Toronto?
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Bellwood's and Block 3 are both excellent. So is rainhard but they are way out on the outskirts of the city. I don't member exactly where they are but they is a bar called The Craft close to downtown with about 100 taps, you always find something interesting round there
Opiate42
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Dude, have a great time in our little town! Whereabouts are you going to be and how long?
Here's some of my picks, know I'm missing about 10,000 other great places to check out but only so much space and time:
tl;dr version: Kensington Market, the Distillery District, Brickworks, and pub crawl your way through the west end breweries all in decent proximity to each other.
Short list of must hit bars/breweries: Bar Hop, Bar Volo, Halo Brewery, Lansdowne Brewery, Junction Brewery, The Rhino, Left Field, Cold Tea, and the Steamwhistle tour.
And the Martin Goodman trail along the lake is great for biking and running.
Now on with the show:
Kensington Market/Chinatown (Spadina, Augusta Ave, Kensington Ave area between College and Dundas West):
Handlebar, Thirsty and Miserable, and Cold Tea are great little bars. Lots of funky shops and markets for food during the day. Cold Tea can be hard to find it's a real truly hidden gem (shameless plug, the wife and I had our first date there years ago
), no sign, have to enter "The Mall" and look for a red light above a door. Locals can tell you where it is.
The Train (aka Pho Xe Lua): 254 Spadina, upstairs Pho place with super cheap good food.
Just about any place in Chinatown is good for great cheap food but the Banh Mi place at 322 Spadina with the red/yellow sign makes the best sandwiches for $2.
Kensington Brewery makes some great beer but their brewpub and storefront are long delayed, can find their stuff on tap and at the LCBO just about everywhere though. FishEyePA and August Ale are top notch. Watermelon Wheat is great on a hot day.
Downtown-ish:
Yonge St. @ Wellesley:
Bar Volo: 30+ taps and 6 casks constantly on rotation almost all local and a really amazing bottle selection of hard to come by stuff, small but very tasty food selection, cured meats and cheeses, pizzas, crustinis and such. Closing at the end of September after years and years due to condo developments, great historical place to check out as a beer person before it disappears forever.
Steamwhistle Brewery: Steamwhistle gets a bad rap for being a one-trick pony and it's beer isn't that great if it's been sitting for a bit, but get it fresh from the brewery and it's great. Worth booking a visit just for a tour, which is fantasticly beer-sodden and fun.
Bar Hop, (1) 391 King West across from the big MEC outdoorsy co-op store and (2) 137 Peter St. Like Bar Volo, huge tap list, great food.
C'est What: 67 Front St. East, a long-standing craft beer place with a great tap list and ICE CREAM BEER FLOATS!! Below street level, live music, great food.
Parkdale (Queen West/Dufferin area):
Pharmacy @ King West and Cowan, north side: tiny little bar with no sign other than "BAR" in the window, opens at 8pm, very non-snobby, great tap and fridge list selected by the owner who just likes what he likes, no bull****. No food, but totally cool to bring in a slice of pizza or something.
Electric Mud BBQ/Grand Electric: great BBQ and bar places around the Queen West/Brock corner. Mud is on Brock, Grand is on Queen right around the corner.
Duggan's Brewery, Brock and Queen West, NE corner, great beers and pretty decent food. Lots of TV's to catch games.
Miss Things: Funky Hawaiian-ish fusion place with great food and decent beers.
The Rhino, Queen and Brock: one of our regular hangouts. Big place, great tap list, massive bottle list, fantastic food for reasonable prices. Only problem is that they chronically understaff so if it's busy don't expect fast service especially if on the patio. But the Big Rhino burger is a must. If you do end up in there when it's busy, best place is right on the bar if there's space.
Basically you could pub crawl that corner of Queen and Brock for hours and not travel very far.
Himalayan Kitchen/Tsampa Cafe/Tibetan Kitchen: Queen west @ Fuller just west of Lansdowne Ave has a ton of fantastic Nepalese/Tibetan places.
Dufferin @ Dundas West area:
1602, 1602 Dundas, great little whiskey bar with a small decent tap list rotating. And a piano. Pretty sure you can ask the bartender, then just hop on and play. Very chill place.
Brazil Bakery 1566 Dundas West at Sheridan: great little Portuguese bakery with amazing and cheap food (great sandwiches), deli and desert counters, CAKES!!!, great coffee, and fresh bread to your hearts content. **** beers though. Directly across the street from Toronto Brewing's south location, still has the old Noble Hop sign form the previous brew supply owner.
The Derby, 1516 Dundas West, TV's for games, great nachos, great beer list, staff are friendly as hell. They occasionally have a huge smoked BBQ special with ribs and wings and stuff. It's amazing.
