Toronto: The Farewell Tour, Part 2

Night & Day

After the awesome dinner at Mill Street Brew Pub, I had an unrelenting fail of a 20-hour stretch in Toronto.

Let's see, where did we leave off?... Ah, yes. It's Thursday night and I'm drunk. I finally got to the hotel -- which, by the way, had no parking and it was hard to find an available lot in the neighborhood and this had already put me in a sour mood on the place -- and I stumbled into my room. Ew! I wasn't expecting much for the price but I was expecting clean. It wasn't. It was a mutant train-wreck of a room, smelling of sickly-sweet air freshener with a sticky fake wood formica floor that wasn't properly swept (why oh why did I have to move the rolling TV stand out of the way only to discover a nauseating pile of dust bunnies & hair?) and the teeny-tiniest bathroom you can imagine (if you've lived in an NYC apartment you can imagine) and the most uninviting slab of a bed. The heater had two settings: Sonic-boom blasting high & off. My choices were to freeze in silence or stay warm but go deaf. Since the bed didn't have a comforter I opted for warmth. It was a fitful night's sleep at best. I woke up completely hung over and completely miserable. My own damn fault, I know.

I spent an hour making sure I could check out early & get a refund for the second night. After that, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I didn't want to put my bare feet on the floor so I had to maneuver through getting showered & dressed in the teeny-tiny bathroom. This would have been amusing had I not been hung over and near-homicidal cranky. Eventually, mission accomplished. I got back in the car & drove to King/Yonge to hang out at the Starbucks & figure out what the hell was next. I found a spot, figured out the parking meter thing and schlepped myself over for a coffee and some internet. I knew the general plan for the day was to have lunch at Frank, tour the AGO, grab a drink at one spot then dinner at another. The first order of business was to find an affordable replacement hotel, which was quicker & easier than I thought (LOVE the internet). OK, the day's looking up! I got over to the hotel and was able to check in early. Super score! It was a relief beyond words to find a clean, spacious, sunny room waiting for me. Ahhh! They didn't have room in the hotel garage yet but maybe this was the universe telling me to take it easy and drive myself here & there rather than freezing my ass off walking. I happened to be coming up to Toronto for the bitterest-cold two days out of a ten-day stretch. I was prepared for this. But I was still completely hung over and more than happy to take the lazy way out for once.

The universe is funny that way. You think you know what's it's telling you and then...

I got to the AGO and felt all lucky to get a parking space right in front. It was late already, about 1:30; I'm starving for lunch and psyched to try out Frank, the chic cafe named after architect Gehry. (Aside: Wyborowa has a Gehry-designed vodka bottle. Very cool. Check it out.) Street parking was 3 hours but for some reason I couldn't set the meter for the max time. I chalked it up to fat, cold fingers.

Lunch at Frank was memorable, in part because I wish I wasn't there alone. Unlike most meals I've had in Toronto, I was seated here at a table rather than the bar. I had a nice view of the open kitchen and the admirably hard-working staff but I felt like the odd man out not having a hip-urban lunch companion to engage with in hip-urban artsy conversation. It was lonely. And I don't say that for sympathy but rather to point out that the fundamental joy in food for me is in the sharing. The food was very, very good. I got the crispy duck leg confit with a lovely Gamay red. You'll soon notice that I don't get wine very often. It seemed fitting on a cold, cold day when still a bit hung over from too much beer the night before. Plus it paired much better with the comforting wintry meal than I think any beer would have. The duck was beautifully done, seasoned right on point, both crispy on the outside as promised and perfectly fall off the bone tender throughout. I chuckled to myself that it was served with kale. Tip of the hat to Forex-Larry-Ellison-kale guy! It was an appreciated color balance in the presentation that I've found lacking in most of my Toronto meals. That's one thing I'll say about Boston/Cambridge chefs, they are generally more sophisticated as visual artists than Toronto chefs although there are notable exceptions (Reds) and, y'know, I'm not THAT well-traveled.

Meal done, I returned to the car to up the meter since it was previously cranky and didn't give me the max due to 5:30 PM. I plugged in some coins and felt like I was having some more fat-finger problems but finally got the ticket out and checked, yep, looks like 5:30 PM on the dot. Onward!

The AGO has a great collection. I opted out of the King Tut exhibit (in spite of having met the installation manager twice at beer bars a few months back) due to limited time, finances and attention span. I stuck to the main galleries. It's a beautiful museum. Of course it is! It's designed by Frank Gehry. I don't actually know that he designed the whole thing in & out but I'm taking an educated guess that he did. There's a main indoor courtyard area flanked by two wooden spiral staircases -- dynamic is the word that comes to mind -- and the coolest, most form-follows-function example of a handicap ramp you can imagine. Well, I'm not even sure you can imagine it. The flow of the galleries is a little wonky for me, I couldn't quite orient myself. This might have been the after-effect of viewing the art which was quite beautifully presented but a bit heavy on depictions of Christian martyrdom a.k.a. glorified sadistic torture. What's up with that?? Do I really want to see that saint get flayed? Can I take yet another gory crucifixion? This wasn't helping my hangover one bit. I needed some fresh air. Made my way over to the coat check, suited up & stepped out into the refreshing cold. Whew. Now to hop in the car and get on toward dinner.

