 Everyone always likes to say that Toronto is the New York City of Canada. Toronto is just like New York, but without all this stuff. Well, we just got back from a five-day trip in Toronto, so we're going to give you our breakdown on whether I think that this is true or not true. Hopefully this video helps anybody who is thinking about visiting Toronto who wants to move there. Yeah, or it's just interesting to explore cultural differences, the pros and cons of every single place, right? Because we're all just trying to fit Andrew into this world, this big game map and pick the right plot of land. So make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. First off, we got to give a huge shout out to the CCYA Celeb Classic. Andrew, we got some of the basketball highlights down below. But yeah, let's just get into it, man. Andrew, what is the big difference in attitude? Everybody always talks about there's a New York attitude. It's hyper-direct. It can be very rude. People just say things to each other. In Toronto, there's obviously a very Canadian attitude, right? Of saying sorry or depending on where you're from, Andrew. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, even before, I think every major sports game or sports event, they have to acknowledge that they are on First Nations land. In America, that would be like, before we sing the national anthem, we want to also thank all the Native American tribes, like the Cherokee, the Chiragawa, the Sioux Indians, because it is their original land that we are on. Yeah. I mean, they have a very different approach to ethnicity and making sure that people from diverse backgrounds get along. Andrew, Canadians do not refer to ethnic food as ethnic food. They just call it like, oh, you're eating Korean food or Chinese food or Middle Eastern food. Whereas in America, you know, you can hear people be like, oh yeah, you know, ethnic food. Yeah, you know. Like, you know, you minorities. Right. It's other. And I think obviously America has a different relationship with race wars in America. One time, Andrew, at a bar in Canada, Andrew, I heard sorry said five times in 90 seconds. That's crazy. And people meant it too. They weren't just saying it like, sorry. Like, you know, sometimes they do, sorry. It wasn't like that. I mean, let's be honest. I think Toronto is the biggest city in Canada, but it's not, it's not really, it's not, it doesn't got that crazy big city vibe where it's hyper, hyper competitive like New York City. Like New York City is just like everybody's trying to get somewhere. And I think Toronto is just a more chilled out version. So although, you know, it does kind of feel like New York at times. I would say it almost feels like San Diego, Seattle, a little bit of almost like Queens. Chicago, Charlotte. Yeah. More like a borough, more like Queens, maybe more like Brooklyn. Like if you include Long Island City in the Queens. And we were staying on Bloor Street, which is just like a mile up from the actual city center. And there was like a bunch of houses there for college students and for family. So there was like no houses in Manhattan. Yeah. A lot of row houses. I would say also it's way cleaner, way less cockroaches in way, maybe a hundred million less rats. I don't think I saw a single rat in a week. I didn't see any rats on the street, man. We were out on the street, but the streets are way more wide open. It's way cleaner, way less dense, man. It's almost like a suburban, urban vibe. It's really difficult to describe. Moving on, Andrew, just to the stores and businesses and food, these are like very obvious things that anybody, you know, it's like tier one obvious, right? Andrew, when you see a bunch of Timmy's, the Tim Hortons with the Tim bits, when you see a bunch of Popeyes, even though there's Popeyes everywhere, I didn't even know. I was like, man, Canadians eating that much Popeyes. And they have one chain that you have zero of in New York City and just zero of almost left in America. They have a ton of A and W's. Yeah, that's old school. And root beer floats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what I would say is different is first of all, Tim Hortons, I know a lot of Canadians hate on Tim Hortons, but I had some of their sandwiches, their beef and cheddar. And that bread, I think is better than the equivalent bread that you would get in America. Would you say it is from a little bit of the French influence, maybe from Quebec? Yeah, you might have to give them credit for the Quebec and Montreal, man, because the bread is a little bit better there. Also, I would just say, like, overall, I saw more businesses that I think had more, like, whimsical names. I think Canada is, like, a