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Toronto Life - The Dish

The latest restaurant buzz, including what’s opening, what’s closing, and where to eat, drink and be seen

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February 1, 2012 | 4:35 pm

Have some Alkanater brand Tahina in your fridge? Check the date—it might have Salmonella in it

(Image: CFIA)

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency sent out an alert yesterday warning that certain batches of Alkanater brand Tahina were being voluntarily recalled by the manufacturer, Phoenicia Group, for potential contamination with Salmonella. Just as in last week’s Neilson milk recall, the contaminated Tahina might not actually look or smell funny—but that doesn’t mean it can’t make you very, very sick. The CFIA warns that salmonellosis can lead to everything from fevers, vomiting and nausea to abdominal pain and diarrhea (although no one has reported getting sick just yet). In other words, keep away from any Tahina with the UPC code 6 92551 00002 0 and the expiration date 5/7/2013. It turns out, this isn’t the first time this particular product has been recalled either: a similar notice was posted in September of last year. Yikes.

UPDATE: The CFIA has posted a followup to its initial alert. Apparently, if your tahina has “Lot: TT3N-281011” printed on it, you can breathe easy (i.e. your jar is not affected by the recall).

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January 31, 2012 | 4:35 pm
La Palette brings back the horsemeat 

La Palette’s horsemeat hiatus didn’t last long—viande chevaline will return to the menu at the Queen Street bistro as of this week. Co-owner Shamez Amlani stopped serving the French delicacy late last summer after the Toronto Star exposed questionable sourcing in the horsemeat industry, but he didn’t let the matter drop. “We’ve spent the past six months doing as much research as we can,” he told Post City. “We’re very certain that we’ll be serving our customers high-quality meat.” So what makes him think the meat is now safe? One reason could be that President Obama recently lifted the American ban on horse slaughter, meaning American workhorses would no longer be mixed into the Canadian food supply. We have a hunch this isn’t the end of the story, though—horsemeat, like shark fin and raw milk, always seems to stir up controversy. Read the entire story [Post City] »

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January 27, 2012 | 12:50 pm

Batch of Neilson milk recalled due to cleaning solution contamination (yikes!)

(Image: Canadian Food Inspection Agency)

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency sent out an alert this morning warning people not to drink Neilson Trutaste 2% microfiltered partly skimmed milk, specifically the kind sold in four-litre bags with the UPC code 066800 00404 4, best-before date February 12 and best-before code 1590 FE12 H7. Saputo Inc. of Montreal decided to recall the milk, on shelves in Ontario and Quebec, after learning that some of it was contaminated with a cleaning solution. So far, one person has become sick after drinking the milk, but the Star reports that they didn’t require a hospital stay and have since recovered. In a slightly unsettling twist, the solution-laced milk can cause nausea and vomiting, even though it looks and smells normal. So keep your eyes peeled for those bewildering codes. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

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January 12, 2012 | 2:42 pm

Gochujang: the new sriracha?

(Image: avlxyz)

In a long, searching post on The Awl (it opens with a little Proust, naturally), Ben Choi examines the “Korean go-to, all-in-one magic chili sauce,” gochujang (better known as that stuff you squeeze on your bi bim bap). Among the many apparent virtues of the fermented paste of red chili, rice powder and soybeans: it makes a great “mother condiment” from which you can make other condiments; it can act as a “passport between traditional cuisines,” bridging the foods of the Asian, Polynesian and American residents of American Samoa; it made palatable Choi’s childhood meals of Slim Jims and rice (he grew up in the family corner store); and it might even be responsible for keeping SARS out of South Korea. We have a feeling sriracha is going to be given a run for its money pretty soon. Read the entire story [The Awl] »

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January 10, 2012 | 4:52 pm

Health organizations pepper the prime minister with requests to curb national sodium intake

Is this too much salt? Probably (Image: dynamosquito)

The story of salt regulation in this country is long and only occasionally delicious. First, the feds created a task force to set targets for reducing sodium content in food. Then they decided they’d rather not bother with what those eggheads think, and handed things back over to industry (like we asked last time, when has self-regulation ever steered us wrong?). Now, the Globe and Mail reports, a crack team of health organizations is calling on Stephen Harper to quit talking and actually develop a strategy to curb Canadians’ excessive salt intake.

