Canadian Open host Toronto: where little frosted doughnuts for dessert can be 'trendy'

TORONTO, CANADA – The restaurant we ate at tonight for our welcome dinner in Toronto is so chic, there is no sign in the front window. You’ve gotta find it the old fashioned way: by address. Even our cab driver wasn’t really sure where this place was.

“Everyone else has a sign, so we don’t,” they said at Kultura when someone asked if the sign just hadn’t been put up yet.

Vaild point I suppose. It is more subtle than the orange “Hooters” marquee down the street.

Kultura was somewhat busy this Wednesday night, so their speakeasy approach seems to have merit. The restaurant carries a “social dining” theme. It’s a term I haven’t seen used so much as in my first few hours in Toronto, where I’ve already seen a handful “social dining” restaurants near my entertainment district boutique hotel, Le Germain just across the street from Second City. Maybe I just haven’t been spending enough time in these cosmopolitan cities to notice.

But social dining basically means tapas-style small plates, where you’re nibbling at an assortment of dishes inspired from various parts of the world all night long, ranging from Asian-inspired edamame and crispy tofu rolls, to tender sirloin and seafood.

But the dinner was followed by my favorite dish: little vanilla sugar-frosted doughnut holes. They’re served with both caramel and chocolate dipping sauce.

I don’t care if you’re a Wal-Mart mom or a K Street lobbyist. Who doesn’t like doughnut holes? It’s nice to see a joint like Kultura, located on Toronto’s busy King Street near the theatre district finish their meal off with a little light-hearted, and very tasty treat.

I could just picture John Belushi sitting at the table next to me, ordering five servings and chowin’ down on ‘em until he passes out at the table.

It’s been years since I’ve been to Toronto, but I’m back for the Canadian Open, trying to figure out why this city, possibly more than any other major North American city I’ve heard of, carries an exceptional reputation for its abundance and variety of public golf. Unfortunately it’s often buried as a result of so much else going on around here. I hope to deliver a suitable dispatch on the golf scene to you all after spending a few days here, while of course bingeing on a few doughnut holes, and taking in the Canadian Open and a Blue Jays game along the way.

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