Today, Drag Race winner and HBO’s We’re Here host, Priyanka joins Condé Nast Traveler to share her favorite things about Toronto. From all-dressed Ruffles to the legacy of Degrassi, Priyanka talks about everything that makes her proud to be a Torontonian.HBO original series We’re Here is now streaming on Max.
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00:00An all dress chip will change your life.
00:02It is literally what it says it is, all dress.
00:05It has ketchup.
00:07You don't have ketchup chips in America either, do you?
00:11No wonder all of you are so miserable.
00:14Hi everybody, it's me Priyanka,
00:16icon, pop star, drag, diva, legend,
00:19and I'm gonna show you everything
00:20that makes me so proud to be from Toronto.
00:23We are gonna try some food and drink,
00:25look at some places to go,
00:27teach you some slang,
00:28and also look at some icons
00:30all from my beautiful hometown of Toronto.
00:44If you're visiting Toronto,
00:45here are some foods that you must try.
00:47Is this a butter tart?
00:48Okay.
00:50Research if you Google Canadian foods.
00:53Butter tart, baby.
00:54I don't even know why a butter tart is a Canadian thing,
00:57but I like butter,
00:58so I would say you have to try this.
01:01Okay.
01:03Mm, oh shit.
01:07Yo.
01:08I love being Canadian.
01:09For those of you who don't know what a butter tart is,
01:11it's a flaky, beautiful pastry that you get at a bakery.
01:14I keep forgetting that they are a Canadian thing
01:16because I feel like how do you not live your life
01:18without a butter tart, you know?
01:19I was very shocked to hear
01:20that y'all don't have all dress chips here.
01:24An all dress chip will change your life.
01:26It is literally what it says it is, all dress.
01:29So we take salt and vinegar,
01:31sour cream and onion, ketchup.
01:33It has all the dresses in it.
01:35You get to watch me eat this.
01:40Baby.
01:40Oh, and barbecue.
01:42Barbecue, salt and vinegar, ketchup,
01:44sour cream and onion all together as one.
01:47Mm.
01:48Oh my God.
01:50Right?
01:50Did you try them yet?
01:51Okay, if there's one thing that I love about Toronto,
01:53it's all the amazing, amazing, amazing
01:55West Indian restaurants there are.
01:57And this is a roti.
02:01Oh my God.
02:04This is amazing.
02:05But you could tell this is Trinidadian,
02:06there's a difference.
02:07You could tell it's Trinidadian
02:08because of the spices that they used.
02:10It's not that it's bad.
02:11It's just that it tastes different to a Guyanese.
02:14But honestly, these Trinidadian people
02:15got their shit together.
02:17The foundation and the bones of Toronto, I feel, are.
02:20West Indian food.
02:21Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I'm so hungry.
02:23Oh my God, I love this.
02:25This is the best day of my life.
02:26Okay, now we're gonna move on to the next one.
02:28Last but certainly not least, the Nanaimo bar.
02:32Okay, Nanaimo is a place in British Columbia
02:34and they invented this bar.
02:36When I used to work in kids' television,
02:37they flew me from Toronto all the way to Vancouver
02:41to learn how to make a Nanaimo bar
02:43in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
02:46Okay, wow.
02:51Mm.
02:53This is good.
02:55Mm.
02:56Okay, so there's like a layer of hard chocolate on top
02:58and then there's this cream stuff.
02:59I forget what's in the cream stuff.
03:00It's honestly amazing.
03:02Full of sugar, so be careful.
03:04This was delicious, but we gotta keep going
03:07because I will be eating this all day.
03:12If you're coming to Toronto
03:14and you wanna get a little bit lit,
03:15here are some drinks you must try.
03:17When I try to be a straight girl at the club,
03:21you have to get a beer because like, what are you doing?
03:23La Bat Blue.
03:25This is as Canadian as beer gets, okay?
03:27Everybody cheers to you and yours.
03:29This is the most Canadian thing I've ever done.
03:34La Bat Blue is like discount beer.
03:36That's what it gives, so that's like as Canadian.
03:38That's like me on a first date.
03:39I'm a cheap date.
03:41But the headliner, okay, listen, listen, listen, listen,
03:43listen, listen, if you do not know what a Caesar is,
03:47get out of my face.
03:47It's not a Bloody Mary.
