Of food, technology, movies, music, and travel—or whatever else strikes my fancy
Tuesday morning. It’s cold. It’s raining. The museum lineup has slowed to a crawl, as groups of school children gain entry ahead of us. Jean has lapsed into a grumpy silence. My mood is darkening accordingly.
“Good Lord,” I think. “This is going to be a long week.”
Continue reading “Berlin, mon amour”Dig if you will the picture…
A steamy, packed room of 1500 people pressed close together, singing, dancing, screaming. Stripping down as it gets hotter. On stage, an unbearably handsome singer, framed by two gorgeous dancers, playing music with an insistent, irresistible dance beat. Effortlessly hitting notes that don’t seem humanely possible, moving sensually, singing lyrics of want and desire. Keep me on a leash tonight. Lay me down in darkness. My one and own, I want to get you alone.
Sexiest. Concert. Ever.
Standing rooms shows… I didn’t even know they were still a thing until this Adam Lambert Original High tour. For some reason he did no Canadian dates, and every venue I considered travelling to was no assigned seating / standing room. I hadn’t been to that type of show in decades.
It’s not my favourite thing, I gotta say. If the entry is well-managed and the fans reasonable, they can be alright, even fun. But if not, they are squishy, scary, unpleasant nightmare.
So when VIP “early entry” tickets when on sale, I was willing to quadruple my concert ticket costs for a chance to be among the first group to get in without having to wait in line.
The slightly nerve-wracking thing is you don’t get details of how exactly that’s going to work until you get an email “24 to 48 hours before your event”. It did nothing for my stress level that said email actually arrived more like 23 hours before my event.
VIPing: What we had to do was rudely walk past the people who’d been lining up all day, and head into the box office area ahead of them. There we were divided into two groups: Those who increased their ticket costs even more, such that they could also meet Adam Lambert before the show (those ladies were giddy), and those of us who just didn’t want to wait in line.
As that group went off for their pictures, we were allowed to enter the venue—warned to not run, push, or pass one another. “There’s no need anyway,” the coordinator said. “Because you’re all going to be in the front row.”
Uh? It actually hadn’t dawned on me to that point that we were small enough in number that indeed, we would be in the front row. (There were more “meet and greet” people, actually, and some of them ended up in the second row!)
But for me (and Jean), there was to be no visual obstruction whatsoever all night long. And we had a barrier to lean on. And it was less hot because of the lack of sticky bodies in front of us. It was awesome!
The opening act, who started promptly at 8:00, were a German band named Eveline, led by an attractive blonde woman singer. They were pretty good—pop, dance style, good singer. She did all her speaking in German, and all her singing in English.
They finished around 8:30, and then we had a wait somewhere in neighbourhood of 45, 50 minutes, which got kind of long, really.
But right from the opening chords, all was forgiven.
For the benefit of those not steeped in all things Lambert:
This tour’s been going on for a while now, so the band was tight. They seemed to really be having a good time this night—it was all very high energy, and the pacing seemed perfect. I honestly enjoyed the whole show, but I’ll note some particular highlights.
As I’ve already said, I had a great, close view of the stage all night, but I wasn’t right in the centre. Fortunately, Adam was kind of enough to regularly stroll (or dance) over to my end of the stage and stand right in front of me. He first did so at the beginning of Ghost Town. Lordy, he’s attractive in person. Every time he came near I was particularly mesmerized by those gorgeous, greenish eyes.
For the purposes of maybe getting surprised, or at least avoiding disappointment, I had somewhat backed off on paying as much attention to Adam’s shows that preceded my own. However, I still caught the fact that in Hamburg, the show two days before Berlin, they had omitted the medley that included the song Runnin’.
There’s no reason to expect him to play Runnin’. It was never a single—heck, it was never even a regular album track, but just a bonus on the deluxe edition of his second album. Nevertheless, it’s such a fantastic song, it’s been discovered, just racking up the YouTube views, despite its not obviously not having a proper video accompaniment.
