SYoung

Well... Jackson Triggs does not charge for their cheap wines but do charge (something like $2-3 per shot, more than nominal) for their more expensive wines. So does the law discriminate based on price? I don't know but rather doubt it. Sounds like it's up to the wine estbalishment whether to charge or not. To those who say the charges are to get rid of the freeloaders who drink too much, all I can say is they didn't have this problem is Australia. Are we to assume that Aussies are more civilized in terms of wines and they don't need to be 'controlled' like Canadians? I don't think so. There are other ways to control drunks. All I can say is this, I limited my tastings because I don't agree with the charge. The few that I did pay to taste reafirmed my opinion that Ontario wines have a way to go in terms of QPR. Maybe had I tried more I would've found something better and bought a case, but that didn't happen with my limited tastings due to the tasting fee. I do very much want to support Ontario wines, but not for the price they're asking.

I was in Australia earlier this year and did a few wine tours over there and not one winery charged for tastings, from the big Aussie wine conglomerates down to the mom and pops, every tasting was free. Some had limits, like 3 tastes per person, but they were still free. However, in Niagara, they charge a "nominal" fee (at least the ones I visited). But if you think about it, it's not that nominal. For example, I visited Chateau de Charmes and they charged $1 for about 1 oz of wine. A 750mL bottle has about 25 ounces so you're looking at an equivalent of about $25 bottle for that $1 tasting, which is more than the retail price the wine! Not very good QPR.

He's staying near the CN tower for a week... can you recomment a further place from the CN Tower!! I've been to Eigensinn Farm and have to disagree. I didn't think it was that good for the price ($250/person without wine or gas and time to get there). I prefer Susur or Perigee or Spendido or other restaurants in town for less than half the price.

I would recommend Nectar located on Wellington just west of Spadina or about a 10 minute walk from the CN Tower. You can check them out at http://www.nectar-restaurant.com/. Jamie Kennedy at Church & Front is also nice though that's probably a longer walk.

I find that Mildred Pierce near Queen & Dufferin is pretty good. It's kind of noisy inside but their patio is nice during the summer and it's still warm out now!

According to legend, Negroni was created in the early 1900's and named after Camillo Negroni in Florence, when he decided to add gin to his Americanos to give it some kick. The original recipe according to Campari calls for 1:1:0.75 proportions of Gin, Campari and Sweet Vermouth, respectively, shaken with ice and strained into a cocktail glass, garnish with a "burnt" orange twist. The twist is burnt by holding a flame above the glass, squeezing the orange peel firmly which supposedly causes flames as the oils are released.

In New York, generally, when one orders a Martini, there are 4 questions that a bartender should ask before making the cocktail: (1) Vodka or Gin? (2) Straight up or on the rocks? (3) With Olive or Twist? (4) Shaken or stirred? A Martini usually has about 1/4oz of Vermouth, a Dry Martini is given a splash of Vermouth, an Extra Dry Martini has no Vermouth, and in an In & Out Martini, the Vermouth is swirled in the cocktail glass and discarded before adding the Gin or Vodka. To stevea who started this thread, I'm not sure you should've told him "you done good" since he didn't. Then he thinks this is the way he's suppose to make it and the next person who orders the same may not be so nice. IMHO, it would've be better if you showed him the right way to do it and he probably would've appreciated it even more.

Great story, Mr. Forryan! You write beautifully! However, your point about the differences of the same wine between vintages, as when you say "Here were two wines, made by the same man, from the same vines, made in exactly the same way, the only difference being the climatic variations in those years.", can also be said of the so-called Parkerized wines. They styles of making wines could be different, but, either way, the terroir difference present. Moreover, you quoted Signor Paternoster as saying "We make wine in styles that people will buy”..." THus he tries to produce standardized wines but yet you still taste the terroir difference. So I'm not sure that you've made a point in favor of non-standardized wine, if that was your point. Or maybe you simply wanted to tell a good story!

OK, so we're nearing the " tail end of August"... when will it open?!

sworthen makes excellent suggestions. If money is no object, I would add: Sassafraz - I know it's a kind of trendy Yorkville (i.e., expensive) restaurant that movie stars sometimes frequent, but they have one of the best eggs benedict in town. Four Seasons Avenue Lounge - quite expensive but they have one of the better brunch buffets Provence - they also have excellent brunch however I understand they've gone downscale recently so not sure if the quality is still there. Service is very slow however.

