Lunch Combo

The building housing Jamaican restaurant Ackee Tree is slated to turn into a condo. But until then, pop-up restaurant Come and Get It has taken over the space. On Saturday, I moseyed over to this minimalist spot (the restaurant name is grafittied on the front facade) for a bite. The inside had communal tables with 90s kitsch: condiments and napkins are stored in plastic lunch boxes and you can play a Nintendo 64 by the counter.

I ordered the burger and fries combo ($11), opting for the braised beef short ribs and iced tea. The lunch came in all biodegradable packaging: container, cups, straws (all corn) and "plastic" forks (potato). The iced tea was a bit bland but a couple of squirts of watermelon sweetener did the trick. The fries were nicely golden (so fresh cooking oil) and crisp; they tasted great with the garlic aioli. The short ribs were tender but the chipotle sauce could have used more presence and kick. Luckily, there was some hot sauce sitting on the table. The apple slaw added a touch of juicy freshness to the combo.

Damn Kids and Their Rock'n'Roll Music

The duo Hot Kid was releasing their EP "Courage To Fight" Friday night at the Garrison. It promised to be a night of noisy rock. First up was The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores, a 4-piece outfit that played a sort of noise-funk. The drummer and bassist kept the groove going while the guitarist and keyboardist brought the noise. They engaged the crowd by passing out glowing plastic fingers, miniature tambourines, and encouraging clapping and dancing. But the sloppiness of some songs and the excessive screaming (not entirely their fault - see later) detracted from the performance.

Army Girls was up next. Instead of wild gestures and rhythm, this duo was all about tight drumming and jangling chords. But some songs also had catchy licks that got heads bopping. The singer's strong vocals were marred by technical sound issues.

Horrible sound mix plagued both acts. High gain on the vocals meant that any singing louder than "normal" became piercing and unpleasant. Other times, the vocals would drop out completely or got quiet and tinny. The musical instruments didn't fare much better.

It would have been good to see Hot Kid perform again, but I left having endured enough of the "bad speakers" all night.

No Bailout Needed

The gentrification of Dundas West St. continues apace with numerous restaurants, clothing stores, and coffee shops sprouting up between Ossington and Dufferin. I checked out the recently opened The Federal Reserve at the corner of Gladstone and Dundas for lunch on Friday.

The decor is common to most new (smallish) restaurants nowadays, what might be termed "Hipster Authentic". There are stools along the front window and up against the diner-style open kitchen area. Rustic, wooden benches or pews provide seating. Large Communist stars adorn the brick walls and bare lightbulbs hang from the ceiling.

They offer typical lunch/brunch fares including Eggs Benedict and Cubano sandwiches. I opt for tangerine juice ($3.75), a small French Onion soup ($3), and The Ploughman's Lunch ($12) - a platter of meat and cheese. I don't recall ever drinking tangerine juice and now I know why it's not popular: it tastes like watered down orange juice. The soup disappoints: instead of gooey cheese and thick bread, it was a thin layer of cheese melted over crusty bread.

The main is much better. Today we have a rabbit and pork terrine (stuffed with nuts) with a selection of pickles, a mild cheddar, and Asian pear. The terrine is leaner and lacks that strong, fatty tone of pork terrine. It goes well with the pickles: spicy cauliflower, sweet relish-like green peppers, and super tart pickled berries. When I mentioned that the cheddar was simply too mild for my taste, I received an additional thin slice of blue cheese. This hits the spot, adding a rich, earthy contrast to the meat and condiments.

A nice addition to the neighbourhood, The Federal Reserve fills up quickly after 12. You'll be waiting in line for week-end brunches if you show up fashionably late here.

El Marino

Thursday night at the El Mocambo was a small affairs showcasing a couple of bands playing new material. Dean Marino, a local producer/guitarist, was the connection. He produced the EP for Vistavision and plays for headliner Tin Star Orphans.

He also opened the night with a solo set. Being the frontman for Papermaps, he drew mostly on their material but tried out a few new songs. The music was often plaintive and concerned itself with small disappointments and regrets. Quite a change from his days in the Green Day-esque Knacker.

Vistavision played on stage with a big sound for a trio. Comprising of 2 guitars and drums, they maintained a propulsive rhythm thanks to tight drumming and chunky chords. However, some of their songs suffered from numerous structural changes, a song edit problem that plagues numerous Toronto bands. I wonder if ADHD is to blame?

I would have stayed for the alt-country styling of Tin Star Orphans, but the long workday and beer had stupefied my brain. Realizing I had trouble keeping my eyes opened, I stumbled out into biting blasts of wind to head home.

