I think in Toronto, many breakfast diners give you three eggs routinely when you order anything with them on it. It is not the same in the west coast, where they only give you two, perhaps it is part of that obsession to be thin and young so much more pronounced there.
I take my Sunday brunch very seriously; this is why I try to go to Daybreak at the corner of Carlton and Church every Sunday. Yes, right kitty corner from the famous Maple Leaf Gardens. I can’t claim to have cut a great swatch of the entire city of Toronto yet, or in my many previous sojourns here over the years, but Daybreak is for me a hopping happening place, mostly because they are unabashedly friendly. And friendly is what one province boy like me, new immigrant (again??) needs and craves. It is the odd places, chockfull with mixed people where ‘community’ happens to me, even ‘gay community’ that elusive disappearing cluster with little glue that binds other than semen. It doesn’t take a lot to be friendly to strangers, especially when one is paying but the 'gay tax' seems to be more and more common and makes the bathhouse attendants, the bartenders, bouncers, and the patrons slightly sourpussed, even the prostitutes (!!)
This I find the norm here in TO and in many other places where gay men seem more barbed around each other than around 'others' - is that homophobia hangover or what? I guess we, gay men, are invested in appering in very specific ways: young, decent, affluent and other illusions that seem nothing but layers of fear, loneliness and stigma – not to mention the mere fact we are raised as males, and we know how we machos are like… Gay men seem to be having to prove ourselves to each other constantly, especially in ‘gay establishments’. We bring the 'gay tax' on.
Hence, it feels good to go to a place one doesn’t have to either contribut to, or pay the 'gay tax' and where one’s expectations are likely to be met. I mean, this is not a gay space where I expect Zac Efron to come in and shake my foundations, fall in love with me (and ditto) and move quikcly on to the next star struck candidate, all I want is some good eggs, how difficult can that be?
Short order.
Daybreak delivers each time in the hands of a handful of hard working helpers, one of them one of the friendliest lesbians in the hood, I have said hello to her in passing on the street, just the same, and one mid thirties hottie middle eastern man babe that I have also seen at the gym and he said 'hello!' I almost dropped my 25 pounds puny weights to crash my skull.
He is hot and he knows it and he is friendly – now that is a concept! – and he brings you food.
I pass on the feeble bland white Jonas Brothers or latest one hit wonders from Twilight, give me a working class dude with good eggs in his hands. In the weeks to come i will find out his name, I am a research, damn it, I am trained and qualified to do this.
