Toronto's Chinatown
No matter where I travel, I always drop by Chinatown. It tells a lot about a city, because Chinatowns are not just about China — many other communities also find a home here. For instance, in Ottawa, Chinatown is also Little Saigon and in France, many traditional Asian shops sell Caribbean products.
Toronto’s Chinatown didn’t disappoint me. It was colorful, messy and it smelled of exotic and spicy food. I observed the people attending their daily business: biking around, shopping, cooking and chatting. Chinatowns are invariably little enclaves with local businesses, not franchises. It’s refreshing to walk more than a block without spotting a Tim Hortons or a Starbucks.
At noon, we stopped to have lunch in the tiniest restaurant ever. The woman at the front was making dumplings and boiling them in huge pots right past the restaurant’s door. We squeezed in and had a huge plate of boiled and fried 饺子 (chives and pork dumplings) with soya, vinegar and sesame sauce.
 Stores and Signs |
 Trinkets and People |
 Array of Herbs |
 Picking The Best Fruits |
 Making Noodles |
 Picking Oranges |
 Post No Bills |
 Making Soup |
 Making Dumplings |
 Bracelets |
 Boiling Dumplings |
 Fried Dumplings |
 Cutting Meat |
 Selling Fruits |
Related articles:
- Chinatown In Ottawa
- Night And Day In Toronto’s Chinatown
- Montreal’s Chinatown
- Toronto, Here We Are Again
- Beach Bumming In Uruguay
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[…] Like I said before, I always enjoy visiting Chinatowns: I often shop at the one in Ottawa, and I like hanging out at the Toronto one. […]
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[…] course, when in Toronto two weeks ago, we ended up in Chinatown – again. Looks like I can never really escape my Chinese roots – wait a minute… I’m not […]
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Awesome, my friend was just telling me about a christian chinese church in Phoenix. I wonder if we have a sort of china town here?
.-= Seb´s last blog ..Bear and I Visit The Louvre =-.
Hi Zhu,
I think that in most larger cities, there will always be a Chinatown.
There’s & very special mix to these places that can only be apprecited by walking slowly & using all your senses.
I’ve known Honolulu’s ( the original Chinatown had to be burned down in the early 20th century because of a plague outbreak), where the early Chinese population was brought over for hard labor in the sugar cane fields/ other jobs.
Yes, the best part of Chinatown is the food
I looove dim sum and anything with noodles.
Bises xx
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