Where the Streets Have No Name

Wednesday night, I headed east to Coxwell and Danforth to check out Technotown, an original musical put on by the students of Monarch Collegiate. In a futuristic town where the motto is "Where Efficiency Is All Around", people have stopped interacting physically. A new family, the Novaks, arrives in town straight out of "Leave It To Beaver" central casting: straight-laced dad, home-maker mom, gee-whiz son and precocious daughter. They have retro ideas such as meeting face-to-face, baking actual blueberry pies, and playing real sports. How will the citizens of Technotown react to such outrageous ideas?

I won't critique a high-school production but I will make two observations. The performances were generally good although some kids had more acting and singing experience. The girl who played Chloe Novak had an especially strong voice. Though the songs had a good variety of styles, the tempo was consistently the same: the typical 120 bpm. This might have been to make it easier to sing to, but some change-up would have been nice.

As for the school, it's quite different from my alma mater. My high school was not nearly as big, I would have gotten lost with so many hallways. We certainly didn't have a large auditorium or an airy split-level circular library. Of course, we do share the musty photographic progression of past alumni on the walls reaching back to the ages, with the accompanying change in hair styles and clothes.

Celebration

As a misanthrope, I am always bemused by larger gatherings of people. Observations from a birthday party on Saturday:

• Pancakes from pre-mixed batter taste just as good as at fancy brunches. Of course, it helps to buy sausages from good butchers and have home-made coffee syrup.
• When I visit a nicely furnished place, I always promise to spruce up my own home. Luckily, the feeling fades.
• If your abode contains numerous musical instruments, your professional musician friends will start spontaneous jams and covers.
• I will never be used to people walking through someone else's home with their shoes on.

Healing Power of Music

Vish Khanna with Jim Guthrie

Friday night, there was a benefit at Lee's Place for the Newmans, 3 boys made orphan by the death of their parents. A cousin of the mother's was a producer in the local music scene. He gathered some of his musician friends for a benefit.

Vish Khanna (CBC 3) was the host for the evening. He kept the proceedings running smoothly, guided the mood between solemnity and enjoyment, and introduced local acts including Owen Pallett, Basia Bulat, Andre Ethier, Jim Guthrie (Royal City, Swords and Sworcery), Nathan Lawr (Royal City, Minotaurs), Light Fires, Casey Mecija (Ohbijou), Sandro Perri, and Bry Webb (Constantines).

Though each act sang solo for 3-4 songs, they often call on their fellow artists to sit in for a song or two. Halfway through, given the folky, earnestness of the singers, Vish introduced Casey and her sister (being filipino women) with "Since up to now it's been a bunch of white guys, we'd thought we'd change it up a bit ..." to laughter. He was more right than wrong. Bry Webb had powerful performances with Rivers of Gold, and Time Can Be Overcome. But as a whole, the women gave stronger performances.

Mecija sang songs with short verses filled with lovely imagery. Light Fires got the bemused folk/indie crowd dancing with Let's Get Divorce and If You're Bored. Basia blew everyone away with passionate singing and playing on her ukelin, autoharp, and guitar.

Pizza In The Piazza

On a bright, sunny Friday morning I headed off to the Kensington Market area to shop for a birthday gift. It turns out that Tatami Import on Oxford is an appointment-only showroom; they also don't carry any Japanese items smaller than tatami mats, tables, and chairs. Since I was already in the neighbourhood, I thought to try out Pizzeria Via Mercatti.

There has been a mini-explosion of thin-crust, Neapolitan-style pizzerias in Toronto including top tier Pizzeria Libretto, Queen Margherita as well as second-ranked restaurants such as Pizza e Pazzi. Via Mercatti is another recent entry, started last year by an ex-chef from Margherita along with his childhood friend from Naples. With his family not adjusting to Canada, the friend has returned to Italy.

The restaurant felt warm and homey, with large windows and skylights casting cheerful sunshine into the space. No doubt the patio would be full by summer. They had just received a 3rd pizza oven, this one shipped from Italy instead of being built in-house like the first two. Apparently, the current ones, brick-built and wood-fired, use more wood than expected. The new one resembles something from a military ship, completely enclosed and smoothly black, with temperature dials built in. It can use both wood and electricity, had better temperature controls, and can accommodate up to 9 pizzas. It would be interesting to try a pie made from the new oven once they have installed it.

For lunch, I ordered the Margheritano ($13) with fior di latte, prosciutto, and parmesan. These thin-crusts are usually hard to pick up as their tips will sag, and it was doubly so here because of the large amount of oil pooling on the pizza. This was tasty but very messy pizza better eaten with knife and fork. The prosciutto was perfectly salty and chewy. The dough was soft, fresh, and had the slight sweetness of good flour, but it lacked that smokey, cooked dough taste of Libretto's. Perhaps the ovens weren't hot enough.

