Author: Joey deVilla

A couple of weekends ago, I took the Ginger Ninja out for a fancy dinner to celebrate her new job. Since it was a celebration for her, she got to pick the place and found Nota Bene online (I believe through Chowhound’s discussion boards, a generally reliable source of restaurant information). The head chef is David Lee, the head chef of Splendido (here’s a Toronto Life review; here are all the Chowhound discussions on Splendido).

Nota Bene is located in the new Canada Life building near the corner of Queen and University, just west of Campbell House. It’s easy to miss; the building is a characterless silver slab, the sort of thing that makes me want to smack architecture students on the nose with a large hardcover Mies van der Rohe book and scream “Bad dog! Baaaaad doggie!” Walking in the door, I half-expected to end up in a club playing a lot of OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ music, as the building reminded me of the equally nondescript structure that housed the Industry night club, an odd tenant for an office building.

Inside, Nota Bene is warm and woody, all deep brown and white, done in that sort of “Japanese minimalism meets Frank Lloyd Wright” design that gave me a sense of deja vu. I later realized it’s reminiscent of the way Gordon Ramsay redesigns restaurants on the British edition of his Kitchen Nightmares show, which I took to be a good sign.

The service here is very friendly and very attentive. The staff appear to know that they’re working at a restaurant barely weeks into existence in one of North America’s most competitive markets. They also know that at the eastern edge of Queen Street West, with club-goers and their clothing shops to the immediate west and south, and the opera house and financial district to the immediate east. This understanding was reflected in our waitress — an excellent and friendly server — who would’ve fit in either at Canoe or the Bovine Sex Club. The sommelier was informative and helpful rather than condescending. Neither my wine nor water glass dipped below the halfway point without someone refilling it. At one point, I counted 15 front-of-house staff working away at the restaurant’s 30-odd tables.

The crowd was an interesting mix: I’d say there were an even number of people dressed to catch something at the opera house across the street and people dressed to go clubbing on Queen Street or the entertainment district after dinner. There were as many suits as there were t-shirts; it kind of reminded me of some of the better restaurants in Manhattan, where such mixes are common. (I wore something halfway between the two — a suit-ready dress shirt with nice jeans and dress shoes, which seemed appropriate.)

The menu is a mix of fancier dishes like papardelle pasta and rabbit soffritto and upscale versions of comfort classics like pork chops and burgers.

I had:

• Tandoori-spiced barramundi: Fatty bits of the Australian fish, dusted with tandoori spices with slivers of mango and cucumber wrapped in lettuce. It was a nice opener for… ($15)
• Cumbrae Farms dry-rubbed pork chop: A succulent pork chop from one a premier meat farm with a tasty dry rub with a small lobster salad on the side. ($34)
• Chocolate tart: dark and rich, served with a “local raspberry sorbet” ($10)
• Cappuccino ($5.25)

Wendy had:

• Crisp duck salad: bits of duck with crispy skin with “sumac-dusted green papaya slaw” and cashews ($15)
• Grilled “rare” hangar steak: Tender slices of beef with Mexican flavours — “guajillo spice, tomatillo, lime, avocado chutney” ($22)
• Pot de cremes: Four small pots of delicious custards: coconut, pistachio, chocolate and coffee flavours ($10)
• Coffee ($3.50)

We also split:

• A bottle of 2004 Bodegas Darien Rioja Crianza ($60)
• Sparkling water ($8)
• A side order of the onion rings ($8)

With taxes and not taking tip into account, the bill came to $220. It’s not a cheap night out, but if you’re looking to impress a date, celebrate a special occasion or just live a little, it’s worth it.

I liked my appetizer but Wendy’s — the crisp duck salad — was amazing. I’m having that next time. As for the mains, I preferred mine: this was a pork chop done right. The desserts were also great — sometimes a restaurant does well with the opening and main courses and falls apart when it comes to dessert (Crush Wine Bar, I’m lookin’ at you!) — but our meal was consistently very good from start to finish, with service to match. We’re definitely coming back.

Other Write-Ups for Nota Bene / Reservation Info

The Chowhounds approve of Nota Bene.

Here’s Martini Boys’ writeup.

Spotlight Toronto also approves.

Want to make a reservation? You can phone them at (416) 977-6400 or do it online via OpenTable.

I’ve been rather busy lately — hence the light posting — so in the meantime, I’ll leave with this lovely photo of the best-looking weightlifter in the history of the sport, Marilou Dozois-Prevost, representing Canada at the Olympics right now…

Marilou Dozois-Prevost
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, the most whimsical programming book ever written.

Here’s a great quote from the enigmatic programmer known only as “why the lucky stiff” on why you should create:

when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.

Very true, especially since there are whole industries and professions that specialize in manipulating your tastes in order to get you to line other people’s pockets. Well put, why!

Click the comic to see it on its original page.

[This was also posted to Global Nerdy.]

Attention Toronto-area developers! If you’ve got good PHP/MySQL chops (having a little experience building WordPress templates and plugins would be a bonus, but not absolutely necessary), perhaps you’d like to do a little contract work for my company, b5media. Our regular programming staff has its hands full with our core projects, so I’m using my authority as the company’s Nerd Wrangler (a.k.a. Technical Project Manager) to cast a net for local developers who’d like to work on a project or two.

I can’t go into details here on the blog — here’s what I can tell you:

• We’re a network of about 300 or so blogs and our revenue is based on advertising, which in turn is based on our readership.
• Our blogs are based on WordPress. Mark Jaquith, one of our programmers, is a WordPress core developer. As you may have already reasoned out, our stuff is based on MySQL and PHP.
• I have a couple of projects:
  • A WordPress-based promo site using a customized template and featuring some custom widgets and plugins, and
  • An ecommerce site that makes it easy for people to purchase ads on our blogs

If you’re picked to do the job, you’ll be working from a pretty complete spec written by someone who understands both the business and technical sides of the job: me! You’ll also be reporting to me, and I’m told that I’m a pretty good guy to work with.

There’s something to be said for face-to-face meetings and being able to walk up to the project lead and ask questions, so we’d rather hire a developer in town.

Interested? Drop me a line at my work email address — joey@b5media.com — and I’ll be happy to tell you more.

[This was also posted to Global Nerdy.]

Feeling nostalgic for “Ate My Balls”, “I Kiss You” or “All Your Base are Belong to Us”? The Internet Memes Timeline’s got the cure for that.

Two of the most popular articles on Accordion Guy are the ones featuring Food Network chef Giada di Laurentiis: the inspirational poster parody and the Esquire photo. Every now and again, I get asked if I’ll post more sexy chef photos. To those people, I say: today’s your lucky day!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, Nigella Lawson…

Photo from ExpoSay.

Red Alert! Containment failure imminent!