MOSAIC METROPOLIS : TORONTO, CANADA : On its walkable, well-tended streets, finding ethnic diversity and culinary surprises to rival L.A.’s---- but mind your manners

Come here and before long you will be directed to admire the world’s tallest free-standing structure, the world’s longest street and a stadium with the world’s only fully retractable domed roof.

Be polite--that is something of a religion here--and have a look. But keep in mind that this is not why you came.

You are here for the subway musicians who submit to auditions every August to assure their proficiency.

For the ticket scalpers at ball stadium entrances who commonly call their customers “sir.”

For the Saturday night crowd in the Bovine Sex Club, a bar in the city’s bohemian Queen Street West neighborhood where, as you might expect, pierced, tattooed and leathered young Torontonians slouch like thugs. But they remain Canadian. Meet their gaze, pose a question and they speak so amiably and thoughtfully that a discussion of Margaret Atwood’s early fiction seems likely to break out at any moment.

And you are here to savor the greatest strangeness for a Californian in Toronto: the pleasure of wandering through a metropolis studded with ethnic neighborhoods, swollen with recent immigrants yet notably affluent, largely at peace with itself, courteous to strangers and orderly to boot. Bright lights, benign city.

I came to Toronto in spring without much of a tourist strategy. When I left five days later, I still hadn’t come up with one, but I had eaten old-fashioned Chinese, newfangled Chinese, Indian, Greek, Italian and an agreeable lunch at a place called Palavrion that I can only describe as U.N. cuisine. On a city tour and on my own, I walked through miles of neighborhoods; shuffled merrily through first-rate museums of art and history (the Art Gallery of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum, respectively); passed up the chance to visit the highly recommended Hockey Hall of Fame, the just-opened Bata Shoe Museum, the zoo and the science center, and twice ascended the CN Tower, a.k.a. the world’s tallest free-standing structure.

This city is a mosaic, to use the prevailing metaphor in most Canadian discussions of multiculturalism. Among the 3.9 million residents of greater Toronto counted in the 1991 census, nearly 1.5 million had emigrated from other lands--from Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere in the Americas--and about 860,000 had arrived since 1971. (While controversy simmers in the province next door over the Quebec separatist movement, Toronto shows little French influence apart from mandated bilingual signage.)

The immigrants cluster in not one or two but five distinct Chinatowns (the most prominent and central at Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street West), in the Corso Italia (St. Clair Avenue, west of Bathurst) and Little Italy (College Street near Bathurst), in Little India (Coxwell and Gerrard Street), in the Greek district along Danforth Avenue, in fast-expanding Caribbean pockets here and there, in Portugal Village (along Dundas Street West, Ossington Avenue and College Street), in Koreatown, in Little Poland and so on.

Happily, many of these immigrants run restaurants. Others take stalls in the Kensington and St. Lawrence markets downtown, where thousands of Torontonians buy their fresh fish, meat and produce. And all around, neighborhoods grow, shrink, shift and spill into one another, so that a stroller on Queen Street can chart a global journey of discovery in the space of a few blocks: A Ukrainian Baptist Church stands around the corner from a Portuguese bakery, which lies but half a block from a Mexican cafe, which is abutted by the Prague Deli.

The mix yields all sorts of images. In Little India, clothing shop workers drape silk saris on pale-faced window mannequins, then complete the transformation by applying decorative dots known as bindis to the mannequins’ foreheads. On the Corso Italia, bank tellers do business in English and Italian, while a table-top radio blares updates on the O.J. trial. In Cabbagetown, where Irish families once raised vegetables in their yards and which in the 1960s was derided by a local author as “the largest Anglo-Saxon Slum in North America,” a state of diversification and quasi-gentrification prevails. There’s now cheap Indian food, cheap Caribbean food, strolling yuppies, a naughty video store or two and a doodad shop displaying busts of Elvis.

