Category: Food / drink

Fire in this guy

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Neither of us felt like cooking tonight (disclosure: I never feel like cooking, and even if I did, I’m  crap at it) so we ordered thai. Along with the requisite pahd thai, rice and veggie dish, I got some spicy noodles. They were a little bit hot, but just enough to be yummy. Anyway, as I cleaned up the last few bites of the noodles something happened. I could feel the back left of my tongue burning, but not in a spicy, peppery kind of way. It felt more like…I don’t know, like an actual burn, or how I remember bee stings felt, except it was on my freaking tongue.

I jumped up and grabbed water out of the fridge; that helped, but as soon as I swallowed the pain came back. I tried milk; same result. I tried eating an entire wheat thin while drinking milk, making some sort of edible mud pack in my mouth which (perhaps not surprisingly) didn’t really help much either. Finally, after another glass of milk, 5 minutes of foofing and a mouthful of plain rice my tongue began to feel normal again.

There must have been some super-hot half-peppers in the noodles and I put one in my mouth directly on that part of my tongue; the rest of my mouth was unaffected. I didn’t even get that runny-nose, watery-eye kind of thing that eating a crazy-ass pepper would give you. If I didn’t know better I’d say I’d put just-cooked food on my tongue and burned it, but the food had been on our table for 10 minutes and in the car for 30 before that, so that wasn’t it.

It’s like my mouth had its very own Tunguska event.

.:.

The contestants in this year’s NBA dunk competition have been named: Dwight Howard, Tyrus Thomas, Gerald Green and defending champ Nate Robinson. Nate Robinson, you may recall, took 17 attempts to put down one of his dunks last year, and still won the damn thing, showing just how stupid the event has become. The only thing I’ll watch for this year is the 3-point shootout.

I liked the suggestion last year (can’t remember if it was Kenny Smith or Charles Barkley): to save the dunk competition the NBA should ask Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Josh Smith to compete. That’d get me back in front of the TV.
[tags]pepper, thai food, nba dunk competition[/tags]

Vodka + ice wine = Nellie's new best friend

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Watched Show Me (imdb | rotten tomatoes) yesterday, a low-budget Canadian film. It was interesting if not plausible, and well-acted if not well-written.

.:.

We also went out for our last Winterlicious dinner last night, to Jump with our friend CH, and were happy with the way the event ended. We had a great time: the service was great, our drinks were very tasty, and the food was quite good, especially my celery & parsnip bisque and my chocolate/espresso cheesecake.

And so it’s over for another season. The final tally: 1055 was poor, Savoy and Jump were very good, and Canoe was excellent. I think that next time we’ll keep it to one or two restaurants; the value for money doesn’t always seem as great now that we’re more or less limited to vegetarian options.

.:.

Today is sports marathon day. Right now I’m watching the end of the Raptors/Clippers game; after that I’ll slip over into the recording of the Canadiens/Penguins game, and then at some point tonight tune in to the Superbowl (hopefully I can avoid Billy Joel singing the anthem and Prince performing at halftime). Nellie’s been forced to set up temporary residence in the bedroom.
[tags]show me, winterlicious, jump cafe, raptors, clippers, canadiens, penguins, superbowl[/tags]

I wonder what Pierre Berton would say about making love in this Canoe?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last night we had dinner at the ne plus ultra of winterlicious restaurants, Canoe. It was, as expected, superb: great food, impeccable service, and just an enjoyable experience in a fantastic restaurant. It’s hard to argue with the decor and the view, and the company — T-Bone and a friend from work — made it a fun evening. We were supposed to be booted out by 8:00, but our server liked us so they let us keep the table for a while. I guess the fact that we kept ordering drinks helped their decision.

By the way, I had the goat cheese & onion tart, the gnocchi in pea foam (better than it sounds) with dried sage and the pear tart with chocolate ice cream.

[tags]canoe, winterlicious[/tags]

A gurgling stomach is "one of the signs" of My Lunch's imminent return

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

First of all, some big news: my oldest brother is now engaged!!! Everybody pop over to his blog and say congratulations to TimmyD and She Who Must Not Be Named.

Needless to say we’re extremely happy for both of them. We adore SWMNBN, and love how happy she makes my big brother, so we couldn’t be more pleased. Huzzah!

.:.

We tried a new place for Winterlicious last night: The Savoy. T-Bone joined us once again, along with her friend AS. We had a MUCH better experience this time than we had at 1055. My wine (can’t remember what it was…something Tuscan) was really good, my starter salad was excellent, my mushroom risotto wasn’t bad (I don’t like mushrooms, but even then…pretty decent) and my creme brulee was just right. The service was also very good, and best of all our table was in an enclosed booth, so the four of us felt very private and cozy during our meal. To top it off, it was actually cheaper than the typical ‘licious meal — $25 instead of $35 — so we definitely felt like we got our money’s worth.

The Savoy could very well become a neighbourhood joint once we move into our new place.

.:.

