Avoid Toqué! in Montreal

Executive Summary
While the service and wines at Toqué! in Montreal were excellent and the ambiance inoffensive, the food was for the most part pretentious, awkward, and poorly executed. Definitely not worth the price or the fuss. Your money will be better spent and your appetite better sated elsewhere. More specifically, we suffered from amateurish dish conception, improperly cooked beef, and a pair of unrepented choke-bones. We essentially laid out a few hundred dollars for several glassfuls of good wine, several platefuls of frustration, and the sure knowledge that chef de cuisine Normand Laprise and his staff--notwithstanding their talent, training, and untrammeled access to high-quality ingredients--do not give a damn about your experience, your good opinion, or your second visit.

Overview
(My dining companion and I ordered the tasting menu with wine. I have detailed notes for each course below. The courses are numbered according to the order in which they made their appearance. I have rated each course individually on a scale of one to five; the rating key is at the bottom of this post.)

Although I had heard about Toqué! years ago, I postponed my first encounter with Montreal's most highly reputed eatery for an appropriately special occasion. Opportunity presented itself in the form of a cross-continent visit from my brother, who is a professional cook in the San Francisco Bay areal. To my chagrin, our overpriced and over-hyped meal at Toqué! served as his introduction to Montreal's fine dining scene.

I visited the restaurant's website as a prelude to our dinner, and I found there a promise that chef de cuisine Normand Laprise will deliver "surprise after surprise to your table" during the seven-course tasting menu. While M. Laprise certainly did surprise us, I am sad to report that few of the surprises were pleasant ones. Take, for example, the choke-bones we found in the charcuterie plate (#4). Surprising, certainly; pleasant, not so much. Now, bones are not supposed to leave the kitchen, but it can happen. You generally let the kitchen know about it in the spirit of helping them prevent it from happening again. And the chef (or sous-chef) generally apologizes in a spirit of contrition. We found two bones: I found one in my stewed rabbit, and my brother found one in his pancetta. Our server apologized perfunctorily, but we never heard anything from the kitchen or from management. Nothing. Not even a word. Thus the most unexpected surprise delivered to our table that evening turned out to be a crucial truth about Toqué!: M. Laprise and his staff may have talent, training, and high-quality ingredients, but they could care less about your experience, your good opinion, or your second visit.

Meal Notes
Overall, M. Laprise's food is long on presentation, but short on grace, empathy, and (unforgivably) flavor. Chefs like to say that you eat with your eyes first, but M. Laprise has apparently forgotten that this is merely a figure of speech. Most of the dishes on the tasting menu were self-indulgent spectacles of fastidious preparation that simply didn't taste all that good. There were highlights, but tellingly, the two tastiest dishes in our meal (#0, #2) were the plainest visually.

The quality of the food was wildly inconsistent, and M. Laprise and his team put on a impressive spectacle, making just about every mistake it's possible to make in a professional kitchen at least once during the meal. Two dishes were under-salted (#1, #3), yet one was over-salted (#5), meaning that these problems are not simply a difference of taste. One dish was over-peppered (#1). One dish defied the law of noncontradiction by being simultaneously over- and under-cooked (#5). Several of the dishes were poorly conceived, making them unpleasantly difficult to eat. One dish challenged the eater's dexterity and composure (#1) and two dishes comprised such a bewildering farrago of components that it was impossible to know how the chef meant them to be eaten (#3, #4). And so perhaps the most damning thing that can be said of M. Laprise is that he is not idle.

(#0) Amuse-bouche: sweet corn and celery-rabe mousse. {****} The amuse was served as a soup: several mouthfuls of foamy liquid that had to be spooned out of a large bowl. It was thus much larger than the single bite one expects as an amuse. Also, it wasn't at all acidic, which is usually best for kicking off a meal. These criticisms were rendered largely irrelevant by the single, simple fact that it was wonderfully tasty. Topped with a daub of melted butter, the amuse was essentially several spoonfuls of liquid, salty, delicately creamy-sweet popcorn.

