Grand Theft Auto: Thornhill edition

9:37 am

A dramatic, high-speed chase in a stolen car down Ontario’s busiest highways with a helicopter in pursuit?

It may sound like a scene from a video game, but this real-life incident began, coincidentally, at a Thornhill video game shop.

Police were alerted to a break-in at an EB Games store near Bathurst Street and Centre Street on April 7.

“We actually were alerted by an alarm security company that someone had smashed the window,” said York Regional Police (YRP) Sgt. Clint Whitney.

Police arrived on the scene to find smashed glass and several video games, as well as systems, missing.

Whitney mentioned that some of that merchandise was recovered.

Officers also observed two male suspects leaving the store and getting into a vehicle.

What followed after that was a high-speed chase through Vaughan, down Highway 400, then to Highway 401 and, eventually, into Halton Region.

The chase on the ground was eventually terminated in order to preserve public safety.

“At one point, the speed reached 150 kilometres per hour,” said Whitney.

However, YRP had backup — a helicopter from their air services unit pursued the car throughout various parts of the GTA.

The chase terminated in Hamilton where the suspects abandoned the car and entered an apartment building.

Police searched the car and found it to be a stolen vehicle from Mississauga. At this point they were able to recover some of the stolen merchandise.

A warrant has since been issued for the arrest of one of the suspects identified in connection with the robbery.

He is a 25-year-old man of no fixed address, but who is known to travel across the GTA. A photo of the man is available on the York Regional Police website. As of yet, police have not identified the accomplice.

Police believe this man to be dangerous.

Staff at the EB Games store could not offer comment on the incident.

Yonge Street rapidways funding announced

9:37 am

On April 22, the Ontario government announced the awarding of a $260.5 million contract to York RapidLink Constructors to build dedicated bus lanes (rapidways) along Yonge Street through Richmond Hill and Newmarket.

“Investing in public transit reflects the Ontario government’s commitment to reducing congestion on our roads,” said Glen Murray, minister of transportation and infrastructure.

But not everyone is singing the praises of this significant investment. Thornhill councillors Valerie Burke and Alan Shefman, along with MP Peter Kent and Richmond Hill councillor Godwin Chan, have been active proponents of a Yonge Street subway extension up to Highway 7.

Burke and Shefman fear the rapidways initiative would take funding away from the extension.

“We’re trying to keep momentum on the extension,” said Burke. “There have been many meetings, and it basically stalled out.… We’re at the next phase, the engineering phase, which is $100 million. If the rapidways are going to take $200 million plus, there’s not going to be funding for the engineering.”

“Dumping billions of dollars into one project doesn’t work.”

The extension has already met several roadblocks, with politicians saying that a downtown relief line in Toronto should be a greater priority in order to ease congestion on the line.

For his part, Shefman agrees that a relief line is helpful. “The moment there is some openness on other parts of the Yonge line, this Yonge Street north line could be in the ground ready to build,” said Shefman. “We just can’t get that message through that the old style of doing transit, to get billions of dollars and dump it into one project, doesn’t work.”

Chan is taking a slightly more optimistic tone. “While there has always been competition for limited funding resources, I am cautiously optimistic,” said Chan. He says the meeting of the two routes at Highway 7 would make the extension more appealing to provincial backers.

“Highway 7 at Richmond Hill Centre could truly be the Union Station of the north.”

No demo for Leaside home

9:37 am

Although classified as a demolition in legal terms, the owner and hopeful developer of Leaside’s oldest home said plans are anything but destructive for the Thomas G. Elgie House, despite community concerns.

North York Community Council denied developer Matthew Garnet’s demolition application for the 262 Bessborough Dr. site during its meeting on April 8. Garnet will now bring the issue forward to the Ontario Municipal Board, likely to be heard in late June or early July.

“I think there’s a lot of confusion about what I have planned. People hear ‘demolition,’ but that’s not what this is,” Garnet said.

