fat post.

...and by fat post i mean a rather big post...a long post...--just fat. i got really fat. over the holidays. but who doesnt.
Anyway, so i was in toronto for just over 2 weeks, and all i did was eat, drink and be merry. and now that im back in london, all ive been doing is eating, sleeping and watching shows streamed from the interweb. in other words: its been a horrible holiday for my health, but 100% in terms of laziness (sloth and gluttony all accounted for).
anyway...i havent posted in a long time, so to for make up for all lost time, im going to update with all the pictures (and by all i mean 'most') of the pictures i took from then until now. or almost now. anyway..it begins.
And so it began...in kensington. i went here a lot over the holidays. twas great. i wish it wasnt so cold. i'd only been there once before, in the summer (which was awesome) but i didnt get to explore as much. anyway, there are a few notable places since my visit....my market bakery has a delicious things called spudagles (hybrid baby of potatoes, onions and mushroom and bagel dough) and spinagles (delicious hybrid baby of spinach, feta and bagel dough)....
Above is a spudagel. yum. below is gross. its a chocolate-pecan tart/pie thing from this bakery. it was gross. so gross that i actually threw it out. in a real garbage can, not in someone elses mouth. yeah. unfit for consumption.


Wanda's Flying Pie (or something like that...i forget the exact name...) is also a place in kensington. this chocolate covered bear cookie decieved me. i usually dont like gingerbread. in fact, i mostly say i flat out dont like it, but on this particular day, i wanted some sort of spice cookie, so i asked the girl (she was stupid...for real...wait for the rest of what im about to say...) if it was a gingerbread bear cookie (gingerbear cookie?) and she said 'yes'. in fact, she said, "yes". well guess what...SHE IS A LIAR!! i got back to hans' res, and when we ate it, IT WAS A FLIPPING SUGAR COOKIE. damnit. i should go back and fight her.

Said gingerbear-cookie-but-actually-a-sugar-cookie.

This is a dipped macaroon from that Wanda's...place. It was gross. or..not good.

QUEEN STREET. I love queen street. especially if you go far far west. there are so many little galleries and random places. anyway, i walked queen street with sena and we grabbed a bite to eat at a place called shanghai cowgirl.

The only relation between anything remotely 'shanghai' about the place that we could figure was the fact that they had something called a 'wasabi burger'....which is basically just a regular burger with wasabi mayo. and also, isn't wasabi japanese, and 'shanghai' chinese? anyway...the following picture is terrible..

Its really blurry, but it was a triple decker (yes, TRIPLE...does 'triple' have two p's??...) grilled cheese with bacon and tomatoes. it was so glorious. the fries look gnarly. and they were.

After this trip, we made a pit stop at my favourite place (or has-been favourite place...cuz its kind of lost its appeal to me now....): ding dong bakery. its this chinese bakery on spadina, and its a kind of 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' type place (but so is everything in china-town. i swear when you're not looking the buildings and stores re-arrange themselves like the stairs at hogwarts...). Anyway, my favourite buns are the ones with the meat in them...like the bbq pork buns (which i made a post about sometime last yr...or something). Anyway, sena and i made a new discovery: PAPER CUP CAKE! we were so inspired, that we rushed to her dorm and made a song about it. and also a myspace page. check us out on myspace in the near future....i dont think there is anything up right now...and im also not providing the link.

SIJI is a sushi/japanese place by hans' res. its awesome. they don't have all-you-can-eat though. but they do have this:

SALMON SALAD ROLL. omigosh. its basically a thinly sliced cucumber rolled around salmon, fake crab meat (yuck...but excusable) and avacado. it is AWESOME. so fresh! we also had this:

I was too lazy to turn the picture 90degrees. but whateves. it was a philadelphia roll...which exactly what it sounds like. i think it has philadelphia brand cream cheese in it...and also smoked salmon. i will never eat it again. the other one was called gold dragon roll or something dramatic. it was okay. (it had a dot of mayo on each piece...whats with the japanese and mayo?....but their kewpie mayo bottles are really cute....).

A row of houses across the street from the AGO (the new Art Gallery of Ontario). the houses were so cute. anyway, we went to the AGO on a whim, after finding out it was free on wednesday nights. they surprisingly have a lot of pieces...considering its not only a gallery in canada--but in ONTARIO. they have some peter paul ruebens and frans hals originals i think. shocking, i know. it felt so weird seeing the real things, after learning about them in class.

This is 'portrait of a lady' (but there are 2389487239472389472389 paintings with this title....) by...i forget. but what matters more is how fascinating this thing actually looks in person. its really small, like probs about 40cm in height. it was painted sometime in the 1500s, oil on panel. it looks AMAZING. you can't tell by this photograph, but the blending of the paints around the eyes (there was a lot of hues of pinks) and the eyelashes were amazing. i was fascinated, and stared at it for like a full 5minutes (which in reality is actually a pretty long time). i mean, if van eyck invented painting with oils in or around the 1500s....then the medium was fairly new...imagine the skill. i wish i could paint like this--its so beautiful! (i mostly mean the painting of her skin...and really, you had to be there...my shotty picture taking...is..shotty).

Some candy. On this day, we had lunch at Frans. my gawd, i love that place. if you ever go there, get the monte cristo sandwich. it is awesome. i didnt bring my camera to the resataurant, so i failed to take pictures. the worst thing is, i actually went there twice. and both times, failed to be equipped with camera. oops.

Anyway, above: If you ever wondered what $24 if food looked like. thats what it looks like. yeah. hans, were you full? i wasnt.

This donut picture keeps uploading onto blogger sideways. doubleuteefff? ohwell. it was a cute donut (it got squished...), that was super sweet from a place that i forget. so lets just move on, like it didnt even happen.

Me and Hans (hans and i, if you're an english major...) took a lot of pictures. but of them, this is the most memorable. before taking the pic, i said 'lets be awkward'. after looking at the picture preview i laughed by bottom half off. apparently to hans, strangely twisted hands, and the weird nose thing is awkward. awkward indeed. now i feel like the idiot.

On my supposed-to-have-been-last-night-in-toronto we went to this place called Smokes Poutinerie after i read about it in the paper. this place is awesome. so awesome. i was so so so so so full of poutine after. SO full in fact that later that night when we went drinking, i didnt even get a buzz. what a waste.
The Nacho Grande poutine (mine) and the Montreal Smoked Meat poutine (hans'). Henry got the Hogwarts...or...Hog...hog something...i forget. it tasted like what i imagine a lumberjack to taste/smell like.

this post took me over an hour to do. mostly cuz the 'insert' key on this keyboard has been clicked by someone (mostly my dad, since im on his computer) and i dont know how to unclick it because there are too many functions on the keyboard....so when i make a spelling mistake and try to respell it, the entire sentence/paragraph gets eaten away and i had to retype my thoughts. rediculous.

that is all.