El Catrin

El Catrin is a Mexican restaurant with a nice big patio and a roaring outdoor gas fire. It replaced the Boiler House in the Distillery District.












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Guu Izakaya

Here are some photos from Guu Izakaya, on Church St., just north of Gerrard. The best way to describe it would be Japanese tapas. It's essentially a bar with a lot of small tasty food items to go along with the drinks. A couple of interesting items we liked were the deep fried pumpkin croquette with a boiled egg inside, and of course my fav Japanese street food, Takoyaki a.k.a. deep fried octopus balls.


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Stay Awake with chocolate

We got this box of Awake caffeinated chocolate sent to us and I was debating whether or not an average tasting chocolate bar was worth writing about. But since it combined 2 of my daily food groups, Chocolate and Caffeine, I figured it's a notable product thinking "why didn't anyone come up with this before?"



Awake has 101 mg of caffeine in every bar. That's as much as a 20 oz coffee or 250 ml energy drink!

You might think "great, just what we need, another way to jack everyone up." Indeed the convenience store shelves are already busting out with caffeine delivery systems, but let's face it, there's a huge desire or need for these products in the market, and a caffeinated chocolate bar addresses a particular niche of that market.

I can think of a lot of uses for this. Sometimes too much coffee can be harsh on your stomach, with fizzy drinks even more so. You can't put a drink in your pocket, say when riding your bike, nor in the glove compartment of your car late at night. You might not need that much liquid anyway if you're trying to avoid frequent rest stops. As an aphrodisiac, well...

Awake plans to make a huge marketing push on college and university campuses, and the chocolate bars are already widely available. They use an owl named Nevile as their mascot and you can follow him on Twitter. Focusing on a cute mascot more than the product is an interesting approach like Porter's raccoon or the Geico gecko... there's even a Pinterest board with nothing but cute owls if you like cute owls.



About the product itself: It works.... very well! Don't scarf it down, and keep it away from your kids. Too much caffeine can make you anxious and irritable, but we know all of that already. I won't be consuming this too much, but I know there are a lot of caffeine fiends out there who need it for all-nighters either doing homework or writing reports, when hitting a brick wall at 3 in the afternoon, or just playing video games all night long. To all you folks, here's another arrow in your quiver... get it quiver :)


Posted by: Mark Rodas

The Bowery

Located at 55 Colborne St., The Bowery, a new ‘punk meets farm’ restaurant and bar (and soon to be live music venue) opened its doors on June 27th. Executive Chef Tawfik Shehata (currently also Executive Chef at The Ballroom and formerly of Vertical Restaurant) along with Chef de Cuisine Jason Maw (formerly of Starfish Oysterbed and Grill; Boba) have crafted a wonderfully local inspired menu heavily utilizing the five foot long custom charcoal grill situated in the open kitchen.











Posted by: Mark Rodas