Category: Food / drink

duvel troll dunkel bush

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We just got our email from the film festival. We fared better than I expected, though I still suffered two major disappointments.

  1. Thu Sep 7: Requiem (2nd pick; we miss The Bothersome Man)
  2. Fri Sep 8: Citizen Duane (1st pick; we miss Chronicle of an Escape)
  3. Sat Sep 9: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (1st pick; we miss EMPz 4 Life)
  4. Sat Sep 9: Rescue Dawn (1st pick; we miss All the Boys Love Mandy Lane)
  5. Sun Sep 10: Candy (1st pick; we miss Retrieval)
  6. Sun Sep 10: Kurt Cobain About A Son (1st pick; we miss 2:37)
  7. Mon Sep 11: Diggers (1st pick; we miss Blindsight)
  8. Mon Sep 11: Fay Grim (2nd pick; we miss Little Children)
  9. Tue Sep 12: The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (1st pick; we miss 10 Items or Less)
  10. Wed Sep 13: Day Night Day Night (2nd pick; we miss The Hottest State)
  11. Thu Sep 14: The Pleasure of Your Company (1st pick; we miss Snow Cake)
  12. Fri Sep 15: we got neither D.O.A.P. nor Penelope.
  13. Sat Sep 16: Outsourced (1st pick; we miss Macbeth)

My two biggest disappointments there are obviously D.O.A.P, which has garnered massive amounts of attention since we filled out our form, and Little Children, which has been getting good reviews. We’re going to try for alternate screenings of these two, as well as The Bothersome Man and Blindsight. If those attempts fail, we’ll just be looking for anything we can get.

All in all, we did pretty well. We got 9 first picks, 3 second picks and a total miss (both of which were very popular films). We have some schedule flexibility, so I think we’ll do ok.

I’m also kind of glad that we didn’t get Macbeth; it’s getting shite reviews.

.:.

Our last two meals have been with CBGB, and they’ve both been very tasty (the meals, not our friends). Last night we went back to Volo, with them in tow, and sampled many kinds of beer. I had a Duvel (’cause they were out of the Delirium Tremens), a Cuvee Troll, a Dennison’s Dunkel and a large bottle of Maple Bush, shared with CB.This morning, after a good sleep, we met up at the Old Nick for some organic brunch. It was as good as our first visit back in May; I once again ordered the “well hung” — giant chicken sausage with scrambled eggs, home fries, onion/dill toast and salad — and was just the right amount of full when we left.

[tags]tiff, toronto international film festival, d.o.a.p., little children, bar volo, old nick, brunch[/tags]

Ding dong, etc.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It is done. The paper’s all put together, cited, formatted, etc., etc. Gonna get Nellie to look at it tomorrow and then I shall submit the fucker. I want nothing more to do with it.

It feels like such an ending, to finally be rid of this thing…and then I remember that between now and September 7th I still have to read 2 chapters, 2 sets of lesson notes, 6 short articles (2 of which I have to submit comments on) and one case (which I have to write a 2-page paper for), not to mention plan for the film festival and, you know, go to work.

.:.

Earlier in the week the Modern Mod sent me a link for Volo, a bar just down Yonge Street that Nellie and I’d walked by a hundred times without going in. The email pointed out that Volo’s known for their beer selection, so I thought it was high time we paid a visit. We’re glad we did.

Before leaving I was having a look at the website; one of the beers they list is the Church Key cranberry maple wheat, something Nellie’s been craving (and unable to find) ever since she had it at Smokeless Joe’s over a year ago. While she refused to get her hopes up too much, she was quite excited to find that they have plenty of it. Our server Amanda, who was nothing but black-clad fun, brought us some yummy bread, tasty bruschetta and a very nice vegetarian pasta main. For my part, I had a glass of Delirium Tremens, which the Scotsman seems to’ve gotten me hooked on.

It was a perfect night for the patio, too; it’s non-smoking out there, and great for people watching. They appear to have a decent brunch menu too. I dare say we’ll go back soon.

[tags]volo, delirium tremens, church key[/tags]

"No one gets left behind! No one gets left behind!"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last night I took a much-needed break from my term paper and took CBGB up on their birthday gift to me: dinner at Live Organic Food Bar , a vegan/raw food restaurant that’s sprouted in our old neighbourhood since we moved away. They’re being quite supportive of our long journey into vegetarianism, and thought a trip to a top-notch veggie restaurant would help ease the transition. And did it ever.