So I was very relieved that it made its return to the set in Berlin.
Runnin’/Chokehold/Sleepwalker live in Berlin (video)
Lucy, by contrast, is not one of my favourite Adam Lambert song, Brian May (Queen)’s presence on guitar notwithstanding. It’s the lyrics I don’t care for, mainly, as they come across as bit male judgmental about the titular Lucy. (Now, I’m no way suggesting that Adam is sexist. Only that this song is. A bit.)
As done live, though, it was saved for me by the dance moves. No, not Adam’s, but Holly Hyman’s, whose interpretation read, to me, as really powerful and defiant. She actually made me like the song for the first time. Which is cool.
And at the end of it, Adam did this, while standing right in front of me.
Adam grabbed his dick and mic licked. Teens behind me lost their shit.
— Mel (@RabbitholeGirl) April 29, 2016
Adam is not overly chatty in concert, preferring to letting his singing do the talking. Still, we got a “Hello Berlin” pretty early on, following the tidbit I didn’t know, that he had lived in Berlin for three months. “It wasn’t long, but it gave me a taste.
“And it tasted nasty.”
😜 “Nasty” Berlin Speech Adam Lambert #HuxleysNeueWelt 4/29
audio via @RabbitholeGirl
More: https://t.co/FwyUlrCsaz pic.twitter.com/WPsdlzzgpi— Lilybop (@lilybop2010) April 29, 2016
In the ballad portion of the evening, we got the longest talking sequence. Adam’s message here is that we should try focusing more on our commonalities than differences. “There’s one thing that everyone in this audience all has in common.” Pause. “ME!” Hee!
Now seems a good time to address what you might be wondering: Given our excellent sight lines, why am I cribbing pictures from other folks instead of featuring wonderful, original Jean photography?
That would be because security took away our camera. Which was very frustrating, as there had been no advance warning that a small camera would be an issue. Even more frustrating? They didn’t seem to take away anybody else’s camera! (Do Germans just like to pick on Canadians?) As my budget cell phone was useless for taking photos, we have none. Which still irritates me every time I think about it.
That said… When you are attending the Sexiest Concert Ever with your sweetie, it’s actually not a terrible thing that his hands and face are free… To fondle something other than a camera…
Ahem. Now back to our regularly scheduled program. Adam’s vocals are a thing of wonder: this is not a singer who backs away from the high notes while live. And no auto-tune, either.And the terrific The Original High was quite the showcase for that. He Sings So High in this song.
The big note at the 3:00 minute mark of this video
I also found out later we were very lucky to have David Bowie’s Let’s Dance included in the set, as that’s another number they haven’t been doing so much lately. It was a terrific version. That then led into the super-hot trio of dance songs, “Lay Me Down”, “Shady”, and “Fever”. We especially enjoyed dancer Terrance Spencer’s moves during this sequence.
The audience by now was a sweaty, frenzied mess, but the band wasn’t done with us. They launched into “If I Had You,”—not the weird, reggae version presented earlier on the tour, but the irresistible original. The entire place was hopping to it in unison! So fun!
The encore was Trespassing, which happens to be a favourite of both mine and Jean’s. And got some more talking, including Adam presenting his lucky glitter mushroom (???).
“Want to hear some Queen?” he asked, and on the affirmative, we got some “Another One Bites the Dust”. And a crazy-notes Adam Lambert singalong. (“Some of you are acting too cool to sing. I see you!”) And he concluded with more “Trespassing.”
And what did Jean think? Jean… Actually had a really good time! He’s a people watcher, and he found Adam’s audience mix fascinating. He enjoyed watching me and the other adult woman around regress into teenagers. And he got into it. He danced a bit. He snapped his fingers. He pretended to sing so Adam wouldn’t pick on him.
(But for the record, he still prefers the Queen + Adam Lambert show, because that’s more his music. And also, we had seats for that one.)
Set list:
Anger / Darkness
Love and longing
Party!
