The Holidays in Toronto (so far...)

Barry and I woke up Monday morning at six, showered, threw the bags we packed the night before into the Liberty, hit the Shell station and were on the road by seven. The game plan was to have no game plan. No hotel reservations, no itinerary, we just decided that an adventure would be a fun gift to each other. A little over nine hours later we were tooling down Yonge in search of accomodations. Next thing we know, cops are everywhere, sirens wailing and traffic is now at a standstill. Later we would learn that we were at ground zero for the boxing day shooting that made the news.

Anyway, today I had lunch at Toronto's oldest diner...



It's just down the street fron the Marriott that we are staying at. I had meatloaf with mashed potatoes and tomato gravy. It was good and definitely hit the spot as I had spent all day looking for a cheap mini usb to usb cable to replace the one I left at home so I could upload pics...
Its quite gray, windy and cold out here...



The Senator
253 Victoria St (at Dundas)
Toronto, Ont. CA
M5B 1T8
416.364.7517



More to come....

Today, it is very gray and rainy outside...

One of the nice things about this trip was the chance to meet James, an Internet friend of mine in person for the first time. Originally from Saskatoon, he was visiting family and got back to Toronto last night. Since he lives a few blocks from our hotel, he swung down and we met in the lobby. Great guy, and we all hit it off.

We cabbed over to The Keg Mansion. It's a steakhouse chain, with US outposts, but James had worked for them off and on for 12 years and we were just going to have drinks.

The space is impressive; a turn of the century mansion. The bar on the second floor was comfortable and visually appealling. A perfect spot to talk with friends. Needless to say, we were comped quite a few...

Today we hit the market for the peameal bacon sandwich...


Tonight we hit the new and trendyKi where James now works.

Mansion Keg
515 Jarvis Street
Toronto, Greater Toronto
(416) 964-6609

So, it's still raining out. A few degrees colder and I'm sure there would be an impressive covering of snow. Since I got caught in the rain three times and Barry twice, we decided to just stay close for dinner and avoid another waterlogged sortie.

Around the corner is Spring Rolls. They have four locations and have won a lot of "awards". The space is very modern/minamalist and they were doing very brisk business. After we sat down, the line for a table had about thirty people waiting.

Anyhow, we started with the Spring Roll Platter...

(spring roll, shrimp roll, house spring roll, cold shrimp roll and mango salad)

Had some foo-foo martini's...


Barry had some hot and sour soup and some pad thai.

I had some wide noodles with chicken...


Everything was fresh and we both enjoyed it. The price was right too: 3 drinks, appetizer, one soup and two entees=$45.00 Canadian.

Spring Rolls
40 Dundas St W
Toronto, Ont.
416.585.2929

A couple of pics outside the market.



My friend tells me that there is a farmers market across the street during the Summer.



Say Cheese! Sadly didn't get many quality indoor market pics. Note to self...take pics first before buying things. Much easier than trying to juggle bags and camera in a crowd.

What did I buy?

A couple of blood oranges and some cherries from a fruit and veg stand in the basement, 3/4 of a pound of smoke meat, couple of rolls, some trail mix with the lovely name of "Beer Crunch", a bagel for Barry and some garlic brie cheese.

more to come...

Gerrard St. between Yonge and Church....
Looks like they have all the bases covered

delk wrote:Today we hit the market for the peameal bacon sandwich...

Delk,

Peameal bacon, hummmmmm, nice. Of the two sauces on the delicious looking sandwich one is mayo, what's the other?

Great Toronto pics, seems like you are having a very nice time.

Enjoy,
Gary

Gary,
It's a sweet and sour sauce on my friend's sandwich. Barry had ketchup and horseradish on his and I just had hot mustard on mine. There are several spots to purchase the sandwiches in the market, but my friend swears by Carousel. Essentially they are a bakery so the bun is excellent. He also claims that they use the most meat.

Happy New Years!

Steve

edited for a blatent name change...oops! I am on vacation....

Put Barry to sleep last night and headed out for a boozy boys night out with some friends. We all met up at O'Grady's for their weekly "Bear" night. Lousy space and too crowded, but the Molson's were cold and the conversation fun.

On the ten minute walk back to the hotel it started to snow. This morning I woke up to several inches of fresh snow making an already beautiful city all the more so.

Hooked up for brunch with pals Shawn and Jeff. They had a houseguest from Biloxi and another friend visiting from New Orleans. Kind of freaky to listen to first hand descriptions of Katrina. I can't imagine losing everything I own and being evacuated for several months.

Anyway, we went to Fire on the Eastside, a Southern styled restaurant that focuses on fresh ingrediants. It also has a huge club attached to it that was famously used in Showtimes "Queer as Folk".