The Wallflower, 1665 Dundas West, another great tiny little bar, with great taps and food. Always have fresh oysters.
More West End:
Halo Brewery: Lansdowne area: 247 Wallace Ave, just NW of Lansdowne station, Callum the head brewer is a true mad scientist. Really unique Belgian-inspired beers.
La Cubana: On on Roncesvalles and another on Ossington, great little Cuban restaurants and Junction Brewery makes their in-house beers which are great.
Folly Brewpub, 928 College at Dovercourt: more good beer more good food, they do great Belgian inspired beers.
Tierra Azteca: 1115 Bloor West, fantatstic little family-run Mexican place on Bloor at Dufferin. Fantastic everything.
Lansdowne Brewery: 303 Lansdowne, great food and great tap list from their own brews and other Ontario breweries. Great crew in there, super friendly.
Bandit Brewery: 2125 Dundas West, Great spot if you can get in, always pretty popular and their IPA's are damn fine.
Keele and St. Claire:
Junction Brewery/Rainhard Brewery/3030 Bar: All great little places to check out, Junction makes some of my favourites. 3030 is a great bar around Keele and Dundas West.
"The Junction" Dundas West/Keele area has tons of great bars and food.
East end (I'm woefully under-representing the East end here):
Left Field Brewery, 36 Wagstaff Drive (laneway off of Greenwood Ave), Eephus brown ale is a must. Great little place and they love baseball in there.
Muddy York Brewery, 22 Cranfield, haven't been but had their beers at Lansdowne and they do some great brews. Just recently opened their storefront.
The Feathers Pub: 962 Kingston Rd (Just west of Victoria Park ave), great tap list, rotating casks, great Scottish pub with great food (stout pie is a must), and a whiskey list as long as your arm.
Court Jester Pub, Pape and Danforth: Jester Burger, it's awesome. They have a great tap list too.
Non-bar: Bluffers Park in Scarborough, The Aquarium (right next to the CN Tower and Skydome, across from the Steamwhistle Brewery), The Brickworks (in the Don Valley), Toronto Island, Distillery District (plenty of artisan shops and bars and Mill St. Brewery and a Sake maker!), St. Lawrence Market (the fooooooooood), Graffiti Alley (hell there's great graffiti everywhere but the laneways parallel to Queen West between Bathurst and Spadina are loaded).
Here's some of my picks, know I'm missing about 10,000 other great places to check out but only so much space and time:
tl;dr version: Kensington Market, the Distillery District, Brickworks, and pub crawl your way through the west end breweries all in decent proximity to each other.
Short list of must hit bars/breweries: Bar Hop, Bar Volo, Halo Brewery, Lansdowne Brewery, Junction Brewery, The Rhino, Left Field, Cold Tea, and the Steamwhistle tour.
And the Martin Goodman trail along the lake is great for biking and running.
Now on with the show:
Kensington Market/Chinatown (Spadina, Augusta Ave, Kensington Ave area between College and Dundas West):
Handlebar, Thirsty and Miserable, and Cold Tea are great little bars. Lots of funky shops and markets for food during the day. Cold Tea can be hard to find it's a real truly hidden gem (shameless plug, the wife and I had our first date there years ago
), no sign, have to enter "The Mall" and look for a red light above a door. Locals can tell you where it is. The Train (aka Pho Xe Lua): 254 Spadina, upstairs Pho place with super cheap good food.
Just about any place in Chinatown is good for great cheap food but the Banh Mi place at 322 Spadina with the red/yellow sign makes the best sandwiches for $2.
Kensington Brewery makes some great beer but their brewpub and storefront are long delayed, can find their stuff on tap and at the LCBO just about everywhere though. FishEyePA and August Ale are top notch. Watermelon Wheat is great on a hot day.
Downtown-ish:
Yonge St. @ Wellesley:
Bar Volo: 30+ taps and 6 casks constantly on rotation almost all local and a really amazing bottle selection of hard to come by stuff, small but very tasty food selection, cured meats and cheeses, pizzas, crustinis and such. Closing at the end of September after years and years due to condo developments, great historical place to check out as a beer person before it disappears forever.
Steamwhistle Brewery: Steamwhistle gets a bad rap for being a one-trick pony and it's beer isn't that great if it's been sitting for a bit, but get it fresh from the brewery and it's great. Worth booking a visit just for a tour, which is fantasticly beer-sodden and fun.
Bar Hop, (1) 391 King West across from the big MEC outdoorsy co-op store and (2) 137 Peter St. Like Bar Volo, huge tap list, great food.
C'est What: 67 Front St. East, a long-standing craft beer place with a great tap list and ICE CREAM BEER FLOATS!! Below street level, live music, great food.
