Author: dinobutter

As you might imagine, we sophisti-kids are quite lucky to have lots of friends and family.  This means, of course, that we had a FEAST of delicious food for Thanksgiving.

Our main dishes included the obligatory poultry dish (that’s what mommy calls it), braised ribs, and grilled salmon.  Here are pictures of those dishes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our sides, we had mac-and-cheese, mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus (Karsen arranged the asparagus), cucumber salad,  chanterelle mushrooms, grilled zucchini, grilled chayote, grilled tomatoes, and pomegranate.  This is what they looked like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course ever feast needs dessert!  We had macarons (from Essence Bakery in Tempe) and cheesecake.

Special thanks to all who came to join us! We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving also!

The Mission in downtown Scottsdale is one of our favorite places to eat.

The food is what we would describe as Arizona-Mexican (as compared to Tex-Mex or authentic Mexican).  The servers are terrific and bring each table chips and salsa along with the menu.  We always ask for a special kind of salsa made with Indian Ghost Chili Peppers called fantasma  It is very spicy and one drop goes a very long way.  Here’s a picture of the Chips and Salsa.  The smaller bowl is the fantasma and the larger bowl is the standard salsa (much milder).  We like to put a few drops into the standard salsa.

The chips are delicious – and are made in-house.  Another favorite appetizers of ours is the guacamole.  The guacamole is made tableside.  Here is a picture of the guacamole-maker.

And here’s a picture of the guacamole:

And of Anya enjoying the guacamole:

The guacamole is very creamy and has so many ingredients that I can’t even begin to imagine it-juicy tomatoes, cheese, and crispy bacon.  The server will ask how spicy you would like the guacamole.  We always ask for super spicy.  And if it is not quite spicy enough, we add a few drops of fantasma to it.  Nearly every table orders the guacamole and it is easy to see why.  Their guacamole is the best that Scottsdale has to offer (besides mommy’s – she make guacamole for football and basketball game days).

An unusual appetizer is their gorditas – made with huitlacoche (a mexican delicacy from corn fungus).  It is incredibly delicious, warm and perfectly cooked.  Mommy says that very few places in the US that offer huitlacoche.

We always order tacos.  Karsen likes the mahi-mahi and Anya likes the pork shoulder tacos.  For variety, mommy ordered the shrimp.  We order different tacos, so that we can trade when they arrive.

Above are the Mahi Mahi Tacos.  Karsen loves them because the fish is delicate and fried nicely.

The Shrimp Tacos shown below are also mouth watering. The Shrimp bursts in your mouth like an inflated balloon (that is a simile.  Anya’s English teacher, Miss Gale would be impressed).

The Mission is known for their pork tacos. They are sweetened with pineapple and have a tangy taste to it.  These are the BEST tacos.  Here is a picture of the pork tacos:

The pork tacos are SOOOOO delicious.  It is important to note that every Sunday after 2pm, The Mission offers all-you-can-eat pork tacos.  We’ve been and it is MMMMM delicious.  You won’t need dinner!!

We read that the Kobe Hot Dog (wrapped in bacon and served with chili peppers) was delicious so ordered that to try.  Here’s a picture of it.

The Kobe taco was good but much too filling for us.  It has beans, cheese, jalapenos bacon and more on it!  We’re glad we ordered it but we will probably stick to our tacos in the future.

Unfortunately, we are always too full to order dessert so have nothing to report on dessert.

As always, the overall ratings are out of five smiley faces.

Rating: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

The Mission also has friendly servers.  Our server was Karlie.

She has an excellent website called-www.culinarycrumbs.com

We’ll be back!  We want to have dessert someday. . . . .

p.s.  Mommy likes the margaritas and Karsen always gets to lick the salt!  Here’s a picture of Karsen licking the salt off mommy’s margarita:

p.p.s.  We went to the Mission again.  And we have some additional pictures to show you.  First, we got the “street corn.”  This is one of their signature dishes and it is delicious!!  This is what it looked like:

And finally – we managed to get dessert!  Two of their more notable desserts are the pumpkin bread pudding (our favorite) and the fried bananas with peanuts and dulce de leche.  Here are those pictures:

MMMMMMM! Delicious!  Here’s a picture of our cousin Matthew – he’s enjoying every bite – you can tell because he is using both hands and sticking the food in his mouth!!

