…we’re back. Just as easily as we slipped away, we’ve returned to the scene of our various crimes to report all that is new and interesting and poprock-filled in the Toronto food world. (Sorry, that was a jab at Colborne Lane; I couldn’t resist.) Our latest caper? The 2nd Annual Slow Food Picnic at the Brick Works. The title’s a bit of a mouthful, which is fitting considering the point of the day was to stuff yourself one glorious mouthful at a time. (At least that’s what I thought it was. Though it was also billed as a fundraising event for local producers. Altruism and gluttony – is there a better combo?)
Picnic at the Brickworks 2008
Because we are nothing if not tightwads, we volunteered, allowing us free access to an event normally out of our price range. (“Seriously,” I said to Allison as we signed people in at the registration table, “who can afford $110 tickets?” “Lawyers,” she said.)
It was a sticky afternoon, the day’s mugginess intensified by the smoke wafting from dozens of barbecues and smoking houses. (I now commiserate with smoked salmon.) Most of the city’s top restaurants were there, offering everything from glorified egg sandwiches (Jamie Kennedy) to glorified BLTs (Canoe). Food trend 2008? Pork. From belly to roasted shoulder to bits combined in sausage casings with various Ontario wines, I don’t think I’ve consumed so much pig in one day. (“It’s a sausage-fest!” I exclaimed to one of Allison’s friends – he couldn’t suppress a smirk.)
"BLT" - or, pork belly, arugula and heirloom tomatoes
beautiful heirloom tomatoes
and more tomatoes
housemade pastrami by George, with blueberries
Pork, and also tomatoes, blueberries and peaches. The hits of the day? Well, to be absolutely honest, nothing really blew us away. Allison enjoyed the wagyu burger offered by Chef David Lee/Splendido and the blueberry sorbet (kindly hand-delivered to soggy registration volunteers by a man I think was the company’s owner) was thoroughly enjoyed by moi. Not to mention Starfish’s fantastically briny oysters. And, although my first attempt at Jamie Kennedy’s sandwich was very disappointing, the round two version was much better. (Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with the fact the chef himself served me a section. Maybe.)
Blueberry sorbet
Chef Jamie Kennedy serving up sandwiches
Did I mention the wine? Even though we weren’t paying, I felt it was my duty to sample enough to justify the price of admission. And Allison’s admission – one sip, she claims, turns her heirloom-tomato red. (I’ve never actually seen this happen. Between you and me, I’m not convinced.)
andrea and her wine glass
After six hours at the Brickworks – the perfect venue for a picnic like this, I must say – we had crammed enough food into our bodies to fill a starfish-shaped canoe. (God, I’m hilarious. And mental note – round two was not a good idea.)
nom, nom...
It is, I must say, nice to be back. And we promise, once the food and wine coma wears off, we’ll make like Schwarzenegger and return again soon.
When Allison and I get together, sometimes it’s like we’ve boarded the De Lorean and whipped back to 1997. We regress into giggling schoolgirls, debating random people’s resemblance to random celebrities. Case in point from the other night:
Me: That guy totally looks like Michael Vartan!
Allison: No way, Ryan Gosling.
Me: Are you blind? Not at all.
Allison: He totally does – he’s got that long-face thing going.
Me: I’m not convinced.
Allison: Just squint.
Me: Hysterical laughter. (And, no, unlike teens these days who like to narrate their emotions instead of, well, emoting them – LOL, you have marred the linguistic landscape forever – laughter actually burst from my lips like air from a sat-upon whoopee cushion.)
We were at an Iron Chef-style charity event and our mid- to late-90s regression proved well timed. It was then, after all, that the original Japanese series was in its heyday. (Oh how I loved that show. The best part? Sure, Chairman Kaga’s pepper biting was amusing, but I adored it when they dubbed panelists’ laugher. Honestly, aside from spotting look-a-like celebrities, dubbed laughter has got to be one of my favourite things.)
