Rare Bird

Ortolan is a traditional French dish that has been prohibited in France. The bird is force-fed until it is plumped, drowned in Armagnac, roasted and devoured whole. The diner eats the bird with a linen draped over his head to fully inhale the aromas and also to "hide from God".

This sinful, and ethically dubious, dish is not available at the eponymous restaurant newly opened at Bloor and Margueretta. But there is a bottle of Armagnac on site. A venture of Damon Clements (Delux) and Daniel Usher (Pizzeria Libretto), the waitress explains that the name is a nod to their traditional training and thus, the sort of dishes that are served here. Although this area has slowly gentrified with a few galleries, vintage-style shops, and some restaurants include the Holy Oak cafe, the Bloordale Pantry, Starving Artist (waffles), and the recently moved Calico (vegan), Ortolan is the first upscale restaurant to open in the area. More typical is the Happy Cup Bar Chinese and Indian spot ("Spicy your dinner!"). It must scratch a local itch because the place was full on this Wednesday night.

Next door to The House of Lancaster, Ortolan (Tues-Sat 5-10 p.m.) takes over from Kathy's Kitchen, a bare-bones Hungarian diner that I ate at last year. The inside has been dramatically changed although it's still a tiny spot. Four diners can sit at the elevated counter by the window, 7 small tables occupy the cozy space, and a couple of more seats are available at the small bar. A large chalkboard by the entrance shows the menu and wine list (all prices include tax), a smaller one behind the bar lists the aperitifs and beer, and next to the kitchen is a 3rd chalkboard with the desserts and after-dinner coffee.

For the appetizers, my friend and I order the rillettes ($8) and the white beans with pickled beets ($8). The rillettes is generously sized charcuterie made with pork shoulder that comes with some tiny pickles, a mustard-seed spread, and what looks to be bits of tangy chopped eggs. The whole thing tastes great on house bread, even the conspicuous white pork fat. The beans and beets are also tasty although as a personal preference, I would like the beans to be just a hair softer. The beets must be fresh because this is the first time I understand why some people think beets taste like dirt. Yum, root-y goodness.

As for the mains, we settle on a branzino (Mediterranean sea bass), leeks, and lemon butter dish ($17) and a roasted chicken leg a l'estragon, which is fancy French for tarragon ($16). The plating is smaller proportioned compared to the rillettes, especially the fish. This explains why the waitress recommended that we order a side salad. Instead of the fingerling potatoes, we got the house salad ($8) of fennel and radichio. Hmm, maybe we should have gone with the taters because the salad is just bitter roughage. However, the fish is wonderfully cooked with some fine leeks. The chicken is moist and tender yet the skin retains a delicious crispness. The cooked celery that comes with the chicken is not so great, still stringy and fibrous like all celery. The 3rd refill of bread helps fill out otherwise good but small mains (those potatoes are probably a good idea).

For dessert, our choices are a chocolate mousse, a panna cotta, and a poached pear tartlette ($8). We settled on the tartlette which turns out to be average. The pears could have been more flavourful and the cream and crust are merely competent.

Service is prompt and friendly. They even rush over to fold your napkin when you go to the bathroom. There is one caveat. According to my friend who was facing the bar and kitchen, they were grimacing and making eyes at us, probably because we were lingering too long after the meal. My back was to the waitstaff, and I tend to be oblivious to these things, so I can't comment.

But if true, then that was quite rude. I wasn't aware that there was a need for tables because there were some free ones around us. There were some patrons sitting at the bar but they looked to be enjoying themselves with drinks. Could they have been waiting so that our tables could be rearranged into a larger dining space? Possibly. But in which case, a gracious word explaining the situation would have sufficed for me.

Rounding out the meal with Mill St. pilsner ($7), a glass of Zweigelt from Niagara ($8) and a cappuccino ($3), the night came to $93 with tip.

The Reason That Everything Happens

Saturday night was a 20 year celebration of Kaeja d'Dance, a contemporary dance company run by Allen and Karen Kaeja, in a show called 20/20 Vision at the Enwave Theatre down at Harbourfront. Although it was a celebration, it was not a retrospective. All pieces were either recent, a World premiere, or a North American Premiere.

