Thursday, July 17, 2008

Neighbourhood News

At the corner where I live, there is a pizza slice shop, an Italian veal sandwich shop and a new Montreal-style deli. These three places are all very popular with tradesmen. When I walk home for lunch break, I see large trucks parked illegally across all the curb space at the intersection.

Traffic gets pretty crazy here at lunch time and it isn't helped by the fact that there are no stop signs at the corner. Drivers tend to hit the gas to race towards the lights at the end of the narrow one-way street. Picture it: builders intensely focused on their slice of pizza in one hand, steering oversized vans with the greasy fingers of the other hand, navigating between other oversized vans while flooring it towards a stale green light 100 metres away. It's really dangerous for pedestrians. I often have to dash across the street or jump back to avoid being struck by a plumber's truck being driven by a plumber who is preoccupied with licking tomato sauce from his forearms.

Sometime between 7 pm Tuesday and 9 am yesterday, crosswalk lines were painted at the intersection! There is still no stop sign, but perhaps the lines will help to deter the drag race-style driving around here.

Exotic gelato alert! Try D.T. Bistro at Harbord and Brunswick for something cold and delicious this summer. I had to venture out of Little Italy to find gelato that goes beyond standard flavour conventions. I know the ingredients in my scoop are unusual when I have to look them up on Wikipedia afterwards. Here are some of the gelato flavours on offer yesterday:

- Indonesian coconut and pandanus leaf
- Apricot and ice wine
- French nougat
- Blood orange
- Marscapone limoncello cream and sour cherry
- Sabayon and green figs
- Pink guava
- Mochachino
- Yogurt and mandarin
- Madagascar vanilla
- Tangerine and Sambuca

Fair warning: the food at D.T. Bistro is always wonderful but the service can be rude at times.

1 comment :

Netts said...

so what does pandanus taste like?

Blog Widget by LinkWithin