9 May 2012 by pat.

Have you ever had a silkie chicken? I hadn’t.

It’s one of the interesting items that they have over at T&T supermarket that I’ve gawked at, and wondered about (I keep thinking of doing something with duck tongues, too).

When Sandy, Betty & I visited Susan in Roslin,  Betty was reading something about them. About what they looked like, what they taste like. She mused that it was something I should experiment with, and invite them over for dinner to try. It stuck in my head.

I have reverted to not springing new dishes on people — I have to try them first.

This just felt like the week to try a silkie chicken. After bird-watching for a little over 3 hours this morning, I hopped on my bike and rode over to T&T, bought a chicken and a container of garlic cloves (I never do that! I always buy full buds. But I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the chicken when I got home, and wanted to consider silkie on 40 cloves of garlic). Back home, did a little reading on the internet, and decided to put it in the crockpot.

Here’s the video of my experience. Warning: if you are of a delicate constitution or a vegetarian or a vegan, you will not like this. It is recognizably a bird.

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9 May 2012 by pat.

Over at Natalie MacLean’s website: whole chicken in a crockpot. I’m thinking of trying it again today with a Silkie chicken. Betty was reading about Silkies recently, and it sounds very flavourful.

Posted in Food, recipes, Food | No Comments »

8 May 2012 by pat.

I’m sitting on my (covered) back deck with a cup of rooibos coconut almond tea, my 8×40 birding binoculars, and my camera with the big zoom on it, listening to warblers all around me. Earlier this morning I caught quick glimpses of magnolia warblers, pine warblers, and an orange flash of an American Redstart.

The trees are almost all out in full leaf. The cottonwood hasn’t leafed out yet, but pretty much everything else has. Sand cherry and elderberry have finished flowering, as has the sour cherry tree, and the purple lilacs are now blossoming. My bleeding hearts have grown so well that I’ve had to do a trim to see the birdbath for picture taking purposes.

I should be upstairs working on photos, but when there is a fallout of birds — how can I resist?

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27 March 2012 by pat.

Pioneer Gardening in Toronto: the trees, plants & lore of George Leslie is now available on the Kobo store. I haven’t seen it yet on Barnes & Noble, or Amazon, but will note when it shows up there.

It’s now also available on Diesel eBooks.

And, NEWS FLASH!! finally, it’s on iTunes!

Posted in Home gardens, Gardening, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | 3 Comments »

26 March 2012 by pat.

Sunday — I couldn’t hold back any longer. Many of my neighbours have already cleaned up their gardens, and it was so beautiful I felt I had to be out there, collecting dead leaves, ripping up dead alyssum, trimming the roses a bit (didn’t do the full-on pruning yet: it’s still too early for that).

We’re definitely about 3 weeks ahead of where we usually are. Usually at this time, I’m hauling a big block of ice out of my backyard water thingie for the birds. This year, there was no ice. Daffodils and yellow things: another sign. In 2006, my King Alfreds opened around April 24th. My previous mention of an early spring that surprised me was April 5, 2010, when I noticed the forsythia in Ray’s yard in bloom. My King Alfreds are all open, and the forsythia has started opening: Ray thinks it will be in full bloom for his mother’s 103rd birthday on the weekend.

As a kind of diary to record what’s going on, here are some pictures of various shrubs and bulbs in my gardens from Sunday. Today was cold, tomorrow’s supposed to be, too: let’s hope nothing dies back. Actually, I’m more concerned with food growers than my little garden.

King Alfred daffodils

New shoot on David Austin’s “the Faerie” florabunda rose

Honeysuckle vine that twines around the wrought iron fence surrounding the garden

In the back garden, the elderberry called “Sutherland Gold”

Clematis. Good lord, the Jackmanii clematis is out already. I remember growing up in Montreal, and it seemed Art Drysdale was always on about how difficult it was to grow clematis. But that was Montreal, and this is now.

Lilac is coming into leaf, too.

Globe alliums are really mature already. They usually bloom first week of June. We’ll see this year.