Ratings
Show: A+
I can’t think of a way they could have improved it.
Audience: A
Included a number of uber-fans I actually recognized from their tweets and blogs. And whether uber or not, it was very striking how everyone could and did sing along, with every song, not just “the hits.” They basically screamed instead of clapped to show appreciation. Lively, lively. Only lose + due to some veteran meet and greeters who (I heard) were overly stoic in the front row, which is just a waste. (This did not seem a problem with our VIP half.)
VIP experience: A
Very well-organized check-in and admission procedure, and made this such a great experience for me. Even the included merchandise was better than I expected: Quite a nice poster, and I hadn’t realized it would be signed! (Not that we need two, but…)
They only lose their + for the latish email that basically had the wrong time: It said to be there for 7:00, which made no sense, since that was general admission time. Fortunately, everyone figured that out and was there for the actual required time, between 6:15 and 6:30. Still…
Venue – Huxleys Neue Welt: D.
Apart from my camera problems, I later read on Twitter that this place didn’t have a scanner for electronic tickets! Meaning that anyone with those (like me) had to get out of the line they had likely been standing in for hours to go to an office and switch their eTicket for a “real” ticket. What the…? I also heard they weren’t very good at managing the general admission entry, which can be nightmarish, and I saw the security was really aggressive about removing items like balloons and glow sticks—even though fans had asked in advance and been assured those were fine!
So, I’d definitely see Adam Lambert in concert again, but never at Huxleys.
Links
My compiled Original High Berlin YouTube playlist
Full show audio:
A footnote about my feet
So before I knew I’d have VIP, I was trying to figure out how to improve my chances of actually seeing something at this show despite being short, and finally concluded that only shoes with wedge heels would work. So I got these:
Which added, like, 3 inches to my height. Not realizing I’d be ending up in the front row, I wore them.
So I can tell you that for 5.5 hours of straight standing, those suckers were surprisingly comfortable. And though not needed in the front row, they were kind of handy for looking over people’s head at the merchandise table after.
However… During the short walk to the train station, my feet basically had a nervous breakdown. I felt like I would die if I didn’t get off my feet. Thankfully, the train station wasn’t far, it had a bench, and I was able to find a seat on the train. So I survived the journey back to the hotel room.
So if you try the wedge shoe approach to seeing something at standing room concerts, remember: To survive, you will have to get off your feet every five hours or so. You’re welcome.
I have a posse of three who haven’t had much blog time to date.
Zoë has been with us the longest. Jean saw her at a pet store—not one of those stores that sells kittens and puppies, one of those that displays rescue cats up for adoption—and couldn’t resist. He called me.
“I’m at Pet Value, want to adopt this cat,” he said.
“So she’s black calico?” I answered.
Jean, confused: “So you’ve seen her too?”
No Jean, I hadn’t seen her too. I just knew that Jean had been missing our black calico, Bob, who’d passed away some months before.
Zoë indeed resembled Bob very much; in older pictures, it’s hard to tell which cat is which. And she shares Bob’s graceful elegance of movement.
But she’s her own cat. Her big round eyes give her an air of constant inquisitiveness; when awake, she always seems to be fascinated by something. The background she was rescued from was a house overcrowded with cats; she’s never really lost her interest in sneaking around, scrounging around for food, though now it’s just for fun and not survival. And if she does get mouth on something good, she stills goes to hide in the corner to eat it, though the other cats have no interest in trying to steal it from her—they don’t even like “people” food.
She’s the shyest of the bunch and is not exactly a lap cat. But she enjoys being pet in particular places: up on window sills, in the bathroom (as long as she’s the only cat in there), and on us, as long we have a blanket barrier. She also has a daily ritual of joining us for meals at breakfast, on her own stool, content to hang with us whether or not she gets any treats.
McSteamy was picked out of a “catalog” of rescue cats. We were “shopping” because Romey, a stray who’d adopted us years before (and remains our sweetest cat ever) had passed, leaving us with just Zoë. McSteamy was gorgeous, a blue-eyed tabby-Siamese cross.
