From BlogTO:
“Is Toronto a city filled with premature complainers?”
From Dan:
“Yup.”
I didn’t even read the rest of the article.
Category: Toronto
Snails: speedier than I thought
Last night was an interesting time. We met a couple of Nellie’s friends (one of whom is a dead ringer for Jennifer Westfeldt) at Duke’s Refresher to play some bar trivia. Well, I was also there to drink some beer and watch game 6 of the NBA finals. Side note: Andre Iguodala was the MVP? Really?
Anyway, this wasn’t the hardcore trivia league type thing. It was just some dude behind the bar asking random questions. No weekly leaderboard, no rules (except: no phones), no official scoring…just plain old trivia.
We won the first round of twenty questions (despite my guess at how long it would take a snail to circumnavigate the earth being off by a factor of 5) for which we received $30 off our food order. We were very close to winning the second round as well, but my lack of knowledge of top 40 pop hurt us.
Casual trivia, nice people, decent beer, and it’s on our way home. I can see this becoming a regular thing.
Session VI
The 2015 version of Session craft beer fest (the sixth, by our count) went down yesterday, once again at Yonge Dundas Square. It was a perfect day: sunny, not too hot, full of beer and friends.
We met up with Adam & Alicia, did a reconnaissance mission, and then got started. Along the way we bumped into Steph & Jeff, and I even came across an old friend from the MBA program.
I ended up sampling 14 beers…well, 13 different ones, and went back for seconds on the last one.
- Silversmith “Breakfast” Wheat
- Whitewater “Class V: No Turning Back” IPA
- Wellington Rhubarb Saison
- Sawdust City “Until Tomorrow Ingrid” Barrel-aged Cranberry Saison
- Stack “Panache” Cedar-Aged Pale Ale
- Side Launch “Syrah Vice” Tawse Barrel Aged Wheat (collab w/ Toronto Roller Derby Team)
- Innocente “Waterloo 1815” Rye Saison (collab w/ Jordan St. John)
- Sawdust City “Limberlost” Saison w/ foraged wood sorrel (collab w/ Johnny Fay from The Tragically Hip)
- Big Rig “Release The Hounds” Black IPA
- Red Hook “Audible” Ale
- Bell City “Round Trip” Cherry Brown Ale (collab w/ Scott Wilson from Departures)
- 3 Brasseurs “Cool Beans” Coffee Porter (collab w/ Raina from Indie88)
- Flying Monkeys “Russian With Love” Imperial Stout
- Flying Monkeys “Russian With Love” Imperial Stout
I’d had the Silversmith and Wellington before, but of the new ones I tried my favourites were the Side Launch, the Sawdust City cranberry saison, and (surprisingly; their beer is usually rubbish) the 3 Brasseurs.
Rounds of beer were punctuated by food (a pork belly taco from Tilde; bacon on a stick from Bacon Nation), K-OS inexplicably singing “I Just Called To Say I Love You” from the main stage, the mega-hammered dudes from Sawdust City singing “O Canada” and demanding that we high-five each other, and a good-but-bad ska band who played every Sublime song ever put to tape.
We ended the night at Triple A, devouring ribs and nachos and brisket. Actually, I guess we ended it at our place, drinking Bowmore. Technicalities.
My new home: Toronto
I can’t remember the precise date when I moved to Toronto. I know it was May of 1997 but the exact day escapes me. I’m pretty sure it was early in the month; I’d finished university in April and I seem to remember having a week or so to get settled before starting at my new job. Moving here was my first real adventure.
I also can’t remember the exact date I left home for university, but I’m pretty sure it was Labour Day of 1993.
So maybe I’m off by a few days here or there, but what I realized recently is this: I’ve now lived in Toronto longer than I lived on my parents’ farm growing up, thus making it the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I spent my first 6600 days there in Nova Scotia, give or take, and now I’ve spent the same here in Ontario. So Toronto is now, without any mathematical qualification, home.
That doesn’t feel weird to me. But it feels weird that it doesn’t feel weird, if that makes any sense.
I didn’t expect to live here for that long. I didn’t expect to live any one place for that long. I really thought I’d end up moving cities a lot, especially at first, and I almost did move to Vancouver at one point. But work kept me here, and then kept me here longer, and now I’m at the point where I’m not sure where else I could move (in Canada, anyway) if I wanted to advance my career.
