Bursting but not quite full yet

Day two of Toronto and the first day of the Vegetarian Food Fair. We had some time before the commencement of TVFF so we started our day with a leisurely stroll...20 km or so that day, and bagels and mochacinos from the cafe downstairs, a mere $20 and we were off. We started up Bay street and then Yonge and perused the multitude of shops and restaurants although none of the ones that were on our veggie map seemed to be where they were supposed to be, surprise surprise and ended up finding the World's Biggest Bookstore. A dream come true for a book lover like myself! Seventeen miles of bookshelves set in a rather depressing fluorescent lit basement feeling box. No big chairs to encourage reading or soft carpet to envelop my already aching feet...why oh why don't I own a pair of sensible walking shoes...All in all I was disappointed with the store but did manage to get a copy with my 30 percent discount of Anthony Bourdains' new book Medium Raw. Having worked up an appetite, we got lost again and finally fell into the vegetarian chain restaurant known well in Quebec called The Commencal. A delicious buffet where you pay $2.99 per 100 grams and fill your plate with whatever you want. I rested my poor feet while Nahleen took her first trip up. Gingerly I made my way through the line trying to make good decisions about what to put on my plate. I started with potato salad with lots of dill, a veggie sausage roll in puff pastry, leek pie, delicious shepherd pie with lots of corn and seitan, a yucky Asian noodle dish, bland ginger tofu, Nahleen's is much better, a very carroty spring roll, beef bourgionne..again Nah's is way better...probably all that wine! Nahleen's dish looked a lot like mine but she tried the lima bean salad and said it sucked but the Chinese seitan was delish. Another round brought us dessert of chocolate mousse cake, which Nah loves and me not so much cause its very soyee, a great hazelnut cake and a better lemon cake although not very lemony but so light and fluffy and a berry trifle that neither of us were sold on because we don't like jam in our desserts. Stuffed and bleeding of the foot..me..we made our way to Canadian Tire to get me some sensible shoes.
I WARN YOU, THIS IS A GRAPHIC PICTURE OF MY POOR FOOT



poor tootsie, will probably have ugly scar for rest of life

 We managed to find a pair of rip off Crocs called aquaocs as they were able to be worn in the water. Sweet relief! Although we did later have to modify them and hacked off the tabs in back that gave me blisters. Headed back to the hotel for a quick nap and a veggie dog for me at the street meat vendors in front of our hotel...I know we just ate but they smelled so good and then down to the food fair. Rested and clean, we decided to try out the underground tunnels to get to the Harbourfront Centre where our event was taking place. Twisty turny and full of neat boutique shops, food courts and great smelling men we finally emerged into the sunlight and into a bevy tents set up on the water. Grabbing our event bags, free Veg News magazine and program we set out to find all sorts of new and exciting products. My favourite that day was the beef tips from Gardein, a product of which we only get a few of here in NS and coconut oil ice creams in lots of flavours like coffee was so tasty and not in our grocery stores : ( We went through the booths quite quickly and finally decided it was time to eat! The food pavilion held a variety of restaurants and we went with El Cilantro, a Mexican spot and the Hare Krishna's. Try to get that song out of your head when listening to it for an hour! At El Cilantro, an herb I really don't even like, we had the mushrooms tacos on homemade tortillas and cactus salad.

Mushroom taco and remnants of cactus salad

 The mushroom tacos were one of the most vile things I have eaten in a while. Hard to believe you can mess up mushrooms but when they taste like decaying assholes I guess it's not hard. The cactus was incredible and very reminscent of green peppers without the watery bitter taste but still that nice crunch. We washed this down with a can of Corona Extra and went to get our next plate. The Hare Krishna's were much better. We had chana masala, potato and paneer curry, curried vegetables and tofu, samosas, pakoras and a brown dessert thing we later discovered was dates and cream of wheat.

Yummy Hare Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna

All was really good except the tofu and that was yucky and the pakoras were perfect. We walked around some more and headed back to the hotel to wait for my friend Lisa who was arriving from Kingston Ontario by train. Much later on that evening we went to the hotel bar Traders, a man place to be sure, and had martinis called gin and sin, some nachos and spinach artichoke dip. Happy, drunk and full had the best night sleep and was ready to take on Day 3!