Venue Review: La Maquette

Prettiest. Venue. Ever. Found on the south side of King St. at Church, the staff bend over backward to make the experience good, by all accounts the food is excellent and certainly it's well situated and voted one of the most romantic restaurants in the city. I've heard people note that it's not an inexpensive venue but I'm here to point something out: if what you want is elegant and pretty La Maquette has great value.

Consider this: one of the single best cost saving things a couple can do for their wedding, second only to limiting the guest list, is to have the wedding and reception in a reastaurant. No separate catering fee, no table rentals, no special occasions permit to aquire, no rental of linens, no hiring of staff and wondering if, transient workers that they can be, they'll show up. A restaurant is really the way to go: it's easy to arrange a tasting of the food, it's a known quantity, and all your costs are easier to determine and therefore less likely to bite you in the ass. Now, very swank restaurants can be pricier and certainly La Maquette is that. But it's also more than that - it's beautiful. Don't want to spend extra money on flowers or decoration? You don't have to. The interior is a work of art, at first seeming just quite pretty but on further examination the level of detail and depth to the quality of attention in it's design are truly breathtaking. Over the course of your event your guests will just get more and more impressed. The atmosphere is magnificent, the rooms open and inviting. No, I haven't had dinner there yet and will update this post once I do, but from the joy of couples I've seen married there and the quality of service I've seen on display I whole heartedly recommend it.

Bare Bones Marriage Ceremony for Ontario

For anyone wondering, this is what the marriage act requires. The spirit of it is covered in any general ceremony I do, but the actual language was requested by one couple ages ago. Here it is, dry as toast, from the Ontario Marriage Act:

I do solemnly declare that I do not know of any lawful impediment why I, AB, may not be joined in matrimony to CD,

Je déclare solennellement que moi, AB, je ne connais aucun empêchement légal à mon mariage avec CD,

and each of the parties shall say to the other:

I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, AB, do take you, CD, to be my lawful wedded wife (or to be my lawful wedded husband or to be my lawful wedded partner or to be my lawful wedded spouse),

Je demande aux personnes qui sont ici présentes d’être témoins que moi, AB, je prends CD comme légitime épouse (ou comme légitime époux ou comme partenaire conjugal légitime ou comme légitime conjoint(e)),

after which the person solemnizing the marriage shall say:

I, EF, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Marriage Act, do hereby pronounce you AB and CD to be married,

En vertu des pouvoirs qui me sont conférés par la Loi sur le mariage, moi, EF, je vous déclare mariés(ées), AB et CD.

Last nights dinner

We had a friend over for dinner, the kind of friend that only ever makes sense. In celebration we went kind of all out on the food front. Here's the menu:

Steaks - Dead, happy animals, not factory farmed BS. BBQ'd to rare. Only problem was I got too much meat for two people to eat. Not everyone felt this was a problem.

Potato - Kind of scalloped, but without cheese or flour. Sliced and layered local, organic spuds with onion, minced Ontario garlic, paprika, salt and pepper and a dab of Becel in every layer. Potato ends saved for the top to keep in moisture. Put in an enamel cast iron pot with lid and baked at 300 for 40 min, then 400 for 20 min. This turned out very, very nicely and will happen again.

Alt salad - No idea where I was going with this one at first, but it seemed like it might be tastey. Fried up some onion and red bell peppers until they were soft (onion first, bell peppers much later) in Becel. Steamed one sliced, pitted pear, skin left on. Steamed some slices of scrubbed (but not skinned) beets. Served very hot - bed of peppers and onion topped with beets, topped with pear and finally goats cheese which melted just slightly into the pear and beet. Fucking awesome. Will be doing this one again for sure.

Other salad - Just torn up organic lettuce, poor bastard. It was breakfast this morning, no one paid it any heed last night.

Veg - Asparagus, cleaned and chopped, tossed with olive oil and fresh cracked salt and pepper, BBQ'd in a steel wok. Still crunchy when served, this might be my new favorite way to have asparagus.

Wine - Normally I drink red, but last nights guest drinks white so I had to go outside my comfort zone in shopping. I picked a low range bottle of Le Clos Jordanne Chardonnay, cousin to a higher range bottle that had beat out wines from all over the world in a competition last year. Oh my goodness, it was good. Buttery, round and full of life. It had character and stories to tell. It told us about sun splattered days and shenanigans at the vineyard and we were highly entertained.

Now, our guest had brought a bottle as well so we moved on to another Chardonnay from Niagara, Peller Estates. Normally quite a palatable wine it was unremarkable by comparison, a relative wallflower. This drastic side by side goes to show that you can’t judge a wine by it’s region, ever. There’s so much more that goes into making wine, and people who go on at me about there being no good Canadian wines? Have simply not met the right one. Le Clos Jordanne – or Jordy as we like to call her – is welcome back any time.