Eating at The Beast!

I was sad to learn not long ago that Amuse Bouse had closed down - it was a great little French restaurant tucked away between residences, delicious although a little pricey. Our fabulous realtor, Holly, had introduced us to Amuse Bouche, and so it was only fitting that we tried the new restaurant in its place with her! I was sold on The Beast after taking a scan through the menu online - pig's head pasta? That sounded interesting enough for me to try it out! We had a lovely table on the patio, perfect for a hot summer day. The menu, from starters to mains to dessert was all very appealing - and the healthy eaters we are, we wanted everything! The waitress was a bit concerned for that all that we ordered, but she did not know how much we love to eat :)

Starters:

Of course, I had to have the Pig's Head Pasta, which was actually agnolotti and was DELICIOUS and my favourite dish of the night. It was served with an egg cracked on top, and was amazing...comfort food at it's best! We also had lamb ribs, which were tasty and had us licking our fingers, but admittedly, not that memorable. The smoked black cod was served uniquely with beet root and caperberries - I have never had caperberries before! And finally, we also had fried green tomatoes, which I actually really enjoyed even though I don't really like tomatoes that much! It was served with bacon and spot prawns that of course, made it extra yummy.

Mains:

Holly had the rainbow trout while I had duck confit with papardelle (that's a combo that I cannot resist!) and Tony had the braised wild boar with mac n cheese. Honestly, with those items on the menu how can anyone resist trying the restaurant? My duck confit was amazing - he duck leg was tperfectly done, served at the right temperature (I hate when it is mildly warm) and the papardelle was delicious. I, unfortunately, was first to tap out and too full to finish my main - not to worry, I packed it up to be indulged in later :) Tony's braised boar was another case of comfort food at it's best - it was saucy and tender and we lapped up every piece on the plate. We also had sides of green beans and mixed mushrooms - the mushrooms are a MUST if you visit. I know I'm biased because I love mushrooms, but it was truly a delicious preparation and plenty to go around.

Dessert:

Yes, somehow we still had room for dessert - a frittura dolce with corn ice cream and blueberry compote. I have never had anything like it and loved every bite - it wasn't really sweet, and was so unique, you couldn't stop eating it! The waitress told us it was a bit of a home made recipe from the chef's Italian mother. LOVED! We also had cream puffs with cherry mousse - these were delicious as well, and basically melted in your mouth. I was resistant to dessert being so full from mains, but I'm so glad Tony and Holly dived in because I loved both and it elevated my meal experience!

The Beast (I just love saying it) was delicious and unique - it is a bit of a splurge, but then again, you don't have to try and eat everything on the menu like us :) I guarantee anything you pick you will like. The food was just phenomenal. Items on the menu can change weekly, and I am eager to go back and eat more agnolotti and dessert!

Vancouver: Tapas off the Beaten Path at Judas Goat

Vancouver is one of our favorite cities to visit and eat - we get delicious, fresh food for much less than we spend in Toronto. Perhaps it just appeals to our preferences, with great seafood and sushi options! Only making it out for a couple days each year has limited our "tasting" experiences as we always want to visit our favorites, but we met up with our friends Jen and Andrew this time around and had the chance to visit Judas Goat, in Blood Alley Gastown, for a fabulously fun dinner!

I never knew what or where "Blood Alley" was, feels like one of those unique destination that I should have known about having lived there for 4 years, but I chalk it up to being a newer destination (no idea true or not). The popular Salt Tasting Room is also located there, tucked away in Gastown. There are no signs, at least none that we saw, and so Tony and I drove around several times before concluding the restaurant had to be located down this sketchy looking alley. Judas Goat is a small, modern restaurant, with large windows and bar seating opening up to the alley. The rest of the restaurant is made up of a share table and several small round tables along a banquette. My one complaint about the restaurant is I wish we had bigger tables for all the food we were about to have!

Six of us at dinner was just perfect to try everything we wanted - thankfully everyone is a good eater (which one of my friends aren't??) and we proceeded to check random stuff of the menu. It was another case of order by "elimination," where we mostly just agreed on what we didn't want. The menu is divided into Bocadillos (here was a re-invented Spanish sandwich) , Hot, Pressed/Potted/Cured, Salads, Condiments and Sweets. We ate almost everything on the menu - that's the beauty of tapas! Some of our favourites were:

