nighttime, Vancouver

We're endlessly awed and infatuated with the views from our condo in Vancouver. Part of the reason why we bought it, of course.

Conrad snapped these a couple of nights ago.

hanging out with Greer(io) (and Anya!)

9:38 AM PST, and already we've been in the Maple Leaf Lounge at YVR for a good 3/4 of an hour. Why did that last sentence look like I used the AOL Translator on it? Hmm, let's try it: 938 M PST AND ALREADY WEVE BAN IN DA MAPL3 L3AF LOUNGE AT YVR FOR A GOD 3/4 OF AN HOUR!!1!!1!1 OMG LOL

Okay, maybe not. But we are trapped here for a little while as our 10:35 flight is now departing at 1:15. I may miss part of the celebrations of this Gay High Holy Day - how will I keep up on the Oscars gowns if I don't see the red carpet?

Back to proper blogging now with some recounting of time spent with Greer and her friend Anya here in Vancouver the past couple of days. They're probably back in Terrace already given their early flight, darn them.

I was tempted to call this entry "The Curse of Conrad". He, Marie, and I all joke about this thing that happens to Vancouver whenever he's in town: good weather. Oh, a slight drizzle almost every morning, but it's horizon to horizon blue sky out there right now. Not a curse, then, but something that seems to take place each time he's in town. I think I saw a sign on the Arthur Laing Bridge saying "Come back soon, Conrad". So it was on Friday when we set out late in the morning to meet up with Greer and Anya downtown. Sunny skies above the nearby train/bus terminal. and from the Sky Train station we had a terrific view of the Olympic Village construction and the mountains that seem to anchor Main Street.


Things were no less lovely downtown. We headed for the Hotel Vancouver, our meeting point.


This was our first time meeting Anya, and she bore up under the burden of me and Greer catching up on all the Terrace gossip well. Lunch was at Cassis Bistro on Pender Street - Conrad and I have enjoyed it a few times now.


I can't honestly recall what the filling in Anya's crepe was. It was the lunch special, and she enjoyed it, but I'm blanking, sorry.

My BLT. I wasn't a fan of the open face lay out, to be honest, but I will say that the roasted tomatoes were terrific.

Greer and Conrad each had the salad nicoise. I'm too lazy to put the cedilla on the c, sorry.We washed it all down with a bottle of Averill Creek Pinot Noir, and declined dessert in favour of picking up a small treat at a bakery in Chinatown later.

Conrad and I managed a short swim yesterday morning, then met up with the ladies to head over to Granville Island. I raced through the market picking up items for cooking dinner, then escaped back to the condo for a while without them. Greer and Conrad eventually picked me up for lunch in Chinatown, then we took her for one of our favourite coffees. Greer, I do believe, was impressed and delighted.

The two women came over for dinner last night. We spared them the indignity of photographing every minute of our time together - no shots of the rabbit I cooked, for example - but we did take a few shots as the evening wound down. The dessert/cheese course, for example. We sat in the living room area, sipped Brandenburg No. 3, ate some fregolata and kick-ass cheese from Poplar Grove, and otherwise settled into a happy, silly, relaxed kind of space.


I feel overindulged this weekend, and I am loath to go home, I admit. Blame the weather. Darn that Conrad!

C

The last time Greer was in Vancouver - at least a couple of years ago, as we learned - she dined at C and ranked it as the best dining experience in her recent memory. She's since been quite keen to meet up with us in Vancouver so that we could all dine there together.

If you ask Conrad what his best meal ever has been, he would have to tell you that Sooke Harbour House in 2003 is it. Honesty compels me to admit that he's right. But any reader of ths blog will know that neither he nor I shy away from giving another restaurant a crack at that title. We opentabled a Friday reservation at C, and met Greer and her friend Anya there at 6:45.

It's a handsome, modern room, though negotiating the stairs up and down on trips to the washroom given the wine pairings was slightly nervewracking. Ah well. We met the ladies at a table by the window - Greer and Anya had snared the seats facing False Creek while Conrad and I got to watch the room slowly fill (and empty some - we were there for 3 and a half hours) around us. Settled in, we commenced.

