Roasted Nagano Pork Loin. Chive Pancake, Asian cucumber salad, soy glaze, smoked apple hoisin sauce. Great flavours with Asian accents; smoky, salty, sweet.
Despite having heard about it numerous times, I hadn’t made it out to Niagara Street Café until late last November. Boy, was I sorry that there weren’t any earlier visits. With time ticking away, I thought I’d post this sooner than later; it’s Chef Liu’s last week, and here’s why you want to check NSC out if you can! (more…)
Scrapple from the Hoof Café (2009-2011)
We know that pretty much everyone is open New Year’s Eve, but what about New Year’s Day? Outside of hotel restaurants and Chinatown, here’s a list I compiled of decent brunch and dinner eats for January 1, 2012. Got something to add? Do so in the comments. And… Happy New Year! (more…)
Had a yummy porchetta grilled cheese at Porchetta & Co (825 Dundas Street West) back in October. Gooey cheese, well-seasoned porchetta, and caramelized onion jam between two slices of white bread. Warm, sweet, and salty; it was toasty porky goodness on a lovely fall day. I hear that they’re offering it again today (Thursday, December 15, 2011) so if you’re in the area, you might want to drop by.
So this past weekend, I baked some of my chocolate chip cookies for Crafternoon Tea, a fund raiser tea and craft market combo. Run by fashion maven Nathalie-Roze, this was a good chance to have some treats, drink tea, and find locally-crafted goods for gifts, all in the same room. Though.. I was never sure if I was buying things for someone else or myself! Warning: many photos of food and crafts (mostly crafts) ahead. (more…)
For my first proper meal back on Swiss soil, I opted to have lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant. After looking at what was available, I chose Le Chat Botté at the hotel Beau Rivage. Framed by an intensely blue sky of a sunny spring day, the blindingly white and stately hotel faces Lake Geneva and the ever-familliar Jet d’Eau. Inside the restaurant, the too-bright sunlight was gently filtered by filmy curtains. The hum of French conversation, punctuated with the quiet pings of service, provided a layer of genteel white noise, muting the cacophony of construction on the street outside.
In my youth, I spent three months traipsing around a city of chocolate, clocks, and cows: Geneva, Switzerland. Ostensibly to refine my French, I revelled in my independence abroad. Given that I was almost 16, a “good kid,” and had a total of $400 for frivolous spending, you can imagine how not-crazy I was. Still, I have fond memories of this time and chuckle at how little I knew. So I took the opportunity to revisit Geneva back in April – this time with older eyes, a bigger budget, and most importantly: an empty stomach. (more…)
I love that Nota Bene has these salted caramel truffles as an after-dinner option. It’s got a liquid caramel centre that explodes on your tongue when you bite into it (pro-tip: pop the whole thing in your mouth and let it melt). Simple, delicious, and perfect for those times when you want something sweet, but not a full-on dessert. With that thought in mind, I stopped by on the way home last night to satisfy a post-meal craving. Had a pleasant surprise when they handed me the take-out box and told me it was on the house. I throughly enjoyed the truffles with a hot cup of premium osmathus oolong tea from Majesteas.
Wes Allen Spices. Meant to go back and take a better look, but never got around to it.
The post of stuff I ate over the weekend at Toronto Underground Market was already too long, so here are the remaining photos I had of vendors I didn’t manage to get to. At the end of the post is the list of all vendors (updated to 30/30!) that I could identify with sites and twitter handles that I could find. (more…)
Toronto’s interest in food and food events seems to have reached a fever-pitch; food trucks, food fundraisers, and the proliferation of farmer’s markets in every mall parking lot give a good indication of this. Latest on the scene is the Toronto Underground Market. Self-described as a “social food market,” cooks, both new entrepreneurs and seasoned chefs alike, can show off their culinary skills to ravenous crowds. (more…)
Try different sugars! Here, I used maple sugar from a sugar shack in Montreal.
I love molasses spice cookies. That chewy texture and deep molasses taste is so good, especially with a cup of coffee. Several years ago, I undertook a quest to find the right recipe that matched the molasses spice cookies that Starbucks had. I’m not sure I found the recipe, but after several taste-tests from my fellow SB addicts, we found one we liked and then of course, I tweaked it to my tastes. This one has a more pronounced molasses taste, as that’s what I love. I also dumped in some nutmeg and adjusted the quantities of the salt and other spices. (more…)
