Bistro Jezz - Food Review

[2016.5.10 EDITED Unfortunately, Bisto JEZZ has closed down...few bad decisions when economy is low has had it with it...]

Okay, Whatever will be following in this post will be totally biaised, because I just love the place... However, I will try to be as good as I can in just relating facts. So here we go~~

I will first refer you guys - those who speak French, or at least, can read it - to Michel Julien's blog on his 'coups de coeurs', he made a small article on Bistro Jezz. Also there is a restaurant review on Internet - again, in French - with nice comments on the place and the food, so I don't feel too bad in praising the place.

Last may 28th, Jézabel Pilote, the owner and chief of Bistro Jezz was invited for the second time to cook at Des Kiwis et des Hommes to talk about regional food. You can find her in the second and fourth part of the video, plus a link to the recipe she and her friend from Témiscamingue made. Sorry for the lot of commercials between the parts...

Bistro Jezz opened last year around mid-may, I was still in Montreal at the time so I missed the opening. While there are actually quite a lot of interesting places in Rouyn-Noranda, my hometown, whenever a new place opens it is still quite exciting, not like in a big town where you just end up walking by and realize it opened. In a smaller-scale town, you often know the people who opens the place, and you hear about the opening from many random places before it actually does. In this case, Bistro Jezz was opened by a former high school classmate of my older brother, the one I went to Japan with last winter. 

The food in bistro Jezz in Fusion Cuisine, so basically a modern adaptation of French cuisine. My boss highly values regional products so she buys regional stuff the most she can, is highly imaginative in her recipe and really knows her stuff: she learnt cooking on her own and did, among other things, work in farm and in the forest to actually learn the basis of food, how it is made. She is someone that I respect greatly and she respects every single step in the making of food: the people who cultivate it, the people who make it, but also the waiters serving it, the guy washing dishes for cooking to be possible. While I think she often takes a bit too much on her own shoulders and it seems hard on her at times, she can be proud of what she achieved, while doing her best to take care of her two kids. 

Below I will show you some of the stuff she made for the restaurant, and for her caterer service (I looked up for "traiteur" on Internet and "caterer" is what came up so I hope the translation is not inadequate). I will keep the names in French because I find it quite hard to translate food terms, but feel free to help me out translating...

Carpaccio de Kangourou, mayonaise épicée, servi avec parmesan râpé,
pousses de tournesol et radis. Décoration avec huile d'olive et épinards

Je ne suis plus certaine de la sorte de viande... je crois que c'est du boeuf,
avec sauceau poivre et vin rouge, purée de panais et épinards frits.

Foie Gras confit aux canneberges avec pousses de Dat Soy

Araignée de boeuf Vitalipré sauce tomatée sucrée, fromage de chèvre et salade de roquette

Croustillant de cerf servi avec confit d'oignons, raisins rouge et caramel à la Guiness

Confit de dinde avec chips et purée de patates douces,
servi avec légumes et pacanes caramélisées

Torchon de Foie Gras, servi avec figues fraîches, confit d'oignon, réduit de vinaigre balsamique et croûtons

Let us fall in the Dessert part, because desserts rule my life, and Bistro Jezz makes awesomeness possible....

This plate was the dessert plate offered at the first anniversary party of Bistro Jezz
A mini Tiramisu, a chocolate and a home-made dessert Club-sandwich and salad (so
basically white vanilla cake for bread, chocolate mousse for bacon, white chocolate
mousse for mayonnaise, basil leaves for lettuce, strawberries for tomatoes, and a honey
dew melon mint salad for the coleslaw) beat that you f**kers...oh no, swearing is bad

cheesecakes with raspberry mousse and sauce

Tiramisu cakes

Crème Caramel à l'orange

Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, maple cream sauce and strawberries

 Bistro Jezz has the good point that it opens until late (10 pm) but as many small scale restaurants, it closes between lunchtime and dinnertime. Regular working hours are Monday to Friday from 11-2 and Monday to Saturday from 5-10. From Monday to Wednesday the place usually is not full so reservations beforehand are not really a necessity, but we have two services from Thursday to Saturday nights: the first one starts at 5-6 and ends at 8:15, and the second starts at 8:30 and ends when we close, around 10.