Via Mercatti won't claim the crown from Libretto or Margherita, but it serves good pizza. Add a pint or two, and it makes an excellent place to sit and engage in some people-watching.

Old Growth

Thursday night, local indie band Forest City Lovers had their farewell show at The Great Hall. A sprawling collective of players, they have been playing dreamy pop for the past 8 years. With solo efforts, geography and other commitments, they have decided to end this chapter in their career.

Opening for them was Lisa Bozikovic and Kite Hill, two acts who share a similar aesthetic of atmospheric pop of quiet guitar, piano, and plaintive strings. The relatively small crowd was composed of a fair number of local musicians from Toronto's indie scene. With the hall festooned with streamers, the night had the elegiac feel of a high-school prom where old friends shake hands and promise to always stay in touch.

7even

Wednesday night, I ate at Ruby Watch Co owned by celebrity chef Lynn Crawford. As her prix-fixe menu changes daily, I knew it would be different from the last visit. The restaurant was almost full mid-week; diners like what she is serving up for 3 years now.

First up was a Red Beet Carpaccio Salad. The beet was thinly sliced with only a hint of the usual earthiness. The red watercress and orange segments went well with the feta and cucumbers. I would have preferred more watercress instead of the salad-like "greens" and have actual pistachio nuts instead of the pistachio dressing. The accompanying biscuits were soft, warm, and buttery.

biscuits

Beet Salad

The main was a big piece of grilled veal chops, still attached to the blackened bone. Though mine was well-done, it was satisfyingly flavourful and soft. The crispy sweetbreads were chewy with occasional bursts of a darker liver taste. Accompanying the meat was braised red cabbage which strongly wafted of red wine, a toothsome spaetzle pasta (decidedly different from the squeaky packing material I ate at a defunct Hungarian take-out), and bright heirloom carrots. But flavour-wise, the sides were not substantial enough to balance with the protein. Dominated by the texture and taste of the veal and sweatbreads, it was a tasty but one-note dish.

Red cabbage	Heirloom Carrots
Spaetzle	Veal chop and Sweatbreads

Before dessert, a cheese plate came with medallions of goat cheese, caramelized red onions and balsamic jam. Though others found it strong, I thought the cheese was too mild and got masked by the sweetness of the onion and jam unless it was sampled separately. The coffee creme caramel was delightful, the light, sweet eggy base balanced well with the slight tartness of the brandied cherries and the dark-roast aroma from the caramel.

Cheese plate

Creme Caramel

Local Host

It's funny how you can pass by an area for years without knowing all the streets. Sunday afternoon, I discovered Prince Arthur Ave, a little street running from St. George to Avenue Road north of Bloor. It has a number of restaurants and pubs, one of which is an Indian restaurant called The Host.

I used to be enamored of this local franchise at its location next to Square One in Mississauga. Lighter on the spices and with a classier decor, it was a nice change from grubbier locales. This one had the same aesthetic, although skewing more toward the English dining room feel. The Bengal Fish Curry was tangy with soft white fish. The Saag Paneer had well-cooked spinach and large pieces of fresh cottage cheese. It was a definite step up from typical hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurants.

For the ambiance and quality of food, you do pay more than usual. But if they are competing in the same market segment as Amaya and Debu Saha, they will have to up their game.

Spring Forward

Freeplay Duo

Sing! is the inaugural vocal arts festival that was taking place around the Harbourfront area. Choirs, a capella groups, and other vocal-heavy acts were there, along with workshops and seminars. Early Friday night, I caught a free show with, appropriately, Freeplay Duo.

Dylan Bell and Suba Sankaran also sing with other groups, but by themselves they were able to let their vocal expertise soar. Sometimes, it was simply their two voices such as their version of One Note Samba, complete with a South Asian-inspired drum segue. More often they used a looping station to layer on, live and in real-time, percussions, harmonies and other vocal effects for Jazz standards, pop melodies such as Michael Jackson's Butterflies, and their own "World Music" compositions including Sankofa. Granted they were "singing to the choir" (ha!), but the quality of their performance elicited spontaneous cheers and claps during every song. What a shame that more people are not exposed to their talents because their genre is too "niche".

Octoberman

Afterwards, I headed over to the Tranzac Club in the Annex. Founded by Australian ex-pats years ago, this small venue often hosts smaller acts. I only caught the tail end of Del Bel, a sprawling collective of atmospheric pop. It was a CD release for Octoberman, an indie band augmented with violin, trumpet, and sax. Despite the exhortation of the singer, the passive Toronto crowd was even more so than usual, clustering at the back and leaving the entire area in front of the stage empty. They played their entire new CD in order, a collection of melancholic tunes interspersed with a few up-tempo songs. After the wonderful "hoedown" last night and the "can't-help-but-grin" virtuosity of Freeplay, I had a hard time connecting with yet another sad, introspective indie act. On a second listen later, there are deeper intricacies in the new album "Waiting In the Well".

