a friday

I know I said my next post would be about Noodle Bar, but I had a pretty eventful Friday in terms of food and bellydance, so I thought I'd blog about that first.

I'll start with my day at work. Unfortunately, it was the last day for one of our cherished IT peeps, affectionately known as Big Ben. At around noon, a page went through the agency telling us to come down to IT to witness history. Of course, I had to see what was going on, and when I came, this is what I saw:

A meal fit for a king! Check out Ben's menu, ordered as a special surprise from Dangerous Dan's Diner:

Stats on that burger? A 24 oz. patty with a quarter pound (omg) of cheese, a quarter pound (double omg) of bacon, AND 2 fried eggs!

Umm, yeah, "dangerous" indeed! Some day when I'm feeling really gluttonous, I'd love to have some Dangerous Dan's myself. I mean, I know I like cheeseburgers with fried eggs on top (they served them at the late night bar when we were on vacation in Jamaica), and I sooo need to try a deep fried Mars bar!

Anyway, I'll miss Ben, and I hope he enjoyed that awesome meal.

Moving on to Friday evening, I left work a little early to get glammed up for the Party in Pink, an annual women-only party that raises money for breast cancer. The theme this year was Indiana Jones, so in addition to some eye candy in the form of buff guys dressed as Indy, they also had a few of us bellydancers around to add to the exotic feel.

As guests arrived at the Burlington Holiday Inn's lobby and got registered with their tickets, bongo drummers played some rhythms while we danced and mingled, warming up the ladies for the night of partying ahead. It was fun, and I got to wear my new bedlah!

After doing my bit at the party, Will came to pick me up and take me for dinner. I was in the mood for one of our fave go-to spots in Bronte, Sweet Smoke. The BBQ gets good feedback on Chowhound, and even better, the owner's (or chef's, can't remember off the top of my head) wife is a pastry chef and does the desserts, so the desserts are legit. I'm usually too full to get dessert, but if I do, the Cake & Shake is the bomb (and adorable).

My pulled pork sammie on a sesame seed bun

Will's pulled pork platter with creamy cole slaw & "iron kettle cowboy" beans

Of course, we discovered this summer that Will is really good at making pulled pork himself in his slow cooker, but when an unplanned craving for pulled pork presents itself, Sweet Smoke is the place to go! (Random side note: as we were finishing up, Mike Bullard came in with 3 friends.)

Now, I did save room for dessert that night, but feeling fairly gluttonous, I opted to hit the nearby Tim Horton's for Cold Stone. I sampled their seasonal pumpkin flavour but one spoonful of it was enough for me (pretty overwhelming, don't know how you could eat a whole cupful of it - maybe if you REALLY like pumpkin/pumpkin spice). Instead, I went for the Cake Batter with Skor bits and cookie dough mixed in.

I have to go back in time for a moment and tell the story of my first time having Cold Stone. The year was 2003 and my family was on an August vacation in California. Relatives had taken us to Palm Springs for a few days, and we were having dinner at a Mexican restaurant a short walk from our hotel (side note: this was the first time I'd had authentic Mexican and I loved it, I remember being blown away by the refried beans). All through dinner, my parents and relatives were boringly chatting away and catching up, so my brother and I were kept entertained by the restaurant's TVs, set to a live broadcast of the Miss Teen USA pageant that was happening at another nearby hotel.

By the time the contestants had been cut down to the final 5 or whatnot, we'd long since finished dinner and the adults were still chatting away. My brother and I were now bored of the pageant, having exhausted all our snarky commentary, and our thoughts drifted to dessert (as our thoughts often do - genetically inherited sweet tooth). We'd passed by a Cold Stone Creamery on the way to the restaurant, which had recently been featured on an episode of Unwrapped since the concept was still fairly new at the time. As a budding foodie, I wanted to go badly. We asked our parents for some money and told them we'd meet them back at our hotel.

As we approached the Cold Stone, we could see through the windows that it was sort of crowded. I thought, this place must be really good. We got closer and closer, and when we walked through the doors, we realized that the crowd consisted of overly made-up girls wearing high heels and sashes... it was the Miss Teen USA contestants who hadn't made the cut! Here they were, with the pressure to fit into their gowns and swimsuits finally off (til next pageant season of course), drowning their losses in full fat ice cream with chocolates and candy mixed in. We had just seen these girls get cut on live TV, while mocking them and eating our delicious Mexican dinner. Now we were eating ice cream with them! Way too funny!

Anyway, I remember having some sort of obscenely overdone peanut butter chocolate creation that I couldn't even finish. But despite that, I'll always remember my first Cold Stone experience.

Back to my Friday. Well, as with all good things, it ended with dessert! More later :)