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Scott had never been to a wintery place before so we crammed our time in Ottawa with tons of snowy activities. It’s even been a pretty long time since I have been in real snow (on purpose!!)! It ended up being a really fun week.

Rosemarie, Scott and I spent one morning building a snow fort on the front lawn. It even had a slide attached. It amused me how fast we built the fort…. there is a big difference between what three adults with adult shovels can build and what kids with kids shovels can build, haha. Scott spent another morning working on it himself (I stayed indoors and took pictures), and then another whole morning digging deeper into the snow as well.

I think it was a pretty sweet fort. So much seating!

We also spent a significant amount of the trip watching the Olympics. My dad had a two TV (plus picture-in-picture) set up so we could watch maximum sports all the time. I really enjoyed watching curling this year, and of course skeleton.

Rosemarie’s friend Liz (who was on exchange in Fiji with her) came to visit us in Ottawa. Dad and Kate suggested that we go for a skate on the canal immediately after picking her up from the bus station. I didn’t even know you were allowed to skate on the canal at night but I’m glad we went because it was so empty! We pretty much had the ice to ourselves, although the Beaver Tail stands were closed so that was a bummer. Scott improved his skating quite a lot that night. I think we skated 4 km in total.

The next day we went downtown again to check out Winterlude stuff. Look how busy the canal was that afternoon! I’m so glad we did our skating at midnight cuz that is wacko busy. You can’t even see the ice after the bridge!!

We checked out the ice sculptures and ate shawarma and then finally got our Beaver Tails. I had a nutella one and it was delicious. Scott stuck with the classic Killaloe Sunrise.

Unpictured…

  • Cross country skiing: HILARIOUS. It was Scott’s first time on any kind of ski-like equipment and he was SO BAD at first, hahha. He fell a lot, hahaha. Poor Scott.
  • Snowshoeing: Meh.
  • Curling: Kate, Rosemarie, Scott and I got to fill in for a team in my dad’s curling league. It was a lot of fun, we actually did pretty well… ended up with a tie!
  • Maple syrup on snow: Successful once we figured out you need to let the maple syrup reduction cool down a fair bit before you pour it on the snow.
  • Hockey: Callum took Scott out to an outdoor rink to shoot some pucks for the first time. They were gone for like 2.5 hours so I guess it was fun!!!
  • Tobogganing: Hilarious. I’m going to make a whole post about it, haha.

Ah and it’s March 1st so here is my second 1 Second Everyday video!

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One last Toronto restaurant post. Rhum Corner is a rum bar right across the street from The Black Hoof. We stopped in for a few pre-dinner drinks because it seemed a little too early to have dinner.

They have dozens of different types of rum, and also incredible service. The bar guy was super helpful and friendly. I had a delicious dark & stormy (spiced rum, ginger beer, lime) and a really nice lime(?) daiquiri. Scott had a glass of straight rum and a wray & ting. I liked my drinks better than his drinks, haha.

Definitely a cool place.

Rhum Corner Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Scott and I split the five spice pork belly banh mi and kimchi fries. The sandwich was nice, I thought the bread was great and the meat was tasty. Nothing too spectacular though. The fries were OK. Too much mayo in my opinion. And maybe too much kimchi too. Maybe I just don’t love kimchi enough to appreciate the dish though.

Banh Mi Boys Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Chinotto Sanpellegrino. Slightly bitter, interesting taste. It drove me crazy because it reminded me of something but I couldn’t place it.

Margherita D.O.P. I guess we felt like a classic pizza? The pizzas only take 90 seconds to cook in their crazy hot oven. I’d seen some reviews saying that their pizzas were soggy in the middle but ours were cooked through. I love thin crust pizza.

House-made sausage pizza with caramelized onion, mozzarella and chili oil. This is a white pizza… no tomato sauce. It was delicious, I liked the sausage a lot. PS Scott confuses me, one second he says he doesn’t like sausage, next second he’s ordering a sausage pizza. Haha.

Pizzeria Libretto Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Um just let me say OMG YUM. Best meal I’ve had in a long time.

Winnie recommended this restaurant to us in Toronto. She said it was like a tapas place where you can try all sorts of weird things like tongue and bone marrow. Sounded awesome to me, and it totally lived up to my expectations.

