Dinner at the Irish Embassy

Despite the name, I was not invited to a state dinner. Irish Embassy Pub & Grill is a restaurant at 49 Young Street in Toronto, just at the edge of Toronto's financial district, and around the corner from the Hockey Hall of Fame.


I suspect the Irish Embassy to be part of a chain of restaurants after a quick Google search appeared to show a Montreal location. However, it didn't appear to have the typical trappings of a chain. What it did have was a simple, hearty menu, high ceiling, and stone floor. I chose the fish and chips.

The Silo

The Silo in Lewiston, NY was featured on Man vs. Food. I stopped in for lunch on my way to Toronto. My burger and onion rings were great. The restaurant is right on the Niagara River, downstream from Niagara Falls. It was cold and windy during my visit. I plan to visit The Silo again in summer to get the full experience and sample more of their menu.

Toronto: Fighting the commuter tide

It's 4pm, and as the work day ends, I'm walking north through the PATH system under downtown Toronto's office towers. Moving south towards me is a seemingly unending flow of human beings. This is the commuter migration home. At the southern end of the tunnel system is the main rail station. I imagine most of these downtown workers are going home by train. Like the tide, tomorrow morning the flow will be reversed as they make their way back to their highrise desks and cubicles.

A-Club Rewards Points

Readers will recall I spent two months staying at the Novotel in Hyderabad, India last year. Novotel is part of Accor Hotels. Knowing I would be spending 54 nights at the hotel, I joined their A-Club rewards loyalty program. Doing so resulted in gold status and over 14,000 points. Now the question how to reap rewards.

There are few hotels in the United States where I could enjoy my gold status or redeem points. Accor is primarily a European chain of hotels, and their main brand in North America, Motel 6, is not part of the A-Club rewards program. There are a couple choices in New York City, but I decided to look closer to home. I found a Novotel in downtown Toronto, Canada within driving distance of my home in Rochester, NY, and withing walking distance of many sites in Toronto. So now I'd found a where, but still had to figure out how to redeem points.

I've never redeemed hotel points before, but A-Club made it very simple. There are no tiers or blackout dates as I'd imagine in other programs. Instead, A-Club let's you trade in points for vouchers that you simply use to pay your bill at a participating Accor hotel. Every 2,000 points is worth $60, so I got $420 in value for 14,000 of my points. That will cover the better part of three nights at the Novotel in Toronto. I simply logged into www.a-club.com, chose to redeem for vouchers, and selected how many points to redeem. Moments later, my order had been processed and I opened a PDF file with seven $60 vouchers and printed them.