(#1) Tuna-wrapped crostini with lime mayonnaise. {*} The first course was a single crostini wrapped with paper-thin strips of beautifully marbled fatty tuna, which was then dusted with chili powder and pepper. The crostini arrived at the table in a small bowl, leaning its hip against the inside edge. At the bottom of the bowl was a layer of lime-infused mayonnaise topped with some fresh arugula sprouts. This dish was a big disappointment: the chili and pepper overwhelmed the tuna, and the dish tasted under-seasoned despite the presence of what should have been a happy marriage of flavors because there just wasn't enough salt. Using a prosciutto instead of tuna may have been more predictable, but it certainly would have tasted better. This dish was also difficult and a little embarrassing to eat, because it's impossible to snip tuna fat with your teeth. Each bite engendered a tug-of-war between the crositini and my mouth, with the fish strung out between. We were left with the ugly impression that the chef had never simply tried to eat this dish in its finished form.

(#2) Scallop, cheese, and bacon tartelette. {*****} There's a grizzled old culinary rule that one should never combine seafood and cheese. We were delighted to discover that M. Laprise had broken it. This is dish was a thoughtful, playful, and scrumptious reinterpretation an an Alsatian classic. Potatoes replace the crust in this tartelette, which is then filled with in a bacon, cheese, and scallops. The potatoes, astonishingly, add air and lightness. Despite its innocuous appearance, this was a impressively accomplished and satisfying dish. High cuisine at its very best.

(#3) Mackerel and summer vegetables. {*} The slender half-fillet of mackerel arrived on a capacious plate, dressed with an understated sweet soy sauce, and surrounded by a carnival of seasonal fruits and vegetables. We counted not less than 14 (!) distinctly prepared and presented components on the plate, not including two pinches of different chili powders and what we believe was a smear of pesto. Of all the dishes we were served, this was the most infuriating. Everything on the plate was well cooked, but it was impossible to grasp how the chef thought the dish should be eaten. It was as though the chef had made a trip to Jean-Talon Market, purchased a bit of everything, and then asked us to decide how it ought to be eaten. Are the chili powders and the pesto for the fish or the vegetables? Which seasoning with which vegetable? Are the vegetables to be eaten with the fish or with each other? It's unsurprising that anyone should be dazzled by Montreal's local produce (I know I am), but it's flat out amateurish simply to serve a plate of bewildering options to your patrons.

(#4) Charcuterie plate with sausage, stewed rabbit, pancetta, and black trumpet mushrooms. {**} This plate was another visual and gustatory train-wreck, with too many components creating too many options. The stewed rabbit was adequate, the pancetta was... well, it was bacon, and the black trumpets were inexplicable. The small portion of sausage, however, dressed with what we think was a strawberry and balsamic reduction, was divine; those two bites of sausage were two of the most transcendentally perfect mouthfuls I've ever had. (This dish gets one star for each bite of that sausage.) I'd really like the chef to explain why he chose to dilute transcendent perfection. Everything else on the plate just got in the way. Especially the bones; both my brother and I found bones in our meat. I found one in my rabbit, and my brother one in his pancetta. Now, bones are not supposed to leave the kitchen, but it can happen. You generally let the kitchen know about it in the spirit of helping them prevent it from happening again. And the chef (or sous-chef) generally apologizes in a spirit of contrition. We found two of them. Our server apologized perfunctorily, but we never heard anything from the kitchen or from management. Nothing. Not even a simple request for our forbearance. M. Laprise and his staff may have talent, training, and fabulous ingredients, but they evidently do not care about your experience, your good opinion, or your second visit.

(#5) Seared Kobe beef with a baby leek. {*} This was the first dish ever served to me at a fine dining establishment that I actually sent back to the kitchen unfinished. (My brother sent his back as well.) Amazingly, even after the choke-bones from the previous course, sending back a half-eaten cut of Kobe beef provoked no response from the kitchen. Continuing with the tour de force of sauces, the steak and leek were dressed with an excellent veal-stock reduction featuring (we think) blueberries and beets. The baby leek was so forgettable I already can't remember it. The beef was improperly cooked: excessively charred on the outside so that it tasted strongly of charcoal (not just a hint--strongly) and underdone on the inside (I like my steak bloody, but this meat was so raw it was stringy). The steak was also inexcusably over-salted. To add insult to injury, this ultra-rare steak was served without a steak knife, forcing me to hack and saw at it with my butter knife.

