I arrived home about five minutes ago and decided to open a bottle of Amarone I bought in the LCBO earlier. Amarones are always a treat, rich, very strong and sweet, almost like a port. In the book Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter selected a rich Amarone to accompany a victim's liver and some flava beans. It was switched to Chianti in the screenplay so that the audience might recognise it as a wine. I can't speak for his main course but on the wine front, for me at least, Chianti is never such a treat. The screw in the corkscrew in my Toronto rental apartment died of metal fatigue with barely an eighth of an inch of cork out of the bottle. I was not in the mood for an emergency of this magnitude. Gripping the spike of metal protruding from the cork in a scissor action with my can opener and resting the nose of the can opener on the edge of a kitchen unit with the other end supported in my muscular(ish) fist, I was able to pull the bottle down and ease the cork out. Disaster averted! For a few worrying moments, I thought I might have to stay sober.
I wasn't at work today, I had planned on grafting from home, but failed abysmally. However, I have been working six days per week most weeks since November and I need some chill time. One day per week to relax is really not enough. I have started reading New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, checked out the internet for the details of the local gym and where in I can take up Krav Maga again. Perhaps there is a moment of epiphany coming on.
My Harley was supposedly delivered to Dave's last week after 6 months in transit! So in theory both of my motorcycles are safely tucked up at his now. I have to decide what to do with them.
Earlier this evening I encountered a craving for lobster, giving in immediately I jumped in the car and hit out for the only venue I could think of that would have some within reasonable distance, a chain restaurant called Red Lobster. On parking in the small Asian shopping mall I noticed a small place called Lobster Royale, there being a forty minute wait at the chain restaurant, I went in. It's a rather dingy hole decorated in the style of your grandmother's dream bathroom with maritime accents and plastic lobster crawling across the walls. The service was languid, the food however, was great. I went for the 1&1/2 lb lobster dinner menu. The clam chowder was fantastic, the garlic rolls were great, the French fries were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, their salad was nothing to write home about which is why I haven't mentioned it. The lobster was fresh out of a huge tank that dominates the inside of the dining room. It was cooked wonderfully and this is the first time since I've been here that I can say that I've eaten better than I did in Spain for less money. Not that it's cheap by Spanish standards, but fresh lobster in Spain is ridiculously expensive. I think I'll go back there next week and gorge myself on Alaska King Crab Legs.
Earlier in the week I had lunch at a Szechuan place with some colleagues. I opened my fortune cookie at the end and there was more than one fortune prediction.
For those of you wondering where the photos in my last morose post were from, I took them on a Sunday drive to Niagara Falls last month.
6 comments:
Jase;
Lobster is one thing I can cook and never worry about ruining. You think the stuff from the tank in TO was good!...not to brag or anything :)
Lovely photos, and I especially love the one of you as a cherub.
Is the one in the middle of your post with your mate or a relative? There is a similarity in appearances.
Keep taking the breaks. It makes you that much more productive when you do work. Again, in my infinite wisdom.
The Red rubber seems to ruin lobsters, maybe it's just me.
Glad you found a good alternative!
Hi Cathy, that was dangerously close to a dinner invite.. careful here I may accept without warning! 8^)
Cherub indeed, you are an angel!
The guy next to me with the beard is my dad, we both have Chinese eyes and my mother believes that my grandmother (on dad's side of course) had an affair with a Chinese guy when she was working on cruise ships some 60 or so years ago, but we will never know. 8^)
Hi Riskybiz, I've never eaten at Red Rubber/Lobster. I'm not a great fan of any restaurant that has more than one location. But Lobster Royale was good, not mouth-orgasmic totally new experience good, but a fair way to nosh.
j
I thought that might be your dad; he looks like a sailor. Was he in the Navy? What a funny story about the Chinese affair! My mother thinks there was an affair with either an Indian or Black person in my family because both my sister and I get so dark in the sun. Every baby photo of my sister looks like a little papoose.
But then again, my great-grandmother ran a brothel in Hamburg...it's true!
You'll like the book Jase... good choice - Read it myself last month.
Tim
Post a Comment