The Visitor (World premiere, Karen Kaeja) started the evening. A solo piece danced by Stephanie Tremblay Abubo. I had last seen this dancer at Momentum 2010, a student dance showcase of the Toronto School of Dance Theatre. It looks like she has found a footing in the professional dance world. I remember her strong jumps and leaps. However, she stayed mostly on the ground, prowling around her apartment. From her movements, it was clear she was a woman either in the throes of sexual frustration, or at least anxiously, and eagerly, awaiting a guest. More of a performance piece than dance in my mind, it went on a bit too long, like all the pieces. Also, a tendency to inject rapid, twitchy, Tourette-like movements seems to infect all Toronto School of Dance dancers and choreographers. It's not a vocabulary that I understand or enjoy.

Quenched (2010, Karen Kaeja) was a more conventional piece from Cadence Ballet. 2 lovers, Zhenya Cerneacov who first appears on stage balancing a large beach umbrella on his chin, and Courtnae Bowman go through the standard ritual of relatiohships: shy glances, giddy first encounters, and proceeding to familial contempt and long-term apathy. Props (no pun intended) to the dancers for incorporating the umbrella in some of their exchanges. They also demonstrated some of the vocabulary of Kaeja d'Dance, a style of contemporary dance called contact improvisation. In this case, a constant touching of limbs and bodies. It was a fun piece though there wasn't much deeper idea to it.

Jericho (North American Premiere, Allen Kaeja) was created for Ut i Scenekunsten. This Oslo group, composed of Stian Danielsen, Catharina Vehre Gresslien, Irene Theisen, Nasser Mhende, and Ratih Windrati, came from Norway for this recital. Fast-moving, quick, and very athletic, they also demonstrated other aspects of contact improvisation including effortless lifts. The style shown here is called Kaeja Elevations. These lifts involve less arm and upper body strengths because there are few holds, the dancer is assisted through their jump or movement by the base dancer based on pivot points and entire body supported. This gave the lifts a weightlessness and smoothness that were interestingly different from classical dance. Also, it allowed both men and women to assist their partners, creating exciting dynamics. My only complaint was that the troupe "front-loaded" their jumps into the first 3-4 minutes in frenetic choreography involving all 5 dancers. I would have liked to see these elevations interspersed throughout the piece, especially when only 2 or 3 dancers were involved.


Armour/Amour (World Premiere, Allen Kaeja) was less vigorous than the previous pieces, especially Jericho, but more profound. In the dance, Karen was often filmed, either by herself or by another, younger dancer (Mairead Filgate). These videos were shown onto the back of the stage, either in real-time or from pre-recorded segments. The front lighting also projected the dancers' shadows onto the images. All these versions of Karen and Mairead reacted to each other and also to the shadows and images: sometimes dancing in a kind of pseudo-duet, quartet, or even group format, sometimes mimicking movements, and even recoiling or running away. The two dancers seemed to be fascinated with each other, too. Mairead treated Karen with a kind of contemptuous condescension, while the older dancers kept touching her younger counterpart with yearning and longing. Why were they dressed identically? Was Mairead a protege or a youthful rival? Or was Karen chasing the memory of her younger days and regretting inevitable age and decline? This was an intriguing piece of dance and multimedia.

Hipsters' Helping Hand

Friday night there was a Japan Benefits Concert at the Garrison, organized by the York University group JISA (Japanese International Students' Association), to help the recent tsunami and earthquake victims. A number of local indie bands were scheduled to play with the cover being a minimum $5 donation. Additionally, there was a silent auction: gift certificates to local bars/diners, yoga studios, music boxed sets, etc; a bake sale with cupcakes and cookies decorated as Japanese flags; an origami group ($1 for every crane); and a 50/50 draw.

I dropped by fairly early at around 9 p.m. A Japanese duo was strumming some acoustic J-pop in the front room. I made my way to the back room. Hot Kid, a guitar-and-drum band, was setting up. They turned out to be the start of a night of hipster bands.

I don't disparage hipsters like other snarky internet commenters. When you're young and free of responsibility, you can do whatever you like socially. But there is a kind of aesthetics around the lifestyle. I've certainly seen hipster fans of local bands, but this was the first time that most of the bands also wear the accoutrements.

The female guitarist of Hot Kid was in Julie Doiron mode (power chords and guitar licks), but a lot screamier. The drummer was full hipster. Jack Black meets Village People, sporting a Can't Touch This MC Hammer t-shirt, he went through the whole drummer arsenal of visual tricks: standing up, head-banging, raising drumsticks high into the air in a metal salute, pulling out replacement sticks. At one point, the whole base drum started to slowly tilt over and would have fallen over (much to my bemusement) if not for the eventual rescue from an impromptu roadie. It was a fun set because of all that antic.

