Anything But Mundane Monday!

Today was a sisterly-fun-get-together day! We had all been so busy with school finishing up, studying for exams etc… I rounded up the troops because I had gotten us tickets to City Line (we had missed the boat on Steven & Chris). I had been telling them that we had to be there at 9am and I only realized last night that in fact it was 9:30, but given how one (or more) of us is always running late, I thought it best not to say anything. It worked out nicely because while waiting for Lucy I got to leisurely eat cake while the two of them ran around like crazy because they thought we were late and they could not pull themselves together. I just kept eating my cake. We were at Yonge subway station and they were like “oh no! It’s 2 minutes to 9! Do you think we can make it?” and I just smiled. The gig was up. Ahahahahaha. Heck, we even had time to go to Tim Hortons.

After the taping they were giving away prizes in a raffle (tickets had been given out when we arrived). We conferred and decided we did not want the lawnmower & weed-whacker. Firstly we wanted the fancy toaster oven, back up we would get the basket of chocolates. The first person to win took the lawnmower & weed-whacker, fine by us. They called the second number and Lucy and Camilla were all excited it was mostly their numbers, but then the final one was not. It was mine. I yelped and screamed “I want the oven!”  and pointed at it. Everyone laughed. Little did they know we had gotten there by transit. We got our pictures taken with the host and we left.

It was raining. We were hungry. All three of us tried carrying the (rather large, it can fit a 13inch pizza) oven in various configurations. Needless to say, we got more than a few stares while we walked through the Eaton Centre and down Queen Street. Where were we heading when we were so hungry? Hmm, oh I don’t know, just the best Indian buffet at Little India according to BlogTO. Which just happens to be next door to the place I usually go to, so I almost felt like I was cheating. Was it the best? Not much differentiated it from next door. My favourite menu item was the curry chick peas, partly because it was the spiciest. For dessert they had what was like a timbit soaked in honey. Delicious, but so sweet it made my teeth hurt. So I only ate one. (Plate 1: from top right: naan, butter chicken, curry chicken, tandoori chicken, rice)

(Plate 2: from top right, cucumbers & spinach, curry chick peas, more butter chicken, chicken pakora, naan, chicken wing)

(Dessert plate: from top right, honeyball cake thing and fruits)

 

Best Cafe Ever!

I have been to the best cafe, nay, the best PLACE in the world, well, Toronto… EVER. The funny part is this: I didn’t even have any coffee or baked goods while I was there. So how can I claim that this is the best cafe ever? Especially if there is a $5 cover charge to get in? BECAUSE IT IS JUST THAT AWESOME. You pay $5 and then have access to 1,500 games! You get to lounge about and play games!!! And because you paid, it’s not like in a restaurant where they are desperate to turn you out so as to get more people in. They are not pushy like that here. Of course, I am talking about Snakes & Lattes, the brilliant idea for a place where you just play games. Who could not resist that?! I had walked by it almost a year ago with Brent and I thought the name was so clever that it made me want to go there. And then I found out about the games. And then (after my German-style board game addiction came into full swing) that they have copious amounts of German-style board games. I had initially thought it was just going to be basic simple games. But they had so many I had never heard of!

Hands-down the best game we played all night was Ticket To Ride. It is sort of like Thurn & Taxis but more colourful. Plus it was entertaining watching Brent lose the contest for longest train route by a 1-car train route! Hilarious. He came in last place. He would have been in second had he gotten the extra 10 points for the longest route. Because we had such a large group, 7 people, we initially had 2 separate games going. While we played Ticket To Ride, they played a 90s trivia game. Periodically we would overhear Lucy stumble on a sports question while Alex laughed. Then again. And again. It seemed she kept getting really obscure sports questions. We tried playing Settlers of Catan (which I am still hell-bent on playing at least once straight through) but the intrigue of a simpler game with a hilarious title, Fact Or Crap, drew us away. These facts were just as obscure, like “it is illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket in Kentucky” (it was a fact).

We also started playing The Walking Dead boardgame but it got late and we had barely started so we bailed on it. It was funny because Camilla kept dying every turn, she never actually managed to move past her starting point. No one really knew what they were doing, but I can see it potentially being a fun game, so much so I almost bought it. But being a newly graduated starving artist, I thought better not.

One of the best features of Snakes & Lattes is the helpful & knowledgeable staff. If you walk in and are completely overwhelmed they will give you recommendations based on what kind of games you prefer (I was eavesdropping on a conversation, that’s what I heard) and they also come around and if you do not know the game they will give you a brief yet in-depth explanation of how to play. Sometimes they even check in on you to see if if all is going well!

The tables are all marked by plastic animals. I swear, I spent the better part of the night moving that plastic dalmatian around the table and saying “bark, bark bark” which (for some reason) brought me great giddy joy. I was like a kid in a candy store. And they sell candy! You can buy a bowl full of assorted gummies, the best food around, duh. Of course, at some point, all that game playing will wear you out. They have sandwiches for that. Sandwiches that make you wonder if you do like brie cheese or not. The jury is still out, in small bits it was good, melted it was really good, in larger chunks, I don’t know. I will have to eat some more brie cheese in the future. And at the end of the day, when you can barely pry yourself away from the tables and you go to pay your tab- they sell the games at a way lower price than anywhere else I have seen!

 

Mmm…

We finally got around to going to Fusaro’s Kitchen for the best panini in the city. They were good, much better than Panera Bread. However, mine was way better than Brent’s. Not quite sure why, it was chicken v turkey, mozzarella v cheddar and two differently seasoned mayos. Apparently turkey is just more delicious. We swapped halves of our paninis, and obviously started out by eating the one we had each ordered. When it came time to eat the second half, to which Brent barely beat me, things fell apart. He took one bite and claimed forfeit, I had ordered the better panini. I looked down sadly, all I had left was the half of his inferior panini. I was not looking forward to that first bite. It actually was still pretty good, not as good as mine, but better than any other panini I had previously had. But still, that #8 panini (pictured above) with the turkey, so delicious. And it just adds to the mounting pile of evidence that I (apparently) like spinach.

(Panini #7)

 

Free Lunch Anybody?

Me and my sisters had all registered at Panera Bread and thus we all got freebies! They got free pastries, I got a free smoothie so we had a nice balanced lunch of strawberry smoothie, cinnamon bun and pecan bun. The smoothie tasted like ice cream. The cinnamon bun was not well balanced, there was too much cinnamon in the middle and not enough at the outer edges. The pecan twist lacked pecan bits. But it was all free, so it was all good.

As if that was not enough we also had a coupon to Pickle Barrel for a free mini dessert. We went in, handed the coupon, devoured the tiny dessert, got up and just left. It was the fastest restaurant “meal” I have yet to have.

 

The Easter Egg

A week ago I decided it would be funny to hide 3 small chocolate foil-covered Easter eggs in my sister’s stuff while she was showering. My other sister was an accomplice to this, she giggled and said it would be fun. We put one in her pencil case, one in her bed (right on the edge of the pillow) and one in her net-book.

The next day she informed me that she indeed found the chocolate egg in her bed. AFTER she had slept on it, rolled over it, and smooshed it all over her sheets. I was dying laughing. There was chocolate smeared everywhere, the egg was flattened. She had thought Mruczka had puked in her bed.

The second one she almost crushed when she tried to close her net-book shut, she was confused as to why it would not close. Alas, Lucy gave away the third one in her pencil case. She took away my giggles, because I knew that egg would not be found for years (Camilla is graduating, no more use for a pencil case).