Hate the long lines in the CNE food building? There's an APP for that.

Have you ever gone to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) and ventured into the Food Building to get food and have decided on what to get based on the shortest line?  Well what if you could just pick the food you want and skip the line?  

Well there is a NEW APP for that.  

The team at Grabb (an app that allows you to pre-order & pay for food at your favourite downtown Toronto restaurants) created the app that will allow you to pre-order your food while you are busy walking around the CNE and it will notify you when your order is ready. You can also order through Grabb's regular app.

You can download the APP for your IPHONE from the APP STORE and for ANDROID from GOOGLE PLAY.

When you place & pay for your order it goes to the restaurant on an iPad that is solely dedicated to The Food Building app orders. You will get a notification through the app when your food is ready. There is also a countdown that shows you approximately when you will get that notification so you can go on another ride, use the washroom, or continue spending time with friends until the moment your food is ready.

There are The Food Building signs at each partnering vendor so you can walk right up to that sign and get your food instead of waiting in the regular line! It's designed to make sure a lineup doesn't occur! 

The app can be used for these select vendors inside The Food Building

Vendors include:

• Pho 88 
• Fran's Restaurant 
• Pull'd 
• Epic Burgers & Waffles
• Jake's Lobster 
• Far East Taco 
• St. Louis 
• Mac N Cheesery 
• Just Cone It 
• Ye Olde Fudge Pot 
• Bouchard's Poutinery
• The Funnel Cake Shop 

This covers some of the new and most likely most popular vendors in the Food Building and foods such as  - Deep Fried Red Velvet Oreos, Pizza Cones, Double Bacon Grilled Cheese, Donut Burgers, Funnel Cake, etc.

 This is what the App looks like.

The Food Building is one of the most popular and most talked about features of the CNE. It’s predecessor, the Pure Food Building, was demolished in 1953 and the $1.5 million dollar structure, we know as the Toronto Star Food Building, was built in its place.

The building has become a hub for innovative and quirky food experiences. With local restaurants serving cuisines from around the world and vendors who return to serve traditional fair favourites every year, there really is something to suit every taste and every budget. 

I haven't been to the CNE yet this season but I am curious to see how this new APP works out for the convenience of people attending the EX.  If you try it let me know your experience with it.  I am going to try and go this week and will do another blog post on the foods I check out.

*Information provided by The Food Building Blog.  

For further info check out The Food Building website: http://thefoodbuilding.ca/

Has the food at the CNE gone too far?

I haven't been to the CNE so far this year but today there is a report that about 12 people got sick yesterday while at the CNE.  They are still trying to determine the common link but they think it may have originated in the FOOD BUILDING.    Has the CNE gone too far on allowing some of the food vendors to try and out do each other on how much deep fried grease laden foods they can dish up at the fair?

Normally I love to go to the CNE just for the food and see what new inventions they come up with,   but over the past few years it seems that they just come up with ideas to out fry each other and add bacon or butter on everything.   The Cronut craze wasn't enough of an artery clogger so they had to slap a cheeseburger in it and some bacon jam on top.   To be honest when I saw it on the news just looking at it made me feel sick.

How can you tell what food made you sick when you have a Cronut Burger with a Bacon Milkshake and a Lobster Roll followed by an Ice cream waffle... the Ice cream waffle is always my favourite treat...just because of the hot waffle really.    

All I know is there are a few things that are a recipe for disaster at the CNE if you aren't careful.   The FOOD Building is always HOT.   The days are long.   There are young kids who aren't planning careers in the food industry serving food.   People attending the fair spend hours walking in the sun and eating everything in sight and will probably eat about 4 times the calories they would eat on a normal day.  Then maybe add some rides that shake your body upside down like shaking a milkshake or think of it like shaking a hot bottle of pop...  What do you think will happen??  Yup.. It's all got to go somewhere.

Nothing will kill the attendance and a summer business more than the rumour of food poisoning coming from one of the vendors.  

Should the CNE reject foods that vendors want to serve based on what's safe or appropriate for the public?  Should the CNE monitor the food vendors more often?   Is it the CNE's responsibility or is it our own to be diligent when we eat out?   How do you really know if your food is safe?  You don't.

But here's what we can do.   Don't go overboard and eat things you would never eat on a normal day.  Think about travelling and what happens when you eat food in different countries.   Eating all the food in site at the CNE acts the same way in your body as introducing foreign food.  It doesn't like it.
If the temperature outside is extremely hot or you are overheated be careful what you eat.  Your system is already being taxed.   You may be dehydrated.  How many people do you see walking around swilling water?  Most people are drinking things like those monster pops which will dehydrate you even more.   A good option at the CNE is the fresh shaken Lemonade.  I love that.  It has lots of ice so it lasts a long time and has the detoxing effect from the fresh lemons.

There isn't a huge selection of super healthy options at the CNE.  You really need to hunt for them.   There are less offending foods if you know you might have an issue.   I have friends that have brought their own food.   For me that kills the fun of the EX and I don't want to be lugging anything around besides a bottle of water.