Next up was The Elwins: handlebar mustaches, scruffy beard, 50s soda shop cardigan sweaters, and twee indie Beatles-lite meet Elvis Costello. Some of their female fans wore matching Rosie The Riveter-style outfits and bopped along to the songs. Luckily for them, they were on early enough that the local CTV crew captured them on film for the 11 p.m. news.

Make Your Exit came up next, a typical rock band with 2 interesting twists: they have an alto sax player, and they sometimes do 4 part harmonies. For this show, half of the songs were their own stuff and half were covers including Tom Petty's Here Comes My Girl and Wings' Band On The Run. They sounded great and were not hipster-esque at all, except for the fact that they played the covers with an ironic, knowing wink. But like all good musicians, they got into it once they were playing the songs. Some of their fans, however, couldn't get over the idea of "Hey, it's like, classic rock, man" and found it oh-so-hilarious the entire time. Now those are the kinds of hipster I don't mind telling to get off my lawn.

I left at 12:15 a.m. before the final band Modern Boys Modern Girls came on. I  made a couple of silent auction bids but did not win. Maybe next time.

Smile Though Your Heart Is Aching

Wednesday day after work, I was planning on heading to Ici Bistro for dinner. Unfortunately, several reviews made it clear that you had to make reservations weeks in advance for this hot spot. Having seen a Friendly Thai recently opened at Bloor and Shaw near Christie Pits Park, I decided to try some Thai instead.

The glass front opened onto a minimal, modern space that signals Asian chic over the last several years: dark wood walls, wooden tables, long leather benches and so on. This restaurant also went with the recent trend of elevated tables and seats for one side of the room. There was only 1 couple when I came in and I was the only diner by the time I left, which made me felt conspicuous in that space.

I ordered a Thai spring roll appetizer ($3.99), Thai style stir-fried eggplant ($9.99), and a Malaysian lamb curry ($12.99). The waitress asked me if I wanted rice or noodles with my eggplant so I chose the noodles. Things didn't start well and it just got worse. The water tasted of that metallic chlorinated flavour that comes out of old taps. Given that other restaurants are now serving regular water in refillable glass bottles, you'd think they would at least use a water filter. The spring rolls came down nice and crispy. The vegetarian filling reminded me too much of those tired Cantonese spring rolls in 20-year-old joints but it did taste fresh. Unfortunately, I ordered the chicken spring rolls. D'oh! How does a kitchen screw up an order when they have only 1 customer?

The eggplant dish is described as "stir-fried spicy eggplant with sweet basil and chili". But it was more than 2/3 regular vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, red peppers, and such. A bit much on the cheap filler! The veggies were lightly stir-fried and still retained a nice crunch. But that quick action didn't do the eggplant much good: none of the flavour of well-cooked eggplant was present, and the skin was fibrous and hard. It did much better the next day, having softened overnight and additionally nuked by the microwave.

I'm not sure who thought serving steamed noodles as a side dish is a good idea. A clump of unappetizing bland noodles not improved by either the stir-fry or the curry. To add insult to injury, it wasn't free as was implied by the waitress's casual offer but cost $2.25. It should have also occurred to the waitress that the dish was also redundant since the curry came with rice and salad. The takeaway is when in doubt, ask about the cost of any offers, even if you feel like a hick. (For example, I hear that some restaurants are charging for bread now).

The Malaysian curry came out in a big bowl filled with a viscous, chocolate-brown liquid. There was a hint of peanut sauce. But the curry flavour overwhelmed all the other ingredients which can only be guessed at by their shape and texture: cauliflower, mango shoots, maybe a carrot. You could tell it was lamb you're eating though because it was tough and gamey. I didn't even bother packing the left-over. The salad was lettuce covered with an orange dressing which I'm positive came out of a Kraft bottle.

The bill came to about $30 before tax and tip. They say that Thailand is the Land Of Smiles because the irony is that people always behave amicably toward visitors, even when they are unhappy. I certainly felt a rueful grin when I left the restaurant when I considered that I had also thought about eating at Mother Home, the Myamar place at Bloor and Dufferin. The food there might be under heat lamp (though you can get a fresh made to order dish), but  it packs more flavour and taste than this meal. At $6 a combination plate all-in, it's also less than 1/5 the price, too.

Beauty and the Beast

As far as I know, The Dakota Tavern has been a fixture at Dundas and Ossington for a long time. In the past, I've watched hard-living men congregate outside its door as I waited for the Ossington bus. They didn't really inspired me to venture inside. In recent years, it has come to the attention of a younger crowd as the long line-ups, especially during music festivals, can attest.

