An Urban Adventure: Kensington Market, Toronto

If you’re ever in Toronto, after you’ve visited the CN Tower and the other obvious places…or if you’ve just moved here and want to see what “here” consists of…or even if you’ve never been anywhere near Toronto…come take a walk through a neighbourhood. Any neighbourhood will do, they’re all different, but one of my favourites is Kensington Market.

If you’re taking the Spadina streetcar from the subway line, as we did, you enter via the bustle and strong smells of Chinatown – people hawking cheap t-shirts, designer knockoffs, herbs right on the sidewalk, sometimes pirated DVDs although none are to be found this time; there must have been a crackdown recently. Coming from the south, you turn off Spadina onto Dundas Street West, suddenly surrounded by quiet.

One short block later, you turn again and now you are in a different world.

You pass brightly painted house-fronts with racks of secondhand clothing outside, funky décor and jewellery inside. A tattoo parlour. A bong shop. We once bought a bong there as a gift; we must have looked very inexperienced, didn’t know you could smoke on the back patio but not buy weed on the premises.

The clothing stores give way to little restaurants. You might stop at Kensington’s Espresso Bar, where we were thrilled to find gluten-free crepes (sweet or savoury, take your pick), and fair-trade organic coffee of course.

Outside again, you pass a brightly painted shell of a car filled with earth and sprouting grass and even a small tree. There’s also a biker bar, a yarn store (Lettuce Knit), a dry-goods grocer selling bulk food for cheap.

Farther along, past a string of Mexican restaurants and across from a Spanish tapas place with a lovely patio (Torito), you might stop for a second course at the Burger Bar. With the checked tablecloths, wooden moose-head sculpture, sleepy repetitive music, and late-afternoon light, you might imagine yourself in an Old West saloon or its more recent cousin, the small-town diner.

But in this saloon you can order such exotic fare as a bison burger, sweet-potato fries, or regular fries topped with saag paneer – an East Indian dish of cubed cheese and spiced, pureed spinach. (Here in Canada we normally top our fries with cheese curds and gravy, aka poutine). You can also choose your beverage: beers from local craft breweries, a long list of tequilas, and the Danish spirit called aquavit.

Once outside again, you wander half a block north and suddenly emerge onto a major street next to a Bixi bike stand. The funky vibe is gone as quickly as it appeared. A few blocks east and you’re back in Chinatown, or a little farther west and you’re in Little Italy. If you walk north to the subway, you can stop for the best ice cream in town (Greg’s Ice Cream)…but beware, you might be too full to take it in, too sated with the vivid sights and tastes of Kensington Market.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *