Tag: urbandeli

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We’re off to the musical races

Mike Biggar

On Saturday we began what we hope will be a regular happening on Saturdays – live music. We want to thank Mike Biggar for kicking things off for us as our first performer. Wes Jagoe (nominated for DVD of the year at the East Coast Music awards 2009 and who will be here this upcoming Halloween Saturday) is handling the music for Saturdays (bookings etc.), so we asked him for a  few words about how Saturday went. He writes:

Hello everyone:

Mike Biggar played to a receptive and crowded room here last night (Saturday) at the Urban Deli.  He was promoting his latest CD debut EP “The Big Breakfast Special,” a five song disc that’s all original music.

It was a two hour show that was well received. His songs were raw emotion, he can be quite dynamic on the turn of a dime and has well thought out arrangements and touching lyrics.

His song “Wonderfully Made,” off the EP, had a lovely intro about his wife. It makes the song that much more intimate when you know the story behind it. I was quite taken by Mike’s banter, quite witty to say the least, always armed with a comeback if the crowd wants to participate.  Mike also did a Bob Dylan and Arrowsmith cover with his own stylistic approach that was well received.

Of course what we would really to know is what you thought of it. Were you able to mke to the Urban Deli on Saturday? If so, what did you think of our musical night?

By the way, we’ll be posting later today or tomorrow some more information about this Saturday’s artist, Wes Jagoe, as well as information about contacting Wes for arranging to perform at the Deli (if you’re a musical artist).

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Music on Saturday and our hours get tweaked

We just wanted to remind you that we’re introducing live music. Mike Biggar will be at the Deli tomorrow evening (Saturday) starting at 8:00pm. Have a look at our Live Music page for more info. We’ve also arranged to team up with Wes Jagoe who will be helping us by handling our live music nights. We’re pretty excited about all of this and can’t wait to get the ball rolling (which will be Saturday).

Our hours have had a bit of tweaking as well to accomodate our Live Music. On Saturdays we’ll be open till 10:00pm (or when the music wraps). However, our full menu we’ll be available till 8:00pm, after which we’ll have a limited menu available.

We hope to see you! The last word goes to Liz, who says:

I’m very excited about this part of the business….this is FUN!  Yipee, Yoo, Yaaa, Yeah 🙂

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Week long Chop Chop festival coming

Uptown Saint John Chop Chop festival, Nov. 1 to 7, 2009.In case you missed it, the Telegraph-Journal had a story this week about an upcoming food festival we’ll be taking part in: Chop, chop food fans, fun festival is coming. To quote from the article:

“The idea behind the week is to put us on the food map,” said Margret Begner, co-owner of Opera Bistro and a member of the festival organizing committee.

“It should showcase how proud we can be of the different restaurants and businesses that we do have in this area.”

During the Chop-Chop festival, foodies will have the chance to sample from 22 participating restaurants in the uptown with a set pricing menu.

So from November 1 through 7, Uptown Saint John is where you’re going to want to be to give your taste buds the time of their life. We’re very excited to be part of this! Let’s help make Saint John’s uptown one of Canada’s great food destinations!

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Menus, resolutions and playing catch up

Can this be? Are we actually posting something? The answer is yes. The answer is also yes to, “Do you have that new menu yet?”

As you probably have figured out, putting the new menu together involved a lot more time and work than we expected. And we’ve learned something …Never say something will be ready around a certain date unless you’re 100% sure it will be. (Mind you, we did say we were “aiming at …”) So, we resolve that in the future we’ll say we’re working on something but not specify a date for readiness.

A couple of things contributed to the delay. The biggest one was getting it right. We kept tweaking until the taste was what we thought it should be and it seemed quite often the feeling was, “… it could be better.” So we kept tweaking.

We also mentioned we wanted to include gluten free items in the menu, which we have (bread, ribs, chowder, pasta and sauces etc.) though we want to do much more. We’ll be working with the Saint John chapter of the Canadian Celiac Association going through the entire menu to see what is necessary to broaden what we can offer. Of course, it can’t just be gluten free. It also has to taste good and we want to ensure that what we offer does.

You’ll be happy to know we have a second menu now, one that outlines our beverages and desserts. Yes, we have a dessert menu now. (A number of people have asked about that.) We’ve been working on that one for quite a while now.

While we’ve been on a kind of working hiatus, we’ve had a great number of compliments and other kind words and want to thank all of you for them.

Live music

Mike BiggarWe’ll also be introducing live music at the Deli starting Saturday, October 24th from 8-10 pm. Mike Biggar will be joining us. You may know Mike from the open mike night at the VintagE Bistro and Lounge in Hampton, which he hosts.

Our goal is to bring in some local talent (guitar/acoustic) between now and Christmas and then set a schedule for the new year for it to be a regular thing.

And finally

Just a reminder (since we just referred to Christmas) … if you’re planning a group Christmas thing, like a company Christmas get-together and want to have it at the Urban Deli, or if you’re interested in having us do some catering for your Christmas thing, just give us a call at 506.652.3354 (that’s 506.652.DELI). We can probably arrange something!

