Hello from Canada’s largest city: Toronto! So I’m gonna do something a little different here. Rather than rant about one restaurant, I’m gonna talk about my experiences for the last day and a half.
During the time of this post’s writing, it’s 12:14 am Vancouver time, and 3:14 am Toronto time. However due to the time difference I can’t figure out whether or not I’m tired or wide awake. If anything, it’s been a packed day and a half. I’m here for a friend’s wedding, so the next few days are gonna be even more packed. However I’m gonna share with you what happened so far.
So I arrived in Toronto in the evening on Monday (May 25th), and my friend picked me up from the airport. He then quickly whisked me to the New Amsterdam Brewery. There we enjoyed some craft beer, and some great food. I would recommend the lemon chicken schnitzel. I would have included some pictures, but I wasn’t thinking properly at that time.
After visiting some friends, and then settling in, I fell asleep late at night. That means that it was super late when i woke up. How late you may ask? Late enough that we ate our lunch at 4:00 pm. We stopped by Spoon and Fork, and ate some super classy looking all you can eat Thai + Japanese food. I’ve only been to only one other place that tried to class-up all you can eat sushi, but without success. However Spoon and Fork did completely the opposite and was successful with their upgrade. Good job folks.
They’re on that all you can eat beef tataki game on a lunch menu. In the background there are some crunchy spicy salmon rolls.
Here are they’re dynamite rolls with spicy salmon mayo.
Here are some butter fish, white tuna, and salmon sashimi, which you could have in orders of 5 or 8.
They also had some great salmon teriyaki.
In the back you can see some great tempura, and up front you have their agedashi tofu. The tofu could’ve used some sauce, but it was all good.
This is the chicken torikatsu. It’s chicken, and it’s deep fried. It’s a winner.
Rather than serving some dry or underwhelming yakitori, I liked how these folks decided to be creative by making their skewer a chicken satay.
Then after some chilling, we met up with some friends in the Distillery District. The Distillery almost reminds me of a cross between the Olympic Village and Gastown in Vancouver.
We grabbed some drinks at Mill St Brewing. Their lemon iced tea ale was interesting and good. Furthermore the location had two sides, so you could either have a classy and private dinner, or a more bar-like atmosphere. We chose the latter.
One of the differences between the craft brew pubs here in Toronto is that they seem to be bigger. So while there may be fewer craft brewers, they do seem to make more beers. They had a solid list of beers that were around all year long, and they had a rather large set of seasonals (around 8 instead of the typical 1 or 2). Also, for those of you who don’t like IPAs, Toronto doesn’t seem as fixated on these super bitter beers, so their beer selection may be more for you.
After our beers we walked around Downtown Toronto, seeing city hall, and strolling down Yonge St. Yonge was hard to cross, as they were filming either a car commercial, or a car chase for an upcoming movie (I was told that they were taping Suicide Squad in the area). However we made it to Dundas Square, and I was amazed. I’ve never been to New York, so anything that seems bigger than Vancouver amazes me. So when I had seen the tall buildings, sprawling Downtown, and bright lights, I was amazed. Toronto had gotten my attention.
On our stroll back we managed to pass by a Popeye’s Chicken. To those from Vancouver, we are not often acquainted with this fried chicken chain. Get acquainted.
Here’s a closeup of the beauty.
Any night that ends at a fried chicken spot is a good night.
Thanks to the whole crew who are making this an awesome adventure. We had a crazy night, and I’m looking forward to what Toronto has in store.
Cheers,
D
blandcouver 