Friday:
Our flight with Porter Airlines was at a respectable time, around 9ish, which meant we arrived in Toronto around 11am! It was a beautiful, sunny day as was the entire weekend! The perfect fall weekend :) The airport is on an island and to get to the city, you can take a ferry - the shortest ferry ride in the world, it's honestly laughable how close it is. Takes about 1 minute. There is a free shuttle from the ferry terminal to downtown and our Airbnb was in prime location and only about a 10-15 minute walk from there. It was in a great apartment building - shared apartment with the owner, but still! After we settled in and looked at the wonderful massive binder full of recommendations, we set out on the town!
Our first stop was to grab a snack at one of the recommended places right by our Airbnb, called Sweet Jesus. They specialize in crazy flavors of ice cream and oh boy was mine yummy! I had some birthday cake thing made into a coffee instead of hot chocolate (can't remember exactly and this is why I should write my posts right after I take the trip and not months after- resolution for 2017). But it was delicious and it warmed us up a bit, because even though it was sunny, the wind was pretty strong! Next we began walking through Chinatown, or at least along one of the main streets around there. It wasn't anything super special from what I saw - not compared to others I've seen, but that's all good. We had already figured out that Toronto is a very walkable city. Next we walked about 30 minutes to Trinity-Bellwoods neighborhood, where we walked through the park that had the most perfect autumn leaves - and of course we had to take pictures!
The real reason we walked all the way down here was to go to Bellwoods Brewery, the top-rated brewery in Toronto. I'm super glad that we went there when we did, which is 5 minutes before they opened at 4, because 15 minutes after they opened it was full! Granted, it's not a huge space, but still. It's actually a really beautiful space in what seemed like an old fire station type of a building. The beers were really good too! Especially their hoppy sour (I love that these are becoming more popular- so yummy). I even went ahead and ordered one of their cellared bottles to enjoy as well! It was a nice and relaxing way to start off our trip.
For our walk back, we walked along Queen St. West, one of the main drags that has tons of shops, restaurants, and bars. We had made it a plan to eat at this poutinerie, Poutini's House of Poutine, because duh - we're in Canada! It was less of a restaurant than a take-out spot, but we grabbed our poutine - which was delicious - I got the roasted mushroom and onion poutine. Next, it was time to walk to the Air Canada Centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Philadelphia Flyers game - and we rooted for the home team! It was Hall of Fame inductee weekend, which was pretty cool even though I didn't know who these players were! The game was a good game, with the Leafs coming back in the last period to win it! Something interesting that I've never noticed is when a US and a Canadian team are playing each other both National Anthems are played, pretty cool! I'm really glad we ended up getting tickets, we almost didn't what with tickets being more expensive for Hall of Fame weekend, but we found some SEATS instead of standing room only, for an ok price! A very Canadian thing to do in Canada, and plus I really do love hockey!
The next morning we took our time getting up and then meandered over to the St. Lawrence Market, a large food market that on the top floor (which is what you see first) is almost exclsively meats and cheeses with a few other things thrown in. We had wanted to try a peameal bacon sandwhich (because apparently that is famous here) but they were only taking cash and we had been resigned to only using our credit cards while here for such a short time. So instead we found a place that had some interesting appetizier things like cheese-stuffed peppers and bacon (or some other meat) wrapped around a vegetable. Just enough to keep us satiated and since it looked like there wasn't much else - except THERE WAS. There is a whole other floor below that has a lot more of these little storefronts with many different kinds of food! Even one with piergoies and I was pretty mad that I didn't see that first. Oh well! It was still a fun little trip there and I'm glad we went, but I would recommend that you go see the basement level first :)
Next up we took a cab to Kensington Market area - not another actual market like St. Lawrence, but more of a hip (super hipster) neighborhood with tons of shops and restaurants (more restaurants though). If we weren't saving our appetities for lunch at this Thai place I'll mention soon, I would have been in heaven, but instead I was sad that I couldn't try all of the delicoius offerings! We stopped into a large craft-like store where I grabbed a few gifts and a Harry Potter ring for real cheap, so it wasn't a complete waste going here :) And again, Toronto is all about just walking from neighborhood to neighborhood and it was beautiful and sunny out - so no harm :)
Next, we walked the bit back to Queen St. West to this Thai pop-up, Khao San Road that had been recommended to me as some of the best Thai food they have ever had. It's normally a brick and mortar restaurant, but I believe they are going through renovations, which is why we had to specificaly come for lunch because since it's a pop-up they have weird hours. We got in right away, having to share a table with some other people (no big deal) and we ordered. We both had Thai Iced Tea, which I LOVE and then we shared our entrees of Khao Soi (a noodle dish with golden curry and egg) and pad gra prao (a rice dish with pork). Both were definitely tasty and they were large helpings so we took our leftovers back for supper the next day. I can't say it was the best Thai I ever tasted, but it was certainly very good!
