BBQ'ing Action

I went to Miriam's house for a potluck BBQ event last night. Was some all around good times, especially the marinated grilled veggies. Ian and I need a BBQ, so much tastier than oven type stuff! Too bad you can't even get a lawn chair onto our balcony :(

Italian Place in Hamilton

Today I went to our Hamilton office and went out for lunch with our entire steelmaking and casting crew. It sounds quite impressive, but really there are only three of us...

I forget the name, but it was an italian bistro kind of place on ottawa street near the industrial wasteland off the qew. I had some thin crust pizza with spinach, wild mushrooms and goat cheese. Very tasty!

Super - fun Jam Making Operation

Picked up some stawberries in chinatown and made a couple of batches of strawberry jam this weekend. Hopefully all goes well, I was too lazy to actually properly sterilize the jars and stuff, so ran them through the long dishwasher cycle and filled them with the jam when they were about halfway through the drying cycle. Am keeping the fingers crosses that I do not die from botulism! Ha ha!

The jam turned out a bit hard....not sure what the problem was??? Too much sugar, not enough fruit?? Hard to say...

Lana B, what's your advice???

The Pilot in Yorkville

I went to the ROM last night and then to the Pilot in Yorkville. The price at the ROM was right, free on Friday evenings! They seem to be undergoing some serious renovations and therefore the museum seemed a bit crappy and small, but I am thinking some of the wings were closed off.

Then it was off to Yorkville. The whole strip was rather busy, but we walked up to the roof of the Pilot and found a table. I shared a plate of nachos for about $11 and had two pints for $14, so a bit expensive, but pretty tasty overall. Yeah, that's about it. Sorry, not too exciting.

Overpriced Jays Food

They jays have been in town for the past week so I've gone to a couple of games. The food at the games is SOOO EXPENSIVE. Like $6.50 for a beer, $5 for popcorn, $3-4 for a pop! It's crazy!

What's even more crazy, is everyone seems to be snapping the stuff up. Last night, I sat behind this family of 6 who ordered two rounds of beers and hotdogs for everyone! That's like $100+ in snacks!

Anywho, I bring my own stuff, they don't seem to mind and don't even have the usual "No Outside Food" signs that most stadiums have.

Veggie Sushi Making

On Friday night I had some people over and we made some sushi. The squash tempura turned out very tasty and was really good with avocado....just like new gen. At the start of the night, I demoed how to make the sushi and my roll turned out a bit ripped up and mishapen! Then, the rest of the gang ended up making perfect looking rolls and seemed to know more about the whole process than I did! Stuff like what side down you were supposed to put the seaweed...that sort of thing. They were even making handrolls and the like. All very impressive.

Pizza Pizza = not so good

Not that this is news to anyone, but pizza pizza does not make a very good pizza. Aceeptable at best. I swung by on the way home from the doctor today and had a slice of cheese. It only slightly cheered my up after I found out my festering spider bite on my arm may have to be cut out/off if the anti-biotics do not cure me by Wednesday. I wish Ian were here, I think that's a visit I could use some moral support at! Ha ha!

On Fridays and Sundays if the Jays get 7 strikeouts and you happen to have a ticket, you can go and pick up a free slice the following Monday. Overall I would upgrade the pizza to "Tasty" but only because it is such a great value.

Una Mas - Una Más Vez

Sundays are nice at the Una Mas near work because it less crowded. Empty in fact so they bring the food out to you. Quite fancy. Like a "sit-down" restaurant but without the tipping that everyone dreads. Anyway I had the flautas puebla to try something different instead of burritos. They were alright. I think I prefer the burritos and of course the helping of tortilla chips that you get with the burritos. I did enjoy that the flautas came with rice. A knife and fork meal has it's place

Not much to report/Ian's fault

Not very much eating out lately for me, although Ian eats out a good once/day and yet does not post!

Am having some people over for a vegetarian sushi making event...will update tomorrow on how it goes!

Blue Mango

This is Janice, back in Toronto. Ian and I went out to Blue Mango in San Jose. Pretty tasty stuff with the two person combo....4 appetizer platter, pad thai, curry tofu and mango samosa ice cream with choice of tea, all for $30. Brown or white rice included. Now, if we could just find a place like this in Toronto....

Uno Mas

One again, this is Janice. I met Ian for lunch yesterday and we went to his favorite cal-mex place - Uno Mas. After being disapointed by the squash burrito, I went for roasted veggie. It was very tasty with some guac, beans, rice etc and was pretty light on the cheese. As usual, included a side of chips and acess to the all you can eat salsa bar...mmmmm. Ian went with the bbq chicken and it seemed to be pretty good.

Really more food that one normal person can eat for about $5. Next time, I'm going for the kid sized bean and cheese burrito or perhaps the kids quesidalla...

