Once a rarity in Ontario, fruit beers have become more common and more popular in recent years, thanks in part to the LCBO’s summer beer promotions which generally spotlight several different fruit-flavoured offerings. These limited releases, as well as those fruit beers that can be found on shelves year round, usually feature such traditional flavours as raspberry (Framboise), cherry (Kriek) and peach (Pêche).

However, these seasonal releases have also featured strange brews that have elicited a hearty “what the HELL??!?” reaction from local beer aficionados. Past years have brought us several remarkably sweet beers from Florisgaarden, a low-alcohol flavoured beer line-up brewed by Belgium’s Brouwerij Huyghe. More recently, our benevolent provincial alcohol overlords have started carrying selections from Chapeau, an imprint used by another Belgian brewery, Brouwerij De Troch, for a series of fruit lambics that range from the traditional to the downright bizarre.

Continue reading Beer of the Week - Chapeau Banana »

Buddha Dog Toronto
163 Roncesvalles Avenue
416-534-2007
Dinner for two (dogs and a salad) including taxes, tips and two lemonades: $23

I’d heard all about Picton’s award-winning hot dogs and sauces. Naturally, I was curious to try Buddha Dog Toronto’s new west-end location to savour what Toronto Life called “Genius” and Reader’s Digest dubbed “Best Hotdog in Canada.” Their snappy black and white menu introduces newbies like me to the concept announcing, “We were founded on a very simple philosophy - showcase the best regional flavours by bringing together exceptional local suppliers to hand make our dogs, buns, cheeses and ever-changing list of unique sauces.” OK, I thought - batter up.

Continue reading Dog Gone Tasty! »

At Unknown Toronto, Sarah’s got a list of slow, local and eco-friendly food events coming up. The House on Parliament is this week’s “Local” at Eye. John at BlogUT reviews the foodie movie of the summer, Ratatouille, and Catherine Jheon of Beyond Burgers heads to the east end for ice cream at Ed’s Real Scoop.

Suresh at Spotlight Toronto heads up to C5 for a fantastic view and a fabulous meal, while Posted Toronto interviews Rosa Marinuzzi about the re-opening of Seven Numbers on Eglinton West.

Continue reading The Wide, Wide World of Web - Monday, July 30th »

Mid-town Toronto is more than just Yonge and Eglinton. Just one block south is one of the busiest business intersections in this part of town. Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue is home to an assortment of people from business people to creative types and street peddlers. Standard Broadcasting Corporation (CFRB, Mix 99.9, EZ Rock) makes its home at the northwest intersection, and CHUM is just a short walk south. There are also government offices on the west and east side of Yonge, confusing many poor souls looking for one office only to end up in the other. The wild variety of people and businesses is easily reflected by the types of great cuisine available in the area.

Continue reading Neighbourhoods: Yonge and St. Clair »

Two of Chinatown’s most venerable vegetarian restaurants are on the move, one to a location a few blocks west, and the other to a spot yet to be determined. Cafe 668 (668 Dundas Street West) is the former, with their new location at 885 Dundas Street West looking close to completion, and very swank to boot.

Meanwhile, mock meat haven Bo De Duyen (254 Spadina Avenue) is facing a fast-approaching lease expiry and they are unsure where they’ll be moving. As reported on their Facebook fan group, they’re hoping to find a new downtown location, but failing that, they will likely relocate to the less convenient Dundas and St. Clair area where the owner has a mixed residential/commercial building.

Continue reading T.O. Tidbits - Monday, July 30th »

I know nothing about regular wine. I spent much of my adult life fighting off allergies that came to a head while I lived in a house with a serious but unknown mold problem. Wine – red or white – killed me. Besides the inevitable headaches (migraines, really), I’d also become slightly anaphylactic – getting stuffed up and uncomfortable.

A relative turned me on to blueberry wine from down east. Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia all have wineries that make various styles of blueberry wine, and where the grape-based wines made me all kinds of miserable, it turns out that wine from other fruits does not contain the histamines present in grape wines, and I could drink to my heart’s content.

Except that the availability of fruit wines in the LCBO is minimal with only about a half dozen on offer – mostly dessert wines - and often only seasonally. So when I discovered that the Ontario Wine Society was hosting an event that featured non VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) eligible products, and that most of the offerings were fruit wines, I was happy to fill in for our resident wine expert Sasha Grigorieva and do some sampling myself.

Continue reading Turning Apples - and Berries and Peaches and Maple Syrup - Into Wine »

Cynthia Beretta tells me she was raised on garden-grown food by an Italian mother who was “ahead of her time” when it came to eating organic.

The key to spotting trends must run in the family. When Cynthia and her husband Mike bought their first farm in Wingham, ON, in 1993 and converted it to organic to raise their livestock, there wasn’t much public awareness about a green lifestyle. But after moving to a bigger farm in King City and experiencing an organic craze about three years ago, the business at Beretta Organic Farms is booming.

