Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Winterlicious 2008
And now, another Winterlicious has gone by. (well, 2 days left, but close enough). I already posted the pictures up on facebook, here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16483&id=504453459
Supposedly you can check the pictures even if you don't have a facebook account, so that's good.
To recap, we went skiing during the trip to Truffles, and then a few of us went to the Rosedale Diner, but the main attraction was Canoe. So Duy and I have gone to two events, Ray two, Jon 1, Mai 1, Ricky 1, Alan 3, Geoff 2, and Ambrose 2, although I hear his company went out for another Winterlicious event on Monday. Anyway, for best effect, have another window open with the facebook pictures on it, while reading any commentary there is on this blog. First, Rosedale Diner.
Last year during Winterlicious, a small group of us went to another "lesser" place, Fred's Not Here. It's lesser because it's cheaper, and also it's not... upper... The upper class restaurants are the ones that are very special, for example, Epic, Canoe, Truffles, and Rosewater Supperclub. Then there are other good restaurants, such as Acqua, Pangaea, and La Maquette. And then there are lesser restaurants, which are still kinda higher priced, but you get to pay less to eat at them, such as Fred's Not Here, the Rosedale diner, and a bunch of others.
There were a few reasons why we decided to go to a "lesser" place - it was cheaper, so it was more acccessible to go... Ray insists to only go to "upper" places, so I wanted to see what a "lesser" place was like... and I wanted to treat David out to a meal, and... well, I'd rather treat him to a lesser than an upper, haha. Anyway, this time around David wasn't available for dinner that time*, which was too bad, but it was still a good experience.
*well, we had dinner at 9:30, so maybe he was available, but previously his answer was no because anyone would assume we would have dinner around 7:30...
////////-------0000000!!!!!11eleventyone1!
Anyways, onto the restaurant, food, and experience. The Rosedale Diner is... a little place. Quaint, or Kitsch, you might say. When we called for a reservation, the times available were 5:30 and 9:30; when asked if they had anything like around 7:30, they replied "no, we have another party of 6 coming then" - which is a bit weird. And yeah, we found out, the table for 8 people was the biggest table they had. They had maybe 6 two-seaters and one eight-seater - needless to say, it was a small place. The walls confused me, didn't look too pretty, they had weird antiques around as decoration... christmas lights on the window... neon "Rosedale Diner" sign...
Pint of some ale for Ricky, Pint of... Canadian? for Jon, iced tea for Mai, seven-up for Duy, water for Alan, and I go with a coffee with frangelico hazelnut and creme de cacao... $8... too small... I didn't really taste the liqueur too much... probably won't order too many other specialty coffees... appetizers were fine, see the pictures. Presentation of the food was good too.
Entrees... the veal was good. Didn't really taste the chocolate or the chipotle (Geoff says the chocolate would probably be used to make it creamier, rather than make it taste like chocolate), but overall I think it was a good meal. It was a bit random, like, after they gave it to us, it became a random mess of sauces and cabbage and meats all over the plate. Sweetbreads did that too.
As for the other entree... it was Pulled Pork Poutine. When I first read the menu, I thought ugh, really? On the way here, Jon said that he read some magazine that mentioned there was a must-try Pulled Pork Poutine from some restaurant in the top 100... but I don't think it was this one. PPP was... poutine. It had french fries, cheese, gravy, and I think it had pork pieces in it. So that was somewhat disappointing... french fries are french fries are french fries... maybe if they had some specialty potatoes... or if the cheese was special... or if the pork was special... but nope, it wasn't all too special at all.
Dessert was a mixed bag too. Chocolate Banana Bread pudding is okay... Tartufo is nice, refreshing and tasty. Mai upgraded her dessert for $4 and got a creme brulee, and I upgraded mine too to a flourless chocolate almond cake. Never had that before, heard good things about flourless, but it turned out to be kind of regular. I'm not giving up though, I'll try to find more places to try it.
Overall, it was a neat experience, with some odd choices for food. Next time, Ricky and I are going to some beerbistro or biermarkt for sure. But I do want to try more things, more places, and if possible, more lunch places.
[[[[////====----\\\\-_-////====---\\\\]]]]
That brings us to Canoe. Located on top of the TD tower, 54th floor, Canoe was quite spectacular. First, they validated our parking*, and then there was coat check. *- unfortunately, we parked near the wrong tower, so our validated parking was... invalidated.
So we come to our seat, and a gentleman, as usual, takes our napkins and unfolds them and puts them on our laps. Oh yeah, the servers (almost all male?) all had shirt and pants, and the higher upper ones had shirt, tie, pants, man apron top and man apron bottom, or however you call them. They look so distinguished. Anyway, let's talk about service for a bit.
Each time a meal came, a gentleman (chef perhaps?) came out and told us about each dish, what's in it, and he told us to enjoy it. Whenever we went to the bathroom, a guy would refold our napkin, and like Mandarin, people always come by and refill our water, our bread, and our bread dip (vanilla bean with olive oil, something something). Whenever a course was done, THREE men would come by and remove all the dishes and appropriate silverware off our table. Great service! Lastly, when it was time to leave, the coat check personnel held our coats open for us, so we can put in our arms to wear them. Heehee, I felt kinda guilty doing it (after Alan didn't do it, since he didn't know what was happening), but it felt pretty cool.