little bit more lighthearted or goofy, or maybe because it's not quite a hyper-hyper-competitive market. Like, it's not so bent on being, like, cool all the time. But they'll, like, come up with funny names for things. It is the land of Martin Short, Andrew, Mike Myers. Jim Carrey. Drake is very funny and, like, almost, like, self-effacing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I noticed, as far as the food scene goes, David, that we'll get into the Asian food in a little bit, but when it comes to even other food, it was, like, not so much about, like, making you feel like you were in France or making you feel like you were in Italy. You know, like, in New York City, you're gonna be like, oh, like, oh, you know, we flew in, like, we have a chef and we have French shrimp pastry, we have this, and then we, oh, you know, we flew in this Italian chef. You know, it's like, everything is supposed to be hyper-hyper-authentic straight from there and give you an elevated experience. I think there's obviously some of that in Toronto, but they seem to be having more fun with food. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, it reminds me of an attitude that you find not in New York. You can find that attitude in America, like, in the Midwest, in Texas. People have fun with things. Charlotte, North Carolina. Even California a little bit more. Even Chicago even more. That was a big difference between, like, at least the biggest city that is the financial, cultural hub. Interestingly enough, Andrew, some chefs told me that they believe that development of Western food, specifically whether that's, whether they're considered New Canadian versus New American, is they said it's like 10 to 15 years behind, but they believe Asian food is on par or at least when it comes to Cantonese food in Canada, 10 years to 15 years ahead of America, specifically of maybe even just Cantonese food. Yeah, I mean, we, shout out, this one spot, we filmed that couple last year with Linda Dee called Zo, I think, and it was like this. This is all, yeah. It's all, it's this big Vietnamese restaurant that I had never even seen in America. And I'm not saying that there's a bunch of Vietnamese in Toronto, but I'm just saying this restaurant with all the LED lights, very nice build-out, huge spot, like, I'd never seen a Vietnamese restaurant in America built like that. Now, there's a number of reasons why it possibly cost, but or, but I'm just like, I don't know, like there's certain things you see in Canada that if you're really into food, you're like, this is a little different. There's a spot. Remind me more of like Houston, almost. Yeah, there was this spot called So Famous that we walked into. It's just this little Chinese spot where you can buy like fresh stir-fried, but it's like newly redone and it's clearly done by like a second generation guy, but then like, it's just one chef on a walk and they were so nice because I was just joking and said, hey, hey, I could, I could chef something on the walk too. And then literally the old canto chef was like, hey, come over here and show me. Yeah, he was like this guy talking a big game. You know, I got to test out his skills. And then I went in the back of the kitchen and he almost let me cook on the hot walk. You know, luckily I didn't burn myself. I don't know how to use it. I would say a lot of things to me, the easiest way to describe it, and you know, you guys can tell me if I'm right or wrong. I think I'm right. Are orientated for the middle, middle to upper middle class. I think a lot of things in New York are actually orientated for maybe either almost like lower class or like ultra wealthy. Yeah. Especially in New York City, there's not a huge amount of things that cater to the middle. Maybe more in Queens you do see things that cater in the middle, but as far as Manhattan goes, very, very high low. I like what you're saying because New York's food scene, I would say is generally known for its cheap eats, right? As we know, the bodega, everything in a cheap Chinatown eats, very famous for that. And then also famous for its like top and like world, famous world we're now like super hyper high and Michelin star one Madison Park restaurant. Like that's what also New York is known for. But that middle part, people don't talk about it as much. Right, right, right. Because people are trying to have a crazy $10 chopped cheese or like a $500 omakase in New York. You know what it is in New York? It's like all the high end stuff is for the middle class people to experience once in a while. But other than that, they're like eating everything else. Yeah, for sure. I mean, what do you think of the architecture? I noticed that they take a lot