Hans Christian Andersen florabunda in the back garden.

We’re a couple of weeks ahead of my earliest spring. We’ll see what happens this year. I’ll keep taking pictures.

Oh — and I’ve applied (and gotten onto the waiting list) for an allotment garden at the base of Leslie Street again. We’ll see if I get it. Usually, one only finds out in June, and there’s a fair bit of weeding to do. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Posted in City life, Home gardens, Gardening, Photography - documentary | No Comments »

13 March 2012 by pat.

The Leslie Spit is one of my favorite places to bike: I can watch birds, see what is growing, and sometimes, when its foggy, feel like I’m nowhere near Toronto, just out on a country road somewhere.

Sunday was clear and warm. There was a fairly strong wind from the southwest, which meant working on the way out to the lighthouse and almost (not quite) coasting home.

Here are some photos I took on Sunday. It was definitely the earliest in the year that I’ve gone out there.

Nice view from about half-way out: the red osier dogwood provides some foreground colour. There have really been huge changes to the Toronto skyline since I moved here in ‘87:

I liked this view of the cormorant nests. After a few years of them nesting in the trees, the trees die because of the bird lime. They look ghostly and out of place in the summer. In winter, before trees have started leafing out, they don’t seem quite as unusual. They almost look like stalks of broom, except the scale is four to six times greater.

 One of my favourite winter-time ducks in Toronto is the long-tailed duck. Soon they’ll be leaving, heading north and east. Unlike mallards, they’re relatively fearful of people and keep their distance. Very cute little diving ducks — they’ll suddenly disappear, and reappear on the surface 10 or 15 feet away after a minute.

 I was really surprised to see a few woolly bear caterpillars on the move, but I guess the soil has warmed up enough that it woke them up. Hope they survived the onslaught of cyclists and joggers! If they make it, they’ll grow up to be Isabella tiger moths, and they’re not considered pests in either form, so don’t kill them, please.

But some wildlife seems more of a pest than other types. Some of the gulls are back, and setting up house on the spit, preparatory to mating and laying eggs and rearing their young. There are three or four different types that nest out here (and some terns, too). It’s why UNESCO has declared it a significant bird sanctuary.

There was one fellow off to the left of my picture with a big wooly microphone, recording the raucous keening of them.

Continuing my meander out to the lighthouse, I came across a woman feeding a pair of mute swans:

Within sight of the lighthouse, I heard an early spring territorial call. A male red wing blackbird had set himself a guard tower in a tree. This is definitely the earliest I can recall hearing one.

Out at the end, I saw a para-surfer (para-sailor?) wrestling with his sail in the strong wind.

 For the bike ride home, I rode along the eastern path. Although rougher and more pot-holed, it doesn’t have all the speedbumps they’ve felt necessary to install on the harbour-side path. Oh, I’m sure they’ll get there.

I stopped to look at the beaver dam to see if there was any action. I didn’t see any beavers, but I did watch three robins flitting about.

I also saw some canvasback ducks in another of the internal ponds, but they were too far away to photograph.

Sure, I’ll get myself a 500mm prime to do that. I’ll get right on it.

Well, maybe I’ll rent one for a bit. My 120-400mm zoom is a bit of a soft focus.

Posted in City life, Urban nature, Photography - documentary | 1 Comment »

11 March 2012 by pat.

First, I have to provide a bit of background.

I went to the University of Waterloo. For a while, I lived in Waterloo Co-operative Residence Inc (WCRI)… and was Division Manager (organizing people, setting job lists, making sure stuff got done) for two terms, starting in fall ‘79. The first of those two terms, two young women moved in for their first term at university. They were almost directly across the hall from me. One of them became my close friend and room-mate in the apartment division, Sandy Kemsley. We never lost touch. Her room-mate was Gail Cowling, with whom I did lose touch, then found again, briefly, when Ash and I were living in live/work warehouse space on St. Nicholas, and then I lost touch with again… until there was an article about my photo exhibit at Barrio in the Riverdale/Beach Mirror around six years ago. I got an email from Gail, who happened to be living less than a kilometer from me in Leslieville. Our connections were re-established. Now the three of us get together when we can to eat good food, enjoy each other’s company, and catch up on what’s going on in our lives.

