Pizzaiolo

We didn't feel like eating anything fancy so we hit queen street in search of some casual dining. Originally the plan was roti but the place we had in mind was too expensive. So the fall back was Pizzaiolo. I had the God Father with a Coke for 5 bucks including tax. Fairly reasonable I guess and the pizza was quite tasty. Unlike Pizza pizza the crust is edible and in fact was quite tasty. The only let down was that the god father only had 3 types of meat - pepperoni, bacon and ham. It seemed like the best I could do. The highlight was leaving the place. I hopped right through the window (well the window was opened so the incident was injury free)

Apricot Tree in Mississauga

Today the gals at the office went for a little belated b-day lunch outing to the Apricot Tree in Mississauga. They did seem to have some sort of apricot tree in there - not sure if it was fake, but it was pretty large so I'm guessing real? I will check more closely next time. If it's not real, it seems a bit shady to base their whole restaurant concept on it, but who am I to say??

I ordered a roasted veggie sandwich on whole wheat for $6.50 I think. Came with some pretty tasty, although plain, salad. The sandwich was only so-so. Bread was alright, but was sliced too thin. The toasted veggie sandwich was quite literally roasted veggie. You think they would have put some spicy mayo or cheese to perk it up a little. Maybe some seasoning on the veggies?? Was actually kinda soggy.

Others has quiche, wraps, salads, soup etc and seemed to enjoy. Perhaps I just mis-ordered??? The price was right, so I think I would go back and get something else next time.

Ducky's Roti & Caribbean Food

The Car Problems:

My check engine light has been off and on for the last little while so I bring it into my Hyundai dealer and they say that I need a new catalytic converter and my exhaust pipe is all cracked.

I was SHOCKED! The converter was just replaced two years ago. It must be some sort of manufacturing defect I'm thinking??? The car is only 5 years old with 120K on it. The emissions system warranty is supposed to be for 7 years/120K, so you don't think they'd design the part to fail twice within the warranty period...especially since it's $1000 a pop.

The whole thing is kind of annoying, but much less so since up until this point, the friendly Hyundai warranty people have paid for it!

Anyhow, now the emissions warranty really is up, so next is one is on me I guess? That will make the whole thing much much much much much much much more bitter!

At this point you are probably wondering what my car problems have to do with Ducky's Roti joint. Well...

The Roti Problems

I'm actually pleased to report that there were no problems. Ian and I did a complicated Kipling subway pick-up arrangement to go and get my car and stopped by a roti joint on lakeshore just west of kipling. I had the "vegetarian delight" with channa, potato, pumpkin and spinach for $5. Various other veggie options for $4 to $5. Ian had boneless dark chicken meat for something around $5.75 Ian says he paid $13.83 for everything including a large pineapple beverage and tax (no tip). Both pretty yummy.

For a slightly different twist on beverage (versus Roti Palace), this joint got some authentic stuff called "Solo". It appears to actually be manufactured in Trinidad Tobago. The palace has a similar tasting beverage that poses as Caribbean but is actually made in Brampton!

Unicorn Pub

A couple of nights ago Ian and I ventured out to the Yonge/Eglinton area to the Unicorn pub. The "Appetizer Platter" was highly recommended by more than one person so I thought it would be good to check it out.

This place is pretty good value - $5.00 for a pint of moosehead (compared to $8 or so at "fancy" TO joints).

We then had the appetizer item - comes with tasty nachos and decent fries + you get to pick 2 items from the finger food menu...all for $16.95. In a quest of high amounts of value we had calmari and chicken fingers. They had other items such as veggie spring rolls and brushchetta but they were less expensive so of course we nixed them!

Everything was quite tasty and there was no way two of us could come close to finishing the fries or the nachos. Definitely cheap eating as its best!

They also seem to have 1/2 price appetizers every day from 5-7. Next time we'll go for that and avoid serious binge eating! Four thumbs in total - for tastiness and value!

Cafe Demetre

Last night I went for round two of the monthly bookclub. It was held at Cafe Demetre in the Yonge/Eglinton area. Last time I had an overpriced banana split - this time I went with the two scoop sundae for $5.75. Had a scoop of "cookeo" and a scoop of peanut butter fudge. I chose the brownie and caramel sauce as toppings - all come with whip cream and a cherry. The whole thing seemed to be a much better deal than the splits.