less risks with architecture in Toronto. A lot of the businesses, they look like glass, essentially just glass boxes with balconies. Yeah, I don't think that the architecture is something that I would say Toronto has better of. I think New York has way more diverse architecture. I think that the architects, when they think about building a building, they want to build it super crazy and like, you know. Oh, and by the way, Andrew, one time when we went to Toronto last year, we Airbnb'd unexpected, like not intentionally in the infamous ice building. Yeah, don't Airbnb. Yeah, do not Airbnb. I'm just gonna go ahead and say, just don't do that one. Well, all right, David, get into the Asian food scene because obviously that's one that a lot of our fans are thinking about because we were in it. Right, right, right. I mean, obviously when we are going to Toronto or even when we're here in New York, that's more of the scene that we are 10 out of 10 experts in. I can't tell you that I'm a 10 out of 10 expert in the Middle Eastern world of either city. We eat a lot of Asian food. So in downtown Toronto, because I didn't spend as much time in Markham this trip, but Markham's food is always good, right? In Chinatown, I felt like that there was a lot more... First of all, Chinatown is actually pretty big in downtown Toronto, I felt like. Oh, and it opened actually much later. There's a lot of spots open until like 4 or 5 a.m. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I also think it's safer. That's why things are open later. And then there's like a lot more like Hakka, Indo, Chinese food and Chiljiao food restaurants. Are you talking about the mixture between the Daisy world and the Sino world? Yeah, which is like Toronto because Toronto has a lot of Chinese and a lot of brown Asians. Isn't Toronto like 20% Daisy and 15% Chinese? So South Asian, I think make up a slightly higher percentage in Toronto and then it's about 14 or 16% Chinese. Listen guys, I'll just say this. If you're not used to seeing Indian and Chinese people and Indian and Chinese people also hang out together, go to Toronto because that makes up like 40% of every single person you see anywhere. Yeah. I do think there's not a lot of Korean food in the Chinatown. Most of the good Korean food you'll find is on Yonge Street over in North York, which is not that far. Obviously Markham for the Chinese community, all types of Chinese and Indians. That would be equivalent to more like flushing, but it doesn't look like flushing. It looks almost more like 626, almost more like a walnut, diamond bar, rolling heights, Temple City thing. Yeah, and obviously Cantonese being the single largest noticeable kind of singular group out there, David. So the Cantonese food is very good. Obviously Canada in general has a lot of Cantonese people since a lot of them came over from Hong Kong. And I think that that means that there's a lot of bars that kind of or even the nightlife is different. Yeah, yeah, I would say it's a little different. Like nightlife, for example, let's just shout out to the spots. Midnight Market, Midnight Arcade, Big Trouble, all ran by Andrew. That's like, those are pretty cool spots. And I would say they mostly play hip hop. So I guess if you're into that, those are definitely spots you'd have to check out. Yeah, a lot of old school jams and boom bap and everything. Just a good vibe. But they have a lot of other Asian spots that are kind of Asian mixed. AMPM, Easy on Fifth, especially on Fridays. Obviously the big EDM club is Rebel. Yeah, I'm not a fan of Rebel personally. Anytime anybody wants to go to Rebel, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, me out. So what is it? I mean, ultimately we could go on forever and I'm sure there's other people who could, you know, list it out, you know, this is just like immediately like our brain dump because we just got back. Andrew, is Toronto like New York City? If you made me say yes or no, I'm going to say no, it's not. It's not that much like New York City, but it doesn't have to be. I think Toronto is an amazing city. It's very nice. I always have a good time there. I meet a lot of good people. I connect well with the community out there. But I like would not. It's probably the closest thing to New York and Canada, but coming straight from New York, I'm like, I don't know if it's like New York. Yeah, like not fully. I would say it's below 50%. So I'm just going to say no. Yeah. Yeah, share some similarities. I mean, isn't it the truth that everything is relative to your like own spectrum as an individual and what you've seen in your life? I'm thinking if you come from Calgary, Canada, Andrew, like more like the countryside and you moved to