The Gabardine offers cozy nooks for commiseration (photo by Gizelle Lau)

Each week, our intrepid interns reflect on life and times in the big city.

Birthdays are funny things. Like some aging silver screen dame, I whine and kick my way into a new year. This past weekend even my best efforts at remaining indignant faltered
in the face of great food and even better company.

Friday night began at The Gabardine, where my oldest friend and I gabbed about 16 years of history—our childhood, the present, and the ever-growing interim in-between. Over a platter of gravlax trout with spicy mustard, fresh oysters, and a refreshing mix of tequila and ginger beer, we marveled at how far we’ve come, and inevitably, the ways we’ve fallen short of our goals.

Next, my boyfriend scored reservations at Yours Truly, a new Dundas and Ossington joint with a telling tale. The owners initially conceived of dime-a-dozen late-night eats—think upscale pub food—but after receiving an appetite-whetting resume from chef Jeff Claudio, who’s worked at the likes of Per Se in New York and Copenhagen’s famed Noma, they reworked their idea from the ground up. Now, chef Claudio creates two daily tasting menus—one meat-based, the other vegetarian—alongside a list of snacks. My boyfriend’s much-mocked choice of the vegetarian prix fixe came with a counter-intuitively upscale presentation of that most staple of peasant foods—the potato. The dish arrived in a closed jar; inside we discovered cloud-light potato foam, perfectly roasted potatoes, and the pleasant crisp of potato chips.

The Lakeview is a longtime favourite for cheap eats in Toronto

Saturday found us at The Lakeview Restaurant for a delicious and affordable spread of smoked meat sandwiches and sweet potato fries. Our large group was eclectic, the conversation diverse, but the most rewarding part was seeing how everyone got along. After that landed at Little Portugal nightspot The Red Light (1185 Dundas St. W., 416-533-
6667), where a resident DJ blared music over which we yelled to be heard, while we were hustled from side to side by an ever-moving throng of comers and goers. A brief stint in the tiny back room, where people danced hip to hip, finally gave me a twinge of that “I’m too old for this” feeling I’d last experienced at the Dance Cave.

Relief came Sunday morning, when we slept in, watched cartoons, and ate leftover pizza. After so much hoopla, the true luxury was cuddling with my two great loves—man and kitten—and reflecting on what was past, and what’s to come. And grudgingly admitting, despite my grousing, that this birthday in Toronto wasn’t half-bad.

—Alexandra Grigorescu