There's this little company in Toronto that you may not have heard about, The Culinary Adventure Company, a small chef owned and operated business. They take dining to the next level in a way I've never experienced before. They are passionate about food, and its' unique way of feeding such strong emotion in people. This company loves to show off it's home town Toronto. Through unique dining experiences and tours they show off the
"real" Toronto, not only to tourists, but to locals as well. When I
was asked to take one of these tours, I jumped on it with out hesitation! I was
more ready and willing to take the "Escape the City... Canoe and Beach
Dining Adventure".
Imagine, taking a leisurely paddle to the beautiful Toronto Islands in a heritage freighter canoe. (Just like the ones used by the settlers!) You paddle through a bird sanctuary, past some sailboats and watch as planes take off and land right over your head! Once you hit the shore, you’re treated to a gourmet dinner picnic, I’m not talking about burgers and hotdogs here! The picnic is made of delicious dishes featuring local Ontario products and prepared by one of Toronto’s hottest young Chefs. Then as you relax after an amazing meal you can watch a beautiful sunset and paddle back towards the city lights as darkness falls.
Now I say imagine because that’s about all I can do for this adventure. My best friend, Chantelle, and I had set off for this incredible sounding adventure with excitement and anticipation. After battling the rush hour city traffic, and finally making it down to the Queens Quay, we hit another road block, literally, the road was blocked for construction. Being the resourceful and intelligent ladies that we are, we detoured, found parking, and made it to the waterfront! We walked along the buildings looking for the address on our tickets, we finally found it, went in, and were promptly told that we just missed the trip. We walked to the dock to see the giant canoe, packed with about 7 or 8 people, paddling across the bay to the island. To say we were disappointed is a bit of an understatement. Since we were already in the city, and paid $20 for parking, we weren’t about to just turn around and head home.
So instead, we decided a Jays game at the conveniently located Rogers centre across the street was a fabulous alternative. As we began walking over we started to feel a couple drops of rain, first a few and then a light sprinkle, we took shelter under an event tent just in time. The clouds opened up and a torrential down pour hit hard and fast! We both started laughing at the situation. If we had been just 5 minutes earlier to the dock, we would have been out in the middle of the bay, in a canoe, completely drenched! It’s funny how things work out sometimes, when we thought we had missed out on a great opportunity, we were actually saved a massive soaking!
When the rain tapered off we made our way over to the dome only to find the streets flooded. We decided to cut our losses and just had a nice meal and spent time chatting and catching up. Both of us being busy women with completely different lives, it’s hard for us to get together all the time, so the one on one catch up session ended up being exactly what we needed. It’s funny sometimes, how things work out. You are all set to do one thing, then life has a funny way of directing you to something better. We might not have got do the exciting canoe trip and eat the delicious gourmet picnic, but we stayed dried (mostly) and had a great time catching up.
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