“The Sultan Liked It!”

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.

-Ted St. Christopher

Return of the Fab Five

Let it never be said that we at Vanity Fare cram only blue ribbon cheesecake into our cultural pieholes. We enjoy the high, the low, and sometimes, if large, goldfish-catching eyes are involved, we even have a soft spot for the middling. Not that there’s any confusion where on the spectrum this entry by loyal contributor, Allan, falls. Come on down to the ditch; we can dance under the glitter together.

No, not The Beatles - there’s only three of them left anyway. I mean that other famous singing quintet. You won’t find them in your spice rack but Scary, Ginger, Baby, Sporty, and Posh (oh that sweet, sexy Posh) have recently reformed in a second bid for world domination. Arriving in Toronto for four shows, the Spice Girls are back (oh yeah, they’re really, really back!) to spread their message of showing lots of cleavage and some good old Girl Pow-ah. Hi ci ya, hold tight!

Our tickets said 7:30 PM but no Girls were sighted by 8:30 PM. The crowd was getting antsy despite the best attempts by Britney and her ilk on the Air Canada Centre’s speaker system to soothe us. Finally, the lights went dark and the audience erupted in a thunderous roar. The giant video screens showed each of the Spices over the years as the screams became louder and louder. Then, like ascending Venuses, they rose above the stage on separate platforms. This was the first time all the Spices had ever sung together in this city and it was an impressive sight to behold. Years of nostalgia were distilled into The Power of Five now on stage.

Starting with their hit song “Spice Up Your Life”, the Girls were in their element and the crowd was right there with them singing along with the catchy lyrics. Yes, everyone was doing the “Stop” dance when it came time for that. They sang all their hit songs and then some. Highlights included the Girls (minus Ginger) leading their male dancers on leashes during “Holler”, a reprise of their now legendary Brit Awards performance of “Who Do You Think You Are” complete with Geri in a Union Jack mini-dress, and each Girl getting her own solo performance. Scary fearsomely brandished a bullwhip during her rendition of Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way” while Ginger had the whole place jumping with her cover of “It’s Raining Men”. Posh’s “solo” consisted of strutting silently yet fiercely down the catwalk in a sexy dress complete with wind machines to the music of Madonna and Rupaul. Hey, she’s no Celine and she knows it. It was very campy, and very, very Posh. Tyra Banks would be proud.

But all good things must come to an end and the Spices finished their encore with a re-mixed version of “Spice Up Your Life” amid lasers, lights, and giant cannons spewing glitter throughout the ACC. Yes, giant cannons spewing glitter. To say the concert was over-the-top is a severe understatement. There’s your run of the mill over-the-top and then there’s giant cannons spewing glitter. AND IT WAS AWESOME!!!

-Allan

Always a blogsmaid: 2,000 words on why you should just go ahead and read something else

Pay no attention to the title. Drew, our newest and self-deprecating-est VF contributor, shocks and awes with his searing and syphilitic pirate-mentioning portrayal of life in East Nowhere, Mass. Flattery, our Star Wars-loving friend has discovered, will get you everywhere. Or at least into our annals, with heavy underscoring of the second ‘n.’

I feel a certain obligation, dear reader, to inform you here at the outset that what follows contains nothing of what you’ve come rightfully to expect from a posting under the Vanity Fare banner: nothing voguish or metropolitan or exotic or epicurean or bon vivanty or readable. There will be no reportage from the great cities of Asia, the Mideast, or Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe; indeed, this is correspondence from an entirely different and altogether un-golden part of the horse. For you see, dear, charitably persistent reader, the grim truth of the matter is that I live, with my parents, in East Nowhere, Massachusetts, in a town best known for Oprah almost but eventually not buying a house here one time, and am perpetually too stone-broke to afford return trips to any of the Bay State’s more blogworthy localities. But in spite of this being the place where I park my laptop, you can also add life in No-Oprah, USA to the growing litany of things this post is turning out not to be about—although I caution that you might not know it at first. No doubt by this point, dear, unrelenting reader now showing troubling signs of masochism, you find yourself cerebrating on at least one of the following excogitations: what, then, is the stupid entry about already, and why would someone so obviously unqualified be contributing to Vanity Fare in the first place? Believe it or not, the long answer to both of these questions is exactly the same.

The short answers, respectively, are Saturday night of January 27th, and because I don’t screen my calls.

Now, I use “Saturday night” in the loosest possible sense of the term (certainly not in a way that implies it to be Live, Fever-inducing, or Alright for Fighting). Understand that the place I live doesn’t even qualify as a one-horse town because the one horse we had actually died of boredom. Normally I would have spent this particular evening at home watching The Matrix Revolutions on HBO again and laughing to myself about how terrible it is—a process I refer to as “working on my screenplay”—but fate, and my parents, had other plans. Other dinner plans, to be specific, in the form of a very VF-appropriate dinner party they were hosting (there would be spicy shrimp gumbo and crèmes brûlées!), around for which I was told, in no uncertain terms, not to stick. And with my lately-acquired obligations to this blog sitting heavily on my shoulders like a fat parrot on a syphilitic pirate, I walked out into the night, flipped the middle finger at my cruel and uncaring parents inside the house where they let me stay for free, got into the car that they let me use, and just started driving. Surely there had to be somewhere here in Podunk with a brow and a health inspection grade high enough for me to enjoy a bloggable repast! Somewhere …

Somewhere …

Somewhere …

I eventually settled on much-reputed strip mall hash house T.C. Lando’s, well known in these parts for diner fare that’s equal parts last meal and lethal injection, as well as for its convenient Dunkin’ Donuts-adjacent location. (Rumours of the restaurant’s affiliation with heterosexual Star Wars character Lando Calrissian remain unconfirmed but highly true-sounding.)

