Toronto/Chicago comparisons

[TonyV]

^ I find the dining in Toronto awesome. I have done the touristy stuff on King W., the bohemian stuff on Queen W., the down home stuff in Kensington, the cool places on Baldwin, I avoid the "destination" places (frankly I cook a lot and I know better than to worhsip the "destination" places). In Chicago I've only dined out twice, and I found that the central feature was huge portions. And ... that sort of thing shows.

PS--when a restaurant starts to rest on its laurels, I give it a miss.

 

[toraerach]

Well, neighbourhoods in Toronto and surrounding areas are not exactly as 'desegregated' as you might think. The racial lines exist here as well but we are too caught up in our own propaganda bullshite to recognize it.

Check out the Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles. The vast majority of the city is a healthy mix of various racial and ethnic groups. There are very very few areas where one group dominates by a huge margin. Each area does have its own unique mix of racial/ethnic groups, but the city's hardly segregated, and I would challenge you to delineate some of the supposed "racial lines" in Toronto.

 

[Thanos]

Now wait a second, being honest about one's opinion is not 'putting the city down'. I love Toronto... but hey, the food sucks, imo... and again, this is not to say I haven't had a great meal here, only that it stands out when I do get one and usually have to pay through the nose for it. It's very hit and miss in Toronto whereas you can stumble backwards into holes in the wall in any of those cities you mentioned and get great cooking at a reasonable price. Again, i'm not talking about celebu-chef restaurants but even then I've been in some of the best in NYC and Chicago and paid less than what I'd pay at Milestones in Toronto. No kidding. Go to those places and you will eat well and at a fraction of the cost.

I'm not saying your putting the city down. And seriously who really dines at Milestones? It's like dinning a Baton Rouge in Montreal, it's nothing but crap food. People go there after work for drinks.
Toronto's Asian cuisine (chineese, indian, korean, pakistani, sri lankan, etc) is among the best in North America. I'll use Montreal as an example because i lived there for 2 decades. Other than bistro type food i find Toronto is far better. Italian is the only thing similar. Asian, African and South American and certain European type food is far better quality in Toronto. Then you can argue Montreal has it's style of cuisine, but seriously poutine is disgusting.

 

[ladyscraper]

I love Toronto... but hey, the food sucks, imo...

It's definitely all opinion. When my wife moved here from NYC, she said that the restaurants in Toronto are the most obvious advantage Toronto has over New York.
I definitely agree with her. I almost killed myself trying to find good Indian food in NYC.. and Chinese food... etc..
It may be Toronto's multiculturalism saving us here... but it's great!

However, I totally respect your opinion. We might just have different taste in meals!

 

[TonyV]

Maybe Toronto should have its own dish. Raccoon Kabobs?

 

[gabe]

Toronto is a great food city. Toronto does Cafe's, British pubs, Gastor pubs and Asian cuisine better than any American city. When it comes to fine dining Chicago has Toronto beat. Chicago's fine dining scene rivals only New York City. Chicago has more 5 diamond restaurants than the entire province of Ontario. Those days of $500 dollar tasting menus in these big American cities are slowly coming to an end. You'll see Chicago opening more "causal " looking fine dining restaurants similar to what you find here in Toronto.

 

[Torontovibe]

Check out the Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles. The vast majority of the city is a healthy mix of various racial and ethnic groups. There are very very few areas where one group dominates by a huge margin. Each area does have its own unique mix of racial/ethnic groups, but the city's hardly segregated, and I would challenge you to delineate some of the supposed "racial lines" in Toronto.

Toronto is the most racially MIXED city in the world. No other city mixes as many different ethnicities, into as many different neighbourhoods as we do and surprisingly, we all get along pretty well. By contrast, check out NYC. (read the article)
http://www.metro.us/newyork/local/a...ly-the-second-most-segregated-city-in-america


Salon yesterday came up with a fascinating report on the 10 most segregated urban areas in America. The results were shocking, especially for us denizens of the northeast who like to imagine we've gone beyond the racial tensions of the past century; numerous "educated," "liberal" cities ended up on the list, including New York, sitting all the way up there at number two. (For the curious, Milwaukee was first.)
What? New York, second? Deliciously cosmopolitan, multicultural metropolis New York is more segregated than Los Angeles? Apparently. To start, we're talking whole metro areas here, which once again means you're allowed to blame everything bad on Bridge and Tunnel folks.
That was a joke, but segregation in New York's suburbs is no laughing matter! As Salon reports:/I]

And from a different article

Forget what you think about New York City, its one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. and possibly the world. A study called ”The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis” by Brown University professor John Logan and Florida State University professor Brian Stults, looked at the demographics of states in the U.S. and found some surprising results (Not really).

New York came in 3rd place among other cities, which wasn’t a big surprise given that I live here. The majority of people in this city sticks together, Hispanics with Hispanic, whites with whites, Asians with Asians, etc. But the report also suggest that the housing markets a partially to blame.

“Part of the answer is that systematic discrimination in the housing market has not ended, and for the most part it is not prosecuted. Fair housing lawsby and large are enforced only when minority home seekers can document discrimination and pursue a civil court case without assistance from public officials. Americans do not want to believe that discrimination still exists. Yet studies that track the experience of minority persons in the rental or homeowner market continue to find that they are treated differently than comparable whites”.

America has a big issue with race, everyone knows it. Some NYC inhabitants lacks tolerance and would rather to stick with their own kind, which is perfectly fine, but only proves that humans are tribalistic by nature. Some communities refuse to live among others for various reasons, most of which is ridiculous. Add the fact a major chunk of the cities residents come from other states, bringing their own views of race with them. Does this mean these people are racist? Not at all. Human beings are comfortable among those that closely resemble themselves.

