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And the survey says… Torontonians want more street food

Vendors get their trucks in a row for Food Truck Eats (Image: Jen Chan from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

While it’s always nice to get a little empirical support, the results of a new survey conducted by the Toronto Street Food Vendors Association confirm what anyone who’s ever encountered one of the wildly popular Food Truck Eats or Toronto Underground Markets could already tell you: Torontonians like their street food, and they want much, much more of it. As Suresh Doss notes, the biggest complaint among the 387 people surveyed was the lack of vendors and variety, and only six people brought up cleanliness as a concern (admittedly, it’s a bit of a biased sample: the survey took place at Food Truck Eats and the Tasty Thursdays in front of city hall). Strangely, one respondent hoped the city would “stop messing up great programs like A La Carte” which, given the dismal failure of that particular experiment, is a little strange. Read the entire story [Spotlight Toronto] »

The Dish

Foodie Follies

December 30, 2011 | 9:05 am

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Year in Review: 2011 was the year street food finally took off in Toronto

After living through decades of delicious but pretty much uniform street meat, followed by a city-backed pilot program that ended up a complete fiasco, Torontonians finally got a glimpse of the street food promised land in 2011, thanks mostly to a clutch of feisty entrepreneurs. A selective and entirely arbitrary roundup of the highs and lows of Toronto ephemeral eating in 2011, after the jump.

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The Dish

Opening

December 20, 2011 | 3:32 pm

1 Comment

Introducing: Fidel Gastro’s, the sandwich-toting pop-up revolutionary

The rebel without a kitchen in a kitchen (not his) (Image: Renée Suen)

2011 has been a big year for ephemeral eating in Toronto. There was the (sort of) rise of food trucks, the smash-hit Toronto Underground Market and, of course, pop-up restaurants. The latest of these is Fidel Gastro’s, a one-man sandwich operation that’s the brainchild of Italian-born 27-year old Matthew Basile, the self-appointed leader of Toronto’s “sandwich revolution” and, not surprisingly, an ex-marketer.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons

November 25, 2011 | 5:01 pm

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Q&A with Nathan Myhrvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine, 2011’s most talked about cookbook

(Image: Renée Suen)

Unless you’ve been hiding under some kind of rock where no foodies are allowed, you’ve probably heard of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, the stunning six-volume, 2,400-page, 50-pound, $625 cookbook that came out early this year. Nathan Myhrvold, who spent five years working on the tome (three-and-a-half of them with a team of 30 in a 20,000-square-foot lab), was in town this week to speak to about 250 food and science nerds at an event hosted by The Cookbook Store at the Isabel Bader Theatre. A staggering polymath, by age 23 Myhrvold had already acquired a pair of master’s degrees (economics and geophysics) and a Princeton PhD (theoretical and mathematical physics), before working with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge, holding the chief technology officer job at Microsoft, running a patent empire called Intellectual Ventures and dabbling in photography, paleontology and, of course, cutting-edge food. We sat with Myhrvold over breakfast to talk about the surprising success of Modernist Cuisine and what the future holds for the project.

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The Dish

TV Diner

November 11, 2011 | 11:03 am

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VIDEO: Watch Marge dream about Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay (from Sunday’s foodie episode of the Simpsons)

Food bloggers of the world are bracing themselves for this Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, wherein Marge becomes a food blogger with a little help from Lisa and Bart, leaving Homer, perhaps the world’s best-known animated food enthusiast, out in the lurch. The clips of “The Food Wife” that have been released by Fox show the Three Mouthketeers (yes, that’s what they call the blog) salivating over such delicacies as pine needle sorbet and a deconstructed caesar salad served in four test tubes. The episode also features cameos and animated appearances from scads of food celebs, including Gordon Ramsay, Mario Batali, Julia Child, the Swedish Chef (yes, that one) and Anthony Bourdain, who appears in Marge’s dream at a Singapore street food market and describes himself as “food bad boy Tony Bourdain.” Expect lots of squirming out loud and flashes of self-awareness on Twitter starting at around 8 p.m. on Sunday night.

The Dish

Aprons & Icons

November 3, 2011 | 5:29 pm

1 Comment

Zane Caplansky flaunts his delicious meats on Dragon’s Den, walks away empty-handed

A proud Zane Caplansky outside his first food truck (Image: Caroline Aksich)

Toronto diners watching Dragon’s Den last night got to see a familiar face: Zane Caplansky, owner of the eponymous College Street deli renowned for its smoked meat sandwiches. Before divvying up some luscious-looking sammies, he pulled a tarp off Thundering Thelma, his big blue food truck, and made his pitch. Caplansky described his vision of an entire fleet of Thelmas, offering up 15 per cent of his company for $350,000.

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The Dish

Opening

October 12, 2011 | 4:39 pm

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Introducing: Blue Donkey Streatery, Mississauga’s new electric blue Greek food truck

The Blue Donkey Streatery, currently parked at Mississauga’s new Celebration Square (Image: Gizelle Lau)

The Blue Donkey Streatery, Missisauga’s newest food truck, is decked out in blue and white, with a big cartoon donkey on the side. Like most things about this operation, it’s a gloriously unsubtle reference to owners Tony Vastis, Elias Vastis, Dimitri Velonis and Manny Tsouvalas’s Greek heritage. The foursome—after assorted experience in the food industry (Sneaky Dee’s, Caffe Demetre, the Drake Hotel Café) and traditional hot dog stands across the city—got their big break when they were turned down by the notorious Toronto A La Cart program, only to be offered a vendor space in Mississauga’s new Celebration Square.

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The Dish

Foodie Follies

September 26, 2011 | 4:49 pm

7 Comments

At last weekend’s Toronto Underground Market, 25 food vendors got creative with the rules

Toronto Underground Market’s Inaugural Run

Toronto Underground Market’s big debut (Image: Caroline Aksich)

After much anticipation, 1,500 of Toronto’s keenest foodies filled the Evergreen Brick Works this Saturday for the inaugural edition of the Toronto Underground Market. As the sun set, they snacked on crisps and dumplings, sipped local wines, gorged on beef and pork sliders and downed wholesome Ontario microbrews and locally roasted coffee. Some TUMers even shimmied to the music, all while 25 vendors cooked their faces off trying to keep up with the demand (it was an honourable defeat). The vibe was decidedly amusement park, with smiles all around and lineups snaking around corners.

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The Dish

Read All About It

September 22, 2011 | 10:56 am

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Calgary’s mayor on street eats: truffle fries (theirs) vs. hot dogs (ours)

Given Rob Ford’s incessant and dour gravy train mantras, it helps to be reminded that some mayors actually enjoy the role of civic booster. Case in point: Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi, who’s apparently on a cross-country Cowtown sales tour. Nenshi told the Toronto Star that although he likes our ubiquitous hot dogs just fine, they don’t quite compare to Calgary’s truffle-oiled french fry trucks or the burger truck—presumably the one run by Charcut, Top Chef Canada finalist Connie DeSousa’s restaurant—that serves a lamb burger with an egg on top. And of course Nenshi’s right. But at least we’re catching up. Read the whole story [Toronto Star] »

The Dish

Opening

September 19, 2011 | 11:13 am

9 Comments

Introducing: Food Cabbie, a new food truck with classic American comfort food

Toronto’s newest food truck (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)

The Food Cabbie, an unassuming yellow-and-black food truck serving American classics, popped up a couple weeks ago in a car park at the corner of Queen and Jarvis. Already, owner Spiros Drossos has gotten to know the hungry mugs from the neighbourhood: George Brown students making the trek north and office workers taking a break from their ritual Subway sandwiches (including not a few employees of St. Joseph Media, Toronto Life’s parent company).

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The Dish

Restauran-TO

September 12, 2011 | 5:32 pm

1 Comment

Food Truck Eats to pull an all-nighter for round three

Food Truck Eats has proven itself a hugely popular new addition to Toronto’s street food scene (despite a setback earlier this month), but there is truly no greater hell than waiting in line for over an hour for a caramel apple pie, only for Cupcake Diner to sell out. Organizer Suresh Doss is taking a bold step for round three on October 1: meals on wheels from dusk till dawn. The late hour would normally ease the labyrinthine lines and food shortages, but there’s no guarantee, since the event overlaps with Nuit Blanche. Expect two new trucks, Portobello Burger and Felix and Norton Cookies, as well as several new vendors.

The Dish

Foodie Follies

September 6, 2011 | 11:01 am

1 Comment

Today’s mini Food Truck Eats: Cava’s Chris McDonald and Doug Penfold join El Gastrónomo Vagabundo

UPDATE: Organizer Suresh Doss has just tweeted that today’s event was just shut down part way through service. El Gastrónomo Vagabundo confirms it was due to a bylaw violation.

Ryerson students heading back to class today can look forward to an extra culinary boost to get them through the day: a mini Food Truck Eats pop-up truck just around the corner from campus. The truck will be in the parking lot northwest of Dundas and Church today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m..

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The Dish

Foodie Follies

September 1, 2011 | 12:42 pm

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Toronto Underground Market a smash hit before it even starts: all 1,200 tickets already sold out

(Image: Jeremy Burgin)

Earlier this spring we despaired that Toronto might be too straitlaced to join the underground market fad (all-night foodie raves that have been gaining popularity in the U.S. and in Europe). Our lack of faith in Toronto’s street food culture spurred Hassel Aviles into action. Following our post, Aviles founded the Toronto Underground Market to try to allow home cooks to sell their food without having to rent a commercial kitchen. The good news: the first ever TUM will take place on September 24 at the Evergreen Brick Works. The bad? If you haven’t already bought your ticket, you’ll have to wait until October for the next go-round, as rabid street food–loving Torontonians snatched up all 1,200 $5 tickets within a week.

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The Dish

Foodie Follies

August 31, 2011 | 10:04 am

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Mini Food Truck Eats today to feature El Gastrónomo Vagabundo and Francisco Alejandri of Agave y Aguacate

It seems only natural that summer’s two hottest foodie magnets, food truck events and pop-up restaurants, would be married sooner or later (and that social media would be a bridesmaid). Today, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., popular food truck El Gastrónomo Vagabundo will be appearing in the parking lot in front of Tom Jones Steakhouse (17 Leader Lane, off King Street East), this time with guest chef Francisco Alejandri from Kensington’s popular Agave y Aguacate.

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The Dish

Opening

July 22, 2011 | 5:15 pm

12 Comments

Introducing: Thundering Thelma, Zane Caplansky’s first food truck

Zane Caplansky with Thundering Thelma (Image: Caroline Askich)

Nearly two months past her original launch date, Zane Caplansky’s new food truck—named Thundering Thelma—has come roaring onto Toronto streets. It wasn’t Thelma’s mammoth size (18 feet long, eight wide and eight tall) that held up the launch, but rather a swath of new red tape that was laid down in May, one month prior to the scheduled launch. Caplansky estimates that missing half the summer has cost him well over $100,000 in revenue, but despite this baptism by fire, he’s all smiles and excitement as he and his team gear up for their first day on the road.

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