(#6) Lightly melted cheese over summer vegetables. {***} A simple, tasty cheese course: sweet yellow tomatoes and summer squash covered with a blanket of slightly melted cheese, dressed with fresh herbs and blueberry vinegar. Unremarkable except for the blueberry vinegar, which was utterly extraordinary. Another instance in which the best item on the plate got lost in the effort to impress the diner with packaging.

(#7) Dessert: Raspberry tart and blackberry sorbet. {**} The simple tart comprised some fresh raspberries, whipped cream, and pancake crisps, all of which were stacked together to form a little tower. The scoop of blackberry sorbet at the other end of the long plate was well made, perfectly shaped, and rather dull. One welcome surprise was the presence of tiny clippings of fresh, fragrant herbs beneath and over the whipped cream, each of which provided a startling little burst of flavor in an otherwise relatively bland dish. While the presentation was pleasantly whimsical, the dessert amounted to little more than fresh berries with a few accompaniments. Not that I don't like fresh berries, but I expect a great chef to use his skills to improve his ingredients--not simply to re-label them.

Rating Key:
{*****} Superlative: inspired, astonishing, and just plain delicious.
{****} Good: creative, fun, and tasty.
{***} Acceptable: competent, but I wouldn't order it again.
{**} Fails to suck: inoffensively forgettable.
{*} Sucks: never should have left the kitchen.

Vive le Quebec!

I love a parade. Ever since my childhood in the days when the local floats and firetrucks would throw candy to the children (before we worried that the candy might be tainted), I have loved watching bands, cheerleaders, and random assemblies of uniformed individuals march past. So you may naturally be surprised that in my four years in Quebec, I have never gone to the parade for St. Jean Baptiste... until today.

But first, a little history... The festival for St. Jean Baptiste is also known as the Fete Nationale du Quebec. Even those of you not fluent in French may be wondering... the National Holiday of Quebec? I thought Quebec was only a province, not a nation? Well, according to our fair Prime Minister Stephen Harper among others, Quebec is a great nation within a united Canada. As far as I'm concerned, if this language makes the separatists feel better, so be it.

Even though I'm not a big flag waver, I am a big fan of this province where I live, so I dressed MGP for the occassion.


Papa looks on as Mitch kicks around wearing his "Fait au Quebec" (made in Quebec) bib.

Then off we went to watch the festivities. We saw large effigies of some of Quebec's best known leaders.

That's a 30-foot effigy of Rene Levesque on the right - and probably the only time he's been seen without a cigarette.

But then Mitch got a bit overheated, so we needed to head into the shade and take in some cool breezes:

"Mama, I'm hot. And I don't just mean good looking..."

And finally, after gazing at such a handsome baby all afternoon, I saw Quebec nationalism looking for a place on the "don't wear this" section of the style page:

Quebec pride meets Cat in the Hat.

Trending green

On a recent trip to IKEA, J and I noticed that our favorite Swedish retailer maintains their policy of charging for plastic bags. In this morning, I was tickled to note that one of our favorite Canadian grocers is doing the same, and will charge five cents per plastic bag. While Loblaws is making a preemptive strike before the by-laws of the City of Toronto are amended, I'm still delighted by the change. J and I shop regularly at Provigo, which is part of the Loblaws company, and we've finally mastered the Canadian pronunciation with the emphasis on the first syllable as opposed to the second. It only took us three years!

If you want to see what bébé Powers probably looks like this week, check this out. I can definitely confirm that we have a very active little one!

Supremely smart or supremely silly?

As many of you will have noticed, J and I love posting about nuances that highlight the differences between Canada and the U.S. Some days I'm delighted by the differences, other days I shake my head in dismay. Today, I have had both reactions to two separate rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada.

In one ruling, they have declared that people who are "functionally disabled by obesity" have the right to two seats on an airplane. In this case, I'm decidedly pro-business - if you need two seats, you should purchase two seats.

In the other ruling, they have declared that businesses are accountable to their communities for the environmental damage they cause, even if the damage is within legal limits. This level of accountability ensures that the limits for what damages are acceptable are dynamic (rather than being slowly updated by public boards) and that corporations are directly responsible to their communities. Bravo! (Or should I say Brava! to our female Chief Justice?)