Gail and Sandy took me out for dinner on Thursday to celebrate my birthday. We started at my place with some wine and organic salsa & corn chips, then took a walk along Queen to Table 17. Table 17 is owned by the same folks as Ascari Enoteca, the Italian restaurant with fresh pasta that they make at the corner of Queen & Caroline.

Sandy scored right off the bat with a glass of Cava, because it was her first time there and she checked in using FourSquare. OK, OK, there are benefits to FourSquare. I’m not there yet

We ordered wine.

Really nice Niagara regional blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and other varietals, brought out delicious notes. They decanted it for us to help oxidize the tannins (a good thing), but I was able to reach around and grab the bottle for a photo.

We thought we had our decisions made until we heard what the specials were. Hmm, some awesome salads. We placed our orders, sipped our wine, and talked. Then the salads arrived. I had the kale, walnut and crab. It came with a light vinaigrette. The kale was raw, but was chiffonaded, so it was easy to eat. Very flavourful: the cabbagey kale worked well with the bitterness of the walnuts and the sweetness of the crabmeat.

Gail ordered the Table 17 salad, a delight of pine nuts, baby greens, and piave cheese:

Sandy had the boccancini with frisée and pumpkin gnocci that were crunchy, like they had been deep fried:

They were wonderful and could be habit-forming. Should come with a warning label.

We all went for meat for our mains.

Sandy had the short ribs, a rich delight on a purée of parsnips, served with confit cipollini onion and roasted vegetables:

Gail had a truly beautiful confit of duck, served on du Puy lentils and with some fresh greens (I recognize bloody dock in the foreground).

I had the steak et frites. I couldn’t resist. A top sirloin steak, Belgian-style frites the way they should be, bearnaise sauce for the steak and a lemony mayonnaise for the fries. I am kicking myself that I didn’t eat the rosemary. I thought it was just a stalk of rosemary. A couple of the leaves fell onto the table, and I ate them after the plates were cleared. They deep fried it! Rosemary leaves are really pungent when fresh, but when deep fried, the flavour mellows, and it actually is something I regret not having eaten.

Ah well. We were all too full to consider dessert, so we ended the night with a digestif. Sandy and Gail both had the Calvados; I had a grappa. We played with the arrangement for quite a while, and this is the last of about a dozen pictures I took of our efforts.

Really enjoyable dinner with excellent company. Thanks, Table 17!

Posted in City life, Food, dining out, Food | No Comments »

10 March 2012 by pat.

This week’s edition of the Riverdale Mirror contains an article about me on page 3. I knew there was going to be an article, because Joanna and I spoke by phone, and she interviewed me, and I sent her pictures.

However, I was alerted that it was published when someone mentioned it on Twitter, and used my @Digiteyes handle.

So here it is, the bottom half of page 3.

If you’d like to read it online (which you can magnify), go here and click Launch Edition.

Posted in City life, Home gardens, Gardening | 1 Comment »

7 March 2012 by pat.

Well, another year has passed, and it was birthday night again! Betty & Sandy showed me a wonderful time on my birthday, and the weather was pleasant! I’ve had some birthday celebrations in the middle of fierce winter storms.

We started at Sandy’s, with some truffled hummous from Leslieville Cheese, which Sandy served up attractively with endive spears:

And because it was cocktail hour, Sandy made wonderful Negronis: gin, sweet vermouth, Campari, twist of lemon and a splash of soda. She’s so talented: mixing cocktails while on a conference call Great way to start the evening.

From there, we walked out to Queen Street, to grab a taxi. Where were we going? I didn’t know. It was only when we got out of the cab and crossed the street that I knew we were eating at Ici Bistro.

Coats removed to be hung up in the back, we were seated, had menus to review… and we started with another cocktail. I didn’t document them, but they were delicious. Sandy’s was bourbon based, Betty’s … I forget, Betty, please comment! And mine had green chartreuse.

