The big gala of OCCCIO follows the interesting Caribbean lunch. This year, the location is Arcadian Court at the Simpsons Tower.
Obviously starting with some networking event along with some interesting finger food.
Since it is the Simpsons Tower, opposite to it is the old city hall of Toronto.
And right next to it, the current city hall.
On the inside, they have a pianist playing lively music as the crowd chatted.
The dinning area is very acoustic and according to the master of ceremonies, was once a location where the Toronto symphony was performing.
Tonight we have a three course meal, a salad, main course, and dessert.
The baby Gem & radicchio Caesar.
The fried potato was really crispy and it is very tasty. Unlike your typical French fries, it was fried to the point where it felt like you were eating kettle chips.
There were layers of Grana padano in between the romaine lettuce, with every other layer being the Pingue Bresaola. Since there is a vinaigrette, all of these mixed pretty well together. I have to eat the tomato and the egg separately as I didn’t understand how to mix it in to this. The only complaint I have is the addition of the red cabbage. It turns the dish bitter and required a larger amount of water and some bread to cleanse my palate of that bitter taste. However, that maybe the intention of the chef.
On comes the main course, short ribs. Most of the greens were really good, minus the Chinese vegetables they have the meat standing on. Once again, this is bitter. The short rib is as expected, slightly cooked to the point where you can ‘cut’ it with a fork. Same comment I have for Jamie Kennedy’s beef as well, too over cooked according to my taste.
However, the taste was fabulous!
On comes the dessert.
From what I can taste, the fritter is, well, a Timbit. Maybe a larger one, but a Timbit nonetheless. It was a bit difficult to eat with a dessert fork, as the fritter wouldn’t give way when I was cutting with the fork. The yellow portion, which I believe is the Cardamom Creme, tastes more like pudding.
This dessert is pretty good minus the fritter stiffness, but maybe that’s due to the massive amount of the same dish the kitchen had to prepare that day.
And the night is ended with a talk by Rick Mercer. To be honest, I don’t really watch TV and when I do, I watch selectively. So going in here, my knowledge of Rick Mercer was just ‘he works at CBC.’ I have to Google him to find out that he is on one of my favourite shows at the CBC, this hour has 22 mins. Well, he was interesting, but I was hoping he’d finish early so I can dash across to the Toronto sign…. Since he didn’t, I can only get a quick glimpse of it prior to heading back to Seneca. ??
