Gastropost says farewell

I have been blogging for over 5 years and somewhere along the way when I first started I came upon something online about Gastropost and how people were posting photos from Mission Challenges that the people at Post Media/The National Post were  creating each week. I thought it would be a fun thing to do to post my photos to the online community and join others.  I thought it might be fun to see if my photos got published in the National Post once a week from a selection of the photos that were posted online by a growing food loving community.
For about 5 years I posted photos of food I made and food I ate at restaurants and events around town and shared them with the Gastropost community.

This was probably my first post that got into the newspaper.  I was told I was the only one at the time that included myself and a friend in the photo.  That's because it was so new I didn't know exactly what everyone else was doing.  Mine is the 4th image from the left in case you can tell my popsicle stuffed face.

I never imagined what it would grow into and how it would affect my life.  In about 5 years they created over 240 different weekly challenges and I probably submitted photos for over 200 for sure.

My photos were probably published in the National Post maybe over 60 times.  I lost count but the first time it was published I ran out and picked up the Newspaper because I thought it was such a cool thing.

My dentist who is also a family friend commented about seeing my photos in the paper and my cousin thought it was the coolest thing.

I have even had people come up to me at events and know who I was because of seeing my photos in the paper because they were accompanied by a sketch of my face that Gastropost would create for everyone at the beginning that would be posted under the photo along with our Twitter or Instagram handles.

The Gastropost team would organize events at restaurants in the beginning and I can remember going to Little Anthony's for the first one and meeting the team at the time and them knowing who I was and presenting me with a Gastropost pin to wear so that each of us could meet each other and know who we were in relation to what was posted in the online and in the newspaper.

There were a handful of events where we got to know fellow Gastroposters face to face and the most notable one was for the 100th Mission that was held at a now defunct huge restaurant on Jarvis Street.  Our Gastropost sketches were posted on the walls and on tables around the restaurant.  There was a screen posting live tweets and a presentation of some of our work.

There was also contests to win things like Food Movie tickets, tickets to Food events and things like a Chef apron and a smart phone which I won.

But most of all I met some really great friends because of Gastropost and at a Tea Party that I hosted in my home recently someone pointed out how many of the people were Gastroposters.  I think there was about 6 of them.  I didn't even think of that when I invited them.  They were just my food loving or blogging friends.  

That's the thing that happened.  From posting random photos online to having life long friendships in real life.  

I am truly sad that it is the last week for Gastropost because it has brought so much creativity and friendship into my life.  It has challenged me to seek out interesting food and create more interesting plates of food.

I will miss the Gastropost team and the weekly missions but at least I have some great friends to continue sharing great food with.

And it is fitting that some of the Inspiration Team's photos appear in the Final Last Bite Mission.

THANK YOU GASTROPOST for 5 Great years.

(Image from the National Post/Post Media)

New Food Inspirations - BBQ steam buns

Try something new

For the past few months I have been trying to get inspired by taking on new Food Missions that are posted on the GASTROPOST website that appears in the National Post on saturdays.   Every week they post new food theme missions that you can try to do and post onto their site.

This weeks food mission was to TRY SOMETHING NEW.  I started thinking about ethnic foods and if there was any ethnic restaurants in Toronto that I have never tried or things that I have been wanting to try.  There wasn't anything extreme and new that popped into my mind and it seems that Toronto goes through food trends.  The current trend is Tacos, which isn't anything new but it's just people experimenting with the things they are putting into tacos.

There are lots of things I will probably never try like Chicken Feet, fried crickets, fish eyeballs and other assorted weird animal products.  At least that I know of.  Considering the GMO food these days you never really know what you are eating anymore.

But anyway I thought it would be a challenge to try and think of new things to try and when I eat out over the next week I will try and look for new things if I can.   But last night I went out for dinner with a friend and we wanted to have
Dim Sum and since I live in a very Asian neighbourhood in North York we ventured out to a fairly new place called MANDARIN GARDEN Restaurant on Yonge Street just south of Finch Ave.   We had a glance at the photos posted in the front window and saw that they had a few different dim sum dishes so we decided to check it out.  I really like the nice Chinese Lanterns hung on the front of the restaurant.  They caught my eye when I drove by when they first opened.

The interior was clean and bright and the lady that served us was very friendly and efficient.   We ordered 3 dim sum dishes.  An egg and green onion pancake, a leek and pork potsticker dumpling and a steamed shrimp and pork dumpling.   

They were all made really well and the dumplings were perfectly seasoned and really flavourful.  The way I would have made them if I made them myself.  

Really authentic and tasty.

The people next to us ordered something that was very curious looking.  It looked like two flat white things skewered onto 2 bamboo sticks.  I asked our waitress what it was and she said it was BBQ steam buns.  So I decided to order it to try it.  I saw BBQ steam buns on the menu and thought it was the typical dough bun filled with BBQ pork and steamed.  But I was so wrong in this one.

It was a BBQ steam bun cut in half and then sprinkled with chilli spice and maybe other spices and then it was cooked BBQ style so it had a BBQ smokey flavour.  There wasn't any meat inside but you got the taste as if it was kind of meaty from the smoke.  I suppose this would be a great vegetarian substitute.  I never would have thought of something like that.  It was really interesting and so simple at the same time.

While it may not have been an adventurous new food sampling it was a good food inspiration on things I would never have thought to put together.

I am going to be on the look out for new things this week in my own hometown.   This new thing was right in my neighbourhood so you don't have to travel to China to try new foods,  just head to Chinatown North in Toronto.