Most of what was shown previously is part of the evening menu, that basically changes every day/weeks, depending on the quantity the owner buys for the restaurant. Below is the regular menu, that is available at all times in the restaurant with an idea of the price of the items.

January Shopping

The other day I had an awesome dessert <3 My aunty made some hm.... how would I call this. It's like a pickled apple recipe, save that it's a bit like apple jelly... but with whole baby apples. Basically it's got nothing to do with pickles. Save the fact they're put in similar pots. Oh well. 

We had those with Coaticook's maple ice cream - a delightful ice cream, one of the only brand of ice cream we can buy that is actually made with 'milk' and 'cream' instead of powdered milk and water (IMO, we are stupid to make ice cream with the transformed product of the milk we sell to the US, and that they sell it back to us in powder, for cheaper: I mean, where's the logic in that? I don't blame the US for this, especially if Canadian companies are too stupid to take advantage of our rich milk production right here in our own country... really, some tings really don't make sense).

The mix of sweetened apples with the maple ice cream was quite too sweet, so we ate it with a delicious old cheddar. Really, people should all know about the bliss of mixing sweet and salty things. Not trying it is, IMO, missing out on an important blissful pleasure of the senses.

My boss is, with two other people, starting to build a food catering (?) - I'll need some feed-back on this term, I do not know if this one is accurate. It is basically what we call "Traiteur d'alimentation" in French, meaning we provide prepared meals to events and special occasions. We had a very busy Christmas time at Bistro Jezz, so the preparation took long enough to put itself together, but now the restaurant has its own food catering cart, with images of the awesomeness of our food on it. It's all shiny and really well made - refrigerated compartments, drawers and very easy to use to transport the various plates 

 I love how much energy my boss has, putting in place all sorts of projects. She is full of ideas and I respect her straightforwardness - is that a word? Anyways. I am happy of all the things she brings to my hometown, we really had a need for this kind of business. Plus, the food she makes is pure bliss. Do I use this word too much?

My mother and I are still waiting for the missing material we need to make frills, so while waiting for a call from the store we put together a piece of cork to practice basic points and get aquainted with the concept of working with those small bobbins. It's interesting how you pin up the thread all along the work. I still cannot picture how to use these to make flowers, fruits, and detailes frills, but I feel like I am on the right way teh he...

Talking about warm drinks I'll talk about coffee. Coffee is a monster. Coffee will, in time rule the world, I am sure. Coffee is probably worse than most drugs and addictions, for it is a recognized 'necessary good', and people don't see it as what it really is: a monster. 

Try not to take coffee for a day when you are used to drinking it everyday. You know what I mean. You know, that stupid headache you don't know where it's from? Yeah, exactly. Get my drift? 

Coffee is evil. 

Now that we are clear on this point... I went to have a cappuccino with my mommy this afternoon at a bakery close to my place. In the cold weather, the bakery was a good compromise between the really close Abstracto - where I think there is not enough light to go during the day - and the Chocolaterie le Gisement - much farther away, and full of too sweet stuff for the line :P. So we went to have a coffee, bringing a book, but in the end we just talked and the reading period that was planned did not happen. There will be other times.

La Pâtisserie Saint-Honoré has been open here for quite some time now, and it has awesome fresh breads and cute small cake, plus a variety of sweet delicacies and home-made jams. The owner of the bakery, a French guy from Alsace, earned the title of 'Sir' from the French Embassy last fall, for the extent of his work here and what he brought from his country to Quebec.

