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Trying to choose a selection of our favourite lunch picks from the last year proved too much like choosing a selection of our favourite children. So instead we present a complete year of lunch picks, ranked by price, from a humble porchetta sandwich (a reasonable $6.75) to a somewhat less humble five-course feast (treat yourself for $100).
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All stories relating to Chinese
Mississauga council puts the brakes on its shark fin ban
Back in October, Mississauga beat Toronto to the punch in banning the sale of shark fins, and on Wednesday, it beat Toronto to the punch in repealing that ban. According to a bylaw passed by council, the ban is no longer in force “until June 30, 2012” so that officials can meet with the federal government and allow business owners to adjust. “It gives us time to do our homework,” Pat Mullin, the ban’s biggest champion on council, told the Toronto Star. However, she wasn’t sure whether the bylaw would apply immediately in June or whether it would require a new vote. Stephen Chu, president of the Mississauga Chinese Business Association, believes the delay it is the first step toward a permanent repeal. “They listened to us,” he said. Toronto banned fin products just two weeks after Mississauga; hopefully for the sharks, a repeal isn’t already in the works here, too. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
Weekly Lunch Pick: a weekday feast for two at Chinatown’s newest dim sum restaurant
(Images: Renée Suen)
Up on the third floor of an old Chinese mall on the south side of Dundas sits Dim Sum King, a new Chinatown spot that serves excellent renditions of steamed, fried, boiled, baked and braised classics at reasonable prices. The large, open room is filled with the usual cacophony of chopsticks clicking against dishes and waiters circulating around linen-covered tables with old-school trolleys. Although daily midday specials are available for $5.99, the better deal on weekday lunches is to order by the plate, since all sizes—small, medium and large—go for $2.
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Chinatown restaurants receive threatening letters over shark fins
Ever since the city banned shark fin products in October, the Toronto Chinese Business Association has received hundreds of hate-filled emails and messages. Nothing, however, has come close to the letter received on Tuesday, which claims members of the “Animal Liberation of USA/Canada” were “in your Chinatowns spreading rat poison on meat, fish, fruit and vegetables.” The letter asserts that Chinese people are “barbarians” and “animal killers” for continuing to use shark fin products, which are still legal in Toronto until September. Apparently the American “head office” will be supplying lethal E. coli bacteria to the offending restaurants. We doubt the threat is genuine; still, the Toronto Police hate crime unit says it’s taking the letter very seriously. Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »
Toronto bans shark fin products; sharks everywhere rejoice
This photo has not been digitally altered (Image: John Michael McGrath)
Yesterday city council voted in favour of banning the sale of shark fin products within the limits of Toronto. The proposal passed easily, with a vote of 38 to 4, despite a warning from the city staff that Toronto may have difficulties not only enforcing the bylaw but also dealing with citizens who feel the city is intruding on their rights and freedoms. Several councillors made impassioned speeches on both sides of the issue, but our favourite moment of the meeting came long before the shark fin debate even began, when Glenn De Baeremaeker, ever the council chamber prop master, released an inflatable shark balloon into the air.
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Council to vote on shark fin ban today
(Image: Robert S. Donovan)
City council is set to vote later today on whether to ban shark fin products in Toronto, an issue that came to our attention when Brantford blazed ahead as the first Canadian city to prohibit the sale of the product. CBC News reports that as many as 300 people took part in a protest at city hall yesterday to oppose the proposed bylaw. Councillor Doug Ford is also in staunch opposition to the ban. “I won’t be voting for it,” he told the Globe and Mail. “I’m a big supporter of the Chinese community; if that’s part of their culture then we shouldn’t interfere in that.”
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Introducing: Cold Tea, a new Kensington Market bar that nods to a venerable Chinatown tradition
Theoretically, this inauspicious entrance should keep people away; in practice, the place is already packed (Image: Caroline Aksich)
Tucked into the back of the Kensington Mall, down the hallway past the knick-knack peddlers, is Cold Tea, the market’s newest watering hole. Oliver Dimapilis, who owns the bar along with Stacey Welton and Matthew LaRochelle, told us he’s convinced the “cold tea” phenomenon—post–last call beer served in tea pots at Chinese restaurants—was born in Toronto (he’s got Urban Dictionary on his side). And while the original dream was to have their new bar (open Tuesday through Sunday) tucked into a Chinatown back alley, the trio doesn’t seem too distraught to have landed a block west, scoring, as they did, a back patio to rival the front one at Ronnie’s.
