Girls' Night with frvanilla

Hi there! I am Jen’s friend frvanilla. When Jen asked me to be a guest contributor to write about our recent girls’ night food venture, I quickly agreed (because I was under the influence) and now I am only hoping I am not turning away her followers.

 

I love food. Although I don’t cook or bake, my specialty is eating and I am a huge fan of Jen’s creative recipes.   When I travelled, I created itinerary of restaurants to go to and dreamed I can fit all the goodies in my tummy without getting fat. 

We have planned this long overdue girls’ night for us few old school friends. Betsy, who always knows some cool places, suggested we go for some good Mexican food in the Junction and then chilled at a cool Jukebox bar. While navigating the city and close to getting lost, a point to take home for girls’ night: follow the directions from the GPS. He might be or might sound stupid, but he had a point.

First stop: Le Revolucion (2848 Dundas St W, Toronto)

We were led to the back of the restaurant when we arrived and we fell in love with the décor. The back was a lot darker than the front, and the many artworks hanging on the wall reminded me of Emily the Strange. 

We ordered a delicious guacamole and tamale to start. The guacamole was creamy and chunky; the corn tortilla chips were so fresh and tasted so much better than Tostitos, which always smelled like greasy plastic bags to me. I remembered watching on FoodNetwork the work it takes to make tamale. The vegetarian tamale was very meaty and tasted like our Chinese version of wrapped steamed rice.

Tacos and enchiladas. Instead of flour tortillas this place made their own corn tortillas. The green salsa sauce was spicy and sour and we loaded up on every bite of our food.

This ceviche had a lot of jumbo shrimps! The portion size was definitely a lot bigger than some other Mexican restaurants. 

The food was good but the service was really slow. But it didn’t matter because we were having good times and enjoying the musicians playing on the small stage. I wish these live performances get promoted more in Toronto.

Off we go to our second destination of the night. Another point to take home: If you have a GPS, plug it in!

Second stop: Black Dice Café (1574 Dundas St W, Toronto)

Black Dice Café was a very cute and cozy bar to chill. The place was very small with the bar at the back. It blended the retro 50s-style well with the kitschy posters from the 80s. Food menu was very small, mostly made up of instant food like Pogo, Japanese cup noodles, and Hungry-man dinner. The bar had a lot more interesting items in comparison ranging from various sake cocktails to retro Japanese marble soda.

The retro 50s jukebox was very appealing. At 25 cents per song, we were having fun choosing songs and watching the old machine slowly withdraw a vinyl record and agonized when the machine failed to play the song we chose. It certainly took some skills.

It was an amazing night with good friends, good food, and good music. I like to challenge the phrase “it's not where you are but who you're with” because the excitement of discovering new places to hang out is equally chill.