JLoeats.com

HElllllo my dear dear friends who have shown nothing but generous support thus far for my little blog here :)
i heart chu all <3
and welcome!! :)

i would love to rave on and on about the reisling/gervwerztreminer from austrilia that i had tonight (i won’t lie, i’m still very drunk and high on life from that wine) … so here i go.
isn’t it AMAZING when you are warm with glee from holiday spirit, are sitting at a table amongst old friends, and you take that first swig of your wine glass and out pours nothing but sweet crisp grape juice from somewhere else in the world?
i love wine. and every day i am growing more and more appreciative of it.
the amount of work and care that goes into every drop and every grape.
you just feel taken care of when you drink wine don’t you?
i know i feel special :)
….and what better way to end the night than with kobe beef sliders that were yum yum…
and surprisingly, fom milestones.
yes yes, it was after a holiday concert at the toronto arts center tonight that i joined the VH chamber choir to wine and dine at one of canada’s top chain restaurants.

and surprisingly, it’s quite a formula they have going there.
casual dinning,
casual service,
and i have to say, a lil bit of a step up from say — a Olive Garden, Chill’s, or TGIF’s in america. lol.
i am usually against these chain restaurants, because i am a sucker for boutique places, (come on, i lived in manhattan for a year ;)) but i have to admit, they are great places to go to when you have a team, a choir group or any table larger than 8. and if you’re my family, or anyone who loves to be around people all day long like mine; or simply people who choose to eat and chill together, then places like these are perfect!
and i must say, it’s not easy to serve a large group of people who all want to celebrate any sort of occasion.
Large groups can get rowdy and hard to handle. (and we were pretty hard to handle tonight singing at the top of our lungs…)
so for this reason, i raise my glass and bow my head down to these large restaurant chains –
milesstones, moxies, the keg, alice fazoolies, jack astor’s… etc…
i mean they must have the business down to a T.
from the set menus – carefully designed for maximum cost efficiency,
to the simple wine list that goes with their simple strip steak, prime rib or sirloin dishes — well, meat and potatoes, mmmm can’t go wrong with meat and potatoes, right?
….that is until i found a piece of trussing (string) in my prime rib, and my wine glass smelled like dirty wet towel. yum. :P

and i must say, it is quite the experience sitting at a long table with ten – twenty new and beautifully talented choir singers (who were ALL DRUNK and high on life) sing at the top of their lungs resonating their voices throughout the entire restaurant. now imagine that! that’s what i call entertainment! ;) and i guess that’s just it most of the time — sometimes, it doesn’t even matter how good the food is — well i lied, to me it matters 90% of the time hahaha, but tonight was really about WHO i was with, and the atmosphere of a place that made my night… GREAT… :)

and funny thing was, all of them saw me stare at the open kitchen the moment i stepped in there – as they were all very curious to ask if i even enjoy food anywhere anymore since i’ve been working in the industry.
i must admit, i do LOVE to critique and pick and pull apart food now…lol. how fun!!!
and since last month,
my new favourite past time is guessing anonymous ice cream flavours ;) go figure :)

well, i had a great time tonight,
and i must give props to the waiter that handled our order.

so,
what do you think?
what’s your favorite chain restaurant and why?