I seem to have buggered up my knee somehow. Tried to run on it Sunday afternoon and had to hobble to a stop after 45 seconds. This happens occasionally; hopefully a day with the knee brace should fix it up. But of all the weeks not to be able to exercise: Winterlicious week. Deadly.

.:.

This post on the Showcase Sideshow blog makes an interesting observation: the quality of Mexican directors right now is pretty impressive. It’d be pretty tough to find a better trio of films than Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro), Children Of Men (Alfonso Cuaron) and Babel (Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu) in theatres right now.

.:.

Holy blessed mother of hotpants, this Washington Post story takes climate change denial to a whole new level of silliness:

Hardison, a parent of seven here in the southern suburbs of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching “An Inconvenient Truth” in her seventh-grade science class.

“No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation — the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet — for global warming,” Hardison wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is “one of the signs” of Jesus Christ’s imminent return for Judgment Day.

His angry e-mail (along with complaints from a few other parents) stopped the film from being shown to Hardison’s daughter.

The teacher in that science class, Kay Walls, says that after Hardison’s e-mail she was told by her principal that she would receive a disciplinary letter for not following school board rules that require her to seek written permission to present “controversial” materials in class.

Seriously…if you’re the school how can you discipline a teacher for that? You’ve opened the door for teachers to be disciplined for discussing anything, since there’s always some nutbag parent who’ll get their knickers in a twist. Teaching evolution? Sex ed? Geology? Astronomy? Prepare to be disciplined. Hell, if a kid’s parent works for Verizon they’re even likely to complain about the math.

[via Cinematical]

[tags]engagement, savoy restaurant, winterlicious, climate change, inconvenient truth, frosty hardison[/tags]

I hate your kids and your white chocolate mousse

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Would it be wrong for me to buy this t-shirt? ‘Cause I really, really want one.

.:.

So, 1055 last night: my meal was ok, but not great. A simple salad to start, then butternut squash ravioli cooked in brown butter sauce, then an apple tart with caramel sauce. Nellie’s meal was ok too — she had the goat cheese, salmon and “chocolate” mousse — but it was T-Bone who had trouble. She couldn’t have any wine last night, she didn’t think her duck breast was a duck breast at all, and the “chocolate” mousse on the menu turned out to be white chocolate. I find that bizarre; how does “Belgian Chocolate mousse with Merlot poached pears and vanilla sauce” translate to white chocolate, which really isn’t even chocolate at all? Shouldn’t you at least warn people? Anyway, T-Bone doesn’t like white chocolate so I ate most of it and gave her some of my apple tart.

I also had trouble getting a glass of wine, and the service was just on the verge of being inattentive. All in all, I got the sense that 1055 is a place that tries hard but just doesn’t have the talent level to back it up.

[tags]i hate your kids, 1055, winterlicious[/tags]

23.68%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Today was an easy day. The day was spent working on probability, mainly questions using uniform and normal distributions, so I breezed through it. Strangely we were done before 4:00 so we’re gonna be behind from this point on. Not sure I like that idea. Anyway, we have a small social event tonight, then dinner, then I’ll do a few questions, and maybe even hit the gym or watch 24 before finishing up my work for the night.

I’ve not had too much trouble with the food yet. For lunch I had a huge pile of rice, broccoli, pasta (containing meatballs, which I avoided) and some celery/yogurt salad. Sounds bland, but wasn’t. Breakfast: lots of eggs and a soy drink (need protein, right?) and some french toast. And, cough cough, an apple pastry. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a couple of snacks throughout the day, but at least I haven’t dipped into the ice cream yet. My friend Russ, resourceful man that he is, secured 4 cans of Diet Pepsi for me, one of which I am sucking back right now; the other three have been duly stashed.

[tags]stats, probability, normal distributions[/tags]

Ready for takeoff

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

All checked in and ready to go. Pretty soon I’ll head up for lunch, which should be interesting. It occurred to me the other night that this’ll be my first week being purely vegetarian. They do a pretty good job of offering lots of food here, but even as a meat-eater it was tricky to fill a meal sometimes. I believe they have veggie-burgers at dinner, as a last resort. God help me if I have to fill up on ice cream sandwiches the whole week…

[tags]mba, vegetarianism[/tags]

Winter my licious

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’ve noticed a spike in the amount of junk mail arriving in my (paper) mail box over the past week or so. It seems to be mainly flyers for two things: gyms and junk food.

The eternal struggle continues.

.:.

We made our winterlicious picks today: 1055, Canoe and Savoy with T-Bone, and Jump with another friend. We start the night I get back from my stats course and end shortly before Nellie’s birthday dinner. It’ll be a fortnight of decadence, without a doubt.

.:.

This movie looks horribly inappropriate. I can’t wait to see it. Super bonus points for using a Black Keys song.

Any bets on the Oscar for best song going to “It’s Hard Out Here For A Nympho”?

[tags]junk mail, gyms, junk food, winterlicious, black snake moan[/tags]