The Leaside Property Owner’s Association (LPOA) has opposed the move, and the City of Toronto’s committee of adjustment rejected the application in January. Garnet describes the term as a “legal technicality” under the Ontario Heritage Act — any moving of a heritage building falls under a demolition category — but he contends his intention is to move the building 60 feet forward on its lot, which would provide space and setback enough to potentially split the land into three luxury single-dwelling lots.

Garnet said the Elgie farmhouse has seen three additions added on since the 1930s, the most recent in the mid-1990s. He said he plans to remove those to restore the house much closer to its original frame than it is now, including adding on such historic items as a wraparound porch that is long gone and restoring some of the building’s original windows that are also not currently in place.

“It will actually be far more historically accurate,” Garnet said.

Mother’s helpers shine

9:37 am

North York resident Amy Friedman may not consider her love for children very special, but some families consider her an angel for it.

Friedman is just one of the 32 trained volunteers who provided care last year to families affected by cancer. The network was founded by Audrey Guth, who drew on her experiences, not only as a cancer survivor, but as a child affected by a parent’s illness.

“When I was very young I had a parent who had cancer, and we lived with that for three years until my father passed away,” she said. “I remember how haunting that was, going to treatment with him.”

She said that her idea sparked during her own treatments. “I was looking around the room. There were these young mothers with children. I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t a place for children.’”

Wanting to provide that care for mothers who could not afford it, she started the Nanny Angel Network in 2008. Nannies work varying hours, from occasional visits to long days, taking care of children and daily household tasks while the children’s mothers attend treatments, recuperate and rest.

Friedman has been involved for approximately three years. Her educational background is well-suited for the job — she has a master’s degree in crisis and trauma studies. “I was focused on children and families that are coping with illness,” she said. After working in that field in Israel, she returned to Toronto and became active with the Nanny Angel Network.

“I was involved with more of the high-risk families,” she said. She went on to become a member on the board of directors.

Friedman said volunteering as a Nanny Angel requires a lot of strength. “A lot of moms you see have no family support here. They’re very low-income, and they’re struggling between going to their chemo appointments and being with their family,” she said. Last year, 48 per cent of the mothers helped were visible minorities, and 48 per cent were single parents.

“The hardest part is not being able to do more,” she said. But she emphasized that the rewarding feeling of helping a family in need makes it all worthwhile: “By helping a family through one of the most chaotic, stressful times in their lives, you becoming a key resource in helping them get better and helping them grow from the experience.”

Drink This: the Gladstone Hotel’s Blackberry G&T

1:46 pm

The Gladstone has been a hotbed for culture in Toronto since before the west end was cool. Home to anything artsy under the sun, this month sees Becky Comber, a photo-based artist, set up camp in the hotel for the duration of the CONTACT Photography Festival. Meanwhile, for food lovers, the Food Network’s Bob Blumer has recently taken a stab at the decorative arts, collaborating on the so-called Surreal Gourmet room dolled up in marshmallow pillows and, naturally, a Froot Loops armoire.

In addition to hosting thought-provoking works of art, the hotel is also a place to commingle over post-work beverages. Their take on a classic G&T, available throughout the hotel, starts with muddled blackberries and mint leaves ($11.30). Beefeater 24 gin is layered on top of the juice and the drink is finished with tonic, making for a refreshing twist on the gin and tonic that’s well-suited to those who desire a touch less bitterness than what’s found in the original ’tail.

The Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W., 416-531-4635

An open letter to Toronto’s next mayor: David Suzuki Foundation’s hopes for a greener Toronto

9:56 am

Dear Olivia Chow, Rob Ford, David Soknacki, Karen Stintz, John Tory and other mayoral candidates,
Toronto faced some serious weather this past year. The never-ending polar vortex, dramatic ice storms and flash flooding — unsettling reminders that our communities are vulnerable to Mother Nature’s whims — left many of us with cracked pipes, soggy basements and frayed nerves.