All of us opted for the 6 course tasting menu with wine pairings. There is a 10 course option, but we weren't quite THAT ambitious. One thing I greatly liked about the service was that the waiter happily worked with us to change the wine pairings so that all wines would be BC. It's a thing Conrad and I have when we're in BC - other than an occasional Mission Hill icewine, we can't get any of our back home favourites in Chicago. Anya and Greer agreed to go along with this, and I think we did quite well. As much as I can, I'll indicate the wine pairings since they weren't written out for us.

Up first: Kusshi Oyster, Granville Island sake marinade, watermelon radish. The pairing was the Sumac Ridge, Steller's Jay BrutWhat was cool was that this was the first time Anya had ever had a raw oyster. I think she liked it, which is great. The wine was a fine pairing. The course was small, and thinking back, it was a clean, simple starter to what turned out to be a very smart and well-executed progression.

Second course: Sablefish Escabeche, warm pickles, red pepper "whip". The pairing was the Joie Noble Blend, a wine that Greer and I almost worship.The richness of the sablefish (black cod) was cut nicely by the acids in the dish. We weren't sure if the Joie paired especially well, but we love the wine, so it mattered less. Before this course came out, the waiter brought the wines and gave me, instead of the Joie, a pour of a Gehringer Brothers ice wine. I was having the foie gras instead of the lobster bisque, and the ice wine was the pairing in lieu of a Sauternes. Shortly before the sablefish arrived, he returned with a pour of the Joie for me, apologized for having skipped ahead a course, and told me that he would bring me a fresh pour of the ice wine with the foie gras. I was very very far from displeased!

Third course (for everyone but me): Lobster Bisque, candy smoked salmon, thyme froth. Photos before and after the bisque was poured in to the bowl at the table. The pairing was the Cedar Creek Estate Select Chardonnay.


My third course: Seared Foie Gras, keremeos quince, crispy bread pudding. Was the bread pudding done with or in brown butter? It had that wonderful nuttiness from brown butter, I swear. Or maybe I had had too much ice wine by then. Everyone tasted the foie gras, of course, and it was the second thing at dinner that Anya was trying for the first time ever.

The fourth course was the one we all loved most, and as we got looser, happier, sillier with the wines, it provided us with a running joke the rest of the night. So good, though, that there are two photographs. Bayne Sound Scallop, octopus bacon wrap, warm Summerland apple salad, black truffle gastrique.
Anya didn't realize that the bacon was made from octopus, and that launched us into running hilarity over wanting more bacon. In fact, we all did. Seriously. A bowl of more octopus would have been most welcome. This was an outstanding course, and I'm sorry I cannot recall what the wine pairing was save that I suspect it may have been the Cedar Creek Pinot Noir. Hmmm.

Fifth course: Muscovy Duck Breast, crispy leg confit, glen valley butternut squash, sage jus. At first this seemed like a come down from the scallop, and maybe it was, but judged alone, it was greatly successful. The confit was dubbed a "duck tot" by the next morning. I think that the pairing was the Monster Vineyards Merlot. Or it may have been the aforementioned Cedar Creek. I know we had each, but the order escapes me.

We were happy, you can see!


The last course from the tasting menu: St. Dominique Chocolate Parfait, raspberry stuffed "beignet". That little streak? Vanilla bean-flecked honey. Irresistible - we dipped fingers in and licked. And then we remembered our table manners. It was paired with a Gehringer Brothers late harvest dessert wine.

So, six courses, and all were terrific. Such a good night. And not yet done. Did they have cheeses, we wondered? Oh yes. And so it was that a selection of four was presented:
White Grace, Moonstruck, Saltspring Island; Belle Anne, Hillary's, Vancouver Island; Blue, Poplar Grove, Naramata; Camembert, The Farmhouse, Agassiz.

All BC, so we each had another glass of wine (BC wine!) to go with it. Do not ask me to recall all of them. I can only tell you that I had the Joie Rosé.

Greer, if you read this, I have to apologize: the meal did not outdo Sooke Harbour House. But goodness, what an excellent evening. I think we all had an immensely good time, and perhaps we should all save our nickels and dimes for a return visit!

contented

Nope, not drunk. Well fed and watered (so to speak). Happy. We've had a bloody good time tonight, dining at C. Too many photos to deal with tonight, so just this for now: double fisted ice wine, thanks to a mix up by our waiter on the 6 courses/wine pairings. Gee.

