PLUM TART
By Joanne Yolles
George Brown Chef School
By Joanne Yolles
George Brown Chef School
All stories relating to George Brown
Alternalicious: a roundup of Winterlicious 2013’s prix fix rebels
Bent’s braised spiced short ribs, one of the critic-endorsed picks on their Susurlicious menu (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Winterlicious can be a double-edged sword for diners. Yes, there’s the prospect of great deals that you’d never get otherwise—except during Summerlicious—but the crowds are thick, the servers are frazzled and the ’licious menu doesn’t always measure up to the usual fare. For years, some restaurants have opted to keep the deals but skip the chaos, responding to Winterlicious with prix fixes of their own. We’ve rounded up the best of them below.
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Weekly Eater: Toronto food events for October 22 to 28
Cask Days takes place at the Evergreen Brick Works this weekend, complete with a Halloween costume judging contest (Image: Connie Tsang)
- Monday Night Dinners at Local Kitchen and Wine Bar: Every Monday night, Local Kitchen serves a $40 prix fixe menu of Italian fare with half-price wine bottles and no corkage fee. 1710 Queen St. W., 416-534-6700. Find out more »
- 86’D with Ivy Knight: This week, celebrate with the chefs from Soupstock, and enjoy a tasty night of pairing Acadian Sturgeon caviar with Stillwater vodka. The Drake, 1150 Queen St. W., 416-531-5042. Find out more »
- Piola’s Monday Night Mixer: Piola’s weekly aperitivo Italiano, with cocktail and beer specials and complimentary snacks. 1165 Queen St. W., 416-477-4652. Find out more »
- Burger Mondays: Enjoy $5 burgers and $5 pints on Mondays, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the Gladstone Melody Bar. Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W., 416-531-4635. Find out more »
- Veggin’ Comfortably Workshop: Marni Wasserman demonstrates how easy it can be to switch over to a more veg-friendly lifestyle. Menu includes butternut squash, lentil and coconut soup, arame soba noodle salad, marinated kaleslaw salad and black bean burgers. Marni’s Kitchen, 26 Lauderdale Dr., 647-477-8131. Find out more »
- Sustainable Living and Ethical Eating—Cooking With a Conscience: Learn simple tips for a greener, guilt-free kitchen. The menu includes leek and golden beet barley risotto with spicy kale chips and whole roasted organic chicken infused. Dish Cooking Studio, 390 Dupont St., 416-920-5559. Find out more »
- Luscious Greens and Grains: Chef and cookbook author Nettie Cronish prepares tasty and nutritious leafy green and grain dishes. Menu includes pot barley split pea soup with Shiitake mushrooms, spinach and dill and hot and sour buckwheat noodle salad. Kingsway LCBO, 2946 Bloor St. W., 416-239-3065. Find out more »
Introducing: The White Brick Kitchen, a new spot for American comfort food (“Tater Tots” included)
The newest local joint serving up hearty comfort food is tucked in among the Korean eateries on Bloor Street West. The White Brick Kitchen, on the corner of Bloor and Euclid, is the work of brothers Stephen and Matthew Howell, both George Brown alumni (Matthew took hospitality management, while Stephen did culinary arts). After several years working in local restaurants—Stephen is an alum of The Stockyards and Jump—the siblings decided to combine forces on their own place.
Weekly Eater: Toronto food events for March 19 to 25
Want to learn how to make mustard like this? Head to the Brick Works on Thursday (Image: Danielle Scott)
Monday, March 19
- 86’D: Join Ivy Knight for the bread-and-butter battle. Watch contestants from Brockton General, The Gabardine, Bread Bar and more show off their kneading and churning skills. The Drake, 1150 Queen St. W., 416-531-5042. Find out more »
- Order of Good Cheer Dinner at Gilead Bistro: A four-course menu prepared by Jamie Kennedy paired with wines from Prince Edward County’s By Chadsey’s Cairns winery. Gilead Bistro, 4 Gilead Pl., 647-288-0680. Find out more »
- Tastes of Tomorrow: George Brown Chef School hosts a molecular gastronomy demonstration with Chef John Placko. Find out more »
- Sorauren Farmers’ Market: 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the field house at Sorauren Park. 50 Wabash Ave. Find out more »
Weekly Eater: Toronto food events for March 5 to 11
The (culinary) Group of Seven (Image: Mary Elizabeth Armstrong)
Monday, March 5
- 86’D: Ivy Knight hosts a Latin street food pop-up with Comida Del Pueblo. The Drake, 1150 Queen St. W., 416-531-5042. Find out more »
- Group of 7 Chefs: Eight (the number of group members fluctuates) top Toronto chefs (including Beast’s Scott Vivian and Buca’s Rob Gentile) each create a special pasta dish for a seven-course dinner with wine pairings. Buca, 604 King St. W., 416-865-1600. Find out more »
- All About Bacon: Taste a variety of delicious bacon preparations with chef Stuart Betteridge. George Brown Chef School, 300 Adelaide St. E., tastes@georgebrown.ca. Find out more »
- Sorauren Farmers’ Market: 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the field house at Sorauren Park. 50 Wabash Ave. Find out more »
Top Chef Canada season two contestants announced; here are your six Toronto chefs
(Images: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)
UPDATE: Check out our recap of episode 1 »
With the sophomore season of Top Chef Canada set to premiere on March 12, Food Network Canada has finally introduced the 16 chefs hoping to cook their way to $100,000 (and, lest we forget, a GE Monogram kitchen). The group (which, perhaps responding to feedback about season one, is a tad more multicultural) once again contains six Torontonians, among them Marben’s Carl Heinrich and Ruby Watchco’s Ryan Gallagher. Tasting the food will be new host Lisa Ray, alongside head judge Mark McEwan and resident judge Shereen Arazm and a spate of guests that includes culinary personalities (Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelsson) and sundry celebrities (handyman Mike Holmes, actor Alan Thicke, Kenny vs. Spenny’s Spencer Rice). We round up the Toronto contestants, starting with Victor’s David Chrystian »
Culinary team behind the Trump Tower’s new Stock restaurant is suitably well-stocked
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When Stock, the flagship restaurant in the Trump International Tower, opens its doors next year, it will be one of the highest in the city: both in metres above the ground (it’ll be on the 31st floor) and almost certainly in price—after all, the logo is a fork struck through a dollar sign. The Trump brand is known for sparing no expense and charging appropriately, and it’s hired a suitably pedigreed staff, featuring alums of some of Toronto’s top restaurants, to run the place.
