january blues fire side

Well here we are, mid winter, snow falling and temperatures plummeting..
A couple of nights ago, while feeling a touch of the January blues, I had to make a choice between two wintery night options.

1. Stay inside, preferably cozied up to the fire reading a good book and drinking a nice warm cup of herbal tea.
okay or more realistically parked in front of the t.v. with a glass of wine watching several hours of mind numbing (yet sadly comforting) episodes of Flipping Out on HGTV or Top Chef All Stars on the food network.
Love those shows!

or

2. Book a sitter and get the heck out of the house and go for dinner at a new restaurant just south of College St. with some good friends that I haven't seen in ages.
Guess what I decided to do?
So we went to Woodlot a great new restaurant on Palmerston.
It was the perfect place for a cold and crappy January night.
We sat on the second level overlooking the big wood burning stove and all the people below.
I love a bird's eye view.
The food was very good.
I had the smoked white fish and potato salad with watercress to start and the Red Fife papardelle with wild boar.
Big daddy had the salad (pictured above) and duck cabbage rolls with chestnuts and prunes.
Comfort food is an understatement. yum...
Casual, comforting, unpretentious and mostly local.
Great service too.
My kind of place.
They offer a vegetarian menu as well, which was handy as one of my friends doesn't eat meat.
My only criticism would be the wine menu.
Not that I'm an expert, but it would be nice to see more options by the glass, specifically local wines.
As a result of the lack of options we were "forced" (wink wink nudge nudge) to order that second bottle of wine....
Other than that, I loved it there and can't wait to go back again soon.

It was nice to catch up with some old friends/ work mates.
After dinner we ended up going to Reposado Tequila bar on Ossington.
Yes I said tequila.
Now that's a way to warm up on a cold winter night with some friends.
Bonus there was some very good live jazz playing there as well which is always nice.

I'm so glad we decided to go out mid week for a change of scenery.
I didn't really post a new year's resolution list, mostly because I don't really have anything specific in mind these days other than
the usual stuff that I'm always working on.
But I do want to get out more.
Both big daddy & I are fairly social, but in the winter it's so easy to become a hermit and not get out as often as we do during the rest of the year.
Nothing beats the winter blues like eating, drinking & laughing with friends.

That being said, can't wait to cozy up to the fire tonight with a good book.....or better yet, wonder what's on the Food Network tonight?