Luma @ TIFF

You Gotta Eat Here!  Actually it wasn't on the show.  This was my project team's dinner selection. The Toronto team.  Since I'm the only one from the Toronto team.  Tresa and I went.
The whole team is distributed across N.Amer.  So my director that happens to be in Espana said we could all go out for dinner with our spouses and he'd approve it.
So this was approved back in Jan.  We finally went in the second week of March.  We were looking for a kid friendly place to go for dinner.  But many reviews of the high end restaurants don't usually have this quality.
Sort of like many of the private schools that are home to the elite.  You get that elitest attitude that can be akin to bullying.  But to these people it is a a deservedness that they feel is their right to behave this way and all others must do their bidding, because that is how they were trained by their parents. Hmm... something to chew on.

In any case, back to the restaurant.  After much reading and asking people where they ate, we decided on Luma at the new-ish  TIFF building.  People said it's very kid friendly and cozy, other's like Aria at the ACC are good too, but lack the coziness, still others like some Yorkville resto's aren't so kid friendly and reviews indicated that.  But we ended up not bringing Kieran since he slept over at my sisters.  So it worked out for the best.  We got to enjoy the restaurant and my sister didn't get much sleep. Best for us. HA.
The food was fantastic and I had the soup of the day and Tresa had the salad.  It was a tomato based soup, (note to self, bowl was freaking hot and I scorched my thumb).  For mains Tresa had the Organic chicken and I had the Yellowfin tuna.  For wine we had some italian white wine (Salvalai, Pinot Grigo, Venezie IT).  My WineCentric cousin was napping and didn't get my email request.  In any case it was yummy.  I give it 90pts.  I just prefer white because it's chilled and it gives it that refreshing quality after a long day of disciplining our son.  Just kidding he's not that bad.

Gotta Eat Here! TO

BakerBots Baking bakery.  That's a mouthful, eh?  Say that 5 times real fast with a Red Velvet cupcake in your mouth.

This is Tresa's friend Rosanne's place.
Best cupcakes around. IMHO.
Secret recipe handed down from her grandmother.  Guarded by a dog that's never had shots.

Her wares change all the time, so don't ask me what to get, because it's all good.  See those tarts Tresa is looking at.  I tried them all.  Right to my belly.  And it was glad.  We had two reasons to see her.  One was that we were invited for brunch and you can go in with your knife and fork.  You need to bring something.  So we got some Red Velvet and that flan tart on the right. And some other stuff.  The other reason is Kieran said he wanted to be a baker.  So we visited a baker who happens to own a shop.

Located right beside Ossington Stn on the Delaware side.
This is the Google street view of the shop and it's out of date.  It's also incorrect.  It's the unit beside the tag, the one with the awning.

Across from the Serbian church. You'll hear the gutteral sounds of the patrons leaving the church.  That's how you know your close to the bakery.




Dr. Laffa.  Near Steeles and Dufferin.
We saw this place on the show and it looked real good.  So we headed up there a few weeks ago when it dumped snow.  We had already planned on going and have a Subaru AWD with snow tires meant...no excuses! It's in the middle of an industrial area, and the Google street view shows something else, but it's correct.  It's down the road behind the Home Depot.
The food was pretty good.  It's all kosher.  So no pork.
I asked about what kind of meat was in the shwarma? Beef, chicken, pork?  The waitress laughed...there's no pork here. Oops!  I thought they'd throw the Torah at me.  I had always thought it was because pigs are considered dirty. But I Googled it.  and this is what I found.

Pork is seen as the ultimate "non-kosher" animal. The Torah considers an animal kosher if it both chews its cud AND has split hooves. The only animal species that has split hooves (trotters) and does not chew the cud is the pig family.

The food was pretty good. I forget what I had, but it was good.
The condiments are pickled stuff. And the mains just come with rice or fries.
The Laffa bread is great.  We got one to take home.
The kebabs are juicy.  Not the usual dried out ones u get from most places.
Too bad it's kinda out of the way.

They are also not open on Saturday.  Some religious thing too.  But they are open on Sunday.  Late.

The Burger's Priest.  We saw this on the show too.  I was in the area since I had just done our income tax and thought hey... it's lunch time.  What was that burger joint around here?  I knew the rough location.  So I drove around til I could remember the name.

Named Burger's Priest because the guy who owns it and is the head chef, went to a Seminary.  So he was on  his way to becoming a priest.

I think the Google Car drivers ate here because Google maps takes you right into the shop.
There's no place to sit an eat.  It's basically a take out joint.