Once referred to as “once in a century,” extreme weather is becoming disturbingly common due to climate change. Last year’s city-commissioned report, Toronto’s Future Weather and Climate Driver Study, predicts even more serious storm events over the next decades and increased summer heat and humidity.

The good news: The province just announced a plan to spend $190 million to help Toronto and our municipal neighbours recover from recent weather-related damage. This new money will help pick up the tab for disaster relief centres, hydro crew overtime and cleanup of thousands of trees downed during last December’s ice storm.

But it won’t pay for restoring Toronto’s world-class parks and other storm-damaged green space. And the province has yet to address the fact that we need to help our communities better prepare to withstand future extreme weather.

Knowing there will be dark, costly clouds on the horizon, how will you help get us ahead of the storm?
One of the best strategies for dealing with severe weather events is to steal a page from Mother Nature’s playbook: Bring nature home to the city through green, living infrastructure.

Like most modern urban areas, many Toronto neighbourhoods, such as the Financial District, Humber Summit and the Junction, are almost entirely covered with pavement. During a big rainstorm, impermeable concrete and asphalt dramatically accelerate runoff volume speeding toward waterways and low-lying areas and, ultimately, into Lake Ontario.

But natural ecosystems — forests, fields, marshes and wetlands — absorb rainfall and slow water flowing through vegetation and soils. So incorporating natural systems into the built urban environment mitigates the intensity of storm surges. Green landscapes also cool neighbourhoods during summer heat waves.

We need interventions that bring together natural and built environments — from large networks of interconnected green spaces, as is the plan for Toronto’s revitalized waterfront, to small-scale engineered systems, like green roofs, permeable pavement and green walls.

Many other North American cities are already adopting this more preventative approach to extreme weather. The City of Philadelphia plans to spend $1.6 billion to convert one-third of its impervious asphalt surface to absorptive green spaces in a major stormwater project. And thanks to former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s leadership, millions of trees will soon be planted across that city as an investment in better storm water management following devastating hurricane Sandy flooding.

And it’s not just city politicians, like you, who can help storm proof the city.

“If devastating storms are the new norm, we need to rebuild the city to reduce our vulnerability.”

Homeowners can plant trees and replace paved areas with permeable landscaping. In the west end of the city, the David Suzuki Foundation’s Homegrown National Park Project is crowdsourcing a green corridor along the old Garrison Creek — catalyzing a range of green activities at the household, block and neighbourhood scale.

If devastating storms are the new norm, we need to rebuild the city to reduce our vulnerability to extreme weather. In 2008, Toronto developed a world-class plan to help communities cope and adapt to climate change, but these good ideas languish without political will at city hall.

You can change that.

Toronto recently slipped ahead of Chicago as the fourth-largest city in North America. As we hurtle forward with new development projects and our city keeps growing with newcomers each year, it will be critically important that you help us overcome not only immediate challenges — like crippling congestion — but new threats that loom large on the horizon, like climate change.

Make green infrastructure a priority. We’re investing hundreds of millions to revitalize the waterfront, and new developments like Corktown Common are already working to protect nearby low-lying areas like the Distillery District from flooding, while providing recreational opportunities for nearby residents.

If we’re going to build, let’s build green. Green infrastructure will not only help protect homes and businesses from extreme weather, it’ll reduce costs associated with recovery and create healthier communities.

Rise above mudslinging and dirty politics. Instead, get your hands dirty by actively greening our neighbourhoods — maybe even breaking out the mayoral shovel to plant more trees, shrubs and pollinator-friendly flowers in city parks. Support community gardens and encourage Torontonians to green their yards and balconies.

To ensure Toronto grows in health and safety, please put your leadership muscle behind green infrastructure. It’s the best way to get us ahead of the storm.

Special thanks to Faisal Moola on this article, who leads the David Suzuki Foundation in Ontario and is professor at York University and the University of Toronto in environmental sustainability.