The book was Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby. Let's just say that it doesn't end well for the 4 drug addicted characters. Perhaps it should be required reading for all junior high aged kids?? It certainly scared me off heroin!!!

Grocery Stores

Tonight we went to three grocery stores for something that should have only required one trip

1) Queens Quay Loblaws
We thought, we'll be quick, no need to go to no frills. Well that dream ended quickly when they had nothing in stock. No tortilla chips, no PC low sodium V8 and in general the shelves were bare. It seemed like everything that was a decent price was not there.

It was too late to go to No Frills so we thought, we'll go to the Price Chopper on Lakeshore.

2) Lakeshore Loblaw's
Being glass half full type of people (or equivalently shelves are half full) when we see a Loblaw's across from the Chopper we decide to give it chance. It was a bigger store so that just meant more empty shelf space.

We're now shelf half empty people so

3) Price Chopper
We head to the price chopper. My first trip to one and it appears they didn't cut all the way through. Reasonably stocked shelfs and we got what we wanted. But with overly inflated prices a return visit is unlikely. The whole environment wasn't very good either so that pretty much seals it.

Summary
As everyone has been saying Loblaws seems to be in trouble. We never really have supply issues at No Frills though so I'm not sure what the problem was at Loblaw's. You'd think they would try to ensure sufficient stock at their namesake stores but apparently they're letting that slide to ensure they get trounced by Walmart. Depressing

Bhuda's Vegetarian Food

Last night Ian and I ventured out to Bhudda's Vegetarian on 666 Dundas (by Bathurst) as recommended by cheap eats. For the low low cost of $24 including tax, tip and tap water (TT&TW) we got 2 orders of spring rolls, a "small" hot and sour soup that we enough to feed a family of 4 and a humongous plate of curry noodles and an equally large plate of veggies, tofu with roasted cashews. I estimate another 3 meals in left-overs for me. 0 for Ian since he wasn't a huge fan.

The low price was certainly reflected in the food. Spring rolls were ok, but soup was only so-so. I though the noodles were really tasty, but the stir fry veggies were a bit weak - too much undercooked celery and the tofu was a bit iffy. I guess we might go back - this seems like the sorta place where you gotta go through the menu once and try and decipher what the tasty stuff is.

Leaside Curling Club

We had the year end banquet dinner for the "Ladies of the Night" curling section that I play in. We used to be the "Business Women" but we merged with the "Ladies team entry" section and now we are "Ladies of the Night".

Dinner started off well with some appetizers - california rolls, chicken nuggets...I had spinach and mushroom tart things. Then some salad with raspberry vinaigrette. Lots of fruity tastiness on there. I ordered the veggie meal and that was where it went wrong. I got a HUMONGOUS plate of spaghetti with pesto. Was alright, but really only ate 10% of it. Others could have chicken or stuffed pork tenderloin - definately looked tastier. Came with potatoes and side veggie.

Then some tasty chocolate mousse for dessert. Also had two bottles of Pelee Island wine for the table - the white was better than the red.

Check out this very stylish pepper mill that I won for a door prize! Wow! With this kind of winning, the $400 I payed to curl this year was a fantastic deal!!!

Amsterdam Brewery - World's Worst Tour

I was trolling the i-net looking for something to do and I came across Amsterdam Brewery Tours. The place is across from Fort York on Bathurst so we thought we should go and check it out.

We arrived at 4:52 and just in time for the 5 pm tour (we thought). We ask the guy if there is a tour going down and he barely sets down the newspaper to say "yeah at 5". So we hover around awkwardly and then finally the guy gets up and tidies up the very messy looking sampling bar (basically 8 taps). He then says to help ourselves so we do.

He said that the sampling/tour is actually free and they just have the $8 tour thing for university dorks.

5 rolls around and nothing, he just keeps reading the paper. So we finally grab the beer from the case and buy it. As we are leaving, he says "just the beer?". Yeah, I guess so????

