The Unvegan

A Nightcap at Smoke’s Poutinerie

June 25th, 2010 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

I like my poutine with gravy and curds.

A few more beers into the night and not yet having satisfied my craving for poutine in Toronto, my drunken munchies search became a quest for poutine. The quest ended when we discovered Smoke’s Poutinerie in the Queens West area. This place was a chain, but still had the look of a greasy hole-in-the-wall style poutine joint. Their menu had a few different variations of that delicious treat, even one including bacon, but we decided that the traditional was the way to go. We got a large for 8 loonies and waited about 30 seconds for them to toss the fries, curds and gravy into a box for eating. Continue Reading»

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Canada, Chains, fries, ontario, poutine, restaurants, smoke's poutinerie, toronto, Travel

Brews Over Burgers at Mill Street

June 24th, 2010 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

I like this street corner.

For a night in Toronto, I really didn’t have much of a clue about where to eat. Finally, a buddy of mine told me to check out the Mill Street Brewery. I am always up for a microbrewery since that seems to be a lost art in LA, so I looked it up. It turned out that the place was actually pretty easy walk from our hotel, so we headed to Mill Street to see what we could find. After a twenty minute walk through a mildly sketchy part of town featuring a homeless pirate watering plants with a two-liter of Canada Dry, we arrived at the Distillery area. This part of town was once some sort of huge brewery, but now had shops, restaurants, bars and people testing Smart Cars and Segway Scooters. Even before we started drinking, our goal was to take a drunken ride on/in one of these (no, we did not achieve our goal). Continue Reading»

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Beer, Brewhouse, Burgers, Canada, hamburgers, microbrewery, mill street brewery, ontario, restaurants, toronto, Travel

Some Much-Needed Mexican at El Torito

October 26th, 2009 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

There be onions hidden in there.

After a long drive back from Phoenix, I was willing to eat about anything. Luckily in Ontario, we came across El Torito, a Mexican sit-down restaurant that is all over California. I actually saw El Torito in Istanbul, which has kept me from going for a long time because I question their authenticity. Nonetheless, I had put off El Torito for long enough and I was so damn hungry. Continue Reading»

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California, Chains, el torito, enchiladas, inland empire, Mexican, ontario, restaurants, Travel

Rants and Raves

If Trees Could Speak…

August 4th, 2009

Out with it!

From The Wizard of Oz to The Lord of the Rings, talking trees have been a part of fantasy for a long time. Well, perhaps these thoughts should finally be freed from the land of myth. I recently discovered an old article thanks to this article in The Huffington Post.

It is entitled “Do Trees Communicate for Mutual Defense?” by Larry Gedney and although it’s from way back in 1986, the article cites a lot of research I had never heard of before. According to the research, trees under attack are able to communicate to each other to warn them about the danger. Once warned, the other trees can then defend themselves, such as by producing a chemical to ward off attacking insects.

Beer Me Some Breckenridge Agave Wheat

The taste of skiing?

Colorado is definitely a beer state, and not just because Coors comes from the Rocky Mountain State. No, it is also home to New Belgium (of Fat Tire fame) and seemingly countless other micro and craft breweries. While in Breckenridge for a ski weekend, I decided I had to at least try one of these, and because it turned out to be the only one available at dinner, my choice happened to come from the creatively named Breckenridge Brewery. The brewery, by the way, is actually no longer in Breckenridge, having expanded and moved to Denver in 1992.