The food: Eggs Florentine at By the Way Cafe
The story:
This Sunday, some people in Toronto will go for brunch at hip downtown restaurants where they will line up and wait a long time to be served and try to enjoy eggs while surrounded by noisy children and young parents who are still trying to cling to their childless habits like going to Sunday brunch but it isn’t fun anymore when you have to chase your kids around the restaurant and if you’re letting them run without chasing them that’s not very nice to the other customers, now is it?
A far better idea would be to get your Eggs Florentine fix on a weekday at a relaxed, informal spot like By the Way Café which very sensibly serves eggs benedict (and variations thereof) every day of the week, along with other Mediterranean-flavoured fare. The eggs come with an excellent dill sauce and mushy but still pleasing home fries, and on a sunny day, the patio is pleasant and not too busy. And the person with you, if they don’t want to have brunch, might have a steak panini, that looks like this and comes with good, fresh cut fries.
Do that during the week is my advice, and make this Sunday special by watching the Tony Awards on CBS at 8 p.m. The Tonys are hosted this year by Neil Patrick Harris, who E and I saw 6 weeks ago, in the flesh, seated not 10 rows away from us, at a performance of the revival of Guys and Dolls on Broadway. He was very good-looking and thin and boyish and he blushed when people tapped him on the shoulder and tried to speak to him, which was charming, though my son later said I should have asked him to say “Suit up!” which is apparently NPH’s catchphrase on How I Met Your Mother. I’m glad I didn’t.
Lauren Graham sang better than expected as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, so did Oliver Platt though he lacked charisma, Craig Bierko sang less well than expected, and none of them could hold a candle to the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls that featured Nathan Lane, Peter Gallagher, Faith Prince, and hey, J.K. Simmons, of Spiderman and Juno fame. You can spot Simmons, in the front row at the prayer meeting, wearing purple, in the kick-ass clip below. Happy Tony Awards!
The Hungry Novelist 