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Uptown or Downtown?

We saw a story on CBC New Brunswick today, Saint John urged to rename city centre ‘downtown.’ We’re curious to hear what you think. From the CBC story:

A former Saint John mayor (Eric Teed) is pushing to have the long-held expression for the city’s centre switched from the confusing “uptown” moniker to the more traditional term of “downtown.”

When asked, Liz, the owner of the Urban Deli, said, “That’s crazy!” We’ve had a few tweets from others that seem to agree.

Liz is actually very proud of being part of Uptown Saint John. Of course, she’s always been a fan of the urban core, everywhere, feeling that’s where the heart of a city should be. It’s where all the vitality of its business, culture, arts and, yes, people who live there, should be and interact.

She has some pretty strong opinions on this, particularly in the context of Saint John. When we asked her about this uptown-downtown thing she started in on how there are more important things to worry about, like the usual issues that affect any city’s urban core — housing, drugs, business support and so on.

But what do you think? Uptown? Downtown? Does it matter to you? We’d like to hear what you think.

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Montreal smoked meat and the great debate

You’ll find some really interesting discussions around the subject of Montreal smoked meat, pastrami and corned beef. Or, put another way, smoked meat and corned beef. And there’s a particularly lively debate about the difference between Montreal smoked meat and pastrami. Some say they’re the same thing. Some say they are very different.

If you go by what you find on Wikipedia about Montreal smoked meat and pastrami and corned beef, you would see they seem quite different, with pastrami appearing to fall somewhere between smoked and corned (as described by Wikipedia).

On the surface, these differences appear to be about preservative processes that came about before the refrigeration age. In one (corned), meat is preserved using brine (meaning salt) and in the other through smoking. Using these processes, particularly with smoking, it was discovered that while they preserved the meat they also did something to add to or enhance the taste. Montreal smoked meat and pastrami are both cured meat (that preservative business of brine), then smoked.

However, it’s more likely the differences lie in the seasoning – what it is and how it’s applied – added prior to the smoking. That would be the rub used on the meat. The seasoning could be garlic, coriander, black pepper, paprika, cloves … you name it. It really appears to amount to this: similar processes, different outcomes. Few aficionados, however, confuse the two: they know Montreal smoked meat from pastrami.

What often gets lost in the debate over Montreal smoked meat and pastrami is the importance of the bread — the rye bread. The bread is important for it’s consistency, the flour and the rye grain, and how it is sliced. But the topic of the bread is for another post …

Of course, here at the Urban Deli we lean toward Montreal smoked meat – it’s what we have on the menu. But if you ask Michael-ann (Liz’s sister), it’s really Atlantic smoked meat. Or New Brunswick smoke meat. Saint John smoked meat … Urban Deli smoked meat!

Why? Because we smoke it here. Yes, we have a smoker.

We really are the Urban Deli!

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Disclosure: why we keep saying ‘we’

Full disclosure, of a sort.We have one full week under our belt and today we head into week two with just as much enthusiasm — and a better idea of what to expect. Last week we seemed to get busier each day with Friday probably the busiest.

Today we thought it would be a good idea to explain a bit about why we keep referring to “we” here on the site and a bit about who “we” are.

To begin with, the Urban Deli is the dream of, and owned by, Liz. But it’s a team of people — up front and behind the scenes. They make the deli “the deli” and so it’s best to refer to “we.”

Maybe more importantly, however, we don’t want to bamboozle anyone into thinking Liz is doing the writing. When Liz posts something, she’ll post it as Liz. She hasn’t posted anything as yet for two reasons: she’s way to busy with all the daily running of the Urban Deli to find time to do it properly and (let’s be honest) she’s a bit shy about writing and having everyone see it. (We’re working on that.)

I’m doing the writing and I am Bill. I have a couple of sites of my own, Writelife and Piddleville, and I’m what Liz refers to as “the web guy.” I put the site together for her and I more or less maintain it, the Urban Deli Twitter stream (@urbandeli) and the Facebook page (a whole other story!). (About the Facebook problem? See this little ramble.)

I asked Liz yesterday how long I had known her and we figured it to be 11 or so years. (I told her it felt like a lot longer!) We met and worked together back in Alberta and, when Liz moved back east, she brought me and Gord with her. (Gord’s another behind the scenes character — sometimes in front — at the Urban Deli). I was at the deli before they began work on it (it was a disaster) and I’ve seen it transform. I speak to Liz almost constantly so I have a good idea about what’s going on and when I don’t I harass her until she gets it to me.

Liz could tell you many stories about me just as I could tell many about her. It’s like the old Mexican stand-off thing: we can’t blackmail each other because the other knows to much about us!

I’m essentially a writer-editor, to a large extent from the marketing side of things, with a good familiarity with the Internet, social media tools, and other tech related things. But compared to actual web designers, or programmers, I’m not really a tech guy. I guess you could say I’m an informed amateur.

And that’s about it. I’m Bill, “the web guy.” Liz is the owner gal. The Urban Deli is a crew of people.

And that’s why we keep saying “we.”

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