A Funny Thing Happen On the Way To Nirvana

I attended the second annual Yoga Festival Toronto, a non-profit grassroots 3-day yoga urban retreat, which took place Friday August 21 - Sunday August 23. It was held in the beautiful National Ballet School (of Canada) on Jarvis. 7 dance studios were used to hold various yoga-related sessions. For the festival, they were named after the 7 chakras. In addition, there was a common area for eating vegan, ayurvedic lunch and dinner meals. A number of vendors and organizations were on hand to peddle their wares. Generally though, it was less commercial than the Yoga Expo that takes place every year at Exhibition Place.

For 3 days, a 3-hour morning asana class was followed by lunch, two 2-hour sessions in the afternoon, dinner, and a round-table discussion. Morning meditation was available for those who can come by 7 a.m. I did not attend any morning meditation although I did spend some quiet time up on the 6th floor veranda Friday morning.

My first asana was an Ujjayi Pulse class with Diane Bruni. This is typically an Ashangta class where the breath is synced with a live drummer keeping a 4 beat pattern: inhale-3-2-1, exhale-3-2-1. This can be challenging, especially as the session grows long or the postures increase in difficulty. Diane dialed down the intensity when it became obvious that a lot of the practitioners were not used to the speed of this style. The interesting thing was the foot placement that she taught. Something she decided to change only 3 months ago after a yoga retreat, after 20 years of practicing a different way. I guess it's never too late to try something new. Certainly, I found that it helped me more with my balance and postures.

Lunch was a revelation. Although yoga was originally reserved for men, it is now primarily practiced by women. As it turns out, the breakdown at YFT was 78% women. And apparently more than half of them are young, slender yoga teachers. With a fair proportion of them sporting short pixie haircuts. As you can tell, I kind of have a thing for that. Perhaps it was the vegan lunch, or perhaps for some other reasons, but I was feeling really good!

The first afternoon session was a lecture with Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad. They felt that both Western thinking (e.g., God) and Eastern thinking (e.g., karma, non-attachment) separated spirituality: selflessness, timelessness (The Here and Now), egolessness and so on from the world: self, ego, thought, etc. This not only creates an unattainable and incorrect hierarchy of values: the spiritual path, but is subject to authoritarian abuse: societal and religious. Their 3rd way is to embed the spiritual in the mundane, "I am a spirit" not "I have a spirit". This is an interesting perspective though I couldn't help but giggle at the thought that this was covered in an episode of Friends where Phoebe tries to do a selfless act without personal satisfaction (selfishness) to refute the cynical Joey.

A born-again Christian had a real problem with Joel and Diana. She felt that they were one more set of people "telling her what to do". Oddly, she did not see the irony of apparently giving her own religion a free pass when it comes to people telling her what to do. I wonder how she feels about the fact that Hatha Yoga (the physical postures) is but a first step to other yoga traditions that are definitely religious in nature.

The second afternoon session was a workshop with Scott Davis. He specializes in Yin and Yang yoga, incorporating TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) concepts into yoga practices. The main idea is that various yoga postures stimulate different meridian lines, leading to manipulation of various organ systems, which can be useful for increasing or decreasing energy or emotions associated with those systems. Also, as these systems are tied to the seasons, you can also adjust your practice to reflect the currently dominant system.

Dinner was intellectually stimulating but there was some downside. Some friends I ran into insisted that I eat with them, sequestered away into a corner. Thus, I was unable to meditate upon neither truth nor beauty. Ha!

The round-table concerns itself with yoga and relationships: self vs mentor, sex vs. celibacy, monogamy vs. non-monogamy, attachment vs. detachment. The faculty members had interesting insights, as they come from not only personal experience, but also study, thought, and scholarship. The contributions from the audience were less insightful as they draw primarily from personal experience: This is how I feel, this is what happened to me. The problem with personal experience is that, by its very definition (personal and subjective), any revelatory application to anyone else is purely accidental.

"So Long To" Tastelessness

In contrast to the previous post, a dinner at Ceylonta in Ottawa was quite a treat. This restaurant specializes in Sri Lankan cuisine, which is similar to Indian dishes. However, there is a lighter touch on the spices and curry, which is much appreciated by my friends who are ambivalent about Indian food.

Delicious dishes include Chicken Byriani which comes with a spiced chicken leg and an egg buried inside the rice, the Vegetable or Meat Thali whose components are quite different from what one thinks of a typical thali (combination platter), Kothu Rotti is chopped up flat bread mixed with vegetables and meat, and various curry dishes. Masala dosas are also quite tasty. I like my naan fluffier whereas those at Ceylonta's are more flat paratha style, but that's just a personal preference.

There are 2 locations in Ottawa: one near Somerset and Bank, and one near Bayshore and Carling. Both are excellent choices. So check them out when you are in Ottawa.

On a final note, apologies to any diners at the Carling location on Friday August 14th. Our party comprised of 9 adults and 5 children 3 years and younger. Some of the women have never believed in the "inside voice", add a rambunctious 3 year old, an extremely finicky 3 month old, and the general din of such a large group and I can only imagine what it must have been liked for everyone else there. I think we left a good tip though.

