Scaddabush in Scarborough

Location:  Scaddabush Scarborough
Address:   580 Progress Ave, Scarborough
Website:   http://www.scaddabush.com/
When:      Aug 3, 2016

I got a very last minute invitation to attend a media dinner at the new Scaddabush Italian Restaurant in Scarborough, ON.  I said yes because I was curious about the food because they have been popping up all over the place in Toronto.  The hard part was that I was working in downtown Toronto and had to trek it out to Scarborough from downtown on an extremely hot day.

The restaurant is located just outside of the Scarborough Town Centre so you can drive there which I would have preferred to do if I was able to.  You can also take the LRT to McCowan station and walk over from the station, and the Go bus will get you there too.

A small group of food bloggers were invited along with a group from the Scarborough Bluffs Food Bank to sample a huge amount of food from the Scaddabush menu.   They wanted to show us some of their favourites.  The people from the Scarborough Bluffs food bank were there because the proceeds from the sales of Scaddabushs' Charity Bread are donated to the food bank.  It's pretty great that a simple thing like selling bread in a restaurant can help people that can't afford to even go to the restaurant and buy that same bread.  It makes a lot of sense and they have donated a lot of money to local food banks through the sales of their charity breads.

The restaurant is big and has great lighting for people but wasn't as good for showcasing the food but they do have a patio.   When you walk in you are greeted by a giant head beside the host station.  I am not sure what that is for but it got my attention.

There are lovely chandeliers to light the room and the seats are all mixed I suppose to symbolize an extended Italian family dinner.

One of the popular features of the restaurant is the Mozzarella bar where they make fresh mozzarella and serve it in a few different ways.   People can sit at the bar and watch the staff make the mozzarella.

They also make their pasta and breads fresh from scratch each day.

We sampled a huge amount of food.   We started with 3 different kinds of charity bread and 3 different preparations of the mozzarella.

We tried a pizza topped with a raw egg and a pollo chicken pizza.  The pasta dishes we sampled were the Pollo chicken which was everyone's favourite pasta and we also tried their squash ravioli and lobster pasta.

To top it all off we were presented with 3 amazing desserts.  I think this was my favourite part of the dinner.  The 3 dishes were a very flavourful Tiramisu, zeppole donuts with a nutella dipping sauce and a classic cheesecake topped with berries.

My photos don't really show the food properly but hopefully you can sort of tell what it looks like.

I wouldn't say this is a traditional Italian restaurant but more of a North American style Italian restaurant.  The food is really rich and decadent so make sure you have a big appetite when you go there.  We all waddled out of the restaurant.  Not pictured that we tried were their 2 types of meatballs and the 2 different salads that we sampled.

I think it's a nice place to go with a big family or for a birthday because the ambiance and the staff are fantastic and you don't have to go somewhere else for dessert.  It's also a great place to go after a day of back to school shopping at the mall.  Yeah you know that time of year is coming up.

Hope you check it out and enjoy.   My tip... order the Pollo pasta and the Tiramisu.  I think those were my favourites.

TO FOOD FEST heats up Scarborough

The TO FOOD FEST returns for the 3rd year to the Chinese Cultural Centre in Scarborough.  I hitched a ride with my coffee loving friend out to the food fest on a hot sunday afternoon Unfortunately I had a brunch to go to in the morning so I wasn't hungry enough to sample as much food as I did last year but I took lots of photos for you to see what it was like. Last year I was there before it opened so I didn't have to wait in any lineups.  This year we arrived later in the afternoon so there was already loads of people waiting for food.  The first thing I got when I got there was a Calamansi ice tea.  Calamansi is a lime that they use in the Philippines that is much sweeter than a lime.  It was a nice refreshing drink and I needed the hydration.

The first food thing we tried was Liko's Hawaiian skewers of Chicken topped with a piece of pineapple.  I have had this before but it was a good deal with 2 skewers for $5.  I felt bad for the 2 guys grilling in front of a huge hot grill and standing on a hot cement parking lot on a very sunny and hot day.  I was sweating standing in the line getting the blasts of bbq smoke.  But the skewers were tender and tasty so it was worth it.

My friend tried the chili chicken rice and said it was very good.  She also tried the little pearl truffles but they were $2.75 each and can you believe I wasn't in the mood for chocolate but I was in the mood for Ice Cream so we waited in line for the Ice Volcano Ice Cream.  They had an interesting system of taking orders on an ipad first.  I had the only flavour they had left at that point and it was the Malted milk flavour.  It's fun to watch them make the ice cream using liquid nitrogen in a stand mixer.  They sprinkled crushed cereal on top.  It was good but there wasn't a lot of flavour.  I prefer gelato which is creamy and fresh tasting.

We ran into a few of our blogger friends including @hypebelly @goodfoodtoronto and @feedmyphone who were on hand for the festival and supporting Masterchef Canada Pastry Chef Christopher Siu from DaanGo pastry.  He was dishing up his mille crepe matcha cake and also some Macarons.  His booth was the first one to sell out.  The first time we went by there was a few macarons and just a couple of slices left of the cake and the next circle they were already packing things up. He was a popular guy with all kinds of Masterchef fans taking selfies with him. He never stopped smiling and seemed to love every minute of it.

