My adventure with gluten-freeness and dairy-freeness began in October 2010. I've been cooking sweet potatoe fries, rice pastas, brown rice everything and rice-flour pancakes for months and tweeting about it. I've rediscovered my culinary skills and am enjoying it immensely.
I really wanted to try Winterlicious this year but of course I was worried about whether or not I would find food I could eat. This nice article helped - http://www.torontolife.com/daily/daily-dish/de-licious/2010/12/17/the-winterlicious-2011-menus-are-out-so-lets-compare-them-to-previous-years/ I found menus I really appreciated at Eight Wine Bar with Josephine and Ida, Trevor's Kitchen with Emily, Eddy Levesque's Kitchen with Adam and Southern Accent with Adam. My reviews follow. The best part of Winterlicious this year was being exposed to amazing restaurants in Toronto that I would never have found otherwise.
- Trevor's Kitchen is very nice, upscale and downtown-like on Wellington East. I would definitely do dinner there, Emily and I enjoyed a long lunch. The service was amazing and the food was delectable. I really enjoyed the cotton-candy that came with the bill. Lucious!
- Eight Wine Bar is stylish and located in the Metropolitan Hotel on Colborne Street. I loved the flourless chocolate cake for dessert--it was light and fluffy and the dark chocolate sauce was d'lish! I've got to try their Friday night $1 an ounce wines. I was jealous of Ida and Josephine's steak choice but red meat I've discovered is not my best-friend :(
- Southern Accent in the Annex was a cajun treat with Adam. Cajun-Creole-Soul was their slogan and so it felt. The ambience was amazing. Adam and I even booked their cute little private cubbies because it was so cute and I was feeling the effect of the southern bourbon because I don't yet have a date for my reservation. Jambalaya was gold!
- Edward (Eddy) Levesque's Kitchen for a late lunch with Adam. It wasn't exactly winterlicious but it was damned good. Potatoe latkes with smoked salmon, umm good. No dessert here as it was only lunch. Very nice decor, all fancy and what-not. I would probably go back for dinner sometime.
I missed Grappa Ristorante for dinner with Sebastian due to a cold but there's always Summerlicious! As I write this, Valentine's Day looms, but because I've had such good times with friends I am not bereft of love and loving. I've had enough love to last me for a while. I'll probably groan about being single in the spring but for now, I'm happy, content and loving this life.
Going out for Winterlicious taught me a couple of things - there's so much to discover in Toronto, you need only give yourself the time and the freedom, and there's so much conversation to have with friends that it's all a good reason for living.
Good food, great friends, excllent times!
