More hotspots

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September 24th was exactly one year ago that we were on the plane from Amsterdam to Toronto to start our Canadian adventure. It’s bizarre to realize that we’ve been through all seasons while living here, and this late summer weather reminds me of our first weeks here. Although I’m a big fan of the summer, the autumn is maybe the prettiest season in Toronto. Soon it will be Indian summer again, and is every Canadian totally into Thanksgiving and Halloween. This weekend we went to Fall Fest in Uptown Yonge, which is a really nice neighbourhood (north of Eglinton) where we don’t come so often. This festival was organized to celebrate and welcome the new season with live music and many fashion boutiques and restaurants promoting them selves on the streets. And there are so many nice boutiques in this area! I have to go back there for more shopping; shops combining fashion, interior, jewellery and accessorizes are the best (e.g. White Castle Blue Jeans). One of my favourites is the Drake General Store (drakegeneralstore.ca), which is not only located next to the Drake Hotel and in Hudson’s Bay, but also here on Yonge Street.

And as I wrote in my previous post, it’s time to share a few of my favourite restaurants again, please let me know if you have some more suggestions!

One in Yorkville (one.mcewangroup.ca): great outdoor patio, perfect for Sunday brunch (no better place to watch the rich and famous of Yorkville) ~ Lee (susur.com/lee):  best food ever! Need I say more? ~ Boehmer (boehmer.ca): nice interior, great food, might ne my new favourite ~ Bannock (oliverbonacini.com/bannock): casual lunch, Canadian food, and it’s another option to have lunch near the Eaton centre except Mercatto ~ F’Amelia (famelia.com): great food, lovely people, nice place, both inside and outside ~ Garbadine (thegabardine.com): fun place for lunch in financial district ~ Momofuku (momofuku.com): I started at the 3rd floor (Shoto), then I’ve tried the other 3rd floor restaurant during Summerlicious (Daisho), and last but not least I’ve tried the Noodle bar at the ground floor which is great for lunch ~ Gusto (gusto101.squarespace.com): old time favourite, both inside and outside, both lunch and Friday night dinner and drinks ~ Joso’s (josos.com): best seafood in town! ~ Lakeview (thelakeviewrestaurant.ca):  this typically North American restaurant is open 24/7, and they have the best milkshakes ever ~ Earls (earls.ca): did I ever mention Earls? One of the first places we had dinner and drinks in Toronto, and still the best outdoor patio downtown for lunch and late night drinks & snacks (best sushi) ~ Pamenar (cafepamenar.ca): a nice little coffee bar, famous for their delicious paninis and beautiful garden.

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Juice diaries part VI

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I won’t promise that I will make as many juices as I did the last couple of months. To be honest, these juices are all made a while ago hehe. So please enjoy the 7 juices for another week of healthy juicing, I say CHEERS to that!!

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(And another confession: still got some yoga lessons on my prepaid yoga school pass… Pffff… My next post will be about the best restaurants in town, we’ll be doing healthy later again LOL).

P.S. Try juice 6, it’s surprisingly good!

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JUICE 1 – Strawberries, 1 grapefruit, 1 plum

JUICE 2 – 1 mango, 1 orange, 2 apricots, ½ pineapple

JUICE 3 – Strawberries, ½ pineapple, blueberries, raspberries, 2 oranges, 2 apples

JUICE 4 – 1 grapefruit, 1 green apple, 1 pear, 1 apricot

JUICE 5 – 1 orange, 1 grapefruit, 1 apple, ginger, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries

JUICE 6 – 1 sweet potato, 1 beet, 2 oranges, 2 apples, ginger

JUICE 7 – 1 banana, strawberries, 1 orange, 1 apple, 1 pear

Back again!

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It’s been a while… But I had my reasons: our little Canadian is born!

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This means discovering the city in a whole new way. Instead of – no besides of – new restaurants, shops, and so on I’m now an expert in postnatal yoga classes, nursery shops, obstetricians, doulas, paediatricians, diaper sales, and last but not least stroller friendly restaurants. And I have to say Toronto is stroller friendly!

TIFF is in town (Toronto International Film Festival, tiff.net)! This means a lot of events AND stars in the city. Celebrating our first anniversary, we had lunch at the Spoke Club, where Nikki Beach had taken over during TIFF. Pretty cool, and besides that: stroller friendly 🙂 Love it.

Aye aye, captain!

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Toronto keeps surprising me. This weekend felt like a weekend spent outside the city, but actually this time we only went 200 meters away from home. It wasn’t solely the lake and our rented sailboat that contributed to this holiday feeling, it’s also the renewed Harbourfront that is becoming more and more fun (check out harbourfrontcentre.com)!

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The ultimate Canadian experience

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My Canadian friends told me it would be the ultimate Canadian experience. Spending the weekend in a cottage on the lake. We were invited to spend last weekend 3,5 hours north of Toronto, in a beautiful cottage on lake Joseph, lake Joe for friends hehe. Located in Northern Ontario, the lake is surrounded by cottages. A weekend full of barbecuing, roasting marshmallows in the fire (my favourite!), swimming, fishing and boating on the lake to peek at all the cottages and boathouses. Did you know a boathouse is a house for your boat(s) and not a houseboat (where you could live in)? Definitely a small cultural difference, or maybe something linguistic… Anyway, love the Canadian style! Every boat deserves a pretty garage.

