Woodenheads
Aquaterra brunch
I love Sunday brunch
For thanksgiving, they switched out real food for turkey and ham (and jacked up the price by $5)
And I'm scared the orange juice is not tropicana (or better)
But it's still the best brunch I've been to
Duke on Wellington
A pitcher of grasshopper and pub food. I first came here with my math prof. I got him drunk enough to give me a TA position in math 111.
Reference to napoleonic wars?
Amsterdam, Toronto
Il fornello started well (mushroom pizza, chicken entrée) but the tiramisu was fundamentally flawed. I'm okay with the consistency of cake or ice cream, not of Popsicle. The bill ($42) was resoundingly Torontonian. After-dinner events (some of which are unspeakable) consisted of half-chugging beer from Amsterdam, Toronto under peer pressure from little gs. As I'm sure they noticed, I am particularly susceptible.
Thank you for a great weekend.
Sima and Harpers
Staple of Kingston.
Lunch box ($10) at harper's
Sashimi ($16) at sima
Lucien part 2
These two fish dishes round up the wonderful menu of half dozen entrees I have been able to try thanks to groupon. They are all so intricate.
East and Main Bistro, Wellington, PEC
Funny how packed this restaurant is in a city of 1600 people. It is apparently the best in the area. I felt bad for getting beer instead of wine in wine country but how can you blame a biker? The fish and chips are not the usual. But they have character.
Zest bar and bistro
First decent food of the trip. Time for dessert.
"The Gables" (Brighton's hidden gem)
This family-run house-turned-restaurant has been the culinary highlight of this trip so far. Having be so disappointed yesterday with lunch/dinner and the Holiday Inn breakfast (so much so with my steak in Bowmanville that I didn't dare post my dinner photos!) I was in for a pleasant awakening in Brighton. This restaurant was top-rated on both trip advisor and restaurantica, so I had to give it a shot. First impression was the similarity to Toronto's own Auberge du Pommier. In all fairness, what I ate was not very difficult to cook: the trout was well-seasoned, the veges were properly blanched, and the strudel gave away the family's heritage. This is as good as it gets out here. But tomorrow is wine-country. I'm sure "The Gables" will be outdone. (Oh, and the service was impeccable.)
Chinese food
My last day in the GTA so I had to appease my north york financiers.
This involved a trip down to the local "Sezhuan" restaurant." For full
effect, there were plastic table cloths, interrogation-style light
bulbs and waitresses in track pants. The chinese restaurant model is a
subject of great interest to me. In particular, how such mediocrity is
awarded with such terrific turnover as the restaurant industry struggles
to remain profitable (http://www.torontolife.com/daily/daily-dish/deathwatch/).
Chinese food is unrefined at best. It will take many years before the
middle class will even begin to demand properly cooked food (a litre of
olive oil costs probably four times more in China than it does in
Canada). And the middle class matter. The rich in China eat lobsters,
truffles, caviar, bear paws and anything hard to find, doing little to
spark culinary innovation. What is necessary is an appreciation for
common ingredients like chicken and beef without the
sweet-and-sour. Like most traditional food from the third world, it is
laden with fat, sugar and sodium. The dishes pictured below show the
standard disregard for ingredients as the same spicy sauce is sprayed
wholesale on tofu, chicken, eggplant and beef (stomach). All together it
was $60 after tip and tax, which really is quite expensive when nothing
substantial or expensive is used in the making. But the margin pinching
from lack of alcohol sales only boosts up food prices, another drawback
of chinese diners. Also, the "tapas-on-steroids" model in pretty much
all chinese restaurants needs to change. Sharing plates leads to
over-ordering and bloating. In the most common scenario of a two-top,
you are forced to choose between variety and 'finishability'. It is not a
question of culture. No doubt most western families have communal
plates that are shared at home. But this practice isn't exported into
restaurants as it is in China.
Marché
At $5 a 'pop' this is one of Toronto's best breakfasts.
The Waterfront lunch at Pickering
There's quite a nice *quaint* area called Frenchman's Bay a small ways into pickering. Good place to stop for lunch, I thought. Apparently not. The mediterranean pasta was so overpowered by the olives. How unfortunate. Good on tap bar though.
Canoe
My last day in Toronto had quite the canadiana send-off. The quality at O+B's flagship restaurant is clearly better than my last experience at summerlicious. The salmon at $22 did not feel overpriced; it was so perfectly cooked. The white bean purée on sourdough was likewise refreshing.
Bannock Opening Day
I had to participate in Bannock's rather anticlimactic ribbon cutting ceremony. The posters of burberry and O+B that line the Bay's windows intend to move the chain more upscale; it had recently divested it's discount retailer Zellers. As it stands, this caesar salad might be the most aspirational product offering of HBC, at least until the Brits move in.
Lucien
What worries me about this restaurant is how prolific it is on Groupon. The $30 for $60 deal was sweet. I've been twice (with excellent company, mind you) and ordered the veal and bison (pictures). Both were so intricately fabricated. Wonderful.
Lucien
What worries me about this restaurant is how prolific it is on Groupon. The $30 for $60 deal was sweet. I've been twice (with excellent company, mind you) and ordered the veal and bison (pictures). Both were so intricately fabricated. Wonderful.