Training Sequence

Friday, I headed to the Lightbox to watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a documentary about 86-year-old sushi chef in a small restaurant (max seating 10) located in an underground mall next to a Tokyo subway station. There doesn't seem to be much to it, except that the restaurant has received a 3-star Michelin rating for several years. This is all thanks to the exacting standards of Jiro who, after 70 years working, continues to try and discover ways to make better and tastier sushi.

I was struck by the old-fashioned attitude for a hard, tireless, and uncomplaining work ethic (although with passion). As Jiro noted, "kids nowaday want to work less hours and make more money." Ouch! That hit a little to close to home as I've been griping about my salary situation lately.

There are no such joints in Toronto, offering 20 exquisite piece for $400. I could head to Kaji or Hiro for $150, but wanting an affordable but similar aesthetic I headed home to my local sushi place: Rikishi. This was also an unprepossessing place manned by an old, wizened Japanese sushi chef.

Saturday, I saw The Raid: Redemption, an Indonesian martial arts movie highlighting the fighting forms of silat. It was also a wonderful movie in a different way, mostly brutal and bloody (although there was some squeamish scenes in Jiro with the fish gutting.) But like Jiro, it was about people excelling at their craft with resorting to trickery or shortcuts.

Best of the West

Crooked Brothers

I wonder if I'm turning country since I have more fun at these shows than most other indie shows in Toronto. Thursday night was no different at the Horseshoe Tavern for Alt-Country night. Crooked Brothers was the first band on the bill. Hailing from Manitoba, they played a muscular countrified blues. With harmonica wailing, banjo flicking out rock-like solos, and a singer who often sings with a powerful growl, they played some excellent, toe-tapping original tunes and covers. They did venture into more traditional, old country music such as their take on Caney Fork River.

The Pining is an all-female country band. This time round, they added a violin player. Their songs were fast and catchy, with most clocking in at under 3 minutes. With their twangy vocals and driving drum beats, it was hard to resist stomping your foot to their infectious music.

New Country Rehab was the head-liner tonight. Though there was actually a smaller crowd than the previous show, the band kept the energy high for their set. They were best on fast and furious numbers, eliciting cheers from the crowd for the high octane guitar or fiddle solos. It was no wonder that for the encore, when asked whether they should play a fast or slow song, the crowd responded resoundingly for another scorcher.

Spring Has Sprung

Practically every culture has stories and traditions to welcome the Spring season; and all revolve around themes of beginnings and re-birth. John Southworth has decided to record a 12-song cycle called Easterween (arranged by Andrew Downing) and create his own story. On Wednesday, I attended the first night of a 2-night stay at the Lower Ossington Theatre.

Sitting in a semi-circle in front of a video projection was a small chamber ensemble of cello (Downing), violin (Aleksandar Gajic), double bass (Joe Phillips), guitar (David Occhipinti), clarinet (Peter Lutek), trombone (William Carn), and trumpet/cornet (Kevin Turcotte). Stylized videos played throughout the evening, illustrating the themes of each song. The story tells of Robert Kirk, a 500-year-old magician who asked the King and Queen of Faerie to break a spell on the land. GMOs have rendered the seasons out of whack. They enlist the help of a Sylvia, a 16-year-old Hasidic girl, and Johann, a 16-year-old Amish boy to find 3 cosmic eggs hidden in Pennsylvania and restore balance to the world.

If the story sounded like hipster mish-mash, I wasn't reassured when Southworth entered after the instrumental intro to sing "Nip It In The Bud." With his deep voice but babyish face, and sporting a brimmed hat, he looked and sounded too much like an Leonard Cohen affectation. It wasn't until the sentimental lyrics of the 3rd song "Falling In Love With The Old World Again" that I felt the sincerity of the performance. Then it became a wonderful show with the aforementioned "Old World", "Metamorphosong", "Robert Kirk Is In His Lighthouse", and "Rumspringa" being stand-outs.

The music, though still obviously pop, was classically orchestrated. The program described the performance as cabaret, and the songs do have that musical theatre arrangement: not typically classical but not merely background ornamentation to a pop refrain. From frantic trills on the clarinet, to stately melodies on the trombone, and complex interplay between the string instruments, it was great to listen new music that straddled genres and push boundaries. As a bonus, with the exception of guitar and voice, it was truly acoustical with no electronic amplification.