David Suzuki is host of CBC’s The Nature of Things and author of more than 30 books on ecology.

Toxin Toxout authors on the horrors of shampoo, body lotion and other common products

11:11 am

It’s been impossible to avoid the perpetual hubbub over what we put inside of ourselves (e.g. the alleged health hazards of eating wheat). But according to two of our country’s top environmental thinkers, Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith, we’ve got even more work cut out for us. In their new book, Toxin Toxout, Lourie and Smith reveal in detail how we have been — and continue to be — exposed to scores of toxic chemicals that riddle commercial products, all of which wreak havoc on our health over time. Here, Lourie gives us a primer on the issue.

Bruce, have I basically been a living storage vessel for toxicity since the day I was born?
Absolutely. You know, even before you were born. Yep. Unfortunately.

Oh my God. Please elaborate.
Well, we live in a world where there are roughly 80,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce. So the challenge for all of us is that we really can’t avoid [being exposed to] these chemicals. And they’re in everything—from our soaps and body lotions and shampoos … [there are chemicals] sprayed all over our electronic equipment and lining our frying pans, you name it.… We’re using these products and we’re exposing ourselves to the chemicals and they end up in our bodies. It’s not so much that pollution is out there; pollution is in us. You have anywhere from 50 to 200 different synthetic chemicals in an umbilical chord, meaning that those are basically going right into the fetus.

How long has this been an issue?
Most of these chemicals were developed during the Second World War, and some of them post–Second World War, so for the most part, these chemicals were brought on to the market between the early 1950s and late 1970s. So we’re just now starting to see the first generation growing up with these chemicals in their bodies.… We sort of like to think that we’re using fewer chemicals [today], but we’re actually using way more than we ever used to. There’s way more plastic, there’s way more waste, and I think it’s going to be even more exaggerated when you look at kids born in the 1990s and 2000s and beyond.

Any health concerns we should be wary of?
There’s everything from thyroid problems to ADHD and asthma and, obviously cancer. But these childhood epidemics that we see lately? You know, [they] really weren’t around before. Kids with peanut allergies, for instance. I’m 50, and we didn’t have peanut allergies when I was growing up. Now my kids can’t take peanut butter sandwiches to school.

What’s your take on detox diets?
Well, if you’re consuming crap 11 and a half months a year, it’s not all going to suddenly leave your body with two weeks of eating broccoli from a blender. I think these things make people feel good, and they’re not detoxing. There’s no real information or evidence that these cleanses are removing toxic chemicals from your body. But, the idea that you could be drinking a lot of water, eating a lot less meat and consuming less dairy products, all of these are the right things to be doing to help our bodies naturally enhance their natural detoxification systems.

Joanne Kates crowns Buca new top restaurant in Toronto for 2014

Andrew Mannsbach

12:01 pm

Canada’s leading food critic for over 30 years, Joanne Kates has compiled her 5th annual list of Toronto’s best restaurants—and this year there’s a new name in the top spot. Toronto’s first lady of food has named Rob Gentile’s Buca as the city’s best restaurant in her annual Kates Top 100 Toronto Restaurants list, which will be published in the May edition of Post City Magazines.

This year, for the first time, as a nod to foodies everywhere, Kates has also picked the best food truck in the city. That honour has gone to Buster’s Sea Cove, Toronto’s first sea-food focused food truck that serves up a menu of fish tacos and lobster rolls.

At a time when Toronto is enjoying a golden age of gastronomy, Joanne Kates says Buca offers the best food with service to match in a welcoming environment: “They’re number one for sometimes giving you sparkling wine and a free dessert … just because. For getting excited and showing you the curing room. For being a tall glam brick room full of pretty people. For the whole package.”

The King St. W. eatery has knocked legendary fine dining institution Scaramouche into second place, after it topped the list the previous two years. According to Kates, the change reflects a broader trend away from linens and napkins and towards bold, no-frills establishments.