• Braised pork belly: while I feel like pork belly is everywhere these days, I'm not quite sick of it yet. This pork belly was prepared very similar to some Chinese dishes, (fatty and saucy!) and of course, we had to have seconds of this!
• Warm lamb cheek with cabbage and white truffle oil: it smelled so delicious and just melted in your mouth.
• Cacciatori from local artisan butchers: this was ordered on our second round, since none of us were sure that this was - but it ended up being a good plate of cured meats to nibble on, plenty to go around.
• Rabbit rillette with carrot panna cotta: rillette is a pate like preparation of meat, which was very good and the carrot panna cotta was surprisingly delicious, Jen and I really dived into it (and maybe just the two of us!).
• Scallop tartare with pork rinds: when we ordered this, Jen described it as "crunchy." The pork rinds were indeed VERY crunchy, like "can't hear yourself" crunchy...but very good! At least I was a fan, and have had an odd craving for it since then.
• Potted prawns with pistachio butter: The pistachio butter was deliciously rich, although it was hard to share the 2 prawns in the "pot," so of course, we had seconds!
• Foie gras with rhubard foam: foie gras is rarely, if ever, better than in Quebec, but this was quite good indeed, and I particularly loved the rhubard foam - very unique and added a nice, unique flavour!

Judas Goat was a really fun place to eat and I loved that each dish was served and prepared quite differently with unique flavours paired together - rabbit and carrot (haha!), foie gras and rhubarb (do geese eat rhubard?) etc. It appealed to our particular preference for indulgent meats and spreads. I recommend going with a group so you can maximize what you eat...but be warned that you'll have to sit and eat intimately - the two little round tables we shared table simply weren't big enough for all the food we ordered! Thanks for introducing us to this fun place Jen & Andrew!

A Day in Stratford with Dinner at Rundles Sophisto-Bistro

It's rare that we hang around town on long weekends, since we usually make our way back out West, so with the beautiful weather, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to make a day trip. We had heard great things about the town of Stratford so we started asking around about things to do and places to eat. A friend recommended Rundles to us, a highly regarded restaurant in the little town - reviewed by Fodor's and Frommer's. Of course, Stratford is also home to the annual Stratford Shakespeare Festival, a celebration of theatre through classic and contemporary plays and musicals May through early November. The most popular play this year is likely The Tempest starring Christopher Plummer (for those who don't know, he was Captain von Trapp in Sound of Music, and is famed originally for Shakespearean plays). While The Tempest was playing during the Sunday matinee we were hoping for, it was sold out. Fortunately, we found great tickets for Evita. One of the great discoveries we made while researching plays was becoming a Play On member - it is a program designed to promote theatre to those under 29, and offers $25 tickets for great seats at various shows! We ended up with fabulous orchestra left seats, row E, right beside some uber expensive seats and the view was great.

Evita: The show was good and very intense, with scenes moving quickly through. The music, of course, was wonderful, done by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Although most reviews had celebrated the actress Chilina Kennedy over the play, we loved Josh Young the most, who played Che and narrated the story. The story was powerful and captures just a small part of the glamour and mystery behind Eva Peron, but enough to give you a taste into her strength, determination and ambition. For better or for worse, the story is captivating.

Matinee was the perfect time for a show - we left Toronto around 10am, pretty leisurely for us, and made it to town in time for lunch and a quick walk around. We came out of the play around 4pm and had time to paddle boat along the river before heading to dinner. It was a beautiful day, and we were lucky not only to paddle boat but also to enjoy music on the barge that was going on - a really nice summer day to be out!

Rundles is located right by the river, in a beautiful building - a mix of traditional and contemporary style. We arrived at the restaurant a tad early but they were able to seat us. We originally made reservations for the restaurant (which was actually quite full) and ended up being seated in Sophisto-Bistro. We didn't know this until we saw the menus, but after taking a peek through, we were happy with what we were seeing and decided to stay. Sophisto-Bistro offers a 2 course prix-fixe menu for $44.50 and 3 courses for $55.50.

Appetizers:

Lobster bisque with salt cod croquettes - the bisque was light yet flavourful and frothy. I wouldn't normally consider bisques really healthy, but it did seem that way! The salt cod croquettes were also a pleasant surprise - i've never had good ones before, they are normally underwhelming friend dough balls, but these actually tasted of cod and were quite good!

Grilled calamari with shredded green papaya, kohlrabi and mango - the calamari was served on a skewer, grilled to just the right tenderness, and the salad had just a slight kick to it.

Mains:

The braised short ribs of beef was amazing!

It was tenderly falling apart as it should, and we were given a utensil resembling a fish knife for the meal - a telling sign of its tenderness. We've had great braised beef before, but what took this meal over the top was the fantastic horseradish cream. It looked like whipped butter, and because of the large portion served, we weren't even sure what it was. Eating the horseradish, as Tony said, was like eating a vegetable. It was light and you could put as much as you wanted on the short ribs and not be overwhelmed by its flavour.

I had seared sea scallops with peking duck and green mango salad, in a brown butter flavoured with yuzu. The sauce was amazing and I couldn't get enough. I cut my scallops into little portions to maximize the surface area to soak up the brown butter! Needless to say, I also made the most of my bread to soak up the sauce!

