Seinfeld, Party of Four!

I attended a small party at a condo in the Marina Del Rey area in Etobicoke. It was the kind of condo my Mom would love for me to have: new, clean, well-furnished, overlooking the lake and the Toronto skyline. Transit-wise, the Queen streetcar can take me into downtown Toronto in about 30 minutes. The neighbourhood was a little bare, populated by mostly new condos and townhouses, and older homes so a car is probably a necessity if you want to get around. As such, I'd probably want a more urban streetscape.

I disliked the area even more since transit was particularly slow that day. It essentially took me 2 hours each way to get here. So a total transit time of 4 hours to go to a 4-hour party did not endear me to return and visit the location.

I was waiting at around 11:00 pm for a streetcar; the one which was scheduled for 11:07 pm and did not appear until 11:35 pm ... followed by 2 other streetcars. This was mind-boggling as the Long Branch terminus, where these trams would have originated from, was only about 4 stops from my location. In any case, two Caucasian gentlemen in a sporty vehicle pulled next to my stop and greeted me jovially: "Haro! Hey, haro!" My mind drew a blank for a second, and then I thought amazedly, "Are ... are they mocking my [general] ethnicity?!" (For the record, Vietnamese have no problems pronouncing the "r" sound.)

I gave it no further thought, as I was preoccupied with cursing "The Better Way" for the rest of the evening. But later on, as I was walking home, I was a bit flabbergasted. In Toronto, one of the most multicultural cities in the word, in 2010, how should one react to such an unexpected and casual slur. Wasn't bigotry the more subtle kind now such as lack of political representation, work promotion, or "coded" words in discourse?

Coincidentally, at the party, a friend had related a story about her 2 years in Nigeria and her initial frustration at being referred to as "Jackie Chan" by every stranger she met. (I think she was equally offended by the name's masculinity.) Later, she grew a thicker skin and shrugged it off.

So I guess the lesson here is to be "above" these petty concerns and don't let it disturb your calm tranquility. How appropriate and timely! Ommm ....

Alternatively, if you are Asian and find yourself in a similar situation, you might also decide to pull the corners of your eyes tight, dance from foot to foot, and yell: "Jackie Chan! Jackie Chan!" Throw in a couple of "Ching Chong Ding Dong!" for variety.

So I guess the real lesson here is that there is more than one lesson to be learned from any story. So spake Confucius. Or something like that.

Ninja, Say What?

Garrison Creaky

An avid NXNE festival-goer would size up the different acts for each hourly slot and rush from show to show to get the best experience. I was happy to see a few bands in one location. Friday night, I settled on The Garrison (named after the street, and the street itself is located near long buried Garrison Creek) for two reasons. First, it was in my neighbourhood. Second, 2 of the 5 acts were mentioned in various articles. In between sets, I wandered a few blocks to the corner of Dundas and Ossington to watch people heading for other NXNE acts at the Dakota Tavern or the Painted Lady or just out for the evening in the trendy Ossington area. I watched the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes ... and I liked it (the ones pulling off 60s Mad Men combined with hippie bohemian.)

First act was a 3-man, Green Day-ish, punk group called Soft Copy who performed to a mostly empty room. Apparently, they've been around since the 90s. I don't know if I like punk, but I know I didn't really like them. Loud, repetitive songs that sounded the same after the 3rd song. Next set belonged to Zola Jesus, who had once trained for the opera. Now, she vocalizes over atmospheric synthesized beats and chords. She had an impressive range, but like all operatic singers doing pop, what comes out of her mouth sounds like "Aaaaa-oooo-eeeee-uuuuu" - just a continuous undulation of vowels. But I'm probably not her target audience, which seems to be mainly goth-y couples in the full get-up: black wardrobe, heavy make-up, huge boots, and spikes and chains everywhere. The 3rd set had the most audience, packing the room tight. Best Coast is a 3-member outfit from L.A. Fronted by a female guitarist, they did mostly love songs in that retro, surfer rock style - where the drums usually play out a "Oom-pa-pa--oom-pa" rhythm. I like love songs, but I wanted a little more than "I love you, but you want to be friends" lyricism. Nevertheless, most people seemed to be into the band. After Best Coast, and given the unimpressiveness of what I've heard so far, I decided to head on home instead of hanging around for Soft Pack and Cold Cave.