It was dark outside, so it was hard to see Toronto, but the view is probably pretty sweet in the summer or during the daytime. The restaurant itself looks pretty nice. Canoe isn't usually open during the weekends, so unfortunately they only had the Winterlicious menu at the time, which was okay for most of us, but I would've liked to see the real menu too (that said, we won't go to rosedale diner ever on a real day, but fred's not here prices are pretty decent for regular days).
Food was good. Please take a look at the pictures, the food was great, not much else I want to add. To accompany my meal, I had a Kicking Horse, which was a mixture of red wine and tropical liqueurs and fresh fruit, $8. Alan had the Lotus, which is their in-house vodka infused with sour berries and lychee. Geoff, Ambrose, and Ray each had their wine pairings which each meal; each meal (appetizer, main course, and dessert) had an accompanying recommended wine pairing; $8-10 per glass, or $15 total if you choose to take each wine pairing for each meal. Duy had a non-alcoholic mixture of sparkling water and various fruit juices. I guess we know who's the designated driver!
I didn't much like my Kicking Horse, not a big fan of red wine. I do however like White Sangria, which uses white wine. But, Alan's Lotus was excellent! Near the end of the meal, Alan and I switched drinks, and it was excellent. You could barely taste the alcohol... if it wasn't $12 I would probably go back there and buy a bunch more... I'll be drunk before I know it, but wow, that was refreshingly good. The lychee is really amazing, puts both the Lotus and Cherry Lychee Mango juice on the top of my list. Gotta have some lychee liqueur tonight...
And that's Canoe! Hmm... went home, played smash, played magic with alan and geoff. And that's it about Winterlicious.
---===---==-=--=////===---//==---/---=
On another note, Applebee's understands desserts! For most people, dessert is a craving, a little sweet ending to the meal. But we don't want to pay $6 for a slice of cake or big brownie or whatever. Applebee's understands... they have a $1 dessert, which is a small scoop of icecream and small piece of brownie, which is sooo worth it. And now they have these $2.50 desserts, which are like small cups with some sort of combination of cake and sauce in it, like, an apple-caramel sort of cake, or a chocolate mousse or cheesecake kind of deal, and those are also worth it. Applebee's understands that we'd rather pay $1 for a scoop of icecream rather than $5 for 8 scoops of icecream, or $1 for two bites of a brownie rather than $5 for 15 bites of brownie, so to say.
Yay Applebee's desserts.Labels: me want food
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http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16483&id=504453459
Supposedly you can check the pictures even if you don't have a facebook account, so that's good.
To recap, we went skiing during the trip to Truffles, and then a few of us went to the Rosedale Diner, but the main attraction was Canoe. So Duy and I have gone to two events, Ray two, Jon 1, Mai 1, Ricky 1, Alan 3, Geoff 2, and Ambrose 2, although I hear his company went out for another Winterlicious event on Monday. Anyway, for best effect, have another window open with the facebook pictures on it, while reading any commentary there is on this blog. First, Rosedale Diner.
Last year during Winterlicious, a small group of us went to another "lesser" place, Fred's Not Here. It's lesser because it's cheaper, and also it's not... upper... The upper class restaurants are the ones that are very special, for example, Epic, Canoe, Truffles, and Rosewater Supperclub. Then there are other good restaurants, such as Acqua, Pangaea, and La Maquette. And then there are lesser restaurants, which are still kinda higher priced, but you get to pay less to eat at them, such as Fred's Not Here, the Rosedale diner, and a bunch of others.
There were a few reasons why we decided to go to a "lesser" place - it was cheaper, so it was more acccessible to go... Ray insists to only go to "upper" places, so I wanted to see what a "lesser" place was like... and I wanted to treat David out to a meal, and... well, I'd rather treat him to a lesser than an upper, haha. Anyway, this time around David wasn't available for dinner that time*, which was too bad, but it was still a good experience.
*well, we had dinner at 9:30, so maybe he was available, but previously his answer was no because anyone would assume we would have dinner around 7:30...
////////-------0000000!!!!!11eleventyone1!
Anyways, onto the restaurant, food, and experience. The Rosedale Diner is... a little place. Quaint, or Kitsch, you might say. When we called for a reservation, the times available were 5:30 and 9:30; when asked if they had anything like around 7:30, they replied "no, we have another party of 6 coming then" - which is a bit weird. And yeah, we found out, the table for 8 people was the biggest table they had. They had maybe 6 two-seaters and one eight-seater - needless to say, it was a small place. The walls confused me, didn't look too pretty, they had weird antiques around as decoration... christmas lights on the window... neon "Rosedale Diner" sign...
Pint of some ale for Ricky, Pint of... Canadian? for Jon, iced tea for Mai, seven-up for Duy, water for Alan, and I go with a coffee with frangelico hazelnut and creme de cacao... $8... too small... I didn't really taste the liqueur too much... probably won't order too many other specialty coffees... appetizers were fine, see the pictures. Presentation of the food was good too.