On most of my mornings in town, I hustled down to the subway at 9:30, when weekday rush hour ends, and bought a day pass for unlimited city subway travel for about $3.85. (In the early 1950s, about the time Los Angeles was committing itself to a future of freeways and lone drivers, Toronto was building its modest but efficient subway system.)

Climbing down the subway steps one morning, I came across a musician packing away her guitar after a performance. I had heard the subway entertainers were government-regulated, so I bluffed a little:

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can you tell when this year’s auditions are?”

“August,” she said. Then she warned me that there were only 75 available spots.

“The first year I auditioned, there were 450 applicants, so work on your chops,” she added, and hollering back as she ran for a train. “Practice, practice, practice!”

Instead, I walked and walked and walked, and wondered why there is a doughnut shop on every street corner in Toronto, and sampled neighborhoods.

On the Corso Italia, northwest of downtown, I stepped into a bar and ice cream shop called TriColore, and found myself standing mute with my banana gelato while 10 men, none under 50 and none speaking English, joshed in the language of the old country and appraised a large-screen satellite broadcast from Italy.

On Danforth Avenue, the Greek stronghold, I stepped into the Ouzeri restaurant to escape a pounding rain and ended up surrounded by blue, green and yellow bar stools, eating a highly satisfying lunch sampler that began with artichokes and squid and continued through another 10 or so plates.

In Chinatown, I found a wizened man rooting in a storefront barrel for the perfect chicken’s foot.

Along the narrow, handsome and heavily browsed streets of Kensington Market, next door to Chinatown, I found a tropical grocery with a special on durian: $4 a pound for the spiky, smelly football-size Asian fruit. I was more comfortable a few doors down the street, where a gruff pizzeria counterman took my Canadian $2.50 and handed over a delightfully greasy Yukon gold potato pizza.

“People in London and Paris haven’t discovered it yet, but we have a world-class city coming up here,” said Sursur Lee, who was born in Hong Kong and came to Toronto 16 years ago at age 20. Lee, chef and owner of the high-toned, out-of-the-way Lotus restaurant, each morning ventures down to the waterfront to choose among the fresh fish, meat and produce, then draws up his daily menu by hand and runs off enough photocopies for his dozen tables:

Seared Quebec Foie Gras w/ Thai crab salad w/ peanut & mango & sweet & sour glaze . . . Roasted Ontario rack of lamb, marinated in curry paste w/ fresh ground Thai coconut green curry sauce, w/ polenta croquettes . . .

This eclecticism, Lee said, “started growing on me when I saw the produce at the markets--all those things from all over the world.”

About now, close observers will be tempted to object and point out that for a few years now, social cracks have been widening and crime has been increasing in multicultural Canada. It’s true. Last year, Toronto police took 249 reports of hate crimes, most involving “mischief” or assault against black or Jewish victims. And on a wall of a 65-year-old synagogue near Kensington Market, I noticed a graffiti scrawl that could have come from neo-Nazis: “LET THEM EAT BULLETS.”

Even inside the caloric confines of the Sicilian Ice Cream Co. in Little Italy on College Street, owner Aurelio Galipo sounded a wistful note and pointed out that in recent years many ethnic enclaves seemed to be withdrawing a bit from the center of the city to suburban neighborhoods a few miles farther out. This, he worried, could leave the center city less interesting and rob the various ethnic communities of the chance to learn by dealing with each other at close quarters.

“All the Indians there, all the Jews there, the Chinese there--I don’t like that,” said Galipo, tossing his arms in one direction, then another. “It’s better to be together. But then,” he announced, booming to all around, “I am a liberal.”

Before you start mourning for Canada’s largest city, however, consider this: In 1994, Toronto police, patrolling a population of 2.5 million, counted 64 homicides, up from 59 the year before. Los Angeles police, patrolling a city of 3.5 million, counted 836 homicides last year, down from 1,057 the year before.

So what does a newcomer do in Toronto besides eating well, walking far and not getting murdered?

