April 2 – Mom’s birthday and Grace’s birthday…
Happy birthday ladies…
April in Toronto should be warm and pleasant, but today’s weather was terrible. Cold, rainy and snowy. Hopefully, it would be the last snow for this season.
Wanted to go to Distillery District long long time ago. Finally, we went there today. It’s a very nice place to visit, especially during the summer. You know, it’s so cold in the winter especially when you go near the Ontario Lake. For those who haven’t heard of Distillery District: It’s the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery located in downtown Toronto. For almost a decade, it has been used for movie shooting… e.g. Chicago, X-men, Against the Rope, Bullet Proof Monk, etc… In Dec 2001, the Distillery was purchased by Cityscape and it was officially opened in May 2003.
Gooderham and Worts Distillery
Remember once I saw someone wrote in his blog that he found Distillery District in Toronto resembles the Grenville Island in Vancouver. Yes, I think they do have some similarities – both of them are artistic places where you can find unique galleries, boutiques, one of a kind craft shops, and fine dining; and both of them have an “industrial past”.
The first thing that catched my attention was the Balzac’s Coffee shop. Maybe it was because of the movie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, that I watched for my Mandarin class assignment 1-2 years ago. Another reason was because of the photos from Tommy that I saw before. I really like the metal electric candelabra (always find this so elegant…) hanging high on the ceiling, and the European-style tables and chairs…
Distillery – Balzac’s Coffee Balzac’s Coffee
Then we went to the Mill Street Brewery and tried one of their best sellers, Tankhouse Ale. Some people found it very smooth and pure. But I found its taste a bit too strong. Heard that the Original Organic is lighter. But I didn’t try coz I’ve already had two cups of coffee. To those who like coffee, you may wanna try the Coffee Porter.
Distillery – Mill Street Brewery Mill Street Brewery
How can I not talk about food/restaurant… Finally we came to this nice restaurant called The Boiler House. Some of you might have already seen this place on TV. When we were there around 2p.m. on Saturday, there weren’t a lot of people. Maybe it was because of the bad weather. So, we just had tea there. There was live music. You can see at the top of the picture, there was a guy standing there performing. The design of this restaurant is warm and very layback… There were some strange wooden cubicals for two at the front… pretty cute, but I wonder if the spacewould be enough for two people if they ordered a lot of plates… =P Maybe next time we’ll come here for dinner. Oh… another thing is that… they do have some unique washrooms, unisex washrooms just like the ones on airplane… of course these ones are more wooden instead of metallic/plastic.
Distillery – The Boiler House The Boiler House
Last but not least, if you ever go to the Distillery, you ought to go to the Sandra Ainsley Gallery, where you can see lots of AMAZING glass artwork… oh my god… Of course, photographing is prohibited, otherwise, I’d take some pictures and share with you guys… and that’s why you should go there. ^^