418 replies to this topic

[JTravel]

It WAS a delicious lunch and had the element of being something I hadn't eaten before. Such a treat to find such a place.

[suzilightning]

took advantage of a cold rainy day and no birds flying to use a gift card from my secret santa. went to tanti baci: http://tantibacicaffe.com/ .

a plate with 4 pieces of grilled garlic bread came out. i ordered the soup of the day which was butternut squash. it wasn't too sweet and had a hint of orange at the finish.

main was wild mushroom ravioli sauced with a simple tomato and basil sauce with a side of meatballs. the mushrooms were great and the sauce was wonderful the meatballs were a little less soft than the last time i had them. i ate all the soup and half of everything else. i also ordered a piece of chocolate fondant cake to go so i had half of that as my 5pm snack. dinner and snack for thursday. 27.00 total

[Kerry Beal]

Sounds delicious!

[Anna N]

So Kerry and I found ourselves on Kerr Street in Oakville checking out all the thrift stores when we spotted this Japanese restaurant. Since we like to sample and share as much of a menu as is reasonable at lunch time, we put together the following:



Miso soup for Kerry.



Noodle soup for me.



Chicken Teriyaki



Shrimp Tempura



Vegetable Tempura



And the knife I always carry with me comes in useful as chopsticks don't lend themselves very well to sharing!



Here's the spoon that accompanied my noodle soup.



And a closeup of the same spoon.



Kerry ordered tea which was served in this unusual tea pot.

[annachan]

It's a great time for me to discover this topic as I've become a lady who lunch since I stop working. Actually, I joined a lunch group before I stopped working and used to take one day off a month just for lunch. I had to take time off as many of our lunches ended up lasting 2-3 hours. I continue to enjoy them very much. I look forward to reading more posts from fellow ladies who lunch. I'll try to remember to take some pictures on my next lunch.

[Anna N]

On Wednesday Kerry and I had a function to attend but that didn’t stop us from first doing all the necessary things! We stopped in at Lee Valley Tools and I bought some pastry cutters, some prep bowls and a couple of peelers. Then we hit as many thrift stores as time would allow but came up emptied-handed as far as kitchen or food-related items were concerned.

After weeks of Japanese/Thai/Vietnamese lunches we decided on a complete change and ate at Denninger’s, a local international food store with a lunch counter.

We both ordered the sausage platter.

Here’s Kerry’s lunch: spinach sausage and a bratwurst with onions, sauerkraut and red cabbage. The bright orangey stuff is a pepper and peach relish.



I also ordered the spinach sausage and went with a veal sausage for my second choice. I had a side of scalloped potatoes, some red cabbage and the requisite onions and sauerkraut.



Neither of us could finish the whole platter so Kerry took her doggy bag home to take for her evening meal at the hospital and I took my doggy bag (one and a bit sausages) and added to my turkey soup for a quick dinner when I got home.

[Kerry Beal]

Mea culpa. Forgot to post last week! Noticed the pictures still in my camera when I went to download some of the stuff from Montreal.

Better late than never - we decided to go for schnitzel since it was a recent topic of discussion and I recalled getting fabulous schnitzel at The Black Forest Inn years ago.



A quick look at the schnitzel page on the menu.



A very basic salad - interestingly included a potato salad as well.



The 'Black Forest Plate" - 1 Vienna Schnitzel, 1 Kassler Rippchen, 1 grilled Sausage, Potatoes and Sauerkraut



Schnitzel Pusta - Pork Tenderloin, topped with Pusta Sauce, hot Peppers and fried Onions - Pusta sauce was like a very nice tartar sauce.

[Anna N]

This morning Kerry and I had a great visit with another eG Member and had hoped she would make up a threesome of the ladies who lunch. However, prior commitments made that impossible today but she has promised to join us next week.

We decided on Middle-Eastern today and headed for a place we had spotted in an earlier search for a suitable place for lunch. It turned out that we had been mistaken – the place we had spotted was Mediterranean! But we were far too hungry to argue the merits of Middle-Eastern versus Mediterranean and so Agabiwould have to do.

As it turned out, it was a combination Egyptian, Lebanese and Greek and very satisfactory.

We shared the frito misto: calamari, shrimp and scallops



And the Mixed Grill: shawarma, kofta, pork shashlik and chicken pineapple.





Curiously we had visited this place before when it was a Thai restaurant!

[Marlene]

That looks really good Anna, and so does the schnitzel from the last outing, although, you may have my calamari. :) I am sorry I couldn't go with you today, but I am all set for next week. I'll leave myself entirely in yours and Kerry's capable food hands.

