Category: Food / drink

Full day

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I’m going to ignore my splitting headache long enough to tell you about our last ~18 hours.

After we arrived last night the staff recommended a place just around the corner where we could find something to eat. It was a great recommendation, too: a resto-bar (a concept that Toronto really needs more of) called Holder. We had some good food, a nice cold bottle of pinot gris (Nellie’s first wine in almost a month) and some crème brûlée, all in a pretty cool setting…great architecture, lots of energy, and so many young gorgeous women that it was like we’d strolled into a set piece for The O.C.. Ony downside: you can still smoke everywhere in Quebec, so we get a bit smoky. But that’s to be expected.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was after midnight; a few minutes into one of the DVDs we brought with us we both zonked in the king bed.

This morning we got up around 9:00 for some simple breakfast downstairs before heading out to explore Vieux Montreal. It’s beautiful down here, something we could tell last night in the dark but confirmed today in the light, and we walked down rue Notre-Dame for a bit…past Place D’Armes, down to the park along the river, back up, along St. Paul and then turned north. Since we were now comprehending the scale of the city (small, compared to Toronto and New York) we realized we could walk around a lot more before lunch. He wandered north up St. Denis toward the Quartier Latin, stopped at a cafe to warm up a bit (it was freezing!), and checked an email from Nellie’s friend JR. JR had lived in Montreal for some time and recommended a place for the best poutine in the world, a greasy little diner called Chez Claudette. It was quite a bit north, near the north end of the Plateau Mont-Royal, but Nellie claims it was worth it.

Along the way we also stopped at this beautiful little chocolate lounge (seriously) called Suite88…and ohmygod. First of all, I would like to live there. Second, they had just about every kind of interesting flavoured chocolate you could imagine, in a ton of forms (like cone-shaped chocolate shooters with different liquor/liqueurs in them). We bought a dozen small bars of chocolate, some for us and some for friends and family.

Finally, after all this decadent eating, we walked back down St. Denis and cut across St. Catherine toward the hotel. We got back here around 2:00 to relax for a bit, and get rid of this headache (possibly by consuming some chocolate), before the hockey game ce soir. And trust me, relaxing in this room is like a vacation all by itself.

86.3%

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For the second meal in a row, we couldn’t bear the thought of the cafeteria food (our choices were veal, lamb, fish and leek soup) so eight of us ordered pizza and just finished scarfing it down. They even brought us some free pop so I snagged a dp on my way out. Score. I’m just settling in to do some more pseudo-studying and listen to the Canadiens game on streaming radio.

.:.

The Modern Mod (or WineBoffin, as he’s sometimes known) points out Slingbox’s announcement that they’ll bring their product to Canada. Sweet.

80.7%

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A few of us couldn’t bear the thought of what we were offered for lunch, so we made a trip to Wendy’s. Now I’m all full and salty, but satisfied.

.:.

This afternoon’s gonna be very weird. I have little left to study, so I’m just going to review a few extra things and…I don’t know, relax I guess. Maybe catch up on some work or some emails. I guess I should be thankful that we’re getting it easy, but…I don’t know, I just feel like I’m being lazy. But we’re all in this boat.

Triomphant

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We just had our second amazing meal in as many nights. Triomphe, a newish restaurant next door to our hotel, was reaaallllllly good. Check out what I had:

  • Baby spinach salas w/ bacon lardoons, tomato, candied walnuts, stilton cheese and sherry vinaigrette
  • Maple glazed pepper crusted venison red leg with caramelized pears, sweet potato puree and brussel sprouts & mashed potatoes drizzled with truffle oil
  • Bittersweet chocolate truffle cake served with fresh whipped cream, berries and pomegranate molasses
  • A bottle of Jink’s Creek Shiraz (shared with Nellie, of course)

We made it home just in time to watch the Daily Show, which is surreal. 5 hours ago we were watching this live. Weird.

New York, day 1

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Our flight was delayed by about an hour, so we got to Newark airport around 8:00. Our cab driver, a very friendly Egyptian guy, got us through Jersey and the Lincoln tunnel in 15 minutes and we were checked into our midtown hotel 5 minutes later. Our hotel — The Sofitel — is very nice; clean, nice, friendly staff, good location, comfy bed. I can see why it’s rated #1 on TripAdvisor.

Our speedy cab ride also made it possible to keep our 9:00 reservation at Smith + Wollensky. We were so full of steak, cheesecake and Zinfandel at the end that it was painful to move. Why, I could barely finish my scotch in the hotel bar…

Hey Mr. cab driver, can you take a look at my leg?

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I’m encouraged by this story in the Globe about Stephen Harper’s intention to talk about credentials for recent immigrants. There are entirely too many skilled professionals in this country who’re caught in a quagmire of bureaucracy, unable to work in their field.

.:.

We tried Veda last night, the new Indian takeout place just up the street. Not very impressive at all; I tend to agree with Steven Davey’s review in Now. I mean, it’s pretty hard to mess up butter chicken, but it was pretty bad. Don’t think we’ll be going back. Trouble is, our local indian options are dropping off now that Banjara‘s closed up shop.

.:.

The Olympic closing ceremonies might be more painful to sit through than the Oscars. Yeesh. Still, pretty exciting to see Vancouver get the handoff and get ready for their day in the sun. Or snow, as it were.

The place is dead anyway

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Since Nellie’s sick, we’ve been laying low this weekend, which means we’ve watched lots of movies & recorded TV. Actually, because of her faux-OCD, Nellie’s holed up on the couch right now with the kleenex, her laptop and some downloaded Veronica Mars. But we’ve also watched:

  • XX/XY (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was something we’d never heard of, but IFC has been advertising it like mad. We both like Mark Ruffalo, so I recorded it. It wasn’t bad; a little whiny and self-interested maybe, but I’ve seen worse. I had to laugh at the tagline though: “There’s no room for honesty in a healthy relationship.”
  • Power & Terror: Noam Chomsky In Our Times (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a Japanese documentary that just featured a couple of lectures and interviews with Chomsky shortly after the 9/11 attacks. It was interesting to hear his take on things when feelings were still so raw…he asked for perspective (“The best way to stop the practice of terrorism around the world is to stop participating in it…”) but also contradicted those proclaiming imminent doom by saying that, all in all, the world is a much better place than it was even 50 years ago, and *far* better than it was two centuries ago.
  • But I’m A Cheerleader (imdb | rotten tomatoes) started off as a pretty smart and biting satire about sexual mores, religion and politics, but ended up degenerating into a plain old girl-meets-girl love story. Meh.

.:.

I don’t get companies who treat their email address like a fax line. It’s not something you just check once a week, people. It’s a personal communication channel. You know, like a tel-e-phone? Catch up.

.:.

CBGB called us tonight from the pub around the corner and asked us to join. Since we hadn’t gotten off our asses all day, and since Nellie was feeling better, we did. They’d just left a chocolate-making class we gave CB for her birthday, and had loads of their own handiwork with them. We had chocolate-covered strawberries and truffles over pints of beer and nachos. Somehow it came up that they’d never seen Swingers (money, baby!) so we came back here to watch it. Then CB spilled tea on herself and we made her watch Family Business, which scandalized her. So not a good night for her.

.:.

And now: the NBA all-star skills competition. God bless the PVR.

15/70 = 21.4%

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I despise Plaxo. It was a bad idea when it was called Infotriever, and it’s still a bad idea.

.:.

The difference between chocolate with 70% cocoa and chocolate with 85% cocoa is substantial. And not just math-wise. 85% tastes…powdery. 70% tastes smooth. Ladies and gentlemen, I think I’ve found the sweet spot. So to speak.