“No longer is the best or the most revered food in town served at temples to haute gastronomy where the gracious welcome rules. Fine dining has lost its cachet and mostly been replaced by roadhouse with pork, fat, smoke and barbecue, benches for seats, no reservations, loud music and cold drafts, bourbon cocktails and servers whose idea of hospitality is a 20 per cent tip,” says Kates.

The top 10 eateries on the Kates Top 100 Toronto Restaurants 2014 are:

1. Buca

2. Scaramouche

3. Bar Isabel

4. Edulis

5. Yours Truly

6. Hopgood’s Foodliner

7. Splendido

8. Cava

9. Zucca

10. Bar Buca.

Check out the entire Kates Top 100 list here. In addition, the list will be published in all seven of Post City’s print editions, as well the free companion iPhone app (which has almost 10,000 installed users) will be simultaneously updated with the 2014 list.

Toronto’s Elaine Lui celebrates launch of her new memoir Listen to the Squawking Chicken

10:11 am

Elaine Lui didn’t always want to be a writer. It wasn’t until she started her now famous blog, LaineyGossip.com, that she really considered it as a profession. In fact, one of her earliest career objectives — at age 10 — was to become Miss Hong Kong, an expressed desire to which her mother responded, “Miss Hong Kong is a whore.”

Sounds like an extremely harsh parenting style, and it was, Lui admits, but she says she owes every success she has since earned, including publishing her first book, out this month, to values like hard work and determination that her mother impressed upon her.

Listen to the Squawking Chicken is Lui’s homage to a mother she describes as “a force and a legend.” The impetus for the book came about when the elder Lui fell ill in 2010 with a rare medical syndrome called POEMS. During the months Lui spent in the hospital by her mother’s bedside, she felt a growing need to record the lessons and stories she had been told as a child. But this isn’t the first time she’s written about her mother.

Fans of LaineyGossip.com will recognize the Chinese Squawking Chicken (a nickname Lui’s mother earned as a child) from frequent references on the blog.

“In writing about young, wayward celebrities, I started imagining what my mother would say to them, and her voice found its way into my writing,” Lui says. “She became a recurring character, and people really responded to her, they related. They wrote to me telling me they had a Portuguese Squawking Chicken or a Jamaican Squawking Chicken of their own.”

In addition to writing a book and a blog, which she updates daily, Lui is also a TV personality. “I only sleep about four to five hours per night,” she explains. She’s been a reporter on CTV’s entertainment show eTalk since 2006 and recently signed on as a co-host for the network’s daily talk show The Social. Similar to Barbara Walters’ brainchild The View, the new show features a panel of four female co-hosts discussing current events. Lui is rounded out by Melissa Grelo, Cynthia Loyst and Traci Melchor, whom she insists are great friends, despite their differences of opinion on the show.

“We love each other,” she says. “Traci and I had a grown-up sleepover last week at the Thompson [Hotel in downtown Toronto] after a party there … and I have more pictures of Cynthia on my phone than of myself.”

This most recent gig brought Lui back to Toronto, where she grew up, after living in Vancouver for 13 years. Now settled into a new home with her husband and dogs in the Beach neighbourhood, she says she finally feels like a “real Toronto resident.”

“I love the neighbourhood I’m in. It’s far enough away from the hustle, but there’s still so much going on.” She can often be found hitting the gym at the Balmy Beach Club or eating at one of her favourite locals (Lui claims that No Bull Burgers is even better than the Burger’s Priest).

Elaine Lui will present Listen to the Squawking Chicken on April 29 at Airship 37 (37 Parliament St.).

The parent trap: Will and Kate aren’t the only mom and dad to backtrack on those best laid plans

12:02 pm

“Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.” — John Wilmot

Before their baby was born, royal supercouple Kate and William decided, and perhaps naively publicly announced, that they wouldn’t be hiring a nanny, that they would set an example of being involved new young royals and raise Prince George themselves. Well, like many new parents, they’ve discovered that nine months into parenthood the challenges are a bit different than you imagined, once you actually become parents.

