distillery district - a day with my friend Tiff

My friend Tiff and I took a day trip to the Distillery District! I loved that it was filled with artisan goods, and other treasures to explore. We were incredibly lucky that it wasn't crowded, so no lines at cafes for iced coffee, microbatches of chocolate, savory goods at bakeries, or 20 bridal parties around every corner trying to get photos. I felt like I was in Europe during a heat wave. The world was an oven, but it didn't take away from the beauty and rarity of walking on cobblestones in Toronto.

This is my friend:

 

Check out this old school charm in downtown Toronto.

 

We got iced coffee at Balzac. Not going to lie - it tasted great but did not help cool us down. Heat 1, Iced Coffee 0. 

 

People were walking away from a public piano! There are a ton of pianos all around Toronto for public use as a city-wide community initiative for the Pan Am games.

 

Tiff can play a few tunes, like All My Life by Boyz II Men. This also happens to be an amazing picture for an online dating profile.

 

Then we went into an air conditioned building, Soma Chocolate! It's the only chocolate company in Toronto that buys microbatches of beans, and makes chocolate from start to finish. We tried a bar of the luxury chocolate line, and delicious truffles.

 Delicious hazelnut truffle, and sea salt caramel with dark chocolate truffle.

This is a microbatch with tones vanilla, brownies, and an "astringent" finish. It was like fine dining - a nice treat but I like my hole in the wall foods.

 

Regardless, this pretty much represents how much I love cafes:

We hopped over to Brick Street Bakery - a tiny place, but they make a solid chicken pie:

  

Such a beautiful place to be:

Hope you're having a sweet summer, 

Jen.