As usual – we had a great experience!  We highly recommend The Mission!  Here’s a link to their site:

http://www.themissionaz.com/

Maybe we’ll see you there soon!

We spent a weekend in the Bay Area.  During that time, we saw our cousins Mina and Annika, ate at Curry Up Now!, and watched the Homecoming Stanford-U. of Washington football game.  

Mina and Annika

When we arrived in the Bay Area, we were HUNGRY. l.  For dinner, Uncle Ben grilled a bunch of food. Here is a picture of the delicious meal:

There was Steak, Salami, Prosciutto, Cheese, Butter and Bread, and some vegetables – including something called Chayote (that’s the green one). Chayote is a delicious squash!  The steak (ribeye) was cooked just the way Anya liked it: Medium Rare!  

On a scale of 1-5 smiley faces (with 5 being best), we give Uncle Ben’s grilling:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 

FIVE SMILEY FACES!!!

While we were enjoying the yummy food, the grown-ups were enjoying wine:

The next day, Mina and Annika had to attend a Halloween Party and invited us to go with them.  For the Halloween Party, Mina wanted to dress up as a butterfly with rainbow wings. Annika dressed up as a turtle.  This is what Mina looked like in her costume:

When we were in the house, Annika started crawling around in her turtle outfit. Here is a link to the video:

Bay area-Video-Annika in costume crawling

While we were at the Halloween party, we took a group picture with Annika sitting on Anya’s lap and Mina on her right. Karsen was on the left.  We were wearing Stanford shirts because of the football game that day:

It was a fun party, but as usual, it made us HUNGRY.

Curry Up Now!

Our hunger brought us to Curry Up Now!  (recommended to us in our Poutine post, http://www.sophisti-kids.com/2011/10/14/our-canadian-fall-break-apples-niagara-falls-and-poutine/).  This is what their sign looked like:

It features Indian Street Food.  Here is their menu:

You’ll notice a Kids Menu but the other sections of the menu looked much more interesting.  We ordered the Sexiest Fries Ever.  Here’s a description:

Of course, we had to order two kinds of the sexiest fries – one with paneer tikka masala and the other with chicken tikka masala.  This is what they looked like:

You’ll notice the same gravy, onions and cheese on sweet potato waffle fries.  The only difference is that one has chicken and the other has paneer.  Anya liked the paneer one better and Karsen liked the chicken better.  

We also ordered some fancy drinks.  Here’s a picture of the Indian-lemonade that mommy ordered:

It was not nearly as delicious as the mango lassi (lassi is a yogurt drink that tastes like a smoothie) that we ordered.  Here is a picture of Anya drinking mango lassi.  

And we tried some kathi rolls:

A kathi roll is like an egg/tortilla rolled sandwich, filled with whatever you’ve ordered.  Papa got both the paneer tikka masala and the chicken tikka masala to try.  He says that this is typical Indian Street Food and was delicious.  It also came with a great salad.

Mommy will eat anything as long as there is good chutney.  Here is a picture of the chutney:

It was a cilantro and mint chutney.  And SPICY just the way we like it!!

We shared a thali.  A thali is a meal with lots of different dishes.  This is what it looks like:

There was papadum (papadum is a crispy round thing).  There was roti (roti is Indian bread) and saag paneer (saag means spinach and paneer is the indian cheese – that’s the dish on the top left).  There was a cucumber salad and keema matar aloo (keema is ground beef, matar means peas, and aloo means potato).  We loved the papadum and the saag paneer.  We thought the keema matar aloo was just ok.

Here is a picture of Anya enjoying her food:

And of course, when there is Indian food, we need to take a picture of Karsen happily eating with his hands:

There was even something for our cousin Mina.  Mina is only four years-old and is very particular about the food she eats.  She had sweet potato waffle fries:

No – that is not ketchup.  That’s Indian Maggi Sauce.  It’s much tastier than regular ketchup.

And of course, we ordered dessert.  But for some reason, dessert took a little while.  That was okay because Papa and Karsen got to watch cricket!

Our desserts finally arrived.  We ordered two kinds:  kulfi (a pistachio ice-cream) and gulab jamun (described as Hot Balls on their menu).  This is what they looked like:

The kulfi was creamy and nutty.  And gulab jamon was hot and sweet.  That is a sweet syrup smothered over the hot balls.  