What do you think? Should obese people be entitled to two airline seats? And should companies be held to an environmental standard that is beyond the letter of the law?

Yet another reason to live north of the border

Some of dear readers in the good old U.S. of A. are probably grateful that their bank deposits are insured. In Canada, we have no such fear.

Not Canada.

And have we mentioned Quebec's paternity benefits program?

Another introduction

When considering starting a family, many couples get a cat or a dog to try out the responsibility of having a dependent. After the past summer of taking care of Fiorella, J and I have begun the journey toward having more responsibility together...


Profile shot


Check out those big, beautiful lips

A couple more photos can be found on our Flickr account, which we'll be updating shortly with some more photos of us.

After getting opinions from many friends, we decided to leave the sex of the baby a surprise. Since J and I have had names picked out since we were dating, we're enjoying the mystery of not knowing whether we're having a boy or a girl. We're also getting a big kick out of signing the little one up on daycare waitlists under the nom de plume, "Bébé Powers." Go ahead and say it with a French accent - I bet that it will make you giggle, too.

Have a guess for the baby's birthdate and sex? We'll find a suitable prize for the person who leaves a comment with the correct guess for gender and the closest guess for birth date and time. (Bébé Powers is scheduled to arrive on 28 February.)

Introducing Fiorella

Goodness, are there people that still read this blog? Thank you for not giving up on us.

While J has been gallivanting around Europe, I've been tooling around Montreal more fashionably than ever.

Introducing Fiorella.

Fiorella is a dragon red Vespa LX 50. She gets up to about 55 kmph going downhill, a gazillion kilometers to the liter, and lots of looks and stares as we drive through Montreal. I bought her from a delightful woman in Toronto who had won her in a contest and wasn't interested in keeping her. After the big adventure of getting her back to Montreal with me, it was time to name her. She needed have an Italian name, and Fiorella (which means little flower) won.

And, if Fio isn't cute enough for you, J and I even got matching helmets...

Don't make me hit the horn. You won't like the sound of my horn.

We have two helmets, so that you can take a spin with us when you come to visit. Just make sure to work on your obligatory shoulder shimmies in advance...

Play it. You know you want to.

Don't mess with Canada

U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls Clinton and Obama have been sparring about NAFTA lately as they each try to gain ground in Ohio. Both parties have suggested the possibility of "renegotiating NAFTA" to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes US elected officials, like all USians, I suppose, seem to forget that the rest of the world has ears. And newspapers. And oil.

Wouldn't you know it? The US's largest supplier of oil isn't Saudi Arabia--it's Canada. Care to guess what kind of import taxes we levy in Canadian oil? That's right: zero. Care to guess why? That's right: NAFTA. If the US starts messing with NAFTA, don't be surprised if Canada starts talking about China's virtues as a trading partner.

Oh, and incidentally, every time you fill up your tank, you contribute to the scourging of Canada. Calgary may get richer for a while off this stuff, but the sheer scale of the environmental catastrophe unfolding in Alberta's oil patch beggars the imagination.

Each truck: 3369.99 hp, 380 ton capacity, 47' x 30' x 21': roughly the size of 1-bedroom apartment.

Maple syrup nation

Being somewhat more travel-prone than your average bloggers, we TruffleWarreners absolutely love maps.

Old maps of Montréal.


Taoist maps of the human body.


Silly maps of the internet.

Give us an adjective, we've got a map to match. Try us. We dare you. And if you think we aren't ready for you, just chew on this: we've even got a maple syrup map. Well, actually it's a food traditions map, but, well... just look for yourself:

The maple syrup nation self-evidently has a manifest destiny to engulf the continent.

In all honesty, I had never really thought of maple syrup as the basis of a food culture. H assures me that it is--but then, H argues with some earnest that maple syrup qualifies as its own food group. Moi, je suis sceptique. After all, the same authority from which we're deriving the very concept of the maple syrup nation also indicates the existence of a clambake nation and a pinyon nut nation. So count me skeptical... but tickled.

