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rfmcdonaldI was excited as the subway car headed east early this afternoon, smoothly riding the rails high above Toronto's shallow Don River and the scenic valley and not-so-scenic highway associated with it. Russia's Don River was said to separate Europe from Asia, but Toronto's Don River marked a mopre notable boundary still, that between western and eastern Toronto. While the division isn't that clearcut--some people go so far as to say that Yonge Street bisects Toronto--I'd be willing to bet that if you mapped the movements of a representative cross-sample of Torontonians in the course of a week, you'd find that fewer people would cross the river that one would normally expect.
This, the geographical division that divided the human community of Toronto, is a tragedy as I discovered after meeting up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
finfin at Broadview and Gerrard. Since we were in Chinatown East, finfin not unnaturally suggested that we go out for pho. We went into Pho Xe Lua (625 Gerrard Street East) along with the rest of the lunchtime crowd, finding a pleasantly furnished and inexpensive restaurant that was a congenial location for food. We ended up deciding on splitting a large bowl of Pho Tái Bò Viên (pho made with rare beef, beef balls, and rice noodles) and spring rolls, each ordering milkshakes and myself going further and ordering a Vietnamese iced coffee.
The food was excellent, only partly because Vietnamese cuisine seems to make extensive use of fresh items (fresh bean sprouts, mint leaves still on the stem). The spring rolls were crispy, their dipping sauce piquant, the noodles fresh and the beef pleasantly chewy. Even if I hadn't enjoyed the pho, the coffee would still have been more than strong and sweet enough to make me respect Vietnamese cuisine. As things stand, the coffee simply pushed my dining experience over the top. I'll have to cross the Don again sometime soon, I think.
This, the geographical division that divided the human community of Toronto, is a tragedy as I discovered after meeting up with
finfin at Broadview and Gerrard. Since we were in Chinatown East, finfin not unnaturally suggested that we go out for pho. We went into Pho Xe Lua (625 Gerrard Street East) along with the rest of the lunchtime crowd, finding a pleasantly furnished and inexpensive restaurant that was a congenial location for food. We ended up deciding on splitting a large bowl of Pho Tái Bò Viên (pho made with rare beef, beef balls, and rice noodles) and spring rolls, each ordering milkshakes and myself going further and ordering a Vietnamese iced coffee. The food was excellent, only partly because Vietnamese cuisine seems to make extensive use of fresh items (fresh bean sprouts, mint leaves still on the stem). The spring rolls were crispy, their dipping sauce piquant, the noodles fresh and the beef pleasantly chewy. Even if I hadn't enjoyed the pho, the coffee would still have been more than strong and sweet enough to make me respect Vietnamese cuisine. As things stand, the coffee simply pushed my dining experience over the top. I'll have to cross the Don again sometime soon, I think.
