Eat Here Before you Die!

This next restaurant in the "Eat here before you die" segment is known as the "Nose" but it's true full name Gio Rana's Really Really Nice Restaurant (so named by the owner's daughter).

It is located on Queen Street East in Leslieville, Toronto, Ontario and there is no sign in the front of the building to indicate it is a restaurant. Oh no, there is only a NOSE!

This kind of makes sense if you think about it. Why do we need to see a garish sign when all we want is for our senses to be tantalized when we dine out? I had driven by this place countless times and always wondered what this business was. Well, I got to find out when my boyfriend at the time took me there for dinner. He had gone once with some friends and raved about it so we checked it out.

The Nose is hip and unique with too many special Italian inspired dishes to name. The decor is fresh, funky and kind of reminds me of a flee market which I am sure is hard to picture, but it works.

 Calamari fried to perfection!

 Decor, like I said it's shabby chic

Almost anytime I see carpaccio on a menu, I HAVE to order it

I have mixed emotions about this place as this was the first time I had dined there and like I mentioned it was with my BF at the time. By the repetition of "at the time" I am sure you can surmise that we are no longer together. On this cold damp Saturday night, we had taken a cab to this place to have a nice dinner. And nice it was.... we had wine, great food that I will never forget and we had what I thought was a fabulous time. I even treated him to this meal because I had enjoyed myself so much. Well that was the last dinner that we would have together. You see, this was a long distance relationship (that lasted on and off for over a year), I lived in Kingston and he lived in Toronto. Not only that but I travelled all the time for work. After this amazing dinner, I stopped hearing from him altogether. After about a month of very cryptic texts & emails, no phone calls or plans to see each other again, I had reached out one last time just to tell him that I gotten the non-verbal message that it was over. I told him that the LEAST he could have done was to actually break it off with me rather than taking the cowardly way out. I also said that he would not hear from me again. So that was that. To my surprise he actually replied that he was sorry and that the long distance wasn't working out for him. He knew he should have broken it off in person or over the phone but that he didn't want to hurt my feelings (ummm, thanks?!). 

Now we were not Teenagers when this happened. We were both in our 30's and yes Ladies, this shit still does happen even at that age. But I don't look back on this night at the "Nose" with regret or sadness, it was still a great time; I have moved on and been taught a lesson that any guy that would treat you this way is so undeserving of your time and effort. I am happy that I didn't spend one more second with a person that was so immature and selfish and if any of you have experienced something similar I hope you can feel the same way.

Wow, how did this post turn into a therapy session? Anyways, break-up aside, this is STILL one of my favourite restaurants in Toronto and I hope you can experience it for yourself when you are there!