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 »

22 October 2011 by pat.

No, it’s not Monty Python

But it almost feels like it could be a sketch. Goodness knows what they would have done with the concept back in the ’70’s when they were doing the show.

What does this mean? Look at that wink the woman in the poster is giving! Are handsome scantily-clad men involved (what else deserves a salacious wink)?

Well, I took a look, and I saw women getting their hands massaged, and martini glasses filled with what looked like chocolate with big sticks in them. Looked to me like they were going to get a chocolate hand treatment.

What do you think? If you have partaken in a chocolate spa experience I want to hear about it.

Posted in City life, Food | No Comments »

22 October 2011 by pat.

Tracy knows what she’s doing.

Her booth attracted me because it was clean, well-laid out, organized. Her food was all there for sampling.  She reeled me in with a taste of her *no sugar added* bumbleberry spread, which was absolutely delicious.

She makes beautiful food. Look at this trio of drizzles.

And she recommends what to do with them. Sometimes it’s things I wouldn’t expect. Like… use the drizzles on meatballs. Genius. And the picture makes them look mouth-watering.

Then I had to sample more things.

So many choices.

Even more choices.

Delicious, jewel-like jellies. She uses Niagara wines, adds fruit, and reduces them.

I left with a Vidal icewine jelly and port jelly for myself, and a gift pack for my sister-in-law’s parents at Christmas (shhhh! don’t tell them!)

Posted in City life, Food, processed, Food | No Comments »

22 October 2011 by pat.

Or looking for an interesting hostess gift?

How about a set of concoctions to add to bubbly? I’m not going to suggest you put these in a $200 bottle of Champagne, but a $15-20 bottle of prosecco, why not?

Posted in City life, Food, processed, Food | No Comments »

22 October 2011 by pat.

Get both!

Yes, ladies, all of these shoes are made of chocolate: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate. And they have a limited supply, so you need to get your tail over there if you want one.

Each of these shoes is $30.00; I asked what the weight was, and couldn’t get a complete answer… probably in the neighbourhood of 175 grams each.

They have non-shoe chocolates, too:

At the chocoStyle booth.

Posted in City life, Food | No Comments »

22 October 2011 by pat.

I went to Brassaii, shortly after it opened, with Sandy and a few other friends. They’ve been open quite a while now, and renovated last year, moving the long communal table and making it a chef’s table.

They are at the Delicious Food Show this weekend.

They made delicious meatballs of two meats yesterday (I knew I should have taken notes! lamb and beef?). They sat on a little tzaziki, and had a dab of mint sauce on top. Tender, juicy, flavourful.

One thing I should mention: I was really pleased by the amount of compostable and gentle-on-the-environment food service pieces I saw at the show yesterday.

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

22 October 2011 by pat.

Beautiful wares and some gorgeous looking tins of hot chocolate are among the things that caught my eye at Wildly Delicious Fine Foods‘ booth at the show.

These ceramic dishes caught my eye with their color:

And I meant to buy a few of these. I might have to go back to the show — or go to their warehouse sale, which is scheduled for Nov 2-Dec 22nd.

These boxes of peppermint hot chocolate mix look like great little gifts:

And if your favorite chocolate lover prefers dark chocolate, they’ve got dark hot chocolate, too.

This looks like it could have many uses

Posted in Kitchen and table, City life, Food, processed, Food | No Comments »

9 October 2011 by pat.

I got up early this morning and biked over to Sugar Beach, on Queen’s Quay just east of Jarvis street. The sun is now swinging farther south, making it easier to capture the rising sun over water. In the middle of the summer, it’s rising over land to the east, and is quite high in the sky by the time it’s visible from the beach.

I took a series of photographs as the sun came up.

This is one of my favorites:

I like the colours of the sunrise and the water, but realize that if I want to get the picture that’s in my mind, I need to bring my tripod and shoot a series of images quickly, and then merge them together in Photoshop as a high dynamic range image (HDRI). That’s the only way I’m going to be able to capture the pink of the umbrellas and the sunrise together. Here’s a picture before the sun came blazing up:

 I’d also like to see if I can catch a sunrise with some photogenic clouds.

I see more trips to Sugar Beach in my future! Maybe the ugly fence will go away, too.

(Click here if you’d like to see the full set of photos)

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

29 September 2011 by pat.

Wow, what a week (and a half!) I look at my calendar, and I haven’t had a free day since the 13th.

Politics has been on the schedule a lot this month: city politics have heated up, and there’s a provincial election coming on Thursday, October 6th.

City politicking has involved a few Sunday afternoon meetings to find out about what is on the plate for the fall in terms of budgeting, and then there was a silly little burp about overthrowing the Waterfront corporation and putting up a big shopping mall… well, more than a silly little burp. Quite important. Fortunately, it’s off the table.

City cuts are still on the table, however, and so there was a protest scheduled for Monday, after work at 5:30, for people to come out and add their voice in opposition  to the KPMG proposals (since beloved mayor insists everyone loves his cuts and agrees with him).

I shot almost 400 pictures and have uploaded 66 of them. One of my favorites is of these two boys:

You can see the full set of pictures here.

Tuesday night, I participated in the flash mob picnic of everyone dressed in white dinner clothes. It was a lot of fun — I’ll have to convince friends to come next year, and then we can do a group picnic, and share in each others’ foods.

It was held in the Distillery District, along the cobblestone road down the middle. Charming to arrive, meet people, sit and unwrap the picnic, chat, mingle, take photos and light sparklers A great time was had by all.

Here’s what it looked like as we arrived:

The full set of images can be viewed as a slide show here.

Last night, I held a meeting to start a networking group of Leslieville small businesses. Sorry, no pictures of it!

Tomorrow, I’m off to do more sign work for my MPP’s election campaign.

Cheers!

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