I reckon that there's a very low, if any, correlation between menu size and food freshness. They might have 10 different beef dishes, for example, but they're all beef and you just have to buy fresh beef and they can make it 10 different ways. Same with seafood, chicken, vegetable, etc. Tapas is like dim sum in the way it's served to share, and, all else being equal, I would rather have more variety to choose from than less. In any case, I did not find food freshness to be a concern at either restaurant, however, my Spanish friend & I who went to both found the food quality to be better at Casa Barcelona. Also, the wine list at Embruja is also VERY short compared Casa Barcelona which probably has the greatest selection of Spanish wines in Toronto. At Embruja, we first ordered a $59 1997 cab blend from Rioja that they recommended and it was very DOA. The wine was way past its prime, but the waiter was nice enough to allow us to order something else and not charge us the dead Rioja (we suspected he had to have known and their whole batch was dead and they were trying to clear inventory from unsuspecting drinkers).

I was there last Friday and wasn't impressed with the quality of the tapas. The service and dance were pretty good though. IMHO, the best Spanish restaurant in the TO area is still Casa Barcelona in Etobicoke.

I agree with sadistick here. I think most people don't care about any rumours or Marc's past; rather it's about the food and perceived value. I sincerely hope Thuet (the restaurant) continues as a successful going concern and become one of the best restaurants in town because we need it and we want it. My 2 experiences at Thuet so far, unfortunately, have been mediocre compared to other high end restaurants in town or elsewhere for that matter. However, if I hear that things have changed and see more positive reviews through this board or anywhere else, I'll certainly be back. Nothing personal either way, it's just about the food.

I went to Thuet twice, the last time was about a month ago on a Friday night and we were there from about 7-10pm. At about 7pm, we were one of only two tables filled. By about 9-10pm, the restuarant was only about 25% full. When we left, we walked by Susur and Lee, both next door, and both were full (as expected for a Friday night). The service was good but the food was generally not commensurate with the high price. We ordered the 5-course tasting menu for the table and the food was good at best but mostly just OK. The dessert was a simple crème brûlée (2 small cups, one vanilla and one chocolate, on a large plain plate) that, IMHO, would not look out of place at The Keg; and it didn't taste very good either as most of us just left it on the table after a few tastes. Interesting also was that they gave us bottled water without asking, which ended up costing about $20. With so many fine restaurants to choose from in Toronto, we have no plans to go to Thuet again. It's unfortunate because there aren't many good high end restaurants in Toronto and we had high hopes for this one, especially with Marc's reputation as an excellent Chef.

I don't see how the service at LCBO is any higher or more consistent than the numerous wine stores I visited in New York and Australia recently, so I can't agree with you there. As to product range, LCBO is good for the easy to get mass produce wines and other liquor, but for many of the others, you'll not find it at the LCBO. If you read Wine Spectator, Decanter or any other wine publication and want to get something they recommended or highly rate, most of the time, you won't find it at the LCBO. But if you check the Internet, you can find many stores in the US selling them, but we can't import them here without paying seriously high import duties. For example, I recently had to go to NYC to get a 2000 Paolo Scavino Bric del Fiasc Barolo because they did't have it anywhere at the LCBO. So, sorry, but I don't agree with you either about LCBO having "assured availability" product selections - at least not the ones I'm always looking for. As far as price, LCBO's prices are sometimes reasonable but you can usually find it cheaper elsewhere. For example, I went to Sherry Lehmann (that Jayt90 has already referred to) in Manhattan and they are selling the Highland Park 18 scotch (one of my favourates) for $60 US ($74 CDN). At LCBO, it will cost you $118! Including 8% NY State tax that comes to $65 US or about $80 CDN. That's a HUGE $38 or about a 50% price difference!! And you can shop around too, whereas at LCBO you're stuck because they're the only store in town. As to the Food & Drink magazine... you pay for it as the cost of producing it is added to the liquor costs. IMO, it's a waste of money. For example, the heavy weight laminated paper they use for the entire magazine is of very high quality and is overkill for that type of magazine. It's obvious that cost savings wasn't high priority in producing the magazine.

