Bagel for breakfast from St. Urbain Bagel inside St. Lawrence Market

Our last few hours in Toronto were spent in St. Lawrence Market. We were meeting our friend from the Philippines for breakfast, and while waiting for her, we decided to have a bagel sandwich from St. Urbain Bagel.

One of the things I fell in love with since moving to Canada is the bagel. My current favourite is any bagel sandwich with salmon in it. The best one I've tried is from an adorable French shop in Vancouver: Mon Pitou.

St. Urbain Bagel Bar
Everything bagel, garlic & herb cream cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber, and capers

Delicious bagel sandwich in Toronto

With this in mind, we ordered a Salmon sandwich with an Everything bagel, garlic cream cheese, and all the vegetables. The bagel was dense, and I wish it was toasted a bit longer, but the salmon, cream cheese, and capers are all wonderful.

An excellent first bite of food from St. Lawrence Market.

St. Lawrence Market is similar to the more famous Pike Place Market in Seattle and the smaller Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver.

I didn't have bagels in Pike Place, but the best source of bagels in Granville Island is Siegel's Bagel.

Midnight Snack from Fugo Desserts and Makan

After hanging out in our hotel room for a couple hours, we finally decided to walk to Fugo Desserts for desserts. Yes, we planned to have dinner at Sugo and dessert at Fugo. 😁

Fugo is famous for its Instagram-worthy ice cream, but I'm staying away from anything cold because of my recent acid reflux attack. My mom likes to remind us (me and my siblings) that we have "weak" stomachs and shouldn't skip meals or eat anything cold on an empty stomach. So instead of ice cream, we went for mini donuts!

Fugo Desserts share a space with Makan. I ordered Regular Tots and Truffle Tots for a sweet-savoury pairing.

Box of 16 Specialty Mini Donuts
From top to bottom row: Plain, Churro, Rosewater Pistachio, and Reese's

Mini Donuts

Reese's Mini Donuts from Fugo Desserts

The variety of mini donuts available is overwhelming. There are over 30 different flavours, and when you order a box, each flavour comes with four pieces, so it's impossible to try everything without spending too much money on dessert. Also, the donuts were a bit dry, but it's really the topping carrying the flavour.

Truffle Tots

Regular Tots

The tots from Makan were delicious! Although, I have a bias for salty/savoury things over sweets. This is such a great place to hangout.

Spaghetti, meatball, and more for dinner at Sugo

We booked our flight and hotel for our Toronto vacation on the first week of September. Why? Because our dear friend and maid-of-honour for our wedding is taking a break and visiting relatives in Toronto. We made a last-minute decision to take a vacation and meet with her.

She sent us a list of restaurants she wanted to try, and we picked Sugo. So after spending hours in Royal Ontario Museum, we met with her, and we took Line 2 to Lansdowne Station to Sugo.

Dinner at Sugo

We ordered a lot of food, and I was excited to eat since I was starving.

First to arrive at our table are the gigantic meatballs. They're bigger than what you usually get from other restaurants. Since I was hungry, I took a piece of the meatball and was surprised at how good it was. The inside was juicy and flavourful. So we're off to a great start!

Meatball
Uncle Scotti's famous meatball

Next, our mozzarella sticks arrived, and it was alright on its own, but paired with the tomato dip, it became elevated.

Mozz Sticks
Mozzarella sticks served with marinara sauce.

Afterwards, the Chicken Parm arrived. Even close to the edge, I thought the chicken was a bit dry, and even the delicious tomato sauce couldn't save it.

Chicken Parm
Breaded chicken breast topped with mozzarella and Sugo.

Then, the Gnocchi came, and it was delicious! Highly recommended, especially with ricotta. It was amazing. I can't wait to try the Spaghetti.

I took a bite of the Spaghetti covered in the house-made sauce and understood why my friend wanted to come here. It was excellent, and it deserved all the love from Torontonians.

Spaghetti
Classic veal and pork ragu with parmesan cheese, parsley, and pepper

Unfortunately, after a couple bites of the Spaghetti, I felt sick to my stomach and had no desire to eat. My husband is so worried because his foodie wife doesn't have an appetite for delicious food. I wanted to vomit, so I stopped eating and was just nibbling on the delicious food. I want to cry. I felt sick but wanted to eat.

My friend and husband were so understanding that we had most food to go and brought it back to our hotel room so I could rest.

I started feeling a bit better after I burped. Maybe it's acid reflux. I'm not sure. We exchanged gifts and watched YouTube videos in the hotel room, and I started feeling hungry. So we reheated the garlic bread and some of the Gnocchi. Thankfully, my stomach didn't reject it. Whew!

Croissants from Royal Ontario Museum

We had breakfast at 8:00 AM while walking to the train station. Then, we walked around beautiful Casa Loma and explored all the exhibits and galleries inside Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) with no food in between.

By quarter to three, I have a mild headache and am famished. So we hurriedly ordered a butter croissant and an almond croissant from the cafe on the 1st floor of ROM.

Butter Croissant

Almond Croissant

It was stale, but it will do to have some food in my stomach. We're meeting a dear friend from the Philippines shortly after that for dinner, so I need the space for delicious food.

Breakfast from King Blue Hotel Cafe

The cat is out of the bag. I now have to share that we stayed in the newly opened King Blue Hotel at the corner of King Street and Blue Jays Way. On the hotel's website, there's no mention of a restaurant or cafe, but they recently opened one on the ground floor.

On our penultimate date in Toronto, we decided to grab a savoury scone and one of the muffins to go. I wished the scone was reheated longer because the outside was perfect, but the middle was cold. The muffin was perfect the way it was.

Muffin

Scone

We hurriedly ate both on our way to Line 1 on our way to Casa Loma.

Arancini, Seafood Pasta, and Rustica Pizza for dinner at Pizza Rustica

After a busy day visiting Ripley's Aquarium of Canada, CN Tower, and the Distillery District, we had to decide where to have dinner. I want to try Harvey's (I blame all those commercials when we're watching the NFL 😏), but the location closest to our hotel is closed because it's a holiday. 😞

We just continued walking to our hotel from Harvey's location and decided on Pizza Rustica. It's within the block of our hotel, and they're open 24 hours. 

I had low expectations of the place because it's usually empty when we walk past the restaurant. And, for dinner, we're the only ones here. But, to be fair, it's a holiday.

Arancini
Vegetable arancini on a bed of Arugula and topped with tomato sauce.

The arancini were alright and pretty acceptable.

Seafood Pasta
Tiger shrimp, mussels, calamari, herbed tomatoes, and onions in a tomato sauce

I am surprised at how much I enjoyed their seafood pasta. The seafood is perfectly cooked, and the spaghetti is al dente. I'll happily order this again.

Rustica Pizza
Prosciutto, roasted peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, mushrooms, and mozzarella in tomato sauce.

The thin-crust pizza was delicious too. I didn't like the roasted peppers and thought it could use a minute or two more in the oven, but it's a great-tasting pizza. We had leftovers which we reheated in the hotel room microwave, which was even better.

Overall, it's an excellent dinner to end a tiring day.