Super Tuesday

For better or for worse, J and I aren't the greatest about timely blog posting. If anything, we pre-date a number of posts to fit properly in within our adventure calendar. But I read a very interesting thing in the Montreal Gazette today:

Most Canadians would back Hillary Clinton in this year's United States presidential race, and nearly one in six would forfeit their right to vote in the next federal election for a chance to sway the result across the border, polls indicated yesterday.

There are approximately 30 million Canadians, so that is 5 million Canadians who would rather vote in this U.S. election than vote for Stephen Harper's successor. When I mentioned this to J, he said it was like Americans wanting to vote in China because of their size and growing global influence. But then, there are Chinese that are voting in the U.S., too, and they need a bit of help to get the candidate's names right.

Most Canadians would opt for "Tired Forest," while I would support "Profound Horse."

May the best woman, man, or horse win!

Carpe diem, travellers!

H and I know that most of you out there are daring and imaginative adventurers. Sometimes, though, even the daring and imaginative among us needs a little inspiration. If the travel bug is nibbling you, but you're quite sure exactly where to go to scratch that itch, try browsing 1000 Places to See Before You Die. (Apparently, the website represents an adjunct to the book of the same title, which started the whole 1000-before-you-die phenomenon.)

To be completely honest, I've never even heard of the book, let alone the "phenomenon," but the website contains scads of great travel ideas. Talk about spectacular destinations... You're sure to find inspiration--if not a complete itinerary--here.

We humbly submit that a sojourn in Alsace , dividing your time between Strasbourg and the route du vin, is worthy of before-you-die attention.


And you're just kidding yourself if Prague isn't on your list.

I'm a little embarrassed (on their behalf) to have to report that they're still working up the whole user interactivity thing. If I'm behind on travel book trends, at least I'm not suffering from severe lag when it comes to internet trends. But, even if your own suggestions as to which places are visiting before you die won't get screen time, you can at least still profit from theirs.

The city's hall speaks

Contemporary North American city dwellers, though we have more than enough to feed our stomachs, have precious little upon which to feast our eyes. Generally accustomed to the banal concrete, glass, and steel designs which constitute the unintended legacy the Bauhaus's so-called "International Style," we have limited experience with cityscapes which evoke simple delight and honest pleasure.

Which is reason number 24 gazillion why we're lucky to live in Montréal. Certainly the city has its share of BSSs; it also its share of the good stuff. Imagine, if you will, that this is your City Hall.

Now, if that doesn't say "Cradle of Liberty," I don't know what does.

Whoops! Sorry! That's Boston's City Hall. Not exactly what I was intending, but while the photo's up there, I might as well make use of it. Officially, Boston's City Hall is in the brutalist style (yes, there really is an architectural style called brutalism--technically derived from the French for concrete: béton brute). Personally, however, I've always thought that a more accurate description of the building's style would be man-the-battlements-the-citizens-are-approaching!--but maybe that's a bit bombastic. Whatever we call it, doesn't it just make your inner architect swoon? (On the other hand, maybe your inner architect is just suffering from another bout of who-the-hell-authorizes-this-stuff. Your mileage may vary.)

But back to Montréal. As I was saying: Imagine, if you will, that this is your City Hall.

I'll concede that it resembles Vincent Price if you'll concede that there are worse architectural muses.

Not that it's perfect, but it would be hard to argue that Montréal's Hôtel de Ville isn't impressive, dramatic, and even beautiful in its overwrought way. Basically, then, H and I moved from a city where the municipal government hunkers in a brutalist fortress with Soviet overtones to a city where the municipal government cavorts in a Second Empire wedding cake with drama-queen lighting. It's not like this is the only domain in which Montréal surpasses Boston, but it's definitely one of the most spectacular.

Hours of superpowers

H and I believe--good optimists that we are--that every person possesses at least one superpower. Our friends JD and JB, for example, are able to throw epic parties at will. Our friend CE bakes the world's best bread--without a recipe. Even I have a superpower: I can seduce women more superpowerful than myself at will. I can even get them to marry me.

Of all H's superpowers--and I assure you that she has many--my favorite is unusual in that it seems to require study. Not that H isn't innately talented, but I caught her reading up on how to enhance her already impressive abilities during our weekly trip to the library.