First of all, it’s a nice little spot; room for 20 or so inside and a back patio that we would’ve stayed on if it weren’t a bit too humid. The service is very friendly, casual and patient with first timers like us who kept making annoying remarks like “What the hell is mockzarella!?!” (which I still don’t have an answer to). The menu is 3 pages of liquids (including 5 types of organic beer) and a single page of food, the contents of which rotate every couple of weeks.

Let me preface the next part by saying that I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Anyone I talked to who’d been to Live was a vegetarian already, and I wasn’t sure if their expectations for a meal were the same as mine. In the end I was worrying needlessly; delicious food is delicious food.

We started with a raw food sampler: four small samplers which we cut into four pieces each, then swapped so everyone could share. I tried a little piece of what I think they said was dehydrated kelp or something, but it was really tangy (reminded me of the saltiness of dulce…which I guess makes sense) and tasty. Next up was some kind of cucumber cannelloni with a filling that I couldn’t place, but DAMN it was tasty. There was a pizza-ish dish with a dry crumbly crust & olives that was quite good, and some other morsel (which I can’t remember right now) that tasted…well, refreshing is about the only word for it. Tastes sweet and light, like summer. My palate isn’t really refined enough to describe it more than that.

Then came the mains: CB got what they called the geisha bowl, which was a huge bowl of rice, tofu, fresh vegetables, etc. She liked it (and had enough left over to take home). Nellie got some kind of enchiladas with mushrooms and other stuff that I can’t remember, ’cause I was busy with what GB and I (each) got: fried plantains with four flavours (an amazing spicy mango/pineapple chutney, guacamole, salsa and…something else that I couldn’t indentify but tastes fantastic) for dipping. I don’t remember liking guacamole (the last time I had it was 10 years in Ottawa, with my brother, at some Mexican place in the Glebe, I think), but this stuff was good. The mango stuff was ridiculous; I wanted a bottle of it to take home. Anyway, it didn’t look that much food, but I was nicely full by the time I finished.

Not too full for dessert, though. I’ve heard Live’s desserts are pretty good, considering they’re made without…well, pretty much everything. CB and I each got a piece of dense chocolate tart with coconut shavings; it was really thick (we referred to it as “the brick” for the rest of the night), and it was damn good. GB and Nellie, unfortunately, took a chance on what turned out to be an enormous slab of…well, fig. With some slightly sweet topping, but really, it was like eating a handful of creamy figness. They didn’t much care for it, and I didn’t like the bites I had. Lesson learned: always order chocolate when you have the option.

All in all, I had a fantastic meal. I experienced tons of new flavours and combinations, I left feeling satisfied but not bloated, and I didn’t even occur to me that I was missing something by eating a vegetarian meal. Highly recommended.

By the way, their website doesn’t actually seem to do anything, so here’re some reviews: Now Magazine | Eye Weekly | Toronto Life | Chowhound

.:.

After dinner we walked down to the Cumberland theatre to see Little Miss Sunshine (imdb | rotten tomatoes), one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in months. My jaw actually hurt from laughing when we left. The previews made me think it would be one of those movies with slow, subtle humour; in fact, it ranged from that subtlety to outright slapstick in places. The characters were so well fleshed out and were played so well, the whole film just seemed to fall together perfectly. Easily one of the best films of the year. Highly, highly recommended.

[tags]live organic food bar, little miss sunshine[/tags]

Ode to Whitby

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The Scotsman and his fiancé made a return visit to Toronto yesterday, and I met up with them for dinner and a few drinks. I took them to Smokeless Joe’s for a bite to eat and a few pints. Around 7:45 we realized they weren’t going to make the 8:13 train to Whitby (where they were staying) especially since it would’ve meant someone chugging their Delirium Tremens so they decided to catch the next one at 9:13 and have another drink while we waited. It turns out I may have underestimated the amount of time it takes to get from Smokeless Joe’s to Union Station, ’cause we arrived a few minutes too late. Anyway, there was nothing left to do but have another drink, so we scooted around the corner to the Irish Embassy and had a quick quaff (during which I learned that The Scotsman is prone to being labelled “a hottie” by teenage girls) before hauling ass back down to the train station.

This time we made it with ten minutes to spare, and I accompanied them up to the GO platform (as I’d never seen it before). It was crowded with drunken 905ers anxious to get back to Whitby (and environs), some wearing cowboy hats & sombreros, others drinking Malibu rum straight from the bottle, and still others complimenting The Scotsman’s sporty new man bag and asking how much he’d paid for it. I feel safe in saying that any urge I might’ve once had to visit Whitby has now been quashed.

