Canadian Chow

Matt is fascinated by the fact that there isn't really "Canadian Food" (or none that we found in Toronto, anyway). We saw one restaurant called Philthy McNasty's that claims to be a Canadian sports bar, but seeing as we are frightened by American sports bars, this didn't seem like an option. The one piece of Canadian food that we can never seem to get our hands on is the illusive Maple Drumstick. We discovered this novelty the last time we visited, but only managed to find advertisements and not the actual product. This time I made it my goal to find one, and we did, but it was at a weird store in the middle of the afternoon when I wasn't prepared to eat it. We figured we'd go to this little convenience store that we went to the day before, because surely they would have a Maple! Alas, they did not, and everything else nearby was closed. I guess we'll have to wait to sample the Maple NEXT time we go. That will be our motivation for going back.

We chose a place called Pumpernickel's for lunch our first day, mostly because it was close, cheap, and because the name is funny. It was fine. For dinner we went back to a Thai restaurant that is close to our hotel and we went to during our last visit called Golden Thai. The atmosphere and some of the food is good, although we have had a few bland dishes. We both agreed we'd go back. My curry dish was quite tasty.

On the second day we had lunch at a French patisserie near one of the bookstores we visited, out of the downtown area. It was fancy and tasty, but I don't recall the name. For dinner we tried a place called Fressen, which I had circled in our guidebook during our last visit but we didn't try until this one. It was a pretentious, hipster, vegan restaurant that had seriously blah food. The funniest part of the dinner was the lame hostess who asked if we had a reservation (it was a Friday night before 6:00- did we really need a reservation?). When we said no, she looked down at us and pointed us to a table close to the door. I watched her the rest of the evening (since I was so close to the door) turn down couple after couple with moronic delight. As for the food, it really was blah. I would not recommend the place, unless you prefer snotty atmosphere to joy and tasty food. I know there are people out there who do. And that's the Toronto food rundown.