Day One: We arrived at our next destination in the early part of the afternoon. We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, right in the heart of Toronto. Our view was the lake and the CN Tower, along with Rogers Center (stadium). We were very close to everything. We decided to head to Chinatown. It's pretty big and much, much cleaner than NYC's Chinatown. I was so excited to see some fresh exotic asian fruits that I loved to eat whenever I am in Thailand. There were lychees, longans, rambutans, guavas, mangosteen, etc. I ended up buying some longans and rambutans at the end of our trip to take back home with us. For dinner, we ate at King's Noodle Restaurant between Spadina and Dundas Street. Great choice! We had the shrimp dumplings, sticky rice, and spare ribs along with our main entrees: BBQ duck with rice and wontons & bbq duck noodle soup. The shrimp dumplings and wontons were the best I've ever had anywhere! Jeff also agrees with me. Jeff loved every single dish that came out. We returned to this restaurant two more times after this. It was that good!!!!!
As we were walking back to our hotel, which was right next to the convention center, we saw a group of people on a small stage. They were calling out to the crowd and offering free tickets to the Canadian Idol show. I was curious and wondered what the catch was. We approached the staff members and asked them what was going on. They said they had three more tickets to the LIVE show of Canadian Idol...no catch, no gimmick! So, we did not hesitate to take those tickets. The show turned out to be the live result show. They were down to the top nine and were going to eliminate one contestant. The audience coordinator instructed us on when and how loud to cheer, stand, sit, etc. The host and judges were introduced. The host is nothing like Ryan Seacrest, which is probably a good thing. Although we did not hear much from them, the judges did bear some semblance to our American judges, especially Simon and Randy. It was a great first night in Toronto...what a fun experience. Much to Jeff's delight, we got some free goodies, too - Canadian Idol lanyard, bottled water, and free McDonald's yogurt parfait which was really good.
Day Two: This morning, we had breakfast at Cora's - we do not recommend this. After breakfast, we went to the CN Tower, the world's tallest building. We got a chance to step onto the skywalk along with hundreds of other children. It was a perfect day for a field trip to the CN Tower. There were so many children! Afterwards, we took the ferry to the Island. This is a great attraction for families and teens. We had the WORST lunch ever! Jeff had a burger which he did not care for and I had the veggie hot dog which was nasty! I couldn't even eat half of it. The waiter was kind enough to take it off our bill since he was the one who recommended it to me. We did not stay on the island too long. We ended up going back to Chinatown to have dinner at a Thai restaurant (Thai Bangkok). OMG! Another worse meal! Jeff ordered the Thai ice tea which came out looking like a milk shake. Everyone who's ever had a Thai ice tea knows that it should come out orange with the milk/cream just on top. I tasted his ice tea and I could still taste and feel the grounds of the tea....and, plus, it did not taste like anything we were used to. This was tea incident was followed by a long, long wait for our meal to come out. We had ordered Som Tum (papaya salad) which was supposed to be an appetizer along with Pad Thai and green curry. The salad should have come out before the other dishes. After about twenty minutes, the host (who was not Thai) came out and said there were no Pad Thai noodles anymore. What!!?????? A Thai restaurant without pad Thai noodles?????? It was only 5:00 and they ran out of pad Thai noodles - does that make any sense? I did not order another dish - we were just waiting for the other two dishes to come out. After another ten minutes, Jeff told the guy that we were going to leave and to not bother with making our dinner. The guy said the Thai cook was in the process of making it, so we reluctantly stayed and waited and waited for another ten minutes. Finally, Jeff hollered back at the host and made him aware that we've been waiting for over 40 minutes with nothing at our table. The host said it was coming out right now. Well, it did and the papaya salad was the worst salad I have ever had! Something was definitely missing from the ingredients! Jeff liked his green curry but it did not compare to my mom's or other green curry dishes he's had in the past. What an awful day of eating for us!!!! We tried to rectify this day by going back to King's Noodle restaurant. We just ordered the same noodle dish as the night before....yummy!
