Tis the season for April showers and wet patios!

Well, it’s been a busy last couple of months.  With a combination of closing off a few projects at work, spring-cleaning and the usual stuff with the family, it’s hard to believe we’re already in the month of May!  Oh yes, and my work has me away from home for just about 3 weeks of it.

Funny enough, my last few restaurant experiences, all during the month of April included some form of showers as the saying goes. 

My first adventure (literally) was with a group of co-workers on our way to a 100km challenging relay race event on the Bruce Trail in Niagara.  We drove to our destination over dinner and so naturally had to stop and eat.  I was pleased to find out I wasn’t the only “foodie” on our venture.  Side note – I’m not sure that I’m actually a real foodie.  According to Wikipedia, “a foodie is a gourmet, or a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food and alcoholic beverages.   A foodie seeks new experiences as a hobby rather than simply eating out of convenience or hunger.”  I thought being a foodie required some form of expertise.  Well, I guess I’m considered a foodie then.     

1^st Stop – Hamilton’s Chicago style Pizza Shack!  Apparently, these deep dish pizzas are a rarity in our great city and of course since this now famous place was featured on the Food Network show You Gotta Eat Here with John Catucci, it was a must go.  We were starving and skeptical about the waitress’ recommendation that our order would be enough.  Are you sure 2 pizzas and a couple of side Caesar salads will fill all 6 of us?   Well, she was right.  We even packed a couple of “slices” to go!  I quote “slices” because they’re not true slices.  Deep dish pizzas are basically big pizza pies and so one “slice” is actually like a big sandwich pizza.  Oh, and the Caesar salad was amazing! 

 2nd Stop – Bi Bim Bap on Eglinton West (mid April)– I know I know this stuff is not new.  I ran into a Korean guy who looked at me cross eyed when I asked him to educate me a little on the history behind these cool Korean dishes that come in a hot stone bowl, and are basically a cool concoction of vegetables and rice stir-fry.  I’m sure he’s thinking – “what a naïve white girl who wants to know where stir-fry comes from – are you serious?”  to which I reply secretly in my mind: “Listen, I’m writing a blog and I’m hoping you will give me something cool and insightful to write about – I get it that it’s just stir-fry”  Oh, then I also want to add that I’m actually Armenian and therefore have the “knowing how to cook” gene but that’s just taking it too far righ?

Starters that are included with your meal order

So overall, the hot stir-fry in my hot bowl that I could not touch without burning myself was fantastic! It was kind of neat getting to the bottom of my bowl and still having to blow on my food before taking a bite.  I would say, best stir-fry I’ve had out.  It was healthy, plentiful, colorful and delicious.  But wait, where’s the egg?  After seeing the picture at the front door of the Toronto Life article commenting on the addition of the egg to the dish, I was really looking forward to that experience.  I think I just got overwhelmed with the whole experience of simply ordering the food that I didn’t realize until half way through my dish that I forgot to order the egg! 

And for desert: Sweet cinnamon tea 

Last Stop  - (technically, this stop was on the 1^st of May but it was raining again so I’m categorizing it in April ;-) Pure Spirits Oyster Bar & Grill in the Distillery.

So this was my second experience with the oysters so I am by far no expert in critiquing them.  Nevertheless, I want to say that my experience at John & Sons at Yonge & St-Clair was a little more tasteful.  It probably helps that the waiter we had and J&S was absolutely phenomenal and knew just about everything there is to know about oysters.  He looked the part with his cute fisherman hat and was quite charming.  He got a great tip that night!

Calamari

 Back to the distillery though – I can not remember which oyster I chose but they were basically the cheapest one from BC and the cheapest ones from PEI.  Maybe that’s why they weren’t as good? Lol

 My main dish definitely hit the spot though.  BC Halibut served with crushed potatoes, foraged mushroom, roast garlic and spinach with a warm tomato and almond vinaigrette.  It was divine.

My husband had the Calamari, which was cooked (fried really) like Tempura so a little Asian twist there, followed by the Black Cod Paella.  This dish was good but a little salty to our liking.  In fact, I like my food salty so believe me when I say this was a little overkill, almost to the point that we figured they may have made a mistake cooking it.

Black Cod Paella

BC Halibut

1 Massage, 2 Restaurants, 3 Glasses of wine - In 1 day!

I recently had the chance to take a day off to myself.  Long overdue and certainly time well spent!  It started with a long drive out of town to drop the kids off at the grandparents, followed by a massage at one of my favorite Yoga spots - Moksha Yoga.  Moksha seems to be the Goodlife of yoga.  There are many of them around and they seem to be doing very well.  They have a nice variety of experienced and talented instructors and run many classes throughout the day/week to keep customers coming.  It is a nice studio and convenient to be able to get a massage there too.