But here's an idea.   Maybe we should try and sway vendors into creating healthy but tasty options.    How about a Caprese Salad on a stick?  How about  Hummus dippers?  How about grilled Pineapple on a stick?    If they can get creative by deep frying butter and mars bars, why can't they come up with healthy decadent foods that people want to go there to try.

There is another option at the CNE for a couple of days.  They have the food trucks which serve up pretty fresh foods but even they have really high calorie options but some of them make an effort to add some lighter fare or at least super fresh foods because it's in their best interest to develop a fan base of people that will keep following them from event to event.  That's how they make a living.

The rumours of the Cronut Burger being the culprit of the food poisoning at the CNE may kills their summers business and may change the way we look at the foods at the CNE.   Is it about time?

What do you look for when you go to the CNE?

The Ex - Food Heaven or Hell?

The Ex not a great place to look for healthy food.

I have been feeling sick for the past few days so I haven't been in the mood to do any cooking or other heavy duty household duties.   But I was getting stir crazy at home and wanted to go down to the Ex today because it was the last day of the Food Truck Frenzy and the same day that my favourite Food Network Chef Chuck Hughes (Chuck's Day/Week Off) was doing a food demo... well more like chatting while his restaurant chef was doing some cooking.  I am starting to feel like I am stalking him at this point since I was sitting in the audience and listening to him talk and then all of a sudden he says "Hi" and looks in my direction.  I didn't even realize he was talking to me... so out of it still from being sick and just kind of didn't expect him to stop mid sentence and say hi.  So I had a 30 second delayed reaction and then all I did was wave... still out of it... he says "she doesn't look happy to see me"...  of course I was...   he was my diversion for the day so that I didn't sit at home being sick and feeling miserable.   Going to see Chuck is more like going to see a stand up comedian lately.   He spends the whole time telling stories, cracking jokes and answering questions.    I have been trying to arrange an interview with him for my documentary and finally met his publicist face to face.   I always find it weird to email someone you haven't met and ask for something when they have no clue who you are and if you are legit or not.   So now she knows who she has been emailing so that made the trip down to the Ex worth it.    I had to think about going today because it is getting really expensive to go to the EX these days unless you go after 5 which I have been doing the past couple of years.   But since it was the last food truck day and only day for Chuck Hughes I forked out the $16 admission price and because I wasn't feeling 100% I drove down and then had to dish out another $25 for parking.   Paying for parking was well worth it when I finally left and didn't have to wait for a packed bus to the station because by that time I had just left the FOOD Building Oven and was so hot I just wanted to drive up the parkway with the windows open.

I went into the Food Building to see what Bacon Nation was all about.  Bacon on a stick, bacon wrapped hot dogs and some other concoction with Nutella which just thinking about it makes you want to toss your cookies.

I was also on the lookout for other weird foods new to the Ex this year.  I walked by this booth and saw this picture of a hot dog in a chocolate eclair.  I used to love chocolate eclairs when I was a kid but this one I don't think so.

Then I spot this food vendor selling food in a cone.  I suppose this makes sense since there isn't really enough seats to sit down and eat your food properly in the Food Building and since it's a million degrees in there anyway it's always better to hand hold your food while walking out of the building.  They had Sheppard's Pie in a cone and some chicken thing and a few others savoury things I can't even remember now.

So it made me wonder if this was Foodie Heaven or Hell?  Most things were either stuffed in a bun, deep fried, with bacon,  sweet and savoury mix or all of the above as in the case of the krispy kreme hamburger or the eclair dog.   All I kept thinking about is all the people with The Ex Food hangover that had to go and buy some pepto bismol or tums to get through their day.   All the sick little kids hurling all over the place and the parents saying "never again" but then doing it again the next year.

What about the people who are Vegan, Vegetarian, eat only Kosher or Halal or Raw food diets.   I guess the Ex would be Hell for them.
Is it Heaven or Hell for a foodie or food blogger?  It was kind of a mix of both for me.

The Heaven this year was the lineup of Food Truck Frenzy where I picked up some Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos from the Gourmet Gringos food truck.  Even though the fish was fried it had a nice light fresh batter with some crunchy slaw to balance the hot/cold/greasy/fresh taco.   One of my other favourite food trucks Buster's Sea Cove who had their Lobster Roll and Shrimp and Fish Tacos had a huge lineup.  I would have gone for that but decided to try one of the other trucks to see how it compares.  It was good but Buster's is still my fav.

A couple of hours later I went back to the food trucks but wasn't in the mood for the mostly brisket and pulled pork and taco options that the trucks had so I ventured into the Food building to see what I could get.

I managed to find a baked potato vendor and had a mexican baked potato.  There you go... something not deep fried.   Only one person in the line ahead of me.   The big lineups were for all the deep fried, greasy, heart stopping foods you could find at the Ex.  So I suppose it's like a license to eat whatever you wouldn't normally eat when you  go to the Ex.




One of my All Time favourite things I almost always get when I go to the Ex is the Waffle Ice Cream Sandwich.   The Hot Waffle sandwiched between the cold ice cream hits all the sensory spots.  Cool and refreshing and also warm and comforting.   A friend of mine just went to the Ex and had almost the same things to eat as I did.   So there is food for everyone there.   You just have to do a little searching to find it.

The Food at the Ex.. Heaven or Hell?  
You Decide.