Cover photo by nevil zaveri, used under Creative Commons license

Monk Kitchen

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Last night we tried a Toronto half-secret: Monk Kitchen. Our friend Sue arranged it. Frankly, I’d never heard of it. It’s the restaurant inside a hotel I’d also never heard of. It was all very secret-like.

This was the menu, as best I remember it:

  • shrimp in sriracha sauce on greens, paired with a Tawse Riesling
  • lobster risotto with a bottle of Mas Des Bressades Tradition Blanc
  • duck with carrot and parsnip, paired with an Argentinian Malbec that I didn’t see
  • an intermezzo of frozen blood orange, pomegranate, and Campari
  • veal with cauliflower puree, and a bottle of Ripasso which, again, I didn’t see
  • a sugary cocktail with a strawberry in it
  • five small desserts: pear tart, lemon tart, chocolate espresso brownie, blueberry cheesecake, chocolate mint wafer cake

Our meal was mixed. The shrimp, risotto, duck, and desserts were all very good. The veal — not my favourite meat, I must admit — was overdone, and the cauliflower puree was pretty bad. With a better main the meal might have been saved, but too many other things let us down:

  • The wine pairings weren’t great — the Malbec overpowered the duck, whereas the Ripasso faded from the veal. Also, for a dinner like that, I’d expect a little more than a collection of $18 bottles I can get at the LCBO. The Mas Des Bressades was great though.
  • No one replaced our cutlery after the shrimp course, so when the risotto showed up we were forkless. It took us a few minutes to flag down a server to let her know, and another few minutes for the cutlery to show up. They apologized profusely, but it’s just not something that you’d expect from a restaurant with this reputation.
  • Our server was very sweet, but didn’t seem to know much about the wines…brought questionable selections for our friend who doesn’t drink red, actually called the Malbec “Merlot” when she brought it, etc.

Considering it carried the same price tag as other top-flight Toronto restaurants, the food and especially the service just didn’t match the price.

.:.

Cover photo by nevil zaveri, used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by Trixt, used under Creative Commons license

Hold on loosely

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Yeah, I have too much to clean up after that party to spend time describing it. I’ll just cover what was consumed and let you extrapolate from that.

WINE

  • Hidden Bench 2008 Terroir Cache Meritage
  • Kew 2013 Fume Blanc
  • Le Clos Jordanne 2009 Claystone Terrace Chardonnay
  • Megalomaniac 2011 Bubblehead Sparkling Pinot Noir
  • Norman Hardie 2008 Cuvée L Chardonnay
  • Piper Heidsieck Champagne
  • Tawse White 2011 Members Select Chardonnay
  • Tawse 2011 Spark
  • La Vielle Ferme 2013 Recolte
  • Chateau Prieure Canteloup 2009 Cotes De Bordeaux
  • Wolftrap 2013 White
  • Rosewood 2012 Sussreserve Riesling
  • Moet et Chandon Brut Imperial
  • Henry Of Pelham 2012 Sibling Rivalry Red
  • Gustave Lorentz 2011 Riesling

BEER

  • 6 bottles of Duggan’s Sorachi Lager
  • Gulden Draak 9000
  • Affligem
  • Sawdust City Lone Pine IPA
  • 1 growler of Beer Academy Kolsch
  • Beer Academy Oatmeal Brown
  • Beer Academy Black Lager
  • Goose Island Matilda
  • 9 pints of Nellie’s Hoppy Birthday Brew (our first self-brew effort)
  • 3 bottles of Chimay Blue
  • 2 more bottles of Affligem

SPIRITS

  • 1 bottle of Patron Silver tequila
  • nearly an entire bottle of El Dorado 12 year old rum
  • half a bottle of Basil Hayden’s bourbon
  • a mickey of Ballantine’s whisky
  • the .38 Special: a signature cocktail concocted by our good friend CBJ, to celebrate Nellie’s 38th birthday

FOOD

  • Jesus, I can’t even.

Between what was brought for a gift or what was left behind, we made out pretty well:

  • Bouchard Pere Et Fils 2012 Petit Chablis
  • Desiderio Jeio Cuvee Rosé
  • Gardet Chigny-Les-Roses Brut Tradition Champagne
  • Angels Gate 2010 Mountainview Chardonnay
  • Blu Giovello Prosecco
  • Marc Kreydenweiss Barbarelle 2007
  • Coastline Paso Robles 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Il Sestante Amarone Classico 2008 Tommasi
  • Flying Monkeys Chocolate Manifesto Triple Milk Stout
  • St. Bernardus ABT 12
  • Citadelle gin
  • Bowmore 12 year old scotch
  • Macallan Gold scotch
  • 2 bottles (!) of Grey Goose vodka

Of course, this was also left behind:

.:.

Cover photo by Trixt, used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by Cliff, used under Creative Commons license

“Maybe in America, Irish. Maybe in America.”

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I’ll admit, when I saw the ads for Captain Phillips (imdb | rotten tomatoes) I thought it was going to be lame. Mediocre. A studio cashing in on a rah-rah story of Navy SEALS saving a hijacked ship captain, with Tom Hanks getting the paycheck. But then it was scoring great reviews, and I realized it was directed by Paul Greengrass. Then it was getting nominated for Golden Globes and Oscars.

So last night we watched it, and yeah…it was really good. I mean, the whole thing was good, but the last fifteen minutes were about as tense and impactful as anything I’ve seen in a movie recently. The film by which I measure all tension crescendos is United 93, also directed by Greengrass, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Tom Hanks was his usual amazing self and, frankly, those final minutes gave him a chance to flex in a way I haven’t seen in years. And all four actors playing the Somali pirates, but especially Barkhad Abdi, were tremendous.