Packed to the walls with dinner rushers taking-out their greasy spoonfuls, there were not only no places to sit, but when it came time to order, my performance definitely suffered under pressure to keep the line moving. The chicken parmesan sub I ended up with is, I think, an unfair indictment of the menu as a whole: nicely spiced chicken, but a tepid tomato sauce, gluey cheese, and bread that tasted essentially as if someone were describing the concept of bread to you in a language that neither of you spoke very well. Plus I had to eat it in my car. But enough people passed by while I waited near the counter with food that looked and smelled like the real deal that I wouldn’t hesitate to come back and try something a bit less shoot-from-the-hip. Maybe on a Wednesday around ten in the morning.

Now, as any seasoned VF reader would be quick to tell you, on a full actual stomach is the perfect time to go about cramming one’s cultural piehole by taking in, say, an art show, a gallery viewing, or a game of Jenga. Unfortunately, both the children’s museum and the skateboard park were already closed by then, so in order to get my recommended dosage of the fine arts for the evening, I would have to press on to a neighbouring town. Conveniently, the art world there seems to have taken a lesson from the “Girls! Girls! Girls!” school of advertising:

Yes, the arts don’t come much finer than in this county firetrap, one of the main ports of call for moviegoers in my town ever since our own movie theatre was shut down and turned into a liquor store, which I think pretty well sums up just how seriously folks have to take their escapism in order to go on living here. Though its billings tend to take bronze a bit both critically and commercially, there was, this Saturday night, unalloyed gratification awaiting patrons of the Arts in the form of indie-tastic Oscar comedy beard Juno, showing on Screen 2. Over on Screen 1, however, those of us who’d already gone to see Juno back before it was cool were, along with 200 decibels worth of teenage girls, treated to a little oversight in the Geneva Convention entitled 27 Dresses.

I’m sorry, that last comment should maybe be taken with a grain of estrogen. Indeed, for the sake of my bloggerlistic integrity, I will go so far as to credit the film as a perfectly serviceable specimen of the romantic comedy, one that even held out a few tantalizing modica of hope that it might be cribbing from something savvier than The Big Book of Tired Chick Flick Bullshit. But alas. And what was with James Marsden not needing special ruby quartz lenses to restrain his uncontrollable mutant optic blasts? Talk about your continuity errors!

But I’ll tell you what really stuck in my craw about this cloying but basically digestible confection. The film’s hook is that Katherine Heigl’s protagonista Jane has acquired a montage-sized collection of each-worse-than-the-last-one dresses by having served as a bridesmaid (though really more a de facto backstage Maid of Honour, considering all the work she evidently puts in each time) in the weddings of twenty-seven of her girlfriends. By all accounts, this isn’t just sublimated bouquet envy on her part, though: at worst, Jane can be perceived as kind of a doormat and an unrepentant romance junkie; but in a good light, she’s more of a patron saint of weddings, repeatedly martyring herself in order to enable what she believes to be the most important day in each of her friends’ respective life. And decry as we might her basic premise, or the extremeness of her measures, her attitude at least strikes me as above reproof. Here was a refreshingly positive angle on the usually heartsick sentiment behind the movie’s inevitable tagline, “Always a bridesmaid”—rather than a mark of Cain, it’s a badge of honour, and of real friendship. How disappointing, then, when it became clear that Jane’s emotional journey in the film would be on a path of increasing selfishness, pettiness, and vanity (of the most assuredly unFare variety), such that her own wedding at the end of the picture, with all her friends lined up in the same ridiculous dresses she was once made to wear, plays more as an act of revenge and humiliation, rather than the estimable triumph of good karma it should have been. Seriously, it ended up feeling like a rom-com screenplay written by Ayn Rand, give or take 1500 pages.

But before 27 Dresses came apart at the seams, it did manage to germinate in me a single significant notion. I want at this point to impress, dear, but one can only assume Guantanamo Bay-detained reader, that I am all too well aware of the manifest pointlessness of this entire blog entry: way back more than a thousand words and three Dunkin’ Donutses ago, you’ll remember, I even warned you that what followed would be stodgy and unbohemian and utterly devoid of that characteristic Vanity flare. This is effectively because my life is incredibly boring, as demonstrated not only by the manner in which I spent my most exciting Saturday night in months (slop and a flop), but how I spent the week that followed (writing about it for three-and-a-half drafts). I think you’ll agree it’s a life, like so many, that should never see the light of the internet—but I’m afraid that ended up being all the more reason to inflict it upon you. Know, however, that this sadism wasn’t voluntary on my part: you see, it was a mutual friend of ours who asked me, innocently but insistently, to write something for her foody-artsy-travelly blog, with total disregard for my unhyphenated lifestyle. But then, many desperate and ponderous hours after my sub-par chicken parm sub and the Heiglian diarrhetic,* it dawned on me what an account of those paltry events could, in fact, be made to amount to; and with sudden nobility of purpose, I set out to write that account with all possible speed, which ended up meaning I took four days longer to finish than was supposed to. And with the so-called happenings of Saturday night, January 27th now recorded for you in all their considerable monotony, I only hope the effect is complete.

