Friday night rituals: wrap up work, get ready for flamenco class, take the streetcar or walk to the studio on Richmond, learn flamenco basics with Makeda, and then find a good place to eat. I made a new friend in class who is excited to get back to the arts scene in Toronto. After class I thought I’d eat dinner at LOV, a vegan restaurant on King West. LOV stands for Local, Organic, Vegetarian. I’d taken my sister and niece there when they came to visit and they LOVed it too. Beautiful space, amazing food, and wonderful friendly staff.
I hadn’t noticed it on my walk to class which I thought was odd, so I looked up the address on my walk home, and in red font it said “Permanently Closed”. NOooooooo!!!!! Sadly its Toronto location had to shut down – somehow it didn’t make enough money. The restaurant is Quebec-based (they have three locations there) and it was their first foray into Toronto.
I ended up at Tut’s, a small Egyptian place, where I ordered my favourite vegan combo with cauliflower & falafel sandwiches and fries. Funny that all the workers there (except for one who is actually Egyptian) are Gujarati, and so I jokingly joined in their conversation. The manager sat at my table and said, “Are you a writer? You look like a writer.” Ok no one has ever said that to me before!!
He’s also an artist (running a restaurant is his part-time gig), and shared his stunning photography with me. He doesn’t advertise or sell his work much, he finds it to be a personal journey that he shares with the right people at the right time. I like that approach – a lot of artists don’t enjoy the marketing aspect of their work; it’s nice to see that word of mouth and magic still works.
The other night I dropped in at a book club in my building and met a great group of ladies. It’s a different kind of club, where you bring the book that you’re currently reading and discuss it and whether you would recommend it. I brought Prisoner of Tehran, which one of the other girls had already read. She said it was so intense that she had to take breaks from it; I definitely feel the same way. She was now in a phase of reading light racy books – like A Merry Little Meet Cute, which I think I need to get my hands on. It apparently seems like chick lit, but unexpectedly has a lot of sex scenes. As usual, the conversation soon veered from books and into some pretty hilarious topics.
Tomorrow I have a vision boarding workshop that my friend Neesha is hosting – excited to see my friends and dream away!
She's Come Undone 