Toronto

Hi, all. I know this is an American forum, but I'll be traveling in Toronto in a few weeks and wondered if our well-traveled forum had any suggestions for restaurants that a tourist might not always encounter?

Thanks much,
Adrienne

Goldon Thai on Church Street is quite affordable (love that exchange rate) and yummy. Great Pad Thai and the creamy iced tea.

There was also a wonderful Hungarian place on Yonge, but the name escapes me.

Toronto's a great city. Have fun!

One of the best restaurants I've ever been to is Country Style Hungarian Restaurant (not to be confused with the doughnut chain) on Bloor Street in the Annex. Get the cabbage rolls, the stroganoff, the creamed spinach, the goulash or the schnitzels. The farmer's plate is awesome too if you're a big carnivore.

A block or so away on the other side of the street, Future Cafe and Bakery does all you can eat pierogies on Wednesday nights, and has excellent cakes.

"In a few weeks"? If you're going for the film festival, I can give you a dozen places around Yonge and Bloor, plus tell you where the best public restrooms are.

Adeybug: Dont be bashful about Canadian subjects, there's a lot of us looking for good places to eat in Canada, in my case the Maritimes - so pitch in, we welcome Canadian, and for that matter, Mexican or any other roadfooders.

The Shopsy hot dogs sold from carts all over the city are great.

Not just the Shopsy dogs! I have never had a bad hot dog from a cart in Toronto: they are consistently (steeling myself for the inevitable counterclaims, but I don't care) the best hot dogs in the world.

Hi Adeybug,

I grew up in T.O. & lived there till a few years ago. One of my favourite places for a cheap meal was Pho Hung, a Vietnamese place. There's one location on Spadina, which is a great place to be anyway, since that's where one of the Chinatowns is, & also Kensington Market. You can get a great bowl of noodles, bbq pork, & spring roll with all the fixings.

I always found Future Bakery to be a bit sketchy; sometimes food was good, but usually stuff was dry & the waitstaff seemed hassled. But they are open late, especially the one on Bloor near Bathurst. Lots of good Portuguese bakeries on College St. West to choose from, and they're consistently good. Try the custard tarts & corn bread (definitely a different animal from the Southern U.S. version).

Kensington Market has great fresh veggie stores, & cheese stores, & nuts & spices stores and... There are some great empanada places that started out as carts. Just walk around the neighbourhood & you'll find something to nosh.

In the East End, on Gerrard between Greenwood & Coxwell, you'll find Little India. Shan-E-Hind is a great little tandoori place, which will make you faint from gustatory delight, or heat. Oh the naan...

Also, on the Danforth is the Greek area. It's kind of fancied up a bit over the past few years, but there are still some great cheaper taverna type places & the smell of roast lamb will do you good.

Lots of good Sri Lankan, Ethiopian, Polish & Italian food, too. There's a great Italian sandwich shop on Palmerston (or is it Markham?) just south of College where you can get a humongous meatball sandwich. Lots of tomato sauce & cheese. If you want it hot, they just stick hot pickled peppers right in there!

There are lots of really good mid to high high range restaurants there. You can spend a few or plenty bucks. I've never made it to Susur (though I once bussed at Lotus, his previous restaurant), but that's supposed to be quite the experience.

There are a lot of cheaper fast food places too, made by real humans, that are not mega-super-hyper-chains. The Green Mango is a fast cafeteria-style Thai place. Good value for the $$.

I'll write more later if I remember more later!

Anyway, good luck. There are a lot of options for good chow.

The best cake I ever ate was from Dufflet Bakery in Toronto. They are hardly Roadfood -- they bake all the fancy-schmancy desserts for most of the high-end restaurants in the city -- but their retail location isn't snooty. In fact, the name of the bakery is pronounced "Duff-lette", not "Doo-flay" as I expected a French bakery would be pronounced.

The cake I had wasn't even one of their most beautiful or exotic. It was just their vanilla bundt cake with raspberries, which they sell as a coffee cake. It was exquisite -- the perfect moistness, the perfect texture, the perfect mix of tart and sweet.

Here's their website: http://www.dufflet.com

Enjoy. Toronto is a lot of fun.

Thank you all for your suggestions. Now I wish I was going to be staying a bit longer so I can partake of all these pleasures.
Yummmmm!

Adrienne