But eat your stuff ASAP.  Because the burgers are all double patties, with the exception of the cheeseburger.
The Option is the veggie version.  I got that for Tresa.  I wished I'd got that too.  I'm not used to eating so much meat now a days.  I figured I'd start my veggie diet on Good Friday.
I'd order the Option myself, but I wanted to try the regular stuff, so I had the High Priest.  And Tresa didn't share hers with me.  Damit!

The burgers are real juicy.  So the bun gets soggy if you don't eat right away.  Made from real ground beef that they form into a ball.  It's not one of those frozen pattie, filled with filler, cleaned with ammonia crap.  It's the real deal.

Located on the north side of Queen St E and Kingston Rd.  I missed it the first time and was almost at Dangerous Dan's.  That's the other killer burger place that was on You Gotta Eat Here!
But I'd need a coronary.


Cheese Boutique.  Swansea area, just off of the S. Kingsway just north of the Queensway.

I had never been to this place when it was in the Bloor West Village.  So finally, we went.  And I could eat everything in that store.  I'd go broke.  But it is so good.

And they don't just have cheese.  We could have had lunch just sampling stuff.  The pizza is by the 100gm...just so you know.

It's all fun and games till someone

It's all fun and games till someone gets an iceball to the eye.Well it was close.  It hit the cheek.  Big bruise.

Kid was chewed out, which was good.

Kieran told me what happened.  Apparently a girl in his class (Rebecca) threw the initial one and the boy who shall remain nameless thought Kieran threw it and threw an ice ball at him and hit him in the face.  How come the girls always seem to avoid any association with the crime?

Milan the music teacher gave him some ice to put on it.  But Kieran ate the ice.

And this morning was the highly stressful click-refresh-TorontoFunGuide-Online-Registration - get Max Session page - Retry, until you get thru activity.

I had just got back from a draining run.  I was a little dazed because I could not fall asleep right away last night after basketball, because I knew I had to get up to register or attempt to anyways.  I felt good going out for the first few km's but then started to run out of samosa fuel to get me home.

Then Tresa had fallen and hurt her knee and her non-bionic ankle.  And there were dirty dishes to be washed.

Plus there were 50 samosa's calling my name.  Actually 3 of them already did and my stomach answered back.

So I ate a few more before I went to get Kieran, because he wanted to go home.

Then he told me what had happened and who it was.  I knew this kid.  He was at Humberside for a year.  And Christian was his name-Oh.  I'll find out the girl's name.

In any case.  Retaliation isn't good.  But identifying the initiator is a better strategy.  Christian's mistake was not asking who threw it first.  Just glad that it didn't actually hit Kieran's eye.

But he also didn't feel like going to the meet finals (Tresa had sent me out to get a box of samosas for the meet).  Which is ok.  So we went to DQ to make the hurt go away a bit.

G-Man out and about Big Smoke Tdot.

So we get this letter from Grace about 2 weeks ago.
Just a questionnaire.  No other instructions, even the first line is worded odd.

Then Teen tells us that we have to bring this Gingerbread person cutout around with Kieran and take pictures with it.  School would have been a no-no.  There's no way Aneta would let this paperman disrupt her class.

So I took it around with me.  To see the sights around where Grace's cousin lives.
We were at a Leafs game a while back.  I had won these tickets but wanted to show Gman what the ACC looks like.
Leafs won in OT!

Then there was our hood.  The Bloor West Village, that is slowly changing from the old guard Ukrainians, bitter from the fact that the neighbourhood demographic is changing a bit, to something other than a uni-browed and stocky meat and potatoes race.

Then I took Gman to school.  But I can't let you in without the code.



And then there is the Toronto skyline.  It was difficult to get a good shot of the once tallest free-standing structure in the world since 1973.
The closer you get the more obstructed the shot.  So I had to head back to the white bridge to get this shot with Gman.

This was fun.  We got box seats at the Raptors game last week.  Great seats, pizza, beer, you name it, hot dogs, more pizza, hagen daz.
The only thing missing was a W on the home side.

It was a beautiful day when we took Gman to Kieran's ski lessons at Centennial.  Kieran is in the shot, he's the last kid near the top of the hill in that row of 3.

BTW he passed his lessons and is moving up to the next level.  All those runs thru the trees really improved his skiing ability.  I know it helped me.

Then we took Gman to our 100+ year church - St Cecelia.  The church is under massive renovation and repair. We happen to know the architect that is leading the reno.
The inside of the church is very old.  A little dark, but it's not musty or smelly.   The acoustics are quite nice.  Not echo-y.

The roof tiles are slate.  For the reno, you can buy a roof tile and get your name engraved in it for all the seagulls to see.  So they know who's tile they crapped on.

There was a request to have Kieran in the shot.  So that Grace can show her classmates her cousin. But in the skiing shot...he's in there! A little tiny, but he's there.