Twilight Tuesdays Popup Event

 What happens when you get three popular downtown restaurants together for a summer pop up event?  A long line up for some tasty food.   The chefs/owners of Momofuku, The Gabardine and the Drake One Fifty got together in a tiny Parkette on York Street right beside the Drake One Fifty for a series of Tuesday pop ups in August, called Twilight Tuesdays.

I have a feeling the event came together something like this.  I know a bunch of these guys were probably at the Taste of Toronto and decided that they liked hanging out together doing outdoor food events so they thought, hey let's get together and make some food in a small parkette on slow Tuesday nights in August and maybe a few regulars will show up and if they don't we will just hang out and eat.

Well more than a few regulars and some new food loving people showed up to try the $5 a plate eats while squeezing into did I mention a tiny little parkette.  I think they got a little overwhelmed by the turnout.  The Gabardine had little disposable boat dishes to plate their fried chicken and I heard them say they only had about 100 of them. They ran out pretty fast and I think they had to wait to get plates and more food.

They were frying their chicken bites on the spot using a tiny little T Fal fryer.  So as you might imagine there was a bit of a wait between batches to get the chicken.   But it was worth the wait.  You had to wait in pretty long lines to get food and I ate the first chicken dish while waiting for the next line and decided to get another dish of the chicken from the next batch before I got to the next vendor which was Momofuku.   Momofuku served Bossam, a lettuce wrap filled with rice and pulled pork with condiments to put on top.  A little messy for a standing up food.  Then I moved on to the Drake One Fifty line up for Eggplant on Pita rounds and some skewered Beef.  They also had Porchetta which I wish I tried as well but I only had 2 tickets left and I knew I wanted to save one for one of Augie's Ice Pops, the last stand before I finished my rounds.  The Eggplant on the Pita was really great and the skewers were tasty too.   I heard the Porchetta was really great as well.  They didn't seem to push that for some reason.

I finished it all up with a Vietnamese Coffee Ice Pop from Augies Ice Pops.  I have had one of these Ice pops before and they are excellent.   I had to eat that one pretty quickly before it melted but it tasted so good.

It was a perfect night for an outdoor Pop up  under a beautiful Sari tent.  As you can see from the photo to the left there was a line up down York Street.  The Pop pup was from 5-9pm and I arrived at 6pm to a small line up that grew larger by 6:30pm.

These pop ups will happen Tuesdays until the end of August and I hope for every one's sake that they rain stays away on the normally crazy weather Tuesdays we have been having this summer.

 It really brought out the large passionate foodie community who are starving for events like this one.  City Hall take note... we want to see more of these little pop ups and food trucks around the city and less formal expensive restaurants that are pretentious, boring and predictable.

I have been to The Gabardine, Momofuku and the Drake One Fifty before.  I have to say that the Gabardine is my favourite with their great comfort food.  They all have a steady stream of regular clientele which is a sign of a good restaurant.

I hope to check out a few more of these pop ups but I will make sure I go early and get in line.  I do hope they change up the menu each week though to keep it interesting.