Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

My wife and I went to Susur for our anniversary meal after it was recommended by our friends and the hotel concierge. Everyone, including the waiter there when he was greeting us, pointed out that the chef has been on Iron Chef, a show where you compete by making five courses out of a specified set of ingredients such as a yam, an octopus sucker, and the first flatulence of a new-born lamb. Apparently, being on Iron Chef is taken very seriously.

Everyone at Susur gets the tasting menu, which means you get whatever the irony chef cares to give you. We went for the five-course vegetarian meal. When the waiter kindly asked if we had any dietary restrictions, I unleashed the dogs of war: No fish, no mushrooms, nothing sweet, and I don't much like vegetables. Nevertheless, over the course of 2.5 hours, Chef Susur amazed. Each course, starting with the entree and then working down in size until you get to dessert, was some startling combination of ingredients, carefully narrated by the server in a French accent so thick that when he asked if we wanted more bread we thought he was asking if we wanted more wine. Some of the courses had multiple pieces, so the waiter would take a good seven minutes describing the component parts: "The paler one is a comfit of Brazilian pear puree, run twice through the small fingers of a boy who sings alto, topped by a black olive puree marinated in the juice of two pomegranite seeds blessed by the Dalai Lama, ringed by a wreath of mint leaves plucked from the side of an imaginary mountain." Absolutely delicious, though, and well worth the $60, if you're in a splurgey mood.

This morning we went to Ontario Place to walk around, but found out when we got there that it's $34 each to ambulate. So, we hiked along the lake for free, and then walked up the connecting series of underground malls that have emptied the streets of people. It's a Big Dig for shoppers, albeit without any fatal ceiling collapses that we know of.