(and another weekend of eating like it was my last)
back from my mini-STAYcation! i know. i hate that word too, but it’s accurate. i added an extra day off to an already extra-long weekend and spent 5 days indulging, relaxing, funning and generally not working in the greater GTA. and of course, a big part of all of those activities involved eating and drinking. i ATE. i mean, even for me, i ATE.
wed night: gladstone hotel's harvest wednesday prix fixe.
thurs: random amusement park pigging out (chips, pop, fries etc.) at canada's wonderland. who eats right before going on the biggest rollercoaster in canada? me.
fri: excessive ordering at dim sum. no-room-on-the-table type of ordering.
sat: breakfast at my aunt's–details below, followed almost immediately by a visit to a sri lankan outdoor food market where i bought and ate, oh, EVERYthing.
sun: inhaled bowls of nuts, seaweed crackers, hummus and olives while stopping by a friend's for "a drink". this could be considered the lightest day since i actually cooked at home for the first time and dinner probably came in at under 3,000 calories for once.
mon: brunch at sadie's with friends (why not? i was so good on sunday!) and then to lahore tikka house for dinner.
and throw in various ice cream cones and a few bottles of wine here and there.
but quantity aside, i ate really well. so well that i couldn’t resist taking a few shots of some of deliciousness so i could share them with you–you'll just have to pardon the iphone pics. i’ll start with the most innocent and the most healthy of the feasts, a breakfast of hoppers at my aunt’s house.
a bit about hoppers if you've never had them…hoppers are made with rice flour and their consistency is sort of that of a pancake. because they are made in special small, hopper pans that are concave, the batter pools in the middle creating two pleasant textures: a soft, doughy middle and thin, very crispy edges. egg hoppers are a special treat, with one egg cracked onto a semi-set hopper, left in tact and allowed to cook softly in the centre. hoppers are usually served with sambols—my aunt made lunu miris and seeni sambol which is a carmelized onion sambol. don't confuse hoppers with string hoppers which, although being made with rice flour and being served with some of the same dishes, are really very different.
oh and in addition to the hoppers and sambols, my aunt also served a whole other meal of kiri bath at this breakfast, because as she said “i realized it was the first of the month! you have to eat kiri bath on the first.” well if i have to…
and it only got crazier after that. more pics of the feeding frenzy to come!