[分享]小爱写的食评
Posted: 2006-06-29 23:19
Food week 1 - Hotspot Cafe
I realised I'd been putting things off too long when I saw a new restaurant last week and thought "Oh, I'll have to try that!", then noticed it was right next to a restaurant I'd said the same thing about over a year ago. That's not just failing to spring into action - a blind anorexic would have got to that restaurant faster. So you can call me "The Magellan of Mealtime", or perhaps "The Random Fire of Restaurants" as I eat in only new places for the next week.
I'd better make it good, too, because I'm in trouble when my girlfriend finds out I'm writing about food. I'm a barely coherent savage who's spent six years living out of a frying pan while she has literally just written (and published) the book on fine cuisine. She is also an excellent excellent chef. If someone with a working knowledge of food preparation was a sergeant, and she was a field marshal, I'm a rabbit who gets run over by a tank and cooked by squaddies.
What better place to start than one she refuses even to look at for longer than three seconds without disgust? Hotspot Cafe on Bloor advertises a "combination of thai and szechuan food". I'm reliably informed that that's not possible and the chefs responsible must be idiots, don't know what those words mean, or both. Luckily my taste bud calibrations are not set quite as highly as hers, and can honestly be satisfied with a flavoured bone to chew on, so I set forth!
I must report some success. They managed not one but two vegetable dishes which I actually enjoyed and finished (I'm near carnivorous usually). The first was crunchy and spicy salad, but the second takes the cake for making vegetables enjoyable. Spinach, but flash fried so that it's crunchy and then coated with sugar. I realise that this probably makes it about as healthy as a deep-fried cigarette, but I didn't let health affect my decision not to eat vegetables when they were good for me, so I'll be damned if it'll stop me now they're bad. The meat was pretty nice but I could tell it was the sort of thing my culinary companion would despise. She appreciates flavours that are carefully prepared and subtly blended together, like a skilled watercolour painting. This was four gallons of red 'spicy' spilled on a warehouse floor and I loved every second.
In conclusion, a nice meal but not one I'll be returning to. Unfortunately this is food that can't be judged on just the eating, but like so much basic spicy stuff gives a "full meal experience" which you have to evaluate all the way in one end and out the other. This didn't require that I bring books to the bathroom, but did convince my stomach to do a passable washing machine impression for an hour or so.
One down, six to go. Onwards!
I realised I'd been putting things off too long when I saw a new restaurant last week and thought "Oh, I'll have to try that!", then noticed it was right next to a restaurant I'd said the same thing about over a year ago. That's not just failing to spring into action - a blind anorexic would have got to that restaurant faster. So you can call me "The Magellan of Mealtime", or perhaps "The Random Fire of Restaurants" as I eat in only new places for the next week.
I'd better make it good, too, because I'm in trouble when my girlfriend finds out I'm writing about food. I'm a barely coherent savage who's spent six years living out of a frying pan while she has literally just written (and published) the book on fine cuisine. She is also an excellent excellent chef. If someone with a working knowledge of food preparation was a sergeant, and she was a field marshal, I'm a rabbit who gets run over by a tank and cooked by squaddies.
What better place to start than one she refuses even to look at for longer than three seconds without disgust? Hotspot Cafe on Bloor advertises a "combination of thai and szechuan food". I'm reliably informed that that's not possible and the chefs responsible must be idiots, don't know what those words mean, or both. Luckily my taste bud calibrations are not set quite as highly as hers, and can honestly be satisfied with a flavoured bone to chew on, so I set forth!
I must report some success. They managed not one but two vegetable dishes which I actually enjoyed and finished (I'm near carnivorous usually). The first was crunchy and spicy salad, but the second takes the cake for making vegetables enjoyable. Spinach, but flash fried so that it's crunchy and then coated with sugar. I realise that this probably makes it about as healthy as a deep-fried cigarette, but I didn't let health affect my decision not to eat vegetables when they were good for me, so I'll be damned if it'll stop me now they're bad. The meat was pretty nice but I could tell it was the sort of thing my culinary companion would despise. She appreciates flavours that are carefully prepared and subtly blended together, like a skilled watercolour painting. This was four gallons of red 'spicy' spilled on a warehouse floor and I loved every second.
In conclusion, a nice meal but not one I'll be returning to. Unfortunately this is food that can't be judged on just the eating, but like so much basic spicy stuff gives a "full meal experience" which you have to evaluate all the way in one end and out the other. This didn't require that I bring books to the bathroom, but did convince my stomach to do a passable washing machine impression for an hour or so.
One down, six to go. Onwards!
