Late Night Nosh

Though more restaurants are opened late in Toronto, none are downtown in the area of Yonge-Dundas Square. So after the Dwayne Gretzky concert, I headed to Chinatown, the nearest area guaranteed to have late-night eats (though 11 pm wasn't that late). The new spot People's Eatery, one of two recent efforts to hipsterize the neighbourhood, was hopping. But I settled on Swatow, the mainstay stalwart next door.

The food came out within 5 minutes: snails in black-bean sauce, stir-fried beef, spicy salt-and-pepper shrimp, large fried tofu squares, and sea-food fried rice. As I ate the uniformly delicious dishes, I contemplated the orders. It was true the dishes used essentially the same technique: stir-fry in hot wok and oil; but the speed and variety were astonishing. A typical restaurant wouldn't even have the appetizers on the table yet. Did they simply loaded up the snails in a strainer and cooked them instantaneously in the giant boiling pots? Was there a giant tub of shelled shrimp ready to be battered?

It's no wonder that many chefs have expressed a desire to experience a busy Chinese restaurant's kitchen and also an unwillingness to compete directly with them. Inhaling that fried rice, paradoxically both light and fluffy and greasily good, you forgive all the mediocre Chinese-Canadian joints and their oily efforts.

Unfortunately, Chinese spots don't have very good dessert. So I made my way through the punk kids along College St, the club kids at College and Bathurst (for Ryze and its offshoots), and the hot-mamas tottering on heels in Little Italy for 12:30 am pistachio and chocolate gelato.