Some days you get tired. Some days you get sad. Some days you get angry.
What are you going to do?
Angryjournalist.com that’s what. Boy some of those comments bring back memories, some more recent than are comfortable.
What is it that keeps us in this business?
Psst…want to know the dirt on ink jet printers?
I thought it was pretty amazing. Who knew?
Wow.
Last night I had one of the most sumptuous meals ever.
I don’t mean we over indulged; we left feeling full but not bloated; It was a taste sensation, a savoury symphony of flavours and textures served up as art.
Oh, yeah and it cost us $400 for two with tip.
The location: Etobicoke’s Queensway, west of Royal York.
The restaurant: Sushi Kaji
The cuisine: Japanese.
Now this isn’t your standard sushi place or an all-you-can-eat buffet. No cardboard fish on stody rice here, thank you.
This is delicate, intelligent, sensuous, special and wholly adventurous.
Check out Kaji’s website and read his profile. The guy is a laugh riot by the way so if you can, sit at the sushi bar to get the whole experience.
But what’s important is the food. James Chatto calls it the best in Canada.
Here’s what they say about themselves:
“At Sushi Kaji, we are particular about authenticity. Fish comes strictly from Tokyo bay. Rice, vegetables and even garnishes are from Japan. Although we do not serve “popular Japanese food” like “California roll” and “Teriyaki”, we will be pleased to introduce you to the real Japanese food culture.
In order to maintain the highest quality of food and service, only 30 seats are available each evening. Reservations are recommended in advance.”
Now lest anyone thinks I regularly dine out on $400 meals, let me say this was a special event. My daughter Meaghan is graduating after 3 1/2 years at George Brown’s chef school - two years in the basic program and the last three semesters in the post-graduate Italian program which included a four month stint in Italy.
As part of her graduation present we’ve been going to some of the top restaurants in the city: Splenditos, Bymark, Cowbell and now Kaji. I think we’re going to Coulbourne Lane next.
Yes, we could have put money down on a small car for her for what its costing, but if she’s going to work in the food industry and aspires to be a chef (you start as a cook and if you’re good and lucky you work your way up to chef) she needs to know what makes a restaurant experiencce great - and it’s hard to learn that when you can’t afford to experience the top restaurants on a student’s income or even an entry level cook’s wages.
Simply put this is the best Japanese food I have ever tried period. There were three tasting menus to try at $80, $100 and $120. We tried the latter two.
From the raw sweet shrip carpaccio to the duck in paper to so many wonderful ingredients in between, this was a feast of the eyes as much as the palate.
We threw in an $80 bottle of sake too. Wow. Extravagant.
We should have brought the menu home with us because there were so many item on there I can’t remember them all, now I sit down to write. You can see I’m not a restaurant critic because I would have taken copious notes.
There were at least eight courses…and we shared everything since our menus were different, so it was an overwhelming tsunami of dishes.
There was a sashimi plate and a sushi plate of course; In between Chef Kaji would entertain us.
Megs asked how he got the octopus so creamy and soft since it’s usually a chewy flesh.
“I put under arm for three days,” he said deadpan. “Then switch over while in shower.”
Pretty soon it was clear wily Chef Kaji wasn’t giving away any trade secrets. His blonde haired young Canadian sous chef helped out where he could but it was clear he defered to the master with grave Japanese reverence.
By the end of the night Chef Kaji was on a roll. Dancing, kissing the gent sitting next to me because it was his birthday - to the suprise of the man’s fiancee, hiding behind the bamboo screen and waving, trying to steal my ring after prompting me to shake hands…all kinds of foolish stuff.
And all we can say, is wow!
Imagine a business where you don’t get paid until someone uses what you’ve sold them. Imagines you sold a pool to a homeowner who says, “we were going to use it this year but the season’s past, and we’ve been too busy. We’ll probably use it next year and pay you then.” Oh, and you can’t set the price - they’ll decide how much they pay you.
You wouldn’t last long would you?
Or imagine you sell someone a pool which you designed for them and they demand you sign a contract saying you’ll never sell a similar pool to anyone but they can make copies of that pool and sell as many as they like and pay you nothing.
And if you want to show someone that pool as an example of your work, you must ask them permission.
Pretty sleazy, eh?
Welcome to the world of freelance writing. For more, see this story.
Now there are ways around this and I find I don;t have any issues with some of the restraints but then again I don’t write for CanWest. My big fear however is that all media companies will end up putting similar contracts in front of their freelancers and we’ll all be locked into a battle over who owns what while freelancers get screwed.
Newspapers, they say are a dying industry.
Then why did this man buy the Tribune Co.?
Let’s see contrarian, hard living, salty talking Billionaire promises to be the viagra for a limp industry.
I like this story. In fact, I like the idea that newspapers which invest in local resources do better than those which cut staff. PKP are you listening?