Can a Da bound?

[muckefuck]

If the weather weren't bad enough, I'm also suffering from the Facebook Effect: there was a Fabulous Bear Party last night that Everyone I Know But Me was invited to, even though it was right here in the neighbourhood. I was kind of unsure where I stood with one of the hosts. Well, that's cleared that up nicely. I wouldn't've been free to go anyway since I was already pledged to a housewarming party in Oak Park. But my getting there was pretty much contingent on making it to the Met simulcast of Walküre yesterday afternoon, so when I bagged on that my day was pretty much decided.

At least know I feel much more prepared for our trip to Toronto next week. I still haven't managed to get in touch with my old college buddies there, but paulintoronto came through with some fantastic tips on where to go. monshu and I spent a chunk of time plotting them using the MyMaps function of Google Maps (not as intuitive as you would think!) in order to get an idea of how they clustered. AGO, Chinatown, and Mocca all in the same day? Or maybe Queen St West merits a dedicated afternoon. So many lovely choices!

At least the most important single event has been scheduled: Our photo session with bitterlawngnome. If nothing else goes right--if they lose our luggage, cancel our hotel reservation, confiscate our booze at customs, mug us leaving Cawthra Square--and yet this still comes off, the entire trip will be a success in my mind. Conversely, if it doesn't work out for some reason, I don't want that to ruin the whole trip, so I'm trying not to get too hung up on it. But still--OHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOY!

I'm not sure how we're going to communicate with anyone once we get there. My cell phone offers roaming in Mexico but not Canada and as much as I want to drop my provider, I'm not sure I can bring myself to pick a new one before we leave on Saturday. According to the website, the b&b monshu found in Moss Park offers "free local calls", but I'm not sure if there will be anyone there to take messages while we're out. So I guess we're putting our faith in wifi for a bit.

Comments

[nitouche.livejournal.com]

Julie's Snack Bar is on Dovercourt between College & Dundas -- excellent Cuban food.

Do you like Turkish food? There's the Anatolia on Dundas West near Kipling -- in a strip mall near the end of the subway line, but in my experience worth the trek. Or you can come to my place for Armenian shish kebab :)

There's good Persian at College and Bathurst -- Pomegranate and Sheherzade, sister restaurants (Sheherzade was my choice for my birthday this year). We can recommend good Korean (pork bone soup at Ka Chi, yes!) There's a lot of good Indian & Tamil food (stringhoppers!) about, & the Malabar fried chicken at Maroli is fabulous.

Portuguese and/or Brazilian is easy -- Simon's favorite restaurant is the churrasqueira down the street from us, and there are lots of places, both in our neighbourhood (Corso Italia) and along Dundas around, say, Ossington.

We also know a place (La Palette) where the "surf and turf" is duck confit and horse steak, if you're up for it! And Peter recommends a couple of places with hand-pulled beer :)

Appearances aside, we should be pretty available after we get back from Alberta -- the confluence of end of term, a death in the family & my mother needing to stay with us because of her husband's illness shouldn't (I hope!) come up again any time soon!

[nitouche.livejournal.com]

And I just looked up Dovercourt Park -- I assumed it was south, rather than north of Bloor. There's a decent pub (the Gem) at Davenport & Somerset, and a churrasqueira I haven't been to. There's some interesting stuff along Geary in that neighbourhood -- a churrasqueira we went to while getting a car window replaced, as I recall, and a good Portuguese bakery.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

It's Dovercourt and Ossington, I have no idea what "Dovercourt Park" is supposed to mean.

[nitouche.livejournal.com]

Oh good, it wasn't just me who hadn't heard of it!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Wow, I suspected there was some serious stuff going down, but I didn't realise how much! Sorry to hear about all that; I hope things are much better now.

We have good Turkish and Persian places near us, but I imagine your choices might have an intriguingly different selection of dishes. A churrasqueria would be fun; the ones around here are very pricy and pretty damn cheesy. But what I'm really after is some good feijoada; the one place I knew where I could get that was in St Louis(!) and it closed.

Oh, and I wouldn't mind going for offal again. One of my favourite parts of that dinner on Danforth was what Peter identified as lung; I didn't find out until years later that it's illegal to serve it in the USA. (Imagine! Something we're protected from that Canadians aren't!)