It all started off with a nonchalant stroll to the bus stop and a short toll or fare to the bus, subway, and finally a streetcar, I was on College Street looking for the place where I was suppose to meet up 4 other friends. I must say, I very much under estimated the cold for I only wore a sweater beneath my winter coat and a scarf to go along with it. However, my gloves, spare hoodie, and hat (toque) in my backpack proved to be handy later on.
If only I had a gps tracker of where I went after getting off the streetcar on the wrong stop, I probably would have drawn at least 5 rectangular paths all over College Street. I went too far west then stopped to get my bearings checked then back east and too far east and finally found the place but was still over half an hour early so I tried to find a couple of stores to spend and subsequently waste invaluable time at. I found myself at a music store called SoundScapes just beside College Street Bar , where we spent a lovely discounted dinner for Winterlicious . I then searched a bookstore to which I found a few hundred feet away only to see it closed and sold for probably at least a month now, I was very much disappointed by that.
After the time wasted, we have finally been seated down reading the very flimsy menus for Winterlicious, a festival and celebration of food in selected few restaurants all over downtown Toronto with selections and discounted price. For $25, I had Parmesan risotto cakes with a basil cream sauce for Appetizer, Braised New Zealand lamb shank served on a bed of roasted butternut squash and mascarpone cheese risotto for main course, and Chocolate raspberry tartufo for dessert. Full Menu Here. The risotto cakes were quite delicious and something I haven’t tried before so the sensations were foreign yet delightful for my taste. The lamb was very juicy and properly cooked to perfection, so it seemed and it went well with the glass of Merlot I have ordered on the side. The tartufo, well I am not much of a chocolate lover so I used the tiny teaspoons given to me to eat only the raspberry portions, leaving the chocolate for my friends to munch on. Overall, it was a great deal for a great meal.
After, we decided to walk 2 big blocks north and 1 big block east, and of course millions of tiny little blocks within, to a place called the Madison or Madison House. It was a very typical college or university pub/bar and at first there were just casual people having dinner with a glass of beer or liquor on the side. As the night progressed, we ended up switching locations twice and finally ending up to a booth which we have called our own, at least for that night. From that final location, we enjoyed the people that came through the stairs willing to have alcohol in their digestive systems as soon as possible, and we listened and randomly danced to a live performance by a soloist playing guitar and a harmonica, whom, looking back now, didn’t seem to even have taken a single break between the many songs he performed.
We were then called out to be heroes by a friend who lost her way around the city because, to her disadvantage and a good excuse for that matter, she was relatively new to Toronto. We found her a station away from our location via subway, and we started to part ways at around 1am. Although, the three ladies with me now and I still had a long subway ride home all the way to the other side of the city, uptown. We got to the car parked in this tiny little lot in the cold of winter and got inside that tiny little car as fast as we could. Driving around at almost 2am, was so easy a child could probably drive forwards and backwards on either lane with his eyes closed. Needless to say, but I will say it anyway, the roads were empty. We got to the first house and three of us got off while the other went on her way home, buh-bye! We drove several kilometres or a few miles west to drop off another one, finishing off our rescue of her. While the final lady and I made our way back so she could drive me. However, here’s where things start turning for the almost ugly.
Her engine or car or oil temperature started to go on the rise above even the letter H, even with the frigid ambient temperature. Her heater wouldn’t warm up as we hoped so we barely got any warming up. Until of course the engine service and low oil annunciators started flashing, then of course we just started boiling up on our own and didn’t need the cars heating system. We pulled up to the side of yet another empty road, and stopped the engine, popped the hood and I opened it with smoke escaping the chamber as I lifted it up. The car was definitely overheating, and our heart rates started over speeding. We tried calling a few friends but to no avail, or they were too far. We decided to truck it down a little bit more to my house where another hero would rise from the crowd, actually he rose from his bed and it was my brother. He helped us and added a bit of oil so that she could make it home for the night. It was already 3:30am
End story, she made it home, we all made it home. But without correlation with the length of this post whatsoever, it was a very not so uneventful night, and it was amazing.
