Things to do in Toronto

[bao]

I will be in Toronto for a weekend at the end of this month, and knowing that there are a handful of Toronto-based ASTers, I was hoping to tap into your collective brain.

I used to travel to Toronto a lot as a child, but have not been back since, so perhaps going to the top of the CN Tower, or spending a day running around Fort York, or visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame will not hold the same powers they once did. Specifically, I am interested in good food and good bars (Arch and Harry?), and my companions are interested in good shopping areas. I would love to hear about some good or unique day-time activities. Anything, really. Of course, if there is good comedy to be seen, that would be great to know, too (Nick? Sherilyn?).

Thank you sincerely in advance. I can't wait to hear your suggestions (especially for what to eat).

PS We will be staying Downtown West, and are quite mobile, so any neighborhood works.

PPS Hey, where can I find the nearest Caribbean festival?

[Harry B]

I will be in Toronto for a weekend at the end of this month, and knowing that there are a handful of Toronto-based ASTers, I was hoping to tap into your collective brain.

I used to travel to Toronto a lot as a child, but have not been back since, so perhaps going to the top of the CN Tower, or spending a day running around Fort York, or visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame will not hold the same powers they once did. Specifically, I am interested in good food and good bars (Arch and Harry?), and my companions are interested in good shopping areas. I would love to hear about some good or unique day-time activities. Anything, really. Of course, if there is good comedy to be seen, that would be great to know, too (Nick? Sherilyn?).

Thank you sincerely in advance. I can't wait to hear your suggestions (especially for what to eat).

PS We will be staying Downtown West, and are quite mobile, so any neighborhood works.

PPS Hey, where can I find the nearest Caribbean festival?

When I get a minute I'll give you a detailed rundown but just wondering where abouts you'll be staying?

What kind of bars do you like? Are you looking for cheap eats midrange or something fancier?

[bao]

When I get a minute I'll give you a detailed rundown but just wondering where abouts you'll be staying?

What kind of bars do you like? Are you looking for cheap eats midrange or something fancier?

We're staying at the Sheraton (not sure what street). I'm not really picky on bars -- just no clubs and no leprechauns or shamrocks on the wall. I guess I don't really want to travel to visit a dive (we've got plenty here) ...

Food: probably cheap to midrange lunch; midrange to expensive dinner. And importantly, I LOVE breakfast and brunch. And no vegetarians in the group, either. All genres are welcome -- my most vivid memories of Toronto take place eating in Chinatown.

Thanks again!

[Harry B]

Okay, you're right downtown. I'd head out and travel West along Queen stopping in Chinatown then to Kensington Market further up Queen West to Ossington for a walking tour. Food in the area is plentiful.

In Kensington Market you can go into any of the little Latin stores and get stuff like El Gordo Empanadas (40 varieties), Segovia meats (chorizo, grilled chicken, chili), Perola's (tacos), Emporio Latinho (tacos, pupusas, tamales, churros). Great for grabbing and walking around with. There's also a Tapas place called Torito in the market that is a good place for a nice dinner.

www.toritorestaurant.com

For a more expensive meal there's a place a walk from your hotel called Nota Bene that is really good.

www.notabenerestaurant.com

Even more expensive and near you is Canoe. It's on the 54th floor and has a pretty amazing view. Pricey though.

http://www.oliverbonacini.com/canoemovie.html

If you like seafood you're also close to:

http://rodneysbybay.com/

A bit of a trek from the hotel I'd recommend The Harbord Room for bistro type fare:

www.theharbordroom.com

or Splendido for contemporary menu:

www.splendido.ca

or Chiado for amazing, amazing Portuguese food and a ridiculous wine list:

www.chiadorestaurant.com

For a more casual dinner Julie's Cuban is good and has a great little patio:

www.juliescuban.com

And the Black Hoof is an awesome charcuterie place. The menu is always changing but everything I've had has been really good.

http://www.martiniboys.com/Toronto/B...of-review.html

I have to run into a meeting but I'll get back to you with some other places.

[Harry B]

Okay, other places:

Right outside your hotel is a blue chip truck that has good poutine.

For bars Queen and Ossington is a good strip with a lot of different options. It's West of Chinatown.

Sweaty Betty's
Painted Lady
Crooked Star
Communist's Daughter
The Ossington
Baby Huey
The Dakota Tavern

There are also some good restaurants on that strip of Ossington too.