Sunday night, I clambered down the stairs to the basement entrance to finally check it out. If the place looked like a small dive bar, then The Dakota came to it honestly. Beer-barreled shape barstools, wood-panelling, faded posters, animal skulls, it was all there. The men's bathroom, however, was surprisingly clean. The clientele was a mixture of old and new, though the predominant feature is hipster with the women in chunky glasses or retro dresses and the men in beards or mustaches. Scattered through that crowd are a few grizzled men in their 50s, tattoed dudes with large African discs in the ears, and rockabillies sporting bouffant dos last seen on Lyle Lovett when he was married to Julia Roberts.

The band was The Beauties, playing the Dakota's main kind of music, bluegrass and country. They played toe-tapping music, augmented by the excellent sound mix. Larger music venues could take some lessons from this place. The band was very tight, keeping up its high-octane output thanks to the work of the drummer and bassist, as well as blistering solos from the keyboard and guitars. I enjoyed their music but it didn't really connect with me emotionally. Perhaps it's because country and rockabilly are not music I typically listen to. But I really enjoyed New Country Rehab a few weeks ago. I think maybe their expert playing that was a bit of a drawback. To my eyes, they looked like professional musicians who have played these songs for a long time.

Carnivorous

I've passed by La Bella Managua many times on my way to Lalibela or Banjara. Wednesday night, I decided to check out this Nicaraguan restaurant. A cheery waitress greeted me as I sat down. The ambience was equally cheerful: yellow tables and posts, paintings of ships in harbours, wooden xylophones, ceramic urns and aztec figurines. Toe-tapping latin music played over the speakers.

I ordered the mixed ceviche ($8.95) for the appetizer and a carne asada ($11.99). I would have ordered a dessert as well but the waitress warned me that I might want to hold off as there was already a lot of food. Indeed, when the shrimp and fish ceviche came out, it was a generous amount for an appetizer. The chopped up lime-juice marinated shrimp and fish tasted good, especially with a dollop of habanero sauce. But I would have preferred that the fish be a little more raw a la Foxley for that great mouth-feel. The ceviche came with a huge mound of warm fried plantain chips and a couple of slices of avocado. The slightly sweet and crispy chips went great with the dish.

The carne asada was huge. A couple of generous strips of grilled beef steak rested on a large pile of gallo pinto (purple rice and 2 kinds of beans), I asked for both sweet and green fried plantains, and a cabbage salad with avocado. The steaks were well-done and had a nice smokey flavour (yum ... seared meat - this is not the place to get vegetarian dishes). But not surprisingly, since they were cheaper cuts of meat, I had to spit out about 3 small pieces when all attempts to completely chewed through them failed. The green plantains turned out to be the crispy chips from the ceviche. For this dish, the sweet plantain was better. The rice and beans were soft and chewy, and tasted differently from the typical rice and beans from Jamaican or Mexican places. I wonder if it's a different kind of rice? The cabbage was just for roughage, and was not improved by the sauce: a chopped onion, spicy chili, and lime juice mix that was too sour for me. It was definitely a full and belt-busting meal.


La Bella Managua is not a destination restaurant but I think it will replace El Jacal as the go-to Latin-American restaurant for me. Next time, I will order smaller plates so that I have room for the Cacao juice (made with Nicaraguan cocoa, according to the waitress) and Bunuelo, deep-fried dough fritter with yucca, for dessert.

0 to 100

On April 2nd, I went to The School of Toronto Dance Theatre for Acceleration 2011, the dance program for their graduating class. Unlike previous shows which often had too many dancers, the evening focused on smaller groups: duets, quintets, etc.

First was an excerpt from A Choreographic Offering, a 1964 piece by Jose Limon. Comprising of all-female dancers split into a duet and a quintet dancing to Bach's Musical Offering, the women were all soft movements and spins. Next up was Christopher House's Colder Ink (1994) with music by Tim Brady (Dead of Winter). The quartet did not interact much in the piece and concentrated on their own difficult choreography, some of which resembles yogic poses. Before the intermission was a new piece by Susanna Hood entitled Then it seemed beautiful containment. The dancers were playing with words, singing, humming, and fighting each other for nourishment. Sometimes it looked as if they were ready to literally consume each other.

After the mission, the first dance was also a new work from Lucy Rupert called rough magic. The dancers followed each other, mimicking moves, interrupting other ones, and falling asleep. The repeating fragmentary sequences envisage a flickering dreamscape. Finally, 2 dancers presented Boys With Be Men (1985) by Conrad Alexandrowicz. Laughing, taunting, daring each other, the man-boys showed comically how gendered roles (macho, boys don't cry, competitive) in most cultures (dancers also spoke to each other in different languages) can ultimately be limiting.

