Toronto felt a little bit like an episode of the Twilight Zone. No, not the one where all the streets have trams in them, or the one about the really freaking tall concrete structure that they charge $27 to let you go up (though those were both good), but the one where everybody disappeared.

Now, I should mention that we showed up in Toronto on Easter Sunday. Apparently that’s a popular time to sit at home and close your restaurant/pub/whatever. I honestly had no idea. About three-quarters of all the fine cantinas and trattorias we walked past were closed that night, though we wound up getting dinner and drinking a pretty decent pale ale at some pub that called itself the Firkin (I think in the general vicinity of University and Queen Street, but I don’t remember for sure. Let Google be your guide), and then hanging out at a jazz lounge called The Rex on Queen Street where the music was good and the beer was local. Neither establishment was even remotely full, though The Rex wasn’t bad for a Sunday night, I guess. Also, we saw lots of technially-dressed nineteen-year-olds (the temperature was about freezing), which served as a good reminder of Ontario’s drinking age.

The next day was just as strange though. We took lunch at the awesomely-named C’est What? down by the waterfront (craft brews = victory. I recommend this place enthusiastically.) — totally deserted. Around 11 PM we went out to the not-remarkable but not-bad Ben Wick’s out in Cabbagetown, and we were literally the only people in the place. It was seriously weird. They were open, and the bartender/waiter did a reasonable job of paying attention to us without always hovering over us (he gave us the hard sell on a South African shiraz, but it turned out to be really excellent, so I’ll forgive him), so it certainly wasn’t a bad experience, but I fail to understand how Toronto can be so empty.

By contrast, I recently wanted to go out for a drink here in Cambridge with about 5 friends at 9 on a Tuesday night. There was no place at Central Square we could get a table. We wound up walking back to campus and hanging out at one of the student-run dives. Cambridge may in fact have the busiest (weeknight) bars in the world, but it still makes seeing an empty bar weird.

People keep blogs so that they can confess the details of their lives to strangers, right? Well, here’s my confession: I don’t know much about wine.

White is cold and red isn’t. Most pinots beat most merlots. California is better than France is better than New Zealand is better than California (Wait, I forgot South Africa). Grapes and all that.

Make no mistake, there’s wine I like and wine I don’t like, and I definitely wouldn’t categorize myself as “not a wine person” — but at a restaurant I always try to find someone better-qualified to order wine.

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I had rooibos tea (pronounced roy-boss, or if you’re me, roo-bose) first during my grad school interviews (now that I think about it, that was a major turning point in my tea drinking habits…). Not actually from the tea plant, but instead the African red bush plant, grown in one small location in South Africa, this is considered an herbal tea.

The flavour is strikingly like a nuttier and lighter hybrid of black & white tea, but still yet unplaceably different. I’ve always had it in tea bag form, and my favorite brand of that is Twinings African Rooibos Red Tea (in fact, I’ve generally enjoyed everything from their Origins line, well, minus the Lapsang Souchong, but that’s really not their fault). I went through a half year phase where I had a cup of rooibos every night before bed, and knew I needed to run to the Upper West Side to stock up on tea whenever I got to my last box of rooibos.

So, of course, as part of my first order of loose-leaf teas from Adagio, I had to get a box of the rooibos and see how it compares. I tried it last, after I had tried the various green & black teas, nearly all of which had astounded me with their quality & taste. The rooibos? Not so impressed…

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Think Coffee
248 Mercer St @ 3rd St. (map)
New York, NY 10012
(212) 228-6226

Gtalk last night
Y: do we have our date tomorrow?
Y: i read reviews for think coffee
Y: apparently, you have to go early so you can go and “pretend to work”
Y: i challenge you to a 7:30 date
Me: …
Me: you’re trying to kill me

And this is how I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30AM and drank the best cappuccino I’ve ever had. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, I re-entered the high heeled shark-infested waters known as the New York dating scene… to the great delight of more geriatric friends who love to live vicariously through me. The gent & I were meeting up at Union Square and winging it from there, and being a 21st century woman and all, I figured I should contribute some ideas for dinner & a bar afterwards. A New Yorker friend recommended a hidden bar, Angel Share, haphazardly located in the middle of a busy Japanese restaurant.First of all, let me say… this is not a bar for first dates. Or second dates even. Unless you’re 100% sure you’re madly in love with this guy/gal. This bar has romantic down to an art form, to the point where you’re going to want to take your pants off, regardless of how unattractive, uninteresting and repulsive your date might be. It’s insta-hook-up in bar form.

Three restaurants, 1 bartender with a chip on her shoulder, 1 run-in with a friend, and a flight of stairs later, we found ourselves inside a sushi place, standing outside a wooden door that could’ve easily passed for the entryway to a storage cabinet

“Are you sure it’s here?” my date asked. “I’ve been to this restaurant a couple times and never noticed a bar.”
“No no,” I insisted. “My friend said it was completely unmarked.”
I opened the door…

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I can’t stand Gristedes. They’re overpriced, underwhelming, and manages to bring grocery shopping to a continual new low with every trip. But they are the closest grocery store to me, and my pets were hungry, so what else could I do? While browsing the frozen fruit section (because buying fresh melons every couple days for my millipedes is getting to be a bit of an annoyance), I noticed – Sierra Nevada’s spring seasonal beer!

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gramstand http://www.gramstand.com/

214 Avenue A (btwn 13th & 14th st.)
New York, NY 10009
East Village

hours (their words not mine ;))
M-F: 7:30am until rather late
Weekends: 9:00am until rather late

Review after the cut! Read the rest of this entry »

Despite Neil’s ardent protests to the contrary — I like Sam Adams. I enjoy it. It tastes delicious. I would order it at a bar. I would be happy if someone brought it to my place for a party (however, if you bring Heineken and you don’t drink all of it, I’ll have to start thinking of interesting steak marinades for it… and if you bring Bud Lite, that just means you hated me in the first place).

So, when Freshdirect offered a chance to sample 6 Sam Adams in one convenient 12pack for $16.99 of course I took it!

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Echoing Neil — there is paradise on earth. It’s called 112 beers on tap. And we have notes to prove it!

Suffering slightly from beer ADHD, we figured we’d go with 2 tasting flights to start the night. Which lead to another flight. Which lead to two very happy liquid bloggers. The following notes are in chronological order and are exactly what we wrote down in the bar — meaning you probably shouldn’t take the last couple seriously. (Also, we need to figure out a better notes taking system that doesn’t look like I’m listening to an organic chemistry lecture in the middle of a bar).

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I have a terrible impulsive of buying tea everywhere I go, even when I haven’t had good experiences with the particular merchant in question. This weekend, I found myself gaping at a whole wall of tea at the Edgewater Trader Joe’s and perhaps it was just the luxury of standing in a TJ’s without being shoved into walls by Manhattanite yuppies that pushed me over the edge of rational decision-making, but I ended up buying 2 packs of Trader Joe’s tea, even though my two previous TJ tea experiences have been bad, bordering on terrible. Ahh, why do I not learn from history @_@;;.

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