03:49I don't give a fuck about Mary.
03:51Kill her.
03:51Clamato Juice.
03:53Did you put Clamato Juice in this?
03:55It better not be tomato juice.
03:56I'm not drinking pasta sauce, bitch.
03:57If you don't know what Clamato Juice is,
03:59clam juice and tomato juice mixed into one.
04:01I know what you're thinking.
04:02I thought the same thing until you have this.
04:07People call it a brunch drink.
04:09No, honey, I am having this breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
04:11I'm on the dance floor at the club with my Caesar leg.
04:16This is my favorite drink in the whole wide world.
04:18Cross the border and just try one of these.
04:19That's it.
04:20That's all you gotta do.
04:21The best of the best.
04:22Love you, bitch.
04:25Here are some of my favorite things
04:27that I like to do in Toronto.
04:30Oh my God, I broke it.
04:32Okay, here we go.
04:33This is where the partying is happening.
04:35Okay, hon?
04:36This is where I had my first hookup with a boy.
04:39The first time I came out to my friend,
04:41she was like, let's go to the gay bar.
04:43I was so nervous.
04:44So we go to Church Street.
04:45We go to a bar.
04:46I'm pounding back shots of tequila,
04:48but you know when you're so anxious,
04:49you're not feeling drunk?
04:50You're like, wait, I don't feel drunk.
04:51Like, what's happening?
04:52All of a sudden, I'm walking back to the bathroom.
04:55No one's looking at me.
04:56I'm like, thinking I'm gonna find love the first day,
04:58come out, not happening.
05:00And I literally throw up in the coat check
05:03on top of people's jackets.
05:05Whenever I tell the story,
05:06it feels like I made the story up,
05:07but then I ask my friends, like, this happened, right?
05:09They always remind me that, yes, it happened,
05:10and we got kicked out of the bar.
05:13Why am I like this?
05:16If you wanna see a drag show in Toronto,
05:17my favorite place to see drag is Cruise and Tango's.
05:20It has special pop star energy to it.
05:23Woody's is giving, like, cabaret energy.
05:28There's also an amazing drag brunch at the Drake Hotel
05:31with Miss Mosu, that's iconic
05:32if you wanna get lit on mimosas and Caesars.
05:35So what else do we have in Toronto?
05:36Let me look.
05:37Let me look at this map.
05:39Oh, the CN Tower.
05:41You know, the CN Tower is right, I think it's here.
05:45Wait, you don't know this story.
05:47I was dumped on top of the CN Tower once.
05:49It was traumatic.
05:50Imagine being dumped on top of the CN Tower
05:51and having to take a 15-minute elevator down.
05:54They say to find yourself,
05:55you need to sit in your discomfort.
05:56I found myself by the time I got down to the ground.
05:58So that's where the CN Tower is.
06:00They have, like, the Ripley's Aquarium.
06:01That's where the Rogers Center is
06:03that used to be called the Sky Dome.
06:04That's where I saw Beyonce two nights in a row
06:06and blacked out and I was sick for an entire week
06:08because I was having Beyonce withdrawal.
06:10Okay, Castle Loma, I love,
06:12because I shot a music video there.
06:14My first one for Cake.
06:15That was the first ever drag queen
06:16to shoot a music video in Castle Loma history.
06:18I'm the queen of the castle!
06:20I had to beg them to shoot it there.
06:22They were like, do you have $20,000?
06:23I was like, I have a big dream.
06:25I convinced them.
06:26And on to the next one.
06:31Baby food.
06:32It means something that's very easy or soft.
06:35You would hear it in a casual conversation
06:36about something that is so easy,
06:38like, I'm going to win drag race.
06:42That's baby food, dog.
06:44That's how they would say it.
06:45Oh my God, I love cheese.
06:47Cheesed means mad, upset.
06:50Yo dog, I'm cheese.
06:52I say that all the time because oftentimes I am cheese.
06:55Next!
06:57I guess I don't need this anymore, do I?
06:59Bye bye, I'll miss you.
07:00Marved?
07:01I love this.
07:02Who wrote this?
07:03Usually it's like poutine and bonjour and maple syrup.
07:07This is some deep Toronto history.
07:09I don't even know what this means, it's so Toronto.
07:13The six, of course.
07:15That's what Drake has coined Toronto.