Do the landmarks . The CN Tower may look like just another waterfront needle with a revolving restaurant on top, but it is 1,815 feet tall. Yonge Street is a largely unremarkable urban artery lined mostly by standard-issue 20th-Century architecture, but it does reach more than 1,100 miles into the hinterlands of the Canadian north. And SkyDome Stadium does feature that famed retractable dome, a built-in hotel with rooms overlooking the playing field, an on-site Hard Rock Cafe and tenants who frequently win the World Series.

See a show . The theater district may not remind anyone of New York’s Broadway or London’s West End (too calm and hygienic) but the volume and quality of productions far surpass those of most North American cities, thanks in part to the high-profile support of local retailer and impresario “Honest Ed” Mirvish, who headed the refurbishment of the historic Royal Alexandra Theatre. On the day I arrived, “The Who’s Tommy,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Miss Saigon,” “Show Boat,” “Crazy for You,” “Forever Plaid” and “The Mousetrap” were all running, along with a wide variety of smaller productions.

Shop . Bloor-Yorkville, the hippie neighborhood that harbored Canadian folk singers such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot in the late 1960s, has gone upscale and now houses some of the most exclusive shops in the city and the country, along with the high-end Four Seasons and Inter-Continental hotels. Closer to the lake, The Hudson’s Bay Co.--yes, the same outfit that set out to lead the European settlement of Canada 325 years ago--has metamorphosed from pelt-peddling into a nationwide department-store chain, which has a retail operation covering a city block at Yonge and Queen streets. Its competition, Eaton’s, anchors the 300-store, 17-screen Eaton Centre underground mall a few blocks away at Yonge and Dundas. (Toronto winters being what they are, indoor malls lie beneath most of the major office buildings in town.)

Make a day trip to Niagara Falls . The falls, which roar on the border between Canada and New York state, are about a 90-minute drive around the west end of Lake Ontario. You can watch the water from a tunnel beneath the falls, a tower above them, from a boat, a cable car or a helicopter.

Admire old buildings and open spaces . Nineteenth-Century architecture peeks out here and there between glass-walled skyscrapers. The University of Toronto, with more than 150 acres in the middle of the city, includes several handsome stone buildings from the last century. Nearby on University Avenue stand the Province of Ontario’s looming sandstone Parliament buildings. Several blocks south and east, at Queen and Bay streets, stands the old 1899 City Hall. Nearby, there’s the tall spire of St. James Cathedral. And at Church, Front and Wellington streets, a block from the St. Lawrence Market, stands possibly the most-photographed edifice in Toronto, the 1892 Gooderham Building (better known among locals as “the flatiron building”), constructed with three sides to accommodate the confluence of three major streets. For greenery there are the 400-plus acre High Park on the west end of town and the Toronto Islands, which lie a short ferry ride from the unfortunately generic Harbourfront’s shops and restaurants.

Stargaze . It’s cheaper to film in Toronto than in Los Angeles or New York, and many U.S. movie productions land here. Whoopi Goldberg and Peter Ustinov were each said to be working in town during my visit, and at least half a dozen other less-recognizable Hollywood folk were in town. I know this because they sat at the next table during my dinner at Lotus, conversing loudly and coarsely enough about their friends in the industry to appall just about all the rest of us in the rather small dining room.

Go clubbing. A good part of my Toronto Saturday night was spent at the Bovine Sex Club, one of half a dozen popular bars on Queen Street West, which seems to get edgier the farther west you go. For a less edgy after-dinner-drinks experience, one can retreat to the panoramic Roof Lounge at the Park Plaza Hotel in Bloor-Yorkville, or to La Serre lounge at the Four Seasons across the street, where the house specialty is martinis in at least six flavors.

Though the city has long had a reputation for tame night life, the boldest travelers will discover that the night doesn’t necessarily end when the bars close at the mandated 1 a.m. Soon after that hour arrived on my big night out, a genial, black-clad Bovine Sex Club regular named Glenn Hughes (“I’m Norm,” he said, explaining his role at the bar via sitcom metaphor) promised an adventure to me and my party of half a dozen out-of-towners. Then he led us down a deserted street, across an empty lot and through a dark door into a “booze can”--that is, an after-hours club.

