It’s been a long time since I’ve done any coding, but I sure wish Microsoft did this when I started my career. They offer Express Editions of many of their software development tools for free from their website. These are “stripped down” versions of their popular tools including Visual Basic 2008, Visual C#, Visual C++ and Visual Web Developer.

Rogers issued a press release today outlining the plans that go with the iPhone 3G. As expected, they are really expensive compared to the plans in the USA and the other parts of the world. What’s even more surprising that none of the plans come with unlimited data.

$60 gets you 150 minutes + unlimited Evening and Weekend
400 MB of data and 75 text messages

$75 gets you 300 minutes + unlimited Evening and Weekend
750 MB of data and 100 text messages

$100 gets you 600 minutes + unlimited Evening and Weekend
1 GB of data and 200 text messages

$115 gets you 800 minutes + unlimited Evening and Weekend
2 GB of data and 300 text messages

Crush Wine Bar opened a few years ago and quickly turned into one of my favorite restaurants. It had a great location on King just West of Spadina and close to the new (at the time) clubs. However, like most restaurants you need to “refresh” every once in a while and Crush recently closed for four weeks to “reboot” the restaurant. Both an interior redesign and new menu came out just a few weeks ago.

The new restaurant is very nice. They’ve made the restaurant less of an open space and more intimate. The menu was the most surprising change. They’ve moved from a French Provincial menu to a British Fare menu full of starters like London Particular and Potted Shrimp. Even Sheppard’s Pie was on the dinner menu and Bubble and Squeak available as a side dish. And yes, being not Bri’ish I needed all those dishes explained to me.

Portions were very generous. One of the group had the sirloin steak and it was a good healthy size, nice to see in a fine dining restaurant. The venison I had very extremely good – very tender and cooked a nice medium rare. Surprisingly, the venison was not as gamey as I remember it should have been – I’m guessing it was farm raised rather than wild.

The wine menu is extensive, as expected in a wine bar. They have great “wine sampling” selections on the menu which are served in small 2oz servings of special selections.

Overall Crush was a very enjoyable restaurant. The food was excellent and generously proportioned. I continue to recommend Crush Wine Bar.

Crush Wine Bar
455 King St. W.
Toronto, Ontario
416-977-1234

True Restaurant opened three weeks ago in the troubled location on the south side of Yorkville. It’s been home to at least 3 different venues in the last 5 years – none of them seem to last very long. However, we were in the neighborhood and the menu looked good. My friend felt like steak and they offered both a strip loin and a filet on the menu outside.

We got seated in the patio area which was nice. However, it is a bit noisy as it is located very close to the street. The roof overhead seems to magnify the sounds of passing noisy trucks. The interior of the restaurant is nice and has very cool colors – a very white palette.

Looking at the menu it was clear what this restaurant is focused on: organic foods. The wine list categorized all wines as organic, sustainable or biodynamic. All the foods listed as organic. My friend had the strip loin steak while I tried the lamb rack. Both came out cooked as requested and were quite tasty. Drinks were also very tasty (Mojito’s are perfect for the summer).

Overall a nice restaurant although service was a little bit uneven – this could be because it was only 3 weeks old. Hopefully they iron out the details and become more of a destination spot in Yorkville. Right now I would consider it more of an overflow restaurant when Sassafraz, etc. are full.

True Restaurant
69 Yorkville Ave.
Toronto, Ontario
416-925-8783

On Thursday, at Sporting Life, there is a sale on all Lacoste items, excluding solid basics.

As reported in an earlier post, Rogers has been cutting all the unique shows and attributes of CityTV – leaving what’s remaining to be just another local TV channel.

Today, this continued with the announcement that Ed the Sock is cut. Now, I’m not going to miss Ed, but he definitely was unique. I’m curious as to what is left that will attract any type of viewership away from specialty channels filled with American content.

Last year T&T supermarket opened their location downtown. It’s a bit further from downtown than the location suggests, it’s at the entrance to Cherry Street, off Lakeshore. It’s a fairly large sized T&T, maybe only a bit smaller than their location at Promenade Malls. It’s definitely not as busy as their other locations – you can find parking on the weekends!

As with all T&T’s, it’s clean and well-lit. There’s lots of chinese-specific groceries running from fresh fruits and vegetables to canned and dried goods. There’s a BBQ counter, fresh dim sum, sushi, and prepared dishes available near the front. Recently, I’ve noticed they’ve stocked the shelves with more Japanese and Korean groceries as well – this is a good addition. The butchers inside remain a good choice for getting cuts that are different that the “primes” you get at your local Loblaws.

T&T is always in my regular rotation of places to check out.

A reader wrote into the Toronto Star asking why all the wine reviews were between 88 and 91 in a 100 point system. The Star’s wine critic replied he seldom will taste a wine below 86 and goes on to say that in the 88 or up range he tasted, “more than 100 wines and eliminated 80 per cent of them as not being either highly rated or great value. It sometimes comes as a shock to realize that most of the wines I taste – even those priced from $30 to $100 – simply are not good enough to review in print.”

I’m surprised that he doesn’t feel the need to tell his readers about wines that are not good enough for him, or wines that are a terrible value. I think many wine consumers would find this information highly valuable especially to beginners. This isn’t a problem just in the Star, but of wine reviews of read all over. Let’s get some negative wine reviews!

Adega is located along the strip of restaurants that make up the south side of Elm St. between Yonge and Bay. It’s right beside the old Il Fornello location which is now renamed to “Thirty-Five”. My friend and I walked along the street looking at all the Italian restaurants and wanted something different. Adega was promising when it featured a very Portugese inspired menu and lots of seafood was offered.

Inside it was pretty dark, even though it was a really bright day outside. The windows are set back against an awning so it gives the restaurant a very intimate feeling. Very warm colors inside make it very comfortable.

The lunch menu was very nice, it was hard deciding but I eventually settled for the grilled calamari. It’s a good test since calamari needs to be cooked “just right”. When it arrived it was perfectly cooked, nice grill marks outside and tender inside. Lunch was served with a nice crusty, weighty slices of fresh bread and a nice olive oil. My friend had the smoked salmon fettucine and really enjoyed it.

Adega Restaurante
33 Elm Street
Toronto, Ontario
416-977-4338

There’s been speculation on HowardForums (best mobile site ever) from a user who thinks there will be two plans available:

$30 unlimited Consumer Data Plan
$45 Enterprise Data Plan (includes Exchange server support for push email)

If these are indeed the prices, that is an amazing offer by Rogers however we all know how Rogers likes to abuse the term “Unlimited”.

The thread was only created yesterday evening and is already at 15 pages.