TORONTO, APRIL 2009

Toronto isn't that far from us, but we don't get up there as often as we like or, probably, as we should. In April, however, we travelled up to meet with a dear old friend from college days who had come from Alberta to see her new grandchild. We started with lunch in Yorkville at the Cafe Nervosa, where our friend took this photo of the two of us:



Cafe (or as it sometimes calls itself Trattoria) Nervosa doesn't really have a vegetarian or vegan menu, but the waiters and chef are very obliging and are happy to provide something acceptable by making substitutions and omissions re dishes on the menu. And it's a buzzy place :)

After having a very very long lunch, our friend had to get back to her family and we moved on to the Royal Ontario Museum for our usual fix of things old and interesting.



The museum, as you'll see, has recently had a wing added with a rather startling entrance and frontage on one side. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, but the space works just fine and it's good to have the extra space inside.



That evening we went to



The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts for a performance of Verdi's 'Simon Boccanegra' - not one of my favourite operas nor, it seems the fave of the critics I read afterwards, but it was a lovely evening.

The next day we walked from our hotel in Yorkville to the Art Gallery of Ontario -



which has recently been reopened after some considerable additions - including an added storey plus a new frontage - by the very talented Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry. I love the spiral staircases, ramps, and (good for the quadriceps for those who want the exercise and refuse the elevators!) . . .



. . . the climb to the top for a view of the rooftops of this older part of the city!



That evening we headed out to see a play (Glengarry Glen Ross, 1982, by David Mamet) at the Soulpepper Theatre in the old reclaimed Distillery District. This is a wonderful area, all pedestrianized, where old buildings have been renovated within while still keeping their original architecture.







This area is now home to live theatre, artist's studios, upscale boutiques, and restaurants of all kinds. For some reason I seem to have concentrated mostly (but not entirely) on the restaurants while I was snapping photos.




But finally, having little time left before an early curtain, we dived into a brew pub for a quick glass and a sandwich.



This was a pretty busy place, but more popular, I suspect, for its omnivore menu than for anything vegan or vegetarian.



The drink was fine :) and so was the play - excellent company! Next morning, back home to reunite ourselves with our furkids and to get back to real life.

Note to self: get to Toronto more often!!!

New York - January 2009

Now this isn't NYC - indeedy no. As a matter of fact we were waiting for hours and hours to take off and my dh suggested a glass of wine to make things a little, er, well, less stressed. And so it did, as you see from this silly photo. Now that's the trouble about travelling in the winter - weather happens!

Nevertheless, we did finally get off and a little over 12 hours after we started out we arrived at our little hotel in Manhattan. Since this was by now well after nine in the evening, we headed for the nearest place likely to be able to supply us with a vegan meal and - and we struck it lucky. The PongSri in Chelsea (but they've got a couple of other locations, I understand) produced a delicious meal to two starving travellers in short order. Love Thai food!!!



Above is my hungry dh perusing the extensive menu (and finding the vegan options) and below are the dishes quickly photographed before we demolished them.



This was a lovely eggplant with basil dish - excellent choice.



And this one was tofu etc. in a coconut sauce - spiced just right. (Sorry, I'm terrible at remembering the names of Thai dishes!)

This late at night (by the time we actually were eating) we skipped dessert and coffee, so I can't say what that part of the menu was like for vegans.

The next morning was a bit of a slow start - we had a nice breakfast (having to scavenge a bit for what was actually vegan) in the Library at our hotel, then headed off slowly for Lincoln Center to collect our pre-booked tickets from the box office - for Orfeo Ed Euridice which we were to see that night.



Then we headed off for lunch - which happened to be right at the time of the Inauguration, so we had the place almost completely to ourselves. The place? Beyoglu where we had been on a previous visit. Sublime food - and very friendly towards vegans. Sadly, I forgot I had the camera at first so didn't take pics of the food, but we ordered various mezze as we usually do in such circumstances. This restaurant might produce the best mezze I have ever tasted outside of Instanbul.

Here we are looking rather contented after a looooong lunch.



Since it was rather a special day for us (quite apart from the Inauguration of President Obama), we prevailed upon our server to take the above photo. Then it was off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



We were here mainly to see the Renaissance and Love exhibition, but of course we wandered a bit first, as you see below.





Excellent - but not enough time before we had to go back to change for the evening and meet our friend pre-opera. The opera? Superb - of course. We went on to Cafe des Artistes afterwards. Superb venue - and if you're interested in the wall murals, see HERE. Well, it was a special event, as I say!

Another day, another place to eat (honestly, it's not ALL we did in NYC, but it certainly looks like it here):



This is Franchia - a Korean Tea House which is vegan and an excellent spot for a meal. Not just tea either. We had the prix-fixe menu, as we usually do there, and remembered to photograph the appetizer course (though not the first course - I had miso soup and it was very well made).



Lovely food and great presentation! Unfortunately, again we forgot to take pics of the main course - or at least until we had demolished half of it. It was so good!



We shared a wonderful vegan curry hotpot and also vegan 'meatballs' in a brown sauce. After the first taste, the rest was a blur! We finished with a simple sorbet - which disappeared pretty quickly.

That evening we were to meet up with friends at their apartment - but not before stopping by Bemelman's for a few minutes, as is our wont). We like to listen to Chris Gillespie sing at his piano - great retro music.



It's the decor that makes this place especially interesting (a bit different from that the previous evening, though!). Note the lampshade at dh's elbow . . .



