Snakes and Lattes

Yesterday evening I went to Toronto after school to go meet a new friend at Snakes and Lattes.  Riding the bus was actually somewhat exciting: I was reading a good book ("Adam Bede") on my Nexus One and listened as a very drunk party goer bemoaned the physics of motions and their causal relationship to vomiting.

I've been looking forward to visiting Snakes and Lattes in Toronto for a long time now, and it's nice to finally have time and someone to go with.  It's conveniently tucked away at Bathurst and Bloor, near Honest Ed's.  Normally I would walk from the Toronto Coach Terminal there, but given that my bus was 20 minutes late, I ran and it was Olympic.

I have said a lot of negative things about Toronto and cities in general, but I actually do enjoy a lot about Toronto.  I don't enjoy the drabness of the downtown core as a routine, but I enjoy the whole of Toronto as a visitor.  I enjoy the rusty old houses squeezed together in bloody red brick with thin black fencing and well shaded narrow streets.  I enjoy the interminable stretches of shops, rich with personality and a touch of decay.  I like the weirdos, mostly harmless, seek medical attention if bit.  I would have photographed all of these (the weirdos most discreetly) except I was running really fast.

Snakes and Lattes is a definite victim of its own awesome.  The first level was completely full with hip people all around, and expensive hot chocolates to be self-stirred after long waits.  Walls are littered with more games than any one person has ever played or dared to count (inventory must be an impossible task here).   The cashier is a charming man who earned his eventual tip well.

I got a slice of vegan quiche, served cold, intended hot, and a cup of soy hot dark chocolate: the novelty is that the chocolate is served as a cube at the end of a stick, which you stir in a hundred circuits until its fully dissolved into the hot milkish brew.  The hot chocolate was great and frothy.  The quiche was cold.

Soy hot dark chocolate at Snakes and Lattes

For its massive selection of games, I exhibited the TRUE SIGN of a come-againer: we only selected games we already knew (leaving so many to be explored in future visits, mwahaha!).  I even brought mine: Dutch Blitz.  Even with just the two of us, she seemed to find it fun. I regularly recommend 4 players.  (I'm on my 4th deck of the summer, having gifted away another 3: players are now everywhere!)  Her choice was Trivial Pursuit, which for me is often a vain pursuit!  There is no activity to better display my stark ignorance of the world around me.  That's not to say I do not enjoy it, though: my favourite part is making up answers when you don't know right from wrong.  "Skience, please!"  "Wash closet, please!"  After mistaking snakes for invertebrates, and only building up half our pies of topical slices, we finally surrendered.