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Introducing: DonDon Izakaya, downtown’s new spot for authentic Japanese bar food

A healthy strike of the taiko drum greets each customer (Image: Gizelle Lau)

When we first told you about DonDon Izakaya last summer, it was slated for an October opening, but as such things go, it wasn’t until early January that the Japanese restaurant opened quietly after nearly 10 months of renovation. Located on the second storey of an unassuming building at Bay and Dundas, DonDon took over the space once occupied by One Up Restaurant & Lounge. Despite the slightly inauspicious upstairs location, it’s already drawing customers (the big wooden entranceway probably helps), but not quite the mad lineups of its izakaya forbear, Guu—a least not yet.

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The Dish

De-licious

January 9, 2012 | 3:15 pm

2 Comments

Winterlicious 2012: Toronto Life’s picks for King West and the Financial District

WINTERLICIOUS 2012 | DOWNTOWN SOUTH

The dining scene in and around the Financial District has seen a lot of changes since last year’s festival, with new restaurants (Aria, Estiatorio Volos) and new chefs at existing restaurants (Lucien, Brassaii). Here, 24 Winterlicious picks south of College.

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The Informer

The New Normal

January 5, 2012 | 4:55 pm

2 Comments

Apparently, Markham and other Toronto suburbs are stealing downtown’s “mojo”

The Grid has some upsetting news for all the latte-sipping, bicycle-riding, downtown pinkos who are pining for more “urbanist” policies: Markham is looking better and better. The weekly reports that Toronto suburbs are adopting policies and tackling projects that would make Jane Jacobs proud—like networks of bike lanes and improved rapid transit. Even more interesting, though, is that while these sorts of civic initiatives may seem sacrilegious to Rob Ford, they’re being undertaken by a Markham mayor who’s simultaneously slashing spending and cutting staff. Which makes us wish the politicians in the clamshell would focus more on the possibility of progress and less on service cuts and regressive policies (even with a fiscal conservative at the helm)—because, seriously, it’s kind of embarrassing when Markham is kicking your ass. Read the entire story [The Grid] »

The Dish

Foodie Follies

December 30, 2011 | 9:05 am

6 Comments

Year in Review: 2011 was the year street food finally took off in Toronto

After living through decades of delicious but pretty much uniform street meat, followed by a city-backed pilot program that ended up a complete fiasco, Torontonians finally got a glimpse of the street food promised land in 2011, thanks mostly to a clutch of feisty entrepreneurs. A selective and entirely arbitrary roundup of the highs and lows of Toronto ephemeral eating in 2011, after the jump.

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The Dish

Caffeine High

December 22, 2011 | 1:02 pm

1 Comment

Sam James to open up shop in the Path

Coming soon to the Path: latte art (Image: Zack Simone from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

In this season of giving, it’s only fitting that Toronto’s favourite coffee son, Sam James, would announce he’s taking pity on the poor downtown cubicle jockeys who’ve had to shuttle between Starbucks, Timmie’s, Second Cup and Timothy’s to get their fix. Starting February or March of next year, he’ll be opening up a second Sam James Coffee Bar in the Path beneath the Sun Life Financial Building at 150 King Street West. He first expanded from his original Harbord Street location with last year’s tiny Coffee Pocket on Bloor. Yesterday he told Post City that the new downtown location would preserve his signature bare-bones, no-seats vibe, and would be equipped with a pair of customized La Marzocco Lineas to handle the volume of traffic he’s expecting. He also took the opportunity to vent a little about the sterility of the financial district’s retail landscape: “The financial district in New York City is crammed with businesses; in Chicago, Intelligentsia has locked down the financial core. And Toronto’s financial district has nothing, but there are a ton of people who are looking for something good.” Read the entire story [Post City] »

The Informer

From the Print Edition

December 15, 2011 | 2:55 pm

1 Comment

Rob Granatstein: why the city should sell off its assets—slowly but surely

Selling For Dummies

To close the budget gap, Rob Ford wants to sell city assets. Good idea, bad timing. Even a novice real estate investor knows to fix up the house before putting it on the market
By Rob Granatstein | Illustration by Jack Fylan

Cities acquire assets for many reasons. Sometimes a wealthy citizen donates a property, as in the case of High Park; sometimes assets, such as Henry Pellatt’s Casa Loma, are seized when tax bills go unpaid. A city grows to meet the needs of its citizens, adding public housing and office buildings, a zoo (or three), convention centres, highways, police and fire stations, parks, arenas, garbage trucks, landfill sites and libraries.

