Smorgasburg Toronto Food Festival

 My blog has had a bit of a hiatus due to Covid 19 restrictions and the fact that there really wasn't anything going on and I was just tired.  Tired of working from home and being limited to what I could do compared to what I used to do.  I was also growing tired of going to festivals before the pandemic because the TTC made it challenging to get around.  So I took a longer than planned break.   In May I finally went to a big Food Event with the Restaurant Canada Show at the Enercare centre.  That was a big deal to see friends, meet new people and eat food at an event again.  

On Saturday I returned to my heart of events.  The Outdoor food festival.  I have been following Smorgasburg in New York on social media for a while and drooling over all the amazing looking food.  So when I found out that Toronto was going to get a Smorgasburg too I got really excited.  What makes Smorgasburg amazing is the unique food you can get in one place.  I then found out that Toronto Food writer Suresh Doss was going to be curating it and I thought it wasn't going to be like all the other Toronto food festivals that usually have the same vendors.  I actually got really excited to go on saturday morning to the 2nd day of 8 consecutive Saturdays until September 10th.  I was so determined to go that I was even going to go by myself and then my friend sent me info about it and I told her I was already planning on going and she said she was able to join me.  Normally I don't ask because she has a young child but the stars aligned for a glorious saturday.  The weather was perfect, a slightly breezy 27 degrees and the Festival is located at 7 Queens Quay East just by the lake in a parking lot just beside where you would get on a ferry boat and the Harbour Castle hotel.  The reason I didn't go to week one was because most weekends the Line 1 of the Subway is closed because of the Eglinton crosstown but I noticed it never closes on long weekends so this was the perfect weekend to go.  It was Caribana weekend so there were lots of people all around all ready to play Mas and the locals had headed to the cottages.  

full video on Instagram Reels @lindamatarasso

I haven't been excited about much in a long time but this made me feel like the old me.  Excited to see what new foods I could try and hang out by the lake with my friend too.

I was not disappointed.  The skies were blue with puffy clouds that said enjoy the day.  The festival is located in a parking lot and it's only about a 5 minute walk from the Queens Quay streetcar stop.  Really easy to find.  First you see a line of food trucks, not part of the festival and I don't know if they are usually there but ok you got options.  It was so great to see such diverse foods from all over Toronto and not the usually downtown restaurants that normally do a lot of festivals.  I love them but I wanted to try a lot of things I haven't tried all in one place.  

I am not sure how adventurous I was but I enjoyed everything I ate.   My friend Joanne and I tried to share as many things as we could so we could try more.  I can't eat as much as I used to.

First we landed on a booth that was showing a permanent planned space for this type of event.  You had to toss a ball in a bucket and you got a freezie.  Great way to start.

The first thing we tried was from Alma and Gil.  I never heard of them before but apparantly they are on Dupont Street.  Joanne had the Elote corn and I got the Chicken Tamale.  I chose it because it's not something I can find in my area or make.  I made Elote a few weeks ago.   It was delicious.  Great food start.

Then we had the Skewered beef and fish spring rolls with peanut sauce from Babi & Co an Indonesian vendor.  I have been wanting Indonesian for a while.  The Beef was amazing.  They need to bottle the marinade.  While the fish in the spring rolls was very plain the peanut dipping sauce was excellent.

Moving on.  I wanted an iced coffee and there were a few different ones around but I stopped at Kiss My pans booth.  I have been following them on Instagram.  They are from Singapore and the iced coffee is called Koppi or something like that.  The vendor explained it's a similar method as Vietnamese coffee and they use condensed milk and evaporated milk.   It was so good I went back for another one.  They sold out of their food a couple of hours into the festival.

When we first got there I said lets just walk around and see what there is and then decide.  I first walked by a Sushi taco and at first I wasn't sure I wanted one but after walking around I really wanted one so we split the Salmon and Tuna Nori Sushi Taco.  I had the Tuna and Joanne had the torched Salmon.  The tuna one was excellent and the crunch on the Tempura batter dipped Nori was amazing.   I had sushi tacos near me but this was how they were supposed to be.  It was from Albi Sushi.  they are at the 401 and Kennedy Rd in Scarborough.

So as you can see the vendors really did come from all over the city and not the usual downtown hot spots.  That's what made it different.  These little independent vendors showcased their own food that was so diverse and excellent.

The bonus of the day was running into 3 foodie friends.  Yashy (pictured), Annie and Amanda.  All Toronto bloggers too.  I got a chance to chat with Suresh before we left who was with his family.  He told me that they do a refresh with different vendors in week 5 so I am praying that the TTC lets me go another time to see a whole new group of vendors.

I told Suresh (Doss) (CBC food writer) that the festivals was the only thing I missed during the pandemic closures and I realized it really was the only thing.  I thought it would be film festivals but streaming has made that easier but there is nothing like meeting the people who make your food and thanking them and smelling all the delicious food and trying all kinds of things you have never tried or can't make yourself.

Yes I love a great food festival and this one was small but mighty and the lineups weren't as crazy as some festivals I have been to.  Maybe it's foodie hidden secret so far..  me and my foodie friends may have let the secret out of the bag but hard not to share a great new thing.

Give some new vendors some love and attention.  It's great for the city and for their businesses.  I am hoping they are able to build a permanent spot for this like they have in some US cities and like the Smorgasburg in New York that this came from.

Don't forget to go early because food sells out fast.