* For why this is the cleverest thing you’ve ever read, click here.

Because this post is like a bridesmaid dress. It’s ugly and unstylish and made out of cheap material. It’s probably too long and definitely too frilly. It’s an embarrassment to have to display in public. And yet, in spite of that, that, that, that, that, and that, I elect to wear this dress, and wear it with pride. Because above all, this post should clearly be seen for the glaring anomaly it is, setting into stark relief all the things about Vanity Fare that get you to read it and keep you coming back to it. For me personally, aside from learning things like how to spell “Mountain Dew” in Arabic, that’s the chance to see friends of mine leading lives of culture and risk and discovery and sodality and that they’re eating well—all of which makes me feel much better about not really being a part of those lives most of the time. So on the once in a lifetime occasion (as I’m sure we all hope it proves to be) when one of them calls up and invites me to come up to the front of the blog—well, yes, I accept; and then I try to make my presence implicitly all about the wonderful thing she’s created and set up and accomplished—by cobbling together the meagre scraps of my own life’s fabric and piecing them into the ugliest dress that will still keep me in the wedding party. And see: doesn’t pristine, elegant, exciting VF look simply radiant by comparison?

That’s the thing about friendship, dear reader—sometimes it’s a tall, bearded man wearing a dress.

- Drew

The High with the Low: Drinking Shrek’s Tears and Sampling Camel in Doha, Qatar

It is our pleasure here at Vanity Fare to welcome Ted St. Christopher into our dysfunctional, Bluth-like family. We raise a glass of Shrek’s tears and salute you. We promise not to make you get hair plugs.

Doha, Qatar just might be the city of the future. Perched on the edge of the Persian Gulf, fat with petrodollars and determined to transform itself into a major international business center overnight, this sleepy desert backwater is on the make. Skyscrapers rise right before your eyes in the twenty-four hour construction site of its downtown, while shopping malls and “big box” mega-emporiums sprout in its suburbs. This doesn’t mean that there’s much to do in Doha right now, though. Alcohol is forbidden to Qataris and available only at Western hotels, the club scene is nearly nonexistent, and the city’s short on accessible public space. Spread out, car-friendly, and oppressively sunny, Doha could be Los Angeles’ long-lost cousin.

This state of affairs means that Qataris and the thousands of foreigners who live and work here entertain themselves mostly by shopping and eating, which makes Doha a surprisingly interesting destination for the gastronomically-minded traveler. “Guest workers” from India, the Philippines, China and dozens of other locations outnumber native residents about three to one and inspire a kaleidoscopally varied restaurant scene. Even better, Doha’s difficult climate - 50°C summers feature an endless, blinding glare and the occasional sandstorm - has taught its residents patience. Cafes do a brisk business both in Doha’s poshest districts and in its dusty, wind-blown backstreets. While you wouldn’t mistake it for Paris, Dohans seem to have perfected the art of the afternoon-long conversation over small cups of tea-clear, cardamom-infused coffee.

Middle Eastern grub, like so many other cuisines, often works best at street level, and there are dozens, if not hundreds of places in Doha where unpretentious, wholly satisfying meals can be got for about six or seven dollars U.S. Doha’s Indian eateries serve up cheap, delicious curries while its shish kebab joints best anything I’ve ever tasted in the UK. Also of interest are paper-thin crepes flavored with cream cheese and honey available at the local souk. Even if you’re just there to browse for souvenirs or Persian rugs, you will also want to check out Doha’s spice merchants, the aroma of whose piquant and impossibly fresh wares can be enjoyed from the doorway of their shops.

Homesick, or just less adventurous, Westerners will be glad to learn that numerous American fast-food chains, from Johnny Rockets to Burger King to the Colonel, have hung out their shingles in Doha. While I’m sad to report that the lamb at the Ponderosa Steakhouse is as tough and woefully overdone as it would be in any of its American locations, the expansion of Western fast food to the Middle East also results in some wonderfully unlikely cultural juxtapositions. There’s a Mexican restaurant over at the Marriot, and while its waitresses are decked out in Mexican peasant dresses, the distances involved, both physical and cultural, are so vast that judging its relative “authenticity” seems rather beside the point. There’s also tabouli and fatoush salad at the Ponderosa’s salad bar and the Dairy Queen and Dunkin’ Donuts logos translated into graceful, and weirdly familiar, Arabic script. Even Hardee’s advertises that its new Mushroom Burger is “100% Halal.”