I love the colors of the Bakery/restaurant - here is a little screenshot of the place, sadly enough,
they did not have many cakes in the display today, as they don't make too many of them in advance

I went to do some shopping today, to look for small gifts to send to some friends living away from here - like, everyone I know, basically - but whose birthday are close, or who I'd told I'd send them gifts for Xmas and the like. I stopped at a kid toy shop I love particularly, owned my a friend of my brother. I am a big baby basically. But there is this one brand of dolls that I love, that has scented dolls, with different ethnicities - they even have read-heads :3... I think they did not need to... ha ha, but that must be why they got so many prices: they show love where other people show hatred :). I love the middle one <3 so cuuuuute the baby asian :)

So here is my accomplishment of the day! I put all the things together and will go post them tomorrow. I still have to Xmas cards to answer as well. But my mom has some as well so I'll write them when she does, so we can have tea together at the same time. Me loves spending time with mommy. Right now she is putting up wallpaper upstairs in the room beside my bedroom with my daddy. I'll take some pictures when we finish it and put the decoration altogether.

Immaculée-Conception

My mom and I recently found a frill and lace book and we decided that we'd try to make some nice stuff with it as soon as we get our hands on a good pattern to follow. When she was my age, my mother had bought a nice kit fo make frills and laces, but never ended up using it and so, the kit is still intact. I can't wait to try to make some stuff. I think it's going to be a lot of work and time, but don't we all love laces? 

I mean, don't I? 

I think the time and pain is worth trying anyways. Plus, if I succeed in making nice stuff, I'll be able to make frills exactly the way I want and decorate stuff I like around me <3 

Today I had my first class of the semester at the university of Quebec. the university recently bought old buildings to make new classrooms, as the programs were all expending quite a lot. Among the new acquisition, they bought my old elementary school, that had closed for lack of kids - we used to have tons of children in my hometown, and we had tons of elementary schools, but lately, as they all grew up and people my age did not have many kids, some of those schools, like mine, closed their doors.

What was not my surprise to actually figure out that I was going to have a class in my old school! So here I was, getting back in my memories, listening to a boring university lecture introduction in a local that used to be my 6th grade classroom. I loved the idea.

Immaculée-Conception, the building that used to be my elementary school. I was such a monster at this time too....

Before my class started, I went around the school to look at how much it had changed. I remembered this school to be such a big one that I found it really hard to believe that  it was so small. I mean, I had been really small when I went there I guess. But it is always weird to find oneself face to face with one's childhood memories, and discover that they were all a matter of a kid's perception. you following? Anyways, I found out that the basement, where there used to be a gymnasium, is now hosting the material for some random forestry class - i suppose, since there are all sorts of wooden models in one part of it. 

The rest of the gymnasium is still not completed and it made me feel sad to see it in such a dirty state. I mean, I remember our strict P.E. teacher, that was a bit of an OCD: he was probably one of the only teacher in the region who'd actually scold us if we did not change from the classroom indoor shoes to the gymnasium indoor shoes. He really hated having pebbles all over the ground, and insisted that we keep it clean at all times. Now that I look at what this cherished floor looks like, I feel like he'd go crazy... ha ha

I went to work tonight as a helper at the restaurant with my brother and we finished quite late, though it did not end up being such a busy evening. the last two tables ended up staying until 11h30pm so we had to wait until they were done. They left up almost half a bottle of expensive wine however, that we split with the kid who washes dishes. Oh sweet sweet wine. It was not such a bad evening afterall.

 

Week end Synthesis...

Last weekend (well on Friday actually) we had the King's day.... have no clue on how you English peop call this day, but that's the day the Arab kings came upon the lil Jesus' bed after his birth. The celebrations we have for Christmas are all christianity-related, so let's embrace it. Whatever. While I am not a believer, I like this day a lot, since we used to bake a cake at home, and put a dry bean or something, in the mix before baking it. The person who'd get the piece of cake with it would become the 'king/queen' of the day. Dunno if it was my parents' doing, or just me being lucky, but I actually have good memories of getting quite often the said bean. then people'd have to oblige to my every wish for the day. I guess this is why we always had this cake close to going to bed... ha ha parent's cunning ways should never be underestimated. 

