Last Monday we returned to old favourite Richmond Station, along with a new-ish friend permutation: Laura from Chez Nous and Ricky + Olivia from…well, Ricky + Olivia. After a quick drink + Cosmo cuddle at Laura’s we walked over to Richmond Station and took our table. As usual, everything was excellent, and as five reasonably adventurous eaters we could cover a lot of ground:
Watching The Substance (imdb | rotten tomatoes) in a crowded theatre was a trip. At once a treatise on feminine beauty standards as well as a disgusting body horror, it was a squirmy affair.
Napoleon (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a bit of spectacle (especially the battle at Austerlitz) but somehow still mostly banal.
Buy Now! (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a decent anti-consumerist documentary wrapped around a very dumb AI assistant narrative device. Just in time for Black Friday, though.
After roughly a decade of meaning to, I finally watched What We Do In The Shadows (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and it was as good as I’d imagined. It spurred us to start watching the show, which is obviously filmed in Toronto. It also introduced me to an excellent 58-year-old song which I somehow never remember hearing before.
I spent most of this week on the road. I was in Ottawa for ~24 hours for a conference, but I also squeezed in coffee at Little Victories on Elgin and a quick dinner at Riviera: my grilled octopus w/ green olive pesto, potato & guanciale was good (but a little oily) while the smoked duck breast & heart w/ cherries, yellow beans & pistachio was fantastic. Monday night I flew to Moncton, with a quick stop at the Ottawa airport Vino Volo.
The weather in Moncton the rest of the week was garbage so I didn’t get much of anywhere, but I did attend a Beaujolais Nouveau charity fundraiser!
After many years of thinking about it, and of Bell offering me enough discounts to never quite make it worth it, I have finally cut the cable. Or, rather, the TV service from the fibre optic line that runs into my house; I haven’t had “cable” since I furiously dispatched Rogers fourteen years ago.
I already pay for umpteen streaming services; pretty much the only thing I still watched on live TV was sports, so I signed up for both TSN’s and Sportsnet’s streaming service, and off we went. With the money I’m saving by not paying for those hundred-ish channels I never watched, I could sign up for Apple TV+ and still save money. It’s also less likely that I just turn on the TV absentmindedly and leave on whatever sports was happening at the time, which feels like a good thing.
On Friday we went to the Humane Society to ask about a furry diva we saw on their website: Bianca. Bianca had been there since March or so, having gone to some homes but come back. She was currently in a foster home, and they said she had some fear-based aggression behaviour. But because have experience with cranky cats (Kramer was half-feral and had a lot of boundaries) they figured we’d be good adoptive parent candidates.
Today we brought her home, and wow has she been a sweetie. Inside of twenty minutes she came to hang out with us, and was looking for little drive-by pets. She played with her new toys. She jumped on the couch with us a few times, if only briefly. She conked right out on this chair for two hours while we binged S02 of The Diplomat.
So far, she’s a dream. Now, to see how she sleeps.
Over the past week I’ve done some fun stuff. The kind of stuff that reminds me why I like, or liked, Toronto.
Friday
Lindsay, Kirsten, and I finally tried Tiflisi, a Georgian restaurant in the Beach which made Michelin’s Bib Gourmand list the past two years. We had:
Assorted phkali (vegetable spreads with walnut sauce) + shoti-puri (traditional Georgian bread)
Lamb khinkali (traditional Georgian soup dumplings w/ lamb)
Kebab platter (w/ chicken, pork, lamb)
Bottles of Rkatsiteli and Saperavi wine, both aged in Qvevri
It was goddamned delicious. Even the vegetable spreads were seriously good, but the dumplings…holy crap.
Sunday
In the morning, we went for a walk / wee hike in Crothers Woods. We probably missed the height of the fall colors the previous weekend, but it was still pretty nice. At the entrance to the park we started chatting with another erstwhile hiker (and her beautiful black lab Grayson) and just began walking together. We had a nice little stroll, enjoyed the weather, and Grayson found a tennis ball that we used to play catch.
Wednesday
Early in the workday I received word that I had somehow lucked into an invite to the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Scotiabank Centre that night. I’m probably not the biggest Bruce fan but I know his live shows are legendary, so I went.