It’s a small restaurant, so we had to sit at the bar, but that was cool because then we could watch them cook. Those last two pictures are the entire kitchen! They cook everything on a regular kitchen stove! Also the poor guy in front of us just did dishes in the worlds tiniest dishwasher the entire time. I wonder how long he has to do that job before he gets to move up the ranks?!

I had mulled wine and Scott had a fruity beer.

We started with two pork carnitas tacos. They might look like just regular tacos but these were probably the best tacos I’ve ever had. The pork was plentiful and tender, the guacamole was extra creamy and flavourful, and the tortillas were super soft. You could also put some crunchy pork skin on it for some crunch and some lime and hot sauce. The flavours were strong and worked well together. Really really delicious.

Next we had the bone marrow. It was very oily and rich, but also amazing. It came with a salse verde type of thing, salt, and bread. They combined together beautifully. I had been wanting to try bone marrow for a long time so I’m glad I finally got to try it!

Then we had tongue on brioche. There was a mountain of shaved tongue, brioche, pickled celery, some type of mayo sauce, and a mustard seed(?) sauce. The tongue was tender and salty and good. It reminded us of corned beef or pastrami. I don’t think I would have realized it was tongue if no one told me. The mustard sauce was awesome and again the flavours worked perfectly together. We devoured this whole dish in no time.

Even though we were already pretty full I decided we should still order the dessert. I am SO GLAD we did because that was like the best dessert of all time. We were dying from how delicious it was. It was a warm butter tart with raisins, topped with pistachio-maple ice cream, stout jam, and crunchy pretzel streusel. PERFECTION. The pastry was buttery and flaky and tart filling was sweet with pops of sour from the raisins (and I usually hate raisins!). The contrast of warm butter tart and cold ice cream was also pleasing. Finally the pretzel topping added crunch and saltiness to the dish. Please send me about 100 more of these!!!

Anyway if you can’t tell, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS RESTAURANT. Everything tasted well thought out and balanced. ~Flavour profiles~ are their speciality, in my opinion. Also it cost a lot less than some of the fancy meals we’ve been to, and I enjoyed it fifty times more. Check it out soon!!

The Black Hoof Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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So a billion years ago we went to Toronto. We had a great weekend filled with visiting family, seeing friends, and touring around (it was Scott’s first time to Toronto after all).

My aunt and uncle took us to Red Lobster to meet my grandparents (mom’s side). I hadn’t seen them in a really really long time. We can’t communicate that well but I’m so glad we saw them. It was happy and sad at the same time. The next day we met my aunt and uncle again with my other aunt and my cousins too. We went out for an epic dimsum meal somewhere North of the city and then hung out and watched the Olympics at my aunts apartment.

Scott and I went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was sort of interesting? There wasn’t very much Canucks or Sens stuff, but the simulators were cool. Scott tried being a goalie and hitting slap shots.

You can pay money to get a professional photo with the Stanley Cup…. OR you can just go right up to it and take your own photo. I’m not sure the people buying photos knew that.

After the HHOF we saw that Winnie (a friend who used to live in Vancouver) was pre-drinking at a bar really close by. It was really cool that we got to meet up with her, as it wasn’t planned at all but worked out perfectly! She gave us tons of really great recommendations of places to eat… which I will post about in the next couple of posts.

Elevator selfie in our cheapo hotel. The hotel actually ended up being pretty decent. They get a hearty thumbs up for me for letting us check in at 9AM to nap after our overnight flight! Plus also free wifi! I would for sure stay at the Holiday Inn downtown again.

CN Tower on our last morning in Toronto. It was a nice clear day so we could see pretty far. Not that I knew what anything was though? Like I couldn’t tell if the tall buildings in the distance were like Mississauga or just still part of Toronto. Toronto is real big.

The best/worst part of the CN Tower was the HIMALAMAZON. One of those 4D “rides” that moves around and squirts water on you and stuff. Judging by the graphics, it was pretty ancient. The plot made no sense either, basically you were a log floating down some tracks. But the tracks had loops in them?? And the Himalayas and the Amazon are not even close to each other AT ALL??? Bizarre.

Delicious Toronto foods post coming up next.