Unfortunately – and this really, really irked me – we didn’t get to sample any of the wannabe Iron Chefs’ dishes. Instead, we had to make due with a few pre-competition appetizers.
They were…there. The selection, to be honest, was uninspired. Everything looked pretty, but tasted flat. It was like channel-flipping and catching Back to the Future on a lazy Sunday afternoon – comforting, to be sure, but not quite the sensory overload it had been in the 80s. (80s, 90s, I’m all over the decades today.)
I did like the pepper-marinated chicken served atop a edamame corn salad, however. And the grilled tofu was relatively tasty (was there coconut milk in the sweet and sour sauce? A nice flourish). But the black bean steak didn’t have much flavour – a few more hours in the marinade bath could have helped. Or maybe it was the beef itself. That whole uproar about mass produced meat tasting like sinewy cardboard? They’re on to something. (Which is ironic considering how much the emcees preached the “buying local” doctrine. Who knows? Maybe that beef was local. Maybe Ontario beef just naturally tastes like cardboard.) At any rate, my taste buds had a beef with the missing beef flavour.
The real action was inside Kitchen Stadium. Chef Ted Reader – “known for his wild hair, pyrotechnic charm and fearless culinary spirit” – battled it out against Chef David Garcelon, executive chef at the Fairmont Royal York. (I’m quoting directly from the program here. Clearly, one man had already won the PR war.)
The secret ingredient, you ask? Whitefish. (Which I totally called. “I bet it’s seafood,” I said to Allison. She guessed meat.)
A smorgasbord of dishes were created. And, true to his reputation, Chef Reader did light something on fire. (Cedar wood chips, I think. Panelists had to blow them out before eating a dish that involved some sort of risotto.)
His inventiveness paid off in the end. (He served one dish that involved basil butter-filled syringes. That’s right, butter-filled syringes. You were supposed to inject the mixture into the centre of a roasted potato. How could he lose?) His cuisine reigned supreme.
I must say, the buzz of activity on the floor was exciting to watch. Even if we didn’t get to sample any fruits of the chefs’ labour. (Chef Garcelon did pass around apple slices and caviar after the battle; a very gracious non-winner.)
And I did learn something that evening: from a football field away, just about everyone looks like Ryan Gosling.
When I say “Greek food,” you say “Danforth.” When I say “Tunisian food,” you say, “Tunis?” Fortunately for Toronto’s rep as a centre of culinary diversity, the answer to the former is also that to the latter. (Cause that’s not an awkward sentence. Whatever. I couldn’t help myself. “Former/latter” is one of my very favourite constructions, despite the fact that I routinely confuse the two. “Does ‘former’ refer to the alternative that immediately precedes the matter at hand? And what does ‘latter’ mean anyway?” Oh the questions that keep me up at night.)
As I was saying – sort of – “It’s all Greek to me” no longer applies to the Danforth. Representing the North African contingent, Djerba la Douce is only a throw of couscous away from Coxwell and Danforth, more than a few blocks east, if truth be told, of Greek Town proper. But we’re not here to quibble over geography – we’ll leave that to China and Tibet – we’re here for the food. And at Djerba la Douce – D la D, as I like to call it -Tunisian food is done well. Mostly.
I should confess here that I worked at a North African restaurant during grad school and, since the owner/chef was Tunisian, I consider myself somewhat of a Tunisia expert. An old Tunisia hat, as it were. (Despite the fact that I’ve never been to the country and don’t speak Arabic. Once again, mere quibbles.) Oh how I miss Mo’s steaming bowls of vegetable couscous and sweet, sweet tajine! Not to mention his homemade pita and chicken okra casserole… So many fond memories. Even the day I served reviewers from The List and then worked myself into a frothy panic over the next few months, afraid they’d badmouth the service (because it would be about me! I was the only waitress on the shift!). The 2006 guide came out and, thankfully, it only mentioned the excellent food, not the harebrained staff. (Which is more than I can say for the 2008 review. That never would have happened to me, I knew the menu inside out, I swear.)
