Chinatown restaurant a favourite for over 35 years

A consistent go-to for Hong Kong expats, Toronto natives and/or everything in-between, this Chinese restaurant is known for dishes you won't otherwise find in Chinatown, like beef tenderloin with avocados and cashews or "tofu pie." They opened in 1976, but this Spadina fixture is still going strong - as you can tell by the inevitable lineups after 6:30pm.

Read my profile of Lee Garden in the restaurants section.

by Christina Cheung via blogTO

The top 5 dance parties in Toronto November 2014

There are so many great Toronto club events announced already for November that the return of the massive stadium EDM party/branding exercise Bud Light Sensation didn't manage to muscle its way onto the list. Even the list of parties that didn't make the cut from Coda alone is overwhelming, including great acts like UK dancehall experimentalist The Bug, and lots of top shelf house talent, like Martinez Brothers (November 29) and Bob Moses (November 14).

A Tribe Called Red / November 7 / Danforth Music Hall / 8 pm / $33.75

The Ottawa DJ collective have come a long way since they first started mixing club beats with pow wow music: they've won a Juno, been shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and now headline increasingly big venues all over the world. Expect their full audio/visual production for this show.

DJ Sneak / November 8 / Coda / 10 pm / $20

Even before relocating to Toronto from Chicago, house veteran DJ Sneak always had a close relationship with our city, and his annual birthday parties have a long tradition. A staunch traditionalist, his approach to house is still very true to the kinds of highly influential records he put out in the mid-90s.

Al Kent / November 21 / Geary Lane / 9 pm / $10

The folks behind the Beam Me Up parties are bringing Glasgow disco hero Al Kent back to town for a night of rarities and special re-edits. They've also elected to go the old school warehouse route, and are throwing it at the increasingly active Geary Lane event space.

Joy Orbison / November 22 / Coda / 10 pm / $20

Over the past five years, UK DJ/producer Joy Orbison has emerged as one of the more unique voices in modern dance music, freely borrowing just as much from drum'n'bass as from house (not to mention techno and dubstep), and continues to surprise listeners with exciting new tangents.

Richie Hawtin / November 28 / Maison Mercer / 10 pm / $20

If you've only ever heard Canada's most famous techno DJ at one of his festival appearances, you're missing the magic that he can work in a more intimate club setting, especially playing on a powerful sound system like Maison Mercer's. Snap up a ticket quick, as demand will be high.

Photo of Richie Hawtin by Brian Morton

by Benjamin Boles via blogTO

New Toronto company delivers craft beer to your door

Craft beer delivered to your door. It's the dream of beer fans, extremely fat people, shut-ins, and extremely fat, beer-drinking shut-in across the world. And now it's available to people in cities across Ontario.

The Brew Box Company, founded by five young Torontonians with varying business backgrounds, arose from the recognition that there was a need for a service that could help Ontarians discover new and unique craft beer from independently owned brewers across the province. "We were at the Corned Beef House," co-founder Rob Jackiewicz tells me, "and I had just come back from Montreal with a couple cases of craft beer and we started wondering why it isn't possible to get a selection of good craft beer in Ontario without driving everywhere."

Offering tiered packages, members can opt for the introductory tier, which is $55 per month, or you can opt for a higher tier that runs $85 a month and focuses more on seasonal and small batch releases. The company aims to bring you as much beer for your dollar as they can and instead of a guaranteed monthly volume of beer, the selection will be based on value (i.e. you'll get what you pay for based on how much the beer costs, and not necessarily the same amount of bottles every month).

This second tier is also available on a bi-annual or quarterly basis for those who can't in good conscience commit to spending over a $1000 a year on beer delivery. For those looking to do one time orders, Brew Box will also do private deliveries and will pull together a case for you from one brewery or from several breweries for what they call "a high-value one-time purchase" (read: it'll probably cost you).



Their monthly deliveries include "brewery specific merchandise" and tasting notes so you can learn about the beers and read a little bit about the brewery that makes the beverages. While a perusal of the founding members' bios seems to come up pretty light when it comes to official "beer experience," the blog on the Brew Box Company website readily displays their enthusiasm for beer, and I get the sense that these guys aren't just in this to make a buck, but really appreciate the brews--generally a good thing when you're talking about a business related to craft beer.

Jackiewicz tells me that the company already services every urban area in Ontario and lists London, Ottawa, Hamilton, Niagara, Windsor, and Toronto as cities with members already.

The company's very first shipment went out in September and included The Blonde Ale, a spiced Belgian style blonde from Smithworks Brewing Company in Peterborough, Cheap Gold, a Belgian strong golden ale from Block 3 in St. Jacobs, and The Extra Special Bitter from Toronto's own Junction Craft Brewery.

13 breweries are currently in negotiations with the company to offer their beers in the mail and in addition to the above, Niagara on the Lake's Silversmith Brewery, Perth Brewery, Peterborough's Publican House, Toronto's Indie Ale House, Hogtown Brewing Company, and Brickworks Cider all already have formal agreements with the service.

The Brew Box Company is currently accepting new members and hopes to build awareness (and more capital) for expanding their idea with a kickstarter campaign in November. For more information, check out their (soon to be updated) website (their pricing structure only very recently changed so the site's info might not yet match the correct info that's written here. It will very soon).

