Ladies who Brunch – Starving Artist Waffles and Espresso

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In a city like Toronto that has over 7,500 restaurants it is great to always find new places to go and experience great food ideas and spend time with friends. Our most recent lunch spot was a restaurant called Starving Artist Waffles and Espresso.

With seven locations in and around the GTA there is probably one not to far from where you are, and I would recommend a visit. A busy restaurant with a line and you are only seated when your whole party arrives and it is important to note that it is cash only.

As the name suggests their decor focuses on local artists and they change out the art every six weeks. If you are an artist and don’t know about this, I would check it out.

The premise of the restaurant is boldly stated right on the menu:

Warning: Everything is made of waffles. On waffles. Between waffles or made in a waffle iron.

One would think that having a menu that is only waffle related would make it easy to decide right? Wrong. Do you want sweet or savory? Do you want eggs benny on a potato waffle (yes you heard correct a potato waffle) or smoked salmon with cream cheese between two waffles with dill IN the waffles. These were just a few of the choices that our group chose for our lunches. The menu was two full pages and too many options to list, but you can read the full menu here.

The sides were either a green salad or a fruit salad and a choice of maple baked beans or homemade potato salad. a bit odd but both were so tasty and complimentary to the food we were eating.

I chose a savory sandwich that had chicken , cucumbers and their ‘house sauce’. I know that our friends in the southern states have chicken and waffles as a regular menu item. This was not fried chicken, but it was very tasty. It was strange to want to put maple syrup on the waffle with the chicken and cucumber in the sandwich but the flavours melded well and it was enjoyable.

We were celebrating our friends birthday and looked at the dessert waffles before we started and we knew we were going to have to sample something decadent. We opted for the Split This! …. Waffled banana, ice cream, strawberries, chocolate, caramel, strawberry syrup, whipped cream. You did read correctly, the banana was waffled. It says on the menu made for 2. We were four and it was HUGE. See for yourself

There are many different menu items and I would go back and try something different. Overall a very delicious experience to check off our Toronto food bucket list.

Where are we off to next – stay tuned to find out!

Please feel free to let me know if you have a great place for us to try in the future Ladies who brunch days out.


Today’s Front Page at the Newseum – June 9, 2018

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“[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted, and advantages squandered.” – Anthony Bourdain

How many museums are actually in Washington DC one might want to know when planning a trip to this amazing city. Well, the simple answer is – a lot. The Smithsonian Institute is made up of 19 museums on its own, not to mention anything and every piece of history you can think of. The list can be found here if you are interested.

There is a museum that I remember hearing about when I first opened in DC back in 2008 that I remember being interested in, called The Newseum. The museum promotes, explains and defends free expression and the five freedoms of the First Amendment.

The museum had a lot of interesting displays, some permanent others temporary. Since it is a “news” museum, there were some wonderful exhibits that included a 9/11 Gallery, Pulitzer prize photograph gallery, inside today’s FBI, Berin Wall gallery and so much more.

The museum has great real estate value for a few key reasons. It faces Pennsylvania Avenue, which is nicknamed America’s Main street and is links the US Capital Building directly to the White House. it also happens to have the best view of the Capital Building. It also happens to be next door to the Canadian Embassy.

Before heading out to see the view of the Capital and Pennsylvania Avenue is a area called Today’s Front Page. It is a daily roundup of front page headlines from all 50 states and around the world.

On this day there were a few main headlines, but the one that was on almost every newspaper front page was the passing of Anthony Bourdain. The headlines were a take on his Parts Unknown, simply stating, “His Pain Unknown” and “Pains Unknown” to name a few.

A friend of mine made a comment about people’s reactions on social media when Robin Williams passed away that it wasn’t like we were his family or a friend, yet we are sad, and emotional because they passed away. Anthony Bourdain was iconic in the food world. He was open, and brutally honest about his demons and had a lot of thoughts on life that could apply to any one of us at any time.

I will miss him. I have about 7 episodes of Parts Unknown on my PVR. Keeping the ones that were closest to his heart to watch last. Almost there. His hometown of Queens New York.

“As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly; you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life–and travel–leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks–on your body or on your heart–are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.” – Anthony Bourdain

I hope that the food is great up there.

Ladies Who Brunch – Emma’s Country Kitchen

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Before I started this post I tried to find out how many restaurants there are in Toronto. Of course with the amount that open and close on a regular basis that would be hard to do, but on the City of Toronto website it says somewhere around 7500.

There have been many lists posted on new brunch places, best places to have eggs Benedict, new places, secret finds and more. Not to mention any friend on social media who happens to share food photos, I am always taking notes and marking places down for future reference.

A few of my friends and I decided to have a ladies who brunch club and make a regular date to try places we hadn’t tried before. One friend has a list on her phone and is going to make notes as we go along.

Our first stop is not a ‘new’ spot, but it was new to us – Emma’s Country Kitchen. Many of my friends have posted from there before and I know it is a popular spot. It is only open from 8-3 and if you go during peak hours be prepared for a wait. And we did. We waited for over an hour for a table. We did go to Zaza Espresso Bar across the street for a coffee while we waited.

As we were waiting to be seated you couldn’t help but watch all the different plates of food passing by and making food choices much harder. Their story on their website is about their grandmother Emma, who opened the first restaurant in their hometown of Cheltenham Ontario and many of the recipes are passed down. Making their love of scratch cooking food, freshly made daily way of business.

We did miss out on the gourmet donuts baked every day (regulars know to get there early) and we missed out on any desserts at all. Thankfully their fresh made biscuits were still in the showcase. We had to have one of those with light and fresh citrus butter.

All four of us chose something different and at the end we were all full and happy with our choices.

I chose the Emma’s Classic Cobb Salad which had a really light honey mustard vinagrette which was a nice change from some of the cream based dressings I have had with a cobb salad. I opted for goat cheese instead aged cheddar which the server said she had never had anyone do before. It worked well with the dressing.

Wild blueberry and ricotta pancakes looked good and tasted great. The biscuits with lemon citrus butter and jam were wonderful. The citrus is a great addition to the butter adding another level to the flavour.

To round out the table there was a classic breakfast and an Emma’s Benny. The top their Benny with a mousseline sauce instead of traditional hollandaise. Yes, while we were waiting, we did have to look up mousseline. We also saw a wonderfully looking bowl of frites that we decided we needed to have for the table.

It is going to be fun to continue to enjoy new restaurant experiences in our city, this summer and beyond.

Eat well and enjoy the journey,