We were presented with absolutely delicious little amuse gueles: caramelized onion and goat cheese tartlets. A few bites of wonderful contrasts with the sweet onion flavour, the rich creamy goat cheese, and a little sparkle of acid, all wrapped in a tender buttery pastry.

While sipping and eating, we started looking at the menu. Everything is offered in two sizes. Because we love sharing foods, we went for the smaller sized plates, and shared everything.  Bread and butter were next at the table. All in-house breads.

The wine came and was decanted (missed getting a picture of the label). That was followed by the steak tartare and croquettes. The tartare was traditionally prepared, with all of the ingredients chopped and mixed together, shaped into quenelles for us to eat. Croquettes were of mashed potato, fried crispy on the outside, deliciously soft and creamy on the inside.

Next came the meant-for-sharing charcuterie plate, which had a couple of types of sausage, some pork belly, a paté de campagne, and (out of range of the camera) three slices of paté de foie gras that went down like the most amazing butter. Cornichons and twists of delicious bread sticks rounded out the plate.

We followed that up with a fowl dish: magret of duck breast a l’orange, which had a delightful anise flavour (I think it was probably provided by the traditional ingredient for the dish, which is oil of anise, plus a hint of sweetness of orange. The other meat on the plate is thigh and leg of squab — young pigeon that hasn’t fledged, so it’s very tender, and rich. These were accompanied by melt-in-your-mouth scalloped potatoes and white asparagus.

Next up (good thing we were sharing all of this) was foie gras au naturel. It came with a delicious batonne of black trumpet mushrooms that had been cooked, then shaped into this large french-fry shape, then fried. Excellent accompaniment to the liver. We fell on it so quickly that I missed getting its picture. I seem to do that once per dinner.

Final meat dish was lamb two ways: pulled leg of lamb inside a cannelloni, and a couple of rib chops from a rack of lamb. A mushroom truffle ragout, a cipollini onion. Amazing sauces. Wow. Wonderful, fragrant, rich, tender, delicious.

Next came a little birthday surprise! A platter decorated with chocolate script and three white chocolate thimbles, each containing a cherry that had been soaking in kirsch for a long time. Total change of direction, and absolutely yummy. If those big Cherry Blossoms tasted anything like this, I’d be a candy addict. Just the right proportions of ingredients.

Next, we got port and cheese.

Taylor Fladgate 20-year-old tawny. It’s got legs!

And the plateau of cheese gave us a wonderful end to the dinner: 5 types of cheeses, ranging from a very soft and runny brie type, through to harder cheeses, one of which had some of that nuttyness that Oka used to have before Agropur bought them out and blanded everything, and a soft cambazola-like blue — but with more blue! Add slices of Gala apple for acid, and some more of those delicious and crisp bread sticks.

Good night, Ici! See you again.

Good thing we walked back to Sandy’s.

But the walk back to Sandy’s meant passing this place…

So we brought back a few pastries and shared them with Damir and a bottle of bubbly! What a great dinner. Thanks, Sandy & Betty!

Posted in Food, dining out, Food | 1 Comment »

28 February 2012 by pat.

It’s now available on the SmashWords website.

What’s it about? It’s about the plants that George Leslie was growing in his Nurseries here in Leslieville. It’s got all the plants listed that he had in two catalogues — I’ve marvelled at the number of apple varieties (over 100), pears (over 80) and roses (over 120) that he was growing.

We’ve lost so much: I’m hoping that when people read this, they’ll be prompted to help spread around and continue growing some of the rarer varieties of fruit. Did you know that George sold six different types of rhubarb? Wow, imagine that!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a list of the different type of seeds he was selling: if I do manage to find that, I’ll create a new edition of the book.

