You may have heard earlier this week that Sassafraz, the chic restaurant in Yorkville, burned down. It seems it was a pretty major fire, and there will be significant remodeling before it can be reopened. I had lunch Sassafraz a long time ago; back before I knew it was a cool restaurant and before I knew Yorkville was for the yuppies. My cousin, Kitty, visited Toronto and treated me to lunch there.

It was quite a long time ago, I think I was maybe 14 or 15, and my cousin was maybe 19 or 20. Thinking back, I guess she was at the stage that most of us go through when we reach the 20s; the need to travel the world alone, backpacking our way through areas unknown. Most of our peers end up across the ocean in Europe or Asia, because North America is just too accessible; but since my cousin was from Asia, Toronto was across the ocean and relatively safe since she had family here.

When she left, she gave me a $50 gift certificate for Music World. For me, that was So Cool! and I promptly blew it on Culture Beat’s 5th (?? I thought it was their 3rd) album: Metamorphosis, which I wouldn’t have normally bought because it was a white-sticker, greater-than-$20 album and would never be “on sale”. Looking back that was a dumb purchase (it doesn’t even exist on allmusic.com). I don’t even remember what I bought with the remaining amount. In hindsight, going to Sassafraz before it burnt down was a more memorable and fulfilling experience.

P.S. Oh it looks like Metamorphosis was released in 1998 so I must have been 17 and my cousin was probably early 20s, but it feels like I was so much younger then.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: memories, toronto