The trends at the festival seemed to be grilled meat and other things on a stick, fried things and lots of desserts.  There were more food trucks there this year which took up more space in the parking lot so there seemed to be less actual vendors.  Last year had a bit more variety on the savoury side.  I wanted to try a few food truck items like the dumplings and the Argentinian sandwiches and there was some sort of drink in watermelons and pineapples but the line was too long to wait.  

My advice,  go to this show early and hungry and have lots of cash to get in and out of lines quickly and load up on an interesting variety of food.

The best part of this festival is the FREE Parking.  Although when we got there the lot was full but we circled around on the streets and when we came back they opened up the parking lot.

It's also nice that there is an inside portion and the food trucks and bbq's in the parking lot on the outside.  

And as festival goers know it's also a good thing when there are actual real washrooms on site if you know what I mean.

I like this festival because it's pretty easy to do because it's contained in a compact area with parking right on site and there is always new or interesting things to try.

Event - TO Food Fest

The TO Food Fest was the best named food festival this past weekend.  It could also have been called Food Feast because there was so much great food there to chow down on in Scarborough.

What made this event great was the luck of the beautiful co operative weather.  It was a hot day but there was a nice breeze flowing through wafting all the grilled meat smells around the parking lot of the Chinese Cultural Centre.  All of the hot BBQ items were set up outside and all of the non BBQ or cold items were set up by the vendors inside the gym of the Cultural Centre.

What was great about this venue was that there was FREE Parking... something that makes me very happy when I go to these events.  The entry fee was a donation of $2 or a non-perishable item of foods that would be donated to Second Harvest, a charity that does great things.  I brought 2 items to donate and their final tally of food collected was 5 large boxes of food.

I ran into a fellow food blogger TheMary_Tang who said it was a bit busier last year when she went and it was a lot hotter too.  She was pregnant last year and returned with her husband and young daughter this year. Her daughter is a foodie in training now.

There was such a great variety of foods by some really friendly and nice vendors.

Some of the foods you could find there were:

• Perogies
• Dutch Frites
• Bao Buns
• Malo Malo dessert
• Pork Belly Burgers
• Ice Volcano desserts                      
• Empanadas
• Rice Balls,
• Oysters,
• Macarons
• Hot Sauce
• Bacon Creme Brule
• Meat on sticks
• Flavoured popcorn
• Paella
• Fried Chicken on a stick
• Smelly Tofu                   
• Squid on a stick
• Tater Tots
• Stuffed wings

and I could go on... food from all kinds of cultures and all kinds of variety.  Even a lot of vegetarian things.  Nobody could walk away hungry from this festival.  The prices went from $1 for a drink to about $12 a dish, but most were in the $5 or $6 dollar range.   Some of the vendors had huge portions that would fill you up pretty quickly.

I was lucky to be able to go early for a media preview so I was able to talk to a lot of the vendors before the general public came in and was there as they were just getting everything set up.

I chatted with the owners of Dutch Frites and was able to sample all of their great sauces that go with their excellent frites.  My mom lived in Belgium so I know great fries and these were as good as my mom's were but she didn't make fancy sauces like curry ketchup, garlic mayo and avocado mayo, she just ate them with Mayonnaise.  When I mentioned to the owner about the fries my mom made he said "you know your stuff".  Yup, I was taught how to make great fries at a young age.   A soggy fry is not a good frites.

One of my other favourite things that I tried was the Vietnamese Coffee from WonderPho.  It was $2 and it was so good that I went back for another one.  Another great drink I tried was a mixed berry iced tea from the Empanada vendor.  The Empanadas were very good but a little salty for me.

I also tried a great ground Pork Belly Burger from Bricks N Morter.  It was served with some nice spicy coleslaw.  Since it was all bacon it was so juicy and delicious.

I was trying to pace myself so that I could try a bunch of things but I got pretty full quickly.  I had to try the Bacon Creme brule since a few people said it tasted great.  It was pretty great with a candied bacon strip stuck on top as a garnish.  I got

Even Mayor Rob Ford dropped by the Festival to take loads of Selfies with all the people at the Festival.  I didn't do a selfie but took this photo to show you Rob and Doug being there.

Someone asked him if he tried any of the food and he said "NO, NO, NO"... I guess it doesn't go with his new diet and exercise program but I bet he would have tried something last year.

I really wanted to try some more food but I only had a little but of money left and a fully belly but I wanted to make sure that I got some  Okonomiyaki pancake to take home for later.  I first tried this at the T&T night market where a very young hard working girl was working away on these great seafood pancakes.  She remembered me from the T&T Market and was so happy that I supported her again.  I love to support young entrepreneurs.  My last job was all about that so I understand how important it is for people to support these vendors when they are first starting out.

I really enjoyed this festival because it had so much diversity, new and interesting dishes and it was so easy to get there and there weren't massive lineups this time around which might not be great for vendors but it was great for the attendees.  It gave people a chance to chat with the vendors and walk around and see what everyone was having.

Because the weather was so great it made it enjoyable to be outside in the great sunshine eating your way around the world through food.

Thank you to the great organizers and all of the vendors for making it a great sunday afternoon event.

Here's a gallery of some of the other foods that were available there.
I plan on going again next year and hopefully trying a lot more food.