To bed soon. I think I shall sleep very well tonight....

magnificent late winter day

It's just gone 7:00 here in Vancouver, and I'm parked once again over at Safari Cafe. Adam just brought over my first artfully-foamed coffee of the morning. Outside Main Street is alive, and a yellowy-orange streak is on the low east horizon. Conrad is in bed (was there any doubt over that?), so I have some time to myself to blog.

The forecast for today is a little grey, a little wet. The memory of yesterday will keep me going through any dreary weather, though. Good gosh! I wrote last weekend about a gloriously sunny (if cold) day in Chicago, but yesterday topped it because

• I'm on vacation
• It was several degrees above freezing
• Things are in bud and bloom here

Yes, in bloom.
Flowering cherries or plums or something - I can't tell which, so if Jeph will chime in with his gardening expertise, I'd be grateful. We saw this tree (and a few nearby with some blossoms) outside the Aquatic Centre when we went for a morning swim. We were already enjoying the morning, and this was a further highpoint.

We were pretty good about enjoying the day outside overall. It's about a two-mile walk along the Sea Wall on the north shore of False Creek from our place to the pool. We dawdled the whole time, taking photos and admiring the condos. And my gosh, is it ever a thrill to see some dozen cranes all in the vicinity of the Olympic Village construction site.

After our swim, we crossed by ferry to Granville Island and settled on a simple lunch at Bridges.
From there it was on to browse some First Nations arts before picking up foodstuffs for making dinner. All of this, in fact, took a couple of hours - we really were in no hurry. Once home, I set to work cookingand Conrad relaxed with a bookbefore going for a walk about Chinatown.Dinner - pork tenderloin - was a bit early,and we could see the mountains to the north as we ate.
The sun went down,and we went off to Theatre Sports on Granville Island.

A big dinner tonight. Greer is in town, and we have plans to dine at C. I have high hopes. In the meantime, I'll get back to my hardcore vacationing....

two Vancouver meals

A lighter, less reflective posting, and back to the whole "this is what we ate" thing I load this blog with. Two meals from today (breakfast, such as it was, involved a muffin-y thing and some coffee): lunch at Brioche and dinner at Wild Rice.

Lunch was a nice, leisurely, casual meal wherein we caught up with Chris.4 and a half years or so since last we saw him, by my reckoning, and since then he had moved from TO to Ottawa and now to Vancouver. He chose Brioche,and we wisely got there well enough before noon to grab a table.

I didn't photograph his food, but by gosh did his potato soup smell marvellous. Gorgonzola and steak flavoured the thick liquid, and the scent was rather like terrific, woodsy mushrooms.

Conrad opted for the BLT caesar salad with tiger prawns.Sounds like hell, somehow, but he liked it.

Mine was a roast beef and gorgonzola panini with green salad on the side.It was a substantial lunch, very good, and though I couldn't finish it all, we did share a couple of desserts.

Most of all, though, it was just good to catch up with Chris, and we'll look forward to seeing him again on future visits here.

No photos of the afternoon activities, so let's just say that Ming Wo got a nice chunk of our time and money! More stuff to crowd into the condo kitchen. Poor Marie.

We met Stephen and Jenny for dinner at Wild Rice. I'd dined there about a year ago, and thought it was pleasant but perhaps promised more than it delivered, mostly because of a dessert none of us liked. Still, the savouries were fine then, and I had high hopes for tonight. A glass of the Township 7 '06 Semillon, and it was on to some shared plates of Chinese/"Chinese" food.

Not all the photos turned out - I was trying not to spend too much time photographing every last thing too many times - and among them was my favourite item, the pan fried chili squid on cold crab noodle. A little sweet and with a good kick. Tasty! We also had a bowl of wild mushroom sweep (local wild mushroom and asparagus chow mein). No good photo of that one either.

So then...

