New York adventures

I was recently in New York for a legal technology conference and took the opportunity to visit for a day or so with my friend Chris, who is a man about town with the foodstuffs on offer in the Big Apple. He lives in Brooklyn and picked me up at the airport (making me feel like a movie star), because he is awesome. Soon after dropping off my gear at his place, we headed for the subway for a wild ride to our first stop on my New York food adventure: Bark Hot Dogs in Park Slope. Delicious dogs accompanied by disco fries and white birch beer (which I'm going to describe as a cross between wintergreen Life Savers and root beer - so not sure I'll ever order it again).

Very delicious, all natural etc. I had the classic NYC dog with sweet and sour onions and mustard. In the back is Chris' pickle dog. The food was great and I was particularly amused by the nine-year-old-going-on-25 little girl who sat beside me. She was interested in my opinions regarding the food and the beverages. Obviously I'm so very pretty and smart that everything I said to her needed to be repeated with great gravitas to her father. There is no doubt that I am a role model on the hot dog eating front, send your children.

 After hot dogs, we ambled around a bit to the Ample Hills Creamery for some of the best ice cream I've ever had. And I have had a lot of ice cream. I was tempted by the Mexican hot chocolate because I'm that way but in the end chose the salted crack caramel. Fantastic. The best part is that you get to make a very informed decision on what you're going to order because they let you try everything in the place, especially on a late January day when it's not exactly lineups around the corner in there. Not to mention, the store is crazy cute.

Now there are few things I enjoy more than street food and in Toronto, we do not have a good variety, so non-stationary food vendors were on the agenda as well. For dinner (before contra dancing!), Chris hunted down the Kimchi Taco Truck, which combined my love of food on the go with Mexican flair. Now in Manhattan, we grabbed our bags of deliciousness and walked up to Union Square to eat on a park bench on a very warm January night. I had a combo of the grilled Korean bbq short rib taco and the pulled chicken taco. Woah! Those short rib tacos were out of this world!!

The next day Chris invited me to join him and a group of friends for dim sum at a local Brooklyn restaurant (which I can't remember the name of) and it too was spectacular. We arrived early in order to get a table, which when we left through a horde of waiting and hungry diners, I understood. There were about eight of us, so we ordered many delicious things to share. It's a good number of people because it lets you try many things but you don't have to have a lot of anything. So a couple of dishes stood out, one was chicken feet, which was the only thing I was not brave enough to eat but was the choice of the birthday boy for whom we were gathered to celebrate. While the feet were not my favourite dish of the weekend, they did come out as the best photo.

I did however take a chance on the jellyfish dish as I'd never eaten it and all the rest of the food was pretty excellent so I figured this was as good a time as any. It was tasty although the texture was a bit more rubbery than I enjoy. There was also some octopus mixed in with the dish and it was all good.

So overall, probably my best-ever dim sum experience. And it was followed by a bit of Chinese new year celebrations on the street, which were enjoyable and left me with glittery bits in my hair until well into the following morning when I finally got to bed!

I left Chris on Sunday afternoon and headed to Midtown to check into the hotel and get into a work state of mind. That night I met a lawyer friend and some of her colleagues and ended up having a really fun time dancing the entire night away. Her flight was delayed and my plans for a swishy Mexican place in Chelsea didn't work out but my favourite Times Square-area standby Virgil's barbecue was called up to the plate and didn't disappoint. From the gang who had never eaten bbq before, there were smiles all around. That's the way they roll at Virgil's. Good, solid bbq that you just can't get in Toronto.

After dinner there was much dancing and carousing and when we finally got back to our hotel in the 3:30 a.m. range, my companions were hungry. So off to Ray's Pizza for some pie. Not the greatest but it hit the spot and allowed us the chance to have a meaningful conversation about health care policy with a lovely man from Seattle.

On the Monday night, I went out with one of my fellow editors and her sisters who had come down for a little r&r. We ended up at a tapas restaurant near 42nd and 8th. Nothing spectacular but a big selection of tapas and a very enjoyable variety of sangrias. A fun night out with new people, can't beat that! (bad pic taken with ye olde BlackBerry). The hit of the evening, I would hazard, were the dates wrapped in bacon. They just work.

