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It was a dark and stormy night . . .
WE ALL HAVE a favourite restaurant, a home-away-from-home spot where comfort and familiarity are most important.
For me, that restaurant has been Le Paradis, a French Bistro nestled in the Annex on Bedford Street in Toronto.
The restaurant has been around for over 39 years and several of the staff have worked there almost the entire time.
It’s that kind of place. Great food, reasonably priced with the sort of atmosphere that suggests it’s important to the staff that you want to come back another time.
I have been going to Le Paradis for more than 24 years now, averaging probably once a week. I shudder to think how many calories that has added up to over the years; rich French food and my waistline have always danced a merry tune.
The very first time I discovered the restaurant was one of those serendipitous moments usually only found in romantic comedies.
I had met a lady named Diane and we had dated a few times. On one occasion, we went to a movie at the old Cumberland Theatre in Yorkville. We were both great movie buffs but this movie was just awful. So bad, in fact, that we got our money back and left.
As we left the cinema, it started to rain; not just rain but pour; one of those deluges that destroyed any hope of staying dry.
If we had had a car waiting for us at the kerb, we would have been soaked through getting to it. But we didn’t have a car waiting for us and getting a cab would have been impossible.
So, we decided to go for a walk. Romantic, right? We got drenched and we didn’t care.
We walked north on Avenue Road, made a turn on Davenport and, vaguely remembering having read about a small French bistro in the neighbourhood, Diane led me to the now so familiar front door of Le Paradis.
WE FELL IN LOVE with the place immediately. The kitchen was about to close but we managed to get in an order of steaming mussels and a carafe of wine. Delicious. The food was wonderful, the atmosphere was wonderful, the wine, the staff, the towels they gave us, the dessert - all wonderful.
This was OUR place, we decided. We would never come here again without each other. Our special place. Our secret.
At this point in the romantic comedy, we were supposed to fall in love with each other, not with the restaurant, but that was not to be.
Three nights after pinky-swearing to never go there with anyone else, I arrived at the restaurant with another lady only to find, sitting just three tables away, sweet Diane with a date who was definitely not her brother.
Strangely, it was that experience that cemented our friendship, and we remained friends for many years.
Our lives went in very different directions. She married a Superior Court judge almost 20 years ago and I drifted in and out of love a dozen times before the thunderbolt meeting of Trudy (my forever home) six years ago.
I have many more tales of Le Paradis over the years, but every time I enter the restaurant, before I call out to the bartender “Hi, Mom, I’m home” I mentally tip my hat to Diane and that rainy, rainy night so many years ago.
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I called Diane this morning just to say hello. She didn't pick up.
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