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

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

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

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.

I’ll be honest… the last few weeks have been kinda bland. Just been working a lot, mostly at the hospital, but some at the data centre as well. I am tired!! But loving the paycheques. Anyway all this working is helping to lead up to the MOST AWESOME FEBRUARY EVER!!

It starts off a little early with Leslie visiting from Korea/Ottawa, our first Dine Out Vancouver meal, ladies night at Mt Seymour, and skeleton this weekend!!! If the ice is slow we may be moving up starting positions. If it’s fast then we’ll stick with lower ladies and then wait until the next weekend to move up. That weekend is also Rosemarie’s birthday. :)

Then Scott and I are flying to Toronto for a few days, then Ottawa for the rest of that week (where Rosemarie will be too). We’re cramming in seeing as much family and as many friends as possible. Plus Scott has never been to Toronto so we’ll do some touristy things as well. Is Niagara Falls fun in winter???

Then Scott and Rosemarie fly back to Vancouver and I fly to Calgary for a whole week of skeleton training! I don’t know a whole lot about what we’ll be doing there but so far it sounds like we’ll be learning to do real running starts in the icehouse, and also trying out the Calgary track. That track is slower, so we’ll be able to start from the top. So cool!

After that my calendar is blank. Haha.

PS Check out the shirt I made for Rosemarie for Christmas. WE LOVE BOB’S BURGERS. We especially love Tina. I don’t know how they keep coming up with such hilarious things for her to say… but they do… and it’s awesome.

CAPOEIRA! BRAZIL!