As an aside, I think part of the problem is the sound system at the Garrison is underpowered. To get the volume for a live show, they have to crank it up: resulting in a distorted and muddied sound.

One bright spot was the new short hair-style I spotted on some of the young ladies. As I adore gamine looks be they boyish, bobbed, or cropped, I appreciate any variations on this theme. It was a deep platinum-ash blonde, swept up and centered. Kind of a cross between Kim Novak (but short and not pinned) and Bridget Neilsen. On a hot summer evening, that cool, aloof, Scandinavian look was quite soothing.

Other Asian

East Asian restaurants are ubiquitous in North America now, especially Toronto. But they typically belong to the main categories of Chinese (Cantonese), Japanese (sushi), Vietnamese and Thai. There are some minor forays into Hakka, both the Chinese and the Chinese-Indian versions, non-sushi Japanese, and the odd Filipino restaurant. So it's always nice to see something different.

At St. Clair near Oakwood stands a little diner serving Cambodian and Thai food called Khmer Thai Restaurant. It looks to be family run; a professional restaurant would not have dinner hours limited to 5-9 pm. Despite the protestation of the young waiter that every dish is Cambodian, at least 1/3 of the dishes are Thai. But I'm there to sample some Cambodian dishes. First up is something called Cambodiana Soup. It's a green curry soup with chicken and vegetables served with rice. More liquid than a standard green curry, it retains enough curry flavour, spiciness and saltiness that it tasted best poured over the rice. Though the menu listed "egg plant", the green, slightly chewy vegetable looked to be some sort of asian/chinese melon. In contrast, the Phanaeng Kai is a thicker chicken curry than the Thai equivalent. You can still see the coconut milk in the sauce. It's a rich, creamy dish. The weakest of the lot is Samlaw Khmer, a lightly fried vegetable/shrimp/chicken combination. The tamarind paste adds an odd tangy taste to the dish. The main draw (and perhaps drawback) is that every dish is complete in itself with a generous serving of rice. This is great if you are eating by yourself and just want a quick meal, not so great if you are sharing. I will be back to try the pork tender loin and the khmer pancake which sounds like the Vietnamese dishes of com tam and banh xeo. Given that these Vietnamese dishes belong to South Vietnam, which used to be Khmer countries, I wouldn't be surprised if they originated from Cambodia.

Wandering through my own neighbourhood, I see that there is a new restaurant, "Grand Opening" sign still up, near Dufferin and Bloor with the odd moniker Motherhome. But what's this? Myanmar cuisine? That's different and awesome! My eagerness deflates when I step inside and see that the food is served food court style, sitting under heat lamps next to the cash register. An affable middle-aged couple runs the place. Incongruously, the place is spotless, with nice tables and chairs, and better dishware than most Asian restaurants. I tried their martim roll and a combination plate with my choice of rice, vegetable, and 1 meat dish. The martim roll is an odd beast - a chinese-like fried spring roll stuffed with spicy potatoes, peas, and (tiny) pieces of goat. It tastes like a samosa with a bit of a corn taco flavouring. I like it, but I wish it hadn't been sitting under that heat lamp. The stir-fried vegetables is ok, though different than the Chinese version. Best of all is the meat dish as I had picked the vandallo pork. Now if that sounds suspiciously like Vindaloo, it's also described as a spicy and sour dish. It does taste a bit like vindaloo, though sweeter. And of course, unlike Indian dishes, it' s made from pork - specifically pork belly. Perhaps these echos of samosas and vindaloos coloured my perception as I thought that the language of Myanmar spoken by the owners sounded like non-tonal Cantonese with an Indian lilt. The food is good and would be even better if made to order but maybe with only the two of them, the owners felt that they didn't have enough people to staff a real restaurant. Being neither a true sit-down restaurant nor a quick takeout place, and with sufficiently unusual dishes, I'm not sure how long Motherhome will last. (Hmm, A quick search reveals a 2007 chowhound post about a burmese restaurant called Motherhome located on Front St.) Anyway, I'll be back to support them and to try the other items.