Dessert:

Vanilla-flavoured crème brûlée and chilled lemon grass soup. It was a really complex dish, very fragrant and with an assortment of flavours that all came together nicely in the crème brûlée, the ice cream it was served with, and the lemon grass "shooter" it came with. A truly unique and delicious dessert.

Dark chocolate cream praline, with espresso granita and "Indian Summer" zabaglione (light whipped custard). I LOVED the zabaglione, served with candied pistacios on top. I also dug deep for the dark chocolate, but I guess in my hurry to pick a dessert I skipped by the "espresso" part, and those who know me will know I'm not a fan of coffee. It was all delicious of course, but in the end I swapped for Tony's fabulous crème brûlée so we wouldn't waste the granita as I desperately picked through the top and bottom layer :P

We had a great time at Sophisto-Bistro and wonder how amazing the "restaurant" menu might have been, but just means we should take another trip back. In the end, we were happy with the menu choices and our delicious meals for a really great price.

We had a wonderful day in Stratford, and we were glad to have made the drive out (was under 2 hours), see a show and have a fabulous dinner.

Contemporary Italian at Buca

Saturday night, I was craving something homey but couldn't quite put my finger on what. I finally settled on Italian and debated between Mercatto and Buca. Truthfully, I was hoping that Mercatto at Eaton Center had opened already so it would just a hop away from dinner...but alas, it's not ready. Ultimately, we decided to go to Buca. We have been before for a friend's birthday, but we arrived too late to eat and only had a chance to check the place out but not the food. Fortunately, even on Saturday night, they found us 2 spots at a communal high table. I have to admit I'm 50/50 on communal tables - you really have to be in the mood for them. I often find myself physically closer to the person sitting next to me rather than Tony; as a result, I struggle to focus on our conversation because I can hear down the table easier than across. I don't dislike them, but as I said, you really have to be in the mood to be friendly and interactive. Regardless, we were happy to get a table and were not joined by other guests until well into our meal.

To start, we decided to on the 3 salumi platter (a selection of 3 house cured meats). Our favourite was the eye of round. Our charcuterie plate was also accompanied by various house preservatives that were a nice complement to the salty meats. Our waiter also kindly recommended we order some bread, which we were hesitant at first, but ultimately ordered the nodini, bread knots flavoured with garlic and rosemary.

As I was craving some comfort food, there was no doubt I would do pasta as a main and I was immediately drawn to the Bigoli: duck egg pasta noodles with duck ragu, mascarpone and basil. I was actually a little disappointed by my dish, because the noodles were thick and chewy...which I should have expected from duck egg noodles, but it was not quite what I was expecting. In the end, I was craving some light, fresh pasta, which fortunately, Tony had! He had the Farfalle: hand cut pasta with baby octopus, artichokes and preserved chili (pictured). This was my second choice on the menu, so I'm lucky Tony cooperated :) The wide bow-like pasta was freshly made, thin and lightly tossed with chili (not spicy) and braised octopus. It was a delicious and well-made dish that I'm sure to return to eat next time.

Although we stuck to pasta mains, Buca does offer a traditional Italian experience - there were diners around us who did salumi to start, pasta as seconds, and meat/fish for mains. Buca is also a versatile restaurant with a warm yet contemporary feel. Patrons were young and old, casual and dressed to the nines - I loved the couple that had their baby with them by their side sleeping away in a stroller. It's something I've learned to love about Toronto, that young couples still dine out and have a downtown lifestyle even after kids...amazing!

Scrumptious Brunch at Saving Grace

Some of the best brunch places in the city are a little out of the way and usually one-of-a-kind. Saving Grace is one of those local secrets, a little restaurant tucked away on Queen West, almost hidden behind trees and with no obvious signage. We met our friend Jen there for brunch last week and were glad to have make the short trek out West.

There are no reservations at Saving Grace, but a waiting list on a small clipboard just inside the door that you need to put yourself on...and the wait can be long, but it is worth it! We enjoyed the cool breezes in the shade outside on a bench while we patiently waited for a table. Fortunately, there were only two tables ahead of us.

Once seated, we quickly discovered the one major downside of the restaurant - no AC. I hate to sounds like a brat, but no AC really is an issue! I just prayed that the food would prove me wrong and suffering the intense heat would be worth it. While Saving Grace has a regular menu, it was the specials on the chalk board that intrigued us. I decided on the open omlette with capicolla ham, caramelized pears and provolone, and Jen had poached eggs on spicy Italian sausage. My omlette was every bit as delicious and satisfying as the description sounded, with plenty of ham and cheese and sweet pears.