Chicago and LA are pretty much the same way. A lot of people don't realize how different the racial mixing is in Toronto and that's not just the downtown core but the whole city, including the suburbs in the GTA.

 

[adma]

If anything, multiethnicity aside, whatever "good food" rep Toronto has is swallowed up in the yupscale-gastro-commodification thing of the past generation. And before that, well...Fran's. So, I can understand why Toronto wears the indigenous-cuisine thing awkwardly...

 

[TrickyRicky]

An anecdotal support of Torontovibe's post but I personally was shocked at the level of racial segregation in New York the first time I visited it. Mind you my experiences were limited to the Island of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

 

[Bogtrotter]

Toronto is a great food city. Toronto does Cafe's, British pubs, Gastor pubs and Asian cuisine better than any American city. When it comes to fine dining Chicago has Toronto beat. Chicago's fine dining scene rivals only New York City. Chicago has more 5 diamond restaurants than the entire province of Ontario. Those days of $500 dollar tasting menus in these big American cities are slowly coming to an end. You'll see Chicago opening more "causal " looking fine dining restaurants similar to what you find here in Toronto.

I'm no gastronomique but I recall reading that Ontario only has one restaurant with a 5 diamond rating- it's in Cambridge I believe. Toronto is excellent for casual ethnic fair, especially Asian.

From strictly an architectural and design pov I doubt Toronto will ever be as visually impressive as Chicago when it comes to architecture and civic projects, it is marked point of pride for Chicagoans and it has come to be expected by visitors to the city. I think Chicago will always strive for the dramatic in architecture, to be THE skyscraper city and be at the forefront of urban design. I don't think Toronto should try and emulate this, but rather concentrate on good architecture at a more human and affordable scale. Besides I don't think the grandiose has ever been part of Canadian sensibilities when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

[Tewder]

It was definitely grandiose to build the CN Tower, the Eaton Centre, NPS and the TD Centre, among others...

I never cease to find it interesting how Torontonians acquiesce so willingly nowadays to mediocrity, justifying it as some inveterate trait of Canadians. Simply not true. Times change. RIM was once an innovative company and Toronto once aspired to something grand. Maybe it'd take the Olympics to light that spark again?

 

[grey]

Guys, I think our collective impression of food city rankings are a wee bit off.

In the world of haute cuisine, the title for Best Food is a fight between San Francisco and NYC, with SF presently coming out on top. Chicago isn't really on the radar, and as long as we're discussing things like Milestones (...really?) and portion sizes, frankly I don't think we're a qualified part of the discussion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/nyc-san-fran-la-restaurant_n_882102.html
http://sanfrancisco.grubstreet.com/2011/06/alan_richman_hearts_sf_now_cal.html

Having been to all of these places, I can say that we have an exciting emergent food scene nevertheless. Like many other things, it's improving at a faster rate than anywhere else. I think our strongest points are variety and our ability as a large cosmopolitan centre to attract highly skilled culinary labour.

 

[steveve]

When it comes to fine dining Chicago has Toronto beat. Chicago's fine dining scene rivals only New York City. Chicago has more 5 diamond restaurants than the entire province of Ontario. .

yup. if you're looking for the "more expensive/exquisite meal", then you'll find more of that in Chicago. Toronto does have great food though, and a large selection of it, and it is cheap too!
Another observation, is it just me? or does toronto not have many of those "You have to book a reservation months ahead to get in" restaurants.

 

[Bogtrotter]

It was definitely grandiose to build the CN Tower, the Eaton Centre, NPS and the TD Centre, among others...

I never cease to find it interesting how Torontonians acquiesce so willingly nowadays to mediocrity, justifying it as some inveterate trait of Canadians. Simply not true. Times change. RIM was once an innovative company and Toronto once aspired to something grand. Maybe it'd take the Olympics to light that spark again?

True, the Skydome is another- we have had our bouts of megalomania. But I do think we Canadians are less likely to throw money as consistently and readily as Americans towards these sorts of large scale endeavors. I think Chicago in particular has adopted the notion of grandiose and big as a characteristic of their city, I believe they take pride in their city as the home of the skycraper for example. Surely the next tallest on the continent is likely to be in Chicago, if not next it will be the one after! I think the competitive spiri for the biggest and tallest isn't likely to change there.

"Another observation, is it just me? or does toronto not have many of those "You have to book a reservation months ahead to get in" restaurants."

I don't think Toronto's upper end establishments are quite there yet, but perhaps when the Film fest is on...?

 

[uptown]

I guess it's not surprising that it didn't take long for the old canard of "Toronto is more enlightened/progressive/less racist) than City X to be trotted-out.

Toronto just elected a mayor who might as well have campaigned on a platform of paving over parks to make parking lots, and tearing up sidewalks for additional lanes for drivers. A mayor who figures that whoever shows up at a civic meeting to address their concerns about proposed cuts is some jobless layabout.

Toronto just contributed in a big way to the electoral success of a federal government led by a man who figures tax dollars that aren't being spent on incarceration or toys for the military to ward-off imaginary Russian designs on the Canadian Arctic are wasted tax dollars.

Toronto is probably going to contribute to the electoral success of a provincial government led by a man whose grand ideas about civic engagement are limited to promises of cheap beer and chain gangs.

Toronto is less racist than Chicago? Toronto had a miniscule population of blacks before the 70's, and blacks used to get turned-away from hotels in Toronto.

Chicago is the home of Obama, and the mayor is some guy who worked on his campaign. I'll bet he didn't have a redneck talking about bike-riding pinkos at his investiture...

The days of leaders like Trudeau and Sewell are long gone, I wish people would stop trying to coast on a reputation garnered from the visions and politics of over 30 years ago.