But now the tables are turned and I can exact my revenge on unsuspecting wait staff. Muah-ha-ha! Except I’ve never really been one for vengeance – holding grudges is too much effort. Especially when one can ogle these photos. Fear not, dear readers: impartial shall henceforth be my middle name.
D la D does deliver some tasty appetizers. We started with the Calamari Djerbieno – perfectly cooked pieces of calamari floating in a mild tomato sauce – that came served with pita bread (I’m sorry, Mo’s triumphs).
Then came veggie couscous and the cumin-coated trout special.
Once again, the creature of the sea was cooked perfectly. Moist, flaky – tasty, tasty. (Am I good, or am I good?) The couscous wasn’t bad, it just exemplified what was wrong with D la D’s food overall: a bit too oily, and suffering from the salty bland. Tunisia is the land of harissa, after all – I wanted to feel the burn, damn it. (Did I mention how Mo used to make his own harissa? And roast chilies that could blow eardrums?)
I did enjoy the homey, one-room atmosphere of D la D. But it’s no match against nostalgia. So if anyone happens to have an extra ticket to Edinburgh, remember that no one does sitting in an airplane seat like yours truly. Just hurry – Mo et al are closing shop this year (sniff, sniff). As Jerry Maguire said in that long-ago time when Tom Cruise didn’t give little children nightmares: “Help me, help you eat couscous.”
“Allison, we’re so lame!” I lamented the other day. “All we do – okay, all I do – is complain about the cold, then declare ‘it won’t stop me!’ And then think, ‘hey, isn’t that the jingle of an early 90s TV commercial for static cling?’ And then spend the rest of the evening googling ‘cheesy 90s TV commercials’ trying in vain to find it.’”
Such is my life. (“Da-da-duh-It won’t stop you!” C’mon readers, help me out here.)
So, when Allison emailed me with an invite to a graphic novel reading – book readings are so passée – I said “yes.” (Admit it, you thought I was going to end that sentence with “jumped at the chance,” didn’t you?) As we are hard-working, 9-5 lasses, we need sustenance to warm our bellies before braving the scowls of Toronto hipsters. (A good meal would be like the bulletproof jacket for civilians I once saw on a travel show about Colombia. An employee put on the jacket and his boss shot him point blank. And you thought your job was bad.) Properly fed, is what I’m saying, and we could take on the world.
Well, I am happy to report that we went to the right place. Conveniently located next-door to the reading’s venue, the über hip – that’s right, so hip it deserves an umlaut – Gladstone Hotel, the Beaver is my new favourite place. The sweet, low-key decor, the tasty and simple food – it’s hard not to fall head-over-heels (or feet, as Alanis would say. Yes, that’s right, Alanis).
We started with a dip platter that included hummus, white bean purée, and an avocado mash. All were excellent – fresh and tasty (who remembers that short-lived show on the Food Network? Oh, wait, that was Fresh and Wild. Oops. Either way, much is not being missed). The winner, surprise, surprise, was the hummus. Now, I’ve never met a chickpea I didn’t like. But restaurant hummus is usually so gummy and overly garlicky it’s a waste of stomach space. This stuff, however, was good. Italics-worthy good. Despite the problematic poppy seeds clinging to the flatbread – has there ever been a poppy seed that didn’t get lodged between front teeth? – it was a very auspicious start to the meal.
A roasted vegetable salad done right? That’s what I had. Loved the fresh dill – a burst of earthy flavour to remind taste buds that spring is just around the… Oh wait. No. According to a report I read in the paper earlier this week, warm weather is still an entire month away. God. I’m not sure even a cauldron of fresh dill can sustain me until then.
Allison had the artisanal sausage platter with a fennel apple slaw and layers of potato cut into a square. “Very good,” was her verdict. I snagged a bite of the sausage but it had sage, and when it comes to sage, my taste buds are less than reliable (to me, sage tastes like mold. And I have traumatic memories of biting into moldy grapes).
