Last week, before her final work-related art event (she’d completely handed off her duties at this point, accelerated by la cheville fracturée) Lindsay and I had dinner at Aloette. Linds had been before; I had not.

I was impressed, but not surprised; I’ve been upstairs to Alo enough times to know this place wouldn’t be fucking around. The food was as expected, but there were little touches that just made the experience — the service, design elements like the under-the-seat cubbies for bags and water bottles, automated shades to keep us from roasting in the late-day sun. Just…touches.

But yes, the food:

• Cocktails
  • “Sour Cover-Up” (Tanqueray gin, strawberry apéritif, coriander, Bellwoods Jelly King sour beer)
  • “Five-Ten Fizz” (Rangpur gin, sherried apricot, citrus, egg white, Peychauds)
• Apps
  • cheddar brioche buns
  • Stracciatella cheese on sourdough w/ burnt honey, piquillo pepper, pine nut
  • torched Hamachi w/ green goddess, coconut, avocado, lemon balm
  • glasses of 2016 J.M Sohler sparkling Pinot Blanc
• Mains
  • Dan: Aloette burger (Beaufort cheese, onion, lettuce, pickle) & fries / 2016 Thymiopoulous Xinomavro
  • Lindsay: spinach agnolotti w/ braised veal, Gremolata, lemon / 2017 Masseria Li Veli Negroamaro

We then walked to the event and proceeded to stare dumbly at plate after plate of delicious hors d’oeuvres, so full we couldn’t eat a single bite.

.:.

Cover photo from Aloette’s website

Thursday night we went to the opening of a not new, but re-branded gallery: Patel Gallery, which we’d known as Project Gallery. We’d been a few times, and bought a gift there for friends, but last month Lindsay bought some pieces for work and I swooped in after she was done to buy one for myself. See bottom of this post for what, exactly. (I love it so much.)

The opening was nice — I saw Bigfoot, and met a few nice new people, including one whose husband is from Amherst. Afterward we went to Ascari for dinner, and a lovely one at that. An Italian winemaker (Francesca di Nisio) was there to discuss her wine, of which we had a flight: a Pecorino, a Cerasuolo, and a Montepulciano. Lovely, all. We had them with a small meat and cheese board, the highlight of which was some local honeycomb.

The rest of the meal — Arancini Cacio e Pepe; rapini w/ poached salt cod, lemon, almonds, and chili flakes; caramelle w/ kabocha squash & mascarpone filling, sage, brown butter, capers, and lemon (Lindsay); and pappardelle w/ braised beef cheeks, black pepper, fried shallot, marjoram, and grana padano (Dan) — was sensational. Most of it went with a bottle of 2006 Il Tarocco Chianti Classico, which was goddamn outstanding.

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This week’s been so busy I forgot to talk about our trip to Montreal last weekend. We brought a bunch of Lindsay’s stuff back to Toronto, but mainly just tried to enjoy Montreal for the last time. For a while, anyway.

Our flight was supposed to leave Friday night but got delayed; we ended up just changing it to early Saturday morning. We flew in, dropped our stuff at the apartment, hung out with Sara and Roscoe for a bit, and then went downtown for lunch at Cafe Parvis. We shared a cucumber salad and margherita pizza; I had a nice little soave and a Loire cab franc. All was good.

Just down the street was the MAC (the contemporary art museum) where we checked out the buzzy new Rafael Lozano-Hemmer exhibition, some of which was very cool, and some of which seemed more spectacle than significant. There were other lovely exhibitions too, like Alone Together and That’s How The Light Gets In and especially The Prophets. A worthwhile visit, to be sure.

For dinner last night we obviously had to hit up Maison Publique, where we turned in a top-notch final meal:

• Radish, mozzarella, and basil salad
• White asparagus
• Tagliatelle in garlic & pesto
• Fried halibut
  • 2014 Burrowing Owl Chardonnay
• Spicy lamb tartare
• Charlevoix Pork
  • 2015 Laughing Stock Portfolio Bordeaux blend
• Pot de creme
• Ice cream, with a celebratory/goodbye sparkler
  • Godfather cocktails, made with local amaretto

Quel send-off.

The next morning required a slow start, so we grabbed picnic ingredients from the nearby Metro and ate and hung out in Parc La Fontaine. We read Fran Lebovitz to each other, just like we did in our early days together, and watched ducks and dogs, and enjoyed the sun (but not too much, as we are so very pale).

We had to spend the afternoon packing, but then ducked out to Brouhaha for a few beers with Sara. We heard very odd music, like this. Twice.

I also walked into the ladies washroom. Slick last few hours in Montreal, I must say.

Our flight back home was delayed too, but only by an hour or so. Still, that was more than enough to start us off exhausted for what would turn out to be a very busy week.

SNORE.