Earlier this week I had a work dinner at Black & Blue steakhouse. Lindsay and I had visited the Vancouver location seven years ago* and quite liked it, but I’d heard mixed things about the new-ish Toronto outpost. Here’s what I ate:

• Appetizers
  • Beef Carpaccio w/ horseradish crema, pickled shimeji mushrooms, crispy shallot, fried capers, shaved parmigiano reggiano
  • Crispy Calamari w/ humboldt squid, lemon, italian parsley, charred jalapeño aioli
  • Sashimi Omakase w/ two each of king salmon, bluefin tuna, hamachi, scallop, and sea bream
• Mains
  • 10oz Australian Wagyu Rib-Eye
  • Crispy Brussels Sprouts w/ lemon, capers, parmesan, chilies
  • Wagyu rice

* It recently occurred to me that perhaps the two best Wagyu experiences I’ve ever had — that one at Black & Blue Vancouver, and one more recently in Victoria — were on the east coast. I am slowly forming a theory that the Wagyu is amazing when it arrives in BC and becomes slightly less magical as it makes its journey east to Toronto. Still amazing…but just marginally less amazing.

.:.

Because it came amidst the NHL playoffs andthe opening round of the World Cup, I didn’t make note here of the NBA finals. While I have been a Raptors fan since moving here the year after their inaugural season, the two teams I identified with in the 90s were the Knicks and the Spurs. The Spurs had a team personality that I liked, a hall of fame coach, great bigs like David Robinson and Tim Duncan, and they ultimately became one of the more successful franchises of the past few decades. The Knicks had been more of an underdog story, not having won a title since before I was born, in large part because they kept running into the Bulls, or later the Rockets. But I loved players like Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley and John Starks and Anthony Mason, and the NY grit they brought. So it was great to see them play in the finals, and even better to see the Knicks win their first title since 1973.

.:.

The past week has been insufferably hot, not just in Toronto but all across North America (and Europe, apparently). I woke up feeling like the heat had finally broken; that it already felt like 27 degrees with the humidex at 9am shows just how hot it was earlier in the week. It was so hot that we couldn’t really even go to the top floor of our (flat roof) house. Thank goodness for air conditioning.