Parkdale (Queen West/Dufferin area):
Pharmacy @ King West and Cowan, north side: tiny little bar with no sign other than "BAR" in the window, opens at 8pm, very non-snobby, great tap and fridge list selected by the owner who just likes what he likes, no bull****. No food, but totally cool to bring in a slice of pizza or something.
Electric Mud BBQ/Grand Electric: great BBQ and bar places around the Queen West/Brock corner. Mud is on Brock, Grand is on Queen right around the corner.
Duggan's Brewery, Brock and Queen West, NE corner, great beers and pretty decent food. Lots of TV's to catch games.
Miss Things: Funky Hawaiian-ish fusion place with great food and decent beers.
The Rhino, Queen and Brock: one of our regular hangouts. Big place, great tap list, massive bottle list, fantastic food for reasonable prices. Only problem is that they chronically understaff so if it's busy don't expect fast service especially if on the patio. But the Big Rhino burger is a must. If you do end up in there when it's busy, best place is right on the bar if there's space.
Basically you could pub crawl that corner of Queen and Brock for hours and not travel very far.
Himalayan Kitchen/Tsampa Cafe/Tibetan Kitchen: Queen west @ Fuller just west of Lansdowne Ave has a ton of fantastic Nepalese/Tibetan places.
Dufferin @ Dundas West area:
1602, 1602 Dundas, great little whiskey bar with a small decent tap list rotating. And a piano. Pretty sure you can ask the bartender, then just hop on and play. Very chill place.
Brazil Bakery 1566 Dundas West at Sheridan: great little Portuguese bakery with amazing and cheap food (great sandwiches), deli and desert counters, CAKES!!!, great coffee, and fresh bread to your hearts content. **** beers though. Directly across the street from Toronto Brewing's south location, still has the old Noble Hop sign form the previous brew supply owner.
The Derby, 1516 Dundas West, TV's for games, great nachos, great beer list, staff are friendly as hell. They occasionally have a huge smoked BBQ special with ribs and wings and stuff. It's amazing.
The Wallflower, 1665 Dundas West, another great tiny little bar, with great taps and food. Always have fresh oysters.
More West End:
Halo Brewery: Lansdowne area: 247 Wallace Ave, just NW of Lansdowne station, Callum the head brewer is a true mad scientist. Really unique Belgian-inspired beers.
La Cubana: On on Roncesvalles and another on Ossington, great little Cuban restaurants and Junction Brewery makes their in-house beers which are great.
Folly Brewpub, 928 College at Dovercourt: more good beer more good food, they do great Belgian inspired beers.
Tierra Azteca: 1115 Bloor West, fantatstic little family-run Mexican place on Bloor at Dufferin. Fantastic everything.
Lansdowne Brewery: 303 Lansdowne, great food and great tap list from their own brews and other Ontario breweries. Great crew in there, super friendly.
Bandit Brewery: 2125 Dundas West, Great spot if you can get in, always pretty popular and their IPA's are damn fine.
Keele and St. Claire:
Junction Brewery/Rainhard Brewery/3030 Bar: All great little places to check out, Junction makes some of my favourites. 3030 is a great bar around Keele and Dundas West.
"The Junction" Dundas West/Keele area has tons of great bars and food.
East end (I'm woefully under-representing the East end here):
Left Field Brewery, 36 Wagstaff Drive (laneway off of Greenwood Ave), Eephus brown ale is a must. Great little place and they love baseball in there.
Muddy York Brewery, 22 Cranfield, haven't been but had their beers at Lansdowne and they do some great brews. Just recently opened their storefront.
The Feathers Pub: 962 Kingston Rd (Just west of Victoria Park ave), great tap list, rotating casks, great Scottish pub with great food (stout pie is a must), and a whiskey list as long as your arm.
Court Jester Pub, Pape and Danforth: Jester Burger, it's awesome. They have a great tap list too.
Non-bar: Bluffers Park in Scarborough, The Aquarium (right next to the CN Tower and Skydome, across from the Steamwhistle Brewery), The Brickworks (in the Don Valley), Toronto Island, Distillery District (plenty of artisan shops and bars and Mill St. Brewery and a Sake maker!), St. Lawrence Market (the fooooooooood), Graffiti Alley (hell there's great graffiti everywhere but the laneways parallel to Queen West between Bathurst and Spadina are loaded).
Opiate42
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The Craft is in Liberty Village, King West and Atlantic Ave on Atlantic. Great food there too. Yah, walk in there and seeing the taps is either like seeing heaven or having a heart attack.
Opiate42
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- Joined
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- Reaction score
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Sliante!
No prob! Oh, and go take a pic with the giant TORONTO sign at the pool in front of city hall. For ****s and giggles. :rockin:
The Helicopter rides from the Island Airport are gorgeous but expensive.
Enjoy your time here!
