A Night in the Room: or how to compete when you can't get your mise together.

We took a break from fine dining last night and decided to eat in our room. This was a strategy we used a few years back when we were touring around Provence and thought our spending was getting out of control. Admittedly, picking up fresh ingredients in Provence is a) easier and b) way more fun than finding them in Toronto; not to mention that our accommodations were more atuned to prepping meals in the room. But our room in Toronto does have a small kitchennette so I thought that as long as I didn't set the bar too high I'd be ok.

On Saturday morning I made a solo detour to St. Lawrence market, and poked about for some ingredients that might inspire. Now, one thing I find super frustrating about Ottawa is that I can't find a tuna loin - they have to be available because the restaurants serve them, but for the lowly at-home cook you're out of luck. So that's what I "seeked out" in Toronto. In addition to a small tuna loin I also found some really nice organic sprouts and greens; with the addition of some soba noodles I thought I was pretty much set. I cheated a little because I didn't want to "sherpa" (anonymous attribute here for this verb), a bunch of soya sauce, garlic, sesame oil, ginger and rice wine - so I popped in to Williams Sonoma and picked up a bottle of their Jade, Sesame Soy Marinade. I also picked up a bottle of their Lemon and Olive Vinaigrette for the same reason.

I toasted up some sesame seeds and briefly marinated the tuna in the sesame soy marinade; I boiled the soba noodles; mixed a little of the same marinade with some white wine and drizzled this over the noodles, also mixing in some julienned cucumber. At the right time I coated the tuna loin with the sesame seeds and lightly seared the tuna on each side. I sliced the tuna and plated the noodles and the organic greens, which I'd drizzled with the vinaigrette.

And there you have it. I thought the meal was good. Not fantastic - but good... although the tuna on it's own was very good - in my opinion the overall meal was brought down by the noodles.... oh, and the service and washrooms.

Now, one important thing I have to remember the next time I cook in my hotel room. When I prepare Sesame Crusted Tuna at home I can set off smoke detectors and not worry about them too much, other than perhaps startling the dog... but then my smoke detectors are not hooked up to hotel sprinkler systems.....!