Resto Cookies: 10 Fourteen Bar

This is the first post of Resto Cookies, a special category of blog posts on Tough Cookies: Hintonburg Style. As you can probably guess, the focus of Resto Cookies is... restaurants!

Glosette Girl and I try and eat take-out or go to a resturant once a week. It makes things easier in terms of cooking (one less meal to plan) and it gives us something to look forward to every week. If possible, we try something new but we do have a few old favourites.

To-date we've logged all our experiences by hand in notebooks, meaning our comments are just for us. We've probably reviewed a couple of hundred places.

On Resto Cookies I'll share some of our thoughts on local-area (the neighbourhoods of Westboro, Wellington-West, Hintonburg, Chinatown and Little Italy) places, as we try them.

First up: 10 Fourteen Bar.

The context: post-show (Fractus V) drinks.

The good: the ambient level of noise in the bar was great. You can have a conversation and not shout, which wasn't the case with two other places we scoped out before settling on 10 Fourteen. The service was decent and the atmosphere lively and a nice mix of young and old (I'm on the "old" side of that equation these days *sniff*, *sniff*).

The not-so-good: the layout of the bar is odd. I get that's its not a traditional restaurant but it just seems that there isn't enough seating for the space. There are odd gaps. There are also booths, which I find out-of-place in a wine bar.

If it looks cold and miserable its because the first real snow is about to hit

The kicker: living 5 minutes from a bunch of restaurants puts a new perspective on things. You can walk to everything, which is great...except that you know you can walk back just as easily. This raises dilemmas such as, is it really worth it to pay $28 for two glasses of wine when you can have a decent bottle for that price at home? hmmmm. That's not the fault of 10Fourteen, but in this case, we decided to enjoy the comforts of home after a round of drinks. Damn you common sense!

Family Rhythms

From world-changing milestones to the little events that make up my daily life, it's all here on Tough Cookies: Hintonburg Style. You never know what you're going to get on this blog.

Anyways, what I was going to talk about last week, before I was rudely interrupted by Mr. T. Rumpis, was family - specifically, how daily interactions of my life with my in-laws has changed since moving to Hintonburg.

Previously, I lived about 10 minutes away from the in-laws. I'm now maybe 15-20 minutes away. It doesn't seem much but it has actually completely changed how often I see them. Jen's parents used to pick up and drop our daughter, Margot, off almost every day. So I saw them a fair bit, even if only fleetingly.  However, now that I walk to school with Margot and Glosette Girl picks her up most days, I rarely see Glosette Girl's parents or the other members of Glosette Girl's family. There usually has to be a special reason.

Hangin' with the cousins is always a good excuse

I actually like my in-laws so this has been quite a change. Fortunately, Glosette Girl's mother and aunt each helpfully pick up Margot from school one day per week (thank god for that because, honestly, school ends super early at 2:30 pm. What's the deal with that? Who is at home at 2:30 pm?!), which is nice as they get to stay a part of Margot's life. We are also trying to see the rest of the family for dinner occasionally or if there is something to celebrate.

We bring the jazz

Interestingly, nothing has really changed with my side of the family. They live 5 hours away near or in Toronto (I suppose that's down to 4 hours 50 minutes) so my move to downtown Ottawa hasn't impacted them. I see some part of my gang every month or two and I anticipate that will stay the same.

It may seem obvious but I guess it all comes down to making sure that you make an effort to see the people who matter to you in your life.

Simon's side of the force

Game Changer

I was trying to figure out about what to blog about this week when history happened and made the decision for me.

I don't recall too many moments that I can honestly say are world game-changers (9/11, the election of Obama, and the fall of the Berlin Wall [although I was too young to remember it]) but last night is definitely a new one to add to the list.

Who would have thought that Donald Trump would become President of the United States? I certainty didn't have sufficient Simpsonesque-foresight to predict that! But it happened and it feels like the rules are about to shift.

I don't really want to go into why he won or whether its going to be good or bad for America, Canada or the world. Reams of ink has been and will be spilled on those topics by people much smarter than myself.

But I would like to pause for a moment and relate yesterday's events with my own personal experiences.  When the Federal Conservatives won majority power in Canada in 2011 I was a civil servant in a temporary job I liked. When I saw the results come in my heart dropped into my stomach. The Conservatives had campaigned on cutting back and sure enough, within the year, I was gone (I'm simplifying things a bit but you get the picture). The feeling on that election night was visceral.

Interestingly, despite the obviously world-changing events of yesterday the feeling for me, personally, more abstract. I wouldn't have voted but Trump but then, he's not my President. I also know things are going to change, and many people will be affected (most obviously illegal immigrants and federal civil servants in the U.S.) but I doubt I will be directly impacted no matter what happens. That's probably true for most people around the world.

I hope that for people who disagree with the election outcome don't give up on democracy. There is always a next time and there are always opportunities to build for the future, even if only locally.

All this may be small comfort for many, especially those who view the rise of Donald Trump as representing a setback for universal progressive liberalism. There's probably nothing that will make them feel better....but I'm going to give it a shot with this short video of Margot and Jen running away from some fierce geese.

Run guys, run!

C'est L'Halloween ...HEY!

Ahh Halloween. It gives Christmas a run for the money for best holiday. Just think of all the great things about it:

• Stay up late - check.
• Carve a round orange vegetable and place it outside - check.
• Dress up and let your inner self shine - check.
• Light small fires - check.
• Get free candy (if you're a kid) - check.
• Eat free candy (no age limit) - check.
• Give away some of that free candy to local urchins but make sure you have a net gain of free candy overall when you factor in the haul your children bring in - check.

We actually threw a Halloween party on the weekend - our first party of our new house! There were kids and adults running rampant all over the place and it was quite fun.

We had to do lots of pre-party prep

Getting into the spirit

But yesterday was the real thing. Hintonburg being a downtown neighbourhood, I was curious to see how many children would be out and about. The answer? LOTS. There were heaps of kids running around here.

Jen and Margot headed out around 6:10 pm

The action really depended on the particular street. Some streets, like Melrose, were booming. Others, like ours, were quieter. My non-scientific analysis is that the number of kids was proportional to the number of houses with kooky halloween decorations and on that basis Melrose got a gold star.

This is what you need to reel the kids in (on Rosemont street)

In the end we got 20* kids. Why the asterisk? Good question. Well, Jen and I were supposed to take turns walking Margot around the neighbourhood trick-or-treating. But after a few minutes during her turn, Jen missed us and decided to track us down leaving a bowl of candy in front of house.

Many people actually do this all the time. For me, that's sacrilegious! You HAVE to count the number of kids that come to your house. Why?

Well...um....

That's a good question.

You just DO.

Anyways, it was spooktactular evening overall even if it will forever be marked with an asterisk!