Over the course of the next few days, ate quite a bit just around the hotel. The usual oatemeal for breakfast at the Astro Diner at 55th and 6th, which I always try to do when I'm at this conference. Had an excellent Chipotle burrito bowl (fast and convenient) and tried this odd French restaurant/sushi bar mashup Rue 57 again and had a fairly spectacular chicken pot pie.

Now all over Manhattan are these halal food carts that serve up gyros and chicken and the like. Apparently the one that is at the corner of 53rd and 6th is the most awesome. There is always a line up there, particularly late at night on the weekends after the bars close. It's quite a sight. So as I was wrapping up the trip, I decided to have my final lunch at the cart. It is a giant plate of happiness (with a Diet Coke) for $7. Underneath all that delicious white sauce there's a mouthwatering blend of lamb gyros, chicken, rice and salad. Enough food to keep you going for the whole day. Just bring breath mints because there's a big garlic punch.

So long and thanks for all the eats!

The Best Grub in Waterloo is at D & P's!

A few weeks back, we went to Waterloo to spend a short stay with our good friends D & P. We had such a great time, I am embarrassed that I have not blogged about it before now...

We had such a good time. We went to the St. Jacob's Farmer Market and walked around having a great old time. It's really neat, with lots of veg and tasty foods to eat. I really was amazed at how much stuff they had on offer.

Especially these amazing cupcakes...


Red velvet is my absolute favorite, I really really love them! It was my first weekend away on Weight Watchers, and I was nervous that I would completely mess it up, especially when we had to buy these cupcakes (and I mean, we had too or else the cupcakes would have had hurt feelings). No such worries, Weight Watchers truly is something you can do everywhere and anywhere. (And I truly have found this to be true. We've had Jewish new year, conferences, fancy dinners out, and a gourmet cooking class throughout my four and a half weeks on WW. All that, and I have still lost almost 13 pounds.)

ANYWAY, this is not about WW (even though it will likely come up again, especially when I get to posting tonight's delish WW Cassoulet recipe). As we walked around, we immediately ditched any plans to go out to dinner and bought some goodies to have at P and D's, with some good times cooking in their excellent kitchen. We were really excited to have such a concentrated amount of time to spend with them!

So P and D wanted to get some fun treats for dinner, and D treated us to this amazing Sticky Toffee Cheese. You heard me right...

It was such a weird flavour. Sharp from the cheese, sweet from my all-time fave sticky toffee pudding. And just all around delicious, rich, and weirdly yummy!

They also got this amazing artichoke asiago dip that we had with cheese bread from the market...



Yum yum yum! We had some crackers too, but I don't seem to have taken any photos of that.

On the menu were Eggplant Parms, Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad, and Roasted Potatoes. AND P's amazingly fantastic SANGRIA!


The sangria was so nice. It was cold, fruity, juicey, winey... just like it should be. Really a nice accompaniment to our dinner...

Here's the delightful salad...


The tomatoes were farm fresh, skinned and chopped then mixed with balsamic and oil, goat cheese, and herbs. As it sat around, the cheese started to melt and it just became this amazingly cheesey gooey loveliness.

Here's the plate of delish dinner...


Really really good. It's not lookin' so hot, but it was really really good. The eggplant was so easy, you just dip the eggplant in bread crumbs, bake it was sauce and cheese, and then you put the amazing roasted potatoes in the mix, no pasta, nothing too terribly heavy.

Wedding Feast.

I've not been to many weddings. I find them so interesting, I don't know how the bride and groom and their family's don't cry through the whole thing.

Well, I was very excited to be invited to my friend's J's wedding. J is one of the people I have met since moving to Toronto and I truly value her friendship. As often happens, I don't see her as much as I would like, but we always seem to meet over a great meal and have great conversation. As her and her now husband (also J) are both very into food, I knew the wedding menu was going to be amazing! So what better way to celebrate a couple's true love then in a beautiful Canadian art gallery with good food, a lovely set of family's, and great friends.