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Much loved, decades-old Yen Ching Palace replaced by much loved, decades-old Pearl restaurant
Fans of Pearl Harbourfront will be able to enjoy the same experience (sans harbour view) in Bayview Village after the restaurant completes renovations on its new location. Owner Kim Mak told us the uptown offspring would be opening in mid-November, with a similar but smaller menu to compensate for the much-reduced seating.
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City staff: banning the sale of shark fins pretty much impossible for Toronto
An anti–shark fin soup display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Image: cephalopodcast)
After the City of Brantford banned all foods that included shark fin—an ingredient culled from endangered species and traditionally served at Chinese weddings and other banquets—Scarborough councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker was quick to introduce a similar motion for Toronto. However, a report by the executive director of Municipal Licensing and Standards, Bruce Robertson, has thrown cold water on the proposal. Apparently it’s just not possible: “Although staff have identified clear concerns with the shark fin industry, no clear municipal purpose—mainly health and safety, consumer protection, or nuisance control—exists. The matter is one that clearly and more properly rests with more senior levels of government.”
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Introducing: One Hour, Chinatown’s first minimalist tea shop
Inside One Hour (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
The leap from architect to restaurateur is probably not a traditional career trajectory, but that’s the route Han Shao has taken. After moving to Toronto from mainland China in 2005, Shao earned a master’s degree from U of T’s architecture program and went on to work for a local firm. But that didn’t last long. Fed up with the mind-numbing computer work he faced every day, Shao decided to quit his job and open up a bright new tea house in the heart of Chinatown.
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Introducing: the second stop on the Drake Dining Roadshow, 1940s L.A. Chinatown
The redesigned dining room features all kinds of gleeful appropriations and kitschy Chinatown elements, like this wall of cats. (Image: Gizelle Lau)
Back in June, we told you about the Drake Hotel’s Dining Roadshow, a series of thematically changing restaurant concepts constructed in the back section of the hotel’s dining room, starting with the Drake Summer School Dining Hall. This stop: 1940s L.A. Chinatown, which opened just in time for TIFF and continues until November 19.
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VIDEO: The Drake releases a puzzling trailer for the next iteration of its Dining Roadshow series
In what’s probably a Toronto first, The Drake has released a trailer for the next iteration of its Dining Roadshow series of in situ pop-up restaurants. The series began with a cheeky tribute to summer school and is moving on to L.A.’s Chinatown circa 1940 this coming Thursday, just in time for TIFF. Some of the things that happen in the puzzling, surrealistic trailer:
- a young woman goes running through some woods and meadows;
- she declares that she hates exercise;
- some birds in a tree tell her about a burger, which, naturally, materializes immediately, but only in a ghostly, translucent way;
- she concedes to her mom (on the phone) that yes, she mostly eats noodles;
- she daydreams about a cupcake in the clouds;
- an opulent picnic appears before her;
- the picnic items start flying toward her, and she eats them, enraptured;
- she then rolls down a grassy hill.
No, we have no idea what any of it means, nor can we figure out why none of the food is Chinese. But we are excited to see what chef Anthony Rose and the Drake team come up with for round two of their roadshow.
Top Chef Canada recap, episode 11: street meet
Rob Feenie with host Thea Andrews (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)
TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 11
From the opening moments of last night’s Top Chef Canada, we learned the following: Dale MacKay, the supremely arrogant self-confident Vancouver chef, actually has a soft side (he was missing his young son); Montreal-by-way-of Vancouver chef François Gagnon sleeps without his shirt on; Mercatto executive chef Rob Rossi likes to sleep in; and Connie DeSousa is feeling the pressure to win the competition for all the female chefs out there (about Grace’s Dustin Gallagher, we learned nothing). None of these micro-developments gave away who the winner and loser might be. After the jump, the twists and turns that brought us down to the final four.
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Glenn De Baeremaeker proposes city-wide shark fin ban, taking a cue from…Brantford?
A delicious bowl of species endangerment and cruelty (Image: avlxyz)
A couple weeks ago, the city of Brantford—yes, that Brantford—raised eyebrows when city councillors voted unanimously to ban all foods that include shark fin, making it the first city in Canada to outlaw the controversial ingredient. Although the city had a grand total of zero restaurants serving shark fin, the council intended the ban to act as a model for cities like Toronto, where shark fin can actually be found. Amazingly, it looks like it’s working.
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Weekly Lunch Pick: a spread of diverse northern Chinese dim sum
The crab and pork soup dumplings at Asian Legend (Image: Renée Suen)
The rustic northern-style dim sum at Asian Legend is a hearty alternative to the dainty small plates found at most Cantonese restaurants.
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