Here’s the cover I designed for it:

I’ve applied for a membership with CISS so I’ll get an ISBN number, and that will enable me to get the book published… Oh, but it can take over 2 weeks for CISS just to get back to me about being a member so… I’m going to go with the ISBN option on SmashWords instead.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take to publish: SmashWords has a PDF booklet about how to format for them, and I messed up initially (had all the plant lists in tables, which SmashWords can’t interpret). Fixed that, tried to make sure I did everything correctly — but one never knows. Sometimes uploading something for translation is an iterative process: get errors, fix something, upload again, etc., etc.

I didn’t have any errors, so it was pretty painless.

Onward and upward. Now I need to send out press releases.

Posted in Food of a place, Home gardens, Gardening, Food, grown | No Comments »

29 January 2012 by pat.

Every year, Betty, Lyne and I get together as close to Jan. 20th as we can to celebrate not smoking. Betty quit 25 years ago; Lyne, 9; I quit 10 years ago. We like to celebrate at Rodney’s Oyster House on King West near Spadina.  We were a week late this year, but we celebrated last night. I was the slowpoke (I think I got there at 6:58 for our 7pm reservation).

First up,  some bread and butter (and a beer, of course).

I love caraway rye bread. Those little bundles of essential oil of caraway exploding in the mouth are heavenly. Goes really well with smoked meat sandwiches (and it’s not so easy in this city to find a smoked meat sandwich on caraway rye).

The bread was followed by a dozen oysters, four each of three different types (Mystics, Sandy Necks, and Cotuits, if I recall correctly). They were tasty, offered different taste profiles, and tasted like having more, so we got another dozen — this time, 3 each of 4 different types. I should have written the names down. I’m pretty sure we had more Cotuits and Mystics.

As we thought back on previous meals at Rodney’s, Cristo came by, we asked for something on the menu that they were out of, and then Betty asked for something that wasn’t on the menu  – smelt. They had some! We got a plate of about 10 of them, and munched them down so quickly that there were only two left by the time I thought to get a photo. They’re small enough that you can crunch them, bones and all (hey, it’s a natural source of calcium). Delicious sweet little fish.

Following that, we decided to try the two different cooked ways they prepare oysters: Rockefeller and pan fried. One of each for each of us.

I haven’t had oysters Rockefeller in a long time. How long? Well, since going to Bumpkins, which means +/- 2 years ~1991. I enjoyed it again, the licorice flavour of the Pernod, the spinach and cheese and warm, spreading oyster taste, and I enjoyed the pan fried oyster, which had the same rich creamy mouth feel and taste that I remember from an oyster po-boy I had in New Orleans at Siggraph ‘96. Delicious. I really could live on seafood!

Following that, Cristos dropped by to help us figure out what to get next. He’s not had a cigarette in 4 days, and the three of us cheered him on, and told him he should make it permanent, offering all our suggestions and hints for how to quit.

It was dessert time. Lyne ordered the cake — a type of spice cake with a layer of sliced flambéed bananas, served with a smear of caramel and whipped mascarpone.

I had a taste, and it was delicious, nicely spiced. But, not being much of a sweets person, for dessert I ordered… two more oysters Rockefeller!

End of the night, we all headed out and caught our streetcars home. Yet another great celebratory meal.

Posted in Food, dining out | No Comments »

22 January 2012 by pat.

I was invited to a dinner party at Tony’s, and volunteered to prepare a dish. The theme for the evening was “heavy garlic,” and we talked about what movie to watch… I volunteered to bring my DVD of Ratatouille, and then decided that a garlicky ratatouille would be a good fit for me to bring.

Next, I researched a ratatouille recipe that looks like the one in the movie. The original, as can be seen on some of the DVD extras, is by Thomas Keller. It’s a little involved. I found a simplified version over at Smitten Kitchen’s blog that looked tasty, so my next step was to hit the St. Lawrence Market to buy ingredients. Yes, I know that this is absolutely the wrong time of year to be making ratatouille, that the vegetables all are being flown in from South America. Most of the time I do cook local. Every once in a while, I go exotic.

I wasn’t quite sure of the quantities to get (hadn’t decided what I was going to bake it in!), so I did end up with one yellow squash and one zucchini unused, and I have a bunch of slices of everything in a ziplock bag in my fridge that are going to become more ratatouille today.