On our 1-5 smiley face rating, we would give this place:

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

Overall – everything was delicious.  We would definitely go back!  We especially like the sexiest fries ever!!!!!!!  (It’s important to note that Papa did not like the sexiest fries ever.  But he was the only and he’s crazy).

Just in case you feel like eating the sexiest fries, here is the link to the restaurant:

http://www.curryupnow.com/restaurant/

Homecoming Football:  Stanford vs. University of Washington

Mommy decided to take us to a Stanford football game (that’s where she went to college) because Stanford finally has a good team!  This is the FIRST football game we have ever seen LIVE.  Here is a picture of Papa and Anya enjoying the game:

And Karsen:

We had terrific seats – right on the 50 yard line:

There are a few differences between watching the game on TV and being at the stadium.  At the stadium, there is no yellow line to let you know if the players have crossed the 1st down line.  Also, in the stadium, it is much more exciting.  Even Anya enjoyed watching!  We high-fived everyone around us everytime Stanford scored.  And just in case you didn’t watch the game, there were a lot of Stanford touchdowns!  Stanford won 65-21!!!!!!

Overall, we had a fantastic weekend with Mina, Annika, Uncle Ben, and Pei pei Ahyi.  Thank you so much for sharing the weekend with us!  Overall, it was a five smiley face weekend!!!   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 !!! 

 

 

 

 

Our flight out of Toronto was around 4 in the afternoon on Saturday, October 15.  So, we had just enough time to have dim sum before leaving.  Our Canadian source, dubba dubba, recommended a place within walking distance from our hotel called Crown-Princess Fine Dining.  We headed over there and were impressed with “fine dining.”  Most dim sum restaurants are loud bustling places with dim sum carts being pushed around.  Some of the best places look like their sanitation grade is below an A.  Crown-Princess, however, was a fancy place.  Here’s a picture of it:

There are fancy chandeliers everywhere.  We sit on fancy velvet seats and drink out of fancy tea cups.  Here’s a picture of Karsen drinking his water out of the fancy tea cup (Mr. Don – we took a picture of him with his pinky sticking up just for you!).

Even the servers are dressed up!  The men are in ties and the women are wearing french maid uniforms.  Here’s a picture of Karsen with one of our servers.  Her name is Teresa:

Instead of having food carts, Crown-Princess gives you a menu, a piece of paper (to order from), and a pencil.  Mommy did the ordering.  And this is the first thing that came:

We ordered this in honor of dubba dubba (it’s his favorite dim sum dish).  It is fried, crispy, and filled with taro root and pork.  This is a typical dim sum dish and is often greasy.  This one was not.  And very tasty.

This was the second dish that came:

This dish is Anya’s favorite!  This Shrimp and Vegetables Dish has a “soy sauce hint to it”,  but the sauce is not soy sauce! It’s actually sweet.  Usually this dish has only shrimp in it.  But in this version, there are vegetables.  The noodle wrap is VERY slippery.  Here’s a helpful hint: DO NOT TRY TO EAT THIS WITH CHOPSTICKS!!!

Here is an unusual steamed dish:

The green steamed buns were filled with chinese chives.  We were surprised when this order arrived.  While it was delicious, it wasn’t quite what we were expecting.  That’s one of the problems with not being able to order right off the cart.

Finally, the rest of the order arrived:

And of course, mommy’s favorite – the turnip cake:

Above are the typical steamed dim sum dishes.  There was the shumai. It was traditional except for the fancy caviar on it.  The shrimp dumplings were also delicious.  There was also a shrimp-scallop dumpling and a chinese chive dumpling.  All of them were delicious. The turnip cake is soft and HOT, so do not eat it right away!!!

All in all, we really enjoyed the dim sum here.

As always, here is our smiley face rating (1 to 5 with 5 being best):

ANYA’S RATING:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

KARSEN’S RATING:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂  1/2

But we have to admit, we miss the hustle and bustle of the food carts.  The dim sum was truly delicious – not too greasy, not too salty.  Just right.  And mommy and papa said the tea was good too!  We would return to this place!  Yummy!

