brunch at trattoria amore

This weekend landed me in Toronto, and happily reunited with a dear friend who's been missing in action for 5 months. Okay, not really MIA per sey, unless you count disappearing to Berlin for the summer as such. Sadly, our academic paths have led us to be in different cities, but alas! It gives me yet another excuse (beyond my mother's rendition of oh-so-good Chiu Chow styled duck) to come visit.

We caught up in the yuppy neighborhood of Yonge + Eglinton, where yummy mummies were plenty, dog-walking (and child-walking) on sidewalks. With Sunset Grill being packed (and neither one of us extremely craving the greasy spoon: to be honest, I'm still recoiling from the Quebec protein of August), we sauntered north along Yonge. A few restaurants seemed to serve brunch, but Amore caught our eye with its menu displayed prominently beside the door. C-Food, for example, had this silly little tv screen on the patio, that stayed too long on the '15$ prix fixe' screen, without divulging the details of this special. It wasn't that Amore had a spectacular menu, per sey, it just, well, had a menu.

Reasonably priced enough (brunch items seemed to mostly hover at 9$ or so), we took a seat on the 'patio' - a crammed 3 table space in front of the restaurant. Unfortunately, it proved not to be the best seat of the house, as the autumn winds and shade quickly cooled our ordered items. I suppose I'm still in denial that summer is quickly fleeting.

I was sorely disappointed with the overly lemony hollandaise sauce on my bennys. Which leaves me still on a quest to find the perfect rendition of this sauce. The last time I had eggs benedict, I was in North Bay where the joint served a way-too-thick version of the sauce (did they put cornstarch in it?!). And unfortunately, my dear friend was unimpressed with the undercooked potatoes that came with her spicy italian sausage frittata (the bread was a redeeming factor, however.) Coffee was standard, as far as coffee goes when it's served at 2.3$/mug.

Spending QT was more of a priority today, so I think I wasn't actually as frustrated (vocally, anyway) with the food as I would usually be. Sometimes, even good service can't make up for the food. When I'm in the area next, however, I'll probably be venturing elsewhere. Like Grazie Ristorante, for example (a fave of my dear friend's).

Amore Trattoria
2425 Yonge St.
* * (of 5)

fridge woes and tuna tales

We have a new apartment!

The boy and I moved into our new place at the beginning of September: same (sketchy) building, larger unit. What sold us? The really really large kitchen. Well, relatively so anyway, as far as apartment living goes. But, but, but... we had no fridge until a good week later. No joke: it was Sept 7th before we convinced them that doing groceries was integral to my well being. Eating instant noodles and pizza for a week had me wondering how people survive on these types of food for the entire academic year. Ewww.

The building management had promised us a new fridge (a few new ones were on order), and kept saying that they'd be here 'either today or tomorrow'. Definitely more than a few 'tomorrows' passed by, so we knocked on their office door. The solution to the not-yet-arrived fridges? Them pulling out a fridge from an empty unit. Meh, it'll do for now - not to mention that it's a better fridge than the one on the boy's old studio. Besides, it seems like they haven't forgotten about the new fridge, which means perhaps one of those by the end of the month? I've learned not to assume anything around here. I'm just crossing my fingers on one of those soon, so we'll have a functional freezer. Not that the one now isn't functional, but it's one of those ice-boxes-within-the-fridge type deals. Not very cold.

But!

We lucked out at the grocery store last week: tuna was mislabeled as shark! We couldn't believe our luck at finding this stuff for 11$/kg. It turned out to be okay, but not fabulous (unfortunately), in our rendition involving soy sauce, wasabi, and sesame seeds. I'm not sure I'll be using the george foreman again for tuna without modifications (it didn't grill... it steamed the fish - too much liquid!).

In other kitchen news, our oven has no temperature markings.
Any suggestions?