The STOP Night Market a perfect night.

There are a handful of really fun events that I really look forward to.  The Stop's Night Market is one of them.  It's my 3rd year in a row attending this really fun and tasty event.  This year they surpassed the fundraising goal and raised over $300,000.  That will go along way for many programs but they still need your help to do more.

It was previously held in the laneway of the old Honest's Ed's store.  I never got a chance to go to those ones because they would sell out instantly.  

For the past couple of years it has moved to a parking lot in the Junction.  There are a whole host of restaurants that reside within a short distance of the new location making it easy to attract some fantastic restaurants to this event.   This is where all the fun and creative Chefs with big hearts go to one up each other creating fantastically designed booths and amazing little bites of food and beverages.  Chefs on hand included Dustin Gallager (Top Chef All-Stars) (416 Snack Bar) and Trevor Lui (Kanpai Snack Bar), Ricky Casipe (Hawthorne Food & Drink), and restaurants included Carmen, Momofuku, Branca, The Drake Commissary, Pizzeria Libretto, Lasa, Nana and a lot more.  Over 30 restaurants and a dozen beverage providers each of the 2 nights.  Only a few vendors there for both nights.  Last year I was able to go to both nights and it was great because the food was very different both nights.

The food was really fantastic this year.  A couple of my favourites were Pizzeria Libretto's Cauliflower Arancini, The Tempered Room's short ribs, Carmen's Ropa Vieja, Ascari Enoteca's Broccolini Fritti, The Broadview Hotel's, Bay Scallop Ceviche., Abokichi's Tsokune and The Oakwood's Hardware's German potato cake.

What makes this event so fun as well as a great charity event is the fact that because it's held outside in a parking lot it's very casual and has mostly a younger audience looking to have some fun with their friends.  It runs over 2 separate evenings and the tickets are $100 for all you can eat and drink.

It starts by welcoming you through the gates with the Samba Squad drumming you into the event to get you in the mood to have fun.

If you arrive early you are given a wooden palate plate shaped like a fish.  It's fun and helpful to place your food and drinks on.  It's a lot of fun checking out all the different custom designed stands that are in competition for best design.  It adds a super cool factor and fun vibe to the event.

This year was the best so far for me because all of my foodie pals were there and even a surprise fill in by Denise who filled in for Food Fables who couldn't make it.  It's very rare to have us all at an event at the same time.  You have so much fun hanging out with friends and chatting with Chefs that you forget that it's actually a great charitable cause.  The Stop is a fantastic Charity that provides great programs including:

• A drop in program
• Urban Agriculture
• Youth Engagement
• Food bank
• Community kitchen
• Family beginnings

For more information visit their website:  http://thestop.org/

See how you can help by donating, volunteering or attending one of their events.

*Disclaimer- The ticket was complimentary but the opinions and photos are all my own.

The Stop's Night Market returns for it's 5th year.

The Stop’s Night Market Returns In June to Celebrate Its 5th Anniversary!

I attended this event for the first time last year and it was a blast.  Some of the best restaurants in the city participate in this event and create amazing vendor carts where they serve their food.  

A little tip though, ditch the stillettos and fancy outfits.  It's held in a gravel parking lot, so wear comfy shoes.
You can read about last year's event on this post I wrote after the event.

The event will be held in the open lot at 158 Sterling Road. On Tuesday, June 14th and Wednesday, June 15th, The Stop Community Food Centre’s most popular fundraising event will transform this new vacant lot into a bustling and aromatic market, bringing together Toronto’s most talented creatives from the culinary, design, performance, and graphic arts sectors to celebrate diversity, community, and the power of food. 

Tickets, each valid for one night only, are on sale now through the event website at nightmarket.thestop.org.  