This final picture is of Anya – she’s smiling because the food was delicious!  And here’s a link to the place if you are interested:

http://crown-princess.ca/english/index.asp

 

 

 

For our last dinner in Toronto, we decided to go somewhere spectacular.  So we did some research and Canoe was recommended by several sources (including dubba dubba).  Canoe features ingredients that are fresh, in-season, and Canadian. Canoe is located on the 54th floor of the TD building in downtown Toronto.  The view is amazing.

Here are some pictures of the view:

We enjoyed the view with a few cocktails.  Mommy and Papa had wine.  Karsen had a cranberry-apple juice cocktail.  Anya had the most delicious orange-pumpkin-apple juice cocktail.  For those of you who are worried, our drinks did not have alcohol in them.  Here is a picture of our drinks:

Our drinks were DELICIOUS!!  They also brought us bread and butter.  And of course – it was not ordinary bread and butter.  It was a delicious chickpea-butter (it tasted like tasty fancy hummus).  Here is a picture of the bread and butter:

Now most places with a great view (like the place we ate at when we saw Niagara Falls) have mediocre food.  But we were delighted with the food and the offerings at Canoe.  Here is a picture of the Menu:

There is a prix-fixe menu but everyone at the table has to agree to it.  And it’s hard to get all of us to agree to anything.  So we decided to try a lot of appetizers and have our own dishes.

For our appetizers, we had foie gras, oysters, and a sheep’s milk mousse.  All of the ingredients were Canadian (that’s right the ducks/geese for the foie gras are Canadian).  Here are pictures of our appetizers:

The foie gras was AMAZING!!!  And it came with the most wonderful fruit and peanut sauce and brioche.  Our server, Sarah, describes it as the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  Here is a picture of Sarah:

The oysters were so yummy!!  And all of us know from our technique post that we LOVE oysters.  These oysters came with a vinegar and shallot sauce.

The sheep’s milk mousse was papa’s favorite.  It came with delicious vegetables.  The mousse was so creamy!! The vegetables crispy and slightly nutty. The combination of flavors was FANTASTICALLY AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!  ALL of the appetizers were FANTASTICALLY AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!!!!

Our server Sarah was great at describing the dishes on the menu and had terrific recommendations.  Anya couldn’t resist ordering the frog legs.  Karsen insisted on ordering the ceviche.  Mommy wanted a scallop dish that she had seen on their website.  It wasn’t on the menu but they made her the dish anyway – scallops with porkbelly and mashed potatoes.  And Papa ordered a white fish called pickerel that came with dandelions.  Here are pictures of Anya’s frog legs:

Anya:  the frog legs tasted crunchy, sweet, and a little bit like french fries.  It was almost like having candy for dinner!

Here is a picture of Karsen’s ceviche:

Karsen:  The ceviche was very good.  The foam on top was like salty seawater.  It made it taste “just right.”  It was lemony-limey.  I would definitely recommend it!

Here are mommy’s scallops:

Mommy says that the scallops were perfectly seared and tasted heavenly with the pork belly.

And papa’s fish:

Papa says the fish was perfectly cooked – very flaky as if it was cooked on a campfire.  We think grownups like the world perfectly because both mommy and papa used that word.

Overall, everyone was very happy with their entrees.  In fact, we were all members of the clean-plate club that night!!

Of course, we had to order dessert.  We ordered two desserts to share.  One is a lemon semi-freddo and the other is a sticky toffee pudding.

Above is the lemon semifreddo.  Semifreddo basically means it’s a little bit like ice-cream (but it’s not gelato).

The sticky toffee and the semi-freddo were both delish!  However, if you are torn between the two, definitely get the sticky toffee. The sticky toffee, was well. . . sticky, and perfectly caramelized!!

And after dessert, Canoe sends guests home with goodies.  Our goodies included biscotti and chocolate-covered orange zest.  We had ours in the airport the next day.  Here is a picture of our presents – there was one for each of us:

Our wonderful server Sarah arranged for us to have a tour of the kitchen.  Apparently, the kitchen staff was impressed with a 10 year-old (Anya) eating frog legs!!  We were greeted by the manager (Mr. Rob Kent)  and the Chef de Cuisine, John Horne.  Here is a picture of us with the manager:

Our visit to the kitchen was tremendous. Here is a picture of the functions, the people working there, and food they were making as well:

Above is a picture of perfectly (that’s the grown-up word that mommy and papa like) non-greasy fried squash.  We believe that this was on our sheep’s milk mousse appetizer.

