It's striking how Brooklyn-like the city of Toronto is. Massive in size, with a more than sizable population it can sustain, and not only as diverse as New York and Brooklyn in particular, but even more diverse (according to recent analysis) than the Big Apple. Basically slap a Wall Street-esque financial district in downtown Brooklyn, and that's Toronto. How more Brooklyn can it get than a place like Honest Ed's on Bloor St? It's like every Dee-and-Dee and Odd Job in New York you can imagine, just the size of a whole city square block and 3 floors of it.
The hipster quotient is slightly more understated in Toronto (though that makes them stand out all the more to the casual natives) but they populate the area much like the hipsters in Brooklyn do, including gentrifying a strongly ethnic Polish neighborhood towards the city's southwest side (practically identical in feel to Greenpoint). But the debacles at the two gigs show that the city culturally suffers from the same flaws that cities like Philadelphia suffer from. Jerks trying to emulate what they think is authentic behavior and ruining it for everyone. Never before have I felt so good about being a stiff, boring, New Yorker.
And it gets a little worse than that. One would think the most cosmopolitan city in Canada would be a haven for good drinking. Oh if only that were true. The bartenders disgustingly, and insultingly, make their mixed drinks by pouring a half-filled (if that) shot glass of booze into a glass before drowning in the non-alcohol component. And they never even heard of red bull being mixed with vodka before. Outrageous.
Other than those tiny but important details, the city serves itself very well. The overall vibe is warm and friendly. The transportation (barring a strike) is incredibly efficient, surprisingly topping New York in that department (though one imagines that in snow-clogged winters, the dependence on bus and street car in the overnight must be brutal). It's a generally clean and well-spaced city (though all the maps of the city do not accurately represent the distance between the major avenues, and that's because they do not take into account the multitude of smaller streets in between, many of which remove the concept of the grid that the map implies).
It's a great walking town nevertheless but, much like in New York, 3 full days to walk just around downtown and make a couple short trips by subway or streetcar up to Bloor or down to Bathhurst or slightly beyond doesn't do it justice. The city seems to never end.
Cuisine is where it gets tricky. Let's not even comment on Tim Horton's. Just to make this easier. Toronto is an excellent place for a variety of eats (as to be expected) but it also means that, in a short time frame, you run the risk of finding a lot of losers as opposed to winners. Between the nightmare that is Swiss Chalet, and a Chinese restaurant on Spadina that isn't too clean, uses garbage bags as place mats, and has fried pigeon on the menu, Toronto didn't have much room to make up for all that. But between the peameal bacon sandwich at Paddington's in the St. Lawrence Market, and even the charm of a pretty cheapo, too-quickly-made-to-be-good Italian place like Cafe Diplomatica on College St in Little Italy, there is something to be said of food in Toronto. Also, big cheers to the nice guy who makes chicken shawarma on College St off Spadina, diagonally across from the Silver Dollar. He made what a was a pretty crappy Thursday into something close to recovered. See the above post in regards to the Smoked Meat sandwich.
Where were the cops? There were no virtually no cops. There were bums, but none were really persistent. There was an open weed-smoking joint in Kensington Market. The big 3-hole garbage/recycling bins on street corners are a nice touch. The abrupt dark residential streets right off of massively busy avenues were a bit disturbing but trekking out to a home proved to be a fun time.
So the final verdict: Not a perfect city. Obviously one cannot gauge it all in three days. But, on initial encounter, it can be said that Pennypacker, for the first time this decade, left a place thinking he would not only like to come back, he'd like to come back for good long whiles, and for the first time this decade, returning to New York did not seem so ideal a feeling. Woah.
Labels: food dining cuisine, SP Toronto
