I think this is the first year, after 5
years of marriage where we actually celebrated our anniversary. I have to take the blame for this. I’m usually the “Meh, its just another day”,
type of person. Which I know makes him
less than enthused. The hubby, who always likes to plan for surprises, planned this weeks in advance. I have never been
big on celebrating holidays, or birthdays. I do however get excited for Christmas.
I’m not sure why there’s a difference.
The anniversary was on a Friday, and because
we had recently come back from a 2 week long vacation (there will be a post on
that…just need to find time), we didn’t take the day off. After work, I drove downtown to run some
errands first. Who knew traffic would be
so good on a Friday! To kill time, I wandered through Kensington
Market. It was really a horrible day to
wander because it was POURING rain. I
thought I would be prepared by wearing my Hunter rainboots (they’re tall and go
up to my knees) and carrying an umbrella.
It was raining so hard that rain got into my boots so my feet were
wet. That’s when I decided to stop into
Café Pamenar. Cute little coffee
spot. Lots of people sitting with their
notebooks working, gave me the idea to work on my Noma post. I ordered a cortado (discovered my love for them while in Scandinavia), my drink of choice now
when I feel like I need a quick caffeine boost, and a vegan ginger molasses
cookie (was told that it was from Bunner's Bakeshop across the street). The ginger molasses cookie was very
good. Good ginger flavour, and sweet
enough, almost on the verge of being overly sweet.
So for a person with a less bland palette, it would be perfect. The cortado was also good, smooth, and just
creamy enough with the milk. Will return
again when I’m in the area. It’s a good
working spot, even though I barely put a dent in my Noma post.
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| Cortado & Ginger Molasses Cookie |
Next stop was Bunner's, a vegan/gluten free bakeshop. It wasn’t an intended stop, but I decided to stop in just because I enjoyed my cookie and it was on the way back to my car. And also a friend (whose vegan) tells me that this place is awesome. I picked up a red velvet cupcake and a chocolate salted caramel cupcake. These were for dessert, after our mystery anniversary dinner. At this point, my husband still hadn’t told me where we were eating, just told me to find parking in Yorkville.
I think I already knew where we were going
to go for dinner. I just didn’t want to
ruin the surprise. My husband usually
leaves the restaurant picking to me. So
for him to select a restaurant and “surprise” me with it, it must be a
restaurant he heard me talk about a few times.
And it turns out, my guess was right.
Dinner was at NAO. NAO is a
steakhouse in Yorkville that has a bit of fusion flavours thrown in. The range of beef available is quite
extensive. It ranges from just regular
prime USDA , beef from Alberta, to Australian and Japanese Wagyu, to Kobe. We ordered a salad to start (can’t remember
what it was called), bone marrow, Alberta ribeye, and Australian Wagyu
striploin, fries and asparagus.
The salad was great, the lettuce was fresh
and crisp. There were some candied
pecans and avocado tossed in. Dressing
was a yuzu dressing if I remember correctly.
I normally ask for dressing on the side, because I hate overdressed
salads, and I forgot this time, so I was worried. But it came out perfect. Also, love the plate itself.
We also ordered bone marrow. I used to hate this stuff. But after Noma, I learned to love it. I think Noma can make you love anything. The
order came with 1 piece of bone, split into 2.
When our waitress brought it over, she said something about that it was
split or something, and that the chef was going to give us another piece. The more the merrier? At least my belly thought so! It was no Noma, but it was deliciously fatty.
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| Salad |
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| Bone Marrow |
When the beef arrived it looked a little darker than I would have liked on the outside. Sorry the pictures are so dark! I don't understand why restaurants like to dim the lights so much! Makes for very difficult picture taking. The Alberta ribeye was tender and had good flavour. What I didn’t like was that I got a piece of muscle, so had to eat around that. Of course, the best was the Waygu. The Wagyu, you order by weight. So depending on how much money you want to spend, you can go as lavish or bank account safe as you want. So flavourful, and so tender. Could eat more, but that would have gotten too expensive.
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| Alberta Ribeye & Wagyu Striploin |
The sides were just meh. The fries were done so they were like shoestring fries, served with house made ketchup. I normally like shoestring fries because they tend to be crispier. They were crispy in this case, but the pieces were so small. It was almost as if they were the leftovers of the batch of fries and gave it to us as our serving. The asparagus was cooked well. It was served with a house made hollandaise sauce. The sauce was great. I ate a lot of the hollandaise sauce, not with the asparagus, but with the fries. I can't say I enjoy the combination of asparagus and hollandaise.
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| Asparagus & Fries |
Overall, the food was prepared well. I liked the selection of beef available, and also like how you can order certain cuts by weight. The service was just ok, nothing special. What surprised me was that even though they knew that it was our anniversary (my husband mentioned it was our anniversary when he made the booking, plus he brought flowers and gifts etc), there was no dessert thrown in or anything. I would have thought a high end steakhouse like this would have done something. Guess their service needs to be worked on a bit more. It’s still a relatively new place?
Back at home, we had the Bunner's cupcakes for dessert. Overall, I found the cupcake base itself dry. And the icing/buttercream/topping, was overly sweet and dense. Is this what vegans have to settle for? I know for sure that gluten free cupcakes don’t have to have this dense dry texture, because I’ve made gluten free cupcakes for a friend before. And from what I remember, these cupcakes weren’t exactly cheap either. So unless you really have a sensitivity/intolerance/allergy/strong aversion to eating animal products, don’t jump on the vegan/gluten free bandwagon. Stick to how cupcakes are supposed to be made.
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| Salted Caramel & Red Velvet Vegan Cupcakes |
Café Pamenar
307 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2M2
Phone: 647-352-3627
Hours: Monday 8am - 7pm
Tuesday - Saturday 8am - 12am (midnight)
Sunday 8am - 7pm
http://cafepamenar.ca
NAO Steakhouse
90 Avenue Rd.,
Toronto, ON
M5R 2H2
Phone: 416-367-4141
Hours: Monday - Saturday 5pm - 2am
Sunday CLOSED
http://naosteakhouse.com
Bunner's Bakeshop
244 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2L7
Phone: 647-350-2975
Hours: Monday - Sunday 10am - 7pm
http://www.bunners.ca
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