In the space of a couple of large garages, about 150 young people of various sizes, shapes and colors talked, smoked, sized each other up and occasionally danced. The beer prices were reasonable. And once again, the amity was unfailing. As I remember, the conversations touched upon socialism, local politics, the media and entrepreneurial investment strategies (well, a little). All of which makes me wonder: In a city with these social dynamics, who needs a fully retractable domed roof?

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GUIDEBOOK

Toronto Tracks

Getting there: Air Canada has nonstop service from LAX to Toronto, with advance-purchase, restricted fares beginning at $352. Several other carriers offer connecting service. Where to stay: If you’re splurging, the Four Seasons Hotel (21 Avenue Road, Toronto, Canada M5R 2G1; telephone 800-332-3442 or 416-964-0411, fax 416-964-2301) is the headquarters hotel for the high-end Four Seasons chain. It pays immaculate attention to service, includes a top-notch restaurant (Truffles) and stands in the middle of the city’s ritziest shopping district. It costs a lot, but thanks to the current exchange rates, Americans pay substantially less than at Four Seasons properties in the United States. Standard doubles go for brochure rates beginning about $225, but are often available to travelers bearing business cards at $185.

For a less pricey lodging, there’s the Royal York (100 Front St. W., Toronto, Canada M5J IE3; tel. 800-441-1414 or 416-368-2511, fax 416-368-2884). It’s across the street from Union Station, features grand 1929 style, a massive lobby and 1,365 rooms. Standard doubles are about $160, with frequent specials as low as $100.

For baseball fans (but probably not for anyone else), there’s the SkyDome Hotel (1 Blue Jays Way, Toronto, Canada M5V IJ4; tel. 800-441-1414 or 416-341-7100, fax 416-341-5090), which is built into the city’s 50,000-seat baseball stadium. Seventy of the hotel’s 348 rooms have window-walls looking down on the players from above center field. On game days, the hallways smell of popcorn and resound with the patter of big and little feet. Standard doubles usually fetch $115, with specials as low as $92. Rooms with field views begin at about $210.

More affordably, the Strathcona Hotel (60 York St., Toronto, Canada M5J IS8; tel. 800-268-8304 or 416-363-3321, fax 416-363-4679) has 195 rooms in the heart of downtown. Standard doubles about $62.

Where to eat: At Lotus (96 Tecumseth St.; local tel. 504-7620), chef-owner Sursur Lee offers international cuisine that draws on his Chinese background. Dinner entrees $20-$23. For eclectic bistro fare, theatrical decor and off-the-beaten-path location, there’s Mildred Pierce Restaurant (99 Sudbury St.; tel. 588-5695). Dinner entrees $11-$18.

For a diverse smorgasbord and a clean-scrubbed carnival atmosphere, there’s Movenpick’s Palavrion (270 Front St. W.; tel. 979-0060), which is the year-old venture of a Swiss chain widely popular in Canada. Dinner with an appetizer runs about $15-$30. For Indian fare, there’s Savunth Restaurant (4 Amelia St.; tel. 961-9748), where entrees run under $8. For Caribbean a few blocks away, entrees at Mobay (200 Carlton St.; tel. 925-7950)run under $11.

Special events: Every year, the city celebrates its diversity with “Metro International Caravan,” a nine-day stretch during which locals and tourists buy passbooks, then use them to investigate more than 40 international pavilions that offer food, performances, art and crafts. This year’s Caravan dates: June 16-24; passbooks run $7 a day for adults, free for children under 12. On July 24-Aug. 7, there’s Caribana, one of North America’s largest festivals of Caribbean culture.

For more information: Canadian Consulate General, Tourist Information (300 S. Grand Ave., 10th Floor, Los Angeles 90071; tel. 213-346-2700).