Ben Johnson also writes about beer over on Ben's Beer Blog. Follow him on twitter @Ben_T_Johnson.

by Ben Johnson via blogTO

What traffic used to look like in Toronto

Almost as long as there have been cars, there have been traffic jams in Toronto. Add road space and, like the ocean into a harbour, cars and vehicles arrive to fill it. It's been called the "fundamental rule" of traffic: greater road capacity leads directly to more cars and longer journeys.

With that thought it mind it should come as no surprise that Toronto's downtown streets have been a congested mess since before the 1930s, when people were driving Buick Series 40s and Plymouth Model 30Us and horse-drawn carts were still a relatively common mode of transportation.

To celebrate tonight's overnight lane closures on the Gardiner and the weekend shutdown of the subway between Eglinton and Bloor, here are some classic photos of Toronto traffic.

Traffic cop at King and Yonge streets, 1912.

Heavy traffic on Queen following a snowstorm on Christmas Eve 1924.

A congested Bay looking north from Adelaide, December 24, 1924.

Yonge near Albert (close to today's Eaton Centre) in December 1924.

Traffic jam, unknown location, circa. 1929.

Pedestrians spilling off the sidewalks at Queen and Yonge, August 31, 1929.

Street parking forces Yonge down to one lane north of Shuter February 17, 1930.

Yonge St. looking south from Albert St., August 31, 1929.

Crowds of people board Peter Witt streetcars at Queen and Yonge, August 31, 1929.

Cars at a standstill on Queens Park Crescent in 1936.

Cars squeeze under the rail underpass near Davenport Rd. in 1936.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic in 1954.

Cars cover the street at Bay and Temperance, 1954.

Construction forces traffic into a single lane in 1954.

Traffic cop looks on as a car fails to clear the intersection, 1954.

Queen and Yonge in 1954.

Rail underpass in 1954.

St. Clair traffic, 1954.

Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.

Images: City of Toronto Archives (as labeled.)

by Chris Bateman via blogTO

The top live theatre shows in Toronto November 2014

Each month we profile a collection of shows opening soon in Toronto.

Macbeth / Monarch Tavern / November 18-23 / $17

Having made waves on the indie theatre scene with clever and contemporary adaptations of The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, and Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare BASH'd returns to present the playwright's dark, macabre tale, Macbeth. This time around, the Monarch Tavern serves as the site-specific setting for their immersive, bare bones adaptation which aims to portray the dissolution of a loving relationship between the title character and his Lady, brought down by greed and ambition. The company proves that beer and the Bard is a natural fit.

NSFW / Theatre Centre / November 7-30 / $15-39

In our technologically-driven lives, a deluge of shared media glides effortlessly across our touchscreens and feeds. Some such posts are definitely Not Safe For Work. Riffing off the ever-popular acronym, which at once tempts and warns, playwright Lucy Kirkwood explores the world of digital media and the lack of personal integrity it sometimes takes to get eyeballs on content. The play considers two opposing magazines--an attention-seeking men's magazine and a refined women's publication--and whether or not their constructions of ideal femininity differ or are in fact equally as destructive.

Spoon River / Soulpepper - Young Centre / November 4-15 / $23-$89

What may get lost among solid adaptations of seminal dramatists and the presentation of Canadian classics at Soulpepper are their more experimental performances gleaned from great poetry, such as (re)Birth: E.E. Cummings in Song and Alligator Pie. Their latest poetic foray, in an adaptation from Mike Ross and Albert Schultz, explores Edgar Lee Masters' poems of the dead featuring stories of love, loss, and personal truth. In Spoon River, residents of the town generously share stories from their lives weaving together a patchwork portrait of rural America.

Arcadia / Royal Alex Theatre / November 4 - December 14 / $25-$99

Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is one of the playwright's finest achievements and has been hailed as a contemporary masterpiece. On the grounds of Sidley Park, a Derbyshire country home, Stoppard layers his characters across time and space, going back and forth between 1809 and the present day, as they engage with the mysteries of sex, mathematics, and truth. The production is directed by Eda Holmes and arrives in Toronto after a successful run at the Shaw Festival.

Sextet / Tarragon Theatre / November 5 - December 14 / $23-$55

The various elements at play in Morris Panych's Sextet sound like the setup for a good joke: a blizzard, six stranded musicians, six instruments, and not enough beds. Panych pens his characters thoughtfully so each member of the sextet is struggling with something that's not in correct alignment -- their careers, marriages and unrealized desires. Panych directs a stellar cast including Damien Atkins, Rebecca Northan, Laura Condlln, Bruce Dow, Matthew Edison, and Jordan Pettle.

Take Me Back to Jefferson / Factory Theatre / November 5-23 / $35-$45

Theatre Smith-Gilmour's multi-narrative adaptation of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying follows the Bundrens on their 40 mile funeral procession across the Mississippi. After the death of their mother, the family must surmount a number of challenging obstacles on their way to the grave site. The blend of tragicomic elements--one part funeral, one part calamity--makes this a fitting story for the Canadian clown and movement-based artists.

Also on stage for a short November run at Canadian Stage is Opus , featuring the legendary Australian performance troupe Circa accompanied by the world-renowned Debussy String Quartet.

Photo by David Cooper

by Keith Bennie via blogTO

Baby brain eater

Photo by Nick K in the blogTO Flickr pool.

by Derek Flack via blogTO