I was hoping to get some yoga time but that was just a little ambitious seeing as I was also meeting a friends for a late lunch, and then another for dinner! 

First, a light lunch meeting at Oliver & Bonacini. What a fun menu and great place to stop for food!  But wait, first I need to talk about the daily fresh squeezed juice they offer.  It’s not cheap but totally worth it.  Well, that is if they are serving the mango peach lemonade!  It was delicious and probably the best juice I’ve ever had.   Once our thirst got crunched, we each had their signature mushroom soup – which is nothing like your creamy white Campbell’s stuff.  This soup is actually made with mushrooms and of course it was delightful.  Following this, we split the fish tacos and dumplings. 

Quick stop at home, change the boots to fancier ones and off to downtown Toronto to one of Bay Street’s new hot spots - Chase Restaurant.  This restaurant was built in an old reconstructed downtown building that was in pretty bad shape not too long a go.  They did an amazing job at giving it a facelift, adding a glassed in top floor with a patio, which is where the restaurant sits (on the 5^th floor).  One the main floor is the Oyster Bar owned by the same guy.  This is not quite the place to be taking take blog pics so you may want to check out their website instead of my discrete and quick iphone pics (what do you mean tourist? I come hear all the time!).  You know, you need to walk in there like spending $30 for a glass of wine is totally normal and expected on a night out in the financial district.  Well, all I have to say is, what a great night!  It was great wine, amazing food and best of all, I got to share it with a good old friend of mine as we celebrated our “milestone” birthdays together.  I will leave the milestone age as a guess teaser – not because I don’t want to announce my age, more because I like playing that game ;-)

We decided to split everything we ordered.  Too bad the knife got to the Lobster salad before the camera did!

Not the best pic - This does not do it justice and once again it is half the real dish!  It's the cauliflower and scalops with ham hock and an egg sitting on the quinoa and cauliflower pure.  Every bite was full of delicious flavours.

What a great waiter! He watched us contemplate on which desert to order so he brought us both the key lime pie and the chocolate cake --- on the house for the birthday girls!

Olympics 2014

Well, as I sit in my living room thinking I should post something on my blog today since the kids are at the grandparents and I just simply feel like writing, here it goes:  The Olympic games!

Don't get too exited about what I have to say.

Looks like Canada is doing really well.  As it stands right now we have 4 Gold, 6 Silver and 4 Bronze medals.  I'm going to be honest here, I think it's the Olympics are amazing and I support it 100%.  I was a kinesiology grad and love sports, so why wouldn't I?  Thing is, as much as I try to get into it, I just can't.  I think it's so nice to see everyone at work watching women's hockey and get exited about all the other details and accomplishments that were seeing.  Our athletes are doing an amazing job representing us and I think it's great.  I try to get more into it but I'm beginning to accept the fact that it's just not going to happen.  I can't stand watching hockey - no matter who's playing or what level of competition it is for.  The ski & board jumps are neat.  I find curling so boring to watch.  I thought the ballet during the opening ceremonies was cool!  …. See what I mean.   I think I will simply continue supporting the hype, have a general idea on the highlights of the events and standings and be content with that.  

I suppose coming from a father who preferred performing in sports rather than watch them, I took on the same behaviour.   So there we go… not my fault.

Anyway, for those of you hard core Olympic followers, please understand that just because some of us may not watch every sport and keep track of every story and medal we gain, it doesn't mean we don't care.  Go Canada!  

 

Let's talk about Toronto's new Aquarium

Forgive me, I'm a little late posting this.  We visited Toronto's hot new tourist site during the cold Christmas break on Friday Jan 4th and let's just say the post is better late than never.  After a long and tiresome Christmas holiday, 6 days with no power and way too much driving around southern Ontario in terrible weather, we thought it would be a good idea to enjoy the day with the family before the end of the Holidays and visit Ripley's Aquarium

What I thought was going to be a nice afternoon in downtown Toronto's newly established Aquarium turned out to be one of the most stressful and annoying touristic visits I have ever been on.