My time in Doha has done nothing short of reorganize my personal culinary geography. For a long time, I thought that the United States tasted like Mountain Dew, that antifreeze-colored mixture of sugar and caffeine favored by twitchy fourteen year-olds and grad students on impossible deadlines. I’d never encountered it on my travels in Europe or South America. While I sometimes wondered what teenagers in other countries drank while performing totally rad snowboard jumps, I felt secure in the knowledge that only my fellow Americans were tough (or crazy) enough to regularly consume a beverage that has more than one-and-a-half times the caffeine content of Pepsi and is the color of Shrek’s tears. Well, I was wrong. It’s all over Qatar, and I’ve got the photographic evidence to prove it. Now, I don’t know if Qatari video game nerds fuel their all-night sessions of “Team Fortress 2″ with Mountain Dew’s “Code Red” spin-off like their American counterparts do, but I’m going to have to concede that anything’s possible. What’s the lesson here? If we live in a world dominated by the cruel dictates of multinational capitalism, our new overlords have at least decided to make it interesting for us.

As a service to Vanity Fare’s readers, this reporter, who likes his steak well-done and won’t eat seafood, tried some camel. While Doha hosts camel races every week, camel meat isn’t exactly typical Qatari cuisine. I had to visit “Tagine,” one of a chain of Moroccan eateries, to try the stuff. My main course arrived steaming hot in its own earthenware stew-pot and looked, upon first inspection, like beef bourguignon made without any vegetables. The meat itself was long-fibred and extremely tender, if somewhat gamey, and very, very rich. One of my dining companions, who was born and brought up in western Canada, commented that it wasn’t unlike moose. A strong lemon marinade added some contrast to the meat’s natural flavor, but it was simply too much for me. I decided to trade it for a friend’s chicken rfissi with saffron, which I found much more to my taste. While I’m glad that I can tell my grandchildren and you, dear reader, that I’ve actually eaten a bit of this noble desert beast, I’m not exactly sure I’d do it again. Anyway, there’s a Chili’s not too far from here.

- Ted St. Christopher

C5 - Crystal Five

Sunny originally emailed this restaurant review to us months ago, but for some reason it never arrived in my inbox. Here is his second submission to Vanity Fare, a review of the new C5 Restaurant at the Royal Ontario Museum.

An architect friend of mine recently chastised me for calling it “The Crystal” when I mentioned my interest in trying C5. He noted that the budget was originally set for a glass structure before they ran out of money (and apparently, because of donor tension over the initial design) and eventually “settled” for the current version. “It’s not a crystal because it’s not transparent like a crystal,” he exclaimed. A majority of it isn’t even translucent. Regardless of his opinion about what the addition represents, I was merely interested in verifying the positive C5 reviews I’ve been reading in all the local papers.

Daniel Liebeskind’s addition to the Royal Ontario Museum was like one of those movies you see previews for but hold out on going to until the time feels right. Not because it looks particularly unappealing but you just want to save the experience for the appropriate time. Maybe a special occasion or a long weekend? I hardly even gave it a good look when I drove by on several occasions.

I finally caved and booked an 8 PM reservation for the Friday before the Civic Holiday for Kirsten’s birthday. Since she was also recently promoted to the Chief Editor of her magazine, I felt it was the grandiose venue necessary for our celebration.

The first thing I noticed when entering the ROM was how ridiculously difficult it was to get up to C5. Like a customer service inquiry to Rogers Wireless, we were re-directed all over the place. The C5 sign doesn’t even point to the actual entrance to C5. The last rep we spoke to finally gave us those awful metal ROM tags to attach to our collars but I wasn’t going to poke holes in a perfectly good shirt. After chucking them, we rode the dusty, unfinished elevator up and entered C5’s lounge.

A fence of phallic stones separated the lounge from the restaurant. The beautiful wood bar was accented with sharp edges, blacks, slick leather and metal. Our host brought over a special C5 martini made with vodka and bourbon while Kirsten sipped a champagne and raspberry cocktail.

Halfway through the second round, our table was ready. We entered the walkway to the restaurant to find an impressive space filled with impeccably-dressed patrons. An open kitchen boasted 4 angry little kitchen apprentices chopping and chatting with the passing servers.

It wouldn’t be fair to do this review without highlighting my favourite part of the set-up: my knife! On a lizard skin placemat sat our oblong plates, polished silverware and two cutting knives that stood on their sides. ON THEIR SIDES!

C5’s one fallback is the lack of a great view. Since the restaurant faces the back, patrons are subjected to a beautiful sky being flanked by smoke stacks, dirty roofs and electrical wiring. Aside from the disappointing vistas, we were still excited to be eating inside a translucent misshapen wing of a museum.

Since we were starving, the tiny slices of olive bread were not sufficient. It also didn’t help that the bread and blueberry butter was the best thing I’ve tasted in a long time. I didn’t think the butter would be as good as it was. The blueberry taste was very faint and the bread was especially full of flavour. We asked for more and our server brought over only one slice each. A big thumbs down for the meager bread delivery.

Our server brought over an amuse bouche compliments of the Chef: a horrible dollop of bitter smoked salmon on a stale crostini. Were they trying to make us leave before dessert?

First course, Kirsten chose a crab salad that tasted of fig and other naturally-sweet elements to balance out the saltiness. I had the raw platter (apparently one of the must-haves at C5) and almost had to choke a few of the pieces down. Appearances can be deceiving. Beautiful and fresh looking, I started with the beef tartare topped with a quail egg. Delicious, rich and perfect. Continued with some of the fishes and gagged on the dirty oyster. The oyster and salmon was smelly, fishy and borderline filthy. I should’ve sent it back but I’m such a pussy with complaining. Finished the plate with the delicious ahi tuna to save the course. At $20 a plate, I expected a little more than something that tasted like I just licked one of the ROM’s sea fossils exhibit.

