A Few Quick Notes 148

-Today has been the coldest day of the year, and possibly the winter, in Montreal. As night approaches, and then begins to fall, the temperature is expected to continue to drop, until it reaches a nice -22 c. Fortunately, we don’t have all that much wind accompanying the cold to make it as unpleasant as it surely could be. Nor do we really have that much snow to go along with these mid-winter temperatures.

-Friday night was a pretty busy night at Thomson House. Not only did we have a pretty good Friday crowd on the main floor and in the Restaurant, we also had a pretty big party in the ballroom. The up side was that tips were good. The downside was that we sold out of pizza dough, something that caused staff pizzas and meatzzas (my cheese and tomato free pizza) to be made with pitas (something quite inferior to the typical dough).

-Last night we had the Thomson House Staff Christmas party at a new restaurant/bar on Crescent Street. While the location caused me some concern at first, the reality of the situation proved quite different than I expected.

We started the evening off with a few drinks, primarily wine and water, before taking our seats for the meal, which started with a salad. As the salad was a tomato feta salad I decided to pass. We then moved on to the main course. Though I chose the beef on a carrot puree option, I think that in retrospect I should have gone for the duck with mushroom sauce on potatoes. That being said, I don’t really have any complaints about the meal that I did eventually get.

For desert we had a white chocolate mousse on a chocolate and cookie base, with strawberries and basis syrup. While the mousse and chocolate and cookie base tasted quite good, the base was a little firm and challenging to break apart with the provided spoons. Sadly, most of us used a two handed technique that was only partially successful as a fair number of chunks ended up leaving peoples’ plates. Furthermore, I wonder about the idea of basil syrup as a desert accoutrement. Personally, I would probably give this a pass in favour of either nothing or something that didn’t make my mouth taste like a main course.

The only other strange part of the evening was the red wine, which tasted just like the inside of a barrel. While I can understand why such a flavour may be desired as a undertone, I don’t quite see why one would want this as the predominate flavour. Also, along with there seemed to be a corresponding fuzziness in how the wine felt in one’s mouth (or at least I had this problem).

-After the dinner section of the staff event there was talking going dancing a place on Crescent Street, something that isn’t really my area of interest. Instead I went to Nicole’s place to play some games.

Shortly after arriving I learned of a mustache party that was taking place just a few blocks away. Unfortunately, due to my confusion regarding the party I didn’t head up immediately (which may sound as though I wasn’t enjoying the games, which wasn’t the case). When we finally did get to the bar the band was just finishing and the party starting to disperse. The only up side of this was that we didn’t have to pay cover and were then able to watch all kinds of mustachioed individuals dancing up a storm.

-I should be doing some school work and reading.

-Beef for roasting will be on sale as of tomorrow at Provigo. This likely means that I will be having pot roast within the next number of days.