And her name was Lola…Lola’s Kitchen in Toronto

Lola’s Kitchen on Church St. (Torontonowhere)

Saturday is a coveted day. It’s one of the few days when you can both sleep in and stay up late. It’s the day to indulge in pleasures instead of tasks (most of the time).

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with a good friend of mine to do lunch. We were long overdue for some official girl time. It had been over a month, and with vacations to talk about, work to complain about, and boyfriends to brag about we were far overdue. Now, you may not know this but I find a great deal of stress comes with “let’s do lunch!” It’s not so much the doing that causes the stress as much as the actual planning on what to do or where to go. Luckily my friend came to the rescue and suggested a sweet place called Lola’s Kitchen on 634 Church Street in Toronto (a few steps away from the Yonge subway station).

Let’s do lunch!

This is probably one of the most anxiety-ridden statements I have encountered since I moved to Toronto.

Let’s do lunch. Photo credit: Torontonowhere

I’ve come to discover that weekend lunch or brunch is quite the event in the city. Maybe it’s because it’s an excuse to get out (because I’ve also noticed that people only get together if it’s for food, shopping or drinks…but I’ll probably get into that one later) or maybe it’s a way  for people to connect in daylight. But while brunch is a popular demand, it’s also a part time job to try and find the right location.

Toronto’s new TTC sardine canning factory

CC Ian Ransley-Design + Illustration

Warning this is a rant. Meaning that I am about to complain to perhaps an unreasonable level.

This week was insane and the long hours meant that I was unable to go out and explore the city of Toronto. Instead, I spent my week in transit: in subways, buses, streetcars, GO trains, and a trip on VIA Rail. So perhaps my somewhat foul mood made me look at my predicament through a slightly darker tinted lens (no I do not wear transition lenses…and to those of you who do… sorry about that).

I realized as I begrudgingly embarked on my commute, that I basically felt like a sardine in the canning process. We all know that expression “packed like sardines.” In case you don’t, I urge you to spend one day on the TTC during rush hour. Here, I understood exactly how it felt to be crammed into metal containers with 5000 of my closest strangers. To be so close together that there was no need to guess what Mr.Unmatchedsocks had for breakfast or the perfume preference of the lady holding one too many bags. But the connection with sardines does not stop with proximity.

Three things I didn’t expect to see at Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche

So just like about 100 thousand other people, last Saturday night sometime between the hours of sunset and sunrise, I roamed the streets of downtown Toronto to explore the much-anticipated Scotiabank Nuit Blanche #sbnbTO. While I went with a checklist of exhibits to see, it turned out that it wasn’t the art that left me with a lasting impression. Instead, it was the incredible atmosphere and connectedness in a city usually so cold and unfamiliar to me. So for better or for worse, rather than list off all the exhibits that I saw (because there are probably already about 500 entries on that topic), I’d rather share with you the things I didn’t expect to see that made the experience extra special.

Mission accepted: Toronto

Looking for something to do this week in Toronto? I find myself asking the same question every week and yet I always end up outside of the city. I’m shopping in Burlington, hiking around Brantford or going for dinner in Port Dover.  According to my Toronto dwellers, I’m crazy and there is a whole lot to discover in this city. And yet my calendar speaks otherwise.

I moved to Toronto from Ottawa about a year and a half ago (yes that makes me a Sens fan). In Ottawa, I used to fill my spare time with impromptu coffees with friends, strolls in the quaint market, or long runs along the canal. Aimless walks would uncover random street fairs and dozen of museums.

My stellar view (Torontonowhere)

Toronto’s another story.  Now my life consists of the TTC and my apartment’s gorgeous view (Kramer Kenny Roaster flashback anybody?) I work too late, my friends are too busy and the city is just intimidating! When I think “Toronto,” I don’t think of culture, adventure and discovery. I think concrete, crowds and chaos. This is my last valiant effort to find the “where to go” and the “places to be.”

Every week, I hope to explore something new in the city. To find out what this city is really about. I hope to pick a few things at the beginning of the week and commit to doing at least one by the end of that week. This blog will be my record. My own personal catalogue of what Toronto is really about: the life, the culture, the events and the adventure.

Okay…that was a lot of  text. Next time there will be a lot less of that (all those words up above) and more of this (the stuff below).

What’s happening in Toronto this week ( 29 Sept- 5 Oct)