chickenfeet

It was free Wednesday at the ROM yesterday so we went for the first time in ages. In fact, I think the last time we went was when the Crystal first opened to the public but there were not yet any exhibits in it. Now, of course, it's fully kitted out and holds, inter alia, the South Asian and Middle Eastern collections. I have to say I was underwhelmed. The use of the space just isn't interesting. It's like being in a hospital with a few weird angles but there's no use of light and space. We did have one of those occasional museum epiphanies though. There's an object I either hadn't seen before or had somehow not grasped. It's a lion in glazed brick from Nebuchadnezzar's throne room. It's in fantastic shape. The blue glaze on the bricks is a bit faded but otherwise it looks pretty much as it must have done as it looked down on; well one can only imagine what it it looked down on.

Afterwards we headed to Volo for a beer. As usual there were some pleasant surprises; a really excellent dunkelbock from Beau's that seemed to have qualities of a weissbier and a Belgian ale all in one, a very well balanced pale ale from Junction (Conductors Pale) and a citrusy House Ale saison. We also tried a Churchkey Great Gatsbier but could not get past a first sip of horror and a second just to confirm the horror. It smelled and tasted of cheese and not very nice cheese at that. Both the lemur and I are no strangers to what the Chinese call "developed flavours" (i.e. like a rotting corpse but in a good way) but this was just plain vile. The saison was a complimentary replacement for it. The folks at Volo are good that way.

We finished off with a bowl of udon each at a Japanese place down the street. I wish I could remember what it was called because it was vry good. The noodles themselves were excellent. My tempura udon came with a generous serving of tempura on the side rather than a couple of pieces on top of the soup. The lemur's seafood udon was very seafoody with shrimp and razor clam and scallop. For less than $10 each it was a steal.

It's the annual celebration of bad folk singers and fireworks and even the odd dude in kilt and baseball cap with bagpipes (WTF??). lemur_catta and I are not very good at Nationalism so we wen out for lunch instead. Today's choice was the Beer Bistro which we keep avoiding because it's a it pricey for a lunch/brunch spot. It's worth the money. The food is upscale gastropub and it works. Every plate i saw come out of the kitchen looked gorgeous and our food was delicious. I had the Wild Hog pizza; an excellent crust topped with pulled Berkshire pork, Berkshire bacon and roasted garlic on some sort of sweetish onion, tomato and beer reduction. The lemur had fettucine with rabbit, Berkshire bacon, mushrooms,tiny tomatoes and some sort of green herb. It was very good indeed. She also had a slice of flourless dark chocolate stout cake which came with cream and very good mixed berries. I drank Paulaner Salvator and Durham Hop Addict while the lemur had Affligem Blonde. All three were very good beers indeed.