I had friends from the east coast who moved here with a loose plan to move back east pretty much as soon as possible. Most did, and have done very well for themselves. I entertained the idea for a while, but like I said…we’d have to do it for a reason other than work, and right now we have no such reason. I envy those friends sometimes though, being back in smaller, friendlier, happier cities. Like Halifax. I miss Halifax. But I’m not sure I could live there again.
I can honestly say that I don’t love living in Toronto. I love a lot of things about the city, but it still doesn’t feel comfortable the way Halifax does. It doesn’t make me swoon the way Vancouver does. It doesn’t thrill me the way New York or Paris do. But those are cities I visit, not live in, and the living there is what exposes the pains and the gaps.
Besides, if Toronto is starting to feel boring, that’s not Toronto’s fault — it’s mine. When I look at how little of the city we frequent, at how few of the things in it we do, I realize it’s not about the city you’re in. It’s how you use your time in it.
When I finally escape my office, maybe I should spend that time going on more adventures.
“But he’s not even a very good Prime Minister.” “***WHO CARES HE’S FAMOUS OUTTA THE WAY LITTLE GIRL!!!!!!!!***”
I stared at this a lot last night. I mean, not this particular guy’s sweatpants-covered junk, but rather crowds of people all but standing on top of me.
See, Nellie and I went to the Raptors game last night. We hadn’t seen one in a while, and we decided to buy good tickets. After all, it was Andrew Wiggins’ first game in Canada, and against the T-Wolves the Raps were all but guaranteed a win. They did win, but it was closer than it should have been.
Anyway, we discovered when we arrived (after it took us ten minutes just to walk the last 30 feet to our seats) that his gloriousness Stephen Harper was sitting across the aisle from us. That’s his head and torso (and, uh, son) in the bottom right of the picture. The crowds that were clogging up an entire section of the ACC weren’t his entourage, they were — and I still have a hard time even believing this — people lining up to have their picture taken with him.
*Sigh.*
Now, I’ll give the security guys credit: they actually tried to keep the aisle clear during play, as did the ushers. But the selfie-seekers are idiots, and would stand, gape-mouthed and blocking traffic, with Blackberries in hands until they could get a picture with that magnificent head of hair. As such we couldn’t see some of the game, and missed the entirety of the half-time show and on-court entertainment, including Raptor antics which, as everyone knows, are at least 15% of the reason to attend a game.
I actually felt a little bad for Harper…I think he just wanted to watch a basketball game with his kids. But then again, he decided to sit in a place which afforded maximum photo ops. Maybe he should have sat in a box where people wouldn’t bother him and where, oh I don’t know, crowds of people wouldn’t have trampled and blocked the thirty people nearest him who paid good money for their tickets.
The very best part? At some point in the evening he did a photo op with some actual players, and his social media lackey tagged the wrong player.
lolololololol, poor AB, prime minister tags kyle lowry instead. pic.twitter.com/Qb4FsE7YCf
— alex (@steven_lebron) March 18, 2015
Oh, and the idiots next to us had a Wand of Narcissism, which just kind of capped off the evening.
Maybe the only thing salvaging the evening was meeting up with Kaylea, Jenna, and Jordan over some pizzas at Libretto. We used beer to wash away the distaste.
#beerworking
Last week I read a post on Ben Johnson’s Beer Blog about an event he would be hosting involving beer, bourbon, and smoked meat.
Right, that’s what I said. So I clicked the link, and this was the description on the Universe ticket-buying site:
Join us for our very first beer and bourbon dinner. We’re pairing some of Stack Brewing’s delicious suds with a few tasty bourbons from Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare and 1792. Top that off with a couple of Caplansky’s mouth-watering sandwiches and you’ve got yourself the world’s first beer, bourbon and sandwich networking event! Hosted by blogTO’s Ben Johnson at Project: OWL, this is guaranteed to be good night with great people and even better beer.
Tickets include:
- 3 beers
- 3 bourbons
- 3 sandwiches
*Note – this is not a vegetarian-friendly event
So I obviously bought tickets. I like bourbon, I’d never tried Stack Brewing‘s beer, and I like smoked meat. This was a no-brainer.