Unfortunately, he was also terrified of us.
It was nothing personal. His foster owner said he’d also been scared of her at first, but had gotten over it, and now she adored him. I was skeptical, but Jean was taken in, so we brought him home and put him in a room for an adaptation period, during which he scrambled under furniture every time we entered. But, once safely “hidden” away he did let us pet him, and would eventually sneak out a bit more.
One day, not long after he’d been allowed out of the one room, some commotion gave him a big fright. He ran up three flights of stairs, jumped on a bed, then crashed through a screened, second-floor window. He through the back yard, beyond the fence, and out to hide with the gophers in the wooded berm.
The cat rescue organization was very helpful in dealing with this crisis. They lent us a trap, told us to put as close to the window he’d escaped from as possible, and to wait. Again I was skeptical, but darned if McSteamy didn’t make his way into that trap around 2:00 in the morning.
Once back in the house and release, McSteamy decided we were the best people ever. And he has never really stopped thinking that. His fear of us was gone for good.
Frankly, I shudder to think what kind of experience he’d had before ending up at the shelter where the cat rescue organization got him, because now this is one of the friendliest, most relaxed cats I’ve ever encountered.
McSteamy’s stressful life
He’s the first to visit “strangers” to the house. If there’s a commotion, he’ll amble over to see what it’s about. He not only accepts attention now; he demands it. With insistent meowing, when necessary (whereas he was a basically silent cat at first).
And yes, he was named after the character in Grey’s Anat0my, a show we watched at the time. Most people find the name a hoot…
Mocha was adopted at the same time as McSteamy, but by the same method as Zoë: She was the featured rescue cat at Pet Value. In the store, she seemed the friendliest, most cuddly cat ever. Once we got her home, she proceeded to hide from us behind and underneath furniture, for months. Devious!
Through their time of joint fear in the “adaptation room”, McSteamy and Mocha formed a bond that persists to this day. They often cuddle and sleep together, which always looks adorable and bit funny, because Mocha is an unusually tiny cat, and McSteamy is… not.
At any rate, Mocha did eventually warm to us as well—especially Jean, whom she loves to climb up and all over when he’s at the computer. “Too intense, Mocha!” is a common refrain. And she’s decided I’m OK, too. Especially that I’m not off on canoe or business trips as often as Jean; Mocha has to get her petting somewhere.
Though much calmer than on first adoption, she remains a bit nervous and jumpy, especially when it comes to eating. Her backstory: likely a pet that got out when she went into a heat. She and her kittens were rescued from someone’s backyard. (She and all our cats are now neutered, of course.) But the “rescue” likely involved getting trapped in a box when she snuck out to eat, and she apparently fears that might happen again.
As we’ve established, planning a party is hard. No, it’s not hard to say BYOB and order a few pizzas, but when it comes to any parties larger than that–dinner parties, holiday parties, weddings–there are a lot of moving pieces. There are guest lists and menus and seating arrangements and invitations and possibly staff, all weighed against the ultimate stress of any party: money. So every party, generally, is a balance of all those things. It’s an experience that makes the most people possible happy without the hosts going broke.
So, I don’t do it all that often, the planning of a dinner party.
Well, that’s not really true. Planning them—at least to the extent of musing about having one—I do pretty regularly. Actually carrying through on those plans is what’s rare.
But last weekend, such a unicorn occurred. I had been thinking of trying to reprise some of the more “gourmet” dishes we try out at new year’s for a larger group people. And about the fact that we had some friends that we’d never had over for dinner before—some had never even seen our house. And we mixed those folks with some people we hadn’t seen in a while.
