Seared Lime-Curry Sirloin Steak with Melon-Cucumber Salad

I love mixing savory items and fruit in the summer--as if fruit is so fresh and so in-season that it only makes sense to go wild and pair it with everything. I was on the internet one night bookmarking "summer" recipes and after I'd finished I realized all the recipes were similar: tomato and watermelon salad with avocado, pork with fresh cherry chutney. It's not necessary to pair fruit with a savory dish every night, so I chose the most interesting of all the recipes I'd found.

For this dish, beef is marinated in lime juice and curry powder and grilled (I, not owning a grill, was forced to sear in a pan). On the side is a salad (the recipe called it a chutney, but there was very little that was chutney-like about it) comprised of honeydew melon, cucumbers, lime juice, minced jalapeno peppers, cilantro, coriander, and cumin.

The pairing of fruit and meat was indeed interesting and summery, and melon and cucumber salad was truly refreshing. I served it over brown basmati rice, which turned out to be a good choice.

If I made this again, I'd probably cut the meat into smaller chunks and arrange them atop the rice (for some reason I think this would be prettier). If I had a grill I'd certainly cut the meat into chunks and grill them on skewers--I think that'd be the ultimate in presentation with this dish.

I found the recipe via Epicurious; you can find it here.

Vancouver Pictures

This picture was taken right outside Kamloops. The scenery between Edmonton and Vancouver was awesome.


I love this picture because Georg looks so friendly and sensible and I look like a goof!




We pulled over at a rest stop and saw a sign for "Bridal Falls," walked 15 minutes into the woods and happened upon this waterfall! It was beautiful. Kind of amazing that you can just take a short hike from a rest stop and find something as amazing as this.


This was a public market in North Vancouver we went to on a Monday. They had lots of fresh fish, fruits, and vegetables (see below).




Here's a view of downtown Vancouver from Canada place.


Here's a face from a "story pole" outside the Capilano bridge area, celebrating the history of the native people who inhabited the area.


An aerial view of Vancouver from a Grouse mountain gondola.


A view of the bay from West Vancouver.


A festive Canadian doll!


The entrance to the Classical Chinese Gardens. Below, the yin-yang stone floors of the garden.



A really bizarre creature at the Vancouver aquarium!




Alliums, one of my favorite flowers!

Dinner at C Restaurant in Vancouver

At the beginning of this month, Georg and I drove to Vancouver to meet Georg's dad (who flew in from Austria) and show him around western Canada. We started out on a Saturday, arrived on Sunday, and Georg's dad didn't arrive until Monday evening, so we had a few romantic hours to spend by ourselves in Vancouver. Sunday evening we walked along the waterfront closest to our hotel and found a restaurant with a view of the harbor in which to eat. We chose C Restaurant, an "experimental seafood" restaurant. It was definitely one of my more memorable dining experiences. The food was so interesting--each dish providing me with a little wave of delight.


I started off with a Manhattan, definitely the best one I've had in Canada, which isn't saying much! Served just the way I like it, up with cherries! Georg, I think, got a gin martini. I always love it when he orders those because I just hate the taste of gin and I like to watch him appreciate something I cannot.


After we got our drinks, a woman came around with a huge basket of bread. She offered us rye, sourdough, and.....seaweed scones! Can you imagine my delight? The breads came with a little dish of rich butter topped with a coarse, lavender-colored salt.


Before our appetizers arrived we were brought an amuse bouche, and even though I forgot to take a picture of it before we ate, I'm still displaying my picture here because I've never been offered an amuse bouche before at a restaurant! It was a little piece of salmon belly and a shot of gazpacho.


My appetizer consisted of a large baked sardine and a breaded sablefish croquette with a fennel salad and basil puree. I've never been a big sardine eater, I always thought of them as gross, canned things, but it was really good. The skin was crispy and the bones fragile enough to crush along with the meat. The fronds of the fennel were fried to a crisp, so that added interesting texture too.


Georg's appetizer was a smoked trout salad. It was served with all kind of interesting little greens and herbs, and had some of the fried fennel fronds on top.


My main course! Potato-crusted scallops, roasted root vegetables, a tarragon-butter sauce with shrimp and chorizo. Some kind of smoky foam was spread across the top, that was fun.



Georg's main course consisted of a piece of sablefish resting on shredded beef shortrib, surrounded by wild mushrooms, beets, and a watercress broth.


We were too full to order dessert, but they did bring us these tiny little raspberry cakes and chocolate truffles!


The view proceeded to get more beautiful as we ate. It got a bit cold, but luckily the patio was equipped with heat lamps, and the wait staff even offered blankets to all of the women sitting on the patio (I guess men don't get cold). Funny thing was, I had worn a light sweater, and all Georg had was a short sleeved shirt, so he was the one in need of a blanket, but he wouldn't take one, haha.