Oh Canada!

After arriving too early for my flight to Toronto, I met Shirley at LaGuardia airport and I was upgraded to first class. I fell asleep immediately and we landed early while our friend Andrea was meeting us from Newark. Weeks ago, three risk managers decided that we wanted to explore Toronto and have a foodie girls’ weekend! Shirley comes to Canada for work often, but hasn’t had a chance to explore that much, so we thought this would be fun.

In Toronto, I told the customs agent I was here to eat and see restaurants, all amidst the commotion of a Korean Air flight arriving at the same time and a lady asking me for help with her automated passport control kiosk. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t on her flight, but I helped her anyway.

We decided for brunch to have Hakka Chinese food which is Indian Chinese and famously available near the airport in Mississauga - the neighborhood near the airport and west of Toronto. We went to Hakka Asian Legend and ordered Manchurian soup, cauliflower, sizzling Bollywood beef, popcorn chicken, and Hakka noodles. A collage below:



We then ordered a car to go into downtown Toronto. Our driver, Omar was amazing with food suggestions for the one hour ride to the Hilton. We checked in early and rested for a bit before we got some Starbucks’ drinks downstairs in our hotel. Our driver, Mohammed this time was super funny with lots of gripes, jokes, and a healthy dose of sarcasm. He was charged with driving us to see the storefront for the popular Canadian television show, Kim’s Convenience. The show is hilariously funny about a Korean Canadian family and I enjoyed taking photos:





Although this was not a great neighborhood, we opted to walk to the famous distillery district where there was a Toronto Christmas market. We enjoyed a chimney stack and meandered throughout the stalls. We also shared an artisanal grilled cheese and took some fun photos with sculptures and holiday decor:











Shirley had arranged a happy hour with her work colleagues and we all met at C’est What? which was famous for beers and music. Shirley’s colleagues, Victor and Michael were kind and we chatted away. Some photos below:





After drinks and a round of Canadian Whiskey shots, we decided to walk up to the famous Hudson Bay Department store and checked out their holidays windows:



All of us then walked past the old city hall and to the new city hall where there were more shops and an ice skating rink:



We walked through Eaton Centre mall and mini-Times Square at Yonge and Dundas Square. Hungry, we decided to find a poutine shop and a popular chain is Smoke’s. Here’s a photo of our traditional with bacon, butter chicken, and double pork poutines:





As the guys needed to eventually go home, we strategized and decided to take a car to the Fairmont hotel which is near the Hilton, but also near the transit for Victor to get home and close to Michael’s apartment. At the Fairmont, an originally Canadian company, we had a round of drinks at the Library Bar where we also ran into the famous comedic actor, Seth Rogen who is Canadian. I didn’t believe it was him, so Victor went up to him and said, “my friend doesn’t believe you’re Seth Rogen” and Seth just responded “believe it.” We opted not to bother him for a photo, but you should believe this story.

After drinks, we all headed our separate ways and agreed that we had a successful first day in Oh Canada!