Well. I personally would never put up with myself as a queen for a day, especially as a kid. 

I was a monster.

A few years ago I learned that in French bakeries they actually use fine porcelain figurines that they put inside their almond paste pastries. It's much more interesting to keep those than to keep beans, if you want my opinion. When I was living in Montreal I bought one, and ate the whole thing with my best friend, just to have the thing, and it ended up being the leg/arm-less top half of a woman body wearing a corset. That was quite depressing... I personally had hoped I'd get a cute strawberry cupcake, like they had as display figures in the store. My bad. 

Anyways, point is that this year, we ordered 4 of those tarts in Bistro Jezz for the occasion, and had three couples in a row getting the figurines. We gave them golden paper crowns to wear - looking back now, I wish I had taken a picture of those people with the figurine and the crown. that would have been a nice memory - and let them keep the figurine. Sadly, a couple forgot it, so we kept it at the restaurant. A cute baker-lady and her fresh bread. 

I add up also, two desserts of the week, a chocolate génoise with chocolate mousse, maple and strawberry sauces and a cheesecake with a raspberry mousse and mint leaves. The first, I tried, it was delicious. the latter, I missed the opportunity to taste. I am sure it must have been great... *sobs*

This weekend was the last few days my parents were away, so I took most of my time cleaning the second floor - where my bedroom is - and did it like a bauss :) I actually hung curtains I had made last year for my apartment, and it helped a great deal with the look of the bathroom. I am quite happy with what I ended up, even in this very old-school in-need-of-retuning-bathroom. 

My mother and I took hours to make three curtains similar to this one. I am very picky you know, so just choosing the colors and patterns to use was quite a big deal ha ha. But I love the result. It's cute, without being too over the top.

 On Monday, my boss had an awesome menu for the lunch. Lacquered turkey - Quebec turkey - in maple sirup sauce, sweet potato chips, pecan confits, veggies and sour cream. Bliss. Literally. Now you know why I did not take the cheese cake. There was no more space in my stomac after this, especially since, waking up pretty late, this had been my breakfast...

La Rose des Vents

Picture with Santa <3

I had my Christmas Staff Party yesterday, with 10 people from my workplace. Some 2 or 3 of them could not come, and the kids washing dishes did not come either. We went to bowling around 3P.M. and had quite a lot of fun, being the only ones - plus one little family - in the entire place. I usually suck at this sort of stuff, lacking quite the strength to throw the balls like people normally do - I basically aims the best I can, and let the ball roll slowly and happily down the alley. My usual score is around 80-90. Probably the most I can ever get in bowling. We were not really good anyways, so I was actually in the high average. 

What was funny enough is that on the television showing the scores, there was also something that calculated the km/hr of each throw, which I had never had the occasion of using. The average speed was arouns, I would say, 17km/hr, which is quite fast IMO. One of the girl cooks had easy 25km/hr, beating the guys often by far.

Here, though, I must have broken records. My average was around 6km/hr :) Ain't I a sweet weak little person? Now I do not wonder why I never beat anyone with strength, there is no way I can.

After the bowling, that was more like a get together and chilling in the afternoon without the stress of work, we went to a Fine Cuisine restaurant calles La Rose des Vents to get a Christmas dinner. It was my first time going so I'll take the time to make a review. Ever since I tried The Bistro Jezz, I felt like all the other 'fine' restaurants around town were not going to be much impressive (Afterall, the place I work at actually has me saying it makes the best Western food I ever ate in my life, and I believe I've tried quite my lot of different places). I had heard of La Rose des Vents a couple of time without having gone, since it could be classified as more or less equal in quality with Bistro Jezz food-wise. At least that's what people say about it. The very fact that the Rose des Vent actually chose to have it's Christmas party at our place, and us at theirs could explain that we both have around the same standards. Anyways, yesterday, I got to try it myself. 

