Grapefruit Moon Restaurant (or I ate a BLT!)

Grapefruit Moon occupies a corner storefront in an otherwise non-descript block on Bathurst Street north of Bloor and south of Dupont. I'd been there nearly a decade ago meeting an old friend late at night for red wine and midnight reminiscing but I haven't been back since, so, yesterday, when my brother suggested the spot as a place where we could eat a late lunch with my visiting mother (mostly out of convenience since it's merely a block from his house), we concurred.

It blurs the line between diner and cosy restaurant with bar stools lining the kitchen counter and little tables (about 7 of them) set up against the opposite wall with two tables in both window nooks. It's dimly lit even at 3 in the afternoon suitable for the hungover musician/artist/boho/grad student scene it seems to attract. The three of us sat at a formica table by the window and I tried to ignore the refuse from the morning eaters on the floor beside me (ham bits, avocado chunks and large pieces of tomato in dressing). The brunch menu offers various egg dishes and several sandwiches with sides of salad and home fries. I decided to start myself off with a caesar and lo and behold "Caesar Boy" was in the house! My order brought a very talkative excitable young man over to the table doing the pointed gun hand gesture and winking at me. He had a pen with an enormous pink feather in it behind one ear. And he asked if I'd heard about him. Well, no, in fact I hadn't. He seemed to think his caesar sensibilities had earned him a reputation in this town. 5 minutes later he appeared with a glass rimmed in a dense mixture of salt and pepper, filled with a red thick clamato with visible amounts of horseradish floating gleefully, a lemon wedge and a lime wedge, a hanging monkey with two hot pepper rounds on it, some ice and a straw. It was spicy and a touch sweet and a great compliment to my toasted BLT and home fry/salad lunch.

Mom also had the BLT on rye and my brother ordered "the Hoser" (peameal ham on toasted multigrain) but got a sandwich of avocado and tomato while a woman ordering take-out in turn took out the hoser.

Because I've often had a love/hate relationship with this dear city of Toronto (I'm a bonafide wannabe country girl at heart) I sometimes haven't given it much credit. I've lived in Toronto on and off for 8 years and I want to celebrate it in this blog since many of my readers live in Toronto too. That way we can share seasonal events and hidden gems together.

80 Spadina Ave is a beautiful old 4-storey stone building with some of Toronto's best contemporary galleries. It reminds me of the mid-town galleries of NYC. You climb into an old elevator and step out into enormous original loft spaces. The Leo Kamen gallery is here, as is Gallery TRIUS and the Wynick/Tuck Gallery. Some of the galleries, because they are small and contemporary and work with a select group of artists, have strange exhibits. But one of them had a really interesting show on war - the Moore Gallery. A young artist (Matt Bahen) had painted enormous canvases with images from the Wild West in thick oil that faded into a pastel background that eventually merged with a soldier in fatigues on the bottom. There was Arabic script on the canvases as well as some sort of coding. And on each canvas there were flourescent images in a small box like an xray.

Then we walked over to 401 Richmond Street just off Spadina Avenue. This is a FANTASTIC artist coop building that appears to go on forever once you enter its cavernous rustic yet urban interior. There must be over 100 artist studios and galleries inside and a real sense of community. It's definitely worth a visit. Check out the web link and look at the rooftop garden and the guided tour to get a sense of the enormity of this building right downtown.

Across the street is the Loomis Art Store which is two stories of paper, glittery art supplies, great projects for kids, photo albums, sketch pads, frames and excellent markers!

Then we decided to see a 5 o'clock film: Born into Brothels. This is a brilliant documentary/story about the women and the children of a red light district in Calcutta, India.