» Toronto - Simon Lau

Toronto Winds Take Out Backyard Tree

The morning of April 25th started out to be quite nice. It was 20 degrees Celsius around 10AM when I went for a run. By the early afternoon we had hit a high of 27 degrees. It’s amazing how quickly things can change. No more than an hour after lounging in an outdoor the pool the clouds rolled in and the winds howled as rain wicked across the windows.
100 KM/h gusts of winds ravaged the city knocking out power lines and even taking out a sign which hit a man in Scarborough, The Star.
For the second time that I could remember, my family’s home was affected by the weather. About 10 years back a storm split the tree at the back of the property and this year a different tree was uprooted. It’s no small tree either, my guess is that it’s over 24″ in diameter at the base and probably 30 odd feet tall. Looking at the base of the tree, it appears it was rotting from the inside. While it contributed to the tree’s sudden collapse, it’s still a remarkable feet for the wind to topple it.
Here’s a picture from my room on the second floor. The clean up begins now.

Tags: high winds, storm, Toronto, tree

. 26 Apr 09 | Miscellaneous, Toronto | Comments (0)

Summerlicious at Café Moroc

Twice a year many of Toronto’s top restaurants participate in winterlicious and summerlicious. This year there were 130 establishments offering a special 3-course prix fixe menu to give you the opportunity of sampling their delicious food. You can go for either a lunch or dinner with some places just offering dinner seating.
This summer Karen and I decided to go to Café Moroc, an establishment at 49 Front Street East. They have a $15 lunch and $25 dollar dinner. You can spend upwards of $35 for dinner at some places.
Café Moroc is one of two restaurants inside a single store, they are also known as the Sultan’s Tent. The difference is ambiance. Café Moroc is a little more casual and Sultan’s Tent is a little more private. At the Sultan’s Tent, the staff will teach you how to belly dance. The food is the same but the prices are more expensive at the Sultan’s Tent. They were not on the summerlicious menu.
Arriving for a 5:30 dinner, here were our options for ordering:
Appetizer:
Harira: A hearty tomato based broth, with chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils and a blend of Moroccan spices
or
Sliced Smoked Duck Breast Salad: Baby lettuces, dressed with a Champagne pomegranate vinaigrette, tossed with fresh fine cut vegetables, cherry tomatoes and sliced mango, finished with parmesan, asiago and romano cheese
or
Maftoul: Hand rolled “Moroccan Cigars”, hot crispy pastry stuffed with a mixture of mildly spiced beef, cashews and raisins, topped with chipotle aioli
Main
Moroccan Beef Ribs
Tender fall off the bone beef seasoned and glazed with Moroccan spices, served with sweet potato and carrot purée and roast garlic mashed mini reds, accompanied by grilled vegetables
or
Keskesu Casablanca: Moroccan seasoned couscous and tagine sauce* topped with oven roast fresh carrot, parsnip, zucchini, summer squash, tomato, red onion and sweet peppers
or
Mango Glazed Salmon: A pan seared 8-ounce fillet of salmon, glazed with mango chutney coulis, served with saffron basmati rice and traditional Moroccan root vegetables
or
Chicken Marrakesh: Supreme of chicken stuffed with chorizo sausage and Herbes de Provence, served with sweet potato and carrot purée and roast garlic mashed mini reds, finished with roast chicken demi glace, Accompanied by traditional Moroccan root vegetables
or
Braised Lamb Feast: Slow braised lamb shank served with tagine* seasoned couscous with a rich prune demi glace, topped with preserved lemon and toasted almonds
Dessert
Moroccan Treats: Traditionally made Moroccan cookie and pastry accompanied with Latshin, a light and refreshing traditional dessert of fresh orange slices sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon
or
Creme Brulée: A rich and flavourful crème brulée

I ordered the Maftoul, Moroccan Beef Ribs and crème brulée. Karen had the Sliced Smoked Duck Breast Salad, Braised Lamb Feast and crème brulée.

The appetizers were delicious. The maftoul had a good spicy kick to it and was thoroughly enjoyed. I would have definitely enjoyed an extra cigar with my appetizers but it is only a starter.The duck breast was tender and the mango’s complimented it very well as part of the salad.

