Halloween

Last Saturday was an important day in our calendar. A day where we usually go all out with costumes, a huge party, and with much time spent decorating and cooking. This being our first Halloween in Toronto, things were a little quieter. Our temporary housing doesn’t have the space for much more than a small get-together and all of our (many) Halloween decorations are boxed up at the back of a storage locker. So we decided to get tickets to an event and a have nice dinner beforehand.

Scary good

Despite that headline, there was nothing scary about Byblos, although it was hard to believe how good dinner was. We've been dying to try it for months, and it didn’t disappoint.

We ate upstairs in their very chic dining room. The décor was a beautiful blend of classic and modern. Showpiece light fixtures hung down just about everywhere, giving it the feeling of some indistinct era of the past or perhaps the future.

The service was incredible. There is something special about any restaurant the exceeds expectation in the service department. Service can so easily make or break a dining experience—it can elevate mediocre food and ruin wonderfully prepared meals. But when it's attentive, friendly, never hovering, and exceptionally helpful...and the food is amazing, then you know you have a winner.  Which might be why Byblos is a hard place to get a reservation, especially on the weekends.

The cuisine is described as Eastern Mediterranean and consists of items from the Greek, Turkish, Lebanese, and Israeli culinary traditions. Our waiter wasted no time making us feel at home with the somewhat unfamiliar selection and was generous with his help and suggestions.

We started off with two incredible cocktails that surprised us with their fresh and original flavors. Then we ordered six plates to share between the two of us consisting mainly of a selection of appetizers. I could easily spend a few pages gushing about the food that greeted us, but I'll save you having to read through it all with some food porn pix.

 

 

One of David’s favorite things about the meal was that thought was put into how the food came out. The dishes we ordered were brought to us in sensible courses, rather than simply their placement on the menu. So we got our grilled octopus main before our lamb ribs and duck kibbeh appetizers. It was a small thing but it showed the level of care that Byblos puts into its food.

We were pretty full by the time we were done, but not so full that we weren’t tempted by the dessert menu and ordered a couple, which were pleasantly light and not overly sweet.

The Main Event

But the big event was the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The symphony’s airing of films with a live orchestra providing the score occurs fairly regularly and the week before they did the same with Back To the Future. If you have never been to one of these screenings, you should definitely take advantage. It is an incredible way to elevate a night out at the movies into an event. And you don’t even need to spend a lot on the tickets because at Roy Thompson Hall, there really isn’t any bad seats.

We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of concert goers (and performers!) who showed up in full costume. Jen regret not wearing hers, but only slightly as the theatre was on the warm side and would have been hot under a wig and extra garb.

The movie is a classic for a reason, even though a few out-dated lines generated laughs from the audience. But overall, seeing the beautiful 35mm print on the big screen play out the twisted tail of Norman Bates generated all the right amount of tension and creep that one could ask for.

Thoughts of next year

So that was our first Halloween in the big city and it already has us thinking of next year. We found out about the Toronto Public Library Foundation's Hush, Hush party a little too late to attend this time, but a Halloween party in a library...how can we say no to that.