200 Toronto Things - (11) art, (12) food and drink walk in Parkdale

One of the things I like to complain about - beer meetups have become less interesting. Don't get me wrong - I like hanging out at bars. But when it starts becoming the only thing I do - then I become boring, and consequently, bored with myself.

To counter, I did a bit of prep work, and set up an Art, Food and Drink walk in Parkdale, fueled by the news that the Rhino had received a keg of 10 Bitter Years. The plan was that we start at Mocca, wander down to Bacchus Roti, and end up at the Rhino.


It was a lovely plan - on paper. In real life, I got to Mocca, found it closed, and had to devise alternate plans. We ended up wandering into Propeller instead.

Propeller is fun and eclectic. There was a great variety of art on display - traditional paintings, mixed media, threadless embroidery, photographs, you name it. (There was this cool photo which had an old image of Toronto overlaid with a new image of Toronto - so you'd see a black-and-white image of someone in the 50s or 60s, overlaid with a color image of someone today. I'm describing it poorly, but it was pretty cool.)

Once we were done with Propeller, we walked over to Bacchus. What a good call! My spinach, chickpea and squash roti was delicious. I would happily eat this every single day. 

Stuffed up with carbs, we then wandered over to the Rhino, where Beau's was having a beer release party. I drank a Beau's Double-wide IPA, some 10 Bitter Years, and ended up with the Nutcracker Porter. (Half-pints of each, else I'd have never gotten home.)

Yes. Definitely worth the effort, I feel like I had a fun evening out, and it wasn't only about ending up in a bar. Always good. Must do more of this kind of beer event.

200 Toronto Things: (9) Tibetan food and (10) fancy wine in Parkdale

Wednesday night (Jan 18) found me on the phone to a friend. "Want to go eat Tibetan food?"

Ok, here's how this came about. Way back in the far reaches of time (November 2010), I went to a Tibetan restaurant with a meetup group. Making my way there, I found that in the Queen/Landsdowne neighborhood, there's a string of 3-4 Tibetan restaurants (and possibly grocery stores) - which made this a mini-Tibetan-neighborhood. I love mini-neighborhoods! I resolved to come back and...

...never did.

Clearly, a problem worth fixing under the 200-Toronto-things umbrella. So, it was back to Om. 

I wish I'd taken a photo of the food. We got vegetarian momos (delicious!) and a noodle soup. I liked the momos better than the soup, but both were pretty good. And bonus - we split a 1/2 litre of red wine (drinkable, nothing spectacular) for $9.99. I love cheap wine. (I'm sure that if I were a wine drinker, I'd feel differently about cheap wine. But, my palette does not know the difference, and so, I'm happy with cheap.)

The cheap wine is a good lead-in to the next step. Walking back from the Tibetan place, we passed Bar Salumi.

 We were drawn in due to the eclectic decor (I asked, the meat hanging from the ceiling is real). The wine list was small and expensive (cheapest glass was $9). I had a very nice red from Languedoc, pricey at $10, but delicious.

Parkdale is interesting. It's gentrifying, and so places like Bar Salumi sit cheek-to-cheek with CAMH, soup kitchens and convenience stores. In a few years, there'll be no more room for soup kitchens, and $10-$12 for a glass of wine will become the norm. And more's the pity - cheap is often good, and not every glass of wine and every meal needs to be transformational - there is room in life for table wine and comfort food.

PS: I actually woke up bright and early on the 14th, and headed to Chagall, the St. Lawrence Market, and a diner serving some delicious apple cake. But, unfortunately, sans camera. It isn't that these don't count - the exploring mind-set is important - but I'm keeping official count for the ones where I have a photo. Don't know why, really. That's just how I roll.

200 Toronto Things: (7) Chagall at the AGO and (8) coffee at the French Cafe

I finally did see Chagall on Jan 8, and also on Jan 14.

On Jan 8, the parents, Madhav and me met up at Ka Chi (the Korean restaurant), since the parents hadn't eaten there. Once we were done eating, we split up - Madhav and me went to the AGO, the parents went to the ROM.

Chagall was really quite busy, but being a member did actually help this time - we were whisked ahead in a separate line (Predictably, Madhav loved this. Actually, who am I kidding, so did I.) The exhibit itself was pretty nice - a lot of Chagall, displayed alongside a lot of his contemporaries.

Photos to follow.

Most museums structure their exhibits this way - to tell a story of what's going on at the same time that influenced the artist. I'm not opposed to this method of storytelling, but I much prefer the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam - where the focus was just Van Gogh, and it showed clearly the evolution of Van Gogh as an artist. (I'm assuming that this was possible with Van Gogh since he didn't really sell any of his work, and the museum was actually set up by members of his family. Presumably, this is less possible for a more successful artist.)