Libretto is a nice pizza place that serves traditional Neopolitan pizza cooked in a wood fired oven at 900 degrees so it has a nice charred thin crust. I usually get the calamari and romesco to start since it's delicious.

www.pizzarialibretto.com

Foxley is a Pan-Asian place. The short ribs are super-amazing.

http://www.torontolife.com/guide/res...tional/foxley/

For Pho Golden Turtle is good.

[Harry B]

For Brunch

www.auntiesanduncles.ca is good and on College Street so you can hit them up then wander down through little Italy towards Ossington.

www.lapalette.ca is right in Kensington and has a nice patio.

www.theprague.ca opens early and is right on Queen street past Kensington.

Mitzis on Sorauren is really good. It's a little off the beaten path. It's off of Queen Street further West, close to Roncesvalles.

How familiar are you with Toronto? I'm making references to a lot of neighbourhoods and can give you more specific info if need be. Here's a link to Kensington market. It's a short walk from your hotel.

www.kensington-market.ca

[bao]

How familiar are you with Toronto? I'm making references to a lot of neighbourhoods and can give you more specific info if need be. Here's a link to Kensington market. It's a short walk from your hotel.

1. This is insane. You are awesome.

2. One of the friends I'm traveling with knows Toronto on a neighborhood level, so I have an interpreter of sorts.

3. This is insane. You are awesome.

[Harry B]

No problem. Glad to help.

For shopping I'd recommend Yorkville and the boutiques all along Queen West.

http://www.bloor-yorkville.com/01shop.asp?category=19

Kensington market has tons of vintage shops, as does Ossington.

Trinity-Bellwoods is a nice park along Queen West. There's a good fish and chips place across the street and a couple of good cafes. So grab some fish and chips or a coffee and a croissant and have a picnic. There are some festivals and stuff in there on occasion as well.

http://www.trinitybellwoods.ca/

Where are you coming from and which weekend? There is usually some sort of festival or something going on somewhere.

I'm sticking to my part of the city with these reccos but the Distillery District is good to walk around in as well. It's East of where you're staying.

http://www.thedistillerydistrict.com/

If you're doing any cooking or anything St.Lawrence Market is awesome for grocery shopping. I could spend all day there.

http://www.stlawrencemarket.com/

Oh, another restaurant. Caplansky's Deli. Traditional deli and amazing poutine. They are currently changing locations but should be open soon again. It's on College Street near Kensington Market.

Since we're on College Street now Sidecar has great cocktails and good food.

www.sidecarrestaurant.ca

And Grace is a nice restaurant with really good food too.

www.gracerestaurant.ca

[Nickflans]

PPS Hey, where can I find the nearest Caribbean festival?

Caribana just ended but Raekwon The Chef had a great time there, so that's good. There is really awesome caribbean food in Toronto. If you head up to the St.Clair and Bathurst area you can go to an old-school place called Albert's, but there are lots of good rotis elsewhere as well- Ali's at Queen and Jamieson in Parkdale(1446 Queen West) is great, as is Ghandi Roti at Queen east of Bathurst(554 Queen West). Harry made lots of good recommendations but I would also say head to Bloor and Christie street if you're interested in mid-range, tasty Korean food. There's also a great El Salvadorean burrito/taco place called Tacos El Asador.
Lots of sweet food here for those with mouths and tastebuds.

For incomplete show listings of live music stuff in town, go here and if you want to check out info our alternative weeklies, they can be found at www.eyeweekly.com and www.nowtoronto.com

As far as comedy shows, we have weekly sunday shows under the Laugh Sabbath banner on sundays. If you're there august 30th it will be Hour of Power, and the 23rd is some sort of 'best of'. There's also Sunday Night Live, a sketch show, at Comedy Bar. Recent guest hosts there have included Andy Kindler and Jerry Minor. Also at Comedy Bar is a really entertaining improv show called Catch 23 every friday. Definitely worth seeing. Comedy Bar is definitely a venue to check out, and it's across from an awesome Churresqueira restaurant and near a great middle eastern place called the Empire and a bunch of good Ethiopian restaurants and a pawn shop, in case you need to sell a guitar you steal from one of our many shitty buskers.

OK i'm gonna go outside now.

[bao]

Just back from Toronto. Thanks, Harry, you're suggestions were awesome.

Loved Rodney's (though I think we went to the one downtown). Really great place to order round after round of oysters and drinks, and spend a couple of hours. My friends absolutely loved it. I'm not a huge oyster guy, but I had a ton of fun.