Coming quickly after we finished our appetizer was our main course. The ribs were no small order. There were four pieces of meat packed ribs and just looking at the picture makes me hungry again. The meat fell off the bone and the glaze and spice gave it a sweet taste. The sweetness of the sweet potato and carrot puree matched the flavour of the ribs and the roasted garlic mashed mini reds and grilled vegetables rounded off a very filling meal.

The braised lamb was made to the same quality as the beef. The meat fell off the bone and had a distinct but delicious lamb taste. Despite being a summerlcious meals where some restaurants often serve slightly smaller portions to keep costs down, the dinner at Café Moroc certainly filled us both.

To round off our meal, we both had crème brulée. The sweet light custard was a good change to the heavy meat dishes we just had. There was a good golden crust on the brulée clearly created by a torch.

While the service can be flaky at times, the dining experience at Café Moroc was one that won’t be easily forgotten. It took a while to get the bill after dinner and we had to ask for refills of water. However, the food was great, the ambiance while more casual than Sultan’s Tent was still very nice and well kept.

If you have the opportunity to visit there for summerlicious or winterlicious, I’d definitely give it a try. At $50 + tax and tip, it’s definitely a good deal.

Tags: appetizer, beef ribs, cafe moroc, creme brulee, dessert, dinner, lamb shank, summerlicious, winterlicious

. 31 Jul 08 | Reviews, Toronto, fine dining | Comment (1)

Toronto Earth Hour – March 29, 2008 @ 8PM

If you haven’t heard about Earth Hour, maybe you’ve already been living under a rock without excessive use of electricity. In which case, you’ve probably done an excellent job and keeping your carbon footprint relatively small.

earthour

In Toronto, Earth Hour was considered a huge success. I was at Nathan Phillips Square when it began and I didn’t think it was that big. The lights dimmed but around the city but visible light pollution still hung in the air. There was even a single office still lit in City Hall.

In an effort to curb the use of electricity, it was reported that Toronto’s electricity demand dropped by 264 Megawatts. The equivalent of 175,000 homes turned out their lights in a city of a little over 3 million. According to the announcers at Nathan Phillips Square, that’s a participation rate of 7% for the homes in the city.

I personally thought that was low and figured Torontoians should have done better and stepped it up to 10%.

Despite me saying the buildings around NPS were not fully dimmed out like the power outage of 2003, the aerial photographs captured SaveOurClimate show a very different story.

One of the beauties about Earth Hour was the ability to stare up into the sky and see the star from below.

Tags: Aerial, Earth Hour, Lights, photos, Power, Toronto

. 29 Mar 08 | Technology, Toronto, Zen | Comments (0)

Toronto WinterCity 2008

Friday Jan 25th, 2008 was the kick off to Toronto’s annual WinterCity festival. This is 14 days of what Toronto calls Big City Fun.
fire1 One of the major highlights is the Nights of Fire where downtown’s Nathan Phillips Square is set ablaze by France’s Cie Carabosse. As you wander around the square there are metal pots strung in various shapes filled with coal and fuel oil that are left burning through the evening. The fire show starts at 6PM and wraps up by 9PM.

I was down there at night with a few friends after dinner and what we saw was a civilized camp fire. It didn’t take me long to think of marshmallows and from their the concept ballooned to getting some chocolate chips and eventually leading to the fire2 purchase of chocolate covered gram cracks + marshmallows to make s’mores. As we indulged in our dessert between 8:15 and 9, we had 1 person tell us to becareful by the fire and 5 compliment us in our ingenuity. This included the organizers who praised us as being the first to feast by the flames. We had a whole bunch of onlookers, ranging from organizers, city dwellers and police officers. No s’mores for any of them though.

There are several concerts going on during this promotional period and different shows to catch. One worth checking out if you’re in the area is Alice in the Wonderland. The costumes and props look pretty cool. From Jan 25th to Feb 7th, many restaurants are featuring their Winterlicous menus. A prix-fixed 3 course meal at some of the lesser known and finer restaurants in Toronto. There are no retail chains in the list.

Tags: Wintercity

. 26 Jan 08 | Toronto | Comments (0)