. . . and the scrap of mural behind and above me. Such fun - and the walls are covered in them. Great illustrator, that Bemelman!

Then, having paid homage to painting, music and the god of wine, we rushed on to meet our friends!



The restaurant that evening was Candle 79 - which is a sister establishment of Candle Cafe but not to be confused with it. (The website has a link to the newer Candle 79 further down the window.) And the food and ambiance were superb as always. Now why can't we get the chef to move down the street from us here!!!! And of course, the food and ambiance paled against the company, as should always be the case when dining. Oh and did I mention that the food is absolutely vegan? How's that for the perfect place!

Lunchtime our last day was at Dawat, which is the famed actress-turned-cookbook-author Madhur Jaffrey's restaurant. It is of course Indian, and although not vegetarian it has a good veggie menu including several vegan selections. We enjoyed it enough the first time we were there - a couple of years ago - to want to return and we weren't sorry. This was another case of failing to remember the camera until we had made inroads into the main dishes. (The appetizer had been some lightly fried okra/bindi which had been sliced finely lengthways. It was more delicious than I imagined it could be.)




The above photo shows Bunhi Gobhi (stirfried cauliflower with cummin seeds, ginger and coriander leaves) and Channa Masala (chickpeas).


Apart from returning to the Met Museum and going on to a couple of others, we also found our way into the the J.P. Morgan Library and then the New York Public Library, which I hadn't visited in ages, for an exhibition or two.



I had forgotten what a marvellous interior it has.

The final evening? To HanGawi, a Korean restaurant which is totally vegan and which specializes in ancient grains, mountain greens and mountain roots. This is an experience not to be missed. It had been five years since we had first been there, and I did rather fear that my memory of it might have been enhanced over time. Not so.

This was the appetizer course - one serving requested since we had eaten so well at lunchtime.



A wonderful light selection of mountain greens and roots, delicately flavoured. We made short work of it.

The following photo shows tofu and mushrooms in a lemon ginger sauce (little bowls thoughtfully provided). As you see, we had all but finished it before I remembered I'd taken no photo (got to do something about that!)



And the second dish we ordered was this lovely Mongolian Hot Pot - also nearly depleted by the time the photo was taken.



My dh declared this to be one of the best restaurants ever!



Next morning, home to Canada - an uneventful trip, thank goodness. And we're already planning our next Great Escape.

Vienna and Salzburg, September 2007

This wasn't exactly our first view of Vienna this trip (we'd been there a couple of times before), but our first view was of pouring rain which doesn't exactly photograph well! But here, on a nicer day, is the cafe into which we stumbled that first late morning on the Saturday when the clouds opened and the whole city (except for us) was agog over the visit of the Pope, so that traffic was banned from the central city and walking was restricted by police cordons.

Thoroughly soaked and a little bit disgruntled (couldn't get to our chosen lunch spot!), we ran to what turns out to have been a cafe frequented by the great Siggy Freud, the Cafe Griensteidl. Inside was calm, courtesy, good cups of tea and coffee and respite from the weather and crowds.

Here's my dh, rather damp and not in the best of moods, awaiting sunshine.



Another great place, if you're into indoor glamour (and the high prices that come with it) is the Cafe Central - where we once, some years ago, had a great Greek Salad (minus the fish and the cheese, thanks) at lunchtime on another rainy day! We seem to end up in some interesting or elegant places in the rain, such as the day in Venice when we . . . . Whoops, another time, eh?



We did stop in Cafe Central (above) following the opera one evening on this trip - although it was a tight fit timewise before they closed. (We'd been to the Volksoper that evening, not the State Opera, which is in quite a different direction from our pension.) State Opera? Very nice too, as we found out on another evening - see below.



And here's a snap of me, just for fun (since you already have one of the dh) - I'm pictured in our room at the Pension Pertschy, of which astoundingly I otherwise seem to have no photo. It's right in the middle of the old town and housed in an old palace. Fantastic place!



I'm looking rather pleased with myself.

And just in case you think we didn't eat in any real restaurants (yes we did - several!) here's a veggie restaurant we found in the centre of Vienna and where we ate about three times to my recollection.



The BioBar Von Antun (above) is organic and veggie and apart from a couple of things clearly marked, vegan. The food is fantastic.

Okay, moving on!

Here's the castle in Salzburg, our other venue on this trip!



Now this is a fabulous place - well worth the trouble of getting there (and yes you can take the funicular). I imagine it would have made for very draughty living, though.

And this is our hotel in Salzburg, where we will certainly stay again.



The Hotel Wolf (above) right in the middle of the Old Town, is soooo neat! We just loved it. It made it possible to be in reach of everything we wanted to see without having to hike for miles (we did that a bit anyway, but at least we had a good central homebase from which to start).



And on yes, above you see another photo of me in Salzburg this time. As you can see, in September the weather continued a little on the cool side, so jackets were mandatory.

Returning to Vienna, we made a quick trip out to Schonbrun to see again all the wonders of past royalty.



And of course, still having to eat, we stopped one day at the most unlikely place. The Cafe Stein (below) looked as if it only dealt with omnivores, but indeed they were able to give us an excellent vegan meal. We were delighted.



Okay enough - this was all a long time ago now, almost ancient history, right? So I'll do another couple of these 'catching up' posts, sparing you all the scenic and mostly cliche-type holiday snaps (although I don't promise to continue with this kind of consideration!)

Best to all!!!!