Next is a beautiful reduction sauce that was being made.

The next two pictures are of two different broths that Chef John Horne was making.  They smelled delicious!!  He had been cooking it for many many hours!!  We were full from our meal but still. . . .the smells were making us hungry again!!

Now are some pictures of sous-chefs and other cooks!  Everyone is super busy because the dining room is full of customers!  Interestingly, Chef John told us that the cooktop is made of magnets.  That’s right – it is not like the gas range that we have at home.  Because of fire code, the restaurant had to install a different kind of stove top.  The magnets are immediately hot (like a gas stove top) and the cooking staff are rarely burned!!!

Going from hot to cold, here is a picture of us in the GIANT refrigerator:

This is a picture of Chef Horne answering one of Karsen’s many questions.  Anya thinks that Chef John must be one of the nicest men – he wasn’t even a *little* bit annoyed with Karsen!  He was very patient!

Above is a picture of pastry chef!  You can see the sticky toffee pudding in the foreground. Trust us, it’s delicious!!!!!!  We had to fight over ours!  Next time, we are each getting one to ourselves.

As Anya mentioned, Chef John Horne is one of the nicest men.  At the end of our tour, Chef John Horne presented us with autographed toques (chef hats) and invited us to take a picture with him. Here’s the picture:

As usual, our smiley face rating is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being AMAZING.  We are not separating this out with two different ratings because ALL OF US AGREE.  This is a five smiley face place:

SMILEY FACE RATING:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 and another: 🙂 for the special treatment we received!!!!

Anya added the last smiley face for our special treatment.  So that’s 6 smiley faces!!!!

Here are close-ups of our chef hats – you can see that it was signed by Chef John, the pastry girls, sous chefs, and other staff :

And pictures of us in our chef hats:

Many thanks to all of you at Canoe who made our visit so wonderful!!!  We would like to give special thanks to our server Sarah and Chef John Horne.  This was a terrific way to spend our last evening in Toronto.  Here is link to their restaurant.  We highly recommend it!!  Make a reservation today!!

http://www.oliverbonacini.com/Canoe.aspx

Mommy insisted that we do something educational on our trip.  So we 1.) spent the morning at AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario, 2. )had lunch at Swatow in Chinatown, and 3.) spent the afternoon at the ROM, the Royal Ontario Museum.  For some reason, mommy likes to walk so we walked EVERYWHERE.

Here is a picture of us on our walk to AGO.  It is of the war memorial.:

Here is a picture of us in front of AGO:

AGO was built by a famous architect named Frank Gehry.  Here is a picture of the staircase in the museum.

Anya had to do a write-up for her class on a work of art in the gallery.  She chose one by an artist named Toulouse-Latrec. We don’t have many photos of artwork because no photography is allowed in the art gallery.  But believe us, we saw A LOT of art!!

SWATOW

We were STARVING from all of that walking and looking at artwork.  Luckily, AGO is in the middle of Chinatown.  We were told of a great Chinese restaurant called Swatow.  They make all their noodles fresh.  Here is a wall with all of their awards:

With all of those awards and our gurgling stomachs, we ordered a beef and noodle soup dish, a flat noodle dish with black been sauce, and fried rice.  Here are pictures of the dishes:

Karsen liked the flat noodles best and Anya liked the fried rice.  We all agreed that this place was better than Spadina Gardens.  However, we couldn’t help but be disappointed because of all the awards on their wall.  We were starving and looking forward to something spectacular.  It was perfectly competent (that’s one of Karsen’s old spelling words).  In other words, there was nothing that blew us away but we left the restaurant FULL and with fortune cookies.

Anya:   🙂 🙂 🙂

Karsen:   🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

We would recommend this place if you are in the mood for noodles and happen to be in Chinatown.  There is a place across the street called The Dumpling House that looked great!  That’s where we will be headed next time we are in Toronto.

