Fast and Slow Lanes

Well this isn't directly food related, as I was eating my Pita Break apple Cinnamon breakfast pita with PC Dark Chocolate Spread and PC Decadent Chocolate chips (yes both) cooked on my George Foreman Grill, I noticed an interesting article in the Globe and Mail. London (the real one) is considering adding slow and fast lanes for pedestrians on Oxford Street which is apparently Europe's busiest. Now if only the Taste of the Danforth would be consider doing the same as I suggested.

Royal Ontario Golf Club

My company had their annual golf tournament last Friday. Not only did we get the day off, the whole thing was one incredible deal for the cheap person!

$40 got us....

Round of golf and cart ($109 value)
Driving range beforehand
4 pack of balls & tees
Royal Ontario Hat
Nike dri-fit golf shirt
Dinner with wine
Winners and big losers got a $25 gift card to LCBO!

We'll be back next year for sure!

Dinner was pretty decent - roast beef with all sorts of other good stuff. Dessert table was especially tasty!

Taste of the Danforth

I've tasted the Danforth a few times but it was Janice's first time when we went last Saturday. There isn't a lot to say about it. It was packed and every restaurant selling anything greek seemed to have massive lines. So we ended up hitting up some sushi places and thai places initially. They offered tasty food without the endless wait. I'm not sure why the lines were so long because as I've discussed before Greek isn't all that exciting. We couldn't leave without getting anything Greek in the end so we picked up a Gyro from some place whose name I have forgotten. It was more like a neighbourhood pub style place than a place focused on Greek food.

The big disappointment was crowd management (well the second biggest after the 8.40 in transit fare we had to shell out to avoid the traffic nightmare). In many (most?) places particularly around the Greek lines, the walking slowed to snail's pace so not surprisingly this drove me crazy. A collector and express system with some fences seems like it would be useful but I could see that not being a widely supported concept. Just like people think that baseball players shouldn't be replaced by robots. When will the masses learn?

The World's Easiest Chocolate Cake Recipe!

This is seriously easy and foolproof....try it tonight!

You should even have the ingredients on hand. From Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Book.





Oven - 375 F

In square cake pan mix:

1.5 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 cup sugar

Mix wet stuff:

1/2 cup veggie oil
1 cup cold water or chilled coffee
2 t vanilla

Add to dry and mix well.

Then stir in 2 T vinegar - cider or white. Stir just till mixed.

Bake 25-30 minutes till done!

The Keg

On Friday night Ian and I went all out and went to the Keg on York between Queen and King. Ian started with some deep fried calmari which was alright. I had a piece and was not a big fan.

Then we both had the 1/2 lobster and steak special done medium well. I had baked potato and Ian had some rice.

I have never really had lobster (due to the long term veggie thing) and I thought it was ok. It seemed like a lot of work for how much you really get out of it. The steak was alright, but seemed a bit tougher than I would have expected from the keg. The price was the biggest pitfall - $35!

We were not planning on having dessert, but the $5 brownie sundae convinced us to! Very tasty and about double the size of the equivalent DQ $5 treat.

In the end, the bill was about $100 including tax, tip and after my $20 keg shareholder gift card that came with the annual report.

For a similar price, I would just go to North 44 or equivalent next time. The entrees and appetizers are in the same price range, but North 44 is must tastier and nicer!

Ho Su

Ian and I went for a quick dinner tonight at Ho Su on Queen. All was delightful and cheap except for the tempura. Ian had some california roll/chiken teriyaki type item. I had veggie sushi combo. Total bill was $26 including t,t,t,s,s,e,m,b,k (tax, tip, tap water, soup, salad, edamame, mystery saucy veggie, beans, kimchee).

The poor customer service "Diet"

So this week I was in Hawkesbury working at a very exciting steel plant and thus had to frequent the local restaurants for meals.

Poor customer service prevented me from procuring some tasty fast food.

I stopped in at pizza pizza in town and there is one lady cleaning the bathrooms and the other guy cleaning out the drink cooler. The dude says something to me in french, I don't really speak but the gist of it was, just a minute. I say ok, but then wait about 5 minutes and finally walk out. It's been a while since I worked at DQ, but I think that serving customers in a timely fashion if more important than cleaning the joint!

One night I went to the Valleyfield River for some kayak action and stop in at McD's across the street for a drink. I wait about 5 minutes to get my order in, but then the pace is 1 car every 8 minutes or so. There was conveniently no porkchop between the order thingy and the food giver so I took off! It would have been like 5 cars x 8 minutes = 40 min? After 2 cars and 16 min wait I was fed up!

Caribana Disappointment

The city of Toronto seems to like to ruin weekends by shutting down major thoroughfares early and often. This week's reason was Caribana. After eventually making it back home from groceries despite the traffic chaos, I decided to check it out to see if it was worth the inconvenience.

The official website for Caribana is sparse on information like times and locations so I set out on Lakeshore until I hit the action. One of the primary motivations for going was to get lunch in the form of Roti. (This is a blog about food). Anyway I walked and I walked and eventually found a range of vendors set up and there was roti. But that's not the only thing that was there, they had also brought high prices. Now I guess the location is nice and convenient for watching the parade but I am fundamentally opposed to paying prices that are greater than or equal to restaurant prices. At the restaurant, the level of sketchiness is likely to be lower and they provide seating. Here there's none of that - no nice yellow or green dinesafe signs or any dedicated seating. And the final straw, many places weren't that busy. If it's not good enough for the locals, it's not good enough for me.

Non-food related notes of interest

• The parade itself was not stellar. "Floats" with prominent signs explicitly saying that "unauthorized personnel can not go on the float for insurance reasons" take a little bit away from the atmosphere. The thing that kills it more is that a bunch of floats would have this convoy of U-Haul's trailing behind. I'm not sure how these were connected to the main event. I guess we'll never know
• There seemed to be a complete lack of corporate give-aways aimed at buying my brand loyalty. My loyalty was left untouched so it looks like I'll have to stick to double bubble and milk-2-go.
• Advertising should consist of more than just whistling. A lot of the water sellers seemed to think using whistles was key and they were using them constantly. If I want overpriced water I'll stick with the quiet vendors

And where did I eat in the end you ask? I picked up a large pepperoni at Domino's. Total price 9.12 which is less than I would have paid at some of the stations and I'm having it for lunch and dinner.