Girls night out at Paese Restaurant

Blogger Girls Night Out

Location:    Paese Ristorante, located on 3827 Bathurst Street (just north of Wilson Avenue)

Date visited:  August 6, 2016

Website:  http://paeseristorante.com/

Instagram @paeseristorante

My blogger pal Natalie (http://www.cookingquidnunc.com/) and I were invited to go for dinner at Paese Restaurant in North York.  I live in North York so it was nice to go to a dinner pretty close to home.  We brought along fellow blogger Shuang (http://www.theteleporta.com/) and my friend who lives within walking distance of Paese.  Normally Natalie and I attend larger blogger media dinners with about a dozen other bloggers trying to get their photos and food in within a limited amount of time.  This time we had a great Girls Night Out and took our time and all ordered different things so that we could sample a lot from their menu.  

A nice touch was that they seated us near the window.  This is an important thing because the rest of the restaurant had lighting that wouldn't have been flattering for food photos.  We really wanted to get some great photos because the food was presented so beautifully.

We shared this amazing Seared Scallop dish with grapefruit segments and shaved fennel.   This really is a classic pairing that works together to elevate the whole dish.   We really loved this dish and my friends were amazed at how good the fennel was.  I wasn't because I have done this before and it really makes the fennel shine.  The Scallops were perfectly seared and tender and seasoned to perfection.

We also shared the Polenta Fries.  We could have easily eaten an order of these each.  They were better than fries with a whole lot more flavour and crispy on the outside and creamy inside.

As my main I chose the Veal Scallopini.  For some reason I thought this would be breaded but it was just pan seared and served with a lemon beurre blanc sauce and green beans, grilled fennel and a piece of charred corn.  The veal was like butter.  I hardly needed a knife to cut it.  The whole thing was skillfully put together.

For Dessert I chose the Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookie and Affogato.  I really wanted the cherry chocolate cookie.  It had some sea salt on top.  Some people like that but I don't think it needed the salt.  It wasn't overly sweet and with the espresso and vanilla ice cream it was just enough.

And there was a whole lot more.  Some of the other things we all ordered were from (l to r):

Braised Lamb and Green Beans,  Seared Salmon with tomato salsa and fennel,  Mojito's and wine, A dark and white chocolate terrina,  Goat cheese and leek ravioli, charred broccoli, Charred Octopus, Foccacia bread and white bean spread, Pomegranate gelato, strawberry cheesecake, Caramel pudding.  And in the mix is Natalie taking a photo of her dish while Shuang quenches her thirst.

We all really enjoyed our meal and the place was really nice.  We had our own little private section because most of the people were seated on the other side.  They didn't know what to make of us when we tried to take photos of the inside of the restaurant. I think they thought we were nuts so we stopped taking photos so we wouldn't get them in any of them.

PAESE is starting a contest for you to EAT. SHARE .WIN on Social Media that you can enter starting August 15 and it ends on September 1st, 2016.

SHARE a photo of your Favourite PAESE meal on INSTAGRAM using the Hashtag #PaeseXO and don't forget to follow @paeseristorante on Instagram to see what everyone is eating.

A winner will be chosen on September 1st to WIN a Dinner for TWO at PAESE Italian Ristorante

If you go to Paese for the first time make sure you tell them that you read about it on my Blog.  I am sure they will take really good care of you.

Get away from the crazy downtown lineups and parking tickets and eat in North York where you can enjoy a relaxing meal and hopefully get a spot in their parking lot for free.

End of Summer at East Lynn Farmer's Market

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to meet her at the Farmer's Market near her house.  I said yes because I was already thinking about going to get some fresh fruits and vegetables to restock my fridge before I get crazy busy during Tiff.  This year I want to try and stock grab and go foods in my fridge like cut up melon, carrot sticks, apples, cheese and just easy and quick stuff that I can grab before I head out the door for a long day of film stuff.  So we met up at the East Lynn Farmer's Market at the East Lynn Park near Woodbine and Danforth Ave.

It was a beautiful day for a farmer's market.  Always better to shop at a farmer's market on a nice day then to be stuck inside a grocery store with long lineups.  Natural sunlight is always a good thing, especially when you are armed with a camera.

I took a few shots using my barely used Nikon camera.  I usually just have my point and shoot Canon or my cell phone camera when I am out and about but I want to bump up my photo skills and get better at figuring out all the digital controls on the Nikon.  I am an old school camera user who learned to take photos when there was negative film and manual controls on cameras.   Now there is a ton of stuff you have to figure out and I haven't been able to keep up with all the technology and the cost of new equipment, although I try but haven't succeeded as much as I would have like to.

I have to say that sometimes it's a whole lot easier just to take pics with my cell and use Instagram filters to mess around with the photos.  But I need to step up my photography skills so I hope to work on that more.

Every market is different as I have mentioned in previous posts.   The Easy Lynn Market is a small but very nice market.  As I was taking photos when they were setting up their booths I spoke to a couple of the vendors.  One of the vendors was Lina from Lucifer Loaves.  She was very curious to see if I was media because she said she was new to the market and would like to spread the word.  She had a lovely selection of all kinds of Artisanal breads.   My friend and I picked up one of the fig and honey breads and I dug into it as soon as I got home.  It was delicious and had a nice crunch on the outside and a nice chew with a ton of flavour.   She had herb and cheese breads and other assorted breads.

Sometimes you find things at some markets that you generally don't find at other markets.  In this case I found some beautiful Tomatillos and purple carrots.  You don't always see purple carrots at markets because I suppose not all farmer's grow that variety.  You don't often see Tomatillos probably because most people don't know what to do with them.  The produce at this market was beautiful and when I stopped to take photos of the strawberries I could smell the sweetness of them so of course I had to pick some up.

Apparently there is an Arancini vendor who wasn't at the market that day and I would have gotten one of those for sure if he was.  There was also a meat vendor and the same french fry guy that I see at the Tuesday market at Mount Pleasant was there too.  The people from Triscuit were there doing some sampling of their new flavours as well.

I picked up a lot more things than I expected to.  The variety was so good and it all looked like it was at the peak of freshness so I couldn't resist.  Plus I didn't have lunch and was starving and you what happens when you shop hungry.   I actually had to take some bags to the car and go back again because it was getting hard to juggle money, cameras etc. My final tally of the food I picked up was the fig and honey loaf of bread, some purple carrots, 6 tomatillos, nectarines, some new variety of apples that I have never had before, tomatoes from Food Share, blueberries and strawberries,   and I had stopped at the North York market already earlier in the day and picked up kale and melons from there.

Mostly foods that I can prep and have in the fridge that should last for part of my crazy tiff schedule.

There was a lot of stuff I wanted to get but knew I wouldn't have time to eat it.  I probably should have picked up some artichokes.  My mom used to make them all the time but I get lazy and don't buy them as much as I probably should.  They are super healthy and low in calories too.

And then there is the parking which is usually my farmer's market aggravation.  I was lucky because I went early I got a nice close spot on the side street and didn't have to pay.  But there is meter parking on the Danforth, although I am not sure if you can park on both sides because this market runs from 3pm to 7pm and you know what parking is like from 4-6pm in Toronto.  I was there at 3pm so I knew I would be OK.  If you go early you get the first pick of stuff too.

This market gets my thumbs up for the quality of the products.