Entrees... the veal was good. Didn't really taste the chocolate or the chipotle (Geoff says the chocolate would probably be used to make it creamier, rather than make it taste like chocolate), but overall I think it was a good meal. It was a bit random, like, after they gave it to us, it became a random mess of sauces and cabbage and meats all over the plate. Sweetbreads did that too.
As for the other entree... it was Pulled Pork Poutine. When I first read the menu, I thought ugh, really? On the way here, Jon said that he read some magazine that mentioned there was a must-try Pulled Pork Poutine from some restaurant in the top 100... but I don't think it was this one. PPP was... poutine. It had french fries, cheese, gravy, and I think it had pork pieces in it. So that was somewhat disappointing... french fries are french fries are french fries... maybe if they had some specialty potatoes... or if the cheese was special... or if the pork was special... but nope, it wasn't all too special at all.
Dessert was a mixed bag too. Chocolate Banana Bread pudding is okay... Tartufo is nice, refreshing and tasty. Mai upgraded her dessert for $4 and got a creme brulee, and I upgraded mine too to a flourless chocolate almond cake. Never had that before, heard good things about flourless, but it turned out to be kind of regular. I'm not giving up though, I'll try to find more places to try it.
Overall, it was a neat experience, with some odd choices for food. Next time, Ricky and I are going to some beerbistro or biermarkt for sure. But I do want to try more things, more places, and if possible, more lunch places.
[[[[////====----\\\\-_-////====---\\\\]]]]
That brings us to Canoe. Located on top of the TD tower, 54th floor, Canoe was quite spectacular. First, they validated our parking*, and then there was coat check. *- unfortunately, we parked near the wrong tower, so our validated parking was... invalidated.
So we come to our seat, and a gentleman, as usual, takes our napkins and unfolds them and puts them on our laps. Oh yeah, the servers (almost all male?) all had shirt and pants, and the higher upper ones had shirt, tie, pants, man apron top and man apron bottom, or however you call them. They look so distinguished. Anyway, let's talk about service for a bit.
Each time a meal came, a gentleman (chef perhaps?) came out and told us about each dish, what's in it, and he told us to enjoy it. Whenever we went to the bathroom, a guy would refold our napkin, and like Mandarin, people always come by and refill our water, our bread, and our bread dip (vanilla bean with olive oil, something something). Whenever a course was done, THREE men would come by and remove all the dishes and appropriate silverware off our table. Great service! Lastly, when it was time to leave, the coat check personnel held our coats open for us, so we can put in our arms to wear them. Heehee, I felt kinda guilty doing it (after Alan didn't do it, since he didn't know what was happening), but it felt pretty cool.
It was dark outside, so it was hard to see Toronto, but the view is probably pretty sweet in the summer or during the daytime. The restaurant itself looks pretty nice. Canoe isn't usually open during the weekends, so unfortunately they only had the Winterlicious menu at the time, which was okay for most of us, but I would've liked to see the real menu too (that said, we won't go to rosedale diner ever on a real day, but fred's not here prices are pretty decent for regular days).
Food was good. Please take a look at the pictures, the food was great, not much else I want to add. To accompany my meal, I had a Kicking Horse, which was a mixture of red wine and tropical liqueurs and fresh fruit, $8. Alan had the Lotus, which is their in-house vodka infused with sour berries and lychee. Geoff, Ambrose, and Ray each had their wine pairings which each meal; each meal (appetizer, main course, and dessert) had an accompanying recommended wine pairing; $8-10 per glass, or $15 total if you choose to take each wine pairing for each meal. Duy had a non-alcoholic mixture of sparkling water and various fruit juices. I guess we know who's the designated driver!
I didn't much like my Kicking Horse, not a big fan of red wine. I do however like White Sangria, which uses white wine. But, Alan's Lotus was excellent! Near the end of the meal, Alan and I switched drinks, and it was excellent. You could barely taste the alcohol... if it wasn't $12 I would probably go back there and buy a bunch more... I'll be drunk before I know it, but wow, that was refreshingly good. The lychee is really amazing, puts both the Lotus and Cherry Lychee Mango juice on the top of my list. Gotta have some lychee liqueur tonight...
And that's Canoe! Hmm... went home, played smash, played magic with alan and geoff. And that's it about Winterlicious.
---===---==-=--=////===---//==---/---=
On another note, Applebee's understands desserts! For most people, dessert is a craving, a little sweet ending to the meal. But we don't want to pay $6 for a slice of cake or big brownie or whatever. Applebee's understands... they have a $1 dessert, which is a small scoop of icecream and small piece of brownie, which is sooo worth it. And now they have these $2.50 desserts, which are like small cups with some sort of combination of cake and sauce in it, like, an apple-caramel sort of cake, or a chocolate mousse or cheesecake kind of deal, and those are also worth it. Applebee's understands that we'd rather pay $1 for a scoop of icecream rather than $5 for 8 scoops of icecream, or $1 for two bites of a brownie rather than $5 for 15 bites of brownie, so to say.
Yay Applebee's desserts.
Labels: me want food