So last night Nellie and I arrived at this address we’d never been to, or even heard of, and find out it’s a networking event. In retrospect it seems obvious that the ticket site’s page title — Beerworking — pointed to some kind of networking event, but we just thought it was some kind of half-clever beer event name. But nope: it’s a beer-themed networking series. Anyway, we’d pre-paid, so we were committed. We bought a pre-dinner beer (Stack’s Saturday Night cream ale) and unwound from our day on the comfy couches. Ignoring everyone else, of course.
When it came time to start the event we found a table and ended up sitting with some fun people. We had no interest in actual networking, but we met some cool beer nerds, so it worked out.
We also got to try to some beer that very rarely makes its way down to Toronto from Sudbury. Stack’s three beers for the pairing were the Shatter Cone IPA, Les Portes de L’Enfer Bière de Garde, and Stack ’72 Imperial IPA. They were good, excellent, and very good respectively.
The bourbons and tiny sandwiches were delivered at the same time, so…it was like three flights of beer + bourbon + smoked meat. Honestly, I’m not sure I detecting any real pairing synergies, but most everything was tasty. Bourbons #1 (Buffalo Trace) and #3 (1792) were really good; I didn’t like #2 (Eagle Rare) that much. Meanwhile, the Caplansky’s sandwich sequence was (I believe) corned beef, smoked turkey, and smoked meat. Actually, I kinda don’t care about the order; they were all terrific.
Neither of us really ate much all day, so when we left the beer, bourbon, and smoked meat event we took a cab to the everyday beer, bourbon, and bbq event: Triple A. We ordered pints and split ribs. I’m hungry just thinking about it all.
.:.
Cover photo from the Beerworking website
You can really taste the Maclean
So there’s some new thing called Taste Of Maclean’s Dining Series. Yes, that Maclean’s. Anyway, it’s a series of dinners at great restaurants in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, hosted by excellent sommeliers, with Australian wines poured at each. We attended the Toronto event last night at Nota Bene.
The hosts
Jacob Richler mumbled his way through hosting duties. David Lee is an amazing chef…let him speak with his food, don’t drag the poor guy out to talk about it. John Szabo should have “Wine Bard” on his business cards. Seriously, after hearing him speak about Australian wine regions I want very badly to go back.
The menu
CANAPÉS
Wolf Blass Gold Label Adelaide Hills Sparkling Pinot Noir/Chardonnay 2011; Annie’s Lane Clare Valley Riesling 2013
NOVA SCOTIA LOBSTER with Ataulfo mango, cashew milk, wakame, chili mint chutney
Wolf Blass Gold Label Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2013
QUEBEC DUCK BREAST “PASTRAMI” with Lennox Farm rhubarb compôte, honeyed Cookstown sunchokes, pumpkin seeds
Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
“TONGUE N’ CHEEK”: PERTH COUNTY BEEF CHEEK & CONFIT VEAL TONGUE with squash & jicama salsa, sweet English peas, smashed potato, Cotija cheese
Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2011
ARTISANAL CHEESES: Picobello (cow’s milk, Holland); Grey Owl (goat’s milk, Quebec); Blue d’Elizabeth (cow’s milk, Quebec) with wildflower honey, lavash seed crackers
Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 2011
DESSERT: salted caramel truffles; shaved almond biscotti; chocolate corn nuts
PORT: Penfolds Grandfather Rare Tawny
The verdict
THE FOOD: the lobster was fine. The beef cheek was very good, though Nellie didn’t like it. The veal tongue wasn’t for me; luckily I had Nellie’s extra beef cheek. The cheese were excellent. The duck, though, was SPECTACULAR.
THE WINE: the whites were decent, but just decent. The Wynn’s is, indeed, an excellent cab for the money. Both Penfolds were very good. But that port…good lort. That’s right, I said lort. Good lort. That port.
THE EVENT: good, and Szabo on his own is almost worth the price of admission, but I’m disappointed that with some kind of Australian wine association sponsoring (the name is Google-proof, alas) what they presented were Australian wine brands so well-known in Canada they’re practically clichés. Why not bring the 389 and Coonawarra to draw people in but then feature some lesser-known wineries? Not so small the LCBO can’t bring them in, but not Wolf Blass fucking Gold either.
.:.
Cover photo from Taste of Maclean’s Dining Series website
Rocky Mountain Horseshit
As you might have seen in previous posts, we spent a lot of time at the Air Canada Centre between Christmas and last Monday. We watched about a dozen World Jr games there, which means we saw the same people, watched the same between-periods entertainment, and heard the same terrible in-arena songs. It also means we had no options for good beer.