That added up to six guests, plus the two of us, which is really two more people than fit around our dining room table. So we had to do a table addendum:
In terms of food, I went mostly with tapas-style items. This gave variety, and most items could be largely prepared ahead. Downside was a variety of dishes to prepare, which took up a fair chunk of the weekend:
The wild rice was the one item we’d never prepared before, added so we’d have enough food, basically. It was probably least successful. It was a bit mushy, a bit too sweet. (No, none of the guests complained. That’s my assessment.) Everything else was quite good, though. People went back for more.
For wines, we just opened a nice Ontario Riesling, a French Beaujolais (light red), and an Ontario Sangiovese, followed by a French Vacqueyras, so people could take what they would. The music playlist was a Sonos-assembled, timed segue: “high-energy” songs to start the evening, pre-dinner; “thoughtful” (quirky pop) music during the main course, then “romance” for dessert, coffee, and post-dinner relaxation.
As for dessert, that was dark or white chocolate bark with fruit and nuts (dark was much better), chocolate souffle, and grapes—frozen and not. Frozen grapes is something Jean has gotten into that was a novelty for most. Also made for some interesting conversation, adding to the very wide range of topics discussed all evening.
So, I think that was successful. But I’m not quite ready to start musing about the next one.
The Who’s “long good-bye” tour was extended even further when Roger Daltrey came down with viral meningitis last year, forcing all fall 2015 shows to be rescheduled for spring 2016. For my Toronto show, this meant attending a year and four months after I bought the tickets. So I think the Who were really hitting 52 or so…
Looking over Jean’s recent photos inspired me to write an activity update…
We spent a weekend in Toronto at the end of January. We were blessed with unseasonably (though not unusually, this year) warm weather, which must have pleased these residents:
But people were still able to skate:
And we enjoyed dinner at Ki Restaurant again—with the same great waitress as last time.
Last weekend we were away for Jean’s company party. They always do an amazing job of this, not only offering dinner and dancing, but putting everyone up in a hotel. This was a big anniversary year, so we also had an Olympian (Gold medal winner, from Canada’s women’s hockey team) give an inspiring talk, anda live band playing jazz. That gave us an opportunity to do practice some tango, jive, and quick step—with plenty of room, as we were the only ones on the dance floor! (Bit intimidating, really….)
Last night was supposed to be dinner out at the Naked Oyster with a friend, but he had to cancel due to illness. So, we took ourselves to Kitchener’s Berlin restaurant instead. Still a bit louder than we find ideal, but we had an excellent waiter (formerly of Langdon Hall) and the food was exquisite. Though Jean complained that I ordered the “better” option at every turn… Grilled squid over cheese appetizer, and then:
over baked blue fish with duck confit gizzards; and then:
over fruit crepe with cream.
But hey, it’s not a competition. (Even if I totally won.)
I vaguely wanted to do our New Year’s gourmet-ish, cooking together dinner again this year, but I was completely uninspired as to what to make.
But I had the week off before Christmas and New Year’s, and I had three-month trial subscription to Texture (formerly Next Issue) magazine app, with its multiple food magazines. So I decided to go through those virtual pages for ideas.
I hit pay dirt almost right away, in a Food and Wine magazine from December 2015. They had recipes for all these different theme parties. But instead of sticking with one theme, I picked and choosed among different ones. Preferred criteria were that they sound good, of course, but not require me to run all over town looking for obscure ingredients. And not having us slaving in the kitchen all day.
The one course not covered by this one Food and Wine issue was dessert. And I wasn’t finding much inspiration in other magazines, either. But that weekend’s Globe and Mail happened to feature a New Year’s Eve menu for two people—including a cake that made just two servings! We had a winner.
We did this on January 2. We started working around 4:00, and were dining by about 6:30.
Theoretically first up (really, most everything was ready at the same time) were marinated olives with oranges, which, at Jean’s suggestion, were served with almonds and walnuts.
This involved frying up some garlic, orange zest, and hot pepper, to which olives were added. Then everything marinated in orange juice. So pretty simple.
I don’t how much that treatment enhanced the olives? But I was pleased to find that the Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc we’d selected went nicely with them.