Um... Where's the car?

You know that moment when you realize in your gut that something unpleasant has happened but it takes your head several more moments to catch up? So I'm looking across the street where I parked and, huh, isn't that odd there's not a single car there anymore. In fact, neither is mine... Uh... Shit! It hit me with a nearly-audible sickening thud that my awesome parking space was in a clear-it-out-for-rush-hour-traffic zone and that the meter rejecting my coins not from crankiness or fat fingers but because it was trying to tell me, You can't park here for that long. Abort! It's plainly stated on the signposts, too, although the hangover and the overabundance of do-this-don't-do-that placards conspired against any of this information making it to my conscious brain. If I even had a conscious brain that day, which I'm beginning to doubt. The kindly sympathetic woman at the AGO information desk gave me the lowdown in her gentlest don't-expect-the-best voice. Here's the address & phone number of the tow lot and you're best off taking a cab there, you'll be there in 5 minutes. I opted for the 20-minute walk, give me a chance to further clear my head in the bracing cold. My head was trying its best to be very unclear & very blame-y on the rest of me for screwing up so badly. Fail! So many little hints along the way & I missed them all! Nothing to be done about it now. I got to the tow lot, paid up for the towing & "storage" and stuffed the parking ticket into my wallet to be dealt with later. I tallied the damage.

Fuck! Parking just cost me $250.

I was at a turning point. I could a) attempt to push through the hangover and the depression and the bitter cold and stick to my plans anyway, dammit; or I could b) give up entirely and wallow in misery at the hotel for the rest of the night. I was leaning very heavily toward Plan B. I got in the car and made my way sloooooowly to the hotel garage. I contemplated stopping at Biff's for a drink to wait out the rush hour traffic but that would mean parking on the street and no thank you I wasn't going to do that. Even the hotel garage became a hostile, foreboding place with its impossibly narrow, tightly winding drive down to P4 where I finally -- finally! -- got the car to its final resting place for the evening. My pulse rate must have gone off the chart. So now what? I sat in the hotel room, still very heavily leaning toward Plan B.

Screw it. Do I give up that easy?? There's a third way to do this. I grabbed my notes & a feeble internet connection and decided, OK, one of the restaurants on my list is just a few minutes walk away which I can handle even in this cold so why don't I have a pleasant meal before turning in? Snap out of it, Jane, you can salvage this day! Which is exactly what I did.

Nota Bene, Queen Street West. Just what the doctor ordered. Things were already looking up a few sips into the Wellington Arkell Bitter, and totally back on track by the time the pulled suckling pig & boudin noir tart topped with a fried pork skin chip showed up. Hoo-ah! Whenever pork 3 ways is on the plate, I'm good. And this was very, very good. No haggling on presentation, not tonight. The pork was divine, tender as pulled pork should be, whether from a suckling pig or not. The plate was a beautiful balance of flavors and textures from the melty pork to the hearty boudin noir to the accompanying cabbage sautee and applesauce, a brilliant take on the traditional pork sides. The tart wasn't a tart as advertised but was a really big crispy/fluffy popover. This made me giddy! They didn't provide butter to slather on it & that detracted a little from the meal for me but not much. My spirit was restored. It's amazing how life is better when one is well fed! Heck yeah I'll take a look at the dessert menu. I was going for the chocolate cake when I noticed Riopelle on the cheese plate offerings. This is "the best cheese in Quebec" according to Denver Dave, which is another story entirely, but assuming there's a lot of cheese in Quebec I'm taking his recommendation. Words can't describe how perfect this cheese is. For one thing, it was served at the optimal temperature to be soft but not runny. It's a brie-like cheese but that's where the similarities end. I haven't been a fan of brie for years; it's rich but bland and most times I'd prefer a cultured butter on my crusty french bread. Back to the Riopelle. Somehow, the texture of the rind elevated the flavor of the cheese to heights I can't even begin to describe. The combination of that crumbly-creamy mouth-feel and the flavor nuances (grassy?) was truly divine. It soared. There's no other way to describe it. I skipped the crackers & dipped each precious sliver of cheese ever-so-lightly in the accompanying local honey. All the pent-up stress from my misadventures simply melted away. Poof!

I made my way back to the hotel room, completely satisfied. The meal had literally saved the day -- a miserable fail of a day which now rose like a Phoenix from the ashes. Food can do that for me like nothing else can.