Fodor's Expert Review Spadina Avenue

The part of Spadina Avenue (pronounced spa-dye-nah) that runs through Chinatown, from Dundas Street to Queen Street, has never been chic. For decades it has housed a collection of inexpensive stores, import-export wholesalers, ethnic food stores, and eateries, including some first-class, plastic-tablecloth Chinese restaurants. Each new wave of immigrants—Jewish, Chinese, Portuguese, East and West Indian, South American—has added its own flavor to the mix. While changes in the neighborhood are heralded by modern bubble-tea shops and traditional northern and southern Chinese cuisine expanding past Cantonese mainstays, the basic bill of fare is still bargains galore: yards of remnants piled high in bins, designer clothes minus the labels, and the occasional rock-and-roll nightspot or late-night greasy spoon. A streetcar line runs down the wide avenue to Front Street.