Getting there was fine.  We were prepared to pay the standard 20 bucks for Toronto parking so - no big deal.  We bypassed the ridiculously long line up to purchase tickets luckily and got in with no issues.  And that's where it began…. Like anywhere else we go with the kids, our first stop is always the washroom.  Something tells me this might be a common stop for most families at the beginning of a tour.  To do this, we had to retrace our steps back towards the other side of the entrance, where you essentially end up back on the other side of the velvet rope stanchions.  Of course, on the way back, it's "excuse me, ummm, we've already shown you our ticket…. just had to use the washroom." agent - "oh, o.k., let me move the rope here so you can get through"  What!  This is your lobby where you welcome your guests!!  Weird but again, no big deal, let's move on right?
Oh wait, we can't move!  Literally, the place is so packed of people, anyone claustrophobic would not have bared three minutes through that place.  I spent more time trying to figure out how I was going to get through from one corner of the room to the next without barging into every inconsiderate person who thinks I'm driving a tractor trailer and as a result can cut me off every chance they get.  All this, while trying to keep my eye on the two kids and my husband who of course are really exited to see it all and frankly don't really care how crazy busy it is.  Look at the great fish!

I must say, the fish tanks are pretty impressive.  It is obvious that the design of this place was focused more on the tanks, waters and wildlife more than the comfort of those who pay to see it.   It is no doubt spectacular and worth checking out however,  I think I would just wait for the hype to wear down a little before I would go back.













The place is not meant for a large crowd and can not entertain the number of people it has attracted.  The one and only cafeteria in the centre of it is no bigger than a cafe, with very few seats and no other options like machines you can purchase snacks from.  Not a very strategical financial move I would argue.  It's a good thing we brought our own anyway.  Of course, there is no where to sit to have them so we ate on the move.

As we left, we made it to what we (and everyone else) thought was the exit, where a security guard told us to turn around as the exit was through the gift shop.  The gift shop of course that we originally chose not to go into.  Surprise, surprise, as you leave the gift shop, do you think there is any room for you to get your coat on?  It's like a factory: In and out.  "Thanks, make sure you take your picture in the shark's mouth before you leave"!

"O.k. how fast can we get through this gift shop with my SUV stroller and 2 kids who will want to touch EVERYTHING!

Good thing we didn't get coat check!

"Excuse me, I don't want to punch your face as I try to get my sleeve into my coat -  I would do this outside, except it's -20!"

"People - Just turn around and do something else with your day - come back after 5pm" … that's what they say anyway

Voulez-Vous Cofffee On Queen

Another great spot for coffee in Leslieville! Baked goods looked really good.  Seemd authentic and home made.  I will need to have the butter tart or granola bar next time I go.... Can't compromise all the work on the bikini bod till we get back from vacation ;-)

Breakfast at Little Marmalade

898 Queen St E in Leslieville

What a great place to go with the family! Thanks to a good friend of mine who recommended it.  So glad we made it there early enough as the line up quickly made it's way out the door.  We waited about 12 minutes to sit down and there were toys and a chalk board for the kids' entertainment while we waited.  

I had the Bennie special with roasted red pepper, arugula and goat cheese.  It melted in my mouth.  The French toast I got my kids was like eating cake, and of course it was accompanied by local maple syrup!

Their food is supplied by http://www.rowefarms.ca/ and it's accompanied by great coffee from a local shop jut down the street.

I was too late to get a good pic of this plate full!

We'll be going back there!

Best Fish Taco in Toronto (so far)!

As I left work today, after staying a little late to finish a project I was working on, I kept feeling guilty about wanting to take a break from everything and spend some me time.  It's been a rough and busy last few weeks, no wait, months... ok years!! And I could really use a few hours to myself.  My husband was happy to stay home with the kids so this was my opportunity to enjoy and savour the escape.  Accept, since I've had kids, I've had the 'guilty mom syndrome'.  Anytime I get a chance to take time to myself, I feel like I am cheating on my kids and my family.  I feel as though I am being selfish and that I am putting their needs aside.  They could be the happiest kids with my husband or the grandparents watching them, but it wouldn't matter.  I will still feel horrible about not being there with them.  Often, I  ask myself, perhaps I should be enjoying these free moments of mine with them instead.

Apparently this feeling never goes away for a mother.  Fantastic!  I kept contemplating on the way to my car, should I just go home?  I can go shopping next week.... Naaaa, I'll just stick to the plan!  Off I went to one of my favourite areas in the city - Yonge & Eglinton (North)!  Of course, I had to grab a bite to eat first, and that's when I discovered Fish Street Market & Open Kitchen!  This place has a 95% rating on urbanspoon and there is a good reason for that.  The lady who took my order was really sweet and helpful and describing the types of dishes on the menu.  The cook in the back is pretty entertaining and clearly enjoys his job, and the fish taco I had was AMAZING! DELICIOUS!  There were so many flavours sparking my tastebuds in this wonderfully wrapped light taco, filled with fresh, moist juicy fish!  The juice dripped through my fingers as I took a bite of this colourful contraption surrounded by soft pieces of fish in a wrap with just the right amount of fresh cilantro.  A+
I will definitely be coming back!