I liked the first dance and elements of the other pieces: the technical difficulty in Colder Ink, the humour in containment. However, there is a dance style to this school, seen in previous shows, and most evident in Ink (House is closely associated with the school) and containment and magic (which were choreographed with input from the students), which I don't really enjoy. The dancers do not often interact and are usually engaged in their own, individual movements. What I can say? I like choreography with some synchronous sequences (i.e., the typical music video) and interactions between dancers. So as amusing as Boys was, given the dearth of pas de deux between 2 men in both classical and contemporary dance, I was expecting more physicality (for example, unlike a male-female duet, both partners can participate in lifts) and yes, healthy aggression/athleticism. Instead, I got a disappointing pantomime.

That's Amore

Saturday evening, I popped over to Queen Margherita Pizza, the cross-town Neapolitan pizza rival to Pizzeria Libretto, located near Greenwood and Queen East in Leslieville. The restaurant had two level: the bar and some dining tables were on the ground floor, and up a short flight of stairs was the 2nd floor where the large domed pizza oven and the bulk of the tables were found.

I snagged the last unreserved seats at the front window bench with a view of the streetcar yard across the street. This proved fortunate as a steady stream of patrons made their way in throughout the evening, only to find that there were no seatings until 9:30 pm or later. Some settled for take-out and the rest left empty-handed. An Italian wedding reception had monopolized the tables up on the 2nd floor and the regulars took the remaining spots on the ground floor. The evening would see a group of old Italian men trooping out for their smoke break every 20 minute or so, gesticulating madly on the sidewalk. Some people do talk with their hands.

My buddy and I both ordered the $25 prix fixe comprising of an appetizer, a pizza, and a dessert. The polenta came as small cubes that had a nice starchiness, but the sauce had a bitterness that was a bit off-putting. The large manicotti was more my style with a toothsome pasta and creamy ricotta cheese. The Diavola pizza was excellent with hot soppresatta, spicy chopped chili, and oily whole black olives. The crust was thin and chewy, and I noticed it did not have the large charred spots sometimes found along the edge of Libretto's pizza. The Matteo pizza was average, the many toppings of mushrooms and other vegetables tasted slightly raw and masked the tastiness of the fresh dough. This confirmed my suspicion that you should avoid having too many toppings on these thin-crust Neapolitan pizzas. Both the cherry gelato and the chocolate hazelnut mousse were an indulgent way to finish off the meal.

So who wears the Neapolitan crown in Toronto? It's a close one. I think Pizzeria Libretto has the slightly better dough, but Queen Margherita is more careful with the cooking.

Elementals Madness Widens

Friday night, let's go see what the kids are listening to nowadays down at The Garrison. First up was Kite Hill composed of a singer on keyboard, a clarinetist, a violinist, a cellist, an upright bass-player, and a drummer. They played melodic tunes that tend to move from soft, slightly melancholic passages to head-nodding rock refrains. They are getting better the more times I see them. The sound mix allowed the softer instruments like clarinet and xylophone to be heard. As before, I sometimes wish that they break out of the pop music structure and add some complexity to their tunes (and not in the soft-loud-soft-loud sense).

Next came Slow Down Molasses, a five piece outfit from Saskatoon, composed of 4 guys, in a typical band set-up, and a girl doing harmony and synth. For this tour, they enlisted a female cellist for even more harmonic goodness. With 2 male singers, some of their songs were great with 4-part harmonies. A fairly noisy pop outfit, with lots of feedback on the guitar and a drummer with an heavy hand on the snare, they got the room to move (or at least for heads to nod more vigorously). Like the first act, they were unable to get the typical reserved Toronto crowd to close the 6 feet between the first row and the stage. It was kind of weird standing up there by myself, but I guess when you get old, being weird is par for the course. I preferred the second singer who had a country twang to his voice. He sang less often on lead, but his voice was strong with heart-ache and loss, and his songs packed a more emotional punch.

Finally Forest City Lovers came on stage. This was my first experience of this local outfit. Last week, I saw the lead singer/guitar/keys, Kat Burns, took the stage for the Junos. Unlike that appearance which was all sad, all the time, with a violinist, drummer, bassist, and a second singer/keyboard (one of the girls from rouge), there were some happy, upbeat tunes. One of my favourite songs (Light You Up) had Kat stuttering syllables to be echoed back by the violin. At the end, some people in the audience even started dancing.

Go here for your 2-word and 3-word band names.