Wash, chop the ends, and then run all the veggie tubes through the mandoline. Put each vegetable in a separate bowl, and then make short stacks and arrange them on top of the tomato purée.

Put it in the oven — this was in for about an hour, mostly at 350F.

Delicious dinner with friends. Tony made a Thai peanut chicken and salad (and guacamole, which we had earlier) and Bill and Claire brought a fruit salad and fruit pie.

Posted in Food - farmers' market, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

15 December 2011 by pat.

Betty, Sandy and I take each other out for dinner for our birthdays. Saturday night was Betty’s turn. As usual with us, she had no idea where she was going — after the spa. Because we spaaaaaahed first and got our Bodies Blitzed. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I took the waters (repeatedly). Sandy & Betty chose interesting body scrubs, and Betty got a facial as well. We floated like balloons back to Sandy’s, where we shared a bottle of Mumm’s Napa champagne. Nice! Not too dry, not too sweet. We approve. Then we bundled up against the wind, and headed out for a 20 minute walk.

Over near the corner of Palmerston and Dundas West stands a restaurant that En Route Magazine listed as one of the top ten new restaurants in Canada this past year: Campagnolo.

We arrived fairly early for a Saturday night dinner, and the restaurant was about 3/4 full. It’s an open space, with a small bar that people can sit at and eat, and an open kitchen.

Our coats were taken, we were seated, and given three menus.

Immediate triage reaction: what has to be decided first? We chose the cocktail menu, and each had a different cocktail. Very flavourful, all very different. There was a Hendrick’s gin-based cocktail. One that seemed margarita-like. One with a peaty smoky scotch as the base. And we then sat back to figure out what to have for appetizers.

Our first appetizer up was bread: gougeres and herbed butter.

It was quickly followed by warm spiced olives, which we immediately fell in love with and devoured. What a difference in taste from cold or room-temperature olives! Of course, we’ve had hot olives as an ingredient in other dishes (like pasta puttanesca) but this was the first time having them on their own, enjoying the heated flavours, the herbs (rosemary, thyme, chili peppers, preserved/salty orange peel)… yum.

Then came (I think it was next) a gorgeous steak tartare. Sorry, no picture. We fell on it and devoured it. What can I say? We were hungry. Creamy, smooth, proper level of herbing and spicing. It came with a truffle aioli. That’s really sinful. It’s really awesome. It’s better than chocolate, and I can think of naughty ways to serve it. Yes, I’ll eat my red meat raw like this. I’ll even do it every week, if you’ll pay for it!

It was followed by a hot appetizer: sweetbreads and braised artichokes. Darling little artichoke hearts and stems on, and crispy fried pieces of sweetbreads. Sitting on little dollops of a regular aioli. Gorgeous. The flavours — warm creamy slightly liver-like flavour of sweetbreads, inside a crunchy fried casing, and then matched with the almost not quite bitter and mild artichokes. Wonderful pairing, beautiful presentation.

Yah, that’s Sandy doing the peace sign.

Based on the order of my photos, I think this is when our bottle of wine arrived, a Primitivo Manduria from southern Italy. Sandy made a delicious selection.

Presentation for the next appetizer was superb, as well: a lengthwise slice of a marrow beef bone dressed with a plum and oxtail marmelade. Served with some crostinis for us to scoop the bubbling marrow onto.  The marrow was perfect — still quivery, had that totally unctuous texture. The jam contributed sweet and meat to the dish, giving it a contrast that enabled us to fully appreciate the beautifully braised oxtail contrasting with the light-tasting and rich marrow, and the plum providing some acid and sweetness to cut through the other flavours. Can it get any better than this?

Oh yes, for now we’re on to our mains.

I never order lasagne in a good restaurant. Just… I just don’t. But I decided I would. They called it “Nonna’s lasagne.” And I’ve eaten so much pasta with wonderful meats in the last two months… what would they do with lasagne?