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January 4, 2012 | 4:12 pm
Poultry G-Men and supply management declared enemies of deliciousness in Canada 

In today’s Globe and Mail, Mark Schatzker writes about Canada’s supply management system for eggs, chickens and cows, which he describes as “the enemy of deliciousness.” The article opens with scenes of inspectors from the Chicken Farmers of Ontario bursting upon the scene of unauthorized poultry operations and leaving crying Amish farm wives in their wake (along with fines of up to $10,000 a day). Schatzker argues that the high cost of quotas—$27,000 for one cow’s worth of dairy or $200 per laying hen—means that only high-volume, low-margin businesses can survive. As a result, the kind of specialty pastured poultry that’s raised in the U.S., like silver-laced Wyandottes, Jersey giants and barred Plymouth rocks, just makes no economic sense north of the border. Luckily, a loophole allows cheese makers to get around the quota system—as long as they can prove their product doesn’t taste like any existing Canadian product (apparently a team of bureaucrats in Ottawa gets to make that delicious call). There is hope on the horizon, however; Schatzker reports that Stephen Harper is looking at scrapping the whole system so that Canada can sign onto a new international trade deal. With any luck, local restaurants will soon be able to proudly host discerning diners like Peter and Nance. Read the entire story [Globe and Mail] »

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December 12, 2011 | 4:00 pm

New study confirms eating cookie dough is bad for you, ruins the holidays for everyone

Separated at birth? E. coli and raw cookie dough

It’s probably a given that raw cookie dough consumption will only increase as the holidays draw near, despite maternal warnings that the delicious paste is potentially poisonous. Now there’s new evidence that mom was right all along—however, it’s not salmonella that’s to blame, it’s Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli. A Centers for Disease Control study published Friday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases examined an outbreak in 2009 that missed Canada but hospitalized 35 in the United States. The report found store-bought cookie dough to be the most likely suspect, with 33 of the patients (that’s 94 per cent) admitting to a prior raw indulgence. Specifically, the flour in one brand wasn’t put through heat treatment (a bacteria “kill step”) like other ingredients were. One other interesting factoid: 71 per cent were under age 19. Sometimes the stereotypes ring true. Read the entire story [CBC] »

(Images: bacteria, Mattosaurus; dough, Rae du Soleil)

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December 1, 2011 | 5:32 pm

Horsemeat poised to make a comeback in the U.S.

(Image: James Byrum)

Top Chef Canada made headlines (and alienated horse lovers everywhere) earlier this year when it featured horsemeat during a classic French cuisine challenge. The scandal prompted an in-depth investigation of the industry by the ever-intrepid Toronto Star, which explained how a 2007 slaughtering ban in the United States led to a boom in Canada’s industry. Now, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, horsemeat may be making a return to the U.S. market in the coming months.

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October 27, 2011 | 2:32 pm

Two U.S. senators propose calling in the feds over fake maple syrup

(Image: Kai Hendry)

Champagne must come from its eponymous region in France, Parmigiano-Reggiano from specific areas in Emilia-Romagna (ok, and Lombardia) and Colombian Coffee from, well, Colombia. U.S. Law may soon dictate that maple syrup must have a specific origin as well—and no, Canada doesn’t take that honour. Maple trees do. According to the Toronto Star, two U.S. Senators are sponsoring a bill to make mislabeling a food product as maple syrup a federal offence punishable by a sentence of up to five years in prison.

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October 23, 2011 | 10:11 pm

Pusateri’s to reopen tomorrow morning

We received word this afternoon that the Avenue and Lawrence location of fancy food institution Pusateri’s is set to reopen Monday morning at 8 a.m. after passing an inspection by Toronto Public Health. As we reported on Thursday afternoon, the store was shut down when inspectors found evidence of a pest infestation. (Over at The Grid, Karon Liu offers some perspective on the situation by rounding up other recent health violations.) A representative of the company later told us a shipment of wicker baskets might have been to blame.

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October 21, 2011 | 9:45 am

Pusateri’s shut down after failing public health inspection, could reopen tomorrow (MORNING UPDATE)

The Toronto Star is reporting that the Avenue and Lawrence location of fancy food institution Pusateri’s has been shut down by Toronto Public Health “due to poor sanitation and pest infestation.” Well, at least that’s what a public health spokesperson told them. Pusateri’s general manager John Mastroianni, on the other hand, insists the closure was “equipment related.” Ever intrepid, the Star goes on to report that workers could be seen through the windows “cleaning and scrubbing shelves before returning the gourmet cookies and biscotti to their places.” The Yorkville and Bayview Village locations remain open for any urgent fancy food needs.

