Dining in Canada

It probably says a lot about us that one of the places we most wanted to visit in Victoria, if we had managed to get there, was a food court. (That and the Butchart Gardens.) Obviously we have never been fancy people.

We did not know the name or location of the food court. We just remembered a sign with a pink giraffe. The odds of it still being there seem small, but there was still this idea that it would be cool to find it again. To be fair, this was the first food court we had ever seen. It would be years before hanging out at the mall was a common activity, and even then, it was a long time before the food court at Washington Square became what it is today.

Worse than that, I don't like poutine. I don't hate it. I tried it, once was enough, and I'm good. So, you can use this for a guideline as to whether or not to trust my judgment.

In Toronto I mainly ate at the food court in Eaton Center or at grills at whatever place I was visiting. The soup at Casa Loma was good; I don't even remember what I had at Niagara Falls. It is probably not worth eating at the CN Tower. Their chicken basket was very dry.

There were a couple of exceptions. On one tour, the guide recommended the lunch buffet at a Thai restaurant. I decided to splurge and go there for dinner, because I like Thai food, and it was reasonably close to my hotel. It was very disappointing.

This may go back to not being fancy. It was clearly very trendy for the time, from the square white plates to the hipster-ish wait staff. I realized almost immediately that I was going to overpay for nothing great, which makes me wonder in retrospect why I just didn't leave. What I really should have done is made my way over to Chinatown and found something there, but without having any inside information you're just guessing what will be good.

The other random thing is that I was walking along and found a place called the Regal Beagle, and I had to check that out. They did not seem to be capitalizing on the "Three's Company" connection, which is a shame. The burger and fries were okay, but nothing special.

If I go to Toronto again, there was a small shop with a bakery case near my hotel (the Marriott on Bloor) and in that case were some chocolate-coated wedges of yellow cake that were much better than that description can convey.

We had better luck with the Thai restaurant in Vancouver, but the real story of Vancouver is that there was gelato everywhere. We disagreed about which place was best, but we all had gelato multiple times, and we also found many opportunities for crepes. I think we only had crepes twice, but they were available everywhere. And it's amazing that for all the signs we saw advertising souvlaki that we never had Greek food. It was a short trip, so that was part of it.

You may notice from the photos that I am showing two fast food chains, and take it as further proof of our lack of sophistication. Without arguing that, we like A&W but don't make it there very often because it is out of the way. This one was so conveniently located that we had to stop by, and their little fry baskets were adorable.

Finally, McDonald's is more of a breakfast place for us, but on our first day we saw a sign for Cadbury Egg McFlurries. Maria adores Cadbury Creme Eggs, and stockpiles them every Easter. She had to try it. That location was out, but we found another one later and she was able to achieve bliss.

I think the creme eggs are a little gross - too sickeningly sweet without any contrast - but I still tried one because it was a unique opportunity. I guess it's the same way I feel about the poutine.

All of that being said, I am sure that if we were coffee drinkers we would be very fond of Tim Hortons.