Highly recommended.

.:.

Cover photo by Cliff, used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by Patrick Bell, used under Creative Commons license

“I’ll tell you what: I’m never eating at Benihana again. I don’t care whose birthday it is.”

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Welp, The Wolf Of Wall Street (imdb | rotten tomatoes) isn’t gonna make my best films of 2013 list. It’s not even in the ‘near misses’ category. It was overlong, excessive (even by Scorsese standards), and swung for the wrong fences. I wanted about ten more scenes of a mental battle with Kyle Chandler’s character, along with — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — about ten fewer extraneous scenes of naked women. They gambolled about like lost lambs and were just as disposable to these guys as their bags of Quaaludes and it was depressing.

The only things that almost saved the movie for me were 1) Matthew McConaughey’s cameo, and 2) Jonah Hill, who was flat-out amazing. With the fake teeth I actually kind of forgot it was him. So, bravo to two guys who a few years ago were just in no position to play these kinds of parts.

.:.

Cover photo by Patrick Bell, used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by Rachel, used under Creative Commons license

Lost inside her captain station

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Every year the Academy Award nominees are announced, and every year the lists are picked apart. There’s always a name or two from each category that the punters think should have made it, but this year I noticed one that struck me as particularly off: best actor in a leading role. The actual nominees are:

  • Christian Bale for American Hustle
  • Bruce Dern for Nebraska
  • Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf Of Wall Street
  • Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years A Slave
  • Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club

But really, would anyone have been surprised if the list had been these five?

  • Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips
  • Oscar Isaac for Inside Llewyn Davis
  • Michael B. Jordan for Fruitvale Station
  • Joaquin Phoenix for Her
  • Robert Redford for All Is Lost

Or Matthew McConaughey for Mud, come to that?

.:.

Cover photo by Rachel, used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by dhelling01, used under Creative Commons license

“If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.”

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Last night we sat ourselves in the stellar TIFF Bell Lightbox theatre to see Inside Llewyn Davis (imdb | rotten tomatoes), the latest from the Coen Brothers. In addition to always wanting to see anything they do, I was interested to see the (loose) telling of the story of Dave Van Ronk. I only knew of Van Ronk from my dad’s stories, about how he was such a big part of the burgeoning early-60s NYC folk music movement but never became widely known. Stories of insider-respected but mostly-unknown people fascinate me, and they seem right in the Coen’s wheelhouse too.

I didn’t love the whole movie at first: there were parts I absolutely adored (Adam Driver during a studio session, for example, or the astonishing Oscar Isaac’s final verse of “The Death Of Queen Jane”), but other parts where it lost me (like the weird side trip to Chicago, or any time Carey Mulligan was on screen…we were being made to hate her character so much that it felt false and inorganic). Still, the parts that missed are fading quickly while the most moving moments — mostly centred around Isaac singing —  won’t leave my mind. I even had “Please Mr. Kennedy” — the lone song played for laughs, no less — stuck in my head this morning for hours. I felt compelled to download the soundtrack immediately, and am listening to it as I write this. You should really buy it. I could never wish for the Coen brothers to stop making films, but if they decided to do nothing but musical collaborations with T Bone Burnett, I could live with that.

.:.

Cover photo by dhelling01, used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by Lisa Ray

Defeated by meat

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Last night we tried the hot new place in our ‘hood: The Carbon Bar. We’d had plans to do so just before the new year but one of our party wasn’t feeling up to it. Turns out the same thing could have (should have, maybe…Nellie was already feeling sick by mid-afternoon) happened last night, but we were determined to finally try this place. We met our friends JP & Sue for an early dinner.

First: the space is amazing. Crazily high ceilings, warehouse-sized floor plate, and little hints of the building’s past lives — Electric Circus writ in neon, Disney figurines, glowing Baby Blue signs, etc. It’s an impressive place, no doubt.

The place has built its reputation on meat. Well, among foodies anyway; it’s also become something of a hot spot for clubby types, but David Lee’s grilling has attracted people — like us — looking for his take on southern bbq. And man, did we get some of that. Here’s what we ploughed through:

Starters

  • Crisp chicken skins w/ sweet chilli vinegar
  • Cabrito Papusa (goat-stuffed masa tortilla, tomatillo salsa, guajillo date jus)
  • Charred sea scallops w/ brisket espuma, dill pickle, parsley, rye caraway croutons, mustard, horseradish

Main

  • Pit master platter: pork ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork ssäm, jalapeño sausage, roasted turkey, pork crackling

Sides

  • “Hot Mess”: sweet potato, cheese curds, crema, pickled jalapeño, chopped brisket
  • Pork & beans
  • CB slaw

Beer (mostly; Nellie drank wine and JP tried to order a Mill Street IPA but was handed a Tankhouse)

The starters and sides were good. The platter of meat, however, was spectacular…there wasn’t a single thing on there that wasn’t amazing (well, maybe the pulled pork, but it was still damned good). The brisket might have been the best we’d ever tried, and I would have eaten a pound of that sausage. Unfortunately Nellie had gone from feeling poorly to almost passing out during the meal, so she couldn’t really partake. Given that, despite looks of longing from JP and I, we didn’t even try to finish it. Half of what was left is in my fridge right now, just waiting for me to eat it. Anyway, we had to cut the night short because Nellie needed to get to bed, but it was a pretty impressive first visit. We’ll definitely be going back.

.:.

Cover photo by Lisa Ray (yes, that Lisa Ray…she was there last night too)