After thinking about it for months, I finally purchased the Canon 85mm 1.2L II lens at Downtown Camera. It is currently on sale for $400 less in Canada at authorized retailers.
I also happened to have visted my friend Steph today, so I decided to test the new lens on her delicious pastries!
Macarons by Petit Nuage.
A lot of the times I prefer cider to beer because I find them more drinkable with meals. Like beers, I’ve been looking to try more Canadian-made craft beers rather than the mass-produced kinds. My recent favourites are Brickworks Premium Dry Cider and Okanagan’s Dry Pear.
The Brickworks also comes in a semi-sweet variety (which I haven’t tried yet). They are made with 100% Ontario apples Their site says that “No apple in our cider travels further than 300 kilometres from the tree to the Ciderhouse.” 5% of all their profits also go to environmental organization Evergreen. Their apple cider is perfectly balanced in term of sweetness. It goes down easy like apple juice but doesn’t feel too sugary.
While Okanagan makes an apple cider I decided to try the pear. On their website there are actually a variety of fruit ciders. Anyways the pear cider was nice and crisp. It wasn’t like the Sir Perry Pear cider that was way too sweet, the Okanagan balanced the sweetness as well as Brickworks.
With both these ciders I didn’t feel like I was having some “girly” drink. These were authentic to the fruit flavour but tart enough to be an adult drink.
For my birthday, my friend Nilabjo (yes that’s a real name) bought me a Travelzoo gift certificate for Wild Burger near Yonge & Eglington.
I’ve never heard of it prior to getting the certificate but their menu selection quite literally lives up to their name. They offer a variety of burger meats including elk, bison, venison, ostrich, kangaroo and camel. They also advertise sustainable food and flavours that represent the diversity of Canada.
I chose the camel burger which came with a sweet cilantro sauce, brie, baby spinach, mango, dried fruit salsa and onions. I’ve never had camel but it had a texture and consistency of beef but was much lighter tasting. I loved the cilantro sauce and I thought all the ingredients married together. There was also a nice crunch that I wasn’t sure if it was from the spinach or something else.
As my side, I chose the duck fat fries garlic fries. They were great on their own but I also tried dipping them in a selection of house-made sauces. One of the strangest was a banana-mustard.
Nash settled on the Chimichuri Elk Burger that had chipotle aoli, brie and a fried egg. Elk is a lean meat so this can be downed so easily!
He accompanied his burgers with fried pickles. I stole quite a few because they had a perfect crunch. They were sliced in a way that didn’t give you too much pickle or too much breading.
To drink I tried a Social Lite for the first time in Lemon Cucumber Mint. It was an alcoholic cooler of some sort but I didn’t find it as flavourful as the fancy cocktails you could find around town. It advertises no sugar, but I feel like it needed it.
We really enjoyed our burgers at Wild Burger and now I’m itching to try all the other types of patties!
I’ve been obsessed with trying local craft beers lately. There are a ton from Ontario alone! In fact the craft beer trend is so popular that Toronto now has stores to buy your own brewing supplies. Most recently I tried Old Tomorrow Canadian Pale Ale. The Toronto ale a full-bodied brew that went down smoothly.
The other beer I had was Sawdust City’s Lone Pine IPA. It was very hoppy!
The best thing about buying local craft beers is also the fabulous designs. The first one pays tribute to the 150 year anniversary of the Charlottetown conference that triggered confederation. Constrastly, Sawdust has a more country vibe because after all it is brewed in Gravenhurst! Anyways, can’t wait to dig for more beer treasures at the LCBO.
I spent the past few days in Hamilton covering the JUNO awards and events leading up to it. My co-worker and I had some time Saturday morning so we grabbed brunch at Jack & Lois which was featured on the show You Gotta Eat Here.
The inside of the restaurant was very kitchy. It was colourful and the tables and chairs unmatching. It was like being at your grandma’s house complete with posters of dogs and cats that looked like prints on shirts at Northern Getaway. They had a great selection of brunch items and a menu for the more adventurous people.
