May 4, 2000
Reproduced here in its unedited entirety, with the permission of the author, simply because it's so good
and because its life on The Toronto Star pages is so ephemeral. Here it sits till they ask us to take it down.
Here's
your dilemma.
Angelica, the one you met in Seattle last year at that toaster convention, phones to say she's coming to T.O. for the weekend. She has never been here before, and demands the quintessential Toronto experience. You freeze in mid-conversation. All that comes to mind is the glass floor of the CN Tower and dinner at Alice Fazooli's. Get over it - this is no time for ambassador's block. Allow me.
Right this way, Angie . . .
Friday, 6:14 p.m. Pearson Airport
Ah, the land of landing strips, strip malls and strip joints. First on the itinerary: Get the hell out of Malton.
7:24 p.m.
After dropping off
her bags, Angelica insists we get right to the tour. We head to
the heart of Greektown, the Danforth.
To my consternation, Angelica picks up a Goa trance CD at Wild East Compact Sound, an independent shop with eclectic titles, before we cross the street for a bite at Avli Restaurant, heaven for double-dippers armed to the sleeves with toasted pita bread. We gorge ourselves on tzatziki, taramosalata and potato-garlic spread. The owner tells us we "eat like Greeks,'' which is to say a lot. It's a compliment.
"Efcharisto,'' I respond, thanking her.
We walk off the meal, making our way past the strip of cafés and cutesy boutiques for a drink and some reggae at The Only Café, a lamp-lit joint that encourages deep conversation. A perfect spot to plan revolution, I think aloud.
An hour later we get on the subway, scanning for wreaths at the valley floor as we cross the Bloor Viaduct.
9:45 p.m. Bay Station, Cumberland exit
Love it or hate it,
Yorkville remains a perpetual tourist-pleaser. We don't
spend long - just long enough to grab a scoop at Summer's Ice
Cream, climb to the top of the $300,000 hunk of granite
on Cumberland St. in front of Chapters and gawk at whoever's
stepping out of the stretch limo at the Four Seasons.
From there we make our way west along Bloor and down St. George to take a peek at the hotly debated architectural monstrosity John P. Robarts Research Library. Meant to resemble a Canada goose - which requires a bit of a mind stretch considering it's a 15-storey slab of concrete - the eye-grabbing monolith is rumoured among U of T students to be slowly sinking under the weight of its books.
Angelica persuades two students to lend us their ID cards (in exchange for my wallet), which we use to ascend to the 14th floor, offering panoramic views of the city at the tips of the goose's "wings.'' Who needs the CN Tower?
On Spadina, we curve north again toward Bloor, greeted by a gust of bread and garlic as we pass Papa Ceo and Cora Pizza, late-night mainstays for students. Our still-full stomachs resist temptation.
Angelica peruses the works of Carlos Castaneda at Seekers Books, a store specializing in religion and spiritualism, while I scan unsuccessfully for a CD title I recognize.
On my pleading, we leave the store and continue walking along Bloor: past the cafés and futon stores, past Honest Ed's (thankfully it's closed) and into Little Korea. We hop inside Hodo Kwaja, a sparse bakery, for a bag of walnut cakes, a.k.a. Korean Timbits: nutty doughnut holes filled with red bean paste and other sweet fillings, moulded in the shape of a walnut. Six for a loonie.
Rounding out the evening - and requiring some persuading on Angie's part - we cross the street to XO Karaoke, upstairs from the Clinton House tavern. The late-night Korean bar offers cozy private rooms, complete with sofa, disco ball, licensed room service and a video karaoke set with hundreds of titles (in English and Korean), all you can butcher for $23 an hour.
Saturday, 8:00 a.m.
It's a beautiful day, Angelica tells me in my semi-comatose state, and we're not about to waste it. Gathering a few necessities in my pannier bag, I decide to take her on a bicycle tour of the city - the best way to appreciate T.O. if the weather's right. Before heading out, I notice she has spelled "worship the woman moon'' in the magnetic poetry on my fridge.
9:17 a.m.
We begin the tour in Chinatown with a hardcore Vietnamese breakfast of beef noodle soup with iced coffee at Pho Hoa. Angelica opts for jackfruit juice, for no other reason than that she's never heard of jackfruit. We slosh over to Kensington market, where she buys a second-hand hat and retro sunglasses. I pick up a used bowling jersey with the name "Vince'' embossed above the breast pocket.
11:40 a.m.
Next, it's off to Baldwin St., east of Beverley, one of the city's most multicultural blocks. We stop in at perennial neighbourhood favourite Yung Sing Pastry Shop and stuff several filled sweet buns - still under $1 apiece - into our backpack.
Armed with my Toronto
With Bicycle Routes map, we meander uptown to Dutch Dreams,
a cramped, kitschy sundae bar well worth its word-of-mouth reputation.
This crowded wedge of a restaurant plays tinny accordion music
in an endless loop, most likely to ensure quick customer turnover.
I order lychee nut ice cream in a waffle cone, sprinkled with
coconut and fresh strawberries; Angie opts for a massive banana
split.
She asks whether all Torontonians eat as much as I do.
"Of course,'' I lie through lychee-stained teeth.
12:55 p.m.
We bike up Bathurst, north of Eglinton W., and head east along the Belt Line Trail, a former railway track that, in its leafiest stretch, cuts through the back yards of some of Toronto's most lavish homes in Forest Hill.
Crossing a bridge over Yonge, the trail ends at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, a tranquil spot popular with joggers, rollerbladers and the occasional mourner. The vast graveyard boasts a remarkable range of flora and a collection of sundials. Additionally, the entire history of the city can be told through its plots, from the waves of immigrants to the war-dead monuments to the old-money tombs.