Before we knew it, we were whisking ourselves next door to the reading. Cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki wrote/illustrated a graphic novel – “a Gothic lesbian Lolita story” – called Skim. Oh it warms one’s cold heart to see fellow hapas excel in the creative arts.
There was talking about the artistic process and telling of amusing anecdotes. Adulation oozed from those fickle Toronto hipsters.
The highlight of the evening? As Allison and I were fighting for our standing space – apparently it’s become socially acceptable to reserve open air as a vertical “seat” for absent friends – a man walked in, video camera on his shoulder, who looked familiar.
“He looks exactly like Ethan from Lost!” I whispered. Allison nodded. (added by Allison: actually, I thought he looked more like Liam Neeson) The hipsters glared. It’s going to be a hard slog till spring.
Though perhaps nothing a little dill and a static cling commercial can’t fix.
And so did we here at Vanity Fare. Esteemed contributor Ted St. Christopher braves the puns in Istanbul just for you, dear readers. His hard-hitting reporting just might change your childhood.
Istanbul is the seat of two fallen empires, a crossroads where civilizations and continents collide, a city of mosques and churches, a cultural treasure trove, a very jewel placed on the banks of the Bosphorus. That’s all well and good, but I’d still rather talk about the food. I recently returned from a week in Sultanahmet, Istanbul’s historic district, and in between visits to Roman ruins, rug emporiums and various bazaars, I sampled some of the city’s finest culinary offerings. Having returned safely from the gate of the wild Orient, I’d like to share my experiences with Vanity Fare readers.
While reminders of Istanbul’s glorious past can be seen everywhere in the city, the way its residents eat reflects its current identity as a vibrant and modern European metropolis. Some of the city’s best food is meant to be eaten on the go, served in cafes or by street vendors. There’s the simmit, a thinner, less bulky cousin to the familiar bagel, available in plain, sesame and poppy seed varieties, that can be purchased both in bakeries and from vendors strolling in the city’s parks. The roasted chestnuts sold from carts on Istanbul’s streets are also good for an inexpensive snack.
Not to mention the delicious pieces of fried squid hawked from open-air stalls in Tenzim Square, the major pedestrian thoroughfare. Indeed, walking through Istanbul’s streets often feels like browsing a gigantic menu. Even in the blustery Turkish winter, many of the city’s restaurants feature rooftop or sidewalk dining, most of them staffed by polyglot barkers intent on luring passing tourists inside. The Lonely Planet crowd might object to being targeted by Istanbul’s well-established sightseeing industry, but these touts have a slippery charm all their own. Istanbul, after all, has been a major destination for travellers for more than two millennia, and the city’s less scrupulous merchants and restaurateurs have elevated getting them to open their wallets into a high art and a venerable tradition.
Both guide books and waitstaff are quick to tell you about Turkey’s immense contribution to the culinary traditions of the entire Muslim world, but when one gets down to it, Turkish food tends to come in two forms: “things in stews” and “things on sticks.” As might be expected, the city’s donner kebabs are top-notch. If you take a table outside, you can even share your meal with one of the thousands of cats that roam free in Istanbul’s streets. Having lost all traces of feline aloofness, they beg for scraps without fear or shame. I’m a little less fond of Turkey’s casserole-style main dishes, perhaps because I’ve always considered one of their principal ingredients, eggplant (sorry, Brits, aubergine), a rather bitter and soggy vegetable. Still, one can’t leave Istanbul without sampling a few plates of hunkar begendi, or “the sultan liked it,” a lamb stew served over grilled mashed eggplant. The fact that it’s served with warm pide, a round, flat bread that still bears the impress of the stone oven where it was baked, however, makes it all worthwhile.
