28 December 2005
Tasty Eats in T.Dot
The TechTV Holiday Meetup was held at No Regrets Restaurant & Lounge, which has 2 floors of loft space. It was a good spot for the meetup, even though it did get a little crowded. I can’t even imagine how packed it would have been if the snow hadn’t caused some people to stay home.
Since the snow slowed down our travelling on Thursday, Jimmy & I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner before we arrived at the meetup. Thankfully No Regrets was still serving food during the meetup, and tasty food at that. Jimmy ordered the Thai chicken flatbread, and I ordered the vegetarian quesadilla. My quesadilla had much more flavour than veggie quesadillas I’ve had elsewhere. The veggies combined with the ancho purée and blend of cheeses was fabulous, especially with the Cajun seasoning that had been brushed on the tortilla. Also, the quesadilla itself wasn’t greasy, which was wonderful because greasy, floppy quesadillas are a pet-peeve of mine.
No Regrets
42 Mowat Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M6K 3J6
+1 416.535.0050
For lunch on Friday, Jimmy & I stopped by Tim Hortons, a Wendy’s-owned chain that serves coffee, donuts and sandwiches. We both ordered lunch combos. What’s interesting [and somewhat amusing] about the Tim Hortons combos is that they come with a sandwich and a drink, but do they come with fries or chips? No, the combos include a donut. My chocolate snowflake donut—the special of the month—was basically a frosted donut with frosting on the inside. It was even too sugary for me. Jimmy’s maple donut had vanilla pudding on the inside and a maple glaze on the outside. It was yummy and Canadian.
My lunch: egg salad on white, chocolate snowflake donut, Coke
Jimmy’s: southwest chicken sandwich, maple donut, coffee
There is either a Tim Hortons, Starbucks, or Second Cup on every block in Toronto. And at Starbucks in Canada they have maple lattes, so of course Jimmy had to try one. I absolutely hate the taste of coffee, but I still tried it. It tasted like coffee and maple.
We went to Tim Hortons another time for a warm beverage, and I decided I must try one of the hot smoothees because I was so curious as to what it would be like. I tried the orange flavour, and it tasted just like a creamsicle. A warm, frothy creamsicle, but a creamsicle nonetheless. It reminded me a bit of a steamer; however the hot smoothee was thicker than a steamer. It was quite delicious and made me feel warm & fuzzy.
On Saturday after our tour of Degrassi, Jimmy & I went to the St. Lawrence Market, which houses sellers of cheeses, meats, produce, as well as a few bakeries.
[Nerd note: Jimmy visited the market the last time he went to Toronto because Amber told him there is free wireless there. And there is indeed free wireless, but seating is rather limited.]
The St. Lawrence Market is comprised of a few different buildings, and we spent our time in the South Market. While walking around, I tried various samples from the vendors. I had some really strange cheese that I had never tasted before. I also had some delectable mustard from Kozlik’s. They had honey mustard and dijon mustard, but they also had maple mustard. Every mustard I tried was fantastic. I was really tempted to buy some to bring home, but I really don’t use mustard all that often.
At the bottom of the stairs in the South Market sits Eve’s Temptations, a bakery. Jimmy & I wanted to take something along to Amber’s party that night, so we decided to sample a nanaimo bar and lemon custard tarte to see what we thought of the bakery.
We rather enjoyed our bar and tarte, so we bought a lovely cake for our hostesses. They were beside themselves with how pretty the cake was, so much so that we never got to taste it because Jenna refused to cut it.
Jenna & Amber with their cake
St. Lawrence Market
92 Front Street East
Toronto, Ontario
M5E 1C4
+1 416.392.7120
Before meeting up with the others to see King Kong on Saturday, Jimmy & I went to Greektown on the Danforth, the largest Greek neighbourhood in North America. We ate at Mr. Greek, which we later found out is a chain. Jimmy ordered chicken souvlaki on a pita. I had a really hard time deciding what to order because I really like a lot of the non-meaty Greek dishes. I finally settled on spanakópita, and I really enjoyed it. it was nicely flakey and not super spinachy.
When we told Mikey that we ate at Mr. Greek, he told us that Mr. Greek and The Friendly Greek [another restaurant] used to be in business together, but that Mr. Greek’s wife ran off with The Friendly Greek. I was starting to think that The Friendly Greek was a little too friendly because Mikey was really convincing, but then he started laughing.
Mr. Greek
568 Danforth Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M4K 1R1
+1 416.461.5470
On Friday when we were on the train, we saw a girl with a bag from a Danish pastry shop, so Jimmy made me scribble down the address. [For those who don’t know~ Jimmy lived & worked in Denmark for 2 ½ months in 2002, and he loves all things Scandinavian.] After eating at Mr. Greek, we were only a short bus ride from the pastry shop, so Jimmy & I headed over to Hansen’s. They sell kransekage [traditional almond ring cake], marzipan, imported candy and other goodies. Jimmy & I bought some wienerbrød, the real Danish pastry. We didn’t eat it until a couple days later after we returned home, but it was still yummy.
Jimmy holding a Fuglsang Citron Vand
Inside of Hansen’s. That’s a real Danish lady next to Jimmy.
Wienerbrød at the far left
Hansen’s Danish Pastry Shop
1017 Pape Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M4K 3V8
+1 416.425.8877
After we saw King Kong Mikey suggested that we all go to SweetLulu for dinner. SweetLulu is an Asian restaurant with a bit of a unique menu set-up. You order by telling the waitress what kind of rice or noodles you want, what flavour you’d like [Thai, Malay, green curry, etc.], what herbs you’d like to add [if any], then you pick what type of meat [or tofu!] you’d like. So each meal is custom made. I enjoyed this menu set-up because some Asian restaurants only have a few tofu dishes, but at SweetLulu I could order tofu with whatever I wanted, so I had a myriad of tasty options. And if you’re unsure of what flavour to get with what meat or what herbs to add, the waitress will be more than happy to help you out.
Hokkien noodles, tofu and vegetables with malay flavour plus ginger & basil
SweetLulu
859 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M6J 1G4
+1 416.203.2228
Our last meal in Toronto was brunch with Mikey on Sunday, and we ended up going to Café Crêpe. I love crêpes, but haven’t had them since I went to Crêpes Parisiennes in Pittsburgh last autumn, so Café Crêpe was definitely a welcomed choice for brunch. The menu is in French with English translations, but I happily read the Erench. I had to laugh when the waitress came by for our drink order and I said, “I’ll have chocolat chaud.” She paused for a moment, thinking, then said, “Oh okay, hot chocolate.” So the french theme only goes so far.
J’aime bien le chocolat chaud.
Jimmy and Mikey both ordered savoury crêpes: Jimmy had the jambon et fromage [ham & cheese] and Mikey had the fromage et œuf [cheese & egg]. I absolutely adore Nutella, so I always have a hard time passing up Nutella crêpes. Thus I ordered the Nutella et banane. It was really tasty, except—surprisingly enough—the crêpe had a bit too much Nutella in it, which made it a little too heavy.
Foreground: nutella et banane, background: jambon et fromage
Café Crêpe
246 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 1Z7
+1 416.260.1511