Cross Border Food Tripping

It was my Birthday in May and my friend wanted to take me out for dinner in the city.  Days passed and no plans ended up happening.  Then he asked if I would want to go to Buffalo, NY for a couple of days to shop for clothes, which I have been in desperate need of and which I have been complaining about a lot.  Yes I have gained weight being at home and not having any stairs to climb like I used to when I lived in a house to offset some of the food.  In the past year I have not had to run for TTC to get to work and be limited in what and when I can eat and run up and down stairs in my house to do things like cook, laundry and whatever else needed to get done.  So I have gained weight over the past year,  well more like steadily over the past few years due to stress and other issues and now working on the food blog and experimenting with food more with both cooking and eating out isn't helping it.
 I always had enough clothes to wear because I could still find something to wear if I looked hard enough.  In my house I had a laundry room where I could hang my clothes so they lasted a lot longer.   Now my clothes are gradually shrinking to the point of not being wearable so I thought it might be a good idea to take a trip to Buffalo and see what they have there.  Remember the people in the U.S. are slightly larger than the rest of the people in the world.  Well maybe more than slightly, but anyway you would think that there would be a good selection of all kinds of sizes of clothes available for all of their residents to purchase.  Well maybe they fit on your body if you are lucky but you probably wouldn't want to be caught dead wearing them.

We started our day with a Big Breakfast at BOB EVANS,  I have never been there before, I used to go to Denny's when I went to Buffalo so this was a new place to me.

I ordered some kind of Biscuit breakfast with hashed potatoes.  With crumbled sausage and a white gravy and poached eggs.  The eggs were the only healthy thing on the plate but it was very tasty.

 Anyway, we went over to the Walden Galleria and the Outlet Mall and we stopped into the Boulevard Mall to say hi to my friends cousin so technically we didn't shop there.   We also hit some independent stores like TJ Maxx, SteinMart and Chico's.   After all of that I ended up getting 2 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes and my friend bought me some Hugo Boss sunglasses for my birthday.   This clothes shopping trip turned into more of a FOOD TRIPPING jaunt with us enjoying some really great food there.

First up was The Cheesecake Factory at the Walden Galleria where we had some excellent Steam Bun appetizers and a Tuna Tartare that we shared.  We then ordered this massive salad that we also shared and I can't imagine being able to finish that salad on my own.   Pretty healthy right?  Yeah and then we blew it by ordering 2 slices of cheesecake, it was the Cheesecake Factory after all so we had to try their namesake food.  We ordered Kahlua Mocha and a Key Lime Cheescake slices.   Oh so good and oh so bad for me at the same time.  It did fulfil my Gastropost mission of the week being Citrus.   The Key Lime was a bit soft and it kind of flopped over a bit but it still tasted good and there was a rainbow on it  just before we started eating it.  My friend asked them to put a candle in the Kahlua one for my birthday even though it was a couple of weeks before, we were finally getting around to having that birthday dinner.  I was stuffed.  We went to see "Now you see me" at the Mall afterward which was a good thing cause I was too tired to do anything else.  Yes we skipped the popcorn and junk food after that huge meal.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel, nothing special but it left us room to get some good food the rest of the day.

After trying to go to many different stores to find clothes and getting frustrated I was done with clothes shopping and it was on to food shopping instead.  My friend had a list of things he wanted to get at WEGMANS' supermarket.  That's all he shopped for except for the sunglasses for me.  I have never been to Wegman's so I was curious to see what they had there.  He said the one we were going to was better than the other ones.  WOW what a grocery store.  It was more like a Whole Foods.   It had a huge Organic section with even their own branded organic products like ketchup and mustard.  They also had a huge food bar with all kinds of food.  Italian, Chinese, salads, you name it.  Talk about a great buffet.

You could just go there if you have a bunch of people that can't decide what to eat.  They have a little eating area upstairs.  My friend was raving about the subs they have there so we split a small one and I got a container of Sushi just to have something small to fill us up a bit.   The sushi was so so but the sub was fantastic with a great Sesame bun.  It was an Italian sandwich and they added pickles to it for a nice tang.   Energy up and it was time to hit the aisles of the store.  They had so much great food that I couldn't buy because of border restrictions so I ended up just getting junk food and things like bread and some other things that I needed.   I spend about $50 and my friend spent about $200 on all kinds of things.  I can only imagine how much we could have spent if we could bring more things across the border.

A trunk full of Wegman's groceries

After shopping we were pooped and needed to get a good sit down meal before heading back home.  We went back to the Walden Galleria and headed to Gordon Biersch this time.  I never heard of this place before but it is kind of a Milestone's-ish type of place.   It was the afternoon on a monday so it was very empty in there.  I was still kind of full so I only ordered the Baja Tacos and my friend ordered a burger and garlic fries.   The fries were so good and garlicky that I ended up eating more of his fries than he did.  I am sure we both had lovely breath after that meal but it was totally worth it.

One last stop and then we headed to the border.  We had a 20 minute wait to cross the border so it was a good thing we weren't hungry.

So all in all my little shopping trip to Buffalo was more of a Food Tripping cross border food shopping trip, but it was great to try places we don't have here.   I just wish I could do more food tripping and check out more new places.

So if you decide to go do some cross border shopping don't forget to stop into The Cheesecake Factory or Gordon Biersch for a nice meal or stop into a Wegman's and go crazy.

Now I see why the people in the U.S. are larger.   Oh.. and by the way... if you hate Toronto's gridlock then go to Buffalo for sure... no clogged subways and hardly any road traffic and free parking.

No I am not getting paid by Buffalo Tourism but it's nice to see the differences in how cities are set up.

My junk food haul...but Organic ketchup, mustard and bbq sauce.. yeah I needed that part.   I also got Bread, Beets and Collard greens not seen in this pic.