severely overpriced but severely cute. matryoshka dolls! but they’re not just any old matryoshkas, they’re measuring cup matryoshkas!

they come as 3 dolls and measure at 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 3/4 cup, 2/3 cup, 1/3 cup and 1/4 cup. eh eh?

the inside of the cup.

we also saw dinosaur bones and lots of animal corpses. it was like an animal graveyard. i’ve come to the realization that museums are just one big necropolis. fun stuff.

we got three appetizers. this fig-honey-walnut-prociutto-gorgonzola cheese was my favourite. the other two were: fried calamari and deep fried trio of eggplant, artichoke and some random meatloafy substance.. which probably tasted better than i’m making it sound.

we also got one pizza to share. it was prociutto, pear, gorgonzola and honey. similar to the appetizer but with pear instead of fig. i was very grateful for this sweet pizza because the pasta dish was way over salty.

my pasta dish was bucatini a l’amatriciana it had tomato sauce, guanciale pancetta and pecorino cheese. the pasta itself was pretty good and was interesting to eat. the flavour was very baconey and super salty–to the point of tasting slightly bitter. i was slightly disappointed as this dish had many raves on online reviews.

terrence got spaghetti coi cucuzzielli which had deep fried zucchini with guanciale pancetta, pecorino cheese and mint. he chose this dish because he has an obsession with mint. of the 3 pasta dishes i thought that this one was the most palatable but he said that a full serving is too much oil.

churd’s dish was one of the specials. i can’t remember the exact dish name but it was pappardelle with wild boar. it tasted basically like pulled pork with pappardelle.  he said it was too much salt in the end too.

for dessert, we had blueberry gelato, crema? gelato and panna cotta. the panna cotta was quite good. very creamy and jiggly like jiggly boobies. the blueberry gelato had a nice fresh flavour.

the menu was very interesting and there were so many dishes i’d like to have tried but after the way over salty bucatini, i’d have to say that it will be a while before i’d consider going back.

terrence surprised me with cake from my favourite bakery. this cake was cassis x earl grey flavour. it was yums.

3 mini cakes for 3 years? i didn’t remember to take pics until after i’d started eating. from the left: pistachio, apple cheesecake, and some sort of white chocolate x berry mix–mystery cake, you were so good.

my special macarons. also half eaten pics, but i thought it was okay because it made the filling visible. from top left: mint chocolate, rose, blueberry, yuzu and lavender chocolate. my favourite was the lavender.. or the mint chocolate.. or the yuzu.. i guess i can’t decide. the rose reminded me of pot pourri but it was still good. its weird that they can make pot pourri yummy.

for our celebration dinner we went to aoyama sushi

they had uni in the shell as one of their specials. it was neato to see but expensive. but tasty.

we also ordered the sashimi omakase. it was so refreshing to have better sashimi. all you can eat sashimi just doesn’t cut it.

another special was kampachi sushi–one of my favourites. i also had a massive craving for ikura.

the spider roll was decent but i kind of wish i got something else.

other dishes we ordered were: hamachi kama, maguro x nagaimo (can’t remember the name of it..like yamakake?) and tempura.

after dinner, we went home and ate more cake.

new at toshis is battera. this has shio zuke sakura in it and it makes me want to go hanami in japan

i told daddy i felt like ikura so he brought me home this temaki set! of course, he worked all day on his first day off since january. please disregard the plastic wrapped botan ebi in the corner.

daikon-tomato-okra-pork salad with mayo-pon goma dare.

standard smoked salmon salad

fried fish with lots of ginger and green onions

this was my contribution. okonomiyaki with shrimp, scallop, mentaiko, mochi etc. this recipe used a lot of nagaimo and it was nice and toro fuwa. it was a lot of food to top of the rest of the dishes with though so there was a lot left over.

and for dessert… hanas ugly face. makes me sick. but my hair is getting long and thats the reason behind posting my offensive, ugly face.

it’s so big and white and shiny.. makes me wanna put all kinds of stuff in it.

that’s what she said.

mmhmm.. no sugar added pudding! this new dulce de leche flavour is actually quite good and only 60 calories.

it’s two layers: custardy at the bottom and caramelly at the top. pretty too.

but after uncovering my solution i go and discover that there are cold stone creameries in canada now.. at tim hortons! weird. i had a cheesecake berry something or other. the waffle cone tasted like real waffle; like when my waffle iron sticks to the batter too much and splits the waffle to make 2 waffle cookies. go tims.

micro mini eggs not so special but popping mini eggs seem peculiar. after trying them, the verdict was… the regular ones are better. the popping sensation is not very powerful so you have to pay attention or you might miss it. the whole fun of popping candies are the loud pops and crackles but popping mini eggs just slightly crackled in an unsatisfactory dim way.

we went downtown and visited some patisseries. we went to petite thuet on king street and the newish nadege patisserie on west queen west for macarons. the macaron flavours at thuet were: lemon, chocolate, strawberry and unidentified. from nadege: rose, blackberry chocolate, olive oil, salt caramel and peach. my favourite from thuet was the strawberry and from nadege was the peach. yum yum.

we had brunch at the king edward hotel. they had a huge selection: from crappy dumplings to beef wellington but their desserts were the highlight. mini creme brulee, white chocolate cheesecake, passion fruit mousse cake, madeleines.. so many choices.

i think my favourites were the strawberry rhubarb panna cotta and the simple white chocolate covered strawberries. from the savoury dishes, i’d choose the oysters rockefeller; not too salty as it so often is.

for valentine’s dinner we ate papayas and watched lost

for an hour i waited: tummy grumbling, fork in hand; ready to pounce at my prey. the beets roasted and i hastily peeled the skin, staining and burning my fingers in the process. in the end i had a bowl of pretty purple beet wedges which i rather quickly devoured.

seasoned with salt, red wine vinegar, a touch of olive oil and sprinkled with herbes de provence. tasty, but this dish required some greens to be complete.

first up: creme brulee mcflurry. this was actually quite good. more like crunchy caramel ice cream rather than creme brulee due to lack of egg flavour but still yummy. looking forward to the cream egg mcflurry around easter though..

i had a craving for korean style pancakes but i had absolutely no ingredients so i came up with onion pancakes with the sauce to go with korean pancakes. i made the sauce with soy sauce, red wine vinegar, garlic, sesame oil and chili pepper flakes. tasted pretty good but it kind of fueled my korean food craving rather than satisfy it.

so terrence and i ended up going to eat korean food at gal sushi. soon tofu for me and dol sot bibimbap for terrence. the seafood in the soon tofu was overcooked to near unedibleness and the 2 tiny pieces of beef were pitiful. the sushi rolls were alright but the sashimi slices were strange shapes and sizes; more cubey than slicey.

there was also a day that we ate indian food.