I never drink alcohol, not for taste reasons, but on account of a sort of personal ascetism. I don't mind when alcohol is part of food though, as long as it's not too obvious about itself. I can have my mother's boeuf bourguignon with wine sauce and like it, but I had some artisanal beer-and-cheese sausage last week that was just so overwhelmed with the stuff that it killed the taste of the meat and spices.
I don't think I can ever stop hating you for living in a province where they know what real food is like. 
Six million people in the greater Toronto area and all we can do is bring bland culinary failure to its global apex. 
Haha, yeah, I guess I'm fortunate. I mean, I complained about that sausage, but the week before I got some lemon-and-pepper sausage off the same guy and it was heavenly. He works out of a IGA but that's only because he can't afford his own shop.
You know how some people get a thrill from buying car parts and the vendor's all "this isn't even street legal yet", or from buying drugs from a dealer who's all "this is some primo shit from my personal stash, I guarantee it'll make you the highest guy in town"? I get it from seeing an enthusiastic cook return from the back of the store carrying a package of unlabeled handmade sausage, telling me "I'm not even technically allowed to sell it because I forgot to print the ingredients on the label, but I won't make a fuss if you don't". Keep on rockin' ZedPower.
It's funny. We must have one of the highest immigrant populatons of any city on the planet, you'd think that would mean a cosmic-level ethnic food victory, but no! When anyone opens a restaurant in Toronto, they mostly get some kind of disease that involves a: trying to skimp on ingredients and preparation to the point where dog food becomes a decent comparision, or b: trying to be high-end 'artistic' which means you basically get a spoonful of food at a ridiculous price - and the clincher is that
it still doesn't taste very good. High-end chefs in Toronto seem to have put a premium on being 'interesting' rather than being damn good cooks.
I exaggerate somewhat, I know a very small number of extremely excellent places at reasonable prices*, but this was only through very long and ardous exploration. As for truly awesome grocers, you can
forget it. I find it extraordinarily depressing that the finest cheese selection in the city is at
Whole Foods, and I have yet to find a truly awesome butcher shop (I could murder for a kingly fish market!).
It's not that the food here is completely horrible, but you go somehere else like the states or Quebec and the food just
tastes better and you see what you're missing. Then you go home and WORLD OF PAIN. It's like living at a house where they use margarine and that's all you've ever known. But then you go somewhere where they cook with real butter and you just
realize.
*
The best victory I've had was finding is the all-you-can-eat Sushi place that Samuel L Jackson goes to. Best quality and most selection of any all-you-can-eat Sushi place AND most non-all-you-can-eat Sushi places I've ever been to. I've had better, but only just and for a MUCH higher price. For twenny dolla, it absolutely cannot be beat.
