At Urban Deli we have been told we have nice racks, racks of ribs that is…

Saint John, New Brunswick has been experiencing an excellent summer season. The sunny weather has incited many to heat up their barbeques, crack a cold beer (or non-alcoholic drink) and socialize.

At Urban Deli we have customers that come in specifically to enjoy our applewood smoked ribs (available as a half or full rack). What is really intriguing about our ribs (and many customers do not know this) is that they are available to be purchased and taken home to be re-heated.

Ribs after a five hour smoking process

This means you can throw it on the barbie and really impress your guests when they arrive.

These ribs are given special attention from the very beginning (starting first with their five hour smoking process which is done on-site) and so has our BBQ sauce.

Great care is taken to ensure the right flavours come through and since our BBQ sauce is made from scratch, we have been able to certify that it is gluten-free.

Half rack of applewood smoked ribs served with your choice of side

Each set of ribs purchased are pre-marinated in our BBQ sauce and we even give you enough on the side for basting or dipping purposes when you pick them up to take home.

So when you are thinking about heating up that barbeque or grabbing a case of cold beer, remember that even with a busy schedule you can always stop by or pre-order our ribs.

Add any of our appetizers (like our roasted garlic and artichoke dip), side salads, hand-cut deli frites to your order or get one of our fabulous desserts.

Take all the credit, we really don’t mind.

There’s no time like summer for barbecues and there’s nothing like ribs for putting the scent of summer in the air and floating through the neighbourhood. 🙂


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The life of mustard in pictures

You can get mustard at many stores. But rather than leave the kitchen, we make our Urban Deli mustard in-house. Like so:

With our mustard, we like to put it on a sandwich, in this fashion:

When we’re done, it looks like this:

That would be our Original Montreal Style Smoked Meat. We serve it with a dill pickle spear and our coleslaw.

And that’s a day in the life of mustard. 🙂

(You’ll find more Urban Deli photos on our Facebook page.)

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Good Friday note and a change to our Saturdays

This is just a quick note to let you know we’re open on Good Friday from 9am to 3pm. We will be serving a light breakfast from 9am to 11:30am. This is because it’s a holiday Friday.

Looking ahead to Saturday, and every Saturday onward, we’ll open at 9am and serve a light breakfast until 11:30am and then move on to our lunch menu.

This is a change to Saturdays. Previously, we were not open for breakfasts. But we will be now! So if you’re in the Uptown area on Saturday, drop by for a light breakfast. We would love to see you!

And we’d love to hear what you think of the breakfast menu and any suggestions you may have. We think of this as a starting point – a kind of “beta” breakfast menu – and we’d love for you to help us tweak it to make it better!

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Bourbon Quarter – worth the reservations

*For reservations call 506-214-3618

Bourbon Quarter imageOpening and trial nights are never easy for new restaurant owners and their staff.  There is always something that is unfinished to the perfectionist owner who wants nothing more than to be a crowd pleaser for his or her future clientele. The old saying about having one opportunity to make a good first impression is true and it can be overwhelming.

On Friday, March 26, I and 14 others in our party were lucky invitees to the friends and family night at Bourbon Quarter.   The menu presented for the evening was $20 with the following choices:

Appetizer:

  • Grilled Watermelon with goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, spring greens and buttermilk vinaigrette
    or
  • Louisiana Fried Clams

Entrée:

  • Crisp Skin Salmon with roasted fingerling potatoes, julienne vegetables, fried onions and beet butter
    or
  • Supreme Chicken Breast with truffle whipped potatoes and glazed vegetables

For dessert (for an additional $5) there was Crème BrulĂ©e, Madagascar vanilla bean (meaning “burnt cream”).

The review:

I’ve taken a hybrid of my own personal experience during my evening as well as those of other people in our party.

Like most foodies, I had to try everything regardless of any extra cost.

Grilled Watermelon:  When the grilled watermelon appetizer arrived the presentation was beautiful. The flavours were something I have not tasted since visiting the Rossmount in St. Andrews just before Christmas. Those of us who tried it (including myself ) were using our pinky finger and spoons or forks to capture the remaining buttermilk vinaigrette on the plate. Need I say more?

Louisiana Fried Clams:  This was a great idea but the consensus at the table was that this appetizer needs work.  There is always one dish for a new restaurant that will be their nemesis. Owners love feedback and I shared mine with Chef Brad. (Our nemesis at the Urban Deli, and as simple as it sounds, was our homemade baked beans.)

Crisp Skin Salmon:  OMG!  I don’t think they could have cooked the salmon any better; the flavor was delicious and the plate presentation was perfect. It was a nice follow-up to the Watermelon appetizer.

Supreme Chicken Breast:  The chicken was cooked to perfection (mine was) and there were a couple of dishes that were on the cooler side but tasty to the hungry visitor.

Dessert:  Crème Brulee was the intent and as it turned out…someone forgot the dessert torch for the brulee; therefore, it was more of a custard (a very good custard too!). When we finished, everyone’s dish was empty.

Plate presentation at Bourbon Quarter is beautifully simple. I haven’t seen their static menu or their pricing. For this friends and family night our cost for two for the evening was $116 not including the gratuity. Our service was excellent….Ashley, who also works at the Urban Deli, did a phenomenal job given the size of our party!