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)

After lunch, we had enough energy to walk to the ROM.  On the way, we bought some fruits in Chinatown.  Karsen loves the ROM because he is a paleontologist-in-training.  Here are pictures of Karsen with dinosaurs:

Above is a picture of Karsen and the Hadrosaur near the entrance of the ROM.  A Hadrosaur (greek for “bulky lizard”) is known as a duck billed dinosaur because of its flat nose.  They were the cows of the jurassic.  Some hadrosaurs were crested like the lambeosaurus and the parasaurolophus.  Interestingly, the Maiasaurus (also part of the hadrosaur family) was very good at taking care of its young.  Karsen used to call that one the mommy-saurus.  Another famous hadrosaur is the edmontosaurus.  It was found in Canada – where the ROM is located!

This second picture is of Anya and Karsen in front of the famous T-rex and deinonychus.  Everyone knows about the T-rex.  We think one of the most interesting debates going on in the paleontology world is whether the T-rex was just a scavenger, rather than a ferocious predator (ferocious was also one of Karsen’s old spelling words).  Karsen thinks that all the evidence points to T-rex being a scavenger.  In fact, the little deinonychus could be much scarier than the T-rex because it hunts in packs.

Finally, this is a picture of the first ichthyasaurus ever found.  It was found by a little girl named Mary Anning in 1811. She was only 12 years old! Karsen has dreams about being the first to discover something.  Maybe he’ll call it the Karsenosaurus.

Summer’s Ice Cream

After our afternoon at the ROM, we decided to reward ourselves with some ice cream.  Summer’s makes their ice cream fresh everyday.  Here is a picture of Summer’s:

It is in the Yorkville part of Toronto (near our hotel – and near Utsav).

Here is a picture of us enjoying our ice cream:

Anya had cookie dough ice cream and Karsen had almond toffee crunch.  Both ice creams were perfectly creamy and not too sweet.  It reminds us of Sweet Republic, our favorite ice cream place in Scottsdale, Arizona (where we live). Here is a link to it:

http://sweetrepublic.com/

Here is a picture of our server.  Her name is Ina and she told us that Summer’s is a family run business:

 

Finally, here is a picture of the inside of Summer’s Ice Cream.  The sign says that everything is made fresh everyday.  There are also awards and pictures of famous people who have been to Summer’s.  Maybe someday, they will have a picture of us 😉

Anya: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Karsen:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

If you’re in the ice-cream in Toronto, you will not be disappointed with Summer’s!!!!!

 

Train to Toronto

On Thursday, October 13, we took an early train from London Ontario to Toronto.  Here is a picture of Anya and Dubba dubba on the train:

World’s Biggest Bookstore

After we arrived in Toronto, we visited the World’s Biggest Bookstore (that’s the name of the store).  Here is a picture of us in front of the bookstore (we are on the very left, and dubba dubba is on the right).

Mommy was trying to get a picture of the entire sign but it was too wide.  We are collecting a series of Lucky Luke comic books and were hoping to pick up a few of our missing comic books (volumes 6, 11, 12, and anything after 28).  Unfortunately, there was only one volume and we already had it!!

Spadina Garden

To cheer ourselves up, we lunched at Spadina Gardens, a Chinese restaurant.  We ordered the chive pancakes, house special fried rice, hot garlic shrimp and vegetables, and their famous spicy chicken with peanuts.  The dishes also came with hot and sour soup.  Here is what they looked like:

Top Left:Hot and Sour Soup, Top Right: Fried Rice, Middle: Spicy Chicken, Bottom Left: Shrimp and Vegetables, Bottom Right:  Chive Pancakes.

We arrived in the nick of time because it soon became very crowded.  In fact, it was so noisy that we had to yell at each other to be heard.

The Hot and Sour Soup was very warm, so we had to try to avoid burning our tongues!! Overall it was pretty good, though. It was spicy (see the red color). The Fried rice was tasty. This was Anya’s favorite dish. The Spicy Chicken was  pretty good, but if we went there again, we would probably not order it. Perhaps we were expecting a little too much because we were told that it was their most popular dish (and it seemed that nearly every table ordered it!). The sauce in the Shrimp and Vegetables was so sweet and salty so do not be surprised if it is not to your liking.  We would definitely not order this dish again.  The chive pancakes, however, were delicious.  They came with a honey sauce.