After dinner we went to Eaton Center and came across Richtree Market. They give you a shopping card as you order whatever you want from the various market-stand style vendors. Again, what we ordered was not very satisfying to our palettes. But, the place was cute.
Day Three: After walking around town for two days, I finally convinced Jeff to take public transportation. Of course, that did not stop us from walking altogether, but at least we are not walking 20-30 blocks from one location to the next. Toronto has a great transportation system. We got an all-day pass that allowed us to take the train, bus, and streetcar as many time as we like to. Jeff did an amazing job at figuring out all the different routes and he guided us through the city without incident. That's my guy!
We went into Greektown and had lunch at Messini. Finally!!!!! A great meal!!!!! After a disappointing day of eating the day before, the gyros were out of this world! We walked up and down Greektown and later took the bus to the "Beach". We just relaxed and did some people watching, our favorite past-time. Afterwards, we took the bus to Little India, which took us a while to find. The map had it pinpointed in one area, but some nice local lady told us that was way off. She directed us to the right streets and boom! we were there! Not much there , so nothing to report. Oh! Jeff did have some kind of Indian ice cream/popsicle - it was really good.
Okay...guess where we went after this? Chinatown, again! This time we went to a popular Pho restaurant between Spadina and St. Andrew Street. This place was constantly busy with patrons coming in and out. We both had pho, but we've had better pho back here at home. It was okay and much more edible than the Thai food that we had the night before. After dinner, we went to the Harbor Place. We got ice cream and did some people-watching there. I had the best ice cream ever - tiramisu! Everyone who knows me well, knows that I love my ice cream icy and not creamy. The tiramisu was the perfect consistency for me and it just tasted sooooo good! My mouth is watering just from thinking about it.
Day Four: Our last day here in Toronto. We decided to have a lazy day today. We had lunch at Aroma Indian Restaurant on King Street. We got there around 11:30 and we saw tables already "reserved". There were just a handful of patrons already there and we were lucky to snag a table. But, within 30 minutes, that place was packed! I have never seen a lunch buffet packed like this before. First of all, I have never seen lunch buffet with reserved tables before. Every single table was occupied and this was not a small place either. The lunch was absolutely delicious. One of the best Indian food we have ever had. I'm usually not a buffet eater and I never get my money's worth, but this food had me going up for seconds and thirds. I think Jeff probably had four or five servings. All this for under $10 per person! What a deal!
We didn't do much after lunch. We relaxed in our hotel room - Jeff fell asleep and I watched my soaps. I needed this "break" from all the walking that we've been doing. My feet were killing me and my back was aching so much. We finally left our room and took the train out to Yorkville. I bought some tops at a store called Jacob - very cute tops and ones I can wear before I have to start wearing maternity clothes. We ate at Sushi on Bloor (on Bloor Street). I love sushi but knew I could not eat any rolls with raw fish or have any sashimi. So, I ordered the eel roll, which had bbq eel and roe (fish eggs) in it. Jeff ordered the California roll, spicy tuna roll and spicy salmon roll. I also had a craving for shrimp tempura but mistakenly ordered the shrimp teriyaki. Needless to say, I was disappointed when I saw the teriyaki dish come out and not the tempura. But, I ate it and it was actually very good. I was also enjoying my eel roll until by fourth piece when Jeff kindly reminded me that fish eggs were raw. Darn it! I completely forgot! I gobbled up the fourth piece and had to refrain myself from finishing the rest of the roll. After dinner, we walked around the town a bit more and later headed back to our hotel to start packing for our trip home.
This was a fun trip for the both of us. What we enjoyed most was being able to spend all this "quality time" together without having to worry about work or house chores. It was nice to get away from our every day life and just enjoy one another's company again. I'm sure that time will be very limited once Baby Wong arrives.
Okay....now, we are preparing for our next trip. In four more days, we are heading to Maine with Jeff's family. I heard we are going to do a lot of walking, too, a.k.a., hiking! Yikes! There goes my feet and back again! But, I am looking forward to the lobsters! Thank goodness I can eat shellfish during my pregnancy.
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