Loved Pizzeria Libretto. The pizza is absolutely delicious, as is the calamari, though we went at 10:00 on saturday and it was packed. Absolutely packed. To the point of uncomfortability. But the pizza more than made up for it. Really well-priced, too. If I lived in Toronto, I would be here too often.

Like dicks, we went to the St. Lawrence market on sunday, and were left with nothing but toe nail clipper collections and antique time pieces to look at. I really wanted to smuggle some goods across the border ...

Aunties and Uncles kinda sucked. The web page said it was voted best brunch in Toronto every year since Jesus was a baby, but it was utterly mediocre. However, we did go to brunch at some place called the Jamie Kennedy Experience ... apparently Jamie Kennedy is a celebrity chef in Canada ...? Anyway, the placement of Mr. Kennedy's face and name all over the restaurant made me mildly ill, but the food was really, really great. Though expensive as hell for breakfast.

We found a great tequila bar on Ossington called Reposado. Perfect for a saturday afternoon -- nice patio, lots of tequilas, great mixed drinks. My inner greaser wouldn't allow me to walk past, and my inner Scotsman wouldn't allow me to walk out, unassisted. At about 7:00 pm.

Anyway, it was really great, and the food was really great (we had awesome, enormous Rotis at Gandhi's). We had to pick up our dog on Sunday night, so we couldn't stay for any shows.

I hope that this thread can be of service to someone else in the future. Thanks, guys.

[Harry B]

Just back from Toronto. Thanks, Harry, you're suggestions were awesome.

Loved Rodney's (though I think we went to the one downtown). Really great place to order round after round of oysters and drinks, and spend a couple of hours. My friends absolutely loved it. I'm not a huge oyster guy, but I had a ton of fun.

Loved Pizzeria Libretto. The pizza is absolutely delicious, as is the calamari, though we went at 10:00 on saturday and it was packed. Absolutely packed. To the point of uncomfortability. But the pizza more than made up for it. Really well-priced, too. If I lived in Toronto, I would be here too often.

Like dicks, we went to the St. Lawrence market on sunday, and were left with nothing but toe nail clipper collections and antique time pieces to look at. I really wanted to smuggle some goods across the border ...

Aunties and Uncles kinda sucked. The web page said it was voted best brunch in Toronto every year since Jesus was a baby, but it was utterly mediocre. However, we did go to brunch at some place called the Jamie Kennedy Experience ... apparently Jamie Kennedy is a celebrity chef in Canada ...? Anyway, the placement of Mr. Kennedy's face and name all over the restaurant made me mildly ill, but the food was really, really great. Though expensive as hell for breakfast.

We found a great tequila bar on Ossington called Reposado. Perfect for a saturday afternoon -- nice patio, lots of tequilas, great mixed drinks. My inner greaser wouldn't allow me to walk past, and my inner Scotsman wouldn't allow me to walk out, unassisted. At about 7:00 pm.

Anyway, it was really great, and the food was really great (we had awesome, enormous Rotis at Gandhi's). We had to pick up our dog on Sunday night, so we couldn't stay for any shows.

I hope that this thread can be of service to someone else in the future. Thanks, guys.

That sounds like a pretty good tour. Glad you had fun. Weird about Aunties and Uncles though. Maybe an off day, or something has changed. I haven't been in a little while since I moved out of the neighbourhood though.

I'm not surprised Libretto was slammed, that's a busy strip.

Come back soon!

[Harry B]

Bumping this thread for Darryl Duffy. I'd also like to add Black Hoof Cafe at Dundas and Ossington for an excellent brunch. My new favourite spot in the city. If you want to catch a movie there is a new Toronto International Film Festival theatre that opened that is pretty impressive and shows interesting films, from classics to new releases.

http://tiff.net/tiffbelllightbox

[bao]

Bumping this thread for Darryl Duffy. I'd also like to add Black Hoof Cafe at Dundas and Ossington for an excellent brunch. My new favourite spot in the city.

I was actually in Toronto again a couple of weeks ago, and I went to Black Hoof based on the picture of Harry's tongue sandwich in the food thread. It was excellent, and seemed like a cool place to sit for awhile if its not too crowded. Great eggs benedict, though the portions are a bit small (or I'm a bit big).

And, as if walking into a Canadian stereotype dream, I was seated at the bar next to Kenny Hotz.

[darrylduffy]

thanks Harry! if anyone else has any Toronto knowledge to add from their experiences with the city, I'd appreciate reading about it.