Our mains were incredible. Kirsten had the meaty rack of lamb layered with a “just like Mom used to make” stuffing. I think I would’ve been happy with just a bowl of that stuffing. I chose a roasted Quebec squab topped with seared foie gras on a bed of couscous. The couscous was bigger and bouncier than usual and it swam in a pepper reduction, slightly spicy with a hint of curry. I find that some chefs will often overcook or burn foie gras to leave a more bitter taste. This piece was fatty and retained its natural juices.

Surprisingly stuffed, we skipped a course and dessert. We ordered more drinks instead. Our server overhearing that it was a dinner for Kirsten’s birthday, returned with 2 mounds of chantilly and chocolate mousse. Not a fan of dessert in general, I offered both to the birthday girl. She happily inhaled the incredibly rich spoonfuls and paired it with a glass of port.

C5 also seemed to attract a milieu of kooky characters. Businessmen with their extremely blond wives. Rich Jewish couples with their skinny daughters in sundresses. Beside us was a mixed race gay couple dining with Asian parents. Dad ate his squab and happily chatted between bites. Mom was attached to her glass, downing her merlot like a champ. Two more glasses and she would’ve had her top off, giving the surly kitchen boys a half-time show.

All in all, a good meal with an above average main course selection. C5 has some elements to work on as do most new restaurants. The service was perfection from the host to the bartender to our lovely French waiter. It’s rare to have zero complaints about service. A return visit is definitely in the works. Hopefully by then, the menu and some of the space will be fine tuned so that it can be the dynamic restaurant it has the potential to be.

Damn, I should’ve stolen one of those nifty knives.

-Sunny

(read Sunny’s Sushi Kaji review here)

Inside Shanghai’s city blocks

In the next installment of our contributor series, Sam, a Shanghai-based editor and loyal Vanity Fare reader, braves the watch sellers and flying timber to give us a glimpse inside his adopted city.

Huaihai Road runs east to west across downtown Shanghai, cutting the former French Concession area of the city neatly in two. It is the commercial heart of Shanghai, and has the hustle and bustle to prove it. The street emits a kind of constant, giant whir: the hum of modernity, you might say, or the annoying buzz of a mosquito, depending on your general outlook on life.

Advice for the intrepid traveler: Go to the corner of Huaihai Road and Shaanxi Road, one of the busiest intersections in Shanghai. Find your way to the left of Starbucks, across the street from McDonald’s. Avoid the hoards of watch-sellers. Duck under the overhanging port-cochère of a street-front hotel. Wind through some parked cars and half-closed gates. You are now in Huaihai Village, a lilong built in 1924.

Lilong neighborhoods are one of the aspects that make Shanghai unique. The name combines li, which has the two meanings of “inside” and “neighborhood,” and long, which roughly translates to “alleyway” or “lane.” It is, like many Chinese words, starkly literal: Lilongs can best be described as neighborhoods of alleyways nestled inside city blocks. They are the result of a clever combination of the Chinese courtyard style and English terrace housing, resulting in compact and comfortable dwellings. The neighborhoods usually have very few entrances, and once inside can resemble vast, ordered labyrinths of long alleyways.

The Huaihai Village lilong has three gates: on Huaihai Road, Nanchang Road, and Maoming Road. The lanes are made up of rows of doorways, and the neighborhood has its own kindergarten, library, children’s playground, and bank. Like many lilongs, it forms a tightly knit community. Going inside is like entering another world: it is very quiet, the hum of Huaihai Road utterly erased.

Huaihai Village is a “new-style” lilong, which means that when it was built it featured modern conveniences such as sewers, running water, electricity, and gas, and was intended for the city’s wealthier foreign population. Most lilongs were not so luxurious. The lilong development boom started in the second half of the nineteenth century, when an influx of Chinese entered the city, seeking refuge from the various wars of the time. The lilongs were thus originally intended for Chinese, though such large projects required capital that only foreign companies could provide; luckily for the city, many foreign companies had just made their fortunes from opium trading. Later on foreigners lived in the neighborhoods; nowadays, residents are once again almost all Chinese, as most lilongs have not been restored and foreigners are wealthy enough to avoid them (we like to stand outside and look, but not venture inside). Ask almost any Chinese living in a run-down lilong, and he or she will say an apartment in a high-rise building, with central heating, reliable water, and new furnishings, is vastly preferable.

Like every Chinese urban area, Shanghai is suffering from copious amounts of construction, and flying timbers and falling bricks are just two dangers an innocent pedestrian can expect to encounter while strolling along its streets. Not so in lilongs lucky enough to be graced with a preservation permit from the government; their sanctity and peace are preserved. Many, however, have not been so fortunate. Amid the bombed-out rubble of construction sites often sit a few, lonely shikumen, one of the most recognizable architectural traits of older lilongs.