Many thin layers of homemade pasta. I counted at least ten. It was light, it had a meat and tomato sauce, a little cheese — this wasn’t your standard North American overstuffed heavy lasagne. No bechamel sauce! It was wonderful. It tasted of real tomatoes and meat and pasta. I loved it.

Sandy chose the pappardelle with rabbit and chanterelle mushrooms (of course we all tasted each other’s dishes)! Perfectly braised (by this point, I’ve come to expect that they know how to slow cook meat, country style).

Betty got the lamb shank, which came with perfectly caramelized cubes of potato and pork belly. Oh yes, this was a meat-eater’s dish. And it was perfect. The deep rich flavours of the lamb shank paired with the lighter pork belly (I never thought I’d refer to pork belly as a lighter flavour) and the potato cubes. Awesomeness incarnate.

In case you want to accuse us of not eating our greens, we did order a dish of brussels sprouts with peccorino cheese and pine nuts. Absolutely delicious — a bit of a cream sauce in the dish to give additional moisture. We totally emptied the dish.

Our absolutely delightful server asked us if we’d be staying for dessert. Alas, we were all fed up. He was adorable. I hope you get to sit at one of his tables. I should have written his name down. Sometimes I #fail. He sat beside Sandy so I could take this shot.

Serious line-up at the front when we exited: this place is somewhere people come back to. It’s been open a year and a couple of weeks, and is full.

We walked back toward Sandy’s, where we had left our wet bathing suits and such, and passed by a Portuguese bakery that we had seen going the other way. Aaaaaah! It’s still open!!! It’s reputed to have the best custard tarts in the city! We must stop at Caldense Bakery.

We do. We buy a selection of items, and return to Sandy’s — we can share dessert with Damir, who loves a nice sweet at the end of the night. We have coconut macaroons, pumpkin squash tarts, custard tarts, and some orange cupcake-like things.

Woh. Full-o-meter has pegged. Happy birthday, Betty: really enjoyed celebrating it with you!

Posted in City life, Food, dining out, Food | 2 Comments »

26 November 2011 by pat.

Yup, I was the first one in the door last evening when Ascari Enoteca opened, corner of Queen St. East and Caroline Ave.

They don’t have their liquor license yet — they will in time for Tuesday’s Grand Opening — but I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

They’ve done nice things with the space: it’s completely unrecognizable from two incarnations ago when it was Lou’s Variety, and the only thing I recognize from when Ben had his gallery here is the depth of the window ledges. Muted colours and grey tables made me think of menswear fabrics; open steel kitchen, so you can see what’s going on.

First, I had a Chinotto to drink. Sort of like a bitters without the alcohol.

Very pleasant to sip while I read through the menu. Lots of choices. Lots of things I want to try. I have a hard time nailing it down to two dishes. Finally decide on the Crostini alla Toscana and the Cavatelli.

The crostini arrive, and they are gorgeous to behold. They’re also really tasty. A very smooth chicken liver paté — not even a hint of bitterness — served on a crusty toast with some caramelized onions on top, and a fried sage leaf topping it all off, sprinkled with sea salt.  It was really good, one of the better liver patés I’ve had in a restaurant. The presentation was novel, and the flavours worked together perfectly.

That is followed by the cavatelli. They make their pasta in-house, and it’s delicious. There’s a little bit of black truffle in the pasta, which is cooked to the point that it has some resistance against the teeth. The cavatelli comes with confit of duck, brussels sprouts, and chanterelle mushrooms. Freshly ground pepper on top, and that’s it. Simple, beautiful ingredients. It is quite a large serving of pasta. I didn’t have room for dessert.

Crazy, I know, but I decided to have an espresso at the end of dinner (hmm, maybe that’s why I was up so late). Beautiful cup, perfect crema, smooth flavour.

Total bill was about $42.00. I’ll be back.

Posted in City life, Food, dining out | 1 Comment »

18 November 2011 by pat.

F’Amelia opened almost two months ago on Amelia Street in Old Cabbagetown. Near the corner of Parliament Street, it’s a short trip by TTC from home (would be even shorter by bike, but it was chilly and windy today). I’ve been following the restaurant’s Twitter account since they opened, and they’ve been following mine, and we’ve chatted about food, ingredients, and local birds (they have a collection of bird feeders out back).