Boudin

This is Janice again. I was in SF today and planned on going to Alcatraz but it was all sold out to Sunday :(

To make up for it, I went for a tour of Boudin, some sort of famous bakery on Fisherman's wharf. The tour was a pretty crappy self guided type of thing, but there was lots of tasty samples awaiting me at the end of the tour! Better yet, the attendee was talking to some other people, so that meant lots and lots of good stuff! Fantastic deal for only $3. Highly recommended for lunch or a rather large snack!

Reno and Lake Tahoe

This is actually Janice, I can just never remember my password to log on.

Ian and I went on a gambling/hiking junket this past weekend to Reno and Lake Tahoe. The lake was pretty cool with some nice hiking and swimming type activities. Reno, as expected, was a bit on the trashy side of things and Ian thought it was a pretty inferior vegas. We experienced some pretty major losses and ended up about $2 down on the weekend.

For food, we hit up a cheap mexicain that Ian classified as "Mex Mex". Usually he goes to Uno Mas which is apparently "Cal Mex" and tends to focus on burrito. The other type is "Tex Mex" which is more about the fajita. So anywho, this "Mex Mex" place in Tahoe was pretty good and alot of food for about $4-5 per person.

The other places weren't very noteworthy, although we did go to the Circus Circus restaurant breakfast buffet. Alot of disgusting food for my $8. Good potatoes and that's about it. Lot's of deep fried and mystery items out there. Pretty good value though as I then skipped lunch and only ate a light dinner.

So that's the story. Off to San Fransisco tomorrow, so should have something exciting to write about! Yeah!

Lack of blog updates :(

Sorry gang, not too many updates with Ian outta town. I think Ian is the real one to blame here, he goes out for lunch everyday but yet nothing on the blog!

What does everyone think, should we get Jackie to join our blog and update on Korean food stuff???

Week Long Kayak Marathon

I just got back from 6 days of kayak action. The real star of my camping cooking was a home-made egg mcmuffin.

Toast up a mini whole wheat pita break pita or two, scramble an egg or two with salt and pepper, layer eggs between pita with a slice or two of black diamond cheddar cheese slices. Good for really any meal! Mmmm....no more eggs till next year.......

Royal Canadian Yacht Club

The regional and world directors and managers from my group were in town for a strategy meeting, so everyone was invited for a cruise around the Toronto Harbour and a BBQ at the Royal Canadian Yacht club. It was SUPER fancy and the food was pretty decent! Better yet, it was all free.....

Not that great for the veggie eaters, but I definately did not go home hungry. The meet eaters had lots of stuff: chicken, salmon, steaks etc...mmmmmm......

Olive Garden

Back when we lived in Edmonton, Ian and I were somewhat obsessed with this place and would go a few times a year. In Ontario, they used to have the Olive but they have pretty much packed it in here and the nearest one is in Buffalo.

So anyway, to make a long story short, Ian and I went a few weekends ago in California. It was a gross amount of not very good food. So yeah, I don't miss the Olive as much as I thought that I would. Maybe I could eat more food in my younger days and it was better value?

If you still happen to live in E-town, go for Chianti or Fiore...mmmmm....

Weekend Stuff

I went for some brunch to Scruffy Murphys in the Yonge and Eglinton area yesterday morning. Alright food for some good prices. The soccer fans were out and going hard with the liquor and pancakes at 11 AM!

Decided to go to new gen today for lunch and the yam maki was tasty. I seem to get the same waitress and I'm not sure she understands the difference between tea and water, but I will not hold that against new gen! Yummy food for $8 including tax and tip.

Burritos

One thing that Toronto lacks is an adequate supply of burritos. Sure there are places like burrito boyz but they're overpriced and they charge EXTRA for guacamole. To make things worse they don't really have many choices for burritos. Here in California though burrito supply is definitely not an issue.

I've been eating them 3-5 times a week while here. My favorite chain is una mas. They offer some very tasty offerings. Janice tried a squash one and wasn't super impressed but I've been impressed with all the meaty ones I've tried. From this trend, we can finally conclude that eating meat is by far the smartest course of action? As the months go buy I will review each of the burritos

As an added bonus, the una mas's seem to have free internet ( I think). The signal is weak in the parking lot when I tried but I assume it's fine in the store. Although I've never seen anyone there with a laptop and burrito?

Yummy Pasta

I am normally not a big Italian fan, but decided to cook up some past tonight.

Here's what I did:

Olive oil + garlic + onion + red pepper flakes -> low heat 10 min
Toss in a bunch of rehydrated sun dried tomatoes + some liquid
Saute for a minute or two

Take off heat and add in chopped parsley, pine nuts, salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Toss with pasta and that's it! Super easy, but really really good!