Rare albacore tuna pistachio vinaigrette, micro greens

Lamb shank crispy wontons pickled plum chutney

Pan roasted halibut cheeks beet dumpling, salsa verde

Rock prawn wonton soup

Maui ribs on a coriander white bean puree - a new item not shown on the menu

All of it sounds like a lot, but we soldiered on and managed a couple of desserts to share:Asian pear dumpling, star anise caramel and vanilla tofu "ice cream". Can I say - kindly - that these were like really great MacDonald's apple pies? No, I mean that as a compliment, truly. Also, a chocolate and mango torte, green tea jelly, and condensed milk chantilly. Subtle. Not bad.

Again, another meal highlighted by the company, getting to catch up with Stephen and Jenny,whom we last saw on American Thanksgiving over dinner at their home. It was a lovely night, not too late, and seeing the lunar eclipse on our walk to the restaurant was a great bonus.

Conrad, by the way, is a little teapot, and I love him for it.

back in Vancouver

I like to think that at this point of my life, I'm a city person, an urban creature. Over 7 years in Chicago, 2 years before that in Montreal. That's many millions of people to be living among. And yet, here I am, back in Vancouver, and I still get this same reaction, a remnant from childhood days: man, this is a BIG city!

I'm still a little wowed and intimidated by Vancouver, though I have come to love it. I won't say I know it, yet, however. I know a few restaurants, a shop or two, the view from condo,the coffee shop across the street. I was born here, but while I was still an infant (waaaaay back in 1971), we moved to Smithers, up north. 6 months in 1975-76 of living in Calgary almost doesn't count, somehow, and I finished my formative years in Terrace, a town a little bigger than Smithers but even now has not much more than ten thousand in population.

So there: I'm a small-town boy deep down. I masquerade as an urbanite, but put me back in a one-stoplight town, and I could make do nicely. I chose UVic for undergrad because Victoria is a modest-sized city. I chose McGill for grad school in part because UBC and Vancouver scared me.

I have grown to love this city, though. Slowly, but inevitably. It helps that Conrad loves the city immensely. Through him, I get to see the city a little differently, and as I interpret BC and Canada for him, I get more appreciation for this city.

The coffee at Safari helps!

I'm up early here (relatively speaking - before 7:00 PST, but Conrad is still abed), and before Conrad gets out of bed and gets over to the coffee shop, I'm reflecting a bit, sipping a bit, and dreaming of the four vacation days ahead. I may live the "lifestyle" even, I'm in such a good mood. But ultimately, I'm just feeling comfortable and happy being here, the first of a handful of trips up this year. Chicago? That's home, assuredly. But it's not Vancouver, and as I grow up more and more, I begin to better understand what that means.

Still more baking

It's just been one of those weekends where all my pent-up need to mix up things with sugar, butter, and eggs gets released. Today's result: two more batches of cookies.

I kind of like these ones: golden raisin and walnut cookies.I'm especially fond of dried fruits, and walnuts have been something of an obsession of mine for several months now. The cookies were fairly simple to make,and I didn't need to go buy anything special beyond what I had in my cupboards and fridge. I've eaten a few and snacked on too much dough,and I'm consequently feeling a little pudgy now. To the pool early in the AM with me!

I started some biscotti before lunch. Again, a dried fruit and nut theme: cranberry and pecan biscotti. What drew me to the recipe as well was the use of semolina in the dough. I thought that might give the cookies a certain something. I got a log put into the oven and took it out right before I set lunch on the table.

Lunch. Simple stuff. I'd call it healthy but for that lovely little chunk of goat cheese on each plate.


Back to the biscotti, and after the log had cooled some while, I carefully sliced it, put the slices back on the cookie sheet, and popped it into the oven. The result looks fine enough,
but I'm not sure I'll revisit this recipe. The flavour is a little plain aside from the cranberry, and the cranberries have a habit of trying to escape from the baked cookies. If I do attempt it again, I'll play with it some. Two logs from the dough instead of one, and smaller resultant cookies, perhaps. They'll do for now, though.

addendum

Laundry is in the dryers, and we're back from a Starbucks run. Yesterday's glorious winter afternoon has melted - literally - into this morning's dripping dreariness. Oh, it's fine. Not as pretty, I concede, but not a hardship either. Befitting of Sunday morning in February.

Scenes from a winter afternoon

Wow, I'm a blogging fiend today. Or is that "fool", not "fiend". No matter.

