Toronto chef and restaurateur turned New Yorker Amanda Cohen has launched an all-Canadian themed pop-up bar out of her restaurant Dirt Candy in the city’s East Village.
It’s certainly riding the post-Trump-election wave of progressive Americans declaring Canada The Best Place On Earth™, predicated partly upon prominent eye-candy politicians and a slightly more accepting attitude towards refugees.
The Great Canadian Beer Hall is decked out with Canadian flags, moose heads, Mountie hats, and a sizeable oil portrait of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The soundtrack is reportedly all-Canadian (including Bryan Adams), and TVs in the main bar screen hockey, while the bathroom screens feature old episodes of Degrassi. Since Cohen is a Torontonian, there is, unsurprisingly, a total lack of bilingualism.
In the food realm, there’s poutine and nanaimo bars — but no Kraft Dinner. Dirt Candy also offers a NAFTA beer special, featuring a Molson, a Budweiser and a Corona sold together for cheap.
And playing into the post-electoral cries about moving to Canada (which Canada has been happy to indulge, to be fair), the menus all double as Citizenship and Immigration Canada application forms for visas.
