A Neighborhood Day and Steak Frites!

Our building. We are in the corner apartment upper left with the only wrap-around balcony.

We walked up to Dundas Street to get the streetcar like we did yesterday. We walked up the opposite side of the street to get a different perspective.

We got off at the AGO so that I could do a purchase exchange.  When we were there, we asked about the raccoon theme.  Apparently, it is a thing, it is the unofficial mascot of Toronto.  Coons are common around here. So the art reflects that.

Then we walked to Huron Square for our Heritage Public Chinatown Tour.  

The sculpture was installed in 2018.  A mystical beast with the head of a lion, the face of a dragon, the horns of a reindeer, the hoofs of an ox, and scales of a fish.

Note the woman carrying a cat.  Our cats would not have tolerated that.

Our tour guide was Jingshu Yao (she is wearing white and is in the middle with her hands out).  She was very informative.  She talked mostly about the history of the neighborhood.  How it changed from Irish/British to Jewish to Chinese.  She talked about how the buildings were repurposed.  It was a large tour group, maybe around 40 people.  Luckily they handed out headsets so we could hear. At the beginning, a heckler came by and tried to disrupt the tour.

We stopped at a Taoist temple

When the tour was over we walked to the Kensington Market for a food tour.  We met at the Moonbean Coffee place. We had a chance to sit down, use the washroom, and have a drink before we met up with our guide Damian.

This is the oldest cafe in the area.  Alan is the owner and is always there.  With their cold drinks, they use coffee ice cubes which they have made ahead.

For our tasting, we had Borekas (spinach and feta), and iced coffee. They roast their own beans.

Our guide, Damian.

This is a 24-hour coffee vending machine.  Several of these popped up during COVID-19.  They use Dark Horse coffee, a local variety of coffee that is well known for being good.   We didn't try it.

As we were going by this synagogue the rabbi out front invited us to go in.  What a treat but surprising because they were in the middle of a service.  The rabbi was very friendly.

We stopped at Tako Yaki for shrimp balls (on the left) and octopus balls (on the right). I liked the shrimp ones better.  They both had different but delicious sauces.  They were hard to eat because they were so hot on the inside.

We went to the Caribbean Market for meat patties

There was quite a story about the naming of meat patties.  They are not really patties. More of a hand pie with shredded beef and sauce inside.  They settled on the name Jamaican Meat Patties.  Quite tasty but we are getting large portions. 

This row of houses is one of the oldest in the neighborhood.

We went to the Tibet Cafe for Momos and butter tea.  We had a beef momo (left) and a vegetable one (right).  I did not like the butter tea.  It was very salty as well as buttery.  The vegetarian momos had 7 vegetables but they did not have a lot of flavor. They had a sauce for dipping.  That was good.

Interesting mosaic flooring

This was our last food stop.  We had churros.  They had 4 flavors.  Chocolate, strawberry, condensed milk, and dulce de leche.  We each picked a different one.  I picked the condensed milk one.  Here they squirt the flavoring down the hollow middle instead of having the flavor on the outside.  I liked my choice.

We wandered around the artisan market while Damian went in to get our churros.

Jeanne had strawberry.  Sharon chose the chocolate and Kris got the dulce de leche.  

That was the end of the tour.

We ended up in this repurposed vehicle. 

Kensington Market Sculptures: four 20-foot tall aluminum and steel sculptures created by David Hlynsky and Shirley Yanover that mark the main entries to the Market

“To Market, To Market” (Baldwin and Spadina): Globe with flying goods, the orbiting images represent what we need to survive on this planet—all of which can be found in Kensington Market.

“Home Again, Home Again” (Andrew & Spadina) Cat on a kitchen chair. Generations of cats have been born in Kensington—you see them everywhere. The cat and the kitchen chair evoke the comforts of home.

“Jiggity Jig”  (Dundas & Augusta): Cat on a globe. The globe symbolizes the fact that people come to Kensington from all over the world: immigrants see where they’ve come from, and where they are now.

“Piggity Big” (College & Augusta) Globe on a kitchen chair. The globe once again represents the immigrant population, and the chair is symbolic of home. The final message: “I’m an immigrant, and I’m at home here.”

After the tour, we walked to Kiss My Pans coffee shop.  This was another time to sit.  Sharon ordered a Singapore Kopi for us to share.  It was delicious but I did not want to drink that much caffeine.  It was a cute store with a lot of unusual foods.  We bought some cheese and crackers.  

Singapore Kopi

We walked to Trinity  Bellwoods Park to see the Queen West Art Crawl.  It was like our Saturday Market only more spread out.  They had a musician singing while we were there.  Once we got over to Queens Street West we got on a streetcar to go back to the apartment.

We stopped at the Metro to get essentials again.  

We had a chance to put our feet up for a little while. 

We had a 7:45 pm dinner reservation at J's Steak Frites.  It was close enough for us to walk there.

It was a fixed menu.  The only thing they asked was how you wanted your steak cooked.  They wrote that on the table.  We had a salad with candied walnuts, steak, and fries.  They also asked if we wanted dessert and what beverage.  We ordered wine.

That cute little ketchup bottle

We ordered one strawberry shortcake to share.

What a fun evening.