Toronto, Pt. 4: The Conclusion!
Morning in Toronto find us making our way to the familiar walls of Sneaky Dee’s. I have a feeling I would wind up here a lot if I were a local. You can’t exactly argue with the best nachos ever. And you certainly can’t argue with a $3.25 two-egg breakfast, complete with toast, hash browns, and choice of ham/sausage/bacon.
It was a pretty mellow day for a Friday. Timm took some time off at the hostel, and I wandered over to Dundas Square in the afternoon, the public plaza next to the massive Eaton Center mall. It wasn’t exactly thrilling, but it was a location to check off the Scott Pilgrimage list, so it merited a visit. The most interesting thing there was the human statue, so draw your own conclusions.
We wandered over to Cabbage Town, originally a ghettoized neighborhood that was later razed and replaced with posh Victorians. We were there basically to sightsee, despite the late hour, but ended up just grabbing some dinner at an absolutely delicious little pub called Brass Taps on one of the side streets. It had a very out-of-the-way neighborhood haunt feeling, with the waitstaff and regulars on a first name basis. Cheers-esque.
The only really excitement for the day happened at the Dance Cave, upstairs from Lee’s Palace, and even that looked menacingly dull on first arrival. We walked up to pay our cover fee, only to find out that literally no one else was there. The girl at the door assured that even though it was 10pm already, we wouldn’t be the only people there that night. It looked grim for a while, as we sat at a booth and sipped our beers, but eventually the crowds filled out the room. It was a slow trickle at first, but eventually the party got started. I can’t decide if the DJ there is the best or worst DJ ever. It was an odd, very pandering set, but the crowd reacted to it in a way I’m totally unused to. There was no detectable hipster condescension among the crowd of college-aged partiers, and big, obvious pop hits lit up the dancefloor along with older, familiar tunes. Heavily weighted towards britpop and American indie, but with dabblings in other genres. DJ faux pas: playing multiple songs by the same band. Not only that, but playing multiple songs by multiple bands. I caught more than one track from all of the following: Franz Ferdinand, the Strokes, MGMT, etc. Not that I mind any of those bands (well, maybe the Strokes a little), but still…bad form. Also, songs like Blur’s Song 2, while a great song even after all these years, would not move a crowd in Seattle in 2008 the way it did this crowd in Toronto, with ecstatic yelling and full-room singalongs. Not sure what that says about either city, but it’s food for thought.
Also: Do not play Bohemian Rhapsody unless the night is over. That’s a last call song. You absolutely, under no circumstances, want to follow it up with fucking Oasis playing fucking Wonderfuckingwall. Fuck!
Saturday was also low key, with a bit of walking to hunt down Lick’s Burger near University (an above par made-to-order burger joint) for lunch and extended bouts of relaxation with coffee. The evening took us over to Scallywag’s, a sports pub on St. Clair St., which I guess is in Wychwood? Not exactly sure where it fits in the breakdown of neighborhoods. But we wanted to check it out before Sunday’s round of (British PRemier League, not NFL) football games. We caught a bit of the Leafs vs. the Senators then took a nice long subway ride out to Little India for dinner. Lucky us, we stumbled onto a street fair, complete with a Hindi musical act performing on the steps of the local library. The streets were vibrant and filled with neighbors. It had a very tight community feel, with families stopping and talking to each other int he streets. We walked up and down the block, taking in the colorful sari shops, Indian markets, and sweets on display up and down each sidewalk, and eventually settled on New Haandi restaurant. Delicious curries and lassi and samosas were devoured.
Morning coffee at Timothy’s the next day, as per usual. I’m surprised there weren’t more hostel kids there, due to the horrendous nature of the coffee back at the basecamp. Of course, there was a Second Cup further down the street. But when you’ve just woken up and it’s 3 degrees Celsius out, coffee is coffee, as long as it’s not instant decaf. Proximity trumps quality in that case. Then, it was back up to Scallywag’s, where we managed to snag a seat as the Chelsea/Liverpool game ended. We hung out and watched Arsenal handily dispatch West Brom, and wandered back out to the streetcar, and closer to the center of town.
We strolled through Kensington market, which I’d passed through briefly and TImm hadn’t yet seen. Kensington Market is sort of a permanent street market, with store fronts full of local produce, ethnic food, local crafts, and vintage/surplus clothing. In fact, there’s an entire block housing nothing but vintage clothing stores. Many of them have the same beat-up selection of army surplus, hockey jerseys, and unfortunate fashion choices from yesteryear, but there are some gems, and some local street fashion, to be dug up. This day, it was also the home to a local punk/hardcore festival, complete with helpful cardboard signs warning of potentially explicit lyrics. Ah, Canada. Polite to a fault.
That night we finally tried the ubiquitous and overrated Pizza Pizza (seriously, there’s one on every block it seems), while making our way over to the Gladstone Hotel. The Gladstone is a block farther down West Queen than the Drake Hotel (see previous), and similar in style. Artsy decor, plenty of room for events. This night, it was hosting a bluegrass band int he Melody Bar room, and an overcrowded zine fest that spilled out of it’s main lounge into the poolroom, and into the hallways. If I’d known it was happening, I’d have made it a point to show up early and browse, but as it was, I just took a quick swing through. I did recognize a few faces from past APE conventions though.
The point of this evening was to meet up with a few folks from EM411.com, an electronic music communtiy I’ve been a member of for years. One of the members knows a booker at the Gladstone, and got them to set aside the Art Bar room for us. The Art Bar is a small, cozy room off to the side of the Melody Bar, with local art on the walls and a coffee shop atmosphere. They also had a small PA, so we all had a little show and tell session, demonstrating plugins in development, complex algorthmic Reaktor patches, or just MP3s of works in progress. All in all about 6 or 7 of us showed up, and spent a good couple of hours talking shop and sharing ideas.
Monday was my last full day in town (Timm stayed on a couple of days afterwards), and we managed to hit a few spots, but nothing too exciting. A waterfront stroll along Lake Ontario (Christ that’s a big lake!), a walk through the trying-too-hard Distillery District tourist trap, and a couple stops at Timothy’s World Coffee (yes, again, and again). For dinner, we debated between Little Italy and Little Little Italy, and ended up going with the latter, figuring it would be far less touristy. It was, to the point of being mistly closed at 7pm when we rolled in. It’s also sort of a combined Little Italy/Little Puerto Rico, which is an odd and fun mixture. Dinner at the Di Leonardo Bistro was excellent, especially consiering they were a new operation. Their heated patio was perfect, as was the pasta. Highly recommended.
And so, the last night in town drew to a close (well, mostly) by checking another neighborhood off the list and doing some brief pub hopping at the Village Idiot Pub and it’s neighbor Sin & Redemption; both classic and classy looking pubs in the shadow of the St. Lawrence Cathedral.
I can’t say I bade a fond farewell to my rickety hostel bunk bed, but I did bid it farewell the next morning. And that’s a good a conclusion I can think of for this trip report. I winged my way back to Seattle with a bit of a crush on this new city, and hoepfully I’ll be bale to visit again, and find out if it’s harmless infatuation, or something potentially more serious.
I forgot half of this stuff!
December 9, 2008 at 6:06 pm