I was itching to get out today, and decided it was time for a trip over to Riverdale Zoo Farm, and a good opportunity to go to F’Amelia — their menu certainly appealed to me.

I was an early bird at the restaurant, which opens at 5pm (eek, it’s almost dark out at 5 now). Great people. I regret not writing down the name of the manager, because she is adorable and efficient and knowledgeable. I was greeted, seated, and ordered a Negroni while trying to decide what to eat from the menu. And then Todd Vestby, one of the owners, came out and gave me a warm greeting. It’s always nice to meet the face behind the tweets and find out the story of a restaurant. You can find more info on their website. I was lucky — executive chef Maurizio Verga was working tonight, and I had the opportunity to meet him. Everyone was personable, and I felt they all really cared about the place.

I’m going to have to come back with friends to try the Antipasto Misto. I bet it’s a good plate.

Mains are very hard to choose from. Plus they have a special today of a stuffed pasta that includes lemon and raisins and meat, and a few other ingredients that make it sound like a lemony mincemeat (if you’ve ever had a true mincemeat, not one of the ones made solely of fruit). One thing I love about their menu is that they offer all the mains in two sizes. I can choose the smaller one, and maybe have room for other dishes!

Desserts look good. Will I have room?

While I’m sipping my drink, bread arrives. It’s all made in house, and is delicious. I failed miserably at making focaccia twice this year, and here it was, simple and perfect, with some salt and rosemary. Plus a chunk of a good sturdy bread that was tender and almost like a buttermilk biscuit. A drizzle of good olive oil on the plate to dip the bread.

Because I’m a fan of cold water oily sustainable fish, I wanted to try their warm mackerel salad. I’m glad I did, because it was delicious. The fish was firm and fresh, fried from the skin side, so nice crispy skin on top, with some frizzled lettuce greens. Underneath lay ingredients that complemented the fish beautifully. Grilled radicchio was superb, providing charry bitterness against the fish’s richness, and then potatoes and sunchokes to provide sweetness. Highly recommended!

Next came the surprise course! One perfectly seared sweet scallop surmounting a seafood risotto that included shrimp, clams, and impossibly tender squid. Really. I was wondering if I was mistaken, or if it was something else, like some stem of a mushroom that I wasn’t familiar with. The executive chef, ‘Rizio, came out at that time, and I had the opportunity to ask him about it. He cooks his squid sous vide! It gets added to the risotto at the last moment. Very tasty risotto.

Next came my third polenta dish of the last three weeks. I thought the polenta I had at Rosa’s in San Francisco was tasty. This was better. Creamy perfect polenta, with osso buco and marrow butter. There’s rosemary in the polenta, giving it a rich herby perfume that can stand up to the richness of the veal shank. Sometimes polenta has so much cheese in it that the flavour of the corn is lost. Not the case here.

With the stew on top…the brunoise was perfectly cubed. The meat is so perfectly exquisitely rich, tender, braised long enough to be tender, not overcooked (which makes a meat taste dried-out). This dish deserves a revisit. I had the small one: I can see coming back and having the full size. It turns out that Chef Maurizio is from Bergamo, just north of Milan, in the heart of polenta region. He really cares about his polenta, and it shows.

Alas, no room for dessert. However, I’m honoured that Chef Maurizio brought me a glass of his dessert liqueur — similar to a limoncello, yet his own. It was a great way to finish the dinner.

 I sip my after-dinner liqueur, and watch around me as the restaurant starts to fill up. There are couples, families — opposite me, it looks like the grandparents have taken their two well-behaved little grandchildren out for pizza. Staff and customers recognize each other. It’s definitely full of neighbourhood people, and I think that a lot of them are regulars already.

Given the owners, staff, and the food,  I’d be proud to have a restaurant like F’Amelia in my neighbourhood.

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