After Thai, we were kind-of in a food coma and tired, therefore not having much energy to walk back or do anything else touristy, so we just stopped in at a bar (another recommendation from our hosts) called Tequila Bookworm, which only serves beer, wine, and cider from Ontario. I love places that are uber local like that! We settled in for a couple hours, just chilling and talking and it was great! As much as I am a "go-go-go" person while traveling, another big part of traveling for me is enjoying the local food and drink and also knowing when you need to take a break. It was much needed, and I'm glad we stopped!
On our walk back to the airbnb, we took the tiniest detour off of Queen St. West to walk through Grafitti Alley, which was super cool! I love seeing some local art, especially with bright colors! I recommend checking this out while you are inevitably near Queen St. West. We got back to our airbnb, chilled a bit more while we figured out where to go to eat before our comedy show that night. We also went up to the top of the apartment building to check out the view! It's too bad it wasn't summer, because it would be way cool to just chill up there with a book.
We ended up going to La Carnita for supper, and as we arrived we realized that it was connected to Sweet Jesus - damn this building has got it going on! It is a custom/creative taco place and man was everything we had good! Julie even said that her fish taco was the best she's ever had! We ordered various tacos and an appetizer or two. One appetizer that stood out was the Avocado Mango Salad - very unassuming, but it was sooo tasty! Their taco of the day was a BBQ one, and then I also ordered the beef cheek- both were good! I also had a dessert, which was a peanut butter chocolate ice cream bar that came from Sweet Jesus. I'd say definitely go here!
Our last stop of the night was to the Yuk Yuk Comedy Club - apparently these are in all of the major cities across Canada, so it felt legit. We were a little worried listening to stand-up considering it was right after the election, but it was only brought up a few times. Otherwise, it was hysterical! There was a host/announcer, who was also a comedian, 2 openers, and then a headliner who delivered only one-liners (which you'd think would get tiring, but strangely it didn't). I had such a good time and it reminded me that I need to check out comedy shows more! We ended the night by watching one of my favorite romantic comedies on Netflix (because somehow it still worked here), Never Been Kissed. Busy, but also a very relaxing day - perfect combination!
Slept in a bit again, then grabbed a donut and coffee and Tim Horton's for the second day in a row and we walked to the Hockey Hall of Fame, which was actually really super cool! Since both of us aren't huge museum people, instead of going to one of the art museums, we decided to check out a big "museum" of sorts for Canada (and the US), the Hockey Hall of Fame! They had rooms of famous players throughout history's jerseys, and even jerseys from all of the countries across the world who participate in the Olympics! We also got to see and take a picture with Lord Stanley (the Stanley Cup) - technically the stand-in because the winning team gets to keep the official one for the year! That was pretty neat, but my favorite parts were the interactive parts - especially when we got to try our hand at shooting the puck into a goal. Oh boy, I suck. I couldn't quite figure out how to get the wrist flip and was only really able to slide it across the ice. I'll just stick to watching hockey :)
Next, we walked to the Distillery District, which is a bunch of beautiful old brick buildings that I believe used to actually be distrilleries or breweries. There are a few shops and restaurants, but I think I expected a bit more. We were very hungry by this point and were glad to find El Catrin, which even though it was only 50 degrees out, it was very sunny and they had massive heating lamps and fires outside. It was beautiful and very inviting, so we went right in. Bonus was that they had brunch so we were able to choose between the two. I ordered the octagon torta (grilled octopus and chorizo sandwich) and a fancy drink - mezcalitales. It was all pretty good and really great to sit outside and eat one last time before winter hits. We walked around a little bit more, but then grabbed a cab to the airbnb where we grabbed our stuff (including our leftovers) and found a sports bar to chill at for a bit, before taking the shuttle back to the airport!
I had a great time in Toronto and I thought it was a fun city! Like New York (as far as types of cuisine and drinks), but much smaller and more manageable. Although I still love New York a bit more, Toronto was wonderful.