Toronto, that's like going to like Tokyo, London. But then if you're from like New York City, moving to Toronto, it might feel like you're moving to almost like the suburbs. Right. So it's all relative to like what you said as your like baseline default for like what is normal. I mean, I mean, why David, why does it have to be the New York City? Why do you want to compare it to New York? I don't think you would want to, to be honest. Like I really enjoyed sort of the French Scandinavian. You know what I mean? Because I'm assuming that there's more French and Scandinavian influence just due to the history of Canada structurally, culturally. Like you said to your point, the breads taste better. Scandal Franco, yeah. Yeah. So you're like, keep Toronto, Toronto. It doesn't have to be New York City. I don't think so. No, I don't know. New York is New York. I know people from Toronto right now are like, yo, I got to go to New York. It's a big city is New York. I'll tell you this, man, New York is crazy. You got to come prepared here. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would tell anybody to go check it out. I think Toronto is like, is really, really cool. I mean, let us know what you think in the comment section below. We probably didn't even get to like one fit to what we could have talked about, you know, but immediately that's just like what comes off the top of mind. You know, I didn't, I didn't have any bag milk while I was there. Did you bag milk? No, I didn't even see it. But I don't know if that's going out of style more if that's just a certain group of people that more eat it. But I don't think that's really enough. I noticed that like maple syrup things were not as big as I remember. I don't know if that was just like in my youth. I remember I think Canada is changing, bro, because they even have like this new version of Tim Hortons like Tim Hortons 2.0 where you can get matcha and matcha donuts. Matcha, use of donuts. Like they look different though. It's almost like a Starbucks reserve. I mean, if you think about it, America is kind of like the NBA. Okay, it is the top league for almost anything. Or the NFL versus the CFL, right? It's also a crazy country, but it has some really innovative stuff here. So if that's what you're striving for is to make it in the most competitive possible market. Yeah, New York is it. But I'll say this, man, I got a breather in Toronto. We enjoyed ourselves. The community is nice out there. The food's pretty good out there. It's just a nice break. And so I could see, I mean, would you potentially live in Toronto in the future, David? This is a good test because you love New York, but would you ever live in Toronto? I would live in Toronto for a full year. Wow, just one. And if you stay there a year, you might stay there another. It's possible. Because I mean, I think at the end of the day, guys, everybody wants to go to a place that's like in its golden moment. I mean, I'm sure that varies on everybody's lens. Oh, that's a good point. Everybody is like a different camera body juxtaposed with a different lens. If you guys know anything about cameras, the lens matters, the camera body matters, even the add-on, the ND filters, the polarizers. I mean, but just for me, the way I'm viewing it right now, I like where TDOT's at. You like the energy in TDOT. I like it a lot, man. You like there. You think there's some momentum there. I think it's really cool what they got going on. Again, shout out to CCYAA. Shout out to everybody, man. No, shout out to the Google Pixel 7 Pro. Bring up the ball. Bring up the ball. Give me the ball. Shout out to, yeah, like you said, the Google Pixel 7 Pro. Shout out to Simu. Shout out to Jeremy. Yeah, cool. Shout out to everybody, man. You know what? I think the fact that the CCYAA celeb classic game is held there and it's such a big event, I think it says something about the Asian community up there. I'm just saying. Yeah. It's nice. Check it out. Let us know what you think about Toronto. And if you don't have any thoughts about Toronto in the comments section below, let us know what you think about Canada in general. I'm sure there's pros and cons. Somebody told me Amazon is kind of slow and more expensive there, like Amazon Prime. You know, maybe you don't need... But maybe it's also less consumeristic. So if you don't like being sold something or buying something every five seconds, you know, like I said, every pro has a con. Everything's like always, you know, and it depends on how you interface or how you prioritize pros and cons. Maybe you don't need same-day delivery. Maybe. Maybe you don't. All right, everybody. Thanks for watching the Hot Pop Boys. And until next time, we out. Peace.