“Shikumen” roughly translates to “stone doorway,” and they are exactly that: a sort of large frame made of stone that surrounds a doorway, usually with some sort of design. One such area that I saw recently was beside the old Jewish ghetto, where the Japanese stuck the city’s Jewish population during the Second World War. Perhaps those years were on my mind, for it closely resembled old photos of Berlin or London in 1945; the area was completely destroyed. Only a few small structures were standing, as well as its old lilong wall, which still surrounded the large area. As I stood on the sidewalk admiring the destruction through a doorway in the wall, a lady with grocery bags walked briskly by me, through the doorway, and down a small path lined with bricks and plaster. The area still had people living in it, though not for much longer; they were the final remnants of the lilong’s lengthy and no doubt eventful history.

My own apartment is in a kind of modern incarnation of the lilong, though now they are called yuans, or “gardens.” It sits beside several tall high-rise apartment buildings. The yuan is accessible by four entryways, two of which are closed after 10:30 PM. Outside the window, Shanghai life goes by: handymen, knife-sharpeners, popcorn-poppers, and other sorts of peddlers come to do business, and each day elderly residents play mahjong, often in their pajamas. People burn piles of clothes of the dead, and young brides and grooms arrive home amidst fireworks and cameras.

Today is a nice day and the mahjong players are in their customary spot beneath my bedroom window. Outside the window on the opposite side of my apartment I can see high-rise buildings stretching up to the sky, gazing down on the city from their great heights; down below, a woman holding a baby chats with an elderly woman sitting in a chair on the street, and two old men play Chinese chess on an upturned crate beside them.

-Sam, Vanity Fare contributor

Dinner Under the Stars

Yes, both Allison and I have been awful - just awful - about posting recently. To tide you over until I return to Toronto - please, you’re turning blue, stop holding your breath - I present you with a post from traveller extraordinaire, Allan. Oh how I too love Morocco - the food, the faux-guides, the ukeleles, War and Peace… But I digress. Enjoy Allan’s tale; I guarantee you’ll leave dreaming of tajines.

On a related note, we’re always looking for contributors. E-mail us and perhaps - we don’t make any promises - your life’s dream can be fulfilled and you too can join the hallowed space of Vanity Fare.

- Andrea

6200 kilometres from Toronto lies the city of Marrakech in the Kingdom of Morocco. The very name of the city itself conjures up exotic imagery of a land and people very different from our own and indeed, the culture shock upon arrival can be jarring. Give in and surrender yourself to the pace and way of life here though, and you will fall in love with this charming city.

The heart of Marrakech and crossroads for all of North Africa is its main square, Djemma el Fna. Both locals and tourists alike visit this massive open area to mingle, shop, flirt, eat, and simply enjoy themselves. By day, things are relatively sedate. Orange juice vendors fill the western part of the square, selling the most incredible tasting freshly-squeezed orange juice you will ever drink, and for a mere 3 dirhams (40 cents) a glass at that. The dried fruit and nut vendors follow, placing their goods in such impeccable arrangements that they make you feel bad by messing them up. Apothecaries are next, selling medicines and treatments both bizarre and macabre. Sometimes it’s best not to ask or look too closely, if you know what I mean. Finally, merchants selling more modern wares like leather bags and jewelery line the square. Traffic, both of the car, scooter and donkey variety, ramble through with little heed for pedestrians. Moving out of their way is very good advice to follow. Street entertainers can be found during the day but they all seem rather lethargic under the unrelenting sun. When night falls, however, this square transforms into something magical.

Seemingly out of nowhere, dozens of food vendors set up shop in the evening. The benches and stools are laid out, the food is prepared, and the smoke and aromas mingle in the air, enticing all those in the vicinity. After a long day of exploring the labyrinthine souks in the medina, I am looking forward to a great meal. Enthusiastic touts beckon me to eat at their food stall promising this visiting Canadian that their food tastes better than poutine and is “finger lickin’ good.” I imagine “poutine” is substituted for spaghetti, fish & chips, or hamburgers depending on your nationality. Charmed by their words, I take a seat at the bench next to two cute Croatian girls. Good conversation is struck up, and the food comes quickly.

Moroccan food is simple yet filling, relying on spices and slow cooking to attain its intense flavours. The tajine stew with tender chunks of meat and vegetables is hearty. Calamari and frites are next and are so tasty. Traditional Moroccan flat bread is freshly baked and completes the meal. Near the square is the Koutoubia Minaret, towering over the city. As the muezzin’s haunting call to prayer from the minaret fills the warm evening air, I soak in and absorb this unique and incredible atmosphere. I sit at a bench with friendly strangers while spirited staff serve great tasting and smelling food. Monkey trainers, mystics, musicians, storytellers, and acrobats entertain all those in the square. The thousands of stars in the sky resemble diamonds.

You realize then that you have fallen in love with this crazy city. If you ever read a “Best Places to Eat in the World” article in a newspaper or magazine, you will undoubtedly find Djemma el Fna mentioned amidst all the Michelin-starred gourmet restaurants. Can’t argue with that.

-Allan, Vanity Fare contributor

Sushi Kaji: Tokyo, Etobicoke?

(Here’s the first of many entries to come from contributor Sunny Fong. Please visit our Flickr account to view larger versions of the photos he shot.)