It was a fun few hours, and I can see from my IM client that they’re made it back home. Now I’m trying to figure out how we can squeeze in a visit to New York next year. Perhaps there’s a museum of occupation there that The Scotsman’s missus could take us to; I hear it’s her speciality.

.:.

Today’s been nice so far…great weather, happily snoozing cats (both the vomiting and the limping have subsided for now), some relaxation before a) Nellie gets home, and b) I have to get back to my term paper.

[tags]scotsman, whitby, go train, malibu rum, man bags[/tags]

Scotsman

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The Scotsman (a friend of my brother’s), his lovely wife fiance (who I’d heretofore thought imaginary, given her absence during my two previous visits to London) and a few of his friends were in town tonight, so we popped out for dinner and a drink with them. They’d had a bit too much to drink the night before, and The Scotsman has misplaced his lunch earlier after a flight (sort of), so it wasn’t quite the night of debauchery that it might have been otherwise.

We had a drink at the Irish Embassy, walked over to Golden Thai for some dinner (which was very good…handy to know, since we’ll be living nearby very soon) and then hit C’est What for a beer. That was about all they had in them, and we us. Hopefully we’ll see them again when they return on Saturday.

[tags]scotsman, irish embassy, golden thai, c’est what[/tags]

Creepy … crawly … creepy … crawly … creepycreepycrawlycrawly …

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last night we decided to head (further) downtown for some shoppin’ and some eatin’ and a movie. We picked up a new backpack for me at MEC, had dinner and some new beer (both very good) at Smokeless Joe’s, and went to see The Descent (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at the Paramount theatre. Nellie and I were attracted to it by the good reviews it’s gotten to date, and by the reputation it’s garnered for being scary. We weren’t disappointed.

There were three parts: standard setup, claustrophobic tension and violent mayhem. It didn’t lapse into any silly horror movie clichés, nor into any female horror movie stereotypes (there were no major males characters). They used a few standard horror movie devices (e.g., panning shots as a person backs up toward a dark corner), but sparingly. All in all, I’d recommend it…if you’re ok with scary movies. Oh, and enclosed spaces; I don’t consider myself claustrophobic, but some of the scenes where they’re crawling through tiny passages made my freaking skin crawl.

Oh, and one final note: if you’re just going to talk with your two friends at cocktail-party volume throughout the entire film — as the trio of chattering assholes behind us did — do the rest of society a favour: wait for the DVD and watch it at home.

.:.

Then we came home and watched a schmaltzy, sappy, dorky movie…a Christmas movie, in fact: Noel (imdb | rotten tomatoes). I have no idea why, nor am I even sure why it was on our Zip list. Nellie thinks it was a film festival movie. In any case, avoid this one if you can.

[tags]descent movie, noel movie[/tags]

An evening of disappointments

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Disappointment #1: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (imdb | rotten tomatoes). In retrospect I don’t even know why I wanted to see this. I think I was sucked in by the preview, with the shot of the Kraken tentacles enveloping a ship, but even those special effects — which were very good, as was Davey Jones’ head — couldn’t save this movie. It was scattered and nearly plotless, it was only funny once or twice and it dragged on forever. That was three hours of my life that I could’ve spent watching squirrels waterski or something.

Disappointment #2: again…I don’t know what I was thinking. We decided to go to 7 West after the movie, even though I swore I’d never go there again. It’s just so convenient, and the food’s ok…but the service is just unbelievably bad. It’s like they train their staff to be inattentive. Granted, the guy we had last night was new to the job, but I don’t know why they’d leave a newbie to cover a whole floor. Things were ok at first — we got a bottle of wine and split a plate of pasta — but it took him half an hour to bring us the bill and then return for it, both times only doing so because one of us signalled wildly from across the room. Then, when he finally returned, he’d forgotten to bring a pen.

Normally I’d give the guy a break; everyone has service like this once in a while. But this has happened nearly every time we’ve gone. We seem to keep forgetting, I guess. Must write note to self on back of hand: avoid 7 West.

Fortunuately we’d had a much better dining experience earlier in the day when T-Bone treated Nellie and I to lunch at Fieramosca. Not only is their food a cut above anything at 7 West, they treat you like old friends.

.:.