It won't be long before companies start paying her to use their products.

Watch out Hetty Green!

Cultures, colors, and cross-coordination

The Basilique Notre-Dame is not only one of Montréal's architectural jewels, it's a venerable bastion of Québecois Catholicism.

Talk about an unexpected place for a blue-light special...

It therefore came as little surprise to see that its keepers have chosen the official colors of Québec for the church's lighting scheme. "What are the official colors of Québec?" you ask.

A pleasant, if somewhat unoriginal, color combination.

So, when actually stop and reflect upon it for a moment, the whole blue light thing makes sense. But to be completely honest, "Vive le Québec!" wasn't exactly the first thing that popped into our minds when we we first set eyes upon the Basilique's lighting scheme. I mean, think about it for a second. Blue and white holiday lights adorning a religious building in the winter time...

Yep. That's right.

Yes, you too can be the life of every Hanukkah party you attend with your very own menorah hat (only $24.95 plus S&H).

I guess you could say our first thought was something like, "Happy Hanukkah, Montréal!" Not what the decorators intended, I suppose, but still a seasonal sentiment. Nothing like cultural cross-pollination for a good chuckle.

Bonne Nouvelle Année !

Happy New Year, one and all! Our warmest wishes to all of you, our dear readers. May 2008 see you happy, healthy, and hearty. Indeed, may this year be the one in which your wildest dreams come true... except maybe for that one where you showed up at school naked.

Wow. Impressively wild. So... where do you carry your trig homework in that getup?

H and I are enjoying a quiet evening together, watching a few good films and reminiscing a little. Despite all the adventure, we're not all that sorry to see 2007 recede into the past. We look forward with great hope and intense anticipation to 2008. May it be our--and your--most adventuresome year yet!

Joyeux Noël !

A Merry Christmas to one and all! We're down in Cape Cod for a few days, enjoying the company of some of our dearest Boston-area friends. We'll let you know if we happen to see any Real Bearded Santas in our neighborhood--and you should keep a lookout chez vous. They've been known to congregate in unexpected places...

Would you believe me if I told you this photo was not taken at the North Pole?

Give it an inch...

H and I were delighted when snow finally arrived here in Montréal. Since we don't own a car, we were entirely unintimidated to learn that we were living through a record-breaking snowstorm. Heck, we even giggled with giddiness, watching it all come down. It's hard to faze Canadians with snow--even 40+ centimeters of it.

Even the potted plants in Montréal just shrugged and got on with it.

At the end, though, we had so much snow that the politicians started talking about how much it would cost to remove all of it. Care to guess how much? Nope. More. Nope. Even more. Try...

"I will keep your city snowbound unless you give me...

...$20 million Canadian dollars."

Yup. And that was just the first of the December storms. It's since snowed again. And we've heard tell that it will snow at least once more before 2007 ends. We also hear, however, that things may warm up, so we're probably looking at peak snow accumulation here--and let me tell you, if Tom Thumb were a ski-freak, he'd be in heaven in our jardin.

In Canada, it sometimes snows so damn hard you lose your chair.

Having paid my share of the $20 million it took to clear the streets, I'm just wondering how much the city's economy loses per snow day. Is it really worth it to remove all that snow absolutely ASAP?

Google to the rescue. Montréal apparently manages to produce a paltry CAD $96 billion or so of rough economic value per year (that's the 2006 figure). Since there are approximately 250 business days in a calendar year, we can estimate that each of those days is worth about CAD $384 million of rough-and-ready productivity. Now, some of that value doesn't depend on the weather (web-based, residential utilities, etc.), but plenty does. So, I suppose it is worth it.

Even though I checked my math thrice (and H checked it after that), I could hardly believe that Montréal produces CAD $384 million per day. It just seemed like too much. But... Canada's 2006 GDP clocked in at CAD $1.4 trillion. Their 2001 census claims 14,695,130 workers (excluding unemployed) in the country. That divides out to an average annual productivity of CAD $95,270 per worker. (The equivalent figure in the US is USD $91,389.) Bottom line: if you're working and making less than $90k a year (in whatever currency), you're not even making the average. So, I suppose Montréal's numbers make sense after all, given the relative (in)justice of our current economic system. Perfect sense.