Not much commentary to this, merely some photos from a stroll this afternoon. I don't have Jeph's eye for a good shot, nor do I have the scenery he boasts in his backyard, but being out in Lincoln Park nearby was its own little pick-me-up after I'd done my baking. Alas, the battery on the camera died before we could take too many photos, but maybe that's to the advantage of anyone reading this!









The scent of nutmeg from the butter tarts sitting nearby is slightly maddening....

Canadian baking

Get it? Huh? Huh? Get it?

Sorry, bad punnery. Simply referring to one of the two things I made this afternoon: butter tarts.One of those quintessentially Canadian things to me - people here get such an odd look on their faces when I mention them. They can't seem to fathom them at all. So much the better for the Motherland - something special we can confine to our Tim Horton's!

Tim Ho's, by the way, does a better job with these than I do. So does my Mum, whose recipe I was relying on. Does she use dark brown sugar? How does she get hers to behave differently and look differently? Mine taste alright, but they aren't right. It's moderately frustrating, and redeemed only by the fact that Conrad can take them in to work, and his colleagues will have nothing to base them against.

I also made a batch of cookies; in fact, I made them first.Oatmeal cookies with dried apricots and pistachios. The dough tasted good, and they smelled wonderful while baking. We'll see how they go over on Monday with the people we give them to.

so that was Valentine's Day

It's not that I go all out and try to do a super duper Valentine's Day, but it was kind of a letdown this year. Blame the week we've had, blame the dining experience. We hardly suffered, but it's telling that I came home from dinner, got into bed, and read until I turned out the light.

We really should have known better, in a way. I worked in a restaurant for years, and I can tell you that from the operational side of things, it's a lousy day to have to work. All couples. Specials and special menus. Gimmicks for food (food tinted pink or red, chocolate everything). Customers who don't normally dine out so fancily (!!), so they don't know their obligations as diners (and I can tell you, the customer has a responsibility for his or her dining experience as well).

Wow, I sound bitter.

Anyway, we opted for Bin 36, a place we like and have gone to a number of times. We had some gift cards to use, so it made sense. Wine, cheese, some good food, easy to get to on the way home from work.

The first odd thing to me was the table. Close to the entry, in the area I think of as the cafe area, though I know there's no such thing. Instead of being in the area beyond the bar that's a little more serene and has windows overlooking Dearborn (not a great view, but world watching, at least), I had traffic constantly passing behind me. I could have asked for another table, I know.

Conrad arrived. He was fine at that point, but the week had taken its toll. By the time we were on the first glass of the flight and he'd opened the gift I got him,
he was beginning to check out mentally. Tired, weary, stressed out, he was - sorry to say - poor dinner company. He knows it, he's sorry for it, but there it is.

We each had the Pinot Noir flight, which included a rosé cava, a white Pinot Nero, and two delicious reds. That was good. They also paired decently with the food, which we did enjoy:

My appetizer of Crispy Duck Hash and Sunnyside Up Egg (bitter green salad, pepitas, duck cracklins’, lemon vinaigrette).

Conrad's Oysters on the 1/2 Shell (champagne mignonette).

We both had the same entrée, the Pan Seared Atlantic Monkfish (braised black kale, cipollini onions, smoked ham hocks, pork jus).I asked for another piece of bread to mop up the sauce. Pork products rock!

And then it was time for dessert. The waiter brought menus, and we asked instead for the cheese list. Bin 36, you see, is known for its selection - we were either going to order a flight of cheeses of their design, or put together our own. No cheeses that night, we were told. And that kind of killed it there. Conrad couldn't muster enough energy to be interested in dessert, not even the chocolate. We gave our regrets to the waiter, but didn't tell him we'd be walking up to Whole Foods to buy some cheese and a bottle of wine there to take home.

I think the entire meal was done inside an hour, but I didn't time it. There was the faint feeling of rushing us through that we felt after the fact. When next I want to dine at Bin 36, I think I'll check first that there will be cheeses at the least, and fuss over the table if it's not too busy.

So, that was Valentine's Day. An unfortunately (if understandably) listless boy friend and a restaurant experience that left us (me especially) feeling not all that romantic. Maybe it's better to say that it was simply dinner out on a Thursday night and that the simple soup and salad I put together last night was our romantic meal together for the week.

