Our last day in Toronto; we had probably walked several miles (sorry, wrong country, kilometers ;)) that day, with staring from our (absolutely awesome) bed and breakfast in Cabbagetown, walking to the University of Toronto, and the crystal monsters of Royal Ontario Museum, to the piers, and all around Toronto islands. Needless to say, we were pooped. But that wasn’t going to prevent us from going out! We ended up going to a Cabbagetown neighbourhood bar by the name of Ben Wick’s pub. Little did we know… we would be the only people in the entire bar. Granted, it was a Monday evening. Granted, it was Easter. Granted, it was 10pm. But… huh? I’m almost convinced it’s a mafia front. Because simple arithmetic surmises that a business with no customers would no longer stay a business…

I forgot who — someone thought we should order something local. After the (slightly strange) waiter rattled off the list, and the only local wine available was of the Niagara varietal that everyone with taste apparently disliked, we went with a South African sauvignon blanc that ended up being inoffensive and unremarkable. After dispatching that and a batch of nacho chips, we went for a red for the second bottle. The (fast-talking) waiter heavily recommended an Australian shiraz (after dropping his voice to talk trash about the other offerings) — and after we acquiesced, he brought over a bottle of Jindalee Estates 2007 Shiraz.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll drink it,” he said matter-of-factly, as he poured us the shiraz.

Wow.

It was good.

It was real good.

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After landing in the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, we found ourselves in a bit of a cultural wasteland. To be more precise, we found ourselves on a strip of urban ugliness that called itself, “Las Vegas North”. Of course, what with the snow, ice and other non-Las Vegasy embellishments, the town might have been better termed “Reno North”. So we got out of there as soon as we had our fill of the falls, and went on to a quaint town called Niagara-on-the-Lake, with the byline - “the loveliest town in Ontario”. We drove alongside the Niagara River and up to the mouth where it met with Ontario Lake, where Niagara-on-the-Lake is situated.

This area is also the Niagara region wine country, with 18 wineries located in the general vicinity. To cut to the chase — we didn’t stop at any of the wineries. Buuut, that’s simply because none of them were open! Makes sense — several of the smaller Finger Lakes wineries were also closed and that area is generally much more well-known in terms of wine production.

As much as one can learn of wineries from the road, it appears that the Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries produce mainly ice wine and Riesling. The wineries are packed pretty close together (in fact, I bet you could do a biking wineries tour pretty easily), and come lined in a row all the way up Niagara Parkway and down Lakeshore Road, as can be seen in this nifty little map produced by a local bed & breakfast (of which there are lots in Niagara-on-the-Lake).

Antonio Vivaldi’s Bed & Breakfast

The scenery along this trail is lovely (I can only imagine it gets better during warmer times), and there’s alot of stopping points to jump out of your car and walk on the shore of Lake Ontario (or, if you come during March, you can walk on Lake Ontario), or watch hawks flying over the Niagara River gorge.

I’m probably done with Niagara Falls during my lifetime, but Niagara-on-the-Lake might warrant another trip, perhaps several years down the road. And then maybe I can write a post about actual wine, from actual wineries ;).

If you find yourself in Toronto on a bright Monday morning in startlingly-early spring, you are likely to want coffee.

If you want coffee, you are obviously going to want good coffee.

If you want good coffee, you’re going to want someplace hip. I know, it’s not fair, but you and I both know that any random hole-in-the-wall with schizophrenic music is going to have way better coffee than Dunkin Donuts Tim Horton’s. And you didn’t really travel this far to go to Starbucks, did you?

So go ahead and try the place on the side street where the surly, bearded, flamboyantly gay barista actually asks of your non-coffee-drinking friend: “Is he actually going to sit there and not drink anything?” The espresso base will be outstanding and the pour will be more artful than any you’ll find in any business district in stodgy old America (oh look, a rosetta!). You’ll probably interrupt your thought experiment on what, exactly, that guy’s problem is to leave him a tip, and your friends will do the same while pondering where the sugar got hidden. Because face it: you got what you wanted, which was a good coffee, and the rest is just details.

There are probably two dozen coffee shops that fit that description in Toronto (or, really, any city worth a damn), but, for us, Bulldog Coffee did the job perfectly.

The authors of (aq) are on vacation right now! We are systematically (read: randomly) sampling fine beverages from the northeastern states & provinces of the continent of North America. When we get back; cappuccino, wine, & beer, AKA, everything you need to make a vacation awesome. (besides friends).