Hosting an Oscars party is going to be tough this year. With 10 nominations for best picture, instead of the usual five, making movie-themed munchies will be twice as hard. To help Toronto hosts get their bearings, we suggest the following dishes from across the city, each inspired by the films hoping for the ultimate Academy prize.
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Posts Tagged ‘barbecue’
Pantry Raid
The latest food fashion is not a dish, but an elusive “fifth taste”
British chef-writer Laura Santtini has managed to get umami into a tube (Image: laurasanttini.com)
The Japanese have known about it for years, and researchers have confirmed its existence, but the Globe is just now declaring it fashionable. Umami is a taste (separate from sweet, sour, salty and bitter) first recognized by Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda more than a century ago. Apparently Canadian chefs are clamouring to get it into their dishes. “I do think people are really capitalizing on the name,” Andrew Novak, owner of Toronto restaurant Umami Sushi, told the Globe. “Everyone has something that they’re referring to as umami.”
The so-called fifth taste is ubiquitous in Japanese fare: seafood, shiitake mushrooms and tomatoes, as well as fermented and cured products, such as soy sauce. The flavour’s ability to elude description—it has been variously described as meaty and savoury, or like the sweet flavour of barbecued salmon—has whet the appetite of a few cunning profiteers. The Food Channel recently listed it among its top 10 food trends of 2010 (yes, they realize it’s only March), and umami was the subject of a cook-off on The Next Iron Chef. Yet, as Novak himself says, the brilliant thing about a basic taste is that you don’t have to eat out to enjoy it: “Home cooks could combine their own ingredients to achieve the same effect.”
Restauran-TO
Tracking the changes at the Wine Bar and Hank’s
Out with the old: the former sign in front of what is now the Wine Bar (Photo by 416style)
It’s been four months since foodie power couples Ted and Mary Koutsogiannopoulos (Joy Bistro) and Scott Vivian and Rachelle Caldwell (Jamie Kennedy Kitchens) bought the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar and adjoining Hank’s café. Their rebrand is evident everywhere: Hank’s now has table service and dinner (a barbecue-inspired evening menu debuted this week), but the big change that has locavores squealing like whey-fed pigs is that the Wine Bar now takes reservations. “I got a lot of shit about it,” says Vivian about the old policy, “especially from people like Joanne Kates.”
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In Print
Toronto’s best southern food
For pure comfort, nothing satisfies quite like bone-sucking, finger-licking, rib-sticking southern food. Here, the best barbecue and fry-ups in town.
Southern fried chicken from The Stockyards (Photo by Daniel Shipp)
Restauran-TO
Anthony Rose and Alida Solomon team up for The Drake’s outdoor eat-fest
'Cue up: The Drake's outdoor eating area is like a secret dinner club, minus the secret (Photo by Daniel Williams)
Despite being one of the most talked about West Queen West bars, the Drake Hotel always creates an atmosphere of being at our best friend’s cottage. Well, maybe not our best friend, but certainly our coolest one. Chef Anthony Rose is extending that famous chilled-out vibe right out the door and around the corner, to the urban garden he’s planted behind the hotel. Tomorrow night, he’ll host his second party in the space, which he calls I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. About 40 guests are expected for the event—and there’s room for a few more, he says.
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Food Porn
Hidden pleasure: a delectable Cantonese dining experience that’s off the foodie radar
It’s easy to see why John’s Chinese Barbecue Restaurant has remained off the foodie radar: it’s hidden in a Richmond Hill strip mall and has a non-descript English name. Most come for the Chinese rotisserie—a joy in itself—but adventurous diners tend to order John’s Cantonese fare. Several notches above the usual cloying sauces and greasy batter of take-out Chinese, we dig into expertly rendered versions of chow mein and stir fry, as well as Guangdong delicacies like braised sea cucumbers, Peking duck and dried abalone (dining with a Chinese-reading companion helps decipher the specials and menu). In this slideshow, we tour an authentic Cantonese meal that’s worth a drive north of the 407.
John’s Chinese Barbecue Restaurant, Unit 10, Chalmers Gate 11, 328 Hwy. 7 E., Richmond Hill, 905-881-3333.
Restauran-TO
Get outside: More new patios open in Toronto
Patio season is in full swing (Photo by IntangibleArts)
With the summertime gods finally smiling, we took another look around town for patios that have sprouted up this season. Here, five brand new places to satisfy the craving for fresh air and fresh fare.
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Aprons & Icons
Ted Reader wants to take backyard barbecue to gourmet heights
Plankhead: Ted Reader at the Cookbook Store yesterday
Yesterday’s rain didn’t stop barbecue king Ted Reader from grilling up a storm at Yorkville’s Cookbook Store, where he was signing copies of his new (and already award-winning) book, Napoleon’s Everyday Gourmet Plank Grilling. This is the chef’s third tribute to his favourite smoking technique, which involves barbecuing food by placing it on a slab of wood rather than on a grill. Reader’s new recipes reveal how to plank-cook everything from steak and burgers to lasagna and Twinkies. The chef is appearing this afternoon at First Canadian Place, where he’ll be doing additional cooking and fielding questions from those looking for last-minute Father’s Day ideas. Reader will also give away a Napoleon Travel Q portable grill (with which he’s travelled the country), among other prizes.
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Aprons & Icons
Girl on grill action: Ontario’s barbecue queen fires up Hogtown
The honours, all mine: The head of the Diva Q team clutches her well-earned trophies
She smoked the competition on the Ontario barbecue circuit, has taken a prize for Best International Team at the prestigious Jack Daniel’s Invitational in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and earned an invite to the National Barbeque Association’s showdown in Georgia. Now the grilling goddess, Danielle Dimovski—better known as Diva Q—brings her fiery style to Toronto for the first annual Crazy Canuck Championships at Woodbine Park on June 20.
“There’s not much I haven’t put on a barbecue,” says the self-described OCB (obsessive compulsive barbecuer); she’s even tried ice cream bars and chocolate cheesecake, the Death by Diva, which won top honours in a Kansas City competition. When we catch her, she’s tending to 50 “atomic buffalo turds” for a TV spot on the series Playing House. The snack, which she calls “the crack candy of the barbecue world” (we say cardiologist’s nightmare), is jalapeño peppers stuffed with spices and cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and cooked low and slow for three hours.
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