Tanya McGinnity

Zero 8 was the scene of the crime where the deed was done. It’s a Montreal-based allergy-friendly restaurant that delivered on taste and service. Everyone was so impressed with their dishes and some were struck by the magnitude of the cote de bouef which was compared to that as seen in The Flintstones.

The meatness

It’s no easy feat to feed a crowd of folks well, provide exceptional service and allow the bride and groom to play some pretty loud punk rock towards the end of the evening. The team at Zero 8 went above and beyond in providing us with a memorable occasion and left our guests convinced that this restaurant is well worth returning to again in the future.

The drinkness

The decor of the restaurant is very zen (a complement I don’t give out that often and reserve mainly for zen centres!) and features a bar area that is a giant ‘Z’ which could have been made by a woodsmith version of Zorro.

The Z-ness

The kitchen overlooks the space, but didn’t interfere with the activites in the main dining room, but allowed us to peek in just enough to see what the cooking team were up to.

Menu-wise, we chose to have a mix of dishes to ensure that there was something for everyone. Starters consisted of an endive salad that introduced a new love affair for endives for many of our guests, a warm mushroom and artichoke cassolet and a carrot ginger soup.

Mains were the aforementioned monsterbeef, duck confit and a veggie pesto corn pasta dish which alarmed those who had it without being privvy to it being known that it was corn and not wheat pasta.

Dessert was an orange rice pudding. Now don’t turn up your nose. My description isn’t doing it justice as it was far more complex that I’m making it out to be. I’ll let this photo do the talking.

The team at Zero 8 were fabulous and truly understand that customer service and exceptional food are essential to a restaurant. We noticed that they tucked away a card for us signed on behalf of their staffers congratulating us on our marriage and served us up some champagne on the house as thanks for booking with them.

To close out this rather long post, please drop by Zero 8 if you are in the St. Denis zone and try them out, or be sure to recommend them to any of your allergic friends or those with kidlets with food allergies. It’s important to support local businesses and especially those that are doing such good in the allergy friendly community. I recently watched a news report where a woman was there having a birthday meal with friends and she raised her glass in toast to all of the other folks in the room who also had allergies. Now talk about inclusion.

*****All photos by Taran Matharu

Warning… Long post filled with wedding gushiness…Part 1 of a series

I just recently got hitched a few weeks ago and I’m still getting used to checking off ‘married’ in any forms that I fill out. It just feels so foreign but not in a wrong way. Just in that kind of way when you take on a new role and you set up your sig file.

How romantic.

Speaking to the romantic in me, I had made a vow to myself to keep my grubby hands from posting Tweets about my wedding every 5 minutes. As tempting as it was to share every single heart-bursting, teary-vowed moment, being in the moment with friends and loved ones (as well as the new mister) was more important to me than I could sum up in any 140 character blurb.

OK. So I did check my Twitter feed during supper. And I did tweet once…Proof to the social web that the deed was done.

And it was a pretty good sign that the next day, I had the following tweet..

Beyond all of this lack of tweeting, webstreaming, powerpoint presenting or flickrering up the whole event, getting married really illustrates the power of community. Bringing people together to meet, reconnect and get to know new faces really does illustrate how community is at the center of getting married. I could really have titled the ceremony WedCamp!

Working with some great folks in putting together the wedding ceremony was another area where I got to see some big-heartedness in action. It’s been amazing to work with exceptional folks who provided top notch service, products and helped me to pull off the biggest of any event that I’ve ever put together.

It’s important for me to give thanks to these folks and to also help others discover some great people who have gone above and beyond in helping me out. I can’t thank them enough.

Taran Matharu was our photographer and he was a true professional. He knew how to work our room and brought out the best in everyone. He definately wasn’t one of those annoying wedding photographers that would constantly stick their camera in the faces of the guests. He was a chameloen and fit in perfectly with our family and guests. Taran is highly recommended. I’ll be sure to post some photos soon enough… but here’s one for now.

Part 2 of this post will follow shortly. I started writing it and realized it’s turning into a monster post!