Coming down on the Islington 110 to the Queensway (who even goes west of Keele for food anymore much less Etobicoke?), one would never suspect that a culinary delight would be hiding amongst the horribly drab housing developments and wholesale knick knack shops. But lo and behold, directly across from a Baskin Robbins sat a tiny place known as Sushi Kaji.

Named after the chef, Sushi Kaji is a fixed menu – the poncier call it: omakase (“chef’s choice”) – dining experience. All the fish used is flown in from Tokyo Bay the day of consumption, often caught straight from the ocean while we are still getting into our pajamas. Even all his vegetables, garnishes and ingredients are purchased directly from Japan.

Being my first omakase experience, I didn’t know what to expect. Recent romps at mediocre, pancreas-inflaming places such as Sushi on Bloor and Katsu had put me off anything that wasn’t flame-broiled. Even a positive experience at a small Nolita haunt in May didn’t change my attitude toward sushi when I returned to Toronto. But because such a buzz has been created about Kaji, particularly between the gaggle of foodie friends in my network, I went with an open mind and a growling stomach.

I entered the doors of Kaji expecting 20 or so yuppies rubbernecking my way but my cynicism was immediately diverted when I was greeted by a lovely Japanese woman in an orange kimono. At Sushi Kaji, the service began as soon as I walked in the door. Not only did she already know who I was meeting but she took my raincoat carefully and seated me directly in front of the chef. Flanked by good friends Robin and Henry (happy birthday!), I sat nervously watching the gruff Chef Kaji prepare our sashimi course.

Henry and Robin went with the Ozu ($100) but as soon as I saw “Appetizer Plate,” I enthusiastically pointed to the Takumi option ($120). After a few sips of Asahi, the first course made its entrance: a square bowl of steamed chicken breast on a bed of shredded daikon, pickled cucumber and a light plum sauce. The chicken was organic and worked extremely well with the light tartness of the sauce. For such a simple dish, it was a surprisingly exciting combination. Chef Kaji saw the look on my face and halted his chopping. He exclaimed “Steamed chicken breast! Steamed in sake! You like?” I nodded and gulped the rest of it down.

The second course was the anticipated appetizer plate. Resembling a sophisticated bowl of liquorice all-sorts, Chef Kaji arranged the items in an installation that was so beautiful, I actually felt guilty for destroying it with my chopsticks. As I uncoiled the stem used to wrap the nigiri in the banana leaf, I realized that the process was as important as the presentation. With every prod and poke, I undressed each piece to reveal an array of foreign tastes:

1. Japanese omelette – cold and dry, this was a small morsel of richly flavoured egg.

2. Fish loaf – brown and savoury, this was a cold treat that tasted of liver, soy and possibly fig. It was by far, my favourite on the plate.

3. Pickled lotus root – my nightmares of this stringy root as a kid returned but this version was fresh and crisp.

4. Shrimp nigiri – wrapped in a banana leaf, it was nothing to rave about in terms of taste but it was more of a presentation item to give the dish height.

5. Stuffed pepper – again, mediocre, reminiscent of a cold crab claw on its third dim sum cart trip.

6. Seared cod –a clean tasting fish with a slightly bitter after taste.

7. Fish cake with caviar – very rubbery tasteless fish solid mixed with a very tangy pink egg mixture.

8. Eggplant nigiri in gelatin – a slightly sour lump of Japanese eggplant that was in a bowl of salty gelatin. Pretty much speaks for itself.

All in all, the appetizer platter was definitely a favourite of mine in terms of variety and flavour.

Third course was the sashimi plate.

1. Salmon – rich, less fishy than the salmon we eat here and had a milky aftertaste. Definitely salmon I have never eaten before.
2. Otoro – the fattiest, lightest, and most expensive part of a tuna’s belly, this was a very buttery fish that had a slight bounce. Succulent. Filling.
3. Sea Bream – a very dense and meatier fish with a high note that went right up my nose.
4. Octopus – thick and meaty like pork, this was Henry’s favourite. The apprentice noted that it was caught that day and shipped over from Greece. This was definitely a treat but it left a bitter aftertaste.

This sashimi plate was such a great experience that I ignored the sight of the apprentice using wasabi (albeit a well-known Japanese brand) directly from a giant tube.

Fact: Chef Kaji also makes all his own soy sauce from scratch.

After noticing that I was scribbling away on a notepad, the apprentice inquired and I told him I was doing a review for an online food magazine. He nodded and moments later, a small dish arrived compliments of the chef. Salmon skin wrapped grilled leeks. A fantastic snack!

Fourth course was a horribly crumbly shrimp ball topped with French mini-asparagus that I did not enjoy. The reduction it sat in tasted like delicious shark fin but the asparagus alone tasted like old grass. The dish was redeemed as it tasted much better when all three elements were placed together on the extra large wooden spoon. But despite its hurricane-esque presentation, this was a disappointing course. This was quickly washed down to clear my palette for the next course.

The presentation of the fifth course, a steamed daikon disc and foie gras was interesting enough but not appetizing. I wasn’t sure about the other patrons but the sight of a slice of dried liver in a plastic wrap did not make me salivate. The daikon was slightly bitter – a sign that it wasn’t as fresh as it could’ve been – and the sauce was a sweet mixture reminiscent of Diana’s BBQ sauce. The foie gras was good but not incredible. Not to be a total critic but an edible paper would’ve been a much better choice. The couple next to us at the bar ate this course up like reject extras from Oliver Twist. I was surprised they didn’t lick the plastic wrap to get all the soy bits out.