Smiley Face rating, on our scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 being best): 🙂 🙂 🙂

Overall, we felt that Spadina Garden lost a few smiley faces because the food was mediocre and the atmosphere was very loud.  On the positive side, the food came very fast and the service was efficient.  If you are in a rush and in the mood for Chinese food, this might just hit the spot.

Toronto Symphony and Glenn Gould’s Piano

We arrived at Roy Thompson Hall for the symphony a little early so that we could see Glenn Gould’s piano.  Glenn Gould is Mommy’s favorite pianist. He was from Toronto.  When we arrived, the piano was missing!  We asked one of the volunteers about it. The volunteer’s name was Mr. Douglas. Mr. Douglas told us that it had been moved because of a special event the night before.  He was very gracious and took us “behind the scenes” to see the piano.

This is a picture of the front of the Roy Thompson Symphony Hall.  We had tickets to a 2pm matinee with pieces by Bach (Passacalgia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582), Mozart (Piano Concerto No.25 in C Major, and Beethoven (Symphony No.3 in E-flat Major, Op.55 “Eroica”).  There was a solo pianist named Louis Lortie who played the Mozart piece.  The concert was AMAZING!!

Above is a picture of us with Mr. Douglas and Glenn Gould’s piano.   On the right is the sign that tells you that it is Gould’s piano.  We would like to say special Thank You to Mr. Douglas for giving us a “personal tour” of the piano.

 

 

Dinner at Utsav 

After the symphony, we met our father (who arrived in Toronto that afternoon). After much discussion about dinner and advice from two concierges, we finally decided to take him to a small and wonderfully delicious Indian restaurant called Utsav. We learned that in hindi, “Utsav” means festival or occasion.  We definitely had occasion to celebrate!  We were on fall break!!!

Here is a picture of Anya and Papa at the restaurant.

The owner’s name is Mr. Suresh. He will often stop and chat at your table. He is kind to all customers. Here is a picture of Mr. Suresh:

When we arrived, we were quickly seated. Mr.Suresh then gave us our menus. They looked like this:

We first ordered Onion Bhajia. Onion Bhajia are like Indian onion rings.  They were crispy, not greasy, and absolutely delicious.  They came with a mint chutney, a tamarind chutney, and a mango chutney:

Top Left: Onion Bhajia

Bottom Right: Chutneys

 

 

 

 

Anya liked the tamarind (imli) chutney.  Mommy liked the mint chutney best.  And Karsen (who is very wishy washy) decided that he didn’t want the mango chutney to feel left out so he liked that one best.

 

Then we had Lacha Paratha (top), Chicken Tikka Masala (left), Saag Paneer (middle), and yellow daal (right):

Lacha Paratha is an Indian bread that flakes when you eat it.  It was delicious and we had to fight for the last piece.  Mommy finally cut the last piece in half.

There is also a picture of us enjoying the food:

 

 

The Chicken Tikka Masala is a house specialty and recommended to us by Mr. Suresh.  It was perfectly spicy, and creamy.  Saag Paneer is a spinach and paneer (Indian cheese curds) dish, and Daal is a lentil dish that is very popular in North India (where Papa is from).

Anya’s favorite was the Chicken Tikka Masala. You could see that the chicken had been cooked properly in a clay oven called a Tandoor. It is often used by people on the Indian Subcontinent. Karsen said that ALL of the dishes were his favorites.

One of the best things about Indian food is that you can eat it with your hands!!!  Here is a picture of Karsen eating with his hands:

For dessert, Mr. Suresh presented us with Kheer. Kheer is a rice pudding with cardamom.

The kheer was cooked perfectly.  Not too sweet and just milky enough.

If you are lucky, you will might spot a glimpse of the Chef. He is from New Delhi. Here is a snap of the Chef, Mr. Suresh, and Karsen:

(On the Very Left is the Chef, Middle is Karsen, Right is Mr. Suresh).

Smiley face rating ( 1 to 5 with 5 being AMAZING ): 

Anya: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Karsen: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Overall: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

This was a great way to end our first day in Toronto!  Thank you, Mr. Suresh!!  If we are ever back in Toronto, we will surely pay you and your restaurant a visit.