Hot drinks are another Istanbul essential, and all the more so since I visited the city in mid-February. Travelers will certainly want to sample a cup or two of Turkish apple tea. Served in tiny, ornate glasses, it packs a sugary rush but is still tart enough to make you wince. There’s also salep, a frothy, milky beverage made from an orchid root native to Turkey and topped with grated cinnamon. A bit reminiscent of tapioca, it’s thoroughly delicious.
Those who visit in summer might prefer aryan, a drinkable plain yogurt that my travelling companion enjoyed but was simply too sharp for my palate. I would, however, advise all of Vanity Fare’s readers to steer clear of turnip juice. Intrigued, I ordered a glass of the stuff in one of Istanbul’s kebab houses and lived to regret it. If it hadn’t been beet-red, it would have been completely indistinguishable from pickle brine. Better get a (perfectly legal!) glass of Efes, the national brew, instead.
It’d be impossible to compose even the briefest blog entry on Turkish cuisine without addressing the problem of Turkish Delight. My first impressions of Turkish Delight, like that of many of my fellow Americans [and Canadians, we can't help but point out], came by the way of C.S. Lewis, who in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe made it sound like the kiddie equivalent of crack cocaine. As a child, I had real doubts that a substance as delicious as the one enjoyed by Edmund Pevensie could actually exist. As Liesl Schillinger explains in this insightful Slate article, Turkish Delight is bound to be a bit of a disappointment to those of us who grew up believing it to be the ultimate in sensual pleasure. I, personally, find the real thing too sweet and more than a little gummy, an acquired taste at best. It’s not completely misnamed, mind you – it’s available all over Istanbul – but a few days into my trip I began to think of it less as a dessert than as a lamentable pun that had victimized an entire nation. The phrase “Turkish Delight” isn’t just the name given to a gooey, vaguely edible confection made from starch, sugar, rosewater and nuts. It’s also named a novel, a film, a candystand at Istanbul’s international airport and, regrettably, has also served as an occasion for thousands of groan-inducing “witticisms” in travel magazines and guide books. The Turks themselves can’t be blamed for any of this foolishness – they refer to the stuff as lokum.
Still, foodies should make their way to the Spice Bazaar, a bustling, if rather touristy, indoor market where a dizzying array of specialty foodstuffs, including numerous varieties of lokum, are dispensed wholesale. While there, they might also want to try sujuk, a heavily spiced cured meat that tastes like a turbo-charged version of our familiar pastrami, or purchase Iranian saffron at a per-gram price that’d make marijuana cultivators blush. Vendors at the “Egyptian Bazaar,” as the locals refer to it, are both eager to give away free samples and willing to let you bargain down their prices. Furthermore, their shops’ hand-written signs, which advertize their wares in more than a half-dozen European languages, suggest that Istanbul is still, even at this late date, a crossroads where the world comes together.
In any event, travellers still bothered by a sweet tooth should head directly to Karaköy Güllüoğlu, a shop located on Istanbul’s Asian bank that has become something of a civic institution. It was both praised in our guidebooks and personally recommended by our hotel’s staff, and with good reason. They make a good salep, but their baklava might be the best I’ve ever tasted. Make sure you get there in time to try their popular cream-filled variety, which usually sells out around midday. It’s so impossibly delicious that it almost merits a return trip to Turkey all by itself.
The Chronicles of Narnia might have oversold Turkish Delight to its impressionable young readers, but Güllüoğlu’s where I found the real thing.
Where have we been, you wonder? Oh there was just a little of this to contend with:
All combined, in the past forty-eight hours we here at Vanity Fare have shovelled eight driveways. That’s just not right.
So, to prove to ourselves that winter is more than muscle strain, we took a little walk to Scarlem’s famed Cudia park. Famed, of course, for the hordes of underage drinkers and bonfire makers that crowd these here parts when the weather is a little more forgiving. We were the only ones out there today. (Actually, that’s not true. There was a truck stuck in the parking lot. Why on earth the driver decided to shove his way into a completely unshovelled area of snow was beyond both of us.)