"Just 30 minutes after a blue-ribbon panel struck by the Ontario government tabled an 81-page report urging radical transformation of the LCBO,the report was rejected. 'The government of Ontario will not sell the LCBO,' Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said at a news conference yesterday." -- Toronto Star Well, I can't say this was a surprise, but I would've thought it would've taken more than 30 minutes just to read the 81-page report before rejecting it. Seems the government already had it's mind made up and the whole Beverage Alcohol Review System Panel commission was a waste of the taxpayer's money. I just came back from a trip to Australia where there's no government monopoly and alcohol is sold everywhere, including supermarkets, and I saw no evidence of any abuse of alcohol by minors or any other citizens whatsoever. So it seems that Ontario does not believe its citizens are as mature as the Australians or Europeans or American or our fellow Canadians in Alberta. In the end, it's about the control of money and the Ontario govenment isn't going to give up control of a cash cow. I just wonder why they even bother with the ruse of setting up the commission in the first place?

After reading so many good reviews here in egullet, we decided to give WD-50 a try this past Saturday as we were in New York this past weekend. We made reservations to 3 restaurants for our 3 night stay in the Big Apple: WD-50, Bouley & Babbo (we had Per Se on the list but it was closed!!). We had a reservation for WD-50 at 7pm but was about a half hour late due to traffic (we called from the car to let them know) and was told that we could not have the tasting menu because they needed to get us out of the restaurant by 9:30pm for the next reservation. However, as it turned out we were there past 9:30pm anyway because of the long wait between courses. By long, I mean we waited at least 30 minutes between each course, the longest was between the appetizer and the entre which was around 45 min. We never ate so much bread in our lives because of the long wait as we were hungry! We watched other tables and everyone was waiting so we weren't alone. Overall, the food was very good but not excellent. The 5 of us ordered the seafood dishes (fish and scallop) as the main but none stood out as being fantastic. In fact, nothing stood out and of the 3 restaurants, I'd put WD-50 as 3rd best of the 3 restaurants we tried in terms of food. Maybe it was because of the high expectations going in but we were kind of disappointed in pretty well all aspects of our WD-50 experience.

Just want to add that we visited Sydney last Dec and dined at Tetsuya and it was one of the best food we ever had, better than anything we have here in Toronto, Canada (where I live) and as good, if not better, then the best of New York (where we frequently visit). And compare to New York prices, Tetsuya was not that expensive for what you're getting. So if you're in Sydney and love food, Tetsuya is a must try.

2.5 hours! Geez, my grandma can do it in less than 1.5 hours. If you're looking for decent food, I'd stay away from the Falls and head for the Niagara on the Lake area. If you have time, I'd agree with others that doing the wine tours is a good idea and some of them have pretty good restaurants. For more info, check out http://www.niagaraonthelake.com/.

Jackson-Triggs. Scenic large estate and good wines.

Sorry, did I hear you right? You had a bottle of corked wine, re-corked it and took it back to LCBO and got a full refund? Didn't know you could do that.

My wife and I were there last night with another couple and the 4 of us each had the $89 5-course degustation menu without wine pairing. The food was consistently very good but nothing really stood out as being so special that I would recommend you go there immediately to try. We were there about 7-10pm on the Friday night and it was surprisingly only about 60% full at it's peak. We were seated at the back near the open concept kitchen and you can see all the chefs. My friend pointed out Marc Thuet as the bleached blond one and we know that because he was the only chef there not wearing a hat. I wonder what the health inspectors would think about that. Overall, I would recommend that you give this restaurant a try but considering that our final bill (including tax and tips) came to over $600 (including 2 bottles of "reasonably priced" wine), I'm not sure that it was the best value for money.

Yes, as a relative newbie to the wine world, even I know that some stores put out some of their releases the day before on Friday. However, as you put it, the limited volume anticipated high demand stock is kept in the warehouse until "9:30" on Saturday. So, there's no real advantage to going early to these "rogue" stores unless you have a unique need to buy a new release of the non-high demend stuff for drinking on that Friday night.

I was in Australia this past Christmas and had several great wines. Of those that I recall, in no particular order: d'Arenberg Laughing Magpie and Dead Arm Charles Melton Nine Popes Two Hands Angel's Share Torbreck The Struie Domaine Chandon Greenpoint

Queens Quay is good, very good. But the biggest in terms of size and selection is the Summerhill LCBO which is about a 20min drive up Yonge Street from Westin Harbour Hotel.