-11 is the new -3

We were to bed early last night, and after a good, long night of sleep it was up a bit before 7 (on a Saturday - scandalous to some of our friends, I know) and time for some cereal. When I came out of the bedroom and caught a glimpse outside, I thought, "Colder out today."

You know how it is - there's a particular look to things when it's cold.
The blue of the sky, perhaps? The way smoke rises into the sky? The ice on the lake in the distance? I checked Yahoo weather a short time ago. The forecast was for a low of -3 Celsius, but the reading at O'Hare at 6:51 this mornings was -11. Hmmm.

But we are cozy in our home, thanks to the generators parked in our driveway. 3 of them, I think. Or is it four. Forgive the streaky windows at this time of year: here's a look at what is letting us live here.
Conrad finds the constant thrum difficult to sleep with, and he's using ear plugs. I fall asleep to them easily - they are white noise to me, and I can be lulled easily. We leave for Vancouver on Tuesday, and we can expect the generators to be in place until after our departure.

Meanwhile, it's 7:41, and - shockingly - this man has not gone back to bed until time to go to swim practice!

simple dinner

And the last word on the weekend fire (no, really, I will try to make this the last word - move on folks, nothing to see): cooking again in my own kitchen! Hooray!

Of course, time constraints, less to work with, blah blah blah. Conrad did the shopping, and much as I love the man, he's NOT the cook in the family. But he did fine by picking up a couple of chicken breasts. The final result: baked chicken with asparagus and a butternut squash puree. It's a simple dinner, but decent. The chicken breasts get marinated for a while with lemon, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, and thyme. When they are ready, there are hidden little studs of salty, tangy garlic. Yum!

The remnants of an Andezon 2006 Côtes-du-Rhône, some sparkling water, and we were set!

We. Are. Home. (yay!)

The title gives away the main news: we are back in our condo. We have heat, we have hot water. We have an empty fridge. I hate wasting food,but we simply had no way of knowing what temperatures things were at for the 3 days, and there was some evidence with the meat in the freezer of thawing and refreezing. So long to everything, then. I was ruthless.

We were back and forth a bunch yesterday, and I told Conrad I'm a little weary of travel on the Red Line.




It is good to be home, though. I have Project Runway on tonight, Conrad did all the laundry while I was at work, and we'll enjoy a simple dinner of some baked chicken with squash puree and asparagus.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the gaybourhood, it was Yoshi's birthday last night. The regulars gathered, cheered the man, and enjoyed his food.I know, I know, that sounds wrong somehow. But my lamb chops were mighty good, I tell you!As was Conrad's salmon, of course.Bonus: Chris is back working there: Tuesday nights only, but still. Good to see him!

Vermilion

In fact, there are some good things about being away from our neighbourhood. Goodness knows that we are huge fans of Yoshi's (and we did have brunch there today), but it is good for us to try other restaurants as well. Have some good new food and experiences, and in the process, we learn not to take the familiar for granted (or so we hope).

Relocated to River North, we pondered our dining options earlier this evening. Thanks to Opentable.com and the opportunity to get 1000 points for a meal, we opted to go one block over to Vermilion. I can't say as I've really heard anything about this place. I don't know anyone who has dined there and told us about it. The menu online looked interesting, though, and the location was terrific for us. We set up a 6:30 dinner.

Let's dispense with the odd, off, or bad. The room seems like it needs a little more something. It's too stark and seems either unplanned or unfinished. Just a little more flourish - flowers on the table, a bit of colour or print in the tablecloths - would do the trick. It was quiet when we arrived save for a loud group of UVa alums in a curtained off area, so we were the objects of overwhelming attention by the waiter. Seriously, we thought it endearing that he would describe so many menu items at such length, but hey, he has to sell us stuff. He deserves a tip. We would have preferred a little less, but we didn't begrudge him it, and overall we thought the waitstaff was quite friendly.

I think we would go back, though. It wasn't the cheapest meal (though not the priciest ever, either), but the menu was loaded with intriguing combos. Some sounded like they shouldn't work (a Latino/Indian fusion), but mostly they did. We'd just like to try some of the other items when we're a little hungrier.

