Event - Taste of the Hill

After all of the jam packed Toronto street festivals I have visited this summer I decided to visit one more in the GTA and see if there was a difference.   I decided to go to the TASTE of the HILL after seeing my friend Denise who owns the Petits Chefs Academy in Vaughan was going to have a booth set up there.  It was a sunday afternoon and the subway was closed from Eglinton to Bloor and street closures happening for Buskerfest and the South Asian festival on Gerrard, the Taste of Manila on Bathurst and all the other construction blockages in town so I decided to high tail it away from all the blockages and traffic jams in the city and headed up to Richmond Hill for a change.  To be honest it was a whole lot easier getting to this festival for me than it was getting to any of the other festivals in Toronto.   I went from the 401 East to the 404 and north to Elgin Mills and poof I was there.  I think it took less than 1/2 an hour to get there.  It takes a lot longer for me to get downtown on a normal day.

 It was the perfect weather to be at an outdoor festival, although I did see a few people with umbrellas or sitting in the shade during the afternoon sun.

This festival was all about the multi-cultural family in Richmond Hill and they had activities for kids such as my friend Denise's mini cooking class for kids and there were Watermelon eating contests and lots of varied cultural musical acts.

Before I get to the food I have to mention that when I got there I found that there was FREE PARKING because it was held at a community centre but the festival was held outside.   Not only was it free, it was easy to get in and out and they had young cadets managing the traffic flow.  I wish more festivals did this.

The festival was totally free except for the food vendors.

The Food.

What I had was very good.  I got a skewer of pork from Liko's for $2.50 when I first got there.  It was delicious.

After wandering around and hanging out with my friend Denise for a while I went back to get more food.  Unfortunately since I drove all highway to get there I didn't have a chance to stop at a bank machine to get more cash so I only had just over $10 left for food.   I had just enough to get a combo meal from Touro Brazilian Streakhouse but it was totally worth it.  A full and healthy meal of Brazilian Beef that is roasted over coals and black beans, rice and the bbq'd pineapple which has become one of my favourite things lately.

Other food vendors on site were the Caplansky's food truck, Kettle Corn vendor, an Italian vendor, an Indian Food Vendor, fries, ice cream truck, and a few others.  It was a nice variety.


There were plenty of chairs in front of the two moveable trailer stages and picnic tables behind them.  Lot's of room to sit down and eat or watch the entertainment for a change.   The food was spread out around the whole area instead of crammed in one place so people could wander around through the whole event.

It was all held on the grass outdoor space of a community centre so it was easy to walk around and not as hot as concrete would have been.  There were a few shade trees that a few people huddled under as well.

I only found one thing that was missing.  There was a booth set up for Scotiabank but there wasn't a bank machine in site.  Because I had limited cash I would have liked to hit up a bank machine and pick up some vegetables at the little farmer's market that was set up there.   Since it was cash only for everything I had limited funds to spread around.

The only sad thing was that it didn't have a huge turnout.  It was respectable but they could have had room for a lot more people.   I have seen worse festivals with more people in Toronto.












It was a nice event though.  Very chilled and still great for a family.   Probably not of interest to teens and young adults though.