 I awoke one morning after a night on the town with a desperate craving for a fast, filling, delicious breakfast to indulge my palate and soothe my aching stomach. Fortunately, the decision of where to go was easy: Dusty's, on the corner of du Parc and Mont Royal...
Read the rest of: "Breakfast at Dusty's"» 
I've met quite a few people in Montreal, and all of them surprised me with the same statement: "I've never been to La Grande Bibliothèque".
Worse, that would happen immediately after I'd answer the most common question, which is: "What have you liked the most in Montreal so far?"
La Grande Bibliothèque is definitely one of the top things on my list
and when I mention it many people seem surprised...
Read the rest of: "La Grande Bibliothèque: Not Only For Geeks"»  The Lower East Side is a great area to spend an evening, peppered with divey bars, music venues, boutiques and cafes. The West Village is home to more French Cafes, but The Pink Pony on the East side is one not to be missed...
Read the rest of: "Pink Pony"» 
Window dressing seems to be an art form that is taken very seriously only in New York.
Bergdorf Goodman's window design department not only occupies an entire floor of their 57th Street store, but also inhabits a large warehouse across the river in Queens.
Each season, Director David Hoey's elaborate visions enliven the corner of 5th Avenue and 57th Street- adjacent to Central Park and the Plaza hotel. The windows have become more than just a place for showing off the wares for sale at Bergdorf's, but a venue for exquisite installation narrative art. Using designer clothing, antiques, original art works and other borrowed props (this Halloween features a skeleton horse!), the windows are somewhat of an art gallery on their own. I am a big supporter of art for art's sake, which seems to be less common in the United States as opposed to Europe...
Read the rest of: "Windows"» The title makes it sound as though you are about to view some B-movie about a perverted Dr. Frankenstein who gives life to zombies on other planets, but in actuality it was named by a German scientist who pioneered the process of plastination, which essentially means turning corpses and body parts into something more permanent. So basically, not too far off from my initial impression.
This exhibition at the museum of science in
Boston
is not something i would have gone to a few years ago. I've never had a strong stomach and
I am a sympathetic barfer. I even threw up at the alter during my own wedding! In recent years I've toughened up, to the point where I can clean up after the dog, bandage a wound, and scare away wild animals (well, at least the
odd moth or two). And so I thought I was ready for Body Worlds...
Read the rest of: "Body Worlds 2"»  When you look at a list of the world's top paddling spots, it's unlikely that you'll find Brooklyn, New York.
And it's even less likely that you'll find the Gowanus Canal, a narrow sliver of water that cuts its way from Gowanus Bay through the industrial zones of Red Hook, South Brooklyn, and Park Slope. It's not exactly what you might call scenic, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. It's lined by crumbling warehouses, generating plants, shadowy factories, Coast Guard fuel depots, and even a Home Depot. It meanders beneath the Gowanus Expressway, one of the busiest highways in New York City, and has been referred to as the most polluted waterway in America. A slick, rainbow film of oil and other chemicals gives the water in the canal a colorful, shimmering candy coating that would be beautiful at sunset if it didn't smell like cold metal and gunpowder and leave a disturbing acrid taste in the air. Visibility in the water is almost zero, and any trip across it is highlighted by an overpowering fear that you might get some on you. And yet still, people put paddle to battery-scented water and get both a unique view of New York and a first-hand understanding of how a neighborhood and an ecosystem can flourish, die, and then struggle to be reborn...
Read the rest of: "Drifting Through Brooklyn"»  The story goes like this: an American college student is seated on the terrasse of a fancy Paris café. When the waiter (finally) arrives, she asks for
« a tall skim latté with sweet'n'low.»
« - Madame,» says the waiter, « we are not a pharmacy !»
OK, probably apocryphal. However,
learning the Paris coffee rules will make your next trip to that oh-so-picturesque café all the more pleasant...
Read the rest of: "How to Order Café in Paris"» A small art gallery in St. Petersburg, Anna Nova is well
hidden but it's well worth
the trek to find this diamond in the desert. Here's how to find it:
walk some two blocks from metro-station Mayakovskaja, then
walk down a grey path that winds through yellowish backyards, then
turn left, and there it is! The way is certainly Peter-pan-ish:
"second to the right, straight on 'till morning, that's where I'll
be waiting" - with
the only one amendment – there won't be Peter Pan himself to welcome you,
but Pasha, the gallery-keeper (Barry's famous character doesn't bear any
comparison with this real-life personage)...
Read the rest of: "Anna Nova Gallery"»  Thanks to Sex in the City, Magnolia Bakery in the
West Village
has a permanent line around the block. I'm not joking.
The first time I attempted to go there, I assumed because
of the line they had table service. Nope. Just a line to
get cupcakes! $3.50 cupcakes. Beautiful, big, amazing cupcakes!
But seriously, what local would wait in an hour line for a
sugar fix? OK, probably me, until I decided to seek out other
sources to satisfy my sweet tooth in this town....
Read the rest of: "Cupcake Quest"» 
You've seen it if you go to the movies. It's the backdrop for most of Chicago and parts of Cinderella Man. Walking the cobblestoned laneways of Toronto's Historic Distillery District is like a journey back in time.
Established in 1832, the Gooderham and Worts distillery grew to become the largest in the British Empire. Known as the most well-preserved collection of Victorian Industrial Architecture in North America, the Distillery District covers 13 acres and is made up of over 40 buildings...
One of the biggest complaints about the neighbourhood was the dearth of good restaurants. Balzac's coffeehouse offered sandwiches and crepes, but the other two restaurants onsite, run by the same management company that runs the entire complex, were overpriced and more than a little pretentious...
Read the rest of: "Mill Street Brew Pub"»
SiteBits -- good things in nice places  |