It's the old money we're interested in. We gasp at the truly haunting Massey crypt, then the stately Eaton tomb - what may become the last building left standing with the Eaton name still on it. We park ourselves on a bench and eat the Yung Sing buns. A fox stares at us from behind the mausoleum.
1:45 p.m.
At the cemetery's Moore Ave. exit, the trail continues downhill through the secluded Moore Park Ravine.
"This would be a great place to dump a dead body,'' I remark.
Twelve minutes later, however, we are on a gravel path squeezed unattractively between the Don Valley Parkway and the Bayview extension, as we head downtown along the Don River.
Crossing Lake Shore
Blvd., we follow the Martin Goodman Trail to Tommy Thompson
Park, the green landfill of the Leslie Street Spit.
In front of the spit, we step through a fence to explore the allotment gardens, a narrow tract of green sandwiched between several factories and a sewage treatment plant. Here, dozens of tiny plots of city-owned land are leased to the public for $20 a year. In this odd urban experiment, "tenants'' use the plots to craft elaborate vegetable gardens and breathing spaces, thus creating a neighbourhood of yards without homes. The only thing lacking are garage sales.
Next, we hit the boardwalk at Kew Beach. Angie considers going barefoot in the sand, until I point out a sign warning us to beware used syringes. We follow the boardwalk to its end at the palatial R. C. Harris Filtration Plant, a breathtaking facility that purifies 1 million cubic metres of Toronto's tap water a day. Heading back along Queen E., we stop for a drink at Lion on the Beach.
5:20 p.m. Gerrard St. at Coxwell Ave.
We're in Little India now, so we procure a mouthful of sweet pa'an from one of the many Gerrard St. shops that sell it, an exotic concoction of spices wrapped in a betel leaf. A pa'an virgin, Angelica contorts her face every which way as she fights to swallow the stuff.
6:30 p.m.
We make our way back
to the Martin Goodman Trail along Queen's Quay,
with a quick detour at the upscale Loblaws on Lower Jarvis,
a nerve centre of downtown Toronto's condo community, and a hotspot
for celebrity sightings. Was that a Sutherland?
Continuing, we wave at The Toronto Star headquarters as we cross the foot of Yonge.
We grab the next ferry to Ward's Island, and weave slowly through the narrow streets of the island's distinctive residential community, a small-town oasis only 20 minutes from downtown.
The boardwalk along the island's south shore takes us to centre Island. We walk through the evergreen labyrinth, and begin a round of Frisbee golf on the 18-hole course, but lose interest - and daylight - after the third hole.
Finally, we head west along the beach, and find a secluded spot where we pitch the tent I'd been secretly hoarding in my pannier bag. We collapse inside, exhausted, falling asleep to the sound of lapping waves.
11:29 p.m.
Rudely awakened by one of TOPD's finest, who tells us to pack up and get back to the mainland.
No bother. We're not gonna let the law get in the way of a good time.
12:19 a.m. The Devil's Martini.
A bouncer crams us inside this narrow, offbeat nightclub along with several hundred others. The sweaty joint is so crowded, there's no other way to dance but in unison. Still, the atmosphere is infectious.
Staggering out 90 minutes later, we ask around, then split a cab with three Aussies to the nearest boozecan. It's a dingy place that seems to be a throwback to the Prohibition era.
4:00 a.m.
On our way home, Angie gets the munchies - and she's not the only one. We wait in a considerable lineup for some hot and sour soup and Shanghai noodles at Kom Jug Yuen.
Sunday, 10:00 a.m. A mild drizzle.
In desperate need of a caffeine injection, we grab one large Second Cup Paradiso Dark and a tall Starbucks Sumatra and compare notes.
Grabbing a random child to snag a TTC family discount, we head to King Station. There, we descend into the PATH system, the underground city that becomes a ghost town on the weekend. It takes little time to get completely lost. We resurface briefly to peruse Inuit art in the Toronto Dominion complex, Canada's only Bauhaus structure, to traverse the stunning galleria of BCE Place, which vaults upwards from the original façade of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and to gape at the surreal interior of the Canadian Broadcasting centre.
12:10 p.m. Queen W.
Sunday brunch on the back patio of funky La Hacienda. We each order eggs hacienda - two fried eggs served over beans with cornbread, salsa and guac. Angelica becomes impatient, and I explain that the service is fashionably slow, all part of the Queen West experience. She reaches for the nachos.
Sated, we then
walk over to Theatre Passe Muraille to catch a pay-what-you-can
matinée.
5:29 p.m. Speaker's Corner
We rant.
6:01 p.m. Ethiopian House
We split a large vegetarian platter, served on a massive sheet of injera bread, a thick sour-dough crepe that we use with our fingers to scoop up the various combinations of vegetables, beans, lentils, grains and exotic spices. From the second floor, looking out the window at a billowing Ethiopian flag, we can almost forget we are in North America. But the din of the Jays game playing on a nearby TV ends this reverie.
8:00 p.m. El Convento Rico
Just in time for
the free weekly Latin dance class at this basement nightclub known
for its weekend drag shows. A merengue and two salsas later, we
duck out early for a whirlwind tour of too-trendy Little Italy.
9:01 p.m.
The Airport Express bus picks Angelica up at Islington subway station, in that desolate part of Etobicoke where they could have filmed The Road Warrior.
10:04 p.m.
Angelica collapses in economy class, realizing in horror how badly she needs a vacation.