A Fruitful Experience

One of the last stops of my Canada trip was to Toronto, where my brother was going to move in a month's time. We decided to drive from Montreal, about a 6 hour drive.

I'm not the best passenger, constantly asking for toilet breaks and snacks and of course, endless rounds of "Are we there yet???". So my brother, in order to pre-empt my complaining, tried to make the journey as fun as possible by telling me that we are going to go "fruit-bowling".

Fabulous, I thought, what fun this will be!

What? What? You don't know what fruit-bowling is? Well neither do I. I had visions of knocking down pyramids of fruit by bowling oranges or something but instead I got this:

Yep, that's right, its a freaking big orange! We drove up to this huge orange to have something to eat before heading off.

(Apparently, my brother's girlfriend was telling me, rumours are that inside the top of the big orange is a brothel. Hmmmm... who the hell says, "I'm bored. What shall we do? I know! Let's go to the big orange and get ourselves a nice piece of a$$?" I mean honestly!?!)


Feeling very much like I was in a low budget North American, made for TV film, we walked up to the diner in a haze of thick grease to order from the cheerily dressed waitstaff, a poutine and their famous orange julep, which is dispensed through a big clear vessel, glooping thickly into the cup.

It tasted like a really thick, creamy orange milkshake without the overtones of dairy. It tasted ok but not something you would get to quench your thirst. In fact, I had to go straight back and order a proper drink in order to wash down the thick drink.... oh, and my poutine!!

Haha, couldn't leave Montreal without clogging up my arteries with cornstarch thickened gravy half melting cheese curds over deep fried potato sticks, could I?


In any case, the novelty value over, we left and began the drive to Toronto, stopping at Tim Hortons for some coffee along the way.

I thought that was it. My brother wanted to cheer me up and took me to see a big orange. Ok, fine. I get it. I will behave myself.

Luckily for me, it appears that he had another treat in store for me. In the form of:

That's right, folks! It's a big freaking APPLE! Not content with merely taking me to see a big Orange, my brother thought, as an additional treat, to take me to see the big Apple. Why he couldn't just have bought me a round trip, first class ticket to New York, I don't know.

In any case, it was actually a pie making factory, with a variety of pies and other forms of weird tatty souvenirs for sale.


Well, we couldn't leave without trying a pie, could we? We bought a piece of pumpkin pie to share and a mumble crumble pie, a pie with a crumble topping.


The pumpkin pie was ok but the mumble crumble was way too sweet and commercial tasting.



We were waved off the premises by the scariest looking freaky apple whose eyes swerved left and right. To what purpose, I know not. Perhaps it was to root out those infidels who were heard mumbling about the substandard pie substances served.

Go only if you are driving by. And if you're bored already of the world's largest ball of string.


Restaurant Orange Julep
Boulevard Décarie
Montréal, Quebec
H4P 2H4, Canada
Tel: (514) 738-74867700


The Big Apple
Colborne, Ontario
The Big Apple also has a mini go-kart racing track and a petting zoo. And a huge carpark for tour buses. All of which were desserted when we went.