The main course was a smoky mussel stew. For this one, potatoes and Brussels sprouts were roasted, while fresh mussels cooked in a mix of white wine, butter, shallots, and herbs. The mussels were then removed from the broth, and cream added. Everything then came together: potatoes, Brussels sprouts, mussels (shelled), with the addition of smoked mussels.
This isn’t the prettiest dish ever, but it was some good! The slight smoky with the creamy and the butter and the roast veg… Even the fact that we had to use frozen Brussels sprouts (fresh unavailable!) couldn’t wreck this. Yum.
The side dish was brown basmati rice with coconut and turmeric; basically, rice cooked in coconut mik with turmeric and salt. And served with mint on top. It was fine, but nothing outstanding. Rice does turns a nice yellow colour, though.
The wine we had with was an Ontario Gewurtz. Great wine; not sure if it was the best possible match, however.
The salad was spinach with orange and goat wine, with a red wine vinaigrette. I wasn’t able to find blood oranges, so Jean suggested adding cranberries to make the pictures prettier. 🙂
The dessert, finally, was a gâteau Basque. You make it a bit like a pie crust, mixing together flour, egg, sugar, and butter, then forming it into a disk and putting it in the fridge. When ready to bake later, you roll it out to cake pan size.
It was served with a simple cream sauce of whipping cream, sherry, and sugar, and topped with raspberries.
It was yummy, yummy this. As was the sparkling Moscato D’Asti we had with. Though supposedly only two servings, we had enough left to enjoy the next day, also.
Happy start to 2016.
No, not that Berlin. (Though stay tuned on that score.)
We didn’t have any New Year’s Eve plans until mere days before. Still kind of in mourning for Verses New Year’s, nothing else seemed to be working out. Langdon Hall sold out ages ago. Solé’s menu didn’t look that interesting. The meal at the club where our ballroom dance friends were going seemed even less enticing.
But a new restaurant named The Berlin, by a former Langdon Hall chef, opened on December 21. And on December 26, they tweeted that they would be doing a New Year’s Eve dinner. Though just announced, already the only times available were 5:00, 5:30… Then 9:00 or later.
Apparently, many people were just waiting for the right dinner to appear. (We went with 9:00.)
The Berlin has a nice room, but it was packed that evening, and just the proximity of so many neighbours did make it a bit loud. And, unsurprisingly for a restaurant so newly opened, there were a few glitches in the service.
On offer was a four-course menu with four or five choices at each stop, for $75. Optional wine pairings were an additional $45.
Jean started with a poached egg item, while I was intrigued by smoked roasted beets with sour cream, bread crumbs, and herbs. I don’t know how you smoke beets, but oh my God, were they delicious (as long as you like beets, I guess).
In one service glitch, the food arrived before our matching wines. But once notified, the Sommelier came over and apologized, and poured us each a sparkling wine: a fine champagne rosé for me and an even better brut reserva for Jean (which, by the bottle, was half the price of mine, by the way).
For the appetizer course, we did that rare thing of both ordering the same item: Potted duck leg with duck liver parfait, and apple chutney. Fortunately, it was divine. And served with a really intriguing, off-dry Niagara Chenin Blanc from Big Head winery. We did get that before the food, and had to resist drinking it all ahead of time.
Onto the mains! (Although not before they tried to bring us some starters again, in another small glitch. But honestly, we didn’t mind a bit of wait at this point.) Jean went with the pork belly served with chick peas and cabbage stew. I had trout with wild mushroom and leek. Both were excellently prepared and flavorful.
Jean got a really interesting red Italian wine with this, called Etna Terre Nerre Rosso. I had a nice Riesling.
This was a good amount of food, but it’s true there’s always room for dessert. Mine was an amazing dark chocolate terrine with lavendar ice cream. It was served, believe it or not, with this spicy dark beer! Which totally complemented the chocolate!
