Toronto Day One: The Drive and Niagara-on-the-Lake

Hey everyone! I hope that everyone is having a nice weekend. We certainly did! We arrived in Toronto on Friday evening. Our first plan was to fly into City Airport, but then we realized that Emma's passport hadn't been renewed! Even though you need a passport to get to Canada by air, you don't need it to get there by land. Disaster averted!

It was a beautiful drive and it didn't feel like we were in the car for eight hours. We stopped for breakfast and a snack before seeing signs for Canada.

The original plan was to go to Niagara Falls, but by the time we crossed the Canadian border we wanted to sit down and eat a late lunch/early dinner. So we decided to go to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We drove along the wine route until we reached Niagara-on-the-Lake. This town is completely picturesque and adorable!

We went to the first restaurant that we saw, Corks, and we were immediately seated on the covered deck. The covered deck would become very useful when the sun showers started! We started with the calamari with a chipotle mayo.

Dad and I both got the lamb burger with feta except he got the lettuce, tomato and onion, and I did not. The burger was okay, but I was so hungry that it didn't matter!

Mom and Emma both chose the prime rib sandwich. Emma ended up not liking the sandwich and got chicken tenders to replace it. Mom, however, enjoyed her sandwich.

We wandered around the town and at different moments Mom would point out a restaurant and say, "We ate there once! Kara, do you remember?" And I would have to say "Nope!" This has become somewhat of a theme for this trip!

Every few stores was another ice cream parlor or gelato shop (and since it was the last day of National Ice Cream month . . .), we needed to go and get ice cream! We went to Cows Creamery for a delicious frozen treat. I got strawberry ice cream in a chocolate dipped cone. A perfect dessert for a warm day summer's day!

Adorable T-shirts!

By the time we were done with our ice cream it was time for us to get into Toronto. It was another 90 minutes in the car until we reached the apartment building where we were staying.

We had great views of the CN Tower from our balcony! 

The drive was great and Niagara-on-the-Lake is one of the cutest places ever! We decided to stay in for the night because we had a busy Saturday planned!

See you next time!
Kara

Lunch in the North End with the Family!

Hello! I hope that everyone had a great Father's Day. My grandfather flew down from New Jersey Saturday morning and is staying until Thursday. We picked up my grandfather (Nonno, which is grandfather in Italian) and headed to the North End. As you may have guessed the North End is one of our favorite neighborhoods in Boston. We were planning on going to Quattro (which Mom and I went to last summer), but there was an hour wait. The five of us then walked down the block to Ristorante Fiore, which we had never been to. We sat on the roof deck and browsed through the menu.

Mom and I chose to split an arugula salad with lemon juice and shaved parmesan. It was a perfect light start to a carb based meal. 

Both Dad and Nonno got the arancini (rice balls) stuffed with sausage and cheese. They both loved it, and I was happy to sample some of Dad's!

While we waited for our entrées to arrive (which took longer than we had anticipated) we discussed some of the work that Mom and I have been doing tracing our family tree. We have since worked on it, and now the tree has 140 people on it dating back to 1837. It has been a lot of fun and I can't wait to find out more about our family!

Emma ate spaghetti and meatballs! Classic and delicious.

I chose the Maccaroni al Forno. An amazing mixture of rigatoni pasta with spicy sausage and goat cheese. It was huge and I could not finish it all!

Mom got the Penne al Pollo, which had artichoke hearts, chicken, cherry tomatoes, in a light cream sauce. Like mine it was huge and she could not finish it, but she loved it nonetheless.

Lastly, Dad and Nonno got the gnocchi with sausage and mushrooms. I'm not a big fan of either gnocchi or mushrooms, but I got to say that it was pretty good! Not something that I would order for myself. 

Even after all of that we could not say no to dessert! Mom, Nonno, and I got cappuccino, while Dad got his usual double espresso. We got two tiramisus to split between the four of us (Emma does not like tiramisu) and it was so good! I love tiramisu. I have made it many times and I have had it at many restaurants. My french host mother even made me a speculoos tiramisu! Out of all of those tiramisus, this one is in the top five. It had a really good coffee flavor, that can be lost with the mascarpone filling and chocolate.

We then walked by the harbor before heading back home! All in all another very successful meal in the North End.

See you next time,

Kara