We opted for small plates to share so that we could get a nice variety. I started with a glass of the A to Z Pinot Gris, and Conrad had the first of two glasses of the Mont Gras Carmenere(I had a glass of it after I had the Pinot Gris). The food, then:

Artichoke pakoras with an eggplant chili coconut sauce.Nicely salty, and the little bits of pickled pepper added some good zing.

Blue corn crusted scallops on a kali mirch latin calabasa goat cheese puree.The pakoras were better, but this was quite decent.

Mint-ginger tropical ceviche bejeweled with passionfruit cumin piloncillo.Bejewelled is THEIR description. I didn't detect the passionfruit at all, to be honest, but there was a good amount of seafood included, the cherry peppers were a great accompaniment, and the slivers of ginger were a good touch.

Chili mussels in a coconut cilantro sauce infused with curry leaves and mustard seeds.We should have had some bread or rice. We slurped up the broth directly. Mussels? Who cares?! The broth was terrific!

A side of garlic spinach. Fine, not overwhelmingly garlicky.

Chicken kabab and minced lamb kebab.Served with a carrot and radish salad. The mango and jalapeno chutney drizzled over had some kick. I thought these were a little plain and boring.

Shahi tukra.This is the item that clinched it for us. I told one waiter it needs to come with a privacy screen so that patrons can lick the bowl clean of the saffron and cardamom sauce. Bread studded with pistachio, fried crisp and placed in the sauce. Just superb.

I'm curious now about the entrees we didn't try: the goat, the butter chicken, the tamarind-glazed ribs among others. I hope we get back there one day, and when they do, that dessert darn well better be on the menu still!

"home"

Let's think of this as lemonade - when life hands you and all that sort of thing, you know....

We've taken up temporary residence at the Hampton Inn and Suites downtown. Good as it is to know we can rely on our many friends, it's also good not to impose on them. So it's like a little vacation in Chicago, except that we're going to work all week.

I haven't stayed in a hotel in the city since June 2000 when I interviewed for my first position here. How funny.





A pleasant little one-bedroom suite (bigger than at least two apartments I've rented at earlier times in my life) with some views new to us. Those corncobs poking up?Marina City. The shiny building going up?The new Trump tower, whatever its proper name may be. Down below?The backsides of surrounding buildings and an alley.

I think it will be an early bedtime tonight....

Displaced

The important thing to emphasize is that Conrad and I are fine, and that a small number of people only had very minor injuries.

This was our yesterday, post-swimming:


An electrical fire in the building - more smoke than anything else by what we experienced - happened at lunch time. Power in the building was knocked out, and people were evacuated. We grabbed some essentials before we left and got over to the Center on Halsted/Whole Foods to figure out what was what.

No power meant no one could stay in the building overnight. Temperatures in the morning hovered around freezing, but the forecast was for a COLD Sunday. Already, it was cooling off mid-afternoon, and a flurry quickly passed through.When I checked the weather online this morning, it was -19 Celsius. Whoa.

Many of our friends have checked in, and we're grateful for the offers of assistance and a place to stay. We've spent the night at Dave's place, not too far from the building. Some sushi, some wine, and we tried to keep our minds from fretting over what we might find today.
By 10, Conrad and I were drained, and it was to bed for us.

Conrad just called - he's at the unit. No smoke damage, happily, but because of ongoing problems with restoring power to the building, it may be days before we can return. He's picking up additional clothing and other things for us. An interesting weekend for us, it might be said.

And one more from the archives...

... our first public appearance as a couple. Sort of. I mean, we'd been dating for a month, and they weren't just stay-at-home-cook-dinner dates. But at the Smelts' Thanksgiving dinner banquet in 2001, Conrad and I came as a couple, outing ourselves to the team.

Or so we thought. It did take a number of months for some people to hop on the clue bus.



My that's a cheesy grin I'm sporting. Don't we look young? Wow.

Five years ago

Wow, that post title makes this sound like an episode of Heroes. Or maybe I really do need some sleep. By 2:00 I'll try again, but if not, I'm cracking open a book instead!

