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.

Pan American Food & Music Festival

Festival:     Pan American Food & Film Festival
Date:          August 11-13, 2017
Location:   Yonge & Dundas Square
Website:     http://panamfest.com/
Twitter/Instagram @PanamFestTO

It's Food Festival season in Toronto and there were at least 5 food festivals happening in Toronto on August 12th but I dropped by the Pan American Food & Music Festival.  Celