Bonnie.

i have done some amazing eating within the past two days, and it will be SO SO SO SO hard to go back to my regular diet of vector cereal and bits and scraps of old stuff for lunch and dinner. furthermore, it will be hard to go back to school in general terms; the thought of mounting work scares me to no end (well, at times it does. sometimes i'm just so tired of it.), i don't want to go back to that lost feeling i get in endo class (apparently, i am not paying attention to my working length, and loudly, got berated for that. i understand the instructions, but putting them into practice, with difficult root canals, is another story), and when i think about the insanity of it all, it's hard to equate the marks i receive with how behind, or well, behind i feel in everything. so, while i have the time, my last two days in toronto, i will think only of the glorious food i've eaten with the best of friends.

i went to SUSUR!!!!!!! days before i went to susur with rosca, my other friends were just bubbling over, telling me how much i would enjoy myself, how much deb's workmates enjoyed themselves, and the response to my "i'm going to susur on thursday!" has always been met with large popping eyeballs and "you ARE!!!!" and mouth wide open. this was such an experience. i have never ever ever ever had such a cool (and i'm not using that word in the sense of "oh man, she's cool", but more like icy breath of fresh air jaw-dropping sensation) experience. this restaurant is tucked away on king west, and it's so unassuming from the exterior. it looks like an abandoned diner from the 50's, and it's a low-rise rectangular box amidst the more san francisco-esque work buildings with detailed facades and halogen-lit interiors that surround it. but, really, it's made to contain an oasis. seriously. the doors are wide and heavy, and work to act like walls to wall itself out from the outside. as soon as you step inside, a big yellow rectangular painting - not even a painting, more like a wall of color, seemingly to block out street noise, meets you nose to nose. you open another big door, and voila - you are in an oasis. it's a single small room, painted white, and on one wall are huge palattes of color - the color changes from an intense orange, to blue, to pink...throughout your meal, and as the color changes, it almost changes your appetite. sublime to...FIRE-Y! ahahahahah! about a dozen colonel sanders line another wall, but mood light emananeting from each of his butts, and it's rather light-hearted that one of the top chefs from Canada would couple such an elegant and modern interior with a KCF bust. sense of humor. self-deprecation. i like.

the service was impeccable and good-looking. the host was a handsome computer-programming type with thick-rimmed glasses and a dark suit, and our waiter was a cute asian boy with (me and rosca decided) a hint of the bad boy, because he had these shaved lines in his hair...in any case, his explanation of the night's offerings was so practised and well phrased that i wanted to laugh, and everytime, indeed, the wait staff came to change out cutlery (at every course) and plates and refill our bread (not your typical bread - this stuff SMELLED sweet), i wanted to laugh, because of the adeptness and synchronicity of it all. seriously, one waiter would wait for the other, then approach our table, and take away our plates from the same side simultaneously; it was a dance. it nearly made me cry. it was so theatrical. i love.

we MET susur! i said "hi Mr. Lee" and he said "i'm susur". and he looks just like his pictures. ponytail. kind of a serious look. very straight back. and he asked us if we spoke cantonese, and when i remarked that i was korean, he said he loved korean food, especially kim chi, and i told him that my mom makes it the old-style hard-core way...buried underground during the winter, and susur said "well, you know where i live. you can drop off a bottle for me" and that was my first exchange with a "celebrity" chef. pretty neat. AND, he came out during the meal to ask how everything was going, and offered to mix us up a tea, which turned out to be chamomile with real mint leaves. pretty neat.

time to get on to the food...this next aprt will be a great disaster, because even as they bring out every sampling course (we had the 5 course sampling meal), and explain every speck of oil and coulis on your plate, i still couldn't understand probably 70% of what was said, because all of the terms were french and inspired and fused and elitist and i had never heard of some of these ingredients. green oil? i don't even know what that's made of...

