date night: oink oink

terms of conditions of date nights:

1. there must be one afternoon and/or evening a week reserved for spending quality time together.
2. the date must be a planned-in-advanced, meaning, being lazy and not wanting to cook dinner that night and therefore turning to husband and going “let’s do sushi tonight” and thereby going for sushi for dinner does NOT constitute as a date. similarly, surprising wife with a season of pushing daisies on blueray, however sweet the gesture, and then spending the rest of the evening watching it with her does not consititute as date night.
3. we will take turns planning date night.
4. date night activities should be thoughtful and fun.
5. each person has a $20/date budget. if dates cost more, it can come out of the next dates budget, however, a person cannot exceed spending more than $40 on dates in a month.

last week was daniel’s turn to plan and when he chose to go to black hoof for dinner, I was ecstatic. I’ve been wanting to try this restaurant for a very long time. since coming back from our parisian honeymoon, where much charcuterie plates were consumed, and doing a google searches of “toronto” and “charcuterie”. I was surprised that daniel was aware of the black hoof, but he must have had a similar nostalgia for parisian dining (he did mutter something about “paris” and “good times”) and conducted the same google search.

the restaurant opens at 6 and when we arrived, mere seconds before the opening hour, there was a already small crowd of people waiting outside for the doors to open. the restaurant is small and doesn’t take reservations so it is wise to arrive when the restaurant opens— the alternative is to wait an hour somewhere (there is not waiting area in the restaurant).

we ordered the large charcuterie plate, a long narrow wooden platter of ten items: foie gras, pate, duck liver mousse, chorizo, sopressata flecked with blueberries, duck prosciutto, calabrese and several other cured meats. surprisingly, we both really liked the foie gras and duck liver mousse—things we don’t usually like. the calabrese was our favourite- spicy and flavourful. it was a satisfying meal of salt and fat. mmmmmmmm.

(if any of you plan on dining at the black hoof, do invite me! daniel and I were there for the charcuterie plate, but I would very much like to try the tongue on brioche and raw horse sandwich!)