There Are Four Lights!

For the Luminato festival, I attended a number of free concerts at the Yonge-Dundas Square. First up, a night of latin music. The "house band" was a group of Torontonians of various hispanic background who usually plays at the Lula Lounge in my neck of the woods. The music was catchy, polyrhythmic, and lively. Once again, I was left wondering why my musical heritage (Vietnamese music) involve such depressing styles. There were a few groups of dancers here and there. Caucasians are inept, though shamelessly enthusiastic. There were are few male Asian dancers but in my view, they lacked elegance in their own movements and seemed to be primarily showing off how to throw their partners around. They reminded me of a certain middle-age Asian I've seen at a number of Toronto street festivals over the years who was a dancing menace to any women he could get into his spinning clutches ... oh wait, there he is! The latin dancers showed the most grace and feeling. I didn't stay for the main act, the singer La India.

I then returned for some Bollywood music. The audience fared better this time around when the dancers on-stage walked them through some steps. Bollywood dancing is essentially aerobics with tablas. There was a demonstration of more traditional styles such as Kathak. Unfortunately, the clueless cameras were always focusing on the wrong close-up: they showed feet when they should have shown the hand movements, and vice versa. The headliner of the evening was Suzanne d'Mello who belted out english and hindi songs including "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire. The main fault of the evening were the hosts who kept over-promising and under-delivering. Look, we understand that most of the performers are locals from Toronto. By hyping them to the moon, it made their act seemed ordinary and underwhelming.

Next up was 80s night with a trio of vocal impersonators. First was Luisa Marshall as Tina Turner. She had the hair, the moves, the mannerism, the short skirt, and the voice. With her back-up dancers and band, she did all the big Turner hits including "Simply the Best", "What's Love Gotta Do With It?", and "Proud Mary". Oddly, she left out "Private Dancer" despite some pleas from the audience. The evening deflated for a good 45 minutes as Heartless did some Heart tunes such as "Alone", "What About Love?" and "Barracuda". There's a reason music left behind all those 80s rock songs with their interminable guitar solos. But the evening ended on a high note as Vogue Madonna took the stage. Elly Jarmain did all the big Madonna hits: "Like A Prayer", "Like a Virgin", "Holiday", "Vogue" and so on. But she also included new Madonna songs such as "4 Minutes (To Save the World)". There were even multiple wardrobe changes for her and her dancers. Her band also included skinny rockers with too much gel and eye-liner. The only incongruity was her 6-month pregnancy, which showed clearly through all those tight Madonna outfit and lent a certain cheesy irony to "Papa Don't Preach".

I was going to catch some J-Pop but there was stormy weather that night. Also, I like my J-Pop to involve large groups of saccharinely cute girls doing dance choreography. It looked like it was just a couple of typical bands.

Pizza, Pizza

Having read an extensive blog post on pizza, I've been salivating over the thought of really good pizza. With this in mind, I told the waitress at Marcello's that I'm looking for the best pizza in Toronto. She declared that the diavola here is where it's at. This Italian trattoria has been around for a long time and is supposedly one of the best pizzeria in town. It's definitely old-school Italian including patrons who speak like they've just stepped out of The Godfather.

My pizza came out of the stone oven nice and hot. I was unmoved by the hot soppresatta, only because I'm not a fan of that style of stringy, sour deli meat (see also: salami, pepperoni). However, the rest of the toppings were great including whole black olives. The crust was excellent: thin and crispy though not quite as nice a mouth-chew as Pizzeria Libretto. However, since it wasn't as thin either, it held up better as the pizza cooled. Unlike typical bland white dough, the pizza had a complex flavour including what seemed to be a dusting of flour that you typically see on fresh bread. I will definitely return to try other offerings.

