The GTA and May

Arrived in Toronto and almost kissed the ground after getting off the train. We were happy to leave the motley crew behind at the station. The only person remotely interesting on that train was a musician that I found out worked for Elbow, a rock group from the UK (Tony you would have liked that). Luckily our hotel was across the street from Union Station so we could clean up, feel human again and emerge into the city. Charles and I were craving some comfort food which always means some type of Asian cuisine. We caught the streetcar and headed into Chinatown. Charles' ultimate comfort food is a big bowl of Pho, so we had just that. With full stomachs we could actually enjoy our surroundings. We walked everywhere and it felt good to stretch our legs. I basically took Charles on a walking tour of the city since I'd been before. Toronto is pretty easy to navigate.
That night I looked forward to seeing the only person I knew here, my good friend Maylene. We had a recommendation for a restaurant on Harbord Street called The Harbord Room. As we were walking up to the restaurant I heard someone calling my name. It was an old school friend, Holly Kwan! Funny running into people like that. She actually knows all three of us and she was connected to someone May knew. This world is shrinking I'd say.
The Harbord Room was the new kid on the block so it was too smoking busy for us to eat there but on my way home I might give it another try. It was what we were looking for too, a small modern bistro with a good sounding menu. We asked Holly and her friends what other restaurants around that would be good. We passed by a really cute looking place called Tati Bistro and they claimed it was tried and true. They were right, Tati Bistro had straight up good food and a nice relaxed and quaint atmosphere. Having such a satisfying meal really settled the inner beast that developed from lack of food over the last three days. We felt back to normal and the company was excellent. I miss May a lot. She seemed pretty relaxed and at home in TO so it was nice to see her in her adopted city. We made plans to see her again for dinner the following night.
The next day Charles and I did the walking city tour again. We walked for five hours that day, stopping to take breaks and soaking in the sites. We had a great time doing that. We were on our way to Kensington Market and stopped into Chinatown again, this time for Chinese food. We stopped into Kensington Market at Global Cheeses and sampled an artisan cheese that was out of this world. I'm embarrassed to say we can't remember the name, we were so distracted by the endless array of cheeses. We left there with that particular cheese, some prosciutto, flat bread and marble Halva. Let me tell you about that Halva, if only you could have tasted it...I ate the whole slice and now I'm regretting that I didn't save any for the next day. Halva is basically crushed sesame seeds or tahini and it gets mixed with honey, different flavourings and nuts then it gets pressed into a form. I chose the marbled chocolate and vanilla on recommendation from the girl behind the counter. I don't eat it that often because I never get the quality I'm looking for but I couldn't resist after seeing the huge rounds of it behind the glass. I'm glad I tried it and I'll be back for more on my way home.
Today we're back on the train for five hours on our way to Montreal, Quebec. We'll spend three days in the french city famous for it's...poutine? Charles can't wait.