Posted by Sheryl Kirby in news and media, rag round-up on May 15, 2008 at 5:26 pm

Patio season. When Torontonians gleefully sit on the side of the road to eat their dinner surrounded by exhaust fumes, cigarette smoke and mosquitoes. Okay, maybe I'm a bit of a crank - there are some decent patios out there, and this week both NOW and Eye offer up their definitive guides to the best the city has to offer. At NOW, Steven Davey sorts his selections by categories like best people-watching or best view, with a TOP 10 list for the various categories as well. At Eye they're offering a straight-up, sorted by neighbourhood-type listing.

Eye's also got a piece about sustainable seafood by Pasha Malla that looks at the book Bottomfeeder by Taras Grescoe. However, I'm a tad confused by Malla's idea that Canada is not a country that eats or cooks a lot of fish...

While organic meat and produce are regulars on many conscious shoppers’ grocery lists, when it comes to seafood, in Canada we remain somewhat in the dark. Ours isn’t a culture, like many European, Asian and African societies, that prizes fish cookery. While we’re quick to scarf back popcorn shrimp at Red Lobster or sashimi platters on the Bloor sushi strip, home preparation remains an especially alien — perhaps even daunting — prospect. The average Canadian might have vague notions that farmed salmon are “bad,” that Chilean sea bass are endangered and that dolphin-friendly canned tuna is the most ecologically sound choice, but beyond these popular taboos, we’re generally clueless.

Sweeping generalizations are never a good idea, and it's pretty safe to say that Malla's comments might reasonably apply to Torontonians, but not necessarily the entire population of a country with the longest coastline in the world. Go ahead - tell someone in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia that they don't know anything about fish or how to cook it.

Also in NOW, Davey's got a Fresh Dish column just about patios; Graham Duncan looks at stuff people drink on patios; Wayne Roberts explores the regional cuisines of Japan; and Paul Terfenko offers a primer on sushi.

At Metro, Rick McGinnis profiles newly-opened Grace on College Street, and looks at the reaction at Carlsberg to the boom in imported beer. Marcy Cornblum interviews Natalie McMaster about her favourite foods, and Billy Munnelly finds that despite their fluffy reputation, there are decent California wines available in the recent LCBO promotion.