I love Toronto

It was a gorgeous Saturday to walk around the city.

Had dim sum with the folks, did a little tour of Chinatown and Kensington Market, headed down to Queen Street West and perused the many eclectic shops in the neighbourhood. Haven't been down in a while, so I've missed out on a lot of great new things.

They opened a Nutty Chocolatier, and it was aboslutely gorgeous in there. Lots of Gelato and ice cream all ready for the first day of Spring! And free truffle samples! YUM!

Sadly, the used bookstore is closing down May 22 - yet another victim of the Heather Reisman Chapters/Indigo empire. But I picked up a pile of books for the family at half off.

But coolness to the max: Bakka has reopened a location on it's home street of Queen St. West, aptly called Bakka Phoenix, at Markham Street. The shop isn't as homey as the other two stores were, but it's still the most awesome place to get sci-fi and fantasy.

Another cool shop on our voyages was the iconic shop that had all kinds of keen imported trinkets including food and floral miniatures and these wicked custom handmade steel figures of all kinds of sci-fi charaters like the Aliens from the Alien movies, Star Wars characters, Godzilla.... they're made with bike chains and things you find in the hardware store. So cool.

Had pizza at Amato's - YUM!! Shortly thereafter, we had dinner with the family in Kensington Market at this new place that barbecues everything in a wood-burning oven. Very keen. They're still in their first month, so they haven't worked out all the kinks yet, but it's worth the visit.

I dunno why I'm suddenly a big ad whore for these places... I think I just miss walking around the city I love so much. Thank gawd for Spring.