we wanted to go with the classic tomato, basil and white wine. The sauce imparted a nice aroma and subtle flavour to the cooked mussels. Overall, this dish was a little too overhyped: the mussels were small and the fries nothing special.

The Ricotta Gnudi was something new to me. Gnudi is very similar to Gnocchi except it is mostly made with cheese and very little flour. This dish was finished with asparagus, bacon and a creamy egg on top. Presented wonderfully; the pasta was al dente; and bacon imparted a smokey aroma. No complaints.

Last but not least was the Duck Confit. This was incredible. The unbelievably tender duck had a honey dressing on top of it which mixed perfectly with the crisp salad and crispy brioche. Star of the night.