Continue reading An Organic Kind of Life »

While there have been a couple of flashy, upscale restaurants opening in town this summer, most of our recent arrivals have been laidback bistros and other friendly neighbourhood spots. Gina Mallet visits a few of them - including Cluck, Grunt & Low, Citizen, Foxley Bistro, and Crepes a GoGo - for her National Post review this week, and of course, her own neighbourhood spot comes out on top:

Veronique Perez has made [Crepes a GoGo] into a little bit of Paris on Yorkville between Bay and Yonge. Seats about 20, sound by boulevardiers such as Maurice Chevalier, umbrellas over the outside tables, crepe-makers swirling the batter expertly over 18-inch hot rings to produce crinkly, crunchy gluten-free crepes, which are folded into envelopes of toothsome fillings — my favourites are Dinamique (Brie, basil and tomato) and Rive Droite (smoked salmon, dilled scrambled egg and spinach). The house-made limonana spiked with mint is so good I now stock my fridge with it, and Perez makes one the best cafe au laits in town. Because I go there all the time, I cannot say a word against it, which is how all locals feel, or should feel, about their own local.

Continue reading In The Papers - Saturday July 28th »

Well, here is yet another worthy rosé to indulge in both this summer and all year round: I am speaking of Tavel, which is actually the most famous and prestigious rosé of France (hence the special blazon-embossed bottle). Tavel is the name of the village in the Southern Rhône Valley, a short drive from Avignon and other fascinating towns of French Provence; wine of the same name has been made in the area since 1716.

It is made of a blend of traditional Rhône Valley grapes: Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah (a.k.a. Shiraz), Mourvedre and other varietals (local white varietals like Clairette and Bourboulenc are also included into the blend). The picked grapes are macerated in their skins up to two days before fermentation, and the result is a wine of intense rosy-orange colour and heady, rich, fruity bouquet.

Continue reading Saturday Wine Ruminations - a Classic French Rosé »

Living just a quick walk from the CNE grounds, we headed down to the M!M!M! festival last night to check out the food vendors before everything got too busy. It was grey and overcast, and felt like we were in for some rain, so the opening acts on the Bandshell stage played to a very small crowd. It’s sure to be packed today and tomorrow though, and if all the performances, readings and vendors don’t entice you, then maybe the food will.

Continue reading Masala! Mehndi! Masti! Yum! »

Gina Mallet’s got some hand-wringing going on in her blog this week as she discusses the prospect of new taxes on alcohol and how they might affect restaurants. Will people eat out less if the taxes on wine are higher? Will tourists stop coming here if the taxes in restaurants are raised (despite being able to get a refund on taxes when they return home?) Is this even an issue at council right now? What say you, TasteTO readers - would you stop eating out as much if municipal taxes on alcohol were added to the bill? Or are certain restaurateurs just too whiny for their own good?

Over at Creampuffs in Venice, Ivonne bids farewell to summer strawberries with a tart. But does she know that a certain vendor who frequents both the Nathan Phillips Square and Metro Hall farmer’s markets grows everbearing strawberries that are available until October? I’ve got some in the fridge right now.

Continue reading Blog-A-Log - Friday, July 27th »

Granowska’s
175 Roncesvalles Avenue
416-533-7755

Last year I had dinner at a friend’s place in a Polish pocket of Toronto. She served the most tremendous pierogi I had ever had. The kind I had difficulty sharing. It had to be homemade. Nope, she said. They were from a shop “just over there,” pointing at Roncesvalles Avenue.

I decided to find this shop, with a neighbourhood tip that it was called Granowska’s. About halfway down the Roncesvalles strip, there it was. At tables inside and out, people speaking Polish were amassed drinking coffee and eating pastries. It’s no wonder why.

Continue reading In The Back Freezer at Granowska’s »

The 12th annual edition of Toronto’s Festival of Beer is rapidly approaching, and this year they’re expanding beyond their traditional Friday-to-Sunday schedule with a Thursday night “gala event”, the Bowmans Ball.

Presented by MIX 99.9 at Fort York on Thursday August 9th from 4pm to 10pm, the Bowmans Ball will feature beer and food samples, a poker competition with a chance to win a trip for two to Oktoberfest in Germany from itravel2000.com and Contiki Tours, and a performance by the legendary Canadian folk-rock band pictured above.

Why are we not telling you the name of the band? Because if you can tell us who they are, you’ll have a chance of winning a pair of tickets to the Ball (a $70 value!).

EDIT: The contest is now closed. Congratulations to all the winners! The correct answer is Spirit Of The West.

Continue reading Contest: Toronto’s Festival of Beer - Bowmans Ball »

Here’s a summary of the food/drink and other community & cultural events taking place around town in the next seven days. For full details on these and many future happenings, visit our Events page.

Friday July 27th

• Global Hip Hop: The 4 Elements (continues until July 29th) - Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West
• LCBO Summerhill Premium Beer Festival (continues until July 28th) - LCBO Summerhill, 10 Scrivener Square
• Masala! Mehndi! Masti! (continues until July 29th) - Bandshell Park and Better Living Centre, Exhibition Place
• Scarborough Taste (continues until July 31st) - various restaurants & prices

Continue reading T.O. Events for July 27th-August 2nd »

Mittomi Sushi & Bar
699 Bloor Street West
416-533-2888
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and sake: $55

Recollections of my first sake-soaked sushi meal several years ago are hazy, except for the unexpected and utterly sensual delight of salmon sashimi melting on my tongue. It remains a shining, transcendent food memory for me. Although I’m not otherwise doing much damage to the world’s ocean inhabitants, I count it a very good day when I get my chopsticks around a juicy, intensely-coloured piece (or several) of raw salmon. As a result, I find myself in Mittomi as often as possible to get my fix, even though I no longer live in the neighborhood.

Continue reading Salmon on My Mind at Mittomi »