Jean’s cheese dessert was frankly richer and creamier than the chocolate, and served with this freakin’ amazing truffle honey. The earthy truffle, plus the sweetness… Whoah. He got an off-dry wine from Spain with this.
We were done around 11:15 or so, so we made it home to ring in the New Year there. Cheers, everyone!
For our Christmas travels I’d lost the argument about flying this year, so we drove off after work on December 22 and made it to Huntsville, then finished the journey the next day. Our unseasonably mild and snow-less winter made for a good drive, fog being the only challenge at times.
Timmins did have snow, albeit far less than usual, and it seemed almost freakishly warm (up to +3 C!).
My younger sister and family flew to Timmins without issues, but my older one had the unpleasant experience of her flight getting all the way to Timmins, then refusing to land due to fog! (Though other airlines were landing in the same conditions.) So she ended up spending Christmas in Toronto after all.
Celebrations began on the 23rd with a belated 80th birthday party for my Dad, held at my brother’s. Pretty well-attended, considering the busy time of year.
December 24 brought very high winds, then widespread power outages to Timmins. But power was back most everywhere by mid-afternoon. We attended mass at my Dad’s church, then headed off to Réveillon celebrations, first at my cousin’s, then at Lefebvre’s.
The “left / right” gift exchange theme this year was “computers,” and the price limit is pretty modest. That meant a lot of USB sticks going around.
Christmas morning was at McNair’s, where we tried a new approach of the “stealing” game.
A round of trading afterward produced more satisfactory results, at least for some. (I took the mini-Cuisinart off my nephew’s hands and he got my cool gift pack of gourmet popcorn and DVDs.)
A few specific gifts were handed out as well.
The afternoon was consumed with helping Dad prepare the Christmas turkey and fixings. We had 13 people over for dinner, and everything turned out great.
On Boxing Day we resisted the sales, but managed to get together with some Timmins friends at a local coffee shop, which was very nice.
We departed the following afternoon, and except for the car having a mysterious battery failure (solved with a boost), the two-part drive home was uneventful. We even found a very good restaurant in Hunstville for dinner (3 Guys and a Stove).
“How did you even hear about this place?” my friend asked.
The Naked Oyster restaurant is in Cambridge, and none of us are too familiar with Cambridge restaurants.
But based on a good review in Waterloo Region Record (that’s how I heard about it, through the exotica of the local newspaper), it seemed worth trying.
It’s fairly small and casual. The menu is written on a chalkboard, with a few additional items the waitress told us about. It’s not a great choice for those who don’t like seafood; they only had one meat entree to offer (though it did sound good). But we were all fans of the fish, so it worked for us.
The alcohol on offer is also quite limited: three whites, three reds, and one type of beer, along with mixed drink options. But among the whites was the excellent Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, so that’s what we ordered.
We started with two types of oysters: raw and Rockefeller. They were both lovely. The raw ones were from PEI, and served with three dipping sauce options. The Rockefeller were covered in butter, breadcrumbs, and Parmesan.
(The appetizer items not ordered included options such as salads and smoked salmon.)
For mains, two us of opted for the mussels, one in garlic and white wine sauce, the other in a more decadent smoked bacon and cream sauce. Both quite delicious, with very few mussels having to be discarded for being insufficiently open.
Not my meal, but somehow I’m still in the photo…
I had the Cioppino, a tomato-based seafood stew with mussels, clams, shrimp, and white fish. That was quite tasty as well.
Dessert options were limited to two: bread pudding and crème brulée. But these were both quite fine as well. And a very cute size.
Bread pudding for two—though this didn’t stop Jean from trying to get extra
The service was friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. There was, however, a big wait between taking our order and the appetizers being served. The reason wasn’t a mystery: They were dealing with a really big group who had arrived before we had. Still, it would have helped to at least have been given the bread ahead of time, or something.
After that initial hiccup, though, the pacing of each course was as one would hope and expect. And I would note that despite the restaurant being completely full this evening, it wasn’t overly loud. We could converse without shouting. Hurray for that.
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