07:18And that's what we call it, the six,
07:19because 416 is an area code, and that's why.
07:23The six!
07:26T-dot?
07:27Toronto, T-dot-O-dot, uh-huh.
07:31T-dot, we're going to T-dot this weekend.
07:34Oh, yeah, I want to be fast about this.
07:36I want to be rapid fire, but this is fucked up.
07:39Like, you don't know what a toque is.
07:40It's a hat, it's a beanie, it's winter.
07:43I'm so shocked that you don't know what that is.
07:44Am I offended?
07:46Damn, America has a problem.
07:48Looney Tooney.
07:50This is what we call our dollar, dollar, and two-dollar.
07:52They're coins.
07:53You don't have ones like you do in America.
07:55Whenever we're doing drag in Canada,
07:57people just chuck loonies at us.
07:59They don't.
08:00I think it happened once.
08:02And we have Timmy's, okay?
08:04Tim Hortons is an amazing food chain in Canada.
08:06I think there's some in the U.S. now.
08:07We call it Timmy's for short because we're like,
08:09you know, we're that culture.
08:15The best way to get to know a city like Toronto
08:17is through its culture.
08:18So I am going to introduce you
08:20to some famous people from Toronto
08:22you may not know already.
08:24Up first, my baby daddy, Drizzy.
08:28That's right.
08:29I love you, baby.
08:31He means a lot to Toronto
08:32because he keeps talking about being from Toronto.
08:34It's like the same way that I keep talking
08:36about how I'm a pop star icon diva.
08:38It's like he just manifested Toronto being the best
08:41and people believe it now.
08:42So, the six.
08:45Very sexy.
08:46I think he likes me.
08:47I'll tell you what.
08:48Next up, who do we got?
08:50Oh, Gail Levy.
08:52You know, I used to intern at MTV Canada
08:55when he was hosting the After Show
08:56and I had to get him his coffee.
08:57That's that.
08:58He was nice to me.
08:59I think he like had a soft spot for me
09:00because I was gay.
09:03Oh, Nina Debrev.
09:04I love her.
09:05She's so smart.
09:06She acted in the Vampire Diaries.
09:07She was on Degrassi.
09:08And then she opened up a wine business
09:10or a vodka business or some kind of business
09:11and just like does acts whenever she wants.
09:13It's super rich.
09:14What a smart girl.
09:16See, people from Toronto, they're smart.
09:18Being a Degrassi icon like Nina Debrev or Drake,
09:21it is so tied into Toronto culture.
09:23There's a street, you know,
09:24that's where they used to film it.
09:26And it's such a cheesy show,
09:28but it's so ingrained in our day-to-day.
09:32You know, we're happy to see our stars
09:33grow into bigger stars from Degrassi.
09:35So, congrats, Nina.
09:37You're rich and famous.
09:38Look, we're talking about you.
09:40Oh, Scarlett BowBow.
09:43Crazy ass bitch.
09:44I literally did drag for the first time
09:46at her open stage show.
09:48So she is responsible for this mess.
09:51Oh my God.
09:52My queen, Tynomi Banks.
09:54I love her.
09:54The reason why I have my tagline,
09:56what's my name?
09:57Is because people used to mistake me for her all the time.
10:00And I was like, well, that seems a little bit racist.
10:02So instead I would make everybody say Priyanka back to me
10:05so they would know it's me.
10:08Oh, U6000.
10:10Trans icon.
10:11Beautiful, amazing.
10:12She painted me for the first ever pageant that I won.
10:15Miss Cruising Tango 2018, baby.
10:17Aurora Matrix.
10:18Wow.
10:19You know when you like, they say like, you feel old when?
10:21She was like, the reason why I started drag
10:23is because I used to watch you do drag.
10:24And I said, oh shit.
10:27Mama's getting old.
10:29Time to get a facelift.
10:30I'm a winner, baby.
10:31Oh, Jada.
10:32Oh my God.
10:33Jada Shada Hudson, everybody.
10:35I love her so much.
10:36Jada is one of the best performers in Toronto, period.
10:39Crazy.
10:40We always go to eat at a lot of restaurants in Toronto
10:42and it's the best.
10:43Thank you so much, Condé Nast Traveler.
10:46I hope that you visit Toronto.
10:48If you do see me there, be sure to say hi.
10:50I love you all.
10:52Bye.