Long Walk Home (introduced as a fighting prayer for his country)
Land of Hope and Dreams
Lonesome Day
Candy’s Room
Adam Raised a Cain
Hungry Heart
Better Days
Letter to You
The Promised Land
Waitin’ on a Sunny Day
Reason to Believe
Darkness on the Edge of Town
The E Street Shuffle
Nightshift (Commodores cover)
Last Man Standing (acoustic)
Backstreets
Because the Night (Patti Smith Group cover)
She’s the One
Wrecking Ball
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road
Encore 1:
Born to Run
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Encore 2:
I’ll See You in My Dreams (solo acoustic)
Thoughts:
(I only really knew 10 of the 29 songs he played last night, and 3 of those 10 were covers…including “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town“, bizarrely enough, when a fan handed him a Santa hat)
My favourite song of the night was a hard-chugging blues version of “Reason to Believe”, the only song he played from Nebraska. Close seconds were “Adam Raised A Cain” and the Patti Smith cover.
The man is 75 and he played at high energy for three hours. Three fucking hours.
The E-Street Band is huge (I counted 16 members, including Bruce) but so tight. Nils Lofgren and Little Steven are icons, but seeing Max Weinberg power through that 3-hour set without so much as a few seconds’ break was incredible. And there’s some magic to a band whose core has been playing together for fifty years.
Most of the fans there were older than I was, and knew every word to every song, but I could see people in their twenties around me singing along too.
They were late going on — 8:45 instead of 7:30 — so the show wrapped up at 11:45. I left, tired but pretty blown away.
We spent last weekend in Kingston, building a trip around a visit to a friend’s art exhibition…which was closed, unexpectedly for the day. And the gallery wasn’t open the next two days. So we missed the main reason for being there…but the food, to our great surprise, made up for it.
First, we stayed at the Frontenac Club, a new conversion of an old building, and our room was lovely: exposed brick, big windows, stained glass, huge bathroom, etc.
Next up was to get some warm coffee on a cold day, so we walked down the street to SENS cafe for some capps, which we took with us down to the waterfront to enjoy the view and the sunshine. On the walk back to the hotel we stopped at Bobbi Pecorino’s to rescue something from their bottle shop.
We had dinner booked that night at The Everly, which started a little funny but ended up very solid indeed:
Cocktails
Appetizers
East Coast Oysters w/ fresh horseradish & lemon
Kale Salad (Salt of the Earth Farms kale, cashew ‘cheese’, breadcrumbs, roasted cashews, lemon & olive oil dressing, Parmesan)
We wanted the salt cod fritters but they were out. The kitchen staff felt bad so as a consolation they brought us a 1/4 order of the polenta fries (Crispy polenta, pomodoro, basil, garlic, Parmesan) and an order of the roast pumpkin (Salt of the Earth Farm roast pumpkin, butter fried sage, lemon & parsley sauce, pumpkin seeds)
Glasses of Soave (Tessari Grisela DOC Classico, IT, ’22) and Chenin Blanc (Pearce Predhomme Stellenbosch Old Vine, SA, ’22)
Mains
Lindsay had the Butternut Squash Agnolotti (ricotta & squash stuffed pasta, brown butter, Ontario hazelnuts, sage, Parmesan)
I wanted the braised pork belly but they were out, so I ended up getting the Pork Sausage pasta (rigatoni, fennel and chili pork sausage, garlic, broccolini, fried breadcrumbs, Pecorino)
Bottle of Cabernet Franc (Stanners Vineyard, PEC, ’21)
The next morning we slept in and missed the hotel’s breakfast. Instead we walked slowly over to Kingston institution Chez Piggy for some comfort brunch: Chilaquiles con Carne (tortilla chips, salsa verde, black bean, bell pepper, avocado, grilled steak, sunny eggs, feta, jalapeño, coriander, scallion) for me, and Çilbir (garlic yogurt, poached eggs chili, garlic butter, mint, dill, cilantro, parsley, pan chancho za’atar pita) for Lindsay. Both were extremely delicious. The place looks like it hasn’t changed inside in fifty years, but who cares?
Back in the room we relaxed. Lindsay boiled herself in the tub while I finished the book I was reading (But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman) and then we want back out for dinner. We picked Wooden Heads because we felt like a chill pizza experience, but it ended up being extremely good as well, splitting an excellent pizza and Sicilia pizza. My glass of Tempranillo was good; Lindsay’s Sangiovese was not. But we muddled through.