[Kerry Beal]

Today Anna, Marlene and I had an opportunity to spend the day doing a bit of shopping and lunching.

We had lunch at Sweet Smoke, an upscale BBQ joint in Oakville.



The decor includes this board on the wall which has a large scale recipe for tortilla soup.



Anna's app - a nice salad.



Marlene went for the mac and cheese.



I had the tortilla soup.







We shared the mixed BBQ plate, pulled pork, ribs, turkey, cowboy beans and coleslaw. Note the attractive drizzle of BBQ sauce decorating the plate.

[Marlene]

It was an honour and a pleasure to dine with the Ladies Who Lunch today. They rock. And I had so much fun! Plus I snagged the perfect Christmas gift for my hubby during one of our various store visits. That recipe on the wall? If you can read it, you might want to scale it down a touch. 8 lbs of tortillas? 2 gallons of veg stock? 6 gallons of chicken stock? !! But, Kerry says the soup was really good!

Edited by Marlene, 11 November 2010 - 07:28 PM.

[maggiethecat]

I gnash my teeth with jealousy whenever I read this topic. I'm with you in spirit,Ladies.

[Chris Hennes]

Am I reading that soup recipe correctly? Maple syrup?

[Kerry Beal]

Am I reading that soup recipe correctly? Maple syrup?

We said the same thing! A traditional Canadian tortilla soup addition I'm sure.

[Chris Hennes]

Do they add enough to give a perceptible maple taste? Or even a perceptible sweetness? I can't recall any tortilla soup I've had as being particularly sweet, but I guess as a seasoning in small quantities...

[Marlene]

Am I reading that soup recipe correctly? Maple syrup?

As Kerry said, we thought it was a little strange. But she didn't mention being able to taste it in her soup, so I'm guessing miniscule amount.

[Marlene]

I gnash my teeth with jealousy whenever I read this topic. I'm with you in spirit,Ladies.

You're always with me in spirit, Dark Lady.

[Kerry Beal]

No maple flavour noted - and no significant sweetness. I'm sure a bit of sugar would have served the purpose.

[Anna N]

I was so looking forward to a day out with Kerry and we had planned on finding an Indonesian restaurant so we could sample Bakso soup. This has been in the news as Obama’s favourite food when he was growing up. The descriptions and recipes really appealed to us. However, life got in the way.

You must all have had days (weeks) when it seemed you had been asked to climb one mountain too many. That describes me yesterday morning when I had to cancel plans for lunch out so I could deal with other issues. Kerry suggested she grab a take-out and bring it over and asked what I wanted. I said “anything” but in my heart of hearts I wanted a big, comforting bowl of Pho. And so here’s our lunch:



Pho in all its comforting glory.



A bag of herbs and bean sprouts and hot peppers for add-ins.



Green papaya salad with shrimp and pork. My first experience of this refreshing dish.



Steamed rice flour rolls with ground pork and crispy fried onions as a garnish.



I wish you all a friend who can read your mind when it’s as close to cracking as mine was yesterday and show up with a bowl of your favourite comfort food. Bring on another mountain.

Edited to add the name of the Indonesian soup!

Edited by Anna N, 25 November 2010 - 02:04 AM.

[JTravel]

I would count myself lucky to get such a high quality Vietnamese lunch, on a good day or bad. To have it delivered on a bad day is really a blessing.

The Roommates Who Lunch have been slacking off, but this week it will be "Rochester Italian". It's not Pho!

[Kerry Beal]

LWL needed a break yesterday - we were a little late getting started - didn't think we were going to be able to go out - but at the last minute things fell into place. Anna consulted the 'list' that she keeps of places we see that we want to try sometime - and came up with Nando's - a portuguese piri-piri chicken spot.




We really liked their dishes - and my tea came in a cup and saucer that matched them.





We shared a platter with chicken done 3 ways - went for the lemon/herb sauce that was the mildest and jazzed it up with the table sauces. A fresh mediterranean style salad with it and piri-piri fries which were just fries with a bit of a hot sprinkle.



Saw this little guy waiting for a doggie bag as we left!

[Kerry Beal]

We headed out yesterday to find the indonesian restaurant to have the aforementioned soup (bakso). Well it was quite a disappointment to see the restaurant gone and a sushi joint in it's place. How can they still have a website????

We did a bit of driving around - then settled on Owl of Minerva for some bibimbap. We considered the possibility of the favoured pork bone soup - but both realized we needed even more comforting comfort food.



Bibimbap



Had a little Kalbi too.



Of course the kimchi must be shown.



And some quite lovely miso soup.

