Tochi's Hut

Winterlicious 2007 officially began yesterday, and Tochi's first stop was at the Monsoon Resturant on 100 Simcoe St. I had mixed feelings when I first picked this restaurant. Serving portions for fancy joints are renown to be very petite, so their much-acclaimed Japanese inspiration might mean that servings were going to be even smaller. However, it's winterlicious, so what the heck.

The setting and atmosphere at Monsoon's was very trendy. Their choice of colours, textures and lighting gave their restaurant a very warm, yet modern feel. Simply described, not a place to go for a date, but a place for businessmen and big executives to relax and socialize. Pictures are available on their website, if anyone wants to check it out.

For each of the three courses, we were given three options. I ended up selecting:

1. Red wine braised octopus, potato sesame seed salad, baby green bundle, lemon pepper vinaigrette
2. Grilled shrimp, soba noodles and baby vegetables in shrimp and pork broth
3. Ginger infused crème brulee with green tea meringue

For the wine, our party got a bottle of Inniskillin Riesling. The wine didn't really go with the octopus appetizer, but it's Riesling. Overall, the food was well made and beautifully presented. The octopus was surprisingly bland on the pallet, so it was saved with the much stronger red wine and sauce. The shrimp, star of the main entrée, was marinated and grilled to the point where the wood aroma (it wasn't oak or cherry, but not sure which type) was perfect infused within. I've always been a noodles person, so I was perfectly satisfied with the soba noodles. As for dessert, the crème brulee was decent. I didn't taste much ginger in it. Frankly speaking, the chocolate brownie with marshmallows option looked so much better. Wish I ordered that instead.

As with all Winterlicious/Summerlicious choices, I always reflect whether the meal was worth the $35. In this case, the atmosphere, the food, and especially the company made this meal very much worth it. Monsoon gets 4 stars out of 5 from Tochi.

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After Monsoon, a couple of us decided to check out the festivities at Nathan Phillips Square. There was a giant snow globe, with real people acting inside. One guy was tossing a hockey puck, a couple were tasting wine and some girl was sleeping. Personally, I felt sorry for those people. They must have the most boring job of the night.

American Express sponsored this ice gallery featuring some abstract paintings in ice entitled "Paintings Below Zero" created by Vancouver artist Gordon Halloran. The ice sculptures were pretty dang cool. Everyone was taking pictures and admiring the work. In particular, at the center of the attraction, there were these two pillars. For some reason, they reminded me of the two giant statues from LOTR movie. At the end of the gallery, AmEx served some hot choco, which "hit right on the spot". :-)

Toronto Water, main sponsor of these festivities had a booth where they were handing out water bottles and 2 packs of hand warmers. These hand warmers are going to be handy for the ski trip. :)

Before we left, we dropped by to check out the Philsopher Kings's concert. I didn't know any of their music, and I thought they weren't really wow'ing the crowd. Hard to blame them though, as the crowd probably had very diverse music interests. The only thing that got people going was when they played some popular theme song sequences. Also, their hands must have been freezing, being left exposed to the brisky -9C weather.