The next course was a small fried pregnant fish arranged in such a beautiful way, I didn’t want to eat it. But the second reason why I didn’t want to eat it was because I have hated fried or steamed fish ever since I was a toddler. I hesitated and dug in with an open mind. This was a very bitter fish with a long trail of guts and caviar that tasted like oil paint and raw fish skin. Chef Kaji noticed I was pushing it around and exclaimed “this fish is available only for 3 weeks in the summer!” He gestured for me to finish it and smiled proudly. I could only oblige so I tried a few more pieces of fish with the skin attached. Not a fan of it at all but objectively, this would’ve be a piece of heaven for a hardcore fish lover.

A bowl of pickled white ginger arrived for us to cleanse out palettes. Unlike the usual pink stuff one gets, this was light, sweeter and less harsh on the tongue.

The seventh course was a series of nigiri pieces on three separate plates: seared toro topped with a sweet mayo, a raw scallop topped with lemon and a succulent lobster nigiri. It’s interesting to note that when one of the nigiri pieces fell over on its side as the server placed the dish down, she immediately did a 180 and replaced the entire dish before we could even utter a word. She left us with three perplexed (and impressed) faces and a somewhat frantic server behind the bar. Now that is service!

The eighth course was a bowl of cold soba noodles in a soy sauce broth (made from scratch) which was slightly salty and quite refreshing.

The ninth course was seared freshwater eel on a clump of sticky rice. The eel was somewhat bland but worked well with the cold shredded egg.

The tenth course was a plate of 3 sushi pieces, each topped on loose rice. The first piece featured salmon eggs that I thought were borderline disgusting. Though they were less fishy than the typical eggs stuffed in a Japanese handroll, the eggs gooed like strings of mozzarella from a slice of fresh pizza. The second piece was a tuna tartare but otoru was a little too rich for such a late course. Robin agreed. The third was a perfectly seared piece of plain eel with a sweet sauce. A perfect ending to an otherwise rich course.

Robin summed up the impending dessert course pretty well: “It’s not that I don’t want it, I just can’t have it.” He and Henry both chose a pomello cream topped with a sweet gelatin. I enjoyed a grape mousse paired with fresh fruits on a custard sauce. It wasn’t overly sweet and very well presented.

After we finished our roasted teas, we thanked the chef and his team. I was absolutely stuffed and probably could not have withstood another bite of food. A bevy of “domo’s” and head nods followed as I put on my coat. Leaving Sushi Kaji, I felt a little sad that the night was over. As cliché as it sounds, Sushi Kaji was like poetry in a meal form. All in all, a simplistic yet stimulating culinary experience. Maybe that’s just the Japanese way?

Though it’s the perfect place to impress a major business client or to woo a romantic prospect (don’t forget your gold card), Sushi Kaji is like a high quality sake, best enjoyed with good friends who love food as much as you do.

Despite the $430 bill, a return visit is already in the works. But no research on Expedia is necessary because for this special journey to the other side of the world, one only has to go to the other side of the city.

- Sunny, Vanity Fare contributor

Two for the Price of One

Since we at Vanity Fare are all about community and sharing - and are also lazy and sometimes do not feel like stirring from the couch - we like to offer our space to the occasional guest contributor. So today we present you with our very first party trick, Wilson. In the name of all things tasty, he roamed the fruit-peel littered streets of Kensington on a quest for doubles. Was the mission a success? Read on.

She pushed forward my doubles wrapped in wax paper and handed me my diet coke. I’ll readily admit my fascination with doubles was partially due to the pragmatism of the name; what can be better than knowing upfront that you are getting two of something? Sure, I was not altogether sure what I was getting two of but my North Americanism told me two for the price of one was a very good thing indeed.

Prior to my trip to Kensington, my knowledge of doubles could be described as hopeful at best. I only knew the name, the fact that it was some sort of street food from the Caribbean, and that it existed somewhere in Kensington. Armed with this knowledge, sheer persistence led me to Patty King and its promise of doubles. Patty King is an example of the many mom and pop ethnic-esque bakeries that exist across Toronto: linoleum, harsh florescent lighting, curt but friendly service. It smelled mainly like Jamaican patties and, while I will admit to being swayed for a moment, my endgame was to get a doubles, the flaky spicy goodness of a Jamaican patty be damned.

Photo courtesy of Nosuchsoul

Unwrapping the wax paper I discovered two yellowish pancakes. A closer inspection revealed that the pancakes were being held together by a chickpea curry, or chana. The pancakes seemed to be griddle-fried and coloured with turmeric, although Wikipedia suggests that saffron is the traditional colouring of choice. While a bit greasy, this only reinforced its street food heritage. Soft with an almost cake-like texture, the pancakes were savory and a nice texture contrast to the slight firmness of the chickpeas. They had an almost indiscernible sweetness, nicely complementing the mild curry flavour of the chana. Satisfyingly savory and umami, the doubles more than lived up to my non-existent expectations.

-Wilson

Link:
Photo of Patty King in Kensington