World's Most Akward Tour!!! Go to Steamwhistle, they actually run a semi-professional operation.

El Fogon

Ian's aunt came across a Peruvian restaurant in Toronto on St. Clair near Bathurst. Unlike the more commonly known Toronto "Peruvian" restaurant, Boulevard Cafe, on Harbord, El Fogon actually seems to serve authentic dishes that you might actually find in Peru! And they are cheaper making the place even more Peru-ish!

To start off with we had an Inca Cola. At $2 for the can, it can hardly be considered cheap, but it certainly was tasty! We shared a pretty good avocado salad with potato, tomato and onion for $5.95. A bit pricey for what we actually got.



They brought out same tasty warm bread with a hot peppery spread thing.

I strayed slightly away from hard core Peruvian food and had the only nominally non-Peruvian dish on the menu - arroz a la cubana. I did eat these dish numerous times in Ecuador - a close neighbor to Peru so I shouldn't feel too bad?? Came with yummy rice (arroz), some fried plantain, a mini-salad and two fried eggs....mmmmmm. Great deal for a meager $5.25.

I convinced Ian to skip the $10.95 lomo saltado plate and instead go with the $6.25 sandwich. Came with the usual stir fry tomato, onions and beef with spices. It was all on a tasty roll and came with fries on the side (of course Ian stuffed them into the sandwich).

Ian's Bonus Comments
The rice with janice's dish was pretty good. It was formed into the usual nice round mound and it tasted like the classic peruvian rice. Quite tasty. The only let down was not getting a full regular lomo saltado.

Faithful readers may find it interesting that this keeps up our annual april/may tradition of eating at a new peruvian place. May 2005 was a place in NYC, April 2006 was in Washington DC.

Cultured readers may enjoy the peruvian theme of the weekend since on Friday we went to see that Peruvian Sican exhibit at the ROM.

Shameless Plagarism

Alright, so I stole this from Jackie's blog - I still think it's funny and sort of food related.

Green Mango

I am kinda between projects for a few days so I took the day off and got lots of errands done. While I was waiting for my oil to be changed (well not my oil - the car's oil), I wandered over to check out Green Mango. This was one of Ian's favorite places while he spent a summer working in the Yonge/Bloor area.

They had lots of yummy looking carb stuff to choose from - rice, spicy noodles, glass noddles, pad thai noddles. I went with pad thai. Kind of a bad choice, far too much noodle all around! Should have just gotten plain rice. Then the two main courses - I had veggie green curry and tomato curried tofu. Pretty tasty all around. There were about 4 kinds of chicken and 1 beef dish to choose from. Then they throw on some salad. I had "everything" on it. I had no idea what that actually means, but it was pretty good. All for $6.76. Pretty cheap and tasty eating. It really was quite packed with the take-out crowd.

New Gen - Back in Action

I lured Ian into going out for dinner with the promise of a ride home. Ha ha! We went to New Gen and I, as usual, had the Yasai Veggie box for $7.95. Came with a good assortment of tasty veggie stuff. Ian had the Take box for $10.95, came with salmon teriyaki and salmon rolls + a whole ton of other tasty treats. Some ice cream on the house at the end.

They have improved since the last time we were there and are now officially veering back toward the yet to be posted "best of" list and are moving away from the also yet to be posted "wall of shame".

The only thing that I didn't like was the sushi making guys didn't yell out their typical hearty thank you/good bye thing at the end :(

Quaker Oat Farms

Today I went on a little kayak adventure to the Lower Head River near Orillia.

The river was not super exciting, but alright for the first run of the year.

Here's me in action in my hot new Dragorossi creeker. Ian says that I'm a big spender, but I don't think so since I bought the boat on sale for less than 1/2 price! All I had to do was melt down some latches and straighten them out!

Anywho, the whole point of this story is that at the put-in there is a small farm that takes in abused animals and stuff like that. They have a small cafe/bakery/candy/gift shop that has lots of very cool gifts. For a mere $1, I picked up a super duper tasty buttertart! Mmmm.....just like Lana B's tarts. So if you are ever in the area hit up highway 45 towards Seabright. You won't be sorry.