We woke up early Monday as it was a work day for us both. After eating a very nice breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant The Bank Gastropub, Lindsay walked to a medical archive for some research while I posted up in the restaurant (they were empty but for us) and got a ton of work done. Once we wrapped up we grabbed a late lunch — fish and chips, both — at Dianne’s and bolted for home before the Toronto traffic got too bad. We had a pretty seamless drive, frankly, and were grateful to be home.
So yeah, after the bitter disappointment immediately after arriving, Kingston redeemed itself on the strength of its food.
I didn’t have time to write it up before going to Moncton, but we did a pretty special meal out for Lindsay’s birthday: Yannick Bigourdan’s new place on Yonge Street, Lucie. It’s brand new, but was recognized in the latest Michelin list for Toronto. Hard to get a handle on the vibe — it seemed like a mix of foodies but also rich tourists who just wandered down from the Eaton Centre with their piles of shopping bags — but the staff was very lovely and the service was good. We got the tasting menu with the “Collection” wine pairing option, which actually cost more than the food. But there were some stunners in there.
Here’s what we ate:
Le Mahi Mahi Cevice, Finger Lime, Bell Pepper Squid & Prawn Creamy Sauce Didier Dagueneau, “Blanc etc…”, Vin de France, 2020
Le Caviar Oscietre Agatha Potato, Smoked Eel, Ossetra Caviar & Poultry Jus Dom Pérignon, Brut Rosé, Epernay, Champagne, 2006
La Gamberoni Slightly Seared Gamberoni / Eggplant, Sardine & Mint Sauce Mongeard-Mugneret, Fixin, 2020
Le Bison Dry Aged Ontario Bison, Cocoa, Coffee & Ginger Butter / Butternut Squash & Dark Chocolate Jus Château Gloria, Saint-Julien, 2010
Le Pamplemousse Grapefruit Sorbet, White Tea Emulsion Lychee Jelly
La Banane Green Banana, Valrhona White Chocolate Ganache Vanilla & Ossetra Caviar Château d’Yquem, 1er Cru Supérieur, Sauternes, 2017 Domaine Huet, “Clos du Bourg”, Vouvray Moelleux, 2005
Highlights: the Mahi Mahi and bison were both superb. The Fixin was the wine of night, right up until I splurged on a glass of Château d’Yquem.
Just got back from a work week in Moncton. While there I hit some repeat spots (including dinner with my parents, which is always great) but also tried a few new ones:
Laundromat Espresso Bar, which was fine. Kind of liked the idea of it as a bar (they also have live music sometimes) but I was there in the middle of the day, so…beer next time.
Notre Dame de Parkton, a lunch-only sandwich place famous for its high-quality bacon. I didn’t get bacon this time, but did get a smoked meat sandwich which, while small, was one of the best I’ve ever eaten. The meat melted in my mouth. The bread was soft as a cloud. Classic yellow mustard. Pickle, cole slaw, and plain chips on the side. Perfectly executed lunch. Will repeat.
Banh Mi Bready, a (you guessed it) banh mi place near my office which an employee recommended. I got the grilled pork at their suggestion, and it was solid. Good option for next time. Glad to see it was hopping too — good for them.
The new Main Street location of Red Satay. I’ve been to the St. George location a bunch.
Picked up a couple of excellent wines at that primo ANBL too:
Some nice friend check-ins this week: first we met Laura for dinner at White Lily Diner, her first time in a while and our first time in…not that long. Pastrami sandwich as per usual, but also a bottle of Closson Chase. We went back to Chez Nous afterward and had a delicious bottle of Domaine Queylus Cab Franc.
The next night I met an old friend (Shannon) at a new place (Belle Isle) where the cocktails are made by another, newer friend (James). We had a couple bites (weird) and three cocktails each. All five we tried were outstanding.
these gays are trying to kill me: guava candy tito’s, st germain, apple soju, absinthe, lemon
going home with the drummer: planteray stiggins rum, citadelle gin, tio pepe, ginger, drambuie, chili
Shannon had:
i’m not much into health food: el dorado 12, plantaray 3, amaro, pina, coco, egg white, orange blossom
young, dumb, in love, and dumb: lot 40, cynar, candied ginger, maple, akvavit, lagavulin, hickory, apple cider (ed: I kinda can’t believe I didn’t try this one)
a divorced dad dinner
It was nice to see James and sample his excellent wares, but I was a good 20 years too old to be in that place.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 