The Stop’s Night Market will feature more than 70 of Toronto’s best chefs and more than 35 unique food carts, each created by local design teams. This year, cart designs will be subject to evaluation by a four-person jury, including Alex Bozikovic, architecture critic at The Globe & Mail; David Liss, Curator Advisor at The Museum of Contemporary Art_Toronto_Canada; Casey Mecija, multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and host of “The Doc Project” on CBC Radio One; and Vivek Shraya, artist.

All proceeds from The Stop’s Night Market support The Stop’s critical food access and community-building programs.

For a complete list of food and beverage vendors to date (subject to change), as well as design teams, see the event details below, or visit our event website at nightmarket.thestop.org.

About The Stop Community Food Centre

Located in Toronto’s west end, The Stop works to increase access to food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds health and community, and challenges inequality. From its origins as one of Canada’s first food banks, The Stop has blossomed into a thriving community hub where neighbours participate in a broad range of programs that provide healthy food, foster social connections, build food skills, and promote civic engagement. Underlying all of The Stop’s efforts is the belief that food is a basic human right.

Visit the organization’s website at thestop.org. Follow The Stop on Twitter & Instagram (@TheStopCFC) and use The Stop’s Night Market hashtag, #TheStopNM. 

Updates are also available on the event Facebook Page at Facebook.com/TheStopNightMarket.  

Event Details

When: Tuesday, June 14 and Wednesday, June 15, 2016, from 7PM to 11PM

Where: Vacant Lot, 158 Sterling Road, Toronto (please note the new location!)

Tickets: $100 (includes all-you-can-eat-and-drink!), available at nightmarket.thestop.org.

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photo fun at the Stop Night Market

The Sun shined on the Stop's Night Market

Last night the Sun gods came out to bless The Stop's  Annual NIGHT MARKET fundraising event for The Stop's drop in programs.  

The Stop's Night Market is held over 2 nights and each night has different food and drink vendors and different entertainment as well.  

This year they moved to a new larger location on Sterling Road in the Lansdowne and College area in an industrial area just next the Nestle chocolate plant.  Yes it smelled delicious walking from College street to the gravel parking lot where the event was being held.

Last year the event was held in the alley of Honest Ed's where the 2 buildings are connected.  I didn't go last year because tickets were sold out as soon as they went on sale.  Last year it cost $50 for an all you can eat pass.  This year they raised the fee to $100 so that they could raise more money and allow more people the ability to attend but they were still able to sell out.

Last year even though there was a torrential rain soaking all the vendors and attendees from what I saw in photos everyone still stood in lines to get there tasty bites of food.

This year they chose their dates well and Day 1 had the most beautiful weather for an outdoor event. 

Since it was a parking lot it wasn't fancy and not the place to be wearing club wear and stilettos to.  I don't think it would be as much fun in the rain so I am very glad that mother nature was co-operating.

The Stop's programs and events are run mostly by Volunteers so I was happy that when I arrived the first person that I was greeted by was my friend Sylvia who was volunteering.  She likes to volunteer at a lot of festivals but she has been away a lot for the past year so I haven't seen her in a long time.  It was great to do a quick catch up and then we were off.  Sylvia gave me the lay of the land and told me some of the things she tried that she liked.  The first thing I tried which was right beside the Stop's booth was Fonda Lola which is one of the restaurants that was on my list of places to check out because they follow me on Instagram and I just haven't had the chance to check out their restaurant yet.  

They served up Flauta de pollo aka taquito which was delicious.  I inhaled it while the sauce ran down my hand.  

What I really loved about this event was all of the different creative carts that the vendors put together.  The Gabardine had a cart that had a spinning wheel.  There was a cart made up of tin cans.  Sullivan and Bleeker's looked like post it notes on cardboard.  Pizzeria Libretto had potato sack material.  Oyster Boy had a world theme.  It made it really fun to see all of the interesting looking displays of creativity.

In one corner they set up a photo booth and had large cardboard cut outs of things like the knife and fork that I am holding in this picture and beer mugs and funny signs.  Photo booths are always a fun thing at events.  The volunteers were ready to take a fun picture of you as you mug for the camera.  I didn't do silly but just a bit of fun as you can see.

