Toronto: Kensington Market

The first time I went to Kensington Market, I desperately wanted it to live up to what I thought it would be. I wanted it to be everything I was told it would be: a multicultural market full of colourful characters, excellent food, and artsy cafes. Instead, it was a lot of dumpy shops, selling cut-rate merchandise.

Eventually, I grew to be OK with Kensington. I had my favourite place for dried chilis and I knew where to get my coffee and empanadas. I even enjoyed walking into the hipster "vintage" stores and marvelling at all the crap that they sold at a crazy mark-up. But lately, it seems Kensington has totally taken a turn for the worse.

First off, the place I always bought coffee from, closed. In fact, it seems that most of the cafes have closed. Actually, it seems like most of the shops have closed. It's become dirty. The quality of goods has dropped. And there don't seem to be *any* ethnic people at all anymore, except those manning the shops.

The last time I was there, I had "sangria" at a place called "Last Temptation". Aside from the fact that the place was disgusting, the "sangria" tasted like mildly flavoured soda water. WTF?

Toronto has been making a big fuss about Kensington lately, musing about turning it into a pedestrian walkway and whatnot, but I don't see how that's going to happen if the place keeps deteriorating. Seriously, it looks like the slums.

So that's it. I'm not going to pretend anymore. I don't like Kensington Market. It's a dump.

For good measure, here's my original post:

Kensington Market
2003/11/02

When i was growing up in Montreal, i used to watch this show called "King of Kensington" starring Al Waxman. I'm not sure what it was about cuz i was, like, five when it was cancelled. But the name "Kensington" stuck in my head. I didn't even know there was an actual Kensington Market until i came here. I thought that it was a fictional place, like Degrassi Street (which also turned out to be real. Go figure.) One of my friends told me it was super bohemian and really cool and that i should go. So i went. I went mostly cuz i wanted to see what was so special about it because there's been this big stink about whether it should be a pedestrian walkway completely closed off to cars. I figured that there must be frenetic activity and tonnes of good quality, cheap stuff. Before you read the rest of this, keep in mind that this place came highly recommended. Let's take bets about whether or not this place lives up to its reputation, shall we.

So we get down there and i'm super excited cuz it's, you know, Kensington Market, right? I'm hearing the theme song from the "King of Kensington" in my head: "When he walks down the street/ He smiles at everyone. /Everyone that he meets/Calls him 'King of Kensington'." Alas. It wasn't the frenetic mix of all kinds of people and all kinds of things from all kinds of places converging in one area. It was more like a lot of people my age and slightly younger playing pretentious connaisseur in and around a lot of dumpy-looking stores that don't have the eclectic merchandise you'd think they'd have at the dirt cheap price you'd expect from a dump.

I did buy some stuff. I bought some really fantastic gorgonzola from Global Cheese. But Global Cheese is pretty disappointing. Like why the hell can't i see all your cheese? Why? Why is it all piled on top of the counter so that i can't see the guy behind it? Why?

I bought coffee from a place at the corner of Baldwin and Augusta (where i also had a coffee). It was a place called "Louie's", i think. The coffee i bought (Ethiopian dark) was really good, but the peppercorns were stale. The staff was friendly, though. Which was more than i could say about "Chocolate Addict," the place that the guy from Jalapeno's said supplied him with chocolate. I'm the only person in the store and the chick behind the counter doesn't even ask me if i need help. I ask her if they have Mexican chocolate and she looks at me as if i've asked her if they put toenail clippings in their fudge. Speaking of fudge, i bought some of their homemade fudge, which is, well, chewy. I wanted some fudge because i had seen an artisanale (sp?) fudgerie (sp? give me a break...the show was in French and i'm not a translator...what's a "fudgerie artisanale" in English?) on Radio-Canada a couple of weeks ago and it gave me an urge. According to the show, fudge is a "sucre a la creme" (sugar cream), which is not chewy. The one i bought was supposedly chocolate orange. It tasted a lot of sugar and fake orange flavour. Like a chewy, non-cold, non-melty version of those cheap, "chocolatey"-coated orange ice cream bars.

At least i bought a few dried chilis from a Salvadoran place. Which reminds me that if i'm ever down there again i should have an empanada instead of schnitzel.

All in all, it wasn't all that. It wasn't as, i dunno, festive as i thought it would be. It wouldn't have been half bad if the produce in the stores would have been fresh or cheap. Rotting tomatos are not appealing. And i'm not even sure if they were local. One place gave me a bag with a giant American flag on it! What was that about?

Anyways, it's not the mythical place i expected it to be. TV has let me down yet again.