Island hopping

I. A Wedding and Happy Times

We just returned home after 4 days in Toronto to celebrate the wedding of our friends Steve and Lilla. They were married at the Algonquin Island Clubhouse on the Toronto Islands. This is a neat destination, a kilometre or less off the Lake Ontario lakefront, a stone’s throw (if you have a really strong arm and a really light stone) from downtown. It’s downright bucolic there, on Algonquin Island anyway (that part is 100% residential with lots of pretty little cottages): no cars, wooded, and just incredibly peaceful. Here’s a shot of the bride and groom just as the sun was breaking through the crowds:

The officiant was from the Humanist Association, which is interesting since we also used a Humanist “minister” for our wedding in 2003, which Steve and Lilla both attended. There were lots of good people, good food, good tunes, and loving vibes there. I said it before, of course, but will say again: Love and best wishes to the newly marrieds.

Since we had such a spectacular view of the skyline I wanted to take some pics of it, but the weather wasn’t very cooperative. It was humid and very hazy, so the best I could do was this one of Brian and me:

And there ya go.

SO we stayed at the Town Inn Suites just north of the main strip in the Gay Village, 620 Church, and it was really quite nice, with separate bedroom and living areas (important since Brian brought work and I wanted to sleeeeeep) and a very comfortable, by hotel standards, bed. Rate was very decent, and yeah, I’d stay again. High points of the trip were the wedding of course, seeing friends (Ed, Teresa, Brian #2 (T’s bf) and Dennis), roti and doubles at Island Foods on Friday night (we went to the one on Dundas instead of out standby at King and Dufferin, and it was just as good as King and Duff, this time at least), pizza at Amato (the Yonge St location- it is a DUMP, but their made-to-order pies are incredible, so much better than their slices), seeing the new ROM, and doing lots and lots of walking in the hot-but-not-too-humid, once things blew through Saturday night, weather. It was a very full few days, and man, WE LOVE TORONTO.

II. The Coffee Challenge

But not all was sweetness and light, and as happens too often in my life these days, the problem was coffee. There is one excellent cafe that I am not going to name, but it’s on Granby off Church and its owner seems to hate having customers — well, a customer, namely yours truly — who know something about coffee and dare to attempt a human discussion about coffee, and manages to ignore me when I am, literally, two feet from his face. I’ve suffered this rudeness on prior visits but was willing to give him another chance because his coffee is the only game in town, a town with generally horrid coffee. I decide I will pull this off by not even attempting chat with him, but my plans didn’t go as, uhm, planned. Here is an attempt at the script from Saturday morning.

One guy in line ahead of me and Owner is pulling what looks like a latte to go. I get in line.

Owner: What can I get you?
Me: Cappuccino.
Owner: (after saying something to other customer and not having, in any way, acknowledged that I’d ordered something) How are you doin? (NOTE that he says this while looking AT THE LATTE, and not at me)
Me: (Confused) Are you asking me?
Owner: You’re that guy from out of town, right?
(“That guy from out of town.” Yes, there is only one of us.)
Me: Well, yeah, I’m John from Calgary. I’ve been in here lots of times when I visit, I was here in February.
(Silence. He’s finishing assembling the latte.)
Me: Oh, and that was for here.
Owner: (Pointing to guy in front of me) This is HIS.
(Okay, I can SEE you’re making this guy his drink, but you’ve not even NODDED about my order and I don’t have a CLUE as to whether you know what I’ve ordered or whether it’s for here or not.)
Me: Right. Hey, you really renovated this place!
(and yeah, I will admit that it looks great)
Owner: Yep, it took three weeks.
(okay, three weeks is nothing but whatever)
Me: Wow, it’s great you could get the contractors lined up to get it done that fast.
(silence)
Me: It looks fantastic- it’s a huge improvement.
(silence)
Me: It seems more spacious now.
Owner: Oh hey, Mike! (to the customer who’s now lined up behind me and taken the responsibility off him to respond to me as if I am an actual human being).

And the cappuccino was 8 frigging ounces, not 5 or 6 like any “champion barista” should know, and it was WAY too hot, so I had to drink it slowly and witness him make small talk with regulars who merited humane treatment, for some reason.

And for the record: Yes, I think that everybody should like me.

And so I will not give this place another penny of my business. Problem is, espresso in Toronto is generally horrible, all one click of stale grounds, “tamped” with the grinder attachment, filthy steamwands… I had an espresso at one branch of Lettieri that actually had a La Marzocco Linea (a great machine, very very rare in TO) that came out like water, no other way to describe it. I did have one really excellent espresso, at a place on Mt Pleasant called Il Gelatiere (647 Mt Pleasant, at Hillsdale, south of Eglinton) that had not only fantastic gelato (FANTASTIC!), but also very good espresso from Santos in Rome made on a spotless Elektra Modern. I’ve learned to steer clear of Italian beans but these were perfect, and a single shot was a perfect ounce. Oh, I also had a great macchiato at the brand new Aroma Espresso Bar in the Annex (wow, good espresso in the Annex!!), on Bloor east of the Bloor Cinema. I’ll be back.