Obviously, I chose to go with the excessive Triple Crown (pictured above). It was a trio of Eggs Benedict: smoked salmon, lobster, tenderloin. They came with potatoes and fresh fruit. The potatoes were seasoned nicely and had bits of onion. The bennies were so delicious, and the hollandaise had a perfect consistency. I can’t decide which of the three I liked more, they were all very good!
My co-worker had The Cobra: hashbrowns and fruit with 3 grilled cheese, sausage, eggs, bacon, peameal bacon. It was traditional brunch done right! It was great value, and such large portions that he ended up taking home leftovers.
Jack & Lois is totally a place to check if you’re ever in the hammer! We actually considered going back the next day but we ran out of time.
We bought this by accident, mistakingly thinking we had bought a Betty Crocker brand brownie mix. The box colours are so similar. For $2, it’s more expensive than most cake mixes in a real grocery store but when brownies mix can be picked up next door who can resist?
The instructions only required one egg and water, so no milk or cream required.
This is what it looked like after the 50 strokes, as instructed.
After 30 minutes it looked like a regular brownie.
When we cut it and tried to take a brownie out it all crumbled. However, it was chewy and chocolatey like it promised. The top crust had a nice crunch to it.
Would we buy again? Maybe. They tasted delicious, they just weren’t intact like brownies should be.
I added another item to my Fred and Friends family of products! Meet Mr. Tea. He is the most awesome tea infuser.
I just love his chillin’ smile.
He comes apart in two pieces and you can put tea in his pants.
As he swims in your water, it turns into tea!
We went to The Emerson a few months ago (the menu has changed since) but I completely forgot to blog about it. That’s sort of how hidden the place is. I would have walked passed it dismissing it for “The Clothing Co.” which its signage seems to imply. In fact we actually walked up to the doors one hungry evening and asked “do you serve food?” In fact they were a trendy place that indeed serve food and drinks. All the food is seemingly ordinary but very flavourful. The first dish we started with was an eggplant with pine nuts and yogurt and peppers that went really well together.
I chose the flat iron steak with fried green tomatoes and chimichurri sauce. It was cooked beautiful and was very delicious but portion-wise an appetizer was very necessary or else you wouldn’t be full off one main.
Nash had the Emerson burger with Beemster sauce. It was chocked full of melted cheese. You can’t be afraid to get messy with this one!
We had a few fruity cocktails but I totally forgot what they were. I just remembered that I could probably drink 10 of these!
Lastly, we split a lovely peach tart for dessert!
The individual items aren’t that pricey, but everything will add up if you want to be satisfied at the end of the meal. While I enjoyed everything I ate, I feel like it has to stand out a little more for me to return and not be lured away but its surrounding neighbours.
This adorable Food Face plate is also from Fred and Friends. There’s a Mrs. Food Face too but I couldn’t find it at Marshalls.
I thought the idea of creating faces with food was so adorable that I couldn’t resist. I am a 5 year old kid at heart.
The ceramic plate has a simple face with no hair, allowing you to play with your food and create your own characters.
Here are a few of my own creations:
Now meal times can be super fun!
Last night I attended The Drake Hotel’s Chip N’ Dip battle. It was hosted by PEI Potatoes. The event was FREE and we stuffed our plates with chip and dip from 10 different Toronto restaurants.
Some were served traditionally: chips with a side of dip. Others were presented beautifully as a single bite amuse-bouche type thing. There were dips with caviar, french onion, fish foam, bacon and all sorts of combinations you wouldn’t think of. Some chips were waffled, others were wavy, others BBQ’d or coloured differently for presentation.
Nash and I had a shared favourite. It ended up being one of the simpler ones. Plain potato chips with a poutine dip containing cheese curds and mushroom gravy. It was such a classic combination! People underestimate simplicity sometimes. We didn’t stay to find out who was the actual winner but in our eyes it was the poutine dip!
Tiana Feng 