Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Breakfast in Chinatown
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| My breakfast. I picked up a "grilled pastry" from one bakery in
Chinatown and a steamed bbq pork bun (decent) from another.
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Di Yin had decent wonton soup. The wontons were a mix of pork and
shrimp but tasted entirely of shrimp. There were a few slices of duck
in the soup and also some (bleh, store-bought) noodles.
| I also had a bit of this gucchini bread, a mix of mocha, peanut butter,
and chestnuts, that we picked up in Koreatown the night before.
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| India Bazaar
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A typical Toronto streetcar, exactly the one we took to Little India /
India Bazaar.
Although unintentional, I'm glad I got the mural in the background.
| The single shot I took of India Bazaar. It's not an exciting place.
It's quiet and rather boring.
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| Greektown
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| A sample shot of Greektown: Greek restaurants facing a square off one
side of the street.
| Another example shot of Greektown.
| Part of a bakery filled with a splendid expanse of Greek desserts.
| Wow, Strictly Bulk has lots of bulk food, including three types of
powdered chicken stock, half a dozen types of milk powder, plus more
beans, pastas, flours (arrowroot or barley anyone?), and spices (citric
acid powder, mint flakes, everything) than you can shake a stick at.
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| Lunch at Gandhi Indian Cuisine
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| Downtown on the way to lunch we spotted this overhead, street-crossing
passageway, an unusual sight in this city with a large underground
tunnel network.
| We went to Gandhi Indian Cuisine for lunch. It supposedly serves one of
Toronto's best rotis, a uniquely Toronto dish.
| Our mixed vegetable roti. Rotis are basically an Indian burrito (but
eaten with a knife and fork): take something with lots of ingredients
(in this case an Indian curry) and wrap in a dough product. The dough
used here was more like lavash (but thinner than ordinary lavash), not
what I think of Indian roti bread. We watched the roti making machine
while waiting for our food.
We ordered our roti medium, which turned out to be spicy. It was a bit
too salty but nevertheless rather tasty. I'm glad we split it--it's a
lot of food even split.
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| Queen Street West
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Queen Street West is densely commercial with a mix of major chain and
local shops.
I took this picture two days later, on March 17, 2012.
| A sample shot of the character of West Queen Street West, further west
than Queen Street West. Notice the lack major brands.
| More character. I like the names of some of the shops.
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| Trinity-Bellwoods Park and Vicinity
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| Trinity-Bellwoods Park. It's regularly treed.
| More of the park.
| A panorama of Trinity-Bellwoods Park, including paths, a water fountain,
benches, and athletic fields.
| A sample of houses facing Trinity-Bellwoods Park.
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| A curvy path near a canyon, approaching the park's northeast corner.
| Looking down into the canyon.
| Montrose Avenue has some nice houses, clearly a wealthier area than what
we passed through on the streetcar en route to Little India. (By the
way, I'm told this certainly isn't the wealthiest section of Toronto.)
| Two-faced houses.
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| Little Italy
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| The look of Little Italy, which runs on College Street.
| Another sample shot of Little Italy. In case you're not paying
attention, on the right are is a pizza joint, a sushi joint, a gelato
shop, and a Sardinian butcher.
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| Dinner at The Black Hoof
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| We ate dinner at The Black Hoof. This shot shows people (like us!)
hanging around waiting for it to open. (The restaurant doesn't take
reservations.)
| The view from our seats in the dining area past the kitchen and the bar.
It feels like a bistro. I took this picture when we were seated when
the restaurant opened at 6:00pm. The restaurant was filled by 6:07pm.
| A close-up of the kitchen / food preparation area. There's not much to
it because the restaurant specializes in charcuterie, cured meats that
require little more preparation than slicing. Note the slicing machine
in action. Also notice that the oven is worse than the one my studio.
| My drink, served in a mason jar, a lavender pisco sour: "lavender,
pisco, lime, egg white, and simple syrup." The limey foam is egg-white.
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The restaurant has a short, creative cocktail list and a smart beer list
of a dozen unusual brews.
| Our platter of house-cured meats. We found it hard to pick a
favorite. They were all good and interesting. Nevertheless, though
I respect the chefs' craft, I don't see myself craving their food.
The meats came with a basket of bread (shown). Also, I like how the
"platter" was actually a cutting board.
The meaty details, first the top row left-to-right then the
bottom row:
- lavender pork lard (meant as a spread on bread) - too much for us.
"Yeah, that's fat."
- summer sausage
- capocollo (I may have heard this wrong)
- pig heart soppressata (or maybe simply pig heart; I can't
figure out from my notes whether soppressata goes with this or the
item below it)
- suckling pig salami
- suckling pig with walnut (the right end of the tray, between
the top and bottom rows) - I can't believe they managed to slice
walnuts that thinly
- grainy mustard - on bread, helps cut the fat of the meat a bit
- tongue mortadella
- beef with dill
- either soppressata or I missed the name
- duck prosciutto
The meats on the right half of the board tended to be stronger and
fattier-tasting.
| Tongue on brioche sandwich, with tarragon mustard (on the sandwich),
pickled fennel (upper-right), and pickled mustard seeds (bottom-left).
Basically, it's a respectable smoked meat sandwich. The tongue just
kind of melts in one's mouth. The brioche got soaked through from the
juices.
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