Tapas lunch

What a novel idea, I thought, when I first saw the noodle-wrapped shrimp, one of the tapas we had for lunch today at the West Hill Wine Bar.  The shrimp was wrapped in egg noodles and then deep-fried. The noodles protected the shrimp and sealed in the flavour, you get the crunch from the noodle instead of from the batter.  I can see this can be a fail-safe way to get crunchy shrimp and not having to worry about preparing a batter, avoid the mess often associated with it and the uncertainty when it comes to crunchiness.

Of course, when I looked it up on the internet, there is really nothing novel about it at all. There were lots of recipes and variations on this primarily Thai dish.  The shrimp could be wrapped in all kinds of noodles, from single strand egg noodles to a whole mass of egg noodles, tightly bound or loosely fluffed, vermicelli, or basically any kind of soft noodle - your imagination is the limit.  Some recipes called for marinating the shrimp but I would nix that as shrimp tastes best in its natural state.   At the Wine Bar, it was served with a mango slaw and a tamarind soy dip - all very refreshing contrast to the deep-fried shrimp.

We also had fried egg plant with sesame, wild mushrooms, grilled calamari, grilled sirloin, sweet potato tower and Baba Ganoush with nan.  All quite tasty although slightly on the salty side.  This is the first time we had tapas for lunch and when I come to think of it, it is actually a format more suited to lunch than dinner - rather like Chinese dim sum!

Noodle-wrapped shrimp with mango salad; fried egg plant with sesame

Grilled calamari

Grilled sirloin and sweet potato tower

Baba Ganoush with nan - such drama in the presentation!  Nothing Spanish about that but then this is a Toronto version of tapas - a celebration of cultures by Chef Chris Kanka, one of the competitors for the Top Chef of Canada title.  Good luck with his new restaurant - fine dining in "Scarberia".