UPDATE Oct. 20 at 10:42 p.m.: we received a press release from Pusateri’s this evening acknowledging that as of 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, the store was temporarily closed following a visit from public health. From the release:

During the investigation, a small portion of the storage area and walk-in coolers as well as “hard-to-reach and obscure locations” seem to have been infested by pests, which may have been missed as a result of human error during our on-going routine maintenance. The situation is already being dealt with including the complete removal of all goods in the effected areas to ensure no further problems arise.

None of our public areas have been affected by this incident. Our location has operated for 25 years with complete compliance Toronto Public Health regulations. We are committed to following our track record as soon as this incident passes.

The City of Toronto DineSafe page for Pusateri’s has also been updated to reflect the latest inspection. The report lists eight infractions, including “inadequate pest control” and “improper maintenance/sanitation of non-food contact surfaces/equipment.”

UPDATE Oct. 21 at 9:45 a.m.: a spokesman for Pusateri’s has let us know that the store is being scrubbed down by professional cleaners at the moment, and could reopen as soon as tomorrow. Apparently, the infestation problem seems to have been caused by a shipment of wicker baskets from abroad; they’ve since been removed from the site and destroyed. He also told us that the store’s last routine pest control check was performed just over a week ago.

• Rats, roaches shut down gourmet grocery store Pusateri’s [Toronto Star]

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September 30, 2011 | 4:26 pm

Yesterday’s food recall triple threat: grape tomatoes, smoked salmon and soymilk

Not the offending grape tomatoes (Image: Clay Irving)

Is it just us, or does it seem as though there were an unusual number of food recalls in Ontario yesterday? Consumers are being warned about possible salmonella in organic grape tomatoes, listeria in smoked salmon from a Toronto plant and undeclared milk and peanuts in soymilk sold in the GTA. No illnesses have been reported thus far—we just hope that no one with a peanut allergy chooses to enjoy their smoked salmon with roast tomato chutney and a glass of Korean soymilk. The complete details on the recalled products, after the jump.

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August 26, 2011 | 11:24 am
Greek yogurt’s puzzling, meteoric rise in the U.S. 

Over at The Atlantic, Derek Thompson has an interesting blog post on the puzzling spike in popularity of Greek yogurt in the U.S. In 2005, sales were a healthy-for-a-niche-product $60 million. In 2011, sales of the thicker, creamier product are projected to reach $1.5 billion, a staggering 2,400 per cent increase. Apparently it now makes up 19 per cent of the yogurt market. (In Canada, it’s yet to take off in the same way, although Loblaws is certainly betting that it will—according to Canadian Grocer, it’s “putting a huge sales push” on the stuff.) Thompson offers two somewhat unsatisfying explanations for the phenomenon: wealthy women in the workplace are lapping up the stuff as conspicuous consumption (“So foreign! So classy!” as Thompson, who doesn’t buy the reasoning, puts it); or, his preferred interpretation, “people are buying Greek yogurt, not despite the fact that it’s expensive compared to yogurts, but because it’s cheap compared to similarly filling foods.” In other words, it’s the yogurt that eats like a meal. Read the whole story [The Atlantic] »

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August 2, 2011 | 4:53 pm
LINK: Harvesting Toronto’s fruit bounty apparently not as easy as it sounds 

We’ve noted the Toronto NGO Not Far From the Tree before, and over the weekend the Globe and Mail had a story about the group and its cousins in other cities around North America who pick fruit from urban orchards. Thing is, it’s not as easy, or cheap, as free food sounds. Apparently, it costs something like $15,000 a year to mobilize the equipment and picking. It also takes time and money to manage the post-picking supply chain. The perennial complaint that money doesn’t grow on trees makes more sense now. Even when free stuff does grow on trees, it seems it’s a complicated and expensive undertaking to pass it around. Read the whole story »

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August 2, 2011 | 4:26 pm

Six things we learned from the Star’s investigation into the Canadian horsemeat industry

A horse tartare sandwich from the Black Hoof (Image: Jen Chan from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

Any time an investigation takes place at a “kill auction,” you know its findings will be grim. This weekend’s report from the Toronto Star’s Robert Cribb on Canada’s central role in the horsemeat industry is no exception. Horsemeat, which predominantly comes from animals not bred for food, has come under fire in Canada before (notably during Top Chef Canada) over complaints of poor sourcing and inhumane practices, and recently many countries—including the U.S.—have banned the stuff. Six things we learned from the Star’s investigation, after the jump.

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