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The Informer

Ford Focus

December 14, 2011 | 3:25 pm

3 Comments

Doug Ford thinks city hall plays favourites with the downtown core (it has more wading pools than the suburbs, after all)

Apparently, there’s a “suburbs/downtown rift” affecting Toronto—or at least Doug Ford says there is. What’s more, Dougie claims that the rift is being fuelled by the (highly debatable) fact that downtown wards are gobbling up tax dollars while the suburbs are left to languish (the Star breaks down the numbers here). Ford offered comments to that effect yesterday, citing the unequal distribution of wading pools (yes, wading pools) across the city as evidence of “overspending in the downtown area.” Sure, the suburban-downtown divide is old news by now—case in point: the results of the 2010 mayoral election—but we’re pretty sure Ford’s comments are really more about his desire to curb spending, and his willingness to use silly arguments to do so, than the city’s ideological divide. Read the entire story [Globe and Mail] »

The Informer

From the Print Edition

December 13, 2011 | 11:30 am

12 Comments

Dear Urban Diplomat: how can I get my co-workers to stop bashing Rob Ford?

(Image: Christopher Drost)

Dear Urban Diplomat,
I am a Rob Ford supporter, and I work in an office where everyone, including my boss, bashes him. They even extend their criticism to his supporters, suggesting we’re all suburban morons (they don’t know I am one such “moron”). It’s offensive. How can I get them to shut up without alienating myself?
—Ford Indig-nation, THE ANNEX

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The Dish

Rumours & Rumblings

December 8, 2011 | 2:58 pm

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Loblaws: worth switching Kensington Market around for?

After years at 297 College St., the monks of the Zen Buddhist Temple are decamping to quieter (and presumably more meditation-friendly) digs at St. Clair and Bathurst. As The Grid reports, their old building has wound up in the hands of Tribute Communities, which has plans of its own for the site. Assuming the city gives the thumbs-up, Tribute is hoping to construct a 15-storey condo tower with about 20,000 square feet of retail space at the base. Rumour has it that Loblaws is negotiating for the spot. The company remains tight-lipped, but a new location did open in another Tribute property at Queen and Portland just last week (like the new Maple Leaf Gardens location, it has a cheese wall). Local businesses, which would find it difficult to compete with the grocery giant’s prices, selection and hours, are predictably anxious. “I don’t want to see a Loblaws there,” Yvonne Bambrick, coordinator of the Kensington Market BIA, told The Grid. “I think that is extremely bad news for the neighbourhood. I don’t even want to see it being discussed.” It could be argued that independent grocers don’t deserve special protection in a free market, but really—unless it’s going to have four cheese walls and a cheese ceiling, the city probably doesn’t need another Loblaws downtown. Read the entire story [The Grid] »

The Informer

From the Print Edition

December 6, 2011 | 7:30 am

6 Comments

Neighbourhood Watch: How the east Annex became Toronto’s trendiest ’hood

Photographs: Houses by Daniel Neuhaus; faces by George Pimentel and CP Images

Neighbourhood Watch: The New Annex

Elbow-patched academics, keg-emptying frat boys and earthy middle-incomers have long ruled the Annex. But lately, a clutch of moneyed, high-powered Forest Hill and Rosedale types have wandered south, looking for cool downtown bustle without having to give up the acreage. And who can blame them? The east Annex is a natural geographical nexus for the intellectual and moneyed elite, what with U of T and all the museums to the south, and the revamped Bloor Street promenade—not to mention Whole Foods—a short stroll away. The choicest address is Admiral Road, a winding, bucolic boulevard with huge heritage homes ripe for renovation. Margaret Atwood is its most famous resident; she’s lived there since ’85. Ex-GG Adrienne Clarkson became her neighbour in ’05. Adrienne’s ex-hubby, eminent egghead Stephen Clarkson, is down the way on Lowther—a strip dotted with luminaries like George Cohon of McDonald’s and real estate king Jimmy Molloy. Above, we chart the most recent arrivals to Toronto’s newest Golden Mile.