A “Spanish supernanny” has been summoned, and I wonder how many other “parenting resolutions” might fall by the wayside for this very high-profile couple as they have done so for us common parents before them. Here are five theories I’ve chosen that they may want to abandon.

1. Not using TV as a babysitter. In years gone past, even the royals used a court jester to entertain themselves and their children. Not all television is bad, and not all parents who let their children watch Breaking Bad before they should are bad. TV is an excellent babysitter whose fees you have already paid.

2. Not resorting to yelling. Reason with them logically to make the right choices. Until of course that little royal hand goes toward a palace outlet with an heirloom silver fork or is steering a wayward scooter toward Great-Granny.

3. Believing that pushing your children into athletic programs and onto high-level teams is just for parents who are living vicariously through their children. Come on, you don’t think William will be encouraging George to try out for the rep level polo team? (I think he’ll make the cut, personally.)

4. Protecting your child from the chemicals and additives in all junk food and sticking to a natural, organic diet. Until cook comes up with crown-shaped nuggets that is, just to get the little prince to eat something before Mom and Dad come home from a ribbon cutting in New Zealand.

5. Deciding that a) I will not document every moment of their lives with video and become one of those parents who jam my camera in the face of my kids all the time or b) making sure to document every moment and file, edit and store all of my video and digital files each month, alphabetized. I’ll make it easy for William and Kate. Their child will be dutifully and officially photographed at every life event. They don’t have to do it for themselves. And any personal shots can only be used against him in later years. George can ask Uncle Harry about that. Stick to the royal portraits.

Kathy Buckworth is the author of I Am So the Boss of You: An 8-Step Guide to Giving Your Family the ‘Business.’ Her column appears monthly.

24 Hour Rental is a comedy unlike anything ever produced in Canada

11:32 am

The existence of a new Canadian sitcom is always a cause for celebration, and this year, after a long drought, viewers will be treated to new comedies with Dave Foley, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Harland Williams and Catherine O’Hara.

But at a recent industry conference, a noted TV and film director claimed that the problem with Canadian sitcoms has been that local TV executives act as if they’ve never seen HBO. Meaning there is no edge to recent attempts and that the style and characters are 20 years out of date.

If you agree with that statement, then there’s a new show waiting for you way down the dial, on Super Channel, called 24 Hour Rental. The show is edgier than any comedy I’ve seen on Canadian TV. It doesn’t have any big stars, it’s cheap-looking and it doesn’t always work, but it has attitude to burn. I liked this line from the press release: “Forget about gallows humour, 24 Hour Rental is black comedy two weeks after the execution.” Well, if a press release can make me smile.…

Shot in Hamilton, which only adds to the general seediness, the show is set in an on-the-skids video store that happens to be a front for drug dealing, illegal pornography, loan sharking and a lot of violent mayhem.

When I first heard about it, I thought it might be another take on The Sopranos, but it’s grittier than that. Watching it, I couldn’t believe it was produced, written and cast in Canada. The show spans 13 episodes in an arc that has one continuous story and a large ensemble cast.

The actors are believable as low-life scum, starting with the star, Romano Orzari, who portrays a fallen middle-aged Mafia boss named Tracker. You can really feel the desperation in his character.

Michael Biehn, who is closest to a marquee name in the series, plays a corrupt ex-cop who is brilliantly philosophical about his current vices. Aaron Berg, best known as the edgiest stand-up comic in the country, shines as Tracker’s driver, confidante and enabler. Gavin Crawford of 22 Minutes fame is a hoot as a Tarantino-like film geek. The Tarantino connection is not accidental. The Oscar-winning director still maintains his films, including Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, are comedies, even though they make us wince from the graphic violence.

