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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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The Dish

Opening

September 27, 2011 | 12:02 pm

2 Comments

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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The Dish

Opening

September 16, 2011 | 11:49 am

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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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The Dish

Restauran-TO

September 2, 2011 | 1:35 pm

4 Comments

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.

The Dish

TV Diner

June 21, 2011 | 12:49 pm

14 Comments

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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The Dish

Restauran-TO

June 3, 2011 | 1:14 pm

19 Comments

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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The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

March 21, 2011 | 8:30 am

8 Comments

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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The Informer

From the Print Edition

March 8, 2011 | 3:05 pm

21 Comments

Not Asian enough: Jan Wong on the phenomenon of “Tiger Mom” parenting

The furor over Tiger Mom parenting ignores one awkward fact: academic success doesn’t guarantee a sparkling future. Confessions of a delinquent mother

(Image: Peter Arkle)

I freely admit that I’m a bad Chinese mom. I do not whack my sons with chopsticks; neither of them speaks Chinese; and a couple of years ago, I was thrilled when one of them doubled his math mark (at summer school—don’t ask). Which is why I’m bemused by all the angst, outrage and uproar over super-achieving Asian kids and their Genghis Moms.

Culture and competition make for a volatile mix, especially in Toronto, where we come from every part of the world, and especially during uncertain economic times, when people are worried about job security and who’s outperforming whom. It’s at moments like these that politicians and the media, consciously or unconsciously, tend to exploit the West’s simmering insecurities about The Other. They hint, for instance, that we are losing ground to China and even to our own Chinese-Canadian population.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

January 13, 2011 | 9:12 am

1 Comment

Good Stuff Cheap: 11 selections for a kick-ass and low-cost charcuterie plate

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The Dish

De-licious

January 4, 2011 | 4:15 am

5 Comments

The Best of Winterlicious 2011: Toronto Life’s 62 favourite restaurants

(Image: Renée Suen, from the torontolife.com Flickr pool)

January is upon us, and for many hungry Torontonians, that means one thing: Winterlicious. The menus are less predictable than previous years—crème brûlée’s out, lentils du Puy are in—so even the ’Licious haters might have a reason to take advantage of the festival this year. We’ve already named the 12 menus that we think are the best bets, but that doesn’t begin to cover it. Here, find Toronto Life’s 62 favourite Winterlicious restaurants, complete with menus, reviews and reservation numbers.

Winterlicious runs from January 28 to February 10. Reservations are accepted from January 13 onward (January 11 for American Express users).

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The Dish

De-licious

December 21, 2010 | 1:51 pm

23 Comments

12 best bets for Winterlicious 2011: our chief critic goes through the menus so you don’t have to

A steak dinner at Noce (Image: Renée Suen)

Big-spending downtown Torontonians have taken in the past few years to whining about Winterlicious, but the two-week dining festival, running from January 28 through February 10, remains popular for a reason: it offers great value, particularly if you choose your reservations well. Here are a dozen of Toronto Life’s best bets. They’re older, more established places, generally, with kitchens that clearly care. And though we haven’t yet tasted the restaurants’ 2011 Winterlicious menus, they’re full of interesting, delicious-sounding picks.

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The Dish

Read All About It

August 20, 2010 | 11:50 am

7 Comments

Turns out that disposable chopsticks are an environmental nightmare

Sticky situation: eating implements create environmental problems (Image: Mykl Roventine)

Toronto loves Asian food. Witness the city’s endless supply of sushi restaurants and packed Chinese eateries— declared some of the best in North America. But all that glory and love comes with a hefty price: the burgeoning ecological disaster that is the disposable chopstick. In China, a jaw-dropping 100 acres of trees are felled per day to keep up with demand for the disposable utensils, according to Greenpeace China. That works out to about 16 to 25 million trees per year.

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The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

August 9, 2010 | 8:49 am

2 Comments

Where to eat lunch this week: Lai Wah Heen

This legendary haute Chinese kitchen delivers a full—and fully delicious—dim sum experience in less than an hour

Seafood dumplings and cream tarts

The place: Perched on the second floor of the Metropolitan Hotel, Lai Wah Heen has long been Toronto’s go-to spot for haute contemporary Chinese dining. A maple-panelled room provides privacy for VIPs, but the main room has its own austere calm, despite the lunch rush.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

August 4, 2010 | 12:08 pm

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Best of the City 2010: 14 picks for the top food in Toronto

Leaf fan: Matchbox Gardens grows rare and wonderful lettuces (Image: Jay Shuster)

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

August 4, 2010 | 8:51 am

24 Comments

All Mixed Up: Toronto is the mixed-marriage capital of Canada

How our city is proof that if a post-racial society is possible, it will begin in the bedroom By Jan Wong

(Image: Asaf Hanuka)

This fall, my husband and I will mark the 34th anniversary of our Chinese-Jewish marriage. Back in 1976, some folks (OK, my parents) fretted it would never last. “Think of the kids! Neither side will accept them,” my mother warned. It took 14 years—and the birth of our first child—before she quit running in hysterics from her house whenever my husband dropped by. (I’m not kidding.)

Yet in 2010, not only am I still married, with two fairly acceptable sons, I find myself living in the mixed-marriage capital of Canada. Toronto famously blazed the way for same-sex marriage. Today, it turns out to be a Petri dish for innovative people combos. According to the latest Statistics Canada data, nearly twice as many Toronto couples are in mixed marriages, legal and common law, as the rest of Canadians, 7.1 per cent versus 3.9 per cent. That number covers all existing unions, including dusty old ones like mine.

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