I was always under the impression that "tapas" was a Spanish word
meaning small bites or small plates. In Spain, tapas is something you
eat after work with a drink or two before heading off to dinner,
sometime between nine or ten o'clock. Those little bits of snacks and
olives, maybe some bread, are meant to tide you over until the big meal.
Not so in Toronto, where tapas bars have morphed away from Spanish
snacks and drinks to full meals of every genre, at high-end prices.
Problem is, you've got to eat a lot of little dishes to come up with
the equivalent of a meal.
When Boom Shiva opened on the West Queen West strip last summer, they
were the hit of the season -- finally, a bar with exclusively
vegetarian food. Local critics sang the praises of the crusty old bar
revamped into a fun and funky space with live music, tasty cocktails
and a knowledgeable beer menu...
Read the rest of: "Boom Shiva"»  I've always loved the Museum of Modern Art. Even during its brief hiatus in
[ Queens]
(which is now PS 1 Contemporary Art Center). The powers that be behind MoMA have a way of presenting work in an exciting and original manner, and I mean, how many ways can you really present art in a museum context? And of course, I'm impressed again with MoMA's latest project by
Doug Aitken
Read the rest of: "Doug Aitken at MoMA - or rather ON MoMA"»  I'm a typical New Yorker. Art lover. Cultural fanatic. Subway enthusiast. Chain restaurant hater. Drag queen lover. When I visit other cities, I'm always afraid of what boring restaurants I'll have to dine in. On a recent trip to
Texas,
I realized how absolutely spoiled with culinary delights my life has been in
New York.
I was also crippled being a vegetarian...let's just say I ate a lot of baked potatoes at Texas BBQ joints.
So I went to
Denver.
Bars are plentiful, as well as bar food. Which is fine, but not exciting. Then I was taken to brunch at the Bump and Grind. A rainbowed interior filled with pop art and collectibles greeted me. How cute! - I thought...
Read the rest of: "Nothing Wrong With a Little Bump and Grind"» 
Certain restaurant reviewers in Toronto have a
longtime habit of instantly dismissing the
service at any Queen West establishment as having
too much attitude. Maybe I'm immune to it, or
maybe the black leather jacket and dark
sunglasses I've worn for decades make me
attitude-repellant, but it's a complaint I've never seen the merit of.
With one exception. I have walked out of the
Queen Mother café almost as many times as I've
eaten there, unwilling to put up with the really
crappy service. I keep coming back, though,
because the food makes it all worthwhile...
Read the rest of: "Queen Mother Café"»
 How many more blockbusters would you be willing to drop 13 bucks for? Personally, I'm done with it.
However, I love cinema and will be the first one to admit that renting movies is not the same as going to a movie theater. A movie theater gives you the atmosphere, the sound and the focus. In the coziness of your seat, you are "inside" the story unveiling on the screen. For good movies
(and I mean guaranteed good movies), you have to go to one of Montreal's répertoire (or repertory) cinemas, the best of which is Cinema du Parc.
I assumed Cinema du Parc had closed its doors a while ago, which I thought was unfortunate because it had left fewer available alternatives to watch good cinema. However, it recently reopened with a vengeance...
Read the rest of: "Cinéma du Parc"» 
Canadians have a reputation for loving their beer, but the mental
picture most often associated with your average beer drinker is not
generally a positive one. Loutish frat boys drinking cases of
mediocre mass-produced brew is an image that lovers of good beer
abhor.
One Toronto restaurant is determined to polish the reputation
of both the drink and the drinker -- their logo says it all --
changing the way people think about beer.
Read the rest of: "Changing the Way People Think About Beer"»  Say "Indian food" to just about anyone and they'll swoon over chana
masala, paneer, maybe tandoori chicken. Say the word "dosa" and their
faces will get a confused expression.
India, like many countries that are long in length and encompass a
variety of distinct geographic areas, has many different cuisines.
Most Indian restaurants concentrate on the cuisines of the northern
regions; heavy on dairy, tomatoes and meat. In the south of India and
Sri Lanka, the food is very different. Dairy is rare, the spices are
hot (deep fried chili peppers make a common and tasty snack) and the
heavier breads of the north are replaced with large, light,
crepe-like breads called dosa...
Read the rest of: "The Other Taste of India"» 
“MMMMMM!" was the exclamation of pleasure from a life-long New Yorker
when first sampling Montreal bagels. This was high praise indeed. This Long-Islander went on to concede that these bagels even rivaled New York's otherwise unrivaled bagels. Montrealers have known for some time that
their bagels were world class. In fact, beyond smoked meat and poutine,
perhaps no food characterizes Montreal more than its bagels. Like their
smoked meat brethren, Montreal bagels are originally a contribution of
the city's sizeable Jewish community. And just as debate might wage
between smoked meat at Shwartz's or The Main, a similar competition
exists between Montreal's top bagel bakeries, Fairmount and St Viateur...
Read the rest of: "Fairmount versus St-Viateur"»  If you've read the New York Times recently, you can't help but notice the craziness going on at the auction houses in New York. Paintings are selling for all time highs- I'm talking hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars. Meaning, the richest jerks get to enjoy the world's finest art- all to themselves. Imagine a Picasso or a Cezanne hanging in your living room?! Unreal. Unfair!
Well, thanks to a trip to Sotheby's with my grad school class, this outsider art lover found out something I'd wish I'd known years ago...
Read the rest of: "Secret Museums"»
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