I usually lead off this column each week with a look at the restaurant review in one of the three dailies, but today there’s much bigger news to report, as the Toronto Star has a front page story revealing that changes are coming to the provincial legislation that currently limits street cart food vendors to selling hot dogs and sausages. Health Minister George Smitherman was set to appear at the Taste of Lawrence festival today to make the official announcement, and a press release posted to the Ministry of Health website reveals that the new legislation, which goes into effect on August 1st, will allow street vendors to sell a much wider variety of food including:

• Pre-prepared, pre-packaged foods such as salads, fruits and baked goods.
• Pre-cooked foods that are reheated on site such as samosas, pizzas, burritos hamburgers and hot dogs.
• Lower-risk foods such as orange juice, corn on the cob, whole fruit and non-dairy smoothies.
• Local Medical Officers of Health will also have the discretion to approve additional menu items if they are satisfied that safeguards are in place to protect the public.

It might’ve been a bit more fitting if they’d held off until next Friday and revealed the news at the Toronto Street Treats Fair, but I guess the early announcement just means that Friday’s event will be a celebration of what’s soon to come, rather than an attempt to convince the province to change the rules as originally planned.

Moving on to the usual Saturday food stuff, Amy Pataki checks out C5 Restaurant Lounge in the controversial Crystal addition at the ROM, and she finds that the food doesn’t always meet the potential of the surroundings:

Sadly, I can smell the wild bass delivered two tables over, and both the sea urchin and the scallops in a signature mid-course plate ($22) fail the freshness test. The crab in vanilla-crab-corn bisque is muted, another example of diverse flavours that fail to harmonize. (Step forward, blue cheese-asparagus-ham salad. You, too, pappardelle with smoked duck prosciutto and favas.)

There are moments, though, when it all goes exceedingly well.

[Chef Teddy] Corrado turns pulled pork on its ubiquitous ear and does pulled rabbit ($24) instead. He braises whole rabbit in chicken stock, then shreds the meat into a delicate puff pastry shell; citrus zest cuts the richness. Literally over the top is a creamy nugget of sweetbread coated with mild Basque Espelette peppers. Fresh peas loll around, echoing the creamy pea sauce. It is, as the Brits would say, “the business.”

Pataki also gives a brief sidebar about the other new ROM restaurant, the cafeteria-style Food Studio.

Also in the Star:

• Gordon Stimmell picks five winning wines from today’s Vintages release.
• Marion Kane somehow manages to convince Keith Froggett of Scaramouche to share the recipe for their much loved deep-fried calamari with lemon aioli.
• Susan Sampson reviews the massive America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, and tests out the book’s recipe for lemon bars.
• Sonia Day talks with Gayla Trail of urban gardening website You Grow Girl about the trend towards city folk growing more and more of their own veggies.
• David Rider tries to find Toronto’s best bagel with the often conflicting advice and a slew of local experts.
• In the Travel section, Richard Ouzounian reports on six places to eat in Prague.

Over in the Globe & Mail, their Canada-wide summer review series Cheat Eats finally makes a stop in Toronto, courtesy of Liz Allemang and her rave review of Banjara Indian Cuisine:

It’s rare for a dish to make the entire dining room fall silent in awe. Tandoori chicken ($15.95) and tandoori salmon filet ($10.95) draw envious glances as they are ushered, steam billowing and their sizzle deafening, to a table of wide-eyed fortysomethings, who immediately cease their critical analysis of the Harper cabinet to focus on the flesh, retina-burning red, before them. Succulent, their verdict.

No local artisanal bakery can hold a baguette to Veerella’s breads. Made to order with organic honey, rye and whole-wheat flour, naans, roti (both $1.95) and paratha ($2.95) are complex in taste and texture. They’re substantial, buttery, almost diaphanous.

Also in the Globe:

• Beppi Crosariol comes to the defence of the much-maligned Sauvignon Blanc.
• Lucy Waverman declares that when it comes to making the perfect burger, it’s really all about the toppings.
• Sasha Chapman eschews the usual fresh produce theme of her To Market column, and satiates her sweet tooth with some chocolate fudge cake from the new Beach location of Dufflet Pasteries.

In the National Post, Gina Mallet takes a celiac friend out to Tutti Matti, where they’re not as sympathetic as hoped to her friend’s serious wheat gluten allergy:

Hilary brandishes her celiac card, which lists all forbidden foods. [...] My heart sinks at the way the bored [maitre d'] sighs and beckons over a very young chef, Andrew, who nods but doesn’t take Hilary’s card. Hilary says that sympathetic chefs often adjust a dish for her. Here no one offers to go through the menu with her. She wants faggottini, a chickpea-flour crepe stuffed with asparagus, radicchio, mixed Italian cheeses and truffle honey. No good, calls out the chef. Blameless chickpea is mixed with wheat flour.

Wait a minute — I bet a Tuscan chef would have been happy to whip up a chickpea-flour-only crepe for a celiac patient — take him less than 10 minutes. After all, the resto’s empty. I wonder where [owner & head chef] Alida Solomon is. “She’s gone out for a while,” mumbles the bored one. “She’ll be back.” Mamma mia!

Oh, and the food apparently isn’t that great, either.

Also in the Post:

• Michael Vaughan runs through several Sauvignon Blancs - plus a single blended red - from today’s Vintages release.
• Jon Bricker and Kate Swoger swoon over the Shanghai-style dumplings at Markham dim sum spot Ding Tai Fung.
• A byline-free (online, at least) feature article delves into the dark secrets behind local larger-than-life food personality Marty Galin.
• Adam McDowell gives a comparative run-down on three foodie-friendly street fests - this weekend’s Corso Italia Fiesta and Taste Of Lawrence, and the upcoming (August 11th) newcomer Taste Of Albion-Islington.
• Sarah Lazarovic pens a brief piece about the vintage neon sign at Parkdale’s Skyline Restaurant, one of the few classic diner marquees still remaining in Toronto.
• A wire service article by Bonnie Walker wonders if the movie Ratatouille will increase the popularity of the dish of the same name.
• Bonnie Stern is happy to see more people cooking with chicken thighs (and as a dark meat lover, I agree with her).
• Kevin Baker writes an amusing letter to potato chip maven Miss Vickie (who I’m pretty sure isn’t actually a real person, but let’s not upset Mr. Baker…).