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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
This year’s crop of restaurants, from a million-dollar dining room to a brazen burger joint, pushed Toronto’s culinary culture in creative, comforting and blessedly cheap directions. Here, the 10 new spots that are redefining the way we eat, drink and play in the city
The prix fixe at Biff’s: a parsnip and pork soup with a caramelized onion and anchovy tartlet (Image: Matthew Fox)
A favourite with financial district suits, Biff’s combines bistro decor—art nouveau posters, yellow walls, black and white photos, a large silver-framed mirror—with the Oliver and Bonacini group’s trademark polish. We go for the prix fixe: an onion and anchovy tartlet with a parsnip and pork soup.
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With frigid winter slowly giving way to soggy spring, the best way to keep warm remains to tuck into hearty broths, soups and stews. And while they appear on almost every menu, only a few rise above the ordinary. Here are thirteen feasts for the eyes, nose and stomach that melt our soup-loving hearts.
A chicken in every pot at Etsu (Image: Renée Suen)
Taking responsibility for holiday excesses might be a painful task, but Etsu’s sam gye tang ($23) goes a long way in helping tighten belts, both the literally and figuratively. The soup must be ordered a day in advance, but planning ahead pays off: the dish is hearty enough for two, consisting of a whole chicken, stuffed with sticky rice and slow simmered in a savoury broth with Korean ginseng and oriental herbs. The dish is sweetened by dried jujubes, tender garlic cloves, and draped with omelette slivers, pine nuts, scallions and a boiled chestnut. Coarse salt and ground pepper are provided for DIY seasoning. The one-pot meal is more than comfort; Korean tradition purports to cure physical ailments and prevent sickness.
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Move over, sushi. Now there’s something sexier. The new Korean cuisine is exciting, modern and worth crossing town for
The seafood stew at Tofu Village (Image: Ryan Szulc)
National cuisines, like drunk-driving starlets, get the reputations they deserve. Korean food—dependably rough-edged, cheap and fiery in Toronto’s first-wave Korean restaurants—has suffered a serious perception problem since it first appeared near Christie Pits in the early 1970s. Korean expats ate Korean food. Starving, steel-gutted U of T students ate Korean food. The rest of humanity got along quite happily without it.
That started to change about 10 years ago, when South Korea launched a sustained and successful campaign to become a major cultural exporter. What began with film and TV—including several food-obsessed soap operas that drew massive audiences across Asia—soon trickled down to dinner, and as a new, more cosmopolitan generation of Korean chefs began to refine the cuisine, the gastro-weenies of the world took notice. In London, Korean went high-end, and in New York, David Chang, of Momofuku fame, created a hybrid Korean–French–Southeast Asian style that has become one of the most influential forces in the business. Over the past few years, this culinary renaissance set down in Toronto, too, hidden—or hidden to non-Koreans, at least—in plain sight between the all-you-can-eat bulgogi joints and bibimbap houses where serious foodies would never have dared to dine. Read the rest of this entry »
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This could be something out of the Twilight Zone, because we’re pretty sure it’s not an elaborate piece of performance art left over from Nuit Blanche. Campbell’s of Canada went out of its way to get some of its soups certified as halal—that is, to comply with Muslim dietary laws—and a bunch of people are protesting the move. There’s now a Facebook group calling for a boycott of Campbell’s Soup because it “supports The Muslim Brotherhood.” As of right now, 2,343 people “like” this.
Have your cake—and bento box, too—at the city’s most charming tea house
The place: The vibrant cakes on display in the Red Tea Box’s Queen West storefront window only hint at the wonderful setting beyond: mismatched furniture set up in a hidden coach house and on the whimsical back patio. The latter, with its Asian decor and shady pear tree, makes a resplendent setting for a summer lunch.
The crowd: Most tables are full and occupied by women enjoying a break from work or Queen West shopping.
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The cozy Elm Street restaurant serves one of the more exceptional lunch menus to be had during Winterlicious
(Photos by Matthew Fox)
This Kensington Market restaurant elevates a cafeteria classic to a delectable lunch, served with a creamy soup and a shot of nostalgia. Get the midday combo for $12, including tip.
As temperatures drop, midday comfort food seems more and more appealing. Here, an $11 lunch combo that conquers the chill.
This week’s lunch pick brought us to a little-known Japanese noodle shrine that has recently relocated from Steeles and Yonge to downtown. Spicy, authentic ramen for under $10? This was a secret to good to keep.
Soup: Get some, get better (Photo by Robert Couse-Baker)
• Spurred by research supported by the American College of Chest Physicians regarding the health benefits of soup, chef Bonnie Stern offers three recipes, just in time for the end of flu season. They don’t call it “Jewish penicillin” for nothing. [National Post]
• School board studies show that 68 per cent of students at north Toronto’s Emery Collegiate don’t eat breakfast and 54 per cent don’t eat lunch. The Toronto District School Board is trying to change that, with a little help from Hillary Duff. [National Post]
• A truck full of meat stolen from a Paris, Ontario, business was recently found in Toronto, and it looks like this was not a one-off robbery. Another vehicle was nabbed from the same business on Sunday—this time carrying $80,000 in frozen meat. [CD989fm]
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