I didn't make it through all of the food and drink.  I think I tried about a third of what was there but I did try Branca's Sweet corn empanadas.  They were crunchy and sweet.  I tried Valdez' Tuna and watermelon ceviche and I don't think i am a fan of mixing fruit and fish and like a traditional ceviche a lot more.  I tried Maizal's Esquites which was a corn salad type of thing.  I tried Delica Kitchen's corn dog but couldn't figure out what they used for the dog part because it wasn't a typical hot dog.  Sylvia liked that one but I don't know if I liked it as much as she did. What I really liked was the simplicity of Pizzeria Libretto's fried cheese and tomato sauce.  The sauce was fresh and the cheese was slightly oozy.

I tried Dailo's Smoked trout betal leaf but it was ok.  I didn't love the leaf but it was a nice concept.

I wanted to try Torito's Torta de pollo but it was a bun that they poured sauce over top of and then gave you gloves to eat it.  I didn't want it dripping all over me so I passed on that one but I think people liked it.  

I enjoyed Hawthorne's Chicken skin taco.  It had a great crunch and had a kimchi kick on top.

Oyster Boy had a huge lineup so I skipped that because I just had their oysters at the Big Night event so I tried to sample things I haven't tried before.

I also sampled the AGO's chicken tamales which were pretty good with extra condiments.

The only thing I got to drink was Just Craft Soda's cherry soda.  I tried their lemongrass soda before at the Sial Canada show and their products are fantastic.  Natural flavours and not as sugary sweet as normal soda is.  It was my wine fake out.

One of the dishes I didn't have the room to try was Smoke Signals massive Bama BBQ sandwich.  I probably would have gone for it if I was choosing for value and not trying to sample as much as I could.

I finished off my food sampling with one of Sullivan and Bleekers Smore's cookies. It would have been fantastic if it was warm and melty.  Can you see a trend here.   Oh and one of the other dishes that I really enjoyed was hot off the grill and really fresh was Gabardine's Beef Arepas.  I really like Gabardine because they always produce solid comfort food.

There was also a couple of fun bands that entertained the crowd and I have to say that I was impressed with all of the Volunteers and believe me it's hard to get great volunteers for events but not just my friend Sylvia but all of the volunteers were helpful and on top of clearing the garbage and getting people in the event quickly by scanning the passes and giving out wristbands.  The wristbands was a great thing to keep the lines moving and save people from juggling money, or tickets and their drinks and food and in my case my camera.  My friend Sylvia was even my hand model for a few of the photos as you can see.  I know that a couple of the volunteers came from TIFF and I know that's why they were fantastic.  

The organizers did a fantastic job I must say.  It was beautifully set up with the drinks and food intermixed instead of a bar on one side and food on the other.  Because it was all you could eat you could bounce around to different vendors and go back to ones you enjoyed.  I didn't have room to go back to any of them and not enough room to try them all and I even started off hungry.  You need a big appetite to sample it all.

I think the only thing for me that I would change would be the gravel ground because my feet got really tired quickly which was unfortunate and it was a little out of the way and not as easy to get to as a location like Honest Ed's so I am sure a few people may have missed it because of that but I did see a whole lot of people that rode their bikes or took cabs to the event which is probably a great thing to save on drinking and driving.   Myself I hopped on the streetcar over to the subway.  

And then there was this styrofoam cup display outside of the venue that I couldn't figure out until someone at the Stop said what it was.  "YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE".   Kind of a nice thing to thank people who participated to show that their actions in attending the event and the money raised will make a difference to the programs the Stop will be able to deliver which is what this event was all about.

The Stop really have a good thing going.  They have fabulous events but what they really do at the heart of it is help a whole lot of people year round.

To find out how you can contribute your time or to donate money please visit their website:

thestop.org