But wait, let's talk about the food....that's what this blogs all about....

First up was the beautiful ceremony. Fighting off the oncoming storm, we sat a top a little hill and watched J and J exchange vows. It was absolutely beautiful, and it started sprinkling right when the ceremony ended...excellent timing!

We went to the gallery and had an assortment of starters along with champagne and wine. The starters were wonderful, but no photos because it was too complicated...but let me give you a description of them...

There was an amazing crostini topped with an eggplant pate, feta cheese and very small slivers of strawberry. Delish!!! Then there was a lovely fried shrimp with a pineapple/mango (I think) sauce. It was a bit thick and wouldn't really go on the shrimp so I didn't get to taste it! Tere was a fried shredded sweet potato pancake that had a cinnamony flavour and was topped with creme fraiche and a candied pecan. Grilled lamb chops came by with their own G-d given handles which made for easy nibbling (it's too bad the bones aren't edible, because you end up standing around with bones like an idiot...). Then we move into my top two aps... oh yeah... the mini sliders with carmelized onions. They tasted like pork, had a very coarse consistency and were on the absolute lightest egg buns ever. Truly amazing. Then the piece de resistance... Tortilla spoons (baked not fried) with a dollop of mac n cheese on the end of each spoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There truly aren't enough exclamation points to mark how fantastic that one was!!!!!!

Yeah, so I probably ate a few too many of them. I don't drink alot so no one ever gets their money worth out of me at an open bar, but I can put some major damage to appetizers.

We then sat down and listened to wonderful speeches and stories, had wonderful conversation with our tablemates, and just really enjoyed the moment.

But then our main courses came. And my job dropped.

I couldn't remember what I had ordered, only that it was beef. And oh yeah, beef was what was for dinner!


Mash, asparagus, sauce, lovely. I ate very bite including all of the jus. It was superb.

There was also a fish served.


The woman sitting next to G had the fish (I believe it was sea bass) and said it was lovely. But honestly, I could not get get over how amazing the beef was. And from the looks of all the empty plates being sent back to the kitchen, I believe I wasn't the only one who felt that way!

After a few more speeches, and a few tears, the aiter staff brought out a little dessert tray.


This held white and milk chocolate truffles, and skewered berries drizzled with chocolate sauce.

But that wasn't the end of it, oh no. There was an entire dessert buffet filled with fruit, cakes, and pastries. I had one chocolate cake on a stick and could have eaten every one of them had I not been so crazily full that there was no where for that cake to go!

Phew! What an amazing evening! The bride was BEAUTIFUL, the groom was elated, the family's were bursting with pride because both bride and groom were amazingly beautiful and so in love with one another. The food was certainly not the most important thing in that room that night, love and life was. I was so glad to share it with my friends.

Behind per Usual.

There are tons of vacation pictures to post, but I am going to back up a bit and cover our delightful trip to the lovely Kitchener/Waterloo area, and Stratford.

We have some excellent friends who live in KW, and we don't see them nearly enough, so we made a plan to go for a visit, hit the St. Jacob's Farmer's Market, and Smart car it over to Stratford to see 'the Music Man'. We had an excellent time.

G and I had a leisurely drive to KW. Once we arrived at our friend's house (which is just beautiful...I am quite envious), we chatted for a bit, I showed off my iPhone (because I have no shame), and then we set off to the St. Jacob's Market. It was brilliant. I am just going to post a hodgepodge of photos, so bear with me for a moment...







So you might be getting the impression that there are lots of veg at this market. You would be right!

However, it wasn't JUST fantastic veg. G had, what she called, the greatest pickle ever. And it was on a stick.

AND! There was a schnitzel wagon.

And no, gentle reader, I did not partake in the schnitzel wagon, despite my unbridled love for the schnitzel. Curses.

BUT! We did manage to get some corn, even thought it was almost all gone...

The corn was okay. It didn't rock my world, but it was good.

We bought tons of stuff, and filled up the Smart car...

If you are doing the math, you may be wondering how the four of us fit in that Smart car. We didn't. P and D have TWO! So we congo'ed to the market AND to Stratford. Good times.