Sesame balls at Lai Toh Heen (Image: Benson Kua)
After 17 days of furious jockeying for reservations, Winterlicious—the city’s annual festival of prix-fixe menus, packed dining rooms and run-ragged servers—is finally underway. In case you don’t already have the next two weeks worth of dining planned out, take a look at our comprehensive coverage:
• The Best of Winterlicious 2011: Toronto Life’s 62 favourite restaurants
• 12 best bets for Winterlicious 2011: our chief critic goes through the menus so you don’t have to
• Alternalicious: a roundup of this year’s Winterlicious rebels
Winterlicious runs from today, January 28, to February 10.
Few subjects are as divisive among Toronto diners and industry people as the merits of Summer- and Winterlicious. While the biannual culinary event may help restaurants fill empty tables during an otherwise slow season, 
By now, Torontonians are well-seasoned winterliciousers—and at Winterlicious 2011, we will be deftly dodging the wilted arugula and heading straight for the belly of the beast (preferably pork). Looking through the newly published list of restaurants and menus, there is plenty to be pleased about this January. Our popular “Best of Winterlicious” piece is coming out next week, but we thought we’d get a jump on things and take a look at how this year’s roster compares with last year’s ’Licous lists. 