And, in our own environmentally friendly way, we decided to mark our territory.
So… it’s the Oscars and we here at Vanity Fare are trying something new: live blogging! Aren’t you excited?
We’ve seen most of the movies, we certainly have our opinions… Stay tuned.
We’re taking this as our philosophy, by the way:
“Movies, and by proxy the Oscars, are a way to talk politely about impolite things.”
(David Carr, this morning’s NYT )
8:33: Jon Stewart just said “Vanity Fare!” Ok – so maybe he was referring to the magazine, but still – a sign.
8:39: Our best picture pics? Without a doubt, without a second thought, without any more prevarication, There Will Be Blood. And Allison? No Country For Old Men. But I can see Juno winning in an upset to rival Crash’s topping Brokeback Mountain. Ugh – don’t get the Juno hype. Ok but not as epic and challenging and deliciously over-the-top as TWBB.
8:46: Have you seen Once? So endearing and lovely and and and! Glen Hansard was fantastic, especially during the singing (which makes sense, for a singer. I watched the commentary and appreciated the director’s insight – “Instead of choosing actors who could half-sing, I chose musicians who could half-act.”) Look:
8:52: Okay, Animated Feature is up… I hope Persepolis wins! Go Marjane! Andrea didn’t think Ratatouille was that great, but I enjoyed it. I just want to see someone other than Pixar win this year….
8:54: Damn.
8:55: Yeah, I just thought Ratatouille wasn’t that strong – conventional story arc with a bunch of fancy food terms thrown in for good measure. But food bloggers ate it up.
9:11: Holy Botox alert! (Francesca Lo Schiavo for Sweeney Todd)
9:13: Best Supporting Actor Award. There’s no contest here… it should, and will be, Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men. That scene in the gas station? Or with Woody Harrelson in the hotel? Creepy brillance. With an honourable mention to his hairdo – the ultimate helmet head.
9:19: Also, he cleans up well.
9:26: How good is this 11-year old girl? (the August Rush performance). She exudes more maturity than both of us combined.
9:28: Ok, so I’m totally looking forward to the Animated Short category. A kid that I went to school with is nominated (go Josh!!), so I’m definitely rooting for him. (Allison)
9:35: Aw man.. they didn’t even show Josh in the audience! I was really hoping they would. (ETA: actually, you could see the back of his head, a couple of rows in front of the winners.) I have fond memories of sitting in our early morning lectures and talking about Radiohead. And how jealous I was of the fact that he got tickets to see them at the Opera House waaay back when. Still though, it’s an amazing feat that he was even nominated.
9:36: Just like I have fond memories of hanging with Daniel Day Lewis in history class, chatting about our dream of running off to Italy and making shoes. And babies. (Andrea)
9:38: YES! Tilda Swinton won! I thought she was great in Michael Clayton. I think everyone was expecting Cate Blanchett to win, so what a huge upset.
9:45: Is it just us or does Jon Stewart look like he’s just been kissed? (Perhaps by the Unfunny Monster?)
9:47: James McAvoy makes me weak in the knees.. Oh, those Scottish men. (Allison)
9:48: Oh the Coen brothers took home Best Adapted Screenplay. Looks like it might be a No Country night. (Sarah Polley and Away From Her would have been nice. How can you go wrong with Alice Munro?)
10:04: So perhaps we’re not the most qualified pundits to judge Best Actress as we’ve only seen Juno, but for what it’s worth, Marion Cotillard looked very Best Actress-y in her trailers. Or maybe, as a chronic eyebrow plucker, I sympathize with her overplucking tendencies. And she has quite an impressive non-French accent. But Julie Christie…
10:07: What’s with the Forrest Gump music?
10:09: Because Forest Whitaker is presenting?
10:13: And the eyebrows win out. (Why, why must everyone cry? Is an Oscar really that spectacular? God, you’d think these people discovered a cure for cancer. Or a new painless plucking method.)
10:18: Oh Once!