Once we were done with Chagall, I retreated to the French Cafe across the street for warmth and a cup of coffee. Interesting place, the French Cafe. It's got sandwich-type food, adequate but unfancy coffee, and seemed very much owned by a person, not a company. (There's a bit of generic in company-owned coffee shops - this one had eclectic art, plants, a fireplace and an odd assortment of chairs and tables. It felt real.)

All in all, a fun and productive Sunday afternoon.

200 Toronto Things: (4) a play, (5) rotis and (6) another grocery store

I've lived in Toronto for a few years, but have never made it to the Fringe festival. It isn't Fringe time, but as an offshoot, the Next Stage Theatre Festival is on. Friday night, I headed to see a play at the Factory Theatre.

I saw Hyponogogic Logic, which my tongue kept tripping over. (Hypnogogic - just sounds weird, doesn't it?)

 The play was pretty funny. It started slow, and I was afraid it would be terrible, but it picked up, and was quite fun. $15 well spent.

Before heading to the play, I stopped to eat rotis at Gandhi.

Gandhi is widely considered to be delicious, and it really, really is.

 

 I got the mixed vegetable roti. (So, once upon a time, I swear these rotis were bigger. They've gotten smaller. Still enough for two meals, though.)

After dinner and the play, I was wandering on Queen West, and spied the new Loblaws. Curious, I went in.

This is the famed wall of cheese. Kind of like Amsterdam.

 The grocery store was very fancy, especially since I'm used to my crappy Metro. There was a bread wall, a cupcake wall, and a wall of other random products that I originally thought was a pasta wall, but it wasn't.

200 Toronto Things: (3) a grilled cheese sandwich

I don't eat lunch at restaurants on workdays very often, mostly because I live 10 minutes from work, and eating out all the time is neither healthy nor cheap.

When I do eat out, I tend to default to the same few choices - the Chinese place in the concourse (I'm sure it has a real name, I have no idea what it's called), Jaipur Grille (where after many attempts, the staff have okayed me getting chai instead of pop as part of my meal) and Hannah's.

But in the spirit of exploring, and motivated by the 200-Toronto-things challenge, I tried a new place for lunch, the Construction Site.


The Construction Site opened in December. It took the place of sad, lamented (by me) Druxy's, where I could get a grilled cheese sandwich, with spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, black olives and onions for under $5.

I mention the prices, because look at the menu, for heaven's sake. The idea of paying close to $10 for a grilled cheese sandwich is ludicrous. (I paid $7, which is still utterly ridiculous.)


The sandwich was tasty, the chips were tasty, but definitely not worth it - I had all the required ingredients to make the sandwich in my refrigerator.

But one bonus. They messed up my sandwich order, causing me to wait a bit for my sandwich. To apologize for the wait, they gave me a coupon for a free sandwich. Maybe I'll try the fungi with it? (Hmmm. It seems to have already expired. I wonder if I will get to use it at all.)


Worth adding: I ran into someone I knew (not through work) at the grilled cheese place. Yesterday, I ran into someone I knew (through beer) at the grocery store. What the heck? Do I actually know that many people? (Worth mentioning: with my usual terrible ability to remember people's names and faces, I didn't remember either of them. Worth adding: It's not entirely my fault, I meet too many people.)

200 Toronto Things: (1) Korean food and (2) new grocery store

So, one of the 2012 resolutions is to do more things in Toronto. Specifically, 200 Toronto things.

I did two last night - Ka Chi (Korean restaurant) and Lucky Moose (Chinese grocery store).

The original plan was to head to the AGO to see the Chagall exhibit with Madhav on a members-only night. But alas, the AGO was ridiculously crowded (they have a lot of members, evidently!) and we decided to bail and get dinner instead. (Well, we looked around at the AGO for 15 minutes, but I can't count 15 minutes in a museum as a Toronto-thing. Even if I want to.)


So, we wandered over to a Korean place that Madhav really liked, Ka Chi (in Chinatown).


Madhav was jonesing after the Bibimbap, and that sounded pretty good, so I did the same thing.


It came with a bunch of small sides - yum! There was seaweed salad, some kind of yummy potato thing, kimchi, bean sprouts... all kinds of awesomeness.


Very yummy.

After dinner, since I was in Chinatown anyway, I wanted to check out Lucky Moose. I've seen it a countless number of times, but the Chinese grocery stores I typically go to are on Spadina, not Dundas. (I'm not sure why.)


But, Lucky Moose was a bit anti-climatic. It was too clean, that was the problem - it was more like T&T, and less like the chaotic Chinese grocery stores I'm used to. There was a lot of products that were more Western. I didn't stay long, just bought a handful of veggies and left. (Madhav would probably love it though.)

On my way home, I popped into Volo, on impulse, since the beer meetup was meeting there. Again, for anyone else, Volo would be a Toronto-thing, but for me, since I'm at Volo *all* the time, it hardly counts.