I’ve never understood the need that some people have to drink beer while watching sports. I mean, if it’s good beer, or even moderately decent beer, then yeah, great. But I can’t imagine what madness seizes the brains of the people who paid $15.25 for a glass of Coors Light, Molson Canadian, or MGD. I mean, maybe a Creemore (which cost $17), but those weren’t even very easy to find. I’d wait and drink real beer at Cork’s between games, like Black Oak Nut Brown or Great Lakes Winter Ale. Bonus: I didn’t spend 20 minutes lining up to piss.
It’s not like the ACC is the only Toronto arena serving shitty macro beer though. Skydome Rogers Centre has taken flack for not serving any craft beer at Jays games after severing ties with Steam Whistle — which brews their beer literally next door. That practice led to Toronto being rated near the bottom of all MLB teams by the Washington Post, and from what I can tell saved from being dead-last only because the Post gives them a better uniqueness score than other teams, presumably because other teams don’t carry Keith’s.
But back to the ACC: given all the beer nearby, and in province, and in Canada, it’s inexcusable that they’re still serving the mass produced foreign-owned (or half-foreign-owned) crap. The Canucks now serve craft beer at their games. Nashville has an annual craft beer festival for Predators fans. Nashville, fer chrissakes. We may not be in Quebec (speaking of which: get on it, Canadiens, you have world-class beer on your doorstep) but we do have breweries like Beau’s, Muskoka, Nickel Brook, Sawdust City, and Wellington in Ontario and the likes of Bellwoods, Black Oak, Great Lakes, Left Field, and Steam Whistle right here in the GTA.
All I’m saying is that it would have been nice to drink a real Canadian craft beer while watching Canada win gold. Who knows, maybe when the tournament returns in two year it’ll happen. Hey, the beer store monopoly appears to be in the midst of death throes, so anything’s possible, right?
.:.
Cover photo by Rob Nguyen, used under Creative Commons license
World Junior Gold
We just watched Canada beat Russia to win the World Juniors.
It was tense. But buying those tickets a year ago seems very, very worth it now.
#HereWeGo
It’s an annual Christmastime tradition to me, watching the World Junior hockey tournament. Since this year’s tournament is being split between Toronto and Montreal we bought four ticket packages — two for us, two for CBJ+M. We won’t see Canada play any preliminary round games, but we’ll see them in the playoffs. Assuming they make the playoffs. *gulp*
We missed the exhibition game against Russia last week while we were in NS, so our tournament started with the official games. We watched Russia barely squeak past Denmark in what turned out to be a very exciting game. Apart from pockets of Russian fans the entirety of the ACC was cheering for the underdog Danes, and with a 2-0 lead they nearly pulled it off. Alas, by the time it got to a shootout the Russian skill took over.
We had almost two hours to kill before our second game, so we wandered over to Maple Leaf Square. The Real Sports Bar was predictably packed, so we went in search of Corks, a rumoured craft beer bar in the back corner of a Longo’s supermarket…no, seriously. We found it, and chose from a very solid list of local craft beer and wine. I had a Black Oak Nut Brown; Nellie had a Collective Arts Rhyme & Reason pale. Nellie was full from her earlier bucket of Coors Light at the game but I had an additional half pint — alas, the Great Lakes Winter Ale special tap was off, tasting flat & watery. Still, at $6 for a pint of craft and with local wines from Tawse, Fielding, Malivoire, etc. on tap I can see this being a regular hangout during the tournament.
We got back to the ACC in time for game 2, wherein Sweden thumped the Czechs. The Toronto fans were delighted when their prospect, William Nylander, scored a goal. Shortly thereafter a “Go Leafs Go!” chant went up, which was as sad and painful as it sounds. With the game safely in hand we left ahead of the crowd and found some dinner.
We found it in the latest outpost of Pizzeria Libretto, which we’d never visited on Ossington or the Danforth. The lineups at the original when it opened put us off for a long time, but the hype is real: the plain old pepperoni special was a perfect pizza. I can see this place becoming a new favourite. We left for home, full but not too full, and watched Canada destroy Slovakia 8-0.
Today we’ll head back to the ACC to see whether Denmark can make a game of it with Sweden, and to see Switzerland make their debut.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 