By Grace Cameron, Lifestyle EditorTHERE'S SOMETHING a little bit gaudy about Kensington Market.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, for example, a pink-haired, cross-dressing clown outfitted in every blinding colour of the rainbow, mugs for the camera in front of a thrift shop.
Just up the road and around the corner ganja smokers gather at the back of the Hot Box Cafe at Roach-O-Rama. Locals call it the marijuana shop. This cafe/store sells hemp (ganja in Jamaican parlance) paraphernalia - chillum pipes and rolling papers, for example - as well as hemp-enriched shampoo. It also carries jeans, slippers, vests, balm and other merchandise made from hemp.
On the wall the Mona Lisa (a copy of Leonardo DaVinci's famous painting) smirks with a huge spliff held between her fingers. Beside her, in a poster of his own, reggae icon Bob Marley draws contendedly on the tail end of a spliff.
Ahhh! Kensington Market.
Minus the whiff of ganja in the air Kensington Market, which grew out of the bolted down pushcarts of Jewish immigrants in the 1920s, has always been a touch flashy. More than 80 years after it started the streets between Spadina and Augusta Avenues and below Dundas are a cacophony of sounds, tastes, and smells. On busy days cars creep through the narrow roads and alleys which were once lined with Victorian houses. At the same time fishmongers, street musicians, impromptu speechmakers and shoppers crowd the sidewalks, playing a game of dodge to avoid bumping into signboards, stalls laden with fruits and vegetables, racks of clothing and other merchandise.
This is home to the Mad Scientist, a computer store; an Indian/New Age clothing store; Courage My Love, a vintage clothing store; and a Jamaican patty shop run by a man with a heavy Chinese accent who calls Montego Bay, St. James, home.
Steve Somfalvi grew up in the area and has been coming to the market his whole life. There are seven seafood restaurants on one street alone, he notes. Plus, there are spice shops and the best meat shop in Toronto, he adds. "I just came back from Thailand and I can find Thai spices here that I couldn't find in Thailand."
Somfalvi says he also frequents the Vietnamese shops where he can buy a Vietnamese sub (sandwich) for $1. "Some people come to the market just to get coffee. It's an awesome place. Now there's a shop that sells marijuana paraphernalia. You can smoke in the back and the police won't bother you. It just goes to show how up to date Kensington market is."
Jean Doench has been a market regular for 40 years. "It has a European flavour," she explains, adding that she likes the conversation and intimacy between buyers and vendors.
On this Saturday afternoon, she was getting tea at Michael Pavo's store which has 130 different types of spices from around the world. The store started 40 years ago as a Portuguese grocery store, but now carries exotic teas like Indian Spiced Chai, candy like the chocolate-coated ginger, and coffee in addition to the spices.
Doench, of German heritage, says her shopping excursion always includes a visit to the Patty Shop for a spicy beef patty and she also stocks up on bullas and tins of ackee.