10:20: And he’s using the same guitar as in the film!
10:27: Can you believe this? They’re now together and…. he’s 37, she’s 19!
10:37: What is it with old people and scarves? (Robert Boyle, Honorary Oscar) Something to do with draughts? Oh wait – Allison and I are both wearing them… Obviously an indication of wisdom. And genius.
10:49: Yes, Once won! Despite Enchanted’s 60% chances. Such a sweet song and scene… Totally deserving. And he’s so red!
10:51: Apparently Jon has now been kissed by the Obnoxious Monster.
10:52: That’s it, the whole broadcast has just become worth it: Steven Spielberg uttering the words “male menopause.”
10:56: Oh my, they let Marketa back on stage to give a speech. Ahh… Oscar has a heart. Along with golden buns.
10:59: Just as Andrea remarked, “I can’t believe There Will Be Blood hasn’t won anything,” the film wins Best Cinematography. And DDL wasn’t even there.
11:00: Probably in the washroom fixing his earrings (and polishing the shoes he just made me).
11:08: Such a joke that Jonny Greenwood wasn’t nominated for Best Score (technicality my ass). Blew everything else off the sheet. (Oh how good was that metaphor?) Though Atonement’s scorewas quite good, best of a nearly empty barrel. (And it just keeps getting better).
11:23: Best Original Screenplay… Allison votes for Lars and the Real Girl. I think Juno might win… Somewhat deservedly. Okay, so the opening was horrendous, but it got better. Eventually. If only for the part where Michael Cera says, “Actually, I try really hard.” Me too, Michael, me too.
11:26: And we now know who the sharper knife is.
11:30: Helen Mirren is such a classy lady.
11:31: Okay, so here we go. Best Actor. I think we both agree that Daniel Day Lewis is a shoo-in for this category.
11:34: Yes! He was a force of nature. A force of nature! (No associations with that Ben Affleck/Sandra Bullock flick). His performance was completely over the top and completely hypnotic.
11:41: So, Coen Brothers or P.T. Anderson?
11:42: Coen Brothers it is.
11:43: Nooooo! (Andrea)
11:45: No Country for Old Men is so going to win. And I’m tired and ready for bed.. so. Let’s hear it.
11:46: Andrea thinks that any other year, No Country would have deserved to win, but not this year. She thinks P.T. Anderson was robbed. I’m happy with the results though.
11:47: Robbed! The Academy is just not ready to embrace brillance. Which is exactly why I’m staying in Toronto. And, hey, it’s not even midnight – not bad, Oscars, not bad.
All in all, we enjoyed our first forray into live blogging. Hope you did too.
Had a delicious meal at Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar the other night and wanted to share some photos. Since all the dishes are small tasting plates, they recommend ordering 2-3 dishes per person.
We started off with these two dishes…
This grilled halloumi plate was delicious. The peppery wild arugula worked really well with both the cheese & the sweet, roasted beets. (I can’t get enough of beets!)
And here is their take on poutine, a classic Canadian dish. Their Yukon Gold fries were served with lamb merguez sausage, goat cheese (?) and thinly sliced green onions.
This was the olive wood-smoked whitefish, served on a bed of warm potato salad. It’s a really light dish and if you like smoked salmon, then you’ll probably enjoy this as well.
And here we have the entrecôte of beef served with northern woods mushrooms. Brock found the meat a little tough (it was served on the rare side, which I actually prefer and I didn’t mind the “chewiness” so much) but the sauce and mushrooms were really good. We sopped it all up with some sourdough bread.
I was impressed with how their menu changed daily (I visited their website today and saw a couple of items that had already changed from the other night) and I thought the service was spot on as well. It would be great to go back with more people, so we’d be able to order a larger variety of dishes off their menu.
Allison can usually be found behind the camera and occasionally posts entries. She currently shoots with a Canon 40D. Andrea writes most of the entries and can be seen in the majority of photos. She currently shoots her mouth off.
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