God it feels so good, in restauration, to actually be the ones to be served!!!

First impression: a cozy little restaurant, with probably a capacity of 20 people maximum, nice floral pattern on an old school wooden bar, big wooden chairs and white table cloth. The decoration is really sweet, much more my style than Bistro Jezz, that has more of a modern look (you can see the picture on the website I liked to, as mine did not turn out quite as well in the feeble lighting of yesterday night). We were the only customers, most people having already had their Christmas party before the Holidays, and the fact that the place is quite small. There is a big blackboard on the side of the room, with a listing of the day's menu, starters, main dishes, and Trou Normand.

After we settle down with alcohol, the chef (judging from the accent, French, but I did not get to ask where from) explains us everything in the menu in detail, from the ingredients, to the cooking methods not forgetting to mention why he chose one ingredient instead of another, and the intention of each of them. Just listening to the explanation had me gain 3 pounds I am sure. Everything seemed really good, especially the starters. There were two of them that got my attention in particular: Duo de Foie Gras and a Pâte feuilletée of regional goat cheese. I hesitated for a long time whether if I should not actually take two appetizers, then the onion soup offered before the main dish comes, and end up with a dessert - the latter being written on a separate little blackboard on the other side of the room. I ended up choosing a cranberry goose main dish, served with mashed potatoes seasoned with chestnuts. 

Verdict:

After the first impression, we had an awesome red wine Les Charmes - I'll have to look up for the whole name later... - and I took the Foie Gras Starter. It was pure bliss. Served with a Spice Bread - like those gingerbread men - each bite was like an explosion of flavor. People who took my second choice, the goat cheese one, said about the same thing. I can say I was anticipating the main dish more and more.

Goat Cheese Starter - I apologize for the bad quality of the picture, iPhone is not meant to take pictures underexposed
Ironically, I haven't taken a picture of my Foie Gras starter, I was too busy eating it.... Shame on me I suppose...

Thing is, the main dish was really insipid. The meat was cooked quite fine, the plates looked good and the ingredients were all nice and all, but there was literally no taste. I was really sad I did not stick to my first ideas, the two appetizers. A coworker and I had planned on sharing our plates, which we did (she got a beef tenderloin), with the same sad result. We had to come face to face with reality, the food was tasteless. 

Goose mean with Cranberry sauce and chestnuts potatoes

This is why I ended up taking a dessert. I felt like I had to finish with a positive overview of the place so I wanted to give it a last chance. My boss ordered three big plates of various cheeses, that were really good. Among them one of my personal favorite, the Cendrillon, which we had at Christmas at my brother's. I took a chocolate mousse and praline on a layer of crispy cookie served with red berry sauce. The dessert was just as blissful as the starters, luckily. This, IMO, saved the day. 

The quality of this picture got surprisingly much better than the other photos. lucky

So my suggestion is, if one needs to go at La Rose des Vents - and don't misunderstand, I absolutely recommend it - he should take the starters that appeal to him most, maybe two of them, instead of getting the more expensive and not tasty enough main dish. To end the evening in fashion, let him take the Trou Normand, of which there is a good selection, my personal favorite being the one with apple sherbet (really tasty, with little peel of apples in it), cheese and a dessert. They have a very big and good selection of wine, alcohol and cocktails for amateurs too. 

Having fun in between services....

Olive & Basil

Yes it is still Xmas... in my head anyhow. I realize I had not posted pictures of my bedroom Season's decorations. I realize now that the quality of the picture itself isn't this good, but I guess that will have to do.

Laziness obliges.

This is the Xmas tree I had bought for my apartment when I was still staying in Montreal. Both the tree and the cupcake decorations were bought at Urban Outfitters last year when I went shopping with Lovely Xuan Ying <3 around Xmas time. I had come to the realisation that I had had no Xmas decorations for the two years I had been living over there...Lame. Silver. Sparkles. Cupcakes. Flowers. That is my definition of a perfect Christmas Decoration tree.

