Day 1 in Canada, or How much Asparagus can one man eat?

Yes, loyal readers, we are back!  Bob and Bing, Dorothy and Dorothy, and EH, all on week long trip to Canada (wine country, Toronto, and Stratford).

We stayed Friday night in Grand Island, NY, which is north and west of Buffalo, and lived up to its name.  Lots of very large homes facing the Niagara River.  Here's the river pic from our very nice Radisson hotel room:

Then to Canadian wine country.

First stop was Tawse (no, we still don't know how to pronounce it), which has a great view, in fact, thought he binoculars, you can see Toronto (the tower, etc) across the lake.  No picture I got does it justice.

There was significant tasting done, so much that Bing took a dive in the tasting room.  He seems to be all right.  Seems to be.

Next was Vineland Estates, where we had lunch.  No one was hungry but the food was so good.  We concentrated on dessert:

That's lemon curd torte with rhubarb ice cream.  EH had the courage to do it.

Then, after fighting Blue Jays game traffic (we are across the street from the Rogers Centre, where they play), we found our way to the apartment.  There were codes to get into the building, and parking to be found, etc.  Small adventure.

The next "thing" was dinner.  It was Bing and Barb's anniversary (I pointed out to the waiter that this was their story -- it seemed they milked the anniversary thing on us every year on a trip! Huh)...so we had sparkling wine.

Dinner, at Luma, a "block" (you know how Google is about this -- they clearly haven't walked it) from the apartment.

We ordered.  Bing ordered asparagus and asparagus and asparagus.  Okay, the soup of the day was cold asparagus; and there was a large side order of asparagus.  Here's the soup --

There were jokes about whether there was an asparagus dessert (crumble was suggested); discussion of the smell of pee (if you don't know, Google it).

And then some glorious desserts.  Here's the link to the pictures, but here's the lemon tart (yes, again), with appropriate message:

It was a good day one.  Weather report: it was 75 and sunny.  Lunch was out on the deck of the vineyard -- couldn't have been better.  BUT! every other day, except Wednesday, is supposed to be rainy.   And, if you are wondering (I'm sure you are), the Rogers Centre has a retractable roof, so we'll be dry for Josh Donaldson Bobblehead Day (if you don't know, google it!).   G'day, mate.