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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
Huevos Ahogados
Frida
999 Eglinton Ave. W., 416-787-2221
Jose Hadad, the chef at this Forest Hill restaurant, offers an authentic Mexican breakfast. Our favourite: fluffy scrambled eggs bathed in glittering, tart salsa verde with a dollop of rich house-made sour cream. On the side, cotija cheese, beans and tortilla. $13. Read the rest of this entry »
Bring on the bream: Parts and Labour's tables await dinner and diners
For many residents of Parkdale, the opening of Parts and Labour at the Roncy end of Queen West means one of two things: here’s a new restaurant, or here’s a new nightclub masquerading as a restaurant. Anyone who attended last week’s official opening could be forgiven for suspecting the latter, as throngs of people crowded the P&L bar—and they weren’t ordering food.
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Who's hungry? (Image: Torben Hansen)
The correlation between marijuana and the munchies is no secret, but a New York Times article that went viral a few weeks ago is taking the link to new heights. In the Big Apple’s “new kitchen culture,” haute cuisine is being influenced by chefs and kitchen staffers who find culinary inspiration by indulging in a little weed. We talked to a few Toronto chefs about the emerging trend and its breakthrough potential in Toronto.
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Meat awaits New Yorkers at the Black Hoof (Image: Greg Bolton)
The Times is a bit late on the meat craze, with its magazine recently running a travel piece on some of Toronto’s carnivorous hot spots. Writer Adam Sachs went straight for brunch at the Hoof Café and had the stewed rabbit with blueberry-buckwheat pancakes, grilled cheese with tongue, eggs Benny with suckling pig and even more tongue. He also visited Sanagan’s Meat Locker in Kensington before heading to Caplansky’s for a smoked meat sandwich, a meat-filled knish and the famously large poutine.
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(Photo by Andy Roberts)
For Toronto chefs worshipping at the altar of fresh and local, squash is the ingredient of the moment. Cowbell’s owner and chef, Mark Cutrara, tells us that the locavore movement has led to a better infrastructure for getting Ontario-farmed versions to cooks, who are doing more than just puréeing the fruit for soup. Culinary innovators around town are transmuting squash into ice cream, gratin and gnocchi. We look at five delicious dishes from five Toronto menus that make the most of this year’s bountiful squash harvest.
The fabled table: logistics be damned, this table is set up wherever Outstanding in the Field finds itself (All photos by Davida Aronovitch)
We are in the middle of a farmer’s field near Bradford, Ontario, but it looks like a five-star restaurant. Jim Denevan has brought his roving dinner series, Outstanding in the Field, here for one night only. The itinerant anti-restaurant takes locavore lust to the next level by staging dinners at the food source, this time with a little help from Cowbell chef Mark Cutrara, the owners of Dingo Farms (Dennis and Denise Harrison, who provide the aforementioned field) and 90 guests—growers and urbanites, who each paid $200 for their seats. This is Denevan’s first foray into Ontario, and the farmophile likes the lay of the land; he’s already planning more Ontario stops. Sadly, Denevan’s signature 1953 red bus couldn’t make the trip due to border troubles. A bemused customs agent asked, “You organize dinners on farms? Why would anyone want to do that?”
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Ring my bell: Cowbell chef Mark Cutrara tempts diners with his Stop for Food prix fixe menu (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
On the heels of yet another whine-infused Summerlicious (with the garbage strike adding fodder to the usual grumblings), Stop for Food offers a second (and stink-free) chance for prix fixe fun. Until August 31st, top restaurants like Vertical, Harbord Room and Frank are featuring locally-focused three-course menus for $35 or $50, complete with the feel-good glow of giving back to The Stop Community Food Centre.
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In a froth: the hidden dangers of a frappuccino (Photo by Kochtopf)
• Restaurants and bars might soon have to pay thousands more for the right to play music. The Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada wants to triple the royalty fee it collects for performers and sound engineers. Dance clubs would be hardest hit, with annual bills potentially as high as $30,000. Everyone better Footloose while they still can. [Canadian Press]
• An installation artist is taking the local food movement back to its roots (literally). California surfer/artist Jim Denevan is setting up a table for 80 in between the rows of organic carrots at Dingo Farms in Bradford, Ontario on August 11. Mark Cutrara of Cowbell will be preparing the $200 meal using ingredients from the farm. Guests are reminded to bring their own plates and cutlery—we advise against disposable. [Toronto Star]
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Nature calls: Farming experiences are available to those looking to get back to the land (Photo by Peter Firminger)
Shopping at farmers’ markets has a way of making agriculture seem like a peaceful and tasty career path. In the daydream version of rural life, there are no painful commutes or layoff threats, just friendly barnyard beasts and bountiful produce. This is not the whole story, of course, so for those Torontonians looking for a way to get back to the land, we’ve dug up some unique opportunities that will let them try their hands at growing, without getting them too dirty. Here are five, arranged from green dabbler to committed farmhand.
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At the Four Seasons hotel's Studio Café, the menu may change, but the faves live on (Photo by redtype)
The Four Seasons’ Studio Café is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a shakedown this month, complete with a new menu from the freshly minted executive chef, Claudio Rossi. “We’ve changed 24 items on the menu,” says an excited Marc Dorfman, director of food and beverages at the hotel. “That’s something that hasn’t happened since we opened in 1994.” The Studio’s status as a Yorkville institution had Dorfman apprehensive about separation anxiety among patrons—“We expected more backlash from our regular clients,” he says—but the duo has done its best to avoid an epidemic of gasping, fainting regulars. The popular French onion soup made the cut (“As much as we would like to take it off the menu,” confesses Dorfman), and Studio classics tandoori chicken and chicken curry won’t budge, either. The restaurant also did extensive tasting sessions with some of its top clients to make sure the new deal would please VIP palates.
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Jamie Kennedy mans his station (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
Last Friday, local food enthusiasts packed Hart House’s neo-gothic hall for the second annual Brewer’s Plate. Despite the medieval decor, there was nothing dark ages about this party. The Green Enterprise event paired six cutting-edge chefs with local brewers and artisans to showcase the region’s burgeoning locavore fare. And though rooted in the slow food tradition, the event had all the trimmings of a red carpet do, including a suited swing band, tiny portions, food celebs and backlash banter.
It was a far cry from last year’s more modest showing at the Berkeley Kitchen—there was a 20-minute wait for specialties by chefs like the Gladstone’s Marc Breton and Cowbell’s Mark Cutrara (they don’t call it slow food for nothing). Amid the stylish masses, familiar foodie faces included Globe editor Domini Clark, blogger Greg Clow and TAPS magazine’s Mirella Amato.
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Twitter, Twitter everywhere
Almost overnight, Twitter is everywhere. Celebrities and CEOs, moms and musicians, politicians and priests are all scrambling to tap into the zeitgeist and answer Twitter’s simple prompt: “What are you doing?” And foodies are no exception. The micro-blogging tool is rapidly becoming a key source of news on the Toronto—and the global—gastronomic scene. Like chatty John Mayer, who famously tweets almost as much on-line as he does onstage, Toronto chefs, restaurateurs and shopkeepers are no slouches on the techno trend. Here, a look at who’s chirping about what.
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