Put the Ban in Julie's Cuban

3 weeks ago I finally tried Julie's Cuban - a cozy tapas place tucked into a quiet section of Dovercourt and Foxley. I first heard about it almost 10 years ago. Every now and then, I would think: "Let's try that Cuban place". But I could never find it, always thinking it was somewhere on Ossington.

Google Maps finally set me straight. I've biked past that place in the last little while and it's always busy. Looks good so far.

Perhaps I should have gone 10 years ago when it first opened. It was a mediocre, perhaps downright bad, meal. The ceviche came rubbery and fully cooked over a bed of indifferent salad and herbs. This is doubly criminal since Foxley (the restaurant) just down the street serves some excellent ceviches. I've never met a chorizo dish I didn't like, until Julie's: hard, overly chewy, in a bitter red wine. The chicken quesadillas was simply adequate and Ropa Vieja (shredded beef with rice) was just edible. I don't know if brown rice and beans go better with Latin food but the white rice was definitely a mistake. Both dishes were undersalted. Yet oddly, the plaintain dish was oversalted. Finally, the slice of pie was ok ... except for the $7 price tag.

The only tasty dish (heh) was the waitress. She was the classic girl next door: light brown hair loosely tied back, rosy cheeks, blue eyes that twinkled when she smiled, and a soft sweet voice. I couldn't help but sneak a peek every time she came by. Luckily my dinner companion was just a good friend because otherwise I'd feel like a horn-dog. She thought the waitress was all that, too. This would be the only reason that makes me regret that I'll never come back here.

So the $80 (pre-tip) we paid meant a good and deserving tip for our helpful and attractive waitress. But it was definitely overpriced for our dinner. I really don't know why this place is always so busy ... maybe the regulars stick to nachos and beer.

Y uzu? Y not.

Another great 8-course omakase dinner at Yuzu. This time, the meal was $65. With only 1 'repeat' dish, that's 23 different dishes I've had at 3 seatings. To be fair though, every dinner has 1 sashimi and 1 sushi plate though the fish have varied.

1. Smoked salmon rolled into small flowers on a bed of greens with mango chips. Delicious salmon and not too smoky. The greens were fragrant. I couldn't taste much mango flavour but the oily crunch had great mouth feel.
2. 4 amuse-bouches. 2 marinated daikon shell stuffed with flaky hamachi: a nice contrast. A finger-length full fish grilled with lightly spiced sauce and coarse sea salt: gone in 2 bites, even the head. A gelatinous cube of beef marrow stuffed with sesame seed: good but doesn't quite have the nice marrow taste of the pig marrow I had last time. Asparagus in a sesame sauce: fresh with a nice crunch.
3. A clear soup filled with tiny coloured starch balls like candy, lily bulbs, and a fish coated with small, brown, puffy toasted rice (almost like rice krispies). Interesting texture. The standout, though, was the tofu. Bruce called it ?goma tofu? but a quick search shows that to be tofu made from sesame. I certainly didn't taste any sesame. The tofu was slightly hard, had a spongy texture (the cross section contained many small holes like a tiny sponge cake), and a slight sweetness. Quite remarkable.
4. The sashimi dish contained 4 sea dishes. One was cousin to the hamachi. Sea bream with slightly seared skin, the skin was separated, seared, and placed as a topping. Shrimp on a bed of seaweed. Must be different from regular shrimp at cheaper sushi because it was sweet and buttery. Even the meat inside shrimp head was less slimy and had a nice pâté crumbly coarseness.
5. The only repeat: grilled black cod with enoki and shiitake mushrooms. A sauce made from miso and grounded up peppery japanese leaf provided a nice green base.
6. Sea bream on seaweed simmered in sake. Little enoki mushrooms and tiny asparagus stuffed in little bowls carved from daikon completed the dish. The dipping sauce was a ponzu sauce with spicy condiment. Very tender fish. And you can smell and taste a bit of the sake. Fun fact: Sea bream is incredibly white when it's cooked.
   
7. The sushi dish: some fish, hana?, 3 pieces of a squid ring stuffed with rice (kind of like a reverse maki). The standout was the BC tuna brushed with garlic oil and topped with saute green onion. This combination was so outstanding I actually closed my eyes to savour every bite.
8. A green tea egg flan? The caramelized sugar sheet coating the top breaks up nicely to reveal a slightly sweet green tea soft pudding-like interior with a definite eggy taste. The icing sugar-coated strawberries and blueberries side was a nice touch.

Note: Bruce mentioned that this Friday there is a 'different' omakase dinner. I'm not quite sure if he means that he is changing up the menu or that there will be special dishes because of shipment of rare ingredients. He mentions ayu, a fresh-water fish. He invites me to come back ... but I don't know, 2 omakase dinners in 1 week, these dinners aren't exactly cheap.

Note the second: There was recent expose in the Toronto Star about restaurants passing off frozen tilapia as red snapper. I thought Yuzu came off fine as their 'Japanese snapper' was tested and found to be, correctly, red seabream. However, Bruce felt that there was still some misunderstanding as the survey implied that he was passing off 'red seabream' as 'red snapper' since the article says some restaurants listed snapper but had seabream. In fact, Bruce states that red seabream is a better fish than red snapper (It was actually noted in the article's sidebar that: Red Snapper - saltwater fish. Red Seabream - pricey saltwater fish). This is particularly true in North America where red snapper typically comes from the warm waters of Florida.