Great article by Robert Ouellette in Reading Toronto this morning titled The Real Cost Of Suburbia. They expand on an op/ed piece in the Globe about the consequences of low-density housing growth:

“I fume when the water bill for our downtown home comes in when I know the amount of water used is a tenth of the billed amount. Where does the rest of that money go? Well, let’s just say it costs a lot to water those suburban lawns and keep their backyard pools filled and run the storm sewers all the way down to the lake where their waste closes once pristine beaches. For once I’d like suburban dwellers to subsidize me.”

Ouellette raises a the related issue of gas prices, one I plan to touch on in the next few days (when studying down-time presents itself):

“Ironically, it might be gas prices that finally force the end to the disaster known as suburbs. $3 per litre gas anyone?”

[tags]pirates of the caribbean, 7 west, fieramosca, reading toronto, robert ouellette, suburbs[/tags]

Bacchanalia

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Haven’t…blogged…in…48 hours…must…catch…up…

Friday night five of us went out to a dinner organized by my lovely wife: we two, CBGB and T-Bone. It’s appropriate that T-Bone accompanied us that night; dinner was at The Fifth Grill (formerly just The Fifth, the top-notch Fench restaurant that started the Toronto careers of Didier Leroy and Marc Thuet, among others) and the menu item of choice was steak. We were meant to have a drink on the terrace, but it was blindingly hot outside, so the only place we could find a breeze was the smoking section. This simply was not on, so we took to our table a bit early.

After that, it becomes a blur of meat and wine; I had grilled tiger shrimp to start (others got mushroom ravioli and the tuna ceviche), and I went big on the steak: the 18 oz Delmonico. That’s a ribeye on the bone, and the chef’s opinion was that the bone counted for at least 2 of those ounces, while I would estimate that the fattier cut accounted for at least another ounce of waste, so I justified it to myself as a 15 oz steak. CBGB both got the New York strip, T-Bone got the bison ribeye and Nellie got the Filet Migon; while the flavour of my steak was excellent (thank you marbling!), GB and I had a bit of Nellie’s filet and agreed that the texture was impeccable. We were also allowed a choice of toppings on the steaks (I abstained, but others got scallops, shrimp and foie gras) and sauces (we had one of pretty much everything, but my favourite was the brandy peppercorn).

Did I mention our plan to becomes vegetarians?

Anyway, dessert was next; we took our time, imploring our stomachs to digest faster and make some room. CB and Nellie split a cheese plate, while T-Bone and I split the roasted hazelnut dacquoise with praline ice cream (GB got one for himself; he still had room for it, having found the willpower to stop eating his steak). It was good, but not great; however, they had written — very expertly, I might add — “Happy Birthday” on the plate in chocolate (it’s my birthday today, and was T-Bone’s birthday yesterday) and our server somehow snuck up the piano player and had him sing to us.

After all that food, I was ready for hibernation, so we took the back elevator down to the street…which was filled to overflowing with club-goers. We said our goodbyes and jumped on the subway.

.:.

Yesterday was a bit more low-key: CBGB came by post-karate and we popped over to the patio at The Pilot; thankfully the beer was cold, ’cause even in the shade it was microwave-hot. We sweated a while, bought some cookies from The Dessert Lady, got CB an icy drink from Starbucks and walked over to the Cumberland Theatre where we watched An Inconvenient Truth (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It’s less a movie or documentary, and more a very well-done Powerpoint presentation; I consider myself reasonably well-informed about the environment, so there wasn’t too much new for me, but Gore did manage to present it in a very compelling way. Hopefully a few folks will see it for whom it’s news.

After the movie we all lounged around our place for a bit before calling the Biryani House (the small one around the corner, not the fancy one at Wellesley) for some Indian food, and scarfed it down as we watched a few episodes of Arrested Development. It was a fun day with them. As Nellie and I were pretty wiped we just watched a movie — Derailed (imdb | rotten tomatoes) — after they left and fell asleep.

.:.

Speaking of food: I’m liking the new Chowhound design…especially the RSS feed for Ontario (which seems to mostly be Toronto)

.:.

Today — my actual birthday — been a nice one as well. Nellie took me to brunch on the patio at The Duke, bought me some gifts and is now busy in the kitchen making me a cake. How good is my life? 😀

[tags]fifth grill, didier, thuet, dessert lady, an inconvenient truth, biryani house, arrested development, chowhound, kickass wife[/tags]