Even Canada is becoming wary

It's not often that the New York Times publishes an article which defends (however grudgingly) Canada when it disparages the US. Usually, even the most cosmopolitan Americans chalk up Canadian grousing to Canada's supposed inferiority complex. Sometimes it's enough to make you think that maybe the chip is on the southern shoulder.

Evidently, the various policies of Our Glorious Leader (and I'm assuming you know the ones I mean) have now been in effect long enough that the tissue of international agreements which forms the legal foundation of our fast-globalizing society is beginning to fray at the edges. And I'm not talking about maybe-more-important but definitely-more-fuzzy issues of perception and trust. I mean real, current legal decisions are being taken which are changing the rules by which the game of global political-economy is being played. And there's a definite trend to these decisions--a trend which suggests that American children can look forward to a tougher future than the one we've enjoyed. Welcome to life as a rogue nation.

I'll admit that Canada has its quirks, but somehow the air just seems fresher up here. Weirder, sometimes. But fresher. (And on second thought, maybe not that weird after all...)

One of these men is an eccentric yokel; the other is petting a moose.

Welcome, snow!

H and I are enjoying the snowstorm today. Neither of us particularly minds the cold, but long winters aren't much fun without snow. They're predicting 35cm for this storm. Yay!

In Canada, it sometimes snows so damn hard that even the snow has to sit down to take a breather.

If the snow looks perhaps a bit too comfortable in that photo, don't worry. We couldn't be snugger--not even if we were bugs in a rug.

Dining in the dark

It's long after my birthday--nearly a month in fact--but we finally made it out to my birthday dinner. This year, instead of going with predictably scrumptious (say, L'Express, or Au Pied de Cochon, or Toqué), I decided to go with damn, that's novel. O.Noir ("It's better in the dark!") offers diners the novel experience of dining in utter darkness.

The b-day dinner crew gets ready to raise a ruckus.

When you enter the restaurant, you find yourself in a small foyer, where you read the menu, place your order, and wait for your waiter to guide your party to your table. The menu always features a "surprise" dish for each course. Your waiter--the entire service staff is blind--leads you to your table, and then... it gets interesting.

I wrote a review of the experience for my friend EP, which I think pretty well captures the experience of the evening:

O.Noir was at once a thrilling and a disappointing experience. Our party included me, two MBAs (my wife being one of them), two architects, and a psychologist. We talked a great deal about the design of the space, the design of the experience, and the experience's business proposition.

The bottom line (at least for this particular dine-in-the-dark restaurant--there are others): the food was completely unremarkable in both taste and texture. We had hoped for intense odors, unexpected shapes and textures, and so forth. The design of the space was disappointing in that it didn't seem to harbor any serious ambitions to capitalize on the fact that we couldn't see. Why not playful changes in flooring and wall textures. And the design of the objects we used (plates, glasses, forks, chairs, etc.) was also dull, dull, dull. The flatware could have been shaped differently; the glasses heavier in the base to prevent spills; the chairs at different heights; etc. etc. It was also very, very loud. High ceilings, hard surfaces, and no sound mitigation strategies.

BUT... the possibilities were extremely exciting. Our culture is so focused on vision that we often forget the importance of our other senses. During dinner, we talked about how thoughtful, creative design could have provided a magnificently rich experience. Someone--I can't remember who--suggested "eating gloves," which would be a fantastic design challenge.

As it was, cutting food was ridiculously difficult, so most of us ended up eating with our hands. We speculated that applying the east Asian principle of knifeless eating (all cutting done in the kitchen) might have been appropriate. We talked about adopting a culinary approach more sensitive to senses other than sight: using more aromatic seasonings (e.g., lavender, cumin, and mint), ingredients and dishes which have a auditory component (fizzy water, breads that need tearing, crunchy appetizers, etc.), and texturally engaging finger foods. Out impression was that management wasn't fully engaging the possibilities--for the interior designers and the chef, it was basically just a gimmick.

In all, we essentially paid $55 a head to eat mediocre food during a power outage. A novel experience which provides great grist for a stimulating conversation about innovation and design, but not somewhere I'd spend money a second time.

Hope your birthday dinner causes as much thinking as mine did!