And this is the challenge of 24 Hour Rental. There are scenes of bloody violence, of explicit beatings, followed by scenes of great wit and satire. I never quite got a rhythm of laughter going before I had to look away from the screen. The bad guys are really, really bad.

There’s always been a slapstick tradition in comedy. As Mel Brooks once wonderfully said, “Tragedy is when I stub my toe, but comedy is when you fall down a manhole.”

Comedy has often danced with cruelty but never so often or so explicitly as in our modern era. The violence in 24 Hour Rental stings. Yet it’s also darkly comic.

A TV comedy more influenced by film than by other TV shows? Shocking? I’d call it a breath of fresh air — except that it does take place in Hamilton.

Post City Magazines’ humour columnist, Mark Breslin, is the founder of Yuk Yuk’s comedy clubs and the author of several books, including Control Freaked.

Table Talk: Joanne Kates reviews Playa Cabana Hacienda

lindsaylow

4:24 pm

One hates to be so negative. And repetitive. How often do you hear me whine because a fantastic chef had a great restaurant and then he (it’s pretty much always a guy) wanted to make more money because success went to his head, so he opened a second restaurant. And maybe more. Before you know it, nothing tastes like it did at the first one, because cooking is a craft and an art; you can give any slob your recipes and they won’t taste like when you cook them. Maybe they would if you were standing over the cook. But you’re not, because you’re not there.

This is the essential downfall of the multiple restaurant operator. If you can keep it as simple and formulaic and under control as the Golden Arches do, it’s all good. But most don’t. One of the very few delicious upscale restaurant chains I know that works is Mario Batali’s resto empire in New York. I’ve been to most of them and had great meals. But the streets of Toronto are littered with gastronomic mediocrity perpetrated by really good chefs who let their hubris and their greed into the driver’s seat.

And now we have Playa Cabana Hacienda.

I liked the first Playa Cabana (on Dupont), and fell even harder for the second one, Playa Cabana Cantina on Dundas West. I’m scared to be disappointed by their Korean fusion taqueria (Playa Cabana Barrio Coreano) and now, having eaten at their third — and huge — Playa Cabana Hacienda, my feet are getting colder.

Hacienda is in the (formerly) splendid old house (on the north side of Dupont just west of Avenue Road) that housed the fab Vittorio’s Osteria years ago. It was a lovely old house until it got chopped up into too many too small and wildly cramped rooms. Nobody has called me fat lately, but on entering and exiting my seat at the Hacienda, my butt definitely kissed the cutlery on my neighbour’s table. I don’t think it was good for them either.

Which made the bad start to dinner even worse. We’d made a reservation, which they denied when we arrived. Great welcome. To start, we tried chorizo nachos, whose cheese roof was sufficiently petrified as to require energetic knife work to cut it, and whose chips were soggy.

Toronto is taqueria-town these days. We’ve become taco connoisseurs, and it just doesn’t cut it that when the so-called medium rare ahi tuna taco with yuzu jicama slaw tastes the same (overcooked fish in thick uncrisp batter) as the fish taco of haddock with chipotle tomatillo salsa. The al pastor-style pork (pastor traditionally being marinated in chilis, fruit and garlic) is also woefully under-powered in the taste department.

As is the guacamole. Serving it in a big heavy stone bowl may be a good trick to use on tourists and those of limited palate, but guacamole with almost no seasoning is just mushed-up avocado, an item of very limited appeal. About as appealing as the service. We would have liked to order tres leches cake, which is good at the other Playas. But no chance of that. Despite our efforts to attract their attention, the several servers who hurry by us in the half hour after we finish eating neither pause nor look our way. So no dice on dessert.

Same deal getting the cheque, so we finally stand up and start to leave. Ah yes, they want their money, we get the cheque. Fun dinner.

PLAYA CABANA HACIENDA, 14 Dupont St., $60 Dinner for two

Joanne Kates trained at the Ecole Cordon Bleu de Cuisine in Paris. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Maclean’s and Chatelaine.

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