Sarah Lazarovic—curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada—is painting a portrait of a Torontonian every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Leonard Cohen thinks Mike's serves up the best hot dogs in town (we thought he'd be all about Buddha Dog!). He's known to take friends and fans down to the John Street doggery for a bite. On a recent snack-finding mission, Mike's friendly man at the grill was......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making......

Downtown corners are speckled with hot dog vendors selling wieners to hungry pedestrians. There are no salad bar carts, no roti carts, no souvlaki carts, and no Chinese bun carts. Food vendors on the street sell hot diggity dogs due to Toronto's strict public health bylaws: Food preparation must be limited to the reheating of precooked meat products in the form of wieners or similar sausage products to be served on a bun. Hazardous raw......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending a......

Torontoist was recently alerted by one of our readers, Val A., about a new advertising campaign that a good many Torontonians are going to get to see on a daily basis. This morning [at Union Station], I was late for work, rushing, didn't really pay much attention... I caught glimpses of scantily clad people in the desert as I was walking up the stairs, a guy dousing a girl in lotion as I'm turning......

You may have already heard about the stellar line-up of bands going on for this year's Wintercity, but there's much more to this festival than an eclectic mix of tunes. It's a good thing winter finally arrived because this event may not have taken place. Now that it's here (and with a vengeance), the City is inviting everyone to come down and have a little bit of fun on their dime. Theatrics, ice sculptures......

Tonight, the Toronto Public Space Committee presents the fifth of six films screening at the Bloor Cinema as part of its ongoing Streets to Screens fundraising film series (which also includes monthly screenings of public space-themed NFB shorts at the Toronto Free Gallery). The theme of the evening is Workspace: Public Space, and the feature presentation is the Toronto premiere of Robin and Rory Muir's Downtown Locals, a documentary following a year in the lives......

Torontoist searched the blogosphere and figured out that people were in love with Nuit Blanche. "This is kind of like Halloween for Adults," Under Sky Blue Sea overheard. We think it might be because he, like so many others, was walking around in the fog installation over by Philosopher's Walk. Sarah B. Hood's verdict is that Fujiko Nakaya's Fog was one of the two best installations that night. Photographer Ashley Hutcheson also took some......

Toronto's Film Festival is notorious for being "the people's festival," where the general public can interact with actors and directors over their work, with celebrity taking only a secondary interest behind the art. Torontonians are likely to point and whisper when we see a famous face breezing through Holt's instead of running-up for autographs. My favourite example of this was waiting for the light to change at Bloor and Bay when I overheard, "Hey, that's......

Frank'z Finest Hot Dog Palace (335A Yonge St.) opened up back in May to lackluster reviews. Most reviewers found the hot dogs to be of no higher quality than the average cart vendor's, and similar quality complaints were made about the chili, french fries, and hot dog buns. Worst, the prices were higher than a vendor's, so on top of the mediocre quality. One of those reviews was mine. I disagreed about the chili,......

Torontoist immediately wins our heart by using the word "Jackass" in a headline. In fact, we love their use of it so much that we're going to use it as much as possible throughout this post. For example, it looks like there are Toronto-area jackasses besides those who misuse the sidewalk: look at the crap on sale on Toronto's craigslist. But it looks like Toronto doesn't contain the kind of jackasses who pee in public......

Theatre people often get a bum deal. Humiliating auditions, selling the car for acting classes or singing lessons or to fund a play, producing blood, sweat and tear-filled work and for what? To end up emotionally drained, penniless and with nothing but a collection of tap shoes and wigs to keep them warm at night? So is life on the stage. And, damn it, they deserve recognition for it. They got it last night......

Pulse24 is reporting that a pair of east end dogs have succumbed to poison. Torontoist wonders whether this is an isolated incident or a continuation of the poisoned hot dog epidemic from a couple of years ago. It seems a little unlikely considering the owner points out that his backyard is completely fenced off but it doesn't mean that the dogs couldn't have eaten something on a walk. In early 2004 an unknown person seeded......

The Eyeopener The Ryersonian broke the story that Ernie the Hot Dog Vendor is calling it quits. The moustachioed sausage slinger has been a fixture at Ryerson for over 25 years and won the hearts and stomachs of many hungry students through initiatives like a bursary day that has helped out dozens of students. The former engineer has made sure that the bursaries will keep going, he's already raised $21,000 to go towards a......

Restaurants: Hero Comes to Save the Day...