After two years of restaurant death watches, it seems like 2010 is going to be a time of cautious expansion in Toronto’s restaurant industry. We’ve noticed that several local establishments are planning second locations, and they all look promising. A short list, after the jump.
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The latest restaurant buzz, including what’s opening, what’s closing, and where to eat, drink and be seen
Restauran-TO
Three restaurant expansions offer some optimism for Toronto’s restaurant industry
Opening
Buy a piece of Marben: the Wellington hot spot is closing for renos and auctioning off its furniture
Everything must go, even the famous bar (Image: Say Yeah!)
Looks like the city’s restaurants are doing some major spring cleaning, with Brassaii, Centro and now Marben undergoing renovations. The dimly lit Wellington resto-lounge is closing for a month starting this Sunday, but it’s not going out without a bang. Tomorrow night, Marben will be hosting a farewell party with a $45 “greatest hits menu” from which diners can order the famous duck tacos one last time (chef Craig Alley will be retooling the menu for the reopening).
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DIY Gourmet
Thuet’s upcoming cookbook now has a title and release date
More details of Marc Thuet’s cookbook are out as he and Biana Zorich prepare to head out west to work on the second season of Conviction Kitchen next month. The Post reports that the surprisingly expletive-free title is French Food My Way and that the book will be released in November. This may be cutting it close in terms of promotion, since the chef is scheduled to shoot a third season of his reality show in the States starting in September. The book includes 100 recipes covering breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus desserts and special meals for get-togethers.
• Celebrity chef Marc Thuet has new cookbook coming: French Food My Way [National Post]
Deathwatch
Filion on the Toronto a la Cart fiasco: “The one thing the city messed up on was the carts”
A cart of problems: workers move one of the Toronto a la Cart stations from Nathan Phillips Square (Image: Anthony Easton)
Meet Nancy Senawong as she schleps her $30,000 cart through Mel Lastman Square, where she will serve city-approved, city-branded, multiculti street fare to passersby for the second summer in a row. It’s now been two years since the Toronto a la Cart scheme was launched, and Senawong is the ailing food program’s new poster girl. Though she remains in debt for the pricey cart, she is the “one success story” from 2009, according to John Filion, the health board chair who first championed the street food scheme. She and at least five of eight other indebted vendors attached to the program will spend the spring scraping together what they’ll need (anywhere from $7,500 to $14,500) to keep their stalls in line with stiff municipal regulations.
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Pantry Raid
Potentially salmonella-tinged spices latest thing to make lunch terrifying
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is issuing yet another recall. This time, it’s spices that may contain salmonella. Here’s hoping no one jazzed up their Siena deli meat sandwiches with this stuff. The seasonings in question are from Frontier Natural Products (full list here) and Whole Foods Market 365 (full list here). Combine this with the deli meats, the mystery infections and Toyota’s massive recall, and lunch breaks are deadlier than ever. It doesn’t matter if someone is packing his or her lunch or driving to McDonald’s—everyone is screwed.
• Certain Frontier Brand Seasonings and Spices May Contain Salmonella Bacteria [CFIA]
• Various Frontier Brand and Whole Foods Market Brand Seasonings and Spices ay Contain Salmonella Bacteria [CFIA]
Pantry Raid
That EVOO may have lost its extra virginity
Unclean? Unclear (Image: Monica Arellano-Ongpin)
The Post reports that as demand for olive oil grows around the world, producers are mixing different kinds of cheap oil and calling it extra-virgin to take advantage of customers. “Olive oil is a commodity that can easily be diluted or substituted with cheaper oil,” said a spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency last summer. “The presence of other oils in olive oil cannot be detected by visual inspection, and therefore consumers rely on the labelling.”
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DIY Gourmet
A heartbreaking work of staggering cheapness
Don't have a cow, man (Image: FotoosVanRobin)
With all the fuss over students struggling to buy food using OSAP funds, it’s easy to miss other victims of Toronto’s high cost of living: expat European investment bankers. One individual has bravely blown the lid off of their plight. On the U.K.-based financial services Web site hereisthecity.com, next to an article called “My Bonus Isn’t Big Enough,” we found (with the help of the Post) Polar Roller’s scathing missive: “The Canadian Rip-Off.” In it, he discusses his horror at having to spend more than $10 for lunch here and takes umbrage at his maid’s paycheque, which, by his reckoning, is a full 20 per cent more than he pays his cleaner back home.
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Culinary Curiosities
Slaughterhouse chic: these butcher prints are bloody wonderful
These large and detailed diagrams of the different cuts of beef, found at The Cookbook Store, are a wonderful addition to any food lover’s décor and serve as a useful reference guide to aspiring butchers. Created by Smash Rediscoveries, a design gallery in The Junction that specializes in vintage and contemporary design, these 22-by-30-inch posters printed on heavy stock with ragged edges come in three colours (oxblood, black and umber) and cost $35 each.
Five years ago, this might have piqued the interest only of chefs and the Addams Family, but with the snout-to-tail philosophy gaining wide acceptance among diners over the past two years and “industrial” making a comeback among interior designers, don’t be surprised to see this hanging on the wall of a friend’s kitchen or an art student’s dorm.
$35 at the Cookbook Store, 850 Yonge St., 416-920-2665, cook-book.com.
Culinary Curiosities
Slap Chop experiment ends with hilarious (if predictable) results for Star writer
(Image: Danielle Scott)
Last week, the Toronto Star’s Garnet Fraser joined the ranks of late-night television junkies hoping to slap their troubles away. The writer recently succumbed (“I’m stupid that way”) to the ads and purchased a Slap Chop, the infamous kitchen gizmo hawked by deranged infomercial god Vince Offer of ShamWow fame. Fraser’s test of the product revealed that—surprise, surprise—it’s less revolutionary than Offer would have us believe. Tomatoes have to be pre-chopped before they’ll fit into the device, thereby undoing the few precious seconds that Slap Chop promises to add to the day. Not only that, but onion skin ends up jamming the Slap Chop’s blades.
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