I haven't cooked much fun stuff lately, what with travel and catching up with the housework and the like. You can only see so many views from our windows of the snow and slush below. I don't have fresh material.

But I do have thousands of photos from the pre-blog years!

Five years ago I was in TO at this time, staying with Allison for a bit. And now look at her - all engaged to a really great guy and still lovely as ever. I'm happy that we'll get to see her and Sean this fall, though with the whirlwind of the wedding, there may not be the time for some of our old favourite things like The Bay.No matter. We can always have a good meal together (photos from a Greek place on the Danforth, taken during Winterlicious that year).


And I know Brenda will be most displeased with me for adding in this old photo of her with Allison!

I hope also to see Liza - an old high school classmate- and Sander - now a father! Wow. Time really does fly.

As for Chris,well, he's in Vancouver now, so with some luck we'll catch up with him when we're up there in a few weeks.

Why does it seem that all our trips to TO are now for weddings? I have the common western Canadian dislike/resentment of the place, but it's not too bad to visit, really. Oh, I cringe every time someone here says it's just like Chicago, only cleaner. I think TO is both more interesting in its greater population diversity and more boring in its effort to be the center of the universe. In any case, TO tries to be NYC instead!

Meditative waves

So here I am, sleepless on a Saturday night. Sunday morning now, in fact. Not good. I've written a few e-mails, played on Facebook, written a few postcards left over from the Hawaii trip, and drawn up the practice for Monday night's swim. And nope, not sleepy. Tired. Not sleepy. Hmmmm, snack or blog, snack or blog....

I think I'll troll for some older photos for another post, but for now, the last of the recent Hawaii trip and a video capture of some waves. Maybe this will put me to sleep....

This is me, on vacation

Yes, you think that it's all about dining out at fabulous places and taking photos to rub it in, but, in fact, I'm usually hooked up to the Internet back at the hotel room, surfing the day's news (and music charts from the UK, from the looks of the screen) before blogging for your enjoyment. Because it IS all about you, you know!

;-)




Photos from the recent Honolulu trip. That t-shirt both makes me smile and makes me want to go back to New Zealand again....

Tango Sur

Hey, I actually tried some place new in Chicago, and it's a place I think FXK may rather like. Tango Sur, over on Southport, is an Argentinean restaurant, so that means meat. It was, indeed, a protein-laden meal.

Conrad and I had plans to dine with Luis and Dan, with the idea that we'd share some nice red wine and eat some food alongside. Luis supplied a couple of bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon (including a Hess that I particularly liked for the fruit in it), and we settled down to some empanadas and charcuterie before the main courses.

I have to confess, the food wasn't as good as I'd hoped. Oh, I liked the chicken empanadas, and the ham was decent if kind of reminiscent of a pizza roll, but the beef was only okay. Simple salads came out next, nothing remarkable.

We ordered two dishes, each designed for two (the guys took the leftovers home). The one was the vacio, flap steak with sweet potatoes.It was kind of lukewarm, not really tender, and certainly not as flavourful as the garlicky whiff we got from an order passing by to another table earlier in the evening. I didn't eat the sweet potato, but Luis thought they were bland.

The other dish was a paradillada, mixed grill.The short ribs (I think) were a little togh but appealingly salty. The sweetbreads were not treated well, and Luis was put off by them being so chewy. It was his first time trying them, and I still don't think he believes me that they can be wonderful. I didn't taste the sausage or the blood sausage. Dan rather disliked the latter - I last had blood sausage in 2004 in Spain, I think, and I have grown not to like it.

I didn't really understand what dessert was, given the server's accent and the ambient noise. I will say that dessert redeemed the place for all of us. Actually, that makes dinner sound bad. It wasn't. It wasn't as good as we'd hoped, but the room was cozy, we had our own wines, and the bill for three of us was only a little over $100. Given all that - and the opportunity to see Luis (with whom I constantly, shamelessly flirt - he's such a sweetheart)
and Dan (who puts up with my flirtations and is, in fact, a real sweetie as well - too bad he's so reluctant to be photographed!)was well worth it!

Me/Conrad and reality

This is my reality today:

This is Conrad's reality today:Not quite fair, I know: he is at work today, it's just that work is in Hawaii rather than in The Loop.

I still love him madly.

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