the most unique thing about this sampling meal is that each person gets a different dish for each course presentation. and each dish is comprised of at least 3 large different elements and a myriad of tastes, so its makes for such a gastronomic tongue delight. my tongue, irrevocably, was tantalized beyond belief. we started with an amuse bouche (i love the term!) - me with a flash-deep-tried circle of tofu covered with something that looked black-brown and gritty and there was a leaf of something green there too...okay, somehow, i get the feeling that this is how my descriptions will be from now on....something green, something yellow, etc etc etc. sorry - i wish i had brought a pen. shoot, now i can't remember what the first course was. ill have to ask rosca. rosca had this (all we could catch was) tongue ear pig thing (well, it didn't look like tongue anything - it looked like intricate layers of dark jello put together into a small rectangular sagittal slice) with a SINGLE CARAMELISED PISTACHIO - and i HATE pistachios - but this pistachio was the best damn pistachio i've ever tasted. i've never felt that eyes-popping out of my head feeling from food, but that pistachio...pistachio!! pistachiO!!! caramelized!!!

you know how people eat lamb and veal and stuff? well, my veal with milk-fed. and it looked milk-fed. it was the most tender thing i've ever tasted. and had the best flavor. rosca's beef was so soft and flavourful as well, and two asparagus stalks lay atop of it. i don't even know what the flavor was. mine came with a tender block of polenta with some kind of a puree under it, and there was something else on the plate, which eludes me. crap! i should have written this yesterday. then we had seafood. scallops. rosca had four little scallops on the shell, each marinated a different way. one had this spicy orange thing on it, and the other rosca spilled into the table, violated the two-second rule, and ate it anyway. rosca would continue to eat things off the table throughout the evening, and we ended up with half a tablecloth spoiled with oils and sauces which she periodically try to cover with her entire arm when the wait staff came near. rosca, rosca.... ;p

i had a whole huge scallop with loster bisque, and then came an interesting presentation of black codfish with a philippine lime wrapped in a bit of linen and tied with twine, with instructions from the chef to squeeze it over (oh yeah, all of the courses came with instructions - like, eat the pistachio after you've eaten with amuse bouche), and rosca got this mile-high salad with sashimi and taro noodles and OH - i got a squid ink NOODLE - it was black! and lay in this white sauce, and it had a wasabi flavour to it...i wonder how they made it...and a course of foie gras, done at least three different ways. one with this interesting mini-cabbage thing sitting on top of a painstakingly perfect piece of duck, warm foie gras while rosca had cold foie gras in a camel-colored gelatin, and even a dessert foie gras placed at "six o'clock" on the plate...i don't think i covered all the courses, but i'll get to dessert. home-made sorbets, pear and berry and flavour, a pear tarte (made entirely of pears, sort of grated pears like the way you would grate cheese for pizza, and then brought back together with a slightly sticky sugary topping that was simultaneously crackly and yielding at the same time - almost caramelized, i guess), and a chocolate tart. i too had a chocolate tart and sorbet, and a marscapone cheesecake with a lime-esque (but orange in color) puree. these were created, i was told, by two lovely girls who made it with love.

the moral of this story is...there's a long way to go before i become a real foodie. i can't even recount the sauces and reduced sauces and meats used, except to say that this meal included the full bounty of what is probably considered high-end food - veals and top grade beefs, scallops, fish, duck, foie gras....this place was full of businessmen and engineers from the buildings in the vicinity being wined and dined by company lawyers, couples on dates, asian extended families, families probably going out to a show (dressed up), moms and their sons (or so you would think!), so all in all, an interesting motley crue of people looking for something more from their food. this is such a great way to eat - many small portions, but just an abundance of flavours. it was amazing.

a visit to Dhaba last night for some king west indian, and another visit to brassaii (my girlfriends loved the atmosphere, especially late at night, with the trendy king st. people in their minimalist clothes and model-esque arching eyebrows and the occasional person with non-minimal-esque fashion taste - like the girl who dressed up like a sailor in bright stripes and the tightest jeans ever - who raised a few disdaining looks from the people at other tables - seriously, a few tables looked over, and there was a slight hush of ghastly and unbelievable)...marks the end of my eating adventures, this march break. it has been lovely.

boo hoo, back to school.