Saturday 22 February 2014

Restaurant Review: Bloke & 4th


     From January 31st, until February 13th Winterlicious went down in Toronto. If you don't know, Winterlicious is where over 200 restaurants create a prix-fixe menu. Its a really good deal, as you can get 3 course lunches for $15-25 dollars and dinners for $25-45. I normally aim to try one or two restaurants I have never been to before. This year I tried, "Bloke & 4th" on King West. I went with four of my girlfriends and overall it was delicious!

     To start, I had the maple bacon dates & crispy halloumi with onion preserve & pomegranate molasses. This was great and because it was tapas-style. My only complaint was that there wasn't more! My main was pork braised beef short ribs with root vegetable mash, bacon & cippolini onions. I thought this was pretty good, but nothing to write home about. The dessert was bourbon chocolate & caramel pie. This was really good, but for some reason I wanted something on it. (Ice cream maybe? I dunno..) I didn't have any trouble finishing it though. The service was kind of slow, but our server told us he was new. It wasn't really a problem though, because we weren't in any rush.

          
     The look of the restaurant was very hip and it was filled with a younger crowd. At 10, they stopped serving food and it turned into a club. However, it was not the kind of music my friends and I normally like to dance to (We don't like beats and clubby music) So, we left and made our way to a more casual bar. 

     Overall, I enjoyed this restaurant, but Im not sure I would go there and pay the normal prices. It was good, but not that good! That's what Winterlicious is about, trying new places to see which ones are really worth going to, without the deal. 

      



Friday 7 February 2014

Friday Faves: The things that made me smile this week:

     Its all about the little things in life. It could be anything from a new song I heard on the radio, or a new food I tried. These are the things I'm lovin' this week!

February 7th-

True Detective: I got suckered into getting HBO again, because I love watching Girls on Sunday nights live. However, this season I am finding it kind of BORING. So, I started watching some other HBO shows. I gotta say I am hooked on True Detective. Matthew McConaughey has just been so good lately and this show is no exception. The show focuses on Rustin Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson) as detectives on the hunt to find a serial killer. There's only been 3 episodes so far, so not too much to catch up on if you haven't seen it yet. 

Vanilla Cupcake Goldfish: This was an impulse buy, but omg so good! They remind me of dunk-a-roos as a kid (Do those still exist?)

Benefit's "Gimme Brow": I've been meaning to buy this for some time now when I tried it weeks ago, but they are always sold out! (So, it must be good) I wanted to try some kind of eyebrow liner, but I was kind of scared I wouldn't fill it in right and end up looking like a crazy lady. However, I tried this gel and because you dip it in a brush, its really easy to just coat over your brows. It gives the look of fuller brows without looking too done up. Love it! 

Spicy Aztec Hot Chocolate: This winter has been unusually cold, or maybe I just got used to the winter being unusually warm the last couple of years. Whatever it is, I'm freezing and the only solution is hot chocolate. I picked up this spicy hot chocolate at bulk barn to try and it was chocolatey and spicy at the same time. Mind. Blown.

Happy Friday! I'm going to a restaurant for Winterlicious this weekend. Stay tuned for my review!



Monday 3 February 2014

Oscar Buzz: pt 2

     This is the first year I have seen over half of the movies nominated for Best Picture and I've got to say, my second favourite may shock you. It was "Her," starring Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams. "Her" tells the story of a guy that is going through a divorce. In an attempt to get back into the dating world, he starts letting his friends set him up, but he doesn't have much luck. He finds more pleasure in communicating with his new iOS operating system and essentially falls in love with his iphone. It takes place in the future, where the iOS system is quite advanced and his iphone is able to communicate like an actual person. The problem lies in the fact that of course, the iPhone "Samantha," doesn't have a physical body. So, when Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to do normal relationship things like introduce her to his friends, or have sexual relations it gets ummm, awkward. Scarlett Johansson plays "Samantha, and her voice is so captivating, who wouldn't want to date her?  As the new iOS system gets more popular, more and more people begin having abnormal relationships with their iPhones and problems arise. I don't want to give away the ending, so I will stop there, but this movie is definitely an interesting one and worth checking out. One of my favourite things about this movie was the cinematography. I am by no means an, "artsy"person, but even I noticed how pretty some of the views of Los Angeles were. I cant really see this movie winning Best Picture because there is some stiff competition, but it should take best cinematography. Also, as a side note if you have seen this movie, then you'll know what I'm talking about when I say, I hope the pants in the future are not that ugly. Those high-waisted pants scared me a little.