Reason to Love Toronto: because our geeks are gaming gods
Sept. 20, 2011, 3:57 p.m. George Brown gaming graduate Billy Matjiunis at Ubisoft’s Wallace Street studio (Image: Sean J. Sprague)
Video gamers are often maligned as dweebs with vitamin D deficiencies and a dearth of flesh-and-blood friends, but that probably described Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg at one point, too. We’re not saying that nephew of yours who posts his Call of Duty missions on YouTube will be the next great tech entrepreneur, but he could be, and Toronto has become the right place to be if he wants to try. Take the success story of east-end studio Capybara Games, whose app Sword and Sworcery ranked only behind Angry Birds on sales charts in March. Or Queen West’s Get Set Games, whose ultra-addictive Mega Jump has been downloaded 17 million times since last May. The triumphs of these smallish firms are part of the reason giants like Ubisoft and Zynga set up shop here, contributing to what has become a $240-million-a-year industry in Ontario. Traditionally, luring console kings into the workforce has been a challenge, which is why we’re big fans of George Brown College’s spiffy new video game incubator. Launching this month, it’s a gleaming space that puts game design students and start-ups side by side. The gadgetry is a geek’s fantasy: a soon-to-be-installed 3-D motion-tracking studio that captures and reproduces human movements with jaw-dropping accuracy, and a sea of tricked-out computers that would give Watson a run for its money. Tech wizards who might have headed to Silicon Valley after graduation can now get schooled and land a job in the same place. And if they invent the next Facebook, well, we can say we saw it coming.
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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).
Introducing: Elle M’a Dit, Baldwin Village’s modern take on traditional Alsatian food
Outside Elle M’a Dit, the new Baldwin Street Alsatian bistro (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Elle M’a Dit, a new Alsatian restaurant, is the latest spot to open up on the popular Baldwin Street strip. Husband-and-wife team Gregory Furstoss and Tory Yang opened their doors in early June, and are hoping to put a modern twist on staples from France’s northeastern Alsace region, renowned for its melting pot cuisine.
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Toronto Taste 2011: We get the latest news from top chefs and restaurateurs from Woodlot, Buca, Nota Bene, O&B and many more
Rob Gentile (Buca), David Lee (Nota Bene), Andrea Nicholson (Great Cooks on Eight), Paul Boehmer (Böhmer), Teo Paul (Union)
Two thousand of Toronto’s food lovers and makers gathered at the ROM on Sunday for the 21st edition of Toronto Taste. The annual fundraiser—which raises money for Second Harvest—saw more than 60 restaurants and 30 beverage purveyors offering their best to the guests. Burgers and tacos might have been the plats du jour, but new restaurant openings seemed to be the hottest item on the plates of many chefs and restaurateurs we spoke to. Here’s what we heard from Buca’s Rob Gentile, Woodlot’s David Haman, Scarpetta’s Scott Conant, Splendido’s Victor Barry, Top Chef Canada contestants Dustin Gallagher and Andrea Nicholson and many more.
Top Chef Canada recap, episode 5: 11 little piggies
A toast to us! (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)
TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 5
Last night on Top Chef Canada, the competition moved into its second phase: some obvious underperformers have been eliminated, a leader pack is emerging, and the clowning around has died down. Tellingly, even when the contestants are shown in their underwear, they’ve got their game faces on. Here, our recap of an episode that contained everything from whole hogs to former military officers.
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Toronto chefs and Ontario wineries join forces for Japan earthquake relief dinner
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In response to the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week, a number of Toronto chefs and Ontario wine producers will be joining forces in a fundraiser on Sunday, March 27th, organized by Nobuyo Stadtländer, the business partner and wife of Michael Stadtländer.