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Pride and other places to be

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As the so called gay capital of North America, Toronto proudly presented the annual Gay Pride again. For us, it felt a little bit like Amsterdam again with all the parties on the streets. And WOW… what a colourful appearances!

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Time for a little update regarding the places to be in the city. Although it’s tempting to go back to favourite spots, I try to keep discovering new hot spots. Hereby a few of my latest findings.
Best brunch spots: Artisan Baker on Yonge Street (theartisanbakers.com), School in Liberty Village (schooltoronto.com), on the patio of Origin on King Street East (origintoronto.com) and I’ve mentioned it before, but the Drake Hotel on Queen Street West is great, especially now the patio is open again (thedrakehotel.ca)! When it’s raining, it’s fun to have lunch at the Art Gallery of Toronto (ago.net), currently there is this impressive exhibition of the Chinese famous and controversial artist Ai Weiwei. Furthermore, Union on Ossington Street (union72.ca) is a great place to go.
Having a coffee (or a chai latte) at Aroma Espresso Bar at Queen Street West (aroma.ca) is good, but if you really want to enjoy your drink in the sunshine, you should go to my favourite place: the Distillery District. You can choose to sit on the bigger terrace, but there is also this nice little spot called Furbo (caffefurbo.com), you will love it!
You could live forever in Toronto and go out for dinner every night, and still you could find new restaurants. Nice places I’ve been lately are Table 17 in Leslieville (table17.ca), Patria on King Street (patriatoronto.com), Blu in Yorkville (bluristorante.com), Spice Root on King Street (spiceroute.ca), Brassaii on King Street (brassaii.com) and The Grove on Dundas Street West (thegroveto.com). After dining in The Grove you should go to The Cocktailbar (hoofcocktailbar.com)!! But I was really impressed by the two following restaurants. Canoe (oliverbonacini.com/canoe) because of the food AND because of the view from the 54th floor, and Momofuku Shoto (momofuku.com/toronto/shoto) is really cool because of the fantastic surprise menu (ten courses!!). Soon more about great places to eat, drink and have fun in Toronto!

Living the good life

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Summer holiday in Toronto 🙂 …. it could be worse. Living the good life 

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Let’s dance!

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Time for a little bit of music and dance again! Starting with a performance of the National Ballet of Canada: the famous and passionate story of CARMEN. The National Ballet is aiming to attract more young visitors, and organized a membership programme for 16 to 29 year olds. Accompanied by my age buddy (i.e. my 29-year-old friend LOL), I made my first entrance at the Four Seasons Theatre. Thanks to our So You Think You Can Dance experience in watching (and judging) modern dance, we had a great time 🙂

Over the weekend we had the illusion of being on holiday in Brazil. The so called Dundas West Fest took place in little Portugal, a festival on the streets full of food, nice little market stalls, and of course music and dancing people! Loud sounds of Portuguese and Brazilian music were audible during the whole day. That’s what I like so much about Toronto, all these multicultural neighbourhoods where you can really experience a different culture.

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Celebrating summertime

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Not only have we embarked upon our first summer in Toronto, it was also the first time we had friends coming over from Amsterdam during this enjoyable season :-). (Although dog sledding and skiing were unbeatable Canadian experiences). And that meant, experiencing Toronto in a new way! The last weeks we’ve spent our free time in parks, on little beaches (blogto.com/sports_play/2011/07/the_top_five_beaches_in_toronto/), at the Toronto Islands, on patios (patios.blogto.com/) and at the pool. What a life hehe. I love summer!

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And there are more great ways of enjoying this time of the year. What about watching the Torontonian baseball team playing in their stadium (and sunny weather equals an open roof: tanning at the same time… Uhhhh YES please!!). Let’s go Blue Jays, let’s go! And they play almost every day  (toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=tor).

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Last winter we already visited the Niagara Falls, and we’ve been in the region around Niagara-on-the-Lake before too. But visiting the winery of Peller Estate (peller.com) last week was an absolute highlight. Delicious (ice)wine, food and surroundings, WOW!

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I always love to explore cities by bike. And not only the Dutchies enjoy cycling through Paris and New York, cycling is hot!! In Toronto we have Bixi bikes, a perfect way to get around for only 5 dollars a day. After this experience I even subscribed for a year, because I like the Bixi bikes more than my own city bike LOL.

bixi bike

Canadian driver’s license

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Whoop whoop! As of today I’m allowed to drive in Canada! Yes, my good old pink Dutch driver’s license isn’t valid here, don’t ask me why.

Can you imagine, almost eleven years ago I got my driver’s license, as proud as a peacock LOL. And I had to do it all over again, including a theory test, a few lessons and a road test. YAY… not! Fortunately, I passed 🙂

So watch out Torontonians, this Dutchie’s going to hit the road again HOORAY!!

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