Saving Grace serves an almost hippy, artsy crowd, with savory and unique dishes. I'd bear the "no AC" heat again (they provided lots of water!), but would definitely prefer cooler weather to visit and try more/new items on the menu. I also recommend going early, because Saving Grace is a secret no longer, even being featured on Daily Candy's Toronto guide this past week!

San Francisco & Napa Hotels!

I know this blog is mostly about food, but as I often travel and eat the whole experience is important to me; and thus, I've decided to share my thoughts on the hotels we stayed at in the San Fran area.

SAN FRANCISCO: THE W

We flew in and out of SF and stayed at the W Hotel on 3rd, a swanky property in the SoMA district, surrounded by galleries and art schools; in fact, it is right next to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). It is in a great location - a short walk from Union Square and Market Street. It was a very pleasant and convenient area, including a close walk to other hotels and restaurants, coffee shops, and other casual cafes.

Having these conveniences is always important to us in the city, and we did take a stop at The Grove Cafe on our way out to Napa for lunch on the run (had a great pear and gorgonzola grilled cheese!). Other features we loved about the hotel was the concierge - we called in advance to ask about car rentals for our trip into Napa, and found that the deal the hotel had was far better than anything we could find on our own online, so that was a huge bonus. The hotel also features a complementary Acura car service, which we did not need to take advantage of but is certainly a nice option to have!

We were upgraded to a King corner suite on both our initial stay and after our return from Napa - great views of the city and Bay bridge! The decor was very modern, and the crowd pretty young, although not as young and hip as I had been expecting. The trouble with stylishness of W hotels, I suppose, is that it has to be current - and I felt that while our room looked great while we were there, it would easily look dated in a couple years...it is not timeless. Oh, and lest I forget that I loved the Bliss bath and shower products provided in the rooms - that was a nice perk!

YOUNTVILLE: HOTEL LUCA

In Napa, we lucked out and found a great deal on expedia for a new hotel, Hotel Luca, a beautiful yet intimate hotel modeled after Italian villas - with only 20 guest rooms, it was a great little space for us to stay. We were welcomed to the friendly and intimate hotel with a glass of bubbly while we checked in - seated in huge leather armchairs, a much more intimate and comfy experience. Our room had a cute little balcony and a spectacular bathroom- it is what I will model my future bathroom after, complete with heated floors and double sinks! This time, we had H20 bath and shower products!

Our first night there, the hotel offered a complementary wine tasting session in the late afternoon, which we did not end up taking part in because of the

all our wine tours, but appreciated the effort nonetheless! The beautiful courtyard was a great location for hotel guests to gather. Of course, we were also welcomed to our room with a small bottle of Chandon bubbly (a gift for the newly weds!) and received cookies as our treat for the 2nd night. The hotel staff offered to valet our car each time we came in and out - but honestly, the parking lot is RIGHT next door, we couldn't be that lazy. We also loved that the hotel charges a flat $25 fee in lieu of cash tips everyday -

I think that is very fair for all the staff, and saved us the trouble of scrambling each time! The hotel concierge was also wonderful and called to help us secure winery tour reservations after learning what we had in mind, and the spa staff also eagerly followed-up on our requests through the concierge to ensure we had all the information we needed (although we did not end up going). Hotel Luca is a lovely hotel that offers a 5 star personal experience and is luxurious in its accommodations.

San Francisco & Napa: A Solid Meal at Redd

Without a doubt there are plenty of great dining spots Napa - if only we had the time and luxury to try them all! Maybe in due time. In addition to the famous French Laundry, we also made a dinner stop at Redd, in the heart of Yountville. It had a very different feel - more casual (but that's relative), more modern, and a crowd that all seemed very comfortable in the restaurant. We felt a little like we were intruding on an average night out for locals at Redd!

We were excited and overwhelmed by the menu to start, there were so many delicious sounding items. We had to consult our waiter in what we could reasonable eat! By looking around the room, we could tell the portions were healthy and we didn't want to over-order. Ultimately, we decided to start with the special lamb bolognaise and rabbit mole. The lamb was unfortunately pretty disappointing, tasting no different that "regular" bolognaise, although the fresh gnocchi was quite good. The rabbit mole was savory and unique - intense in flavor with a homey feel. It was served with cheddar grits and tortilla salad. Think of it has a high end taco salad! I thought nothing much of it at first, but with each taste I liked it more and more.

I knew what main I would have the moment we arrived, because I had spied some delicious plates around the room, particularly the John Dory - a white fish served in a mélange of clams, chorizo, and curry on jasmine rice. It looked and smelled delicious. It was tasty as I had expected, and I believe it is the best dish on the menu.

Overall Redd was good, but not an exceptionally exciting dining experience. I have no doubt the quality remains consistent, but it was not the "must experience" kind of restaurant we had believed it to be.