Category: Travel

Saturday, 1 June, 2019

I shouldn’t find it so hard to write about Toronto. I know it very well, even as it changes. Perhaps it’s the familiarity that stops me in my tracks.

But what is different…in Toronto?

So I’ve been lazy about blogging and perhaps the plan needs to be to see things differently.  There’s always something new and interesting everywhere…if you look for it. I’ll do some catch ups with photos for a while until I get into the groove. There’s likely more to say than I imagine.

It’s a different look around here. The streets have smaller trees but during May, after a hard winter, the rain comes and the sun shines, and things get very lush and fairly wild. This to me is what Toronto in May is. I’m not sure how different this is from anywhere else but it’s certainly not Hackney.

The architecture in Little Italy and Little Portugal is…well…quaint! It veers between hideous, garish, practical, and pretty. I remarked it’s like a mini Garden District at times….all the verandahs and gingerbreading…the mix of styles could be disconcerting but it flies in the face of a city I’ve often called too homogeneous.  What’s remarkable is how very close to the centre these streets are. Less than a couple of kilometres.

For me, nothing beats London for street art. Toronto likes a lot of script type art (Wikipedia reminds me that the writing style is the true graffiti and everything else is street art) but there are some gems if you keep looking.

There’s a huge foodie scene in Toronto but you have to know where to go. For me, it’s always the simple, hidden gems that I’ll come back for.

Very many years ago I got a temp job on Spadina Avenue at a tailoring factory. At lunch time, everyone stopped work and ate lunch on the factory floor. Someone gave me a taste of their sandwich (bun) one day, when I asked what they were eating. It was amazing. I thought about it for years but could never remember what it was or where to get it.

Then by accident, when my sister was living in Little Italy years later, she took me for a sandwich. And it was the same one! What was it? A ‘hot veal sandwich’ from San Francesco Foods, a tiny Italian grocery store that made sandwiches in the back room for the locals. A pounded veal cutlet is fried, dipped into tomato sauce with added peppers (as hot as you choose) and piled onto a Kaiser bun. And you have a Toronto institution. (You can also choose the eggplant, chicken, meatball, steak, or vegetarian options. For me, it’s always veal.

We once asked an Italian, my friend Esmeralda’s then boyfriend, if he’d ever heard of such a thing. He was horrified – that’s not Italian! No!  But In Toronto, that is Italian.

San Francescio has become a slicker chain and I don’t like their sandwich any more. So this time Krish and I went to nearby California Sandwiches and shared their monstrous sandwich between us. It’s always with a Brio, which is the Toronto version of Chinotto – slightly less bitter, more sweet, but perfect with a spicy meat sandwich.

Little Italy has that distinctive Canadian-Italian touch, with its own community. It even has its own radio station, which has its own enormous annual picnic.  Johnny Lombardi was a pioneer of multicultural broadcasting in Canada and his shadow looms over everything.  And it’s a great place for a time warp. Maybe more about that later.

Toronto now has a Toronto sign. Try getting anywhere close to it with all the tourists and photographers, though. It’s in front of New Toronto City Hall (the old one is beside it, across the road);.The new City Hall was built in 1965 and is iconic for the city – also appearing twice in the Star Trek franchise so you may recognise it.

And about the cannabis culture. Now it’s legal, it’s lost its grass (haha) roots. So shiny. I can smell it everywhere. No one mentions it, no one thinks about it. And no one looks intoxicated.

Toronto is becoming denser and more populated, thanks to the mega new development everywhere. New condos are squeezed between older condos. I have no idea how this compares to London but it feels worse. The skyline is disappearing, parking lots are gone, small buildings are being razed and replaced by two, three, four towers.

There’s a dichotomy here – ‘During the first quarter of 2019, pre-sale launch activity fell to a 10-year low, price growth slowed, but the number of projects under construction has hit an all-time high.’ So more construction along with less interest. Where will the people come from? But they do come and the (steeply increasing) prices overall reflect that.

Toronto The Good may be good (polite, measured, modest, orderly) but, despite its much quieter pride of place in the world, it’s trying to catch up in other ways than the condo culture and growing population reflects. It’s quietly proud. People like Drake have helped that.

Also helping is sports. This year the NBA team (Canada’s only basketball team) The Raptors have reached the finals and have won their first game. The city, as always, has come alive.

I’ve been much more conscious of Canadian pride and Toronto community spirit on this visit. People hang together, not standing apart. Perhaps this was always there but right now I do feel it.