Here’s a round-up of the food & drink articles in Toronto’s papers today…
National Post:
- Gina Mallet is unimpressed that none of the meat being served at the "Wild Game Feastivül" at Bier Markt is actually wild. She notes that it's due to regulations that don't allow wild game to be served in restaurants, but isn't it misleading of Bier Markt to suggest that they're serving something they're not?
- Margaret Swaine picks three intense New World reds from today's Vintages release.
- Amy Rosen looks past the labels and discovers that so-called "eco-friendly" salmon may not be so eco-friendly after all.
- A. Brouwer and A. Wilson convene a Shelf Life panel to establish which butter is better than the other butters.
- Bonnie Stern offers recipes inspired by Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood, as served at a recent gathering of her monthly book club where Ms. Atwood herself was the guest of honour.
Globe & Mail:
- Joanne Kates stops by Jam Café, a cheap and cheerful Cabbagetown bistro that is popular with many in the neighbourhood. But as Kates notes, even a $19 prix fixe isn't much of a deal if the food isn't very good.
- Beppi Crosariol has good things to say about Russian Standard Vodka, a new arrival on LCBO shelves, is also happy to see Donald Ziraldo, co-founder of Inniskillin, returning to the wine world with a 2007 Riesling Icewine.
- Sebastien Centner shares some simple formulas to help calculate how much food and drink you'll need for your holiday party.
- Lucy Waverman brings back a few recipes from a trip to Vancouver, where the food keeps getting better and better.
- Mark Schatzker offers a satirical look at the recently released Toronto food book Edible City, with (fake) excerpts from (fake) rejected essays.
- Eric Reguly looks at the continuing depletion of bluefin tuna stocks, and wonders why an organization that is supposed to be protecting the tuna is actually allowing them to be fished into extinction.
- Doug Wallace dines at Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (try saying that three times fast - or even once, for that matter) and other great restaurants in Hawaii.
- Barbara Ramsay Orr visits a saffron farm in a most unlikely location: on a mountain in Switzerland.
Toronto Star:
- Amy Pataki is probably pretty damn sick of burgers and onion rings, as she reviews the combos from six of the city's gourmet burger joints, four of which have opened in the just the last few weeks. She's also got some local restaurant news.
- Gord Stimmell manages to find a few good values amidst the flood of high-priced bottles in today's Vintages release.
- Jennifer Bain goes from Saucy Lady to Log Lady this week, as she grows a batch of shiitakes on a specially inoculated mushroom log.
- Corey Mintz learns a bit about pairing food and wine by inviting sommeliers Jamie Drummond and Anton Potvin over for dinner.
- Ben Stubbs explores Vietnam beyond the usual tourist spots, and learns that there's more to Vietnamese food than phở, and much of it isn't very appealing to Western palates.
- Margaret Webb reports that due to her recent article on the issue, organic turkey farmers in Ontario have been given permission to raise their birds outside, thanks to some concessions on the part of the Turkey Farmers of Ontario marketing board.
- Rick Westhead profiles Steve Judge and Peter Harvey, two Torontonians who are having great success selling beer in India.
