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.