I had a club sandwich that was quite nice. Shredded smoked chicken breast that was moist with peppery greens and chipotle mayo. Tangy! Barry had the Harvest Sandwich and the others all ordered omelettes.

Sadly, we only got to order off the brunch menu because everyone raves about the fried chicken that is offered on the dinner menu. The space was inviting, the music unobtrusive and the windows looked out onto some beautiful row houses. The swirling snow added the perfect note.

O'Gradys
Weekly Bear night on Fridays
518 Church Street
Toronto, Ontario
416.323.2822

Fire on the East Side
http://www.fireontheeastside.ca/
6 Gloucester St. (Yonge one block south of Bloor)
Toronto, Ontario
416.960.FIRE

Barry in front of the Spring Rolls restaurant...


Hot dog stand...love the owner's Polish name and the Mexican flag...made me feel like myself! lol

So....a couple days of Hannukah remains and Mr Barry is not only from Long Island, but Jewish as well, so we hit Shopsy's to get his Jew on...

The snow stopped, but it's a bit windy...


Of course, he started with Matzoh ball soup...

"Better than Ada's!" he said.

Open faced brisket for him...

Just like mom never made...

Smoke meat for me...

Flashback to '79 for me when I lived in Montreal...

We split an order of latkes...

Real crunchy the way Barry likes them..

And across the street is...

Although the scar on my right eyebrow thanks to Chris Chelios' high sticking will always be my personal Hockey Hall of Fame...

Shopsy's Deli
http://www.shopsys.ca/
33 Yonge St. (corner of Yonge and Front)
Toronto, Ont
M5E 1G4
416.365.3333

ps...look for the picture of Mary Tyler Moore handling sausage!

After working behind a bar for far too many years, the concept of New Years Eve as amateur night, sadly dovetails with all my worst experiences. I understand the night, I’ve worked the night and I’ve made serious bank, thanks to the night, but honestly, I prefer to just lay low these days. Truly, the only NYE that Barry and I ventured out was the Y2K year, when the thought of the world as we knew it would come crashing down thanks to lazy programming protocols.

Like the rest of the week in Toronto, the morning started with the breakfast buffet that was part of our nightly hotel charge. I haven’t mentioned this inclusion to our stay yet, but it really was uneventful. Unlike Barry, I’ve never been the kind of guy who can wake up and eat, but by the fourth day, the egg station person was getting my ‘sorta loose scrambled’ as if I actually cooked them. As usual, Barry enjoyed several trips to the various stations, always signaling his last trip with a mound of fresh fruit.

It was quite windy and snowing as we trotted up Yonge to Shawn’s apartment. Had it been colder, the previous two days of rain would have been an impressive snowfall. I’ve already posted about the brunch we had, so let’s move forward. The sword of Damocles that hung over Barry’s head this entire trip was the final papers he had yet graded. Nothing new, we decide to stay in for the night, and Barry got busy with his student’s ERISA endeavors.

Around 8 or so, I grab the yellow pages and turn to the P’s. A few of the pricey half page ads proudly claim to deliver to all the downtown hotels and I settle on Roma’s. Ordered a large sausage and a side of spaghetti for Barry. I’ve surely had better and worse, yet it all got eaten. The pizza was sliced in triangles and the crust was quite cornmeal crusty.

It started getting crazy loud outside around 11. Looking out of our tenth floor window it seemed like a parade was occurring. Massive amounts of people were milling towards City Hall, just a block away. City Hall , Finnish architect Viljo Revell’s successful competition winner is the bastard child of Netsch’s brutalist so-called vision and Goldberg’s senior housing on State and Archer. Two curving towers that hug a reflecting pond, the pond is a skating rink during the winter.
Flipping through the TV channels, we see a broadcast of the events a block away. What the hell, we think, let’s go and check it out. Riding the elevator down to the lobby we hear all kinds of screaming and shouting. When the doors open we are amused and embarrassed to see middle-aged white folks conga lining to Buster Pointdexter’s “Hot Hot Hot” throughout the lobby.

Since I am in Canada, I should pose in front of a Zamboni, right?


Shot of the crowd...


decorations...


and another view...


When we got back, the same middle-aged white folks were slow dancing to the Stones, "Start Me Up"....(yeah, I did have Windows 95 thoughts!)

I have to say, it was a fun trip. We look forward to doing it again this summer.

delk wrote:Hot dog stand...love the owner's Polish name and the Mexican flag...made me feel like myself! lol

i saw this hotdog stand new the CN tower? and was wondering if they served poutine (which i unfortunately missed during the entire 36 hr stay in TO) ?