Our Italian adventure has begun

Liz and Michelle at work preparing our Italian menu. (Photo: - bite - bitebymichelle.com)

Liz and Michelle at work preparing our Italian menu. (Photo: - bite - bitebymichelle.com)

Fun. Scary. And a little bit exhausting. But well worth every moment we’ve put into our Italian adventure, Italian by Night.

We launched last night with a special Valentine’s evening as we kicked off our new Italian evenings, Italian by Night. And we are truly humbled by the turn out and support we have had.

To all our friends and customers … You are amazing!

We began Urban Deli in July of 2009 with a vision and mantra, “Old fashioned; slightly sophisticated,” which you helped turn into a reality. Continue reading

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The terrific two’s – our anniversary!

The Urban Deli Original Montreal Style Smoked Meat. (Photo - Urban Deli)

Up until the first week or so of July 2009, Urban Deli only existed in the head of our owner Liz. Then, on July 13, 2009, it was real.

Yes, today is our birthday! It’s Urban Deli’s second anniversary!

We’ve had another wonderful year with the restaurant and our catering. It’s been a year filled with intriguing people and superb events.

We absolutely love being a part of Uptown Saint John. As with last year, we have oodles of people to thank: our fabulous staff, the tremendous vendors and suppliers we get to work with and, of course, the people of Saint John. Our customers are fabulous.

As small thank you, today we have free samples of our desserts with your meal. So we hope you drop by and give us a chance to say, “Thanks!”

And just in case your interested, below is a list of what visitors to the Deli appear to liked best from our menu in our last year.

Our top stuff in our second year!

Top sandwiches:

  • Club Sandwich
  • Montreal style Smoked Meat
  • Rueben
  • Deli Meatloaf Sandwich
  • Ham & Swiss

Top burger:

  • UD Veggie Burger

Top soups:

  • UD Seafood Chowder

Top salads:

  • Spinach Salad
  • Romaine Chiffonade (seared tuna steak salad)

Top appetizer:

  • Roasted Garlic & Artichoke Dip

Tops from the smoked side of house:

  • Deli Ribs

Urban Deli Iced Tea.

Top Drinks:

  • Urban Deli Iced Tea
  • Coke products (in old fashioned Coke bottles)

Top Desserts:

  • Carrot Cake
  • Lemon Sour Cream Pie (came a close 2nd)

Top Breakfast:

  • The Deli Breakfast
  • Pulled Pork Eggs Benny

And that’s a wrap … Now we’re diving into year three.

Also see:

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Urban Deli named one of the places to eat in Canada

If there is a bible for Canadian foodies, it’s Where to Eat in Canada. It lists, and reviews, the best restaurants across the country so that when you’re travelling, you know where to go for great eating.

Published by Oberon Press, Urban Deli just received the most wonderful letter from them. The letter reads, in part:

“This year your restaurant has been chosen as one of the best in the country by the national restaurant guide … Our people travel Canada from coast to coast and pick the best restaurants in every city and town in the country.”

Wow! We’re thrilled! We’re less than two years old (we opened July 13, 2009) and this is an incredible honour.

If you’re not familiar with Where to Eat in Canada (edited by Anne Hardy), it’s a book that has been coming out for over 40 years. It lists, as the title says, the best places to eat across the country. Over 400 pages, many people take it with them in their travels — in a glove compartment, backpack, whatever they have. It’s the go-to reference for foodies.

So if you’re out west, you know where to eat when you’re in Victoria, Calgary or Saskatoon. Travelling in Quebec? The book recommends the best places to eat. And when you’re in the Maritimes, especially down Saint John way, you know about Urban Deli!

They tell us the newest edition (2011, with Urban Deli in it) will be available in early June. We’re anxious to see it and read what they had to say. We’ll keep you up to date on that!

In the meantime, we’re sending a big thank you to our customers and fabulous staff. You guys are the reason we’re in there and you’re the reason we love what we do!

One last aside … we love this line from the letter they sent us: “Nobody can buy his way into this guide and nobody can buy his way out.

Sounds good to us!

 

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Recipe for Italian Wedding Soup

Italian wedding: scene from The Godfather (1972).

You don’t have to be Italian to enjoy Italian Wedding Soup and, with our current weather forecast, you may find it a very tasty way to ward off the chill of the next day or two.

Janet, one of our Urban Deli customers, came by one day and shared a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup with us. Not only that, she also brought in the finished dish and it was wonderful!

It’s great with something as simple as bread sticks, Italian bread or baguette. Of course, a nice wine would be nice too. 🙂

Thank you to Janet for both the recipe and the sample.

Ingredients:

– 6 cups chicken broth
– 1 package mild sausage
– 3 tbsp garlic
– 2 cups celery (chopped)
– 1 large red onion (chopped)
– 1 – 16 oz (300g) frozen spinach (chopped)
– 1/2 – 3/4 cup pearl barley

Preparation:

1 – Remove sausage meat from sleeve and make into meatballs. Sauté with garlic in a frying pan until cooked.

2 – In a large pot, sauté chopped celery, onions and garlic until soft.