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The Dish

Read All About It

December 2, 2011 | 4:58 pm

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Reaction Roundup: what Toronto is saying about its new, hockey-themed grocery paradise (i.e., Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens)

(Maple Leaf Gardens image: Kevin Naulls)

In the seven years since news broke that the Maple Leaf Gardens would be turning into a grocery store, it’s become something of a bad joke, a symbol of modernity callously stomping on the past. But after Wednesday’s grand opening of the Loblaws flagship store, Torontonians have suddenly opened up to the idea with surprising vigour. And there’s a lot to love, what with walls of cheese, cupcakes, tea and aging meat, as well as plenty of relics from the days of yore, like a giant leaf sculpture made out of the stadium’s original plastic chairs and a red dot in aisle 25 marking the former location of centre ice. Here’s some of what other Torontonians had to say:

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The Dish

Foodie Follies

November 30, 2011 | 12:09 pm

7 Comments

Truck-off: why Calgary’s food truck program works and Toronto’s doesn’t

Toronto’s food trucks are not permitted to operate on public streets in the downtown core

Somehow, inventive, high-quality food served out of a truck has become one of the hottest food trends across North America over the last few years, and Toronto entrepreneurs—like Suresh Doss of Food Truck Eats, or Zane Caplansky—are doing their best to keep up. But such ventures have succeeded despite some strict regulations that keep most trucks off public streets downtown. And although we have no desire to write yet another how-Calgary-is-better-than-Toronto article, that city is halfway through an impressive food truck pilot program that has 10 new trucks roaming the streets. We called around to find out how Calgary got started and see whether the same thing could happen here.

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The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

November 24, 2011 | 5:00 pm

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Metrolinx teases commuters with a downtown transit relief; but the TTC isn’t into it

The province’s transit authority is considering expediting the creation of a new downtown subway or light-rail line (or at least, it’s considering expediting the conversation about it). Metrolinx CEO Bruce McQuaig says a relief line could be pushed into the public transit picture a quarter of a century before originally planned, which suggests that the transit is getting really, really crowded. It seems that as the downtown core increases in density, Union Station simply won’t be able to handle all the commuters. But TTC chief general manager Gary Webster isn’t so hot on the idea. Apparently, Webster believes the TTC and Metrolinx should “maximize the capacity of existing lines.” Of course, anyone who’s ridden the TTC downtown at rush hour would probably say transit is maximized already. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 16, 2011 | 3:00 pm

20 Comments

The Q&A: Nick Kouvalis is cashing in on his newfound cachet right, left and centre

A chat with the political strategist everyone wants in their corner
By Chris Selley | Photography by Daniel Ehrenworth

Nick Kouvalis

In a year, you’ve gone from mastermind of Rob Ford’s campaign to crusader for the firefighters’ union. Does that make you a hypocrite?
Firefighters are not gravy. It’s a huge mistake to cut them. It’s also silly to think I’ll never work for a company that has competing interests with a previous client.

During the campaign, how much thought did you give to the feasibility of what you were promising? Ford made it sound like it would be a walk in the park.
There was a clear path to fill the budget gap by selling a few assets and making a few cuts but not closing libraries and cutting firefighters and that kind of stuff.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 9, 2011 | 8:45 am

15 Comments

The Loaded List: we catalogue the astronomical salaries of Toronto’s ruling class

The Loaded List
It’s not particularly polite to ask rich people what they earn. But tact is overrated, and we wanted to know, so we asked anyway. When they told us to get lost, we got sneaky. We dug up disclosure documents, annual reports and the tax filings of charitable organizations. When those trails went dry, we surveyed industry insiders who know what other people make—headhunters and consultants and analysts and colleagues—and asked for an educated guess. After hundreds of calls and emails and deep-throat meetings in dark alleys, we phoned the high earners back and told them what we found. Again, with feeling, they told us to piss off.

What follows is our shamelessly gawking, as-precise-as-possible examination of the highest-paid people in the city’s top industries. When the information was available, we included bonuses and perks and, in some cases, exercised stock options. Our findings verified that a high earner in finance is almost always on a different plane (a private jet, usually) than a high earner in, for example, the lowly arts. One major discovery: Heather Reisman took a pay cut. One truth reconfirmed: no matter how rich you are, there’s always someone who makes a helluva lot more.

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