And so as quickly as it had come, my birthday is gone again. With the exception of several acquaintances and the Everyman, nobody remembered this year either.
To his credit, the Everyman finally decided to indulge my wishes to eat all food via chalice, and presented me with a giant one from him, and a tiny one (really an egg cup) from the kitties. While delighted by the chalice, I was slightly miffed that for the third year in a row he forgot to get me a birthday cake. How the man can remember the sports stats of hundreds of complete strangers but can’t even remember where I wanted a cake from is beyond me. I guess I know where I fall in the importance hierarchy. That’s fine though. For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. His will be an addition to the no-bake list.
He also tells me I can have another cat. I’ve wanted another cat for approximately a year now, ever since Cuddles, my 21 year old beast passed away. Several months after she passed I found an excellent one too, and even named her Burger, but at the last minute the owners decided to play a bait and switch and tell me (and probably everyone else who met this kitten) that they hadn’t promised her to anyone. With my heart broken, I decided I did not want a cat, and haven’t really thought seriously about it since. Well, except for harbouring fantasies of rescuing a semi-ratty neighbourhood cat that I refer to as Stubbs (because he only has half a tail) who always looks like he doesn’t have a home, that is. I don’t really know if I can handle another cat, or even if the two we have already can either. Our youngest, Tuna, is a very jealous cat and doesn’t like it when we spend time with the other cat, Rupert Q Thunderbum, so I can only imagine what it would be like if we brought a kitten home that monopolized all our time. But alas, this blog is not named Kitty and the Everyman, so I’ll stop blathering about kitty minutiae and get back to the fooding already.
For my birthday day, I wanted to indulge my inner geekdom and go check out the Teck Gallery of Gems and Minerals at the ROM. When I was a wee foodie, I dreamed of one day becoming a geologist. I used to go around the neighbourhood collecting rocks and chipping away “samples”. One year for my birthday my dad even bought me a rock tumbler. I know, I know, how exceptionally dorky. Anyhow, after wandering around for a while, the Everyman started to get hungry, so we went in search of food. The ROM has two options for food, C5 in the stupid, cancerous Crystal, and Food Studio. We went and checked out the menu for C5 first, but they were serving hoity toity high tea when we arrived and it all looked like crap, so we headed to the basement to check out Food Studio instead. It was a good thing we did, too. The Food Studio is a bright little Movenpick-type cafeteria, with many different stations for your perusal. Knowing that we were going out for dinner in a few hours, I opted for a personal size pepperoni pizza, some blueberry lemonade and a tiny banana cream pie tart. The Everyman seconded my pizza, and chose a regular lemonade for himself. The pizzas, while good, were nothing to write home about. Mine was not heated all the way through, so the cheese sat on top like a congealed, greasy mass. The blueberry lemonade had a great flavor, but was chunky with blueberry skins, which was quite a turn off for me. The banana cream tart was excellent though, with nice fresh slices of banana covered in whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate. If I was hungry at the ROM again, I’d probably come back here.
Flash forward several hours later to dinner. When asked, I’d given the Everyman two options for places I’d like to go for dinner that we hadn’t been to yet; Trevor Kitchen and Bar and Frank (at the AGO). I told him I’d checked out the menu at both and he should pick one and surprise me. I usually leave final decisions up to him because he is a lot more picky about his food consumption than I am, and he also has more of a dietary restriction than I. While I’ve developed an allergy to some shellfish over the years, it’s pretty easy to avoid that part of a menu. Unfortunately for the Everyman with his nut allergy, restaurateurs put nuts in everything these days. It could be baked into your bread or sprinkled over your salad, it may be crusted on your main course or incorporated into your dessert. It’s everywhere.
The Everyman chose Frank, which was a surprise to me. Trevor had a bacon in bacon sauce appetizer that seemed right up his alley, but it was served with a chestnut dumpling, so it was out. Frank is the brand new restaurant on the main floor of the redesigned AGO, and was created by Frank Gehry. It is a bright, light, inviting space, but is kind of reminiscent of Susur with its backlit seating and bizarre, glowy quality. They have a really awesome wine wall that runs the extent of one side of the restaurant from floor to ceiling, and is also backlit, so all the wine glows. I’m not sure how good that is for the wine and the storage of it, but it sure is pretty to look at.
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