Books & Bites: The Danforth Edition

Welcome to a new feature called Books & Bites! Elyse from Just Murrayed and I love to go out on bookish adventures around Toronto. Since we both also love to blog, we decided to make this a regular thing. Visit her post to see our adventure from her side of the crazy. 😛

Arriving at Union Station, Elyse and I were thrilled to realize that we had unknowingly dressed to match. We have obviously been spending too much time together. We were sure that our matching outfits would gain some kind of attention throughout the day.

The Only Cafe – Sadly, we didn’t get a picture of this wonderful coffee house/hostel. We weren’t planning to go there, but the first stop on our tour wasn’t open until 11am, so we went to find some caffeine so that I could make it through the day. I had a wonderful mocha while we sat and chatted, and only one person commented on our colour coordinated outfits.

Circus Books & Music – Circus is a neat little used book store that has a bit of everything. It doesn’t specialize in a particular type of book, and the selection is pretty standard, but I did manage to find a book that I haven’t seen before. Just as we were about to leave I spotted an Anne McCaffrey book hidden away in the kids section that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The price was really good, and I’m really excited to read this book that I didn’t even know existed.

The Purchase:

• The Coelura by Anne McCaffrey

Il Fornello – You would think that in Greektown we would go to Greek restaurant, but Elyse said that Il Fornello had amazing food so we had to go there. She ordered this awesome gluten free Hawaiian pizza and I had the steak sandwich. Since we always do these things on the weekend we tend to have to order from the brunch menu, but we always seem to find something yummy.

Re:Reading – This might be another new favourite store. I wasn’t sure that I would find something, then I stumbled across 4 of the 6 Brainship books by Anne McCaffrey that I have been looking for. For some reason this day seemed to be themed around her books. I hoped that I might find the first two books in the series, but I might just be forced to buy them online. They are impossible to find in stores! My favourite part about this store was that when I went to cash I found out it was Buy 3 Get the 4th Free!

The Purchase:

• The Ship Who Searched by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey
• The City Who Fought by Anne McCaffrey and S.M. Stirling
• The Ship Who Won by Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye
• The Ship Avenged by S.M. Stirling

Book City – Our next stop in the plan was supposed to be for dessert, but we were still really full from lunch, so we skipped over to Book City next. This is an independent store that has some great finds. Their stock is all new, so for the most part I could get a better discount at my own store, but the stationary and other items were really great.

The Purchase:

• Toronto Urban Strolls 2… for girlfriends by Nathalie Prezeau

Dolce Gelato – We finally stopped for our final snack. The portion sizes at this place are deceptive. You think that the medium is going to be fine, and then you realize that the gelato just never seems to end. Since you get 2 flavours, I got pink grapefruit and strawberry. Both were really good, but I’ll definitely get the small size next time. While there we took a look at the book that I picked up at Book City. Elyse and I split the cost of it since this is our new hobby.

Wanna have your own Books & Bites adventure? Here’s a map!