Wine was only available by the glass. Beer, tap beer, martinis, cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks were also being served by bartender extraordinaire Gordon, former manager of Sebastian. Mike Verner is hiring a sommelier from Ontario.  We should see a real focus on wine and food pairings in the future.

The Bourbon Quarter room with its renovations was trendy, upscale and comfortable.  The renovations would have had more of an impact if you had visited the location prior to it being Bourbon Quarter. Vision goes a long way. I could feel a bit of the same flare from the designers of Thandi’s, who also did Bourbon Quarter. The end result? It works for both restaurants.

Thank you to Mike Verner, Sean Verner and their families, Chef Brad Richard, and all the staff.  Great work!

Visit Bourbon Quarter at 112 Prince William Street, Uptown Saint John.

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Bio: Liz is the owner of the Urban Deli. With a sister in Manhattan, she has visited New York many times and invariably studies the Big Apple’s famous delis.

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Cooking class – a new first for Urban Deli

cookingclass_201003_03_1A group of twenty or so people convened at the Urban Deli on a sunny Sunday afternoon on March 14th to participate in the first cooking class hosted by UD. The restaurant is normally closed on Sundays, but Liz decided to open up for a few hours to host this reservation-only event. Bob McVicar was the instructing chef and the subject of the day was Italian-style cabbage rolls.

The afternoon began with some informal introductions and delicious snacks (check out this sautĂ©ed red pepper recipe), and then we all found seats at the communal table in groups of four. To ensure that the objective of the class was clear, Bob served us each a sample of his Italian cabbage rolls that he had put together a couple of days prior – Bob swears that they are better a few days after making them. We also sampled some homemade Italian sausage that UD has recently started making in-house.

Next, we worked in our groups of four to create some of Bob’s Italian cabbage rolls. We made half of the recipe below, which resulted in a roasting pan full of cabbage rolls. Bob did some of the prep work before we arrived and had already softened and peeled the cabbage leaves off of the head for us as well as having prepared the tomato sauce. Our main tasks were to create the filling and put the rolls together.

Cooking class - be willing to get your hands dirty.Bob’s recipe for the filling is simple to put together and rolling it in the leaves is pretty easy once you get used to it. You’ll need to be willing to get your hands dirty for this dish, so dig in and have some fun. Just follow the recipe and preparation instructions below and you’ll have no problems.

After assembling all of our rolls, we packed them up and topped them with some delicious tomato sauce. Each participant received a portion to take home, at which point they simply had to be baked and served fresh, saved for a few days before eating, or placed in the freezer to consume at a later date.

cookingclass_201003_05_1The cooking class was an enjoyable afternoon and a great value at only $12 per person, which was to help cover some of the costs. Beverages were also available to purchase and the snacks continued to flow throughout the afternoon. This cooking class was a successful first for UD and I suspect that there will be many more to come. Stay tuned to urbandeli.ca for info about future cooking classes that Liz has in the works.

Italian Cabbage Rolls – download recipe by Bob McVicar:

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This article was written by our guest author, Trisha Gallant, who is also an Urban Deli regular.

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Pork fried rice with veggies

Pork fried rice with veggies (photo - Dan Jones)I thought I was going to make chicken fried rice, but I guess that bag in the fridge that my girlfriend took out of the freezer was actually pork.

I wouldn’t really call this a recipe because one could put anything they want in this dish and really, the only thing required is to cook the rice early and then cool it in the fridge. All Chinese restaurants use this technique for fried rice, or at least they should. Using freshly cooked rice will result in a huge lump of goo.

Mixing the other ingredients with the rice in a bowl and then serving isn’t fried rice, although it may also be tasty.

To start off, I seasoned some vegetable oil by combining it in a small pot with fresh ginger, garlic, lemongrass, a chili pepper, star anise, and white peppercorns. I let this simmer for about an hour, before straining and setting it aside until it was time to start cooking.

I used a couple hundred grams of pork, an egg, half a yellow bell pepper, a small handful of green beans, five small mushrooms, one stalk of celery, a small carrot, and 1/3 cup of frozen peas and corn (thawed in microwave, water drained).

I stir-fried the meat, veggies, and egg on medium high heat, and then added the cooled rice, along with several shakes of soy sauce, a few drops of fish sauce and sesame oil, and a small splash of rice wine vinegar.

I also toasted some sesame seeds and sliced a couple of green onions for garnishing the dish when serving.

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Bio: Dan Jones is a food, drink, and travel writer from Saint John. Follow him on Twitter: @danjjj

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A lighter dish for BBQ

BBQ season is definitely in full effect, at least at my place.

BBQ doesn’t have to be all pulled pork and ribs though, so on a nice March evening I put together a lighter dish. Jasmine rice, grilled baby bok choy, and marinated chicken skewers.

The chicken was marinated in coconut milk, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, lemongrass, hot chili pepper, and galangal. Everything was very tasty, take a peek.

Chicken skewers (photo - Dan Jones)

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Bio: Dan Jones is a food, drink, and travel writer from Saint John. Follow him on Twitter: @danjjj

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