 

We are enjoying our fall break visiting our Dubba Dubba who lives in London, Ontario, Canada.  Our previous post showed our Canadian Thanksgiving meal.  On the morning of Canadian Thanksgiving (October 10), we also went apple picking at Appleland.  We picked 27 pounds of apples!  Here are pictures of Karsen picking apples:

In the first picture, Karsen is on Dubba Dubba’s shoulders. In the second picture, Karsen is climbing the apple tree to get at the best apples.

The next day (October 11), we went to Niagara Falls.  Here is a picture of the Canadian side.

We took a boat ride called “Maid of the Mist.”  This is the same boat ride that mommy took 30 years ago – when she was a kid.  We wore blue ponchos because the water splashed in our faces.  If you ever want to see what it feels like to wear a trash bag, the blue ponchos give you a good idea.  The Canadian side is so much more spectacular-looking than the US side (and this is from the point of view of two American kids).  The Canadian side gives you a 270-degree view of waterfalls (Mr. Weaver, my math teacher, would be impressed with my ability to measure degrees). On the boat ride, we learned that a 63 year-old woman fell down the falls in a barrel and lived!!!   Niagara Falls (and the Maid of the Mist boat ride) is a must-see for anyone visiting Canada.

On Wednesday, October 12, we went to Stratford to see Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.  We got there early so that we could enjoy the town.  While getting fresh lemonade (shaken not stirred), we found out that Justin Bieber is from Stratford.  In fact, there are tourist maps with his favorite places in town.  The entire town has Bieber fever and since we were there for a Shakespeare festival, there were t-shirts that said:  To Bieber or not to Bieber:  That is the Question.   Mommy that it was hysterical.  Maybe it’s a grown-up thing.

We wanted to experience a very-Canadian lunch.  What could be more Canadian than POUTINE?  Boomers Gourmet Fries was the perfect answer to our lunch needs and wants.  That’s exactly what the sign looks like (crossed out)- here’s a picture:

This is what the menu looked like:

This side of the menu lists the different kinds of poutine offered.  We ordered the 2-cheese poutine (their most famous) and the goat cheese and basil (truly delicious)

The second side of the menu has the different burgers. Everything is made fresh and our server recommended the one with guacamole.  So that’s the one we ordered.

This is a small and cozy place with only 8 or 9 chairs.  The restaurant is managed by a nice lady named Sue.  Here is a picture of Sue:

Sue is also the only chef.  She makes EVERYTHING fresh – even the mayonnaise and other sauces.  She works very hard and the food is high quality.  It tickles my tongue and tummy (that’s alliteration if my English teacher, Miss Gale is reading this).  Here are pictures of our poutine orders:

Traditional poutine has cheese curd and gravy.  The one on the right is basically the classic poutine with cheddar.  This is Sue’s most famous poutine.  Anya adores the one on the left.  The basil oil tastes like fresh pesto.  The goat cheese, basil oil, and french fries made a nice combination of flavors.  Because we are Americans, we started eating these fries with our fingers.  This is not a good idea because you will need a lot of napkins (called serviettes in Canada).  We asked for forks and recommend that you do so also.  Everyone should try poutine!

We also had one of her burgers:

This was excellent.  Sue sliced it in two for us so that we could share.  You can see that Sue is generous with the avocado chunks.  The meat was well done but still juicy.  The bun had sesame seeds and was soft and puffy.  There were also fresh tomatoes.  Anya described this as a taco in a bun.

On a scale from 1-5 smiley faces we give this place the following rating:

Girl:     🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Boy:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Adult:  Mommy liked this place so much she wanted to come back for dinner after the play to try the fish and chips.  We are sorry Sue – we didn’t have time.  But if we’re in the area, we will most certainly be back.  Also – it’s important to note that Boomers Gourmet Fries is a cash only establishment and both US and Canadian currency are accepted!

P.S.  Twelfth Night was our first Shakespeare play.  It was hysterical!!!  Karsen’s top four favorite characters were Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew, Fabian, and of course, Feste.  Anya thought Olivia was a really good actress.

The end.. . . .

It’s fall break for us.  So we don’t have to go to school! We decided to visit our friends (our godfather and family) in Canada. Monday (October 10) was Canadian Thanksgiving!  It was DELICIOUS!! We had mac n’cheese, mashed potatoes, ham, and green beans.Here is a picture of our Canadian Thanksgiving:

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!!