After lunch we cruised Pusatari's to check out the foods we can't afford. They were selling gianduja for $66/lb!

[plum tart]

I had a Christmas lunch with colleagues at Le Select Bistro yesterday. I hadn't been to their new location and it is lovely and jam packed with eaters celebrating the Christmas season.

I had a kir to start, followed by braised cokscombs and mushrooms in a wine sauce. They were delicious and interesting at the same time, mild in flavour and gently chewy. This was followed by skate in brown butter with a lovely Alsatain reisling. The skate was impeccably fresh with the flesh removed from the wings and annointed in brown butter. I enjoyed it. My colleagues had French onion soup which Andy, a serious francophile says is the best in Toronto. Andy followed with choucroute garni, the chef's specialty and Maggie had the duck confit in a gorgeous jus.

For dessert we shared rum baba and iles flottant. We lingered over dessert and coffee until about 3 pm. The restaurant emptied and became peaceful with only a few hangers on at the bar.

The food was very good at Le Select and I am surprised that Toronto Life doesn't list them in their guide. I know there are many bistros in Toronto now, but Le Select prepares the bistro classics well, it is not expensive and the service is better than in many trending spots.

It was a good beginning to Christmas dining.

[Anna N]

I had a Christmas lunch with colleagues at Le Select Bistro yesterday. I hadn't been to their new location and it is lovely and jam packed with eaters celebrating the Christmas season.
. . . .

Sounds like a great lunch. Thanks for sharing. It's always so much more fun when others share their lunch experiences and even more so when it's a local (to us) place.

[plum tart]

I am very envious of your lunches So much fun and so delicious!

[Mjx]

Hm. I have a friend I get together with every time I come back to NYC, and lunch at Viceroy, on 18th and 8th. I'm not entirely certain why (we discuss that topic every time we get together), but it has become somthing of a ritual: I get a burger, every time. Usually, so does he. Quite good burgers, actually. He flirts with the waiters, I leave him to it, go downstairs to take photos of myself making faces at the mirror in the loo.

[plum tart]

My favourite kind of food story! Please keep on with your ritual - it might evolve, it might not. We will be kept guessing.

[Anna N]

Very unusual for Kerry and I to plan our Wednesday but that’s exactly what we did this week. Kerry needed to pick up a Christmas gift at Lee Valley Tools and I wanted to wander through HomeSense and I asked if we could have a lunch of Asian appetizers at Thai Coconut a restaurant that has recently re-opened after a fire did extensive damage.

We took our time wandering through HomeSense looking at all the cooking gadgets and the gourmet food selection but left with only two garlic presses and Food & Wine’s Best of the Best Vol. 11. Then it was off to lunch.

We each ordered soup, Tom Kha for Kerry and Tom Yum for me.







We asked for the assorted appetizer platter and a serving of calamari and then settled in to one of the longest and most relaxing lunches we have managed in quite some weeks.





So I always consider the washroom to be part of the restaurant experience and WOW what an experience this was. First, let me assure you that the washroom was totally unoccupied when I took the photos but I have never before felt like such a voyeur. I was terrified that someone would walk in and see me with the camera and have me hauled off to the local cop shop as a weirdo. I could just see the headlines in our local paper. But you have to admit this is an over-the-top facility that gives new meaning to “rest room”.





After lunch we dropped into the ReUse Centre where I found a collapsing silicon colander for my daughter and this little gadget.


For next week we are thinking that everywhere will be a zoo and if we want a nice relaxing lunch it had better be at home so I have been challenged to make the elusive Bakso soup .

[KatieLoeb]

Shared a big plate of smoked salmon, whitefish salad, olives, sliced tomatoes, extra capers (by request!), cream cheese and a toasted everything bagel with my girlfriend today. All washed down with a bottle of Freixenet Rose cava. Delicious! It was definitely a "Lady Lunch" once we included the bubblies. This was all served at Sabrina's, one of my very favorite funky little byob cafes in town. Even on a snowy Thursday afternoon at 2:30pm the place was still packed. Good for them. Makes me happy to see little independent places like that succeeding with a vengeance.

[robirdstx]

My girlfriend and I selected Floyds Cajun Seafood (Webster location) for our December "Ladies Who Lunch". She had never been and I hadn't visited in way too long. She had the fried oysters and onion rings with sweet tea while I had the crawfish half n half (1/2 etouffee with white rice and 1/2 fried tails with tartar sauce) and a dos equis with lime to wash it down. She loved the oysters and my crawfish were awesome. Neither one of us needed a "doggie bag"! After we finished we browsed through a nearby Tuesday Morning to walk off some of our lunch.