last saturday, i was spending the afternoon and evening with a guy from the netherlands who is vegan. hence, for lunch and dinner, we tried to find vegetarian/vegan restaurants. he brought a list from happy cow, and for lunch we decided to go to a vietnamese place called white oak ii. it features a large variety of vegan vietnamese and chinese food, often things which originally contain meat, but where the meat is replaced. this was really amazing. the restaurant is placed in a small vietnamese mall, not obvious to find. i definitively have to go there again.
for dinner, we went to the coup, a vegetarian place at 17th avenue. this was a bit more pricy and stylish, but also very good. a place i also have to go to at least one more time. i had a vegetarian burger there, in fact the first vegetarian burger i ever had: it was really good! as was the spiced (in the sense of chili!) iced chocolate shake (hmmmm) and a cocktail called the “malibu barbie colada” which, despite its funny name, tasted fantastic. for dessert, i had a piece of organic chocolate torte, which in fact is vegan.
posts about drink.
today, we had our conference dinner at an italian restaurant called l’espresso. the atmosphere was nice and the food was good, and after the dessert espresso, coffee or cappuccino was served. i asked for hot chocolate itself, and the waiter said he has to check whether that is ok, since they use high quality chocolate which is a bit more expensive. that already sounded good, so i told him in case of doubt i’d pay for that one myself. some minutes later, i got my chocolate (without having to pay for it), and i must say, it’s the best hot chocolate i ever had. i guess it was made in a similar manner to the one i once produced myself. if i ever come back to toronto, i have to get back to this place :)
ingredients:
- the big lebowski (imdb).
- a sufficient amount of vodka.
- a sufficient amount of kalúha.
- a sufficient amount of milk.
- some hardware to play the movie.
- some glass for the white russian(s).
- optionally, some ice cubes.
instructions:
- pour some of the vodka, kalúha and milk into the glass. add some ice if needed.
- start watching the movie, while drinking the white russian.
- as soon as the glass is empty, pause the movie, refill the glass and continue the movie.
- repeat until the movie is over.
the amounts should be chosen high enough to ensure that you won’t run out of white russian during the movie.
well. seriously. (as serious as one can be after watching the movie and drinking several white russians.) the big lebowski is a movie by the coen brothers about a hippie slacker, called simply the dude, who is drawn into a kidnapping case which turns out to be a bit more complicated, with a bunch of different parties taking part in the game. the movie features great characters, most notably el duderino, his friends, donny and walter, and the german nihilists (nagelbrett by autobahn!), some great dream sequences, lots of bowling, and lots of white russians, all drunken by his dudeness.
if you’ve never seen it, watch it. and don’t forget the white russians.
yesterday i tried to make “real” hot chocolate, resulting in the most intense hot chocolate i ever had. i began with 200 gramms of dark chocolate, half a liter of milk, and a bit of sugar.
using the double boiling method, i.e. putting a smaller pot into a bigger pot filled with hot water, i melted the chocolate. when it was mostly melted, i started adding the milk and stirring. then, i added the sugar, and waited until it got hot again. then, finally, i added some chili powder and a bit of creme de cacao.
one last hint of mine is that you shouldn’t try to drink more than one cup of this in a few hours, it’s simply too much chocolate at once :-)
a few days ago, kornel wrote something on chili drink chocolate. it’s really easy: take usual chocolate powder, take chili powder, take milk, mix it, drink it, enjoy it. and, well, it is great. if you take a sip, it first tastes as usual drink chocolate, and then, seconds later, the chili starts burning on your tongue. that’s the kind of hot chocolate i like.