Speaking of Pizzeria Libretto, I went back to this place twice for lunch. Although it has been getting rave reviews, being 1 of one 2 places in Toronto certified to make "authentic" Neapolitan pizza, I've been on the fence about their pizza. Their crust on the outer edge is awesomely chewy, but the rest of the pizza is so thin that things get a little droopy. But there's no doubt their $15 lunch special include salad, pizza (you're limited to a margherita D.O.P. or a Marinara D.O.P.), and dessert is a great deal.

On my last visit, and having ordered the Marinara which is without cheese, I had a revelation. To make the best of your eating experience here you need to:

1. Limit the number of toppings as to not overburden the crust
2. Don't put wet toppings on it such as the chili oil that's offered on the side
3. Fold the inner 3rd of the slice to get more "hold" on your slice
4. Most importantly, don't let the pizza sit and get soggy. The best way to do this is to treat the pizza as an appetizer not a main. In other words, if you're there as a party of 2 (or 4), order only 1 (or 2) pizzas. The first slice fresh out of the oven is the best slice. If you want to eat more pizza, see if you can get the waitstaff to wait until you've finished your first or don't order them all at once.

Next up on my list are a couple of locations in the East end, including the other "authentic" Neapolitan pizzeria.

Phoenix Rising

After a yoga happening at Trinity Bellwoods Park, I spent the rest of the evening at Phoenix Concert Theatre with Basia Bulat. This was my 3rd outing (see here and here) with Basia and I had some reservations for tonight. When Joanna Newsom, a singer with similar aesthetics, made her debut in Toronto, it was generally agreed that the rocker environment of the Phoenix was a poor booking for her.

I was surprised that there were still tickets available for her show (having to grab a last-minute ticket at Rotate This for a late guest), and the concert was probably not sold out in contrast to her performance at St. Paul Trinity. My guess is that the 19+ age requirement excluded a fair chunk of her fan base, and possibly their accompanying parental units.

I arrived half-way through the set of the opening act Wilderness of Manitoba. With 4 singers doing harmonies, slide guitar, and wild and wooly hair, they seem like a countrified the Mamas and the Papas. Next up is Julie Doiron with a 2-man setup: her on guitar and a drummer to bang the skins. This reversed White Stripes vibe is reinforced with the constant interaction between these two, as well as the jangly guitar and insistent drums. But her voice is more airy Feist than Jack White's scream, although she did belt out a song or two. She had some great tunes and I plan on getting her album.

My fear of a rocker vs. folk clash faded as it became clear from the first two acts that the stage setup and acoustics were calibrated for a more intimate folk pop night. The massive sound system were configured to bring out every instrument while retaining the power of those giant speakers without overwhelming the listener. This was more than apparent when Basia took the stage with a full band (not usually present when she tours oversea) including her brother Bobby on drums, her two female backup singers who also play ukulele, piano, and violin, and an upright bass player who also contributed his harmony on a couple of songs.

Being right in the middle and only a couple of feet from the stage, I experienced one of the best live performance I've ever been to. Basia evidently felt the same way as she wore a constant grin the whole evening, feeding off the crowd as well as her band. The full band, especially those propulsive beats from Bobby, energized new songs "Go On", "Run", "Gold Rush" as well as older tunes "Snakes and Ladders", "The Pilgriming Vine", "In The Night" and the fabulous encore closer "I Was Your Daughter". Quieter numbers such as "Before I Knew", "Little Waltz", "If It Rains" also benefited from the richness of the band. When Basia played flawlessly "The Shore" during the encore, and the swell of harmonies rose from the other 3 performers, I have to believe that it was the best performance of that song ever played by Basia, live or otherwise (as I can attest from viewing numerous recordings of other performances on YouTube.)

Any regrets? Only that I do not have a recording of the longer version of "Before I Knew" and my copy of "Heart of My Own" does not include "Hush" (some sort of iTunes exclusive? Boo!) Basia's voice has also grown richer, more powerful and more assured since her debut album so there was a small let-down when I listened to them at home a few days later. The only cure for that would have to be to see more live Basia. Also, to find a sound engineer who works for the Phoenix and bribe him for a bootleg recording. Call me! 555-Basia.