Happy Christmas & Merry Holidays

Every year Scott’s family, mostly his mother, decks out their tree…they have one of the most beautifully decorated trees I have seen in a family home. She uses over 1000 little bulbs to light up every inch of the tree and has a vast collection of ornaments and trinkets that she has collected over the many Christmases.

The thrill of Christmas itself is to decorate her freshly cut trees she tells. The process of the tree takes several hours and we filmed it over a 2 day period.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, even though Toronto seems to be lacking heavily in the Christmas spirit (no snow) I really hope we get a white Christmas…come on snow gods, do your stuff!!

Nuit Blanche 2011

For the past 3 years I tried to see as much as I could during the Nuit Blanche events, for the past three events I have been to…we spent all our time searching not for art but our friends, meeting up in areas waiting around for people etc. This year was slightly different, we did have plans to meet up with friends but I felt like we should see as much as we could before we decided to get together.

Yesterday was blistering cold, luckily I was slightly prepared for the weather otherwise I know I would have cut my night short for sure.

We didn’t use our day pass as much, we actually got to see many things on foot and taking the subway was kind of ridiculous anyways, we got on the bloor line and we were packed tightly like sardines…not a comfortable experience.

Anyways, my camera ran out batteries quarter way into the night…stupid me, but it’s okay next time!

Scott and I saw the most this year, we walked from 9:30pm-3:30am, and as much as I could go on…it was time to go home, our feet were pretty damn tired.

Overall very satisfying  - it’s great to see Toronto so busy and supporting the event.

A candle lit memorial service, viewerss could light and place candles anywhere on the installation.

I really liked this installation, just an alley way with a sprinkling system that recreated heavy rain. Those who dared to stroll through the piece came out pretty darn wet regardless of being sheltered by an umbrella or not. It made a fantastic photo as people were coming in and out.

Really loved this light installation too, the rings of light changed from white, orange and blue.

This one was pretty cool, you stand around with eerie bass music blasting around you, office floors are flickering and spazzing and if you are lucky enough the search light with land on you and chase you around.

This was at the OCAD building, little exhibits within the building, we were in a nice pinkish room with Styrofoam  carved robots.

The Food Trucks Have Landed (Mississauga Edition)

Without a doubt the food truck industry is starting to make an imprint within Toronto, it is something we all have been eagerly waiting for…comparative to our American cousins where the food truck industry flourishes it has somewhat gained a sense of novelty, Toronto is just beginning to taste what these trucks have to offer.

Friday, September 30, 2011 – Was the official first food truck event held in Mississauga. Centered at celebration square (city hall) the event took place from 11am-3pm.

These food truck events have been held at the Distillery District in the past, and the first time I made an attempt to go, it was an impressive event where there definitely were more people than the trucks could handle, line ups were roughly 2hrs waiting and trucks were already running out of supplies before the event was over…So learning from my mistake of not going earlier, we made an effort to go at dead on 11am.

The event hosted 6 trucks from all over town, and we managed to eat at 4/6 places

- Food truck #1 Gastronomo -

Gastronomo, not the best sounding name for a truck but this was my favorite of the day, I couldn’t really make much judgement on the type of fusion they do since they only had two items to offer on the menu today, but it seems to be a hybrid of vietamnese cuisine.

Opted for the fish taco, wasn’t feeling for Banh Mi, I must say, this is very pleasing to the eye…lots of great colours going on.

Taco was very light and delicious, the cod was not overly oily and the kick of spice really held everything together.

I like taking photos of people eating…catching them in their classiest form ya know?

- Food truck #2, Gorilla Cheese - a truck that serves grilled cheese sandwiches

For $5 you get half a grilled cheese sandwich served with a slice of pickle

I got the Lumberjack which contained apple slices and bacon, as much as I do enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches, this one was terribly greasy…way too much butter, when I was finished there was a film of greasiness stuck on the roof of my mouth, I do like the apple bacon combination though…sadly the pickle did not taste good at all, it had a old stale flavour that I did not want to stomach.

I was not a huge fan of the cheese either, I wish they had other options for cheeses it was a little boring to be honest.

- Food truck #3 Caplansky’s -

Deciding on what to eat, at this point we are getting a little stuffed…but the food trials goes on!

Rueben slider $5

The poutine was really yummy, I liked the meat sauce they used. Smoked Meat Poutine $6

I got the smoked meat slider, but I really wasn’t anticipating the saltiness at all so it was a no go for me, apparently you should have it with honey dijon mustard but I was way too lazy to trek back to the truck from my table.

Maple Beef-Bacon donuts, very disappointing the donut balls were over fried and the dough has soaked up all the grease, it tasted like oil and nothing else, no bacon flavour and  who ever drizzled the maple over top has a very light hand.

- Food tuck# 4 Cupcake Diner, dessert time! -

Took me a while to decide what I wanted…the flavours didn’t really appeal to me, I went for the Skor cupcake.

Somewhat pleasing to the eye, a tad on the expensive side, a regular sized cupcake for $2.75 each

So, I feel desserts is something I can usually feel confident in judging my opinions…whereas food is something I am a novice at and can’t make too many passes on, but this cupcake truck was just simply bland and dry.

I felt there was absolutely no balance, the chocolate cake base was incredibly dry and crumbly…it’s hard to describe the texture it was almost chalky. The Icing…now this is pretty much the reason why most people eat cupcakes in the first place. It was suppose to be a skor cupcake…I was either expecting a vanilla base icing or light caramel base, but it had NOTHING. Just plain icing sugar that was not very sweet, as you can see the icing itself is dense looking not fluffy or smooth.

Maybe she tried to hide the crappy icing with barely sprinkling skor bits on top or….what am I saying how the hell can you even call this a “skor” cupcake? Everything was so lacking, one of the shittest cupcakes i’ve laid my tongue on.

In the photo above is all that I actually ate, two bites? I took one bite, realized how crappy it was, decided to take a second bite to confirm my opinion, then as we were leaving and got into the car, I still held onto the cupcake…staring at it trying to understand how anyone could let this pass off as a cupcake? When we got to Crate&Barrel, I chucked the damn thing and that was the end of it.

I don’t mean to sound overly mean or seem like I know what the best is, but honestly for charging $2.75 I just expected something, didn’t even feel like she tried making her cupcakes sound like their names, my brother got the caramel cupcake, it was lightly drizzled with caramel and she stuck a chunky piece of caramel in the center…creativity at it’s best I suppose.

Overall, It was a nice fattening lunch…Distillery is holding another food truck event tonight for Nuit Blanche all night long, so check it out if you plan to trek the streets of Toronto tonight.