When was the last time you went tobogganing??
A helpful shove.
This was me practising skeleton running starts hahahhaaaa. Not quite the same as skeleton but it was fun launching myself face first down the hill on the big plastic toboggan.
Rosemarie and I trying doubles luge. I couldn’t stop laughing. THE BIG PERSON GOES ON THE TOP!!
That was a fun night. I’m glad so many people came over to have silly fun with me. PS thanks to Callum for taking so many pictures!
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…
Ah and it’s March 1st so here is my second 1 Second Everyday video!
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.
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.
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.
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!!
