Lunchtime Adventures
Jul. 2nd, 2009 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyatI still have them, though they are not of great scope of late, what with a high workload.
Last week,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
commanderteddog and I ventured to the Patrician Grill, a diner that looks very much like a movie set. It's sort of a quintessential diner archetype from the 60s and 70s. It's the sort of place that sells dry toast, liver and onions, and orange juice in tiny, tiny glasses that let them pretend its fresh-squeezed.
There was an enormous air conditioner over the door that appeared to be larger thanthebitterguy's Smart Car. It was nonfunctional, and the place was sweltering. Somehow, that made it more genuine.
I had a burger, Teddog had the All Day Breakfast Special.
On a curious note, a few blocks away there is a 1940s diner still extant called the "Senator Diner." This place has the original fixtures, but has morphed into the sort of hipster joint that sells $18 hamburgers. Given their Imperial Roman names, I'm wondering if the Senator and the Patrician were founded around the same time.
Earlier that day, I saw a giant bicycle!
Coming home late one night. Using my little point and click, so it's blurry. But the scene reminded me strongly of some descriptions of view from the Last Redoubt, in Hodgson's The Night Land.
"To my right, which was to the North, there stood, very far away, the House of Silence, upon a low hill. And in that House were many lights, and no sound. And so had it been through an uncountable Eternity of Years. Always those steady lights, and no whisper of sound..."
Finally, since quitting my Conan MMORPG account, it appears my character has come to life and is delivering sermons in downtown Toronto. With about the same impact as I had, I should add.
Last week,
commanderteddog and I ventured to the Patrician Grill, a diner that looks very much like a movie set. It's sort of a quintessential diner archetype from the 60s and 70s. It's the sort of place that sells dry toast, liver and onions, and orange juice in tiny, tiny glasses that let them pretend its fresh-squeezed. There was an enormous air conditioner over the door that appeared to be larger than
thebitterguy's Smart Car. It was nonfunctional, and the place was sweltering. Somehow, that made it more genuine.I had a burger, Teddog had the All Day Breakfast Special.
On a curious note, a few blocks away there is a 1940s diner still extant called the "Senator Diner." This place has the original fixtures, but has morphed into the sort of hipster joint that sells $18 hamburgers. Given their Imperial Roman names, I'm wondering if the Senator and the Patrician were founded around the same time.
Earlier that day, I saw a giant bicycle!
Coming home late one night. Using my little point and click, so it's blurry. But the scene reminded me strongly of some descriptions of view from the Last Redoubt, in Hodgson's The Night Land.
"To my right, which was to the North, there stood, very far away, the House of Silence, upon a low hill. And in that House were many lights, and no sound. And so had it been through an uncountable Eternity of Years. Always those steady lights, and no whisper of sound..."
Finally, since quitting my Conan MMORPG account, it appears my character has come to life and is delivering sermons in downtown Toronto. With about the same impact as I had, I should add.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 10:47 pm (UTC)Have you ever been to the Avenue Open Kitchen, on Camden (tiny little side street off Spadina)? Might be a bit out of your way, but when I worked at Spadina and Adelaide, it was my favourite haunt (aside from the Rasoee Indian resto at Richmond and Spadina). This is the place where I first had onion ring poutine. Their regular dishes are awesome -- pastisio, smoked meat, all day breakfasts, hearty mac and cheese, etc. Good portions and prices, nice staff, and it's a real diner with the counter and the booths and all. Tiny, though, and not as movie-set-ready as the Patrician.
Speaking of diners, we drove by the Deluxe in Dundas and they had an auction sign in the window. Just FYI. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-07-03 01:30 am (UTC)The Deluxe used to be owned by one of my patients (who was over 100 when she died), and when she was still alive it was one of my favourite places to do a home visit. She lived upstairs in an apartment inside the Deluxe, and when her spouse became unwell some 30 years earlier, closed the restaurant downstairs, and left it entirely alone and untouched other than to keep the dust off.
It was awe-inspiring to have the front door unlocked, and be allowed inside, and see all the original fixtures, booths, little juke-boxes (complete with vintage music), menus (offering 25 cent specials, exotica like "chop suey sundaes", etc), diner plates, and more. She cooked on the huge gas stove in the kitchen out back, and was pretty sharp and 'with it' to talk to; she reminded me that because of her gas stove, she could still cook and eat when everyone else went through that huge NE Black Out back in ~2003.
::B::
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Date: 2009-07-03 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-07-03 01:11 pm (UTC)Pity about the Deluxe. It was nice to have that little shrine to diners. :)
So how was the food?
Date: 2009-07-03 02:05 pm (UTC)Re: So how was the food?
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