Tequila Bookworm http://tequilabookworm.blogspot.com/
A funky little coffee shop on Queen West, this place is about unpretentious as you can get. You can get coffee for $1.50, you can hang out there forever, and best of all, they have walls of old books that you can just pick up and read. There's no obligation to buy at all, but you can if you want to. On my first visit there in my first week in Toronto I got Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse for a dollar from the wicked waitress and had the happiest afternoon reading out on their patio in the sun.
Chino Locos
http://www.chinolocos.com/
I think we found this place in one of the freepapers, and I am so glad we did. These three guys run a tiny little take-out place way out east (well, to our downtown minds it's way out east) serving burritos with a twist: they're Asian. Each comes with rice or chow mein noodles, then you choose your own poison to go with it. They're like a taste explosion. The guys are really cool and they also do cupcakes for a dollar, which is well worth the SCar journey to get there!
The Queen Mother
http://www.queenmothercafe.ca/
Another rookie-week find, The Queen Mother holds a special place in my heart, and not just because they do the best cakes this side of Paris. After a mean Pad Thai you wander over to the display fridge and try to choose from the vast array of divine cakes, all of which are guaranteed to taste even better than they look. The slices are enormous too; five of us shared 3 pieces and ended up on a rollercoaster of a sugar high that would draw suspicious looks from your parents.
Cafe Taste
http://www.cafetaste.ca/
Wine, cheese, free movies and irreverent humour; who could resist this place? Certainly not us, much to the chagrin of our bank accounts, so finding Cafe Taste has been a double-edged sword! Specialising in amazing wines and the cheeses that love them in an unintimidating setting, this perfect little spot is run by Jeremy Day, a self-confessed "wine geek" and lover of general knowledge. Seriously, ask him anything, and if he doesn't know the answer he will research it there and then. They show interesting movies on a Sunday and have a full menu of great food. I now drink red wine because of Jeremy, so if the anti-cancer properties of red wine are as pronounced as they're said to be, Cafe Taste may well have pre-emptively saved my life.
I'm sure I'll update this list of TO hotspots in the near future, but this'll have to do for now as I have a date with the gym.
Buenos tardes!
No comments:
Post a Comment