Taste of Toronto

Wow, I've been MIA from blogging for a while! Time sure flies! We moved homes recently and then summer happened - patios, street festivals, fishing - you get the gist. But the eating never stopped so I'll try to catch you up on all my eating adventures in the next few blog posts. The most recent being Taste of Toronto - the 1st ever of its kind in the city - a melange of celebrity chefs, noted restos with some up and comers, wines/spirits and artisan producers. With an entrance fee of $30 and about $6-$10 tapas-style dishes, it's definitely not for the cash-strapped food aficionado, which is why I was delighted to win entrance tickets from Grey County Tourism and Nespresso. THANK YOU! 

I was super excited to try Barque Smokehouse so we had one of everything they offered - because that's how we do. First up, smoked duck tacos with pickled radish, carrots, crispy fried chicken skin

and a hoisin BBQ sauce. A bit too sweet for my liking and not enough smokiness. Also, for $6, two of them would have been nice, but a sad lonely fellow sat on the plate. Their second offering was smoked dry rub chicken wings ($8). Again, where is my smoke, fellas? It was just average. 

Lastly, we had the baby back ribs served with a potato, corn and candied smoked bacon salad and finished with pickled vegetable ($10). This was better than the first two but again, too sweet. People, barbeque does not mean sweet!!! ARGH.

After a disappointing start, we made our way to El Caballito/Los Colibris to try their pollo con mole: 

cemita bread, mole poblano, pulled chicken, white onion, avocado. Delicioso! Nice juicy chicken, bold flavours and great texture from the chips. Also good portion size for a $6 tapas - take note Barque.

On to The Harbord Room/THR & Co for their crab & prawn roll, pickled cucumber, avocado, crispy 

bacon & chips ($10). Although a bit messy, it was quite refreshing and tangy. I didn't quite get the chip combination - it didn't seem to go together because the chips overpowered the delicate seafood but meh, I love chips.

At this point, we were parched so we ducked in for a quick wine tasting. The theme: wines of California. We tasted two whites and two reds. a) Barefoot Chardonnay - shitty wine; b) Ghost Pines Chardonnay - mediocre; c) Louis Martini cabernet sauvignon from Sonoma - light and one dimensional and d) Louis Martini cabernet sauvignon from Napa - bolder, heavier with an awesome mouth feel. 

Now that we felt better about life, we made a beeline toward McEwan only to find the longest lineup ever. Not to worry, right beside the epic lineup, we saw a dude roll up cheese in what seemed to be, gasp, maple syrup! We had to try it. Three kinds of cheeses - cheddar, blue and gouda; I tried the gouda. OH-MY-GOD! Why haven't I tried this before? It was smoky, cheesy, sweet, gooey....one of the best things I tried that night. 

Apart from the paid food, there was quite a lot of free stuff - some of which were even better than the paid stuff! For example, the breadfruit cracker topped with a fish ceviche and mango salsa from the Barbados crew and the braised bison in a sesame seed cone.

After some freebies, I was really curious to try JaBistro's oshizushi: blowtorched and pressed sushi with shrimp, mackerel and salmon. It was perfect: didn't need any soy, wasabi...nothing. This is how it's done.

Another Asian dish we tried was Guu's takoyari: deep fried octopus balls with tonkatsu sauce & karashi mayo. I've never had it before so I have nothing to measure it against but I thought it was quite good. Then again, anything deep fried is a-okay with me.

The last thing we sampled was the pistachio and olive oil cake with strawberries, strawberry 

ice cream & crumbled meringue. Alas, the pistachio flavour wasn't strong enough but the warm cake with the cold fruit and ice cream was wonderful. No pic since it was too dark. All in all, a pretty decent night with awesome company thanks to free tickets!