3 – Add chicken broth, spinach and barley, sausage meatballs to cooked veggies.

4 – Simmer for 2 hours

Serve with freshly ground parmesan cheese and enjoy!

(Aside: according to Wikipedia, the phrase wedding soup, “… is a mistranslation of the Italian language, minestra maritata (“married soup”), which is a reference to the fact that green vegetables and meat go well together.”)

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Over the moon with our social media nomination

Saint John has its first ever social media awards, The Saltys – a celebration of the Saint John Social Media Community. It’s set for February 17 just down the road from us at the Saint John Ale House. And guess what? Urban Deli is a nominee! We’re over the moon!

We’re nominated in the category “Best Use of Social Media in a Campaign” for customer engagement. Actually, it’s really our customers who should be getting the tip of the hat. You guys have been fabulous on our blog, Facebook page and on Twitter. And you’ve kept us on our toes!

We’re not always as on top of things as we would like. Being a small operation, our main focus is the kitchen and the restaurant, so we can’t always be engaging people online to the extent we would like to. So for the record, we would like to say a big “Thank you!” to everyone for the RTs and wonderful comments we’ve seen in our feeds.

Huge congratulations as well to all the nominees in all the categories. Looking at the list is a bit like looking at a list of friends. We’re pretty sure we know everyone there.

Urban Deli has been using social media for some time now. We started on Twitter in March of 2009 – that’s almost two years ago – and started our Facebook page not long after. It was lot of figuring out how to use this social media thing (we bumbled a lot with the Facebook part initially) but it became very clear, very soon that social media was about one thing: people.

So it really is a lot like being in the restaurant where we get to interact with our customers face to face. With social media, we do the same thing, just not face to face.

Once again, we’re very excited that Saint John now has its own social media awards — The Saltys — and even more excited to see we’ve been nominated.

By the way, the online voting is now on. Cast your vote while you can and we hope to see all of you February 17 for the big party!

Thank you again Saint John!

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Our holiday hours and have a Deli-icious Christmas!

Urban Deli Christmas 2010: Rob, Michael-Ann, Liane, Janna, Fran, Craig, Dale, Gord, Elizabeth, Alan, Vaughan, and Jordan. Missing in the photo: Greg, Phil, Dave, Jenny and Candy.

Wow! It’s here! Like you, we’ve been so busy we barely noticed it coming up on us. But it’s Christmas Eve day now and we know what tomorrow is, so we wanted to pause a moment and say a big thank you to everyone: our wonderful staff, suppliers, all the other Uptown businesses and, with a really big emphasis, our marvelous customers.

Not only have our customers kept us busy, a lot of them have given us great ideas for new things to introduce and on occasion have helped us “taste test” new items to see if they were up to their standards and ours.

It’s amazing how much they’ve helped us this year. So …

Thank you! And we hope everyone, everywhere has a Christmas to remember and a New Year that flies by because it’s so full of new people and things. And may we all be prosperous! Happy holidays!

Speaking of which, these are our hours over the holidays:

Holiday Hours:

  • Dec. 27 to 30: Regular Hours
  • Dec 31 (New Year’s Eve): Special New Year’s Eve dinner seating at 7:00pm — please call ahead (ask for Liz) and reserve.
  • Jan. 1 (New Year’s Day): Enjoy your hangover at the Deli! Breakfast only 9:00am to 3:00pm.

And we’re back to regular hours on January 2, 2011.

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A meatloaf sandwich story

Urban Deli's very popular "comfort food," the much-ordered meatloaf sandwich.

Our menu consists of an array of deli sandwiches and that can make it hard for new customers to choose. After working a few shifts at Urban Deli, I noticed how many of our customers were ordering and raving about our meatloaf sandwich.

One busy summer afternoon, my parents drove from St. Andrews and visited the deli for the first time. I spoiled them with samples of our homemade ice-tea and lemonade (the lemonade is only during our summer season) and I encouraged them to order as much as possible.

My dad wanted to try our schnitzel and my mom right away asked for the meatloaf sandwich. To tell you the truth, I underestimated this deli delight. When her order arrived she made me taste a bite and with one forkful, I was hooked.

From then on I have been recommending this hearty sandwich to many of our customers. It is the comfort food to beat all comfort foods. It consists of a home-style meatloaf with an Urban Deli flare and is topped with melted aged-white cheddar cheese and sundried tomatoes. We serve it with sourdough bread that has been grilled and your choice of side.

The meatloaf sandwich guys: Carl, Ron, Craig and Doug.

Shortly after tasting the sandwich, I had a group of customers that came in for lunch during their break. They told me it was their first time and asked me for my recommendation. From that day on, they have been faithful regulars to Urban Deli … and the meatloaf sandwich as well.

Carl, Ron and Craig were in again last Friday and guess what? They ordered their usual (meatloaf with a side of deli frites) and brought a new face with them, Doug. I had to laugh because every time the guys come in they always order the same thing and they convinced Doug to do the same.

Welcome Doug! And thanks to all our Urban Deli regulars.

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