I suppose many may beg to differ. Let them beg.

Notice the picture of my daddy and my baby niece on the right - perfect fit in the $1 pink frame I found at the dollar store, proof that cute stuff does NOT need to be expensive. People just need to learn to open their eyes and look a bit longer than 3 seconds when they enter in cheap stores. They are far from being nasty places where people judge you for lack of money. Why would they judge you? (trying to convince myself here <3... cuz it's true anyways, it's only rich people who judge).

I had lunch at Olive & Basil the other day with my daddy, where Fura was working. Last time I had been there was with my ex, when I did not know how much of a jerk he was :). So I had not really wanted to remember him by going again. Shame, since this place, along with where I work, are, IMO, the best restaurant in my town. 

Now that I know that the slut who's with my ex will leave him and go to Korea - let both of them suffer a bit and I'll feel a bit better with myself- I decided that I could manage to remember. 

Food was good.

I had a double expresso and marinated olives while I waited for my dad to meet me up, and then I ordered a mini pizzetta with salad whilst my dad took a pear and goat cheese salad - we both kept having huge meaty meaty dinner for the past weeks, so lunch needs to be light. ha ha. happy Xmas.

They redid the interior decoration 2 years ago (?) and the restaurant is really nice to be in.

Daddy's Salas - He did take a pear mousse for desert actually tho :3 

Happy Pizetta - proscuito, manguos, cheese, reducted balsamic (?)...

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas time at Bistro Jezz is quite the thing. We are closed from december 24 to january 3rd inclusively, but appart from that we had the restaurant booked from early september for the weeks before Xmas. This already meant a lot of work for all of us waiters and cooks, but an accidental death in my boss' family pretty much messed up all the plans. We had a literally crazy Xmas time at work and the last week before Xmas I worked everyday, up to 14 hours a day. So basically no life, no life. My after shift wine tasting and cheese eating were rare calm moments I enjoyed the best I could, right before crawling in bed, my body being sore everywhere, especially in the thighs. I miss belly dancing  classes that stopped for Christmas time, as they represented a great relief from work and school, plus a sweet time spent with my mom and sister...

White (Saint-Clair) and Red (Monasterio de Las Vinas Crianzas) wine

Cheese, my love. I live the middle one "Cendrillon" - Cinderella - most

The second weekend of december I made the Xmas decorations at home, and the Christmas Tree, while parents gone

Red and Gold, my own personnal Xmas Gryffindor pride XD

My house with the light decorations put up by my daddy, with Xmas snow - now we have way more tho :3

 This year my dad bought huge decorations to hang up in the big pine tree in our backyard, and it is really pretty up close. Was a hard work putting them on, but the result is stunning in real life. It might be easier to figure out the task if one pictures the fact that the tree house is already pretty high up in the tree....

Evening snack with mommy, English Tea, nuts and oranges

Bistro Jezz and Xmas decorations - Merry Xmas!!!

On the next to last day of work, we had our first -30 degrees here. After 2 minutes of walk on my way to work, I had both my lashes and hair frozen with a good layer of frost. That was quite funny, you know, me turning into the nine tail fox :)

We made the Christmas meal for all the family at my brother's place yesterday and ate tons of goodies. So much I had no place for the awesome Christmas cake my dad had brought. I am sure I'll get other occasions to eat it this winter...

I will not elaborate on how wrong this cheese covered sausage looks to me....

Cheese plate, dressed up asparaguses, sausages and dried meat, foie gras...

Smoked salmon roulés made by my sister <3

Confit de Canard in Whisky applesauce and Cranberries: bliss

My niece had trouble understanding that there is no place for hands in a poncho...

Félixe having a hard time with her cute poncho, gift from her godfather from Argentina

 Merry Xmas to you all, and the Best for the coming next year!!!! <3