Oh RATS! The big news this week seems to be all about the photographs of a hefty collection of live rats in the window of The Dumpling House taken by a passerby and sent off to BlogTO. What astounds me is that people think this is uncommon. Having lived in Kensington Market in the late 80s, I spent a lot of time wandering Spadina Avenue in the wee hours of the morning and have come across some rather disturbing sights, the worst of which was probably a couple dozen mice frolicking in a pan of spare ribs in the window of what is still one of Spadina's most popular dining spots. We were told in safety and sanitation class at cooking school that the City of Toronto actually had two sets of restaurant guidelines - one for Chinatown and one for the rest of the city. Not sure how true that actually is/was, but seeing live rodents in food prep areas, or on the food itself, is a definite squick.
In (hopefully) cleaner restaurant news, BlogTO also has reviews of linuxcaffe, El Gordo Fine Foods, and Solferino Gelato.
At Posted Toronto, Catherine MacDonald reports that an Etobicoke couple are suing Bolthouse Farms over the tainted carrot juice that was sold last year. Lori of BlogUT has a post about vegetarian cooking classes, and Eric Vellend of Menumental reviews Le Paradis.
Suresh heads back to the gym at Spotlight Toronto after a very busy Winterlicious season, but only makes it a couple of days before heading to lunch at Linda.
At Gremolata, Ivy Knight interviews Christoph Stadtlander about his smoked salmon, Peter Troyer has a primer for ordering wine, Zoltan Szabo has tasting notes for the wines from Hidden Bench, Malcolm Jolley reviews Château Peyros 'Magenta', Madiran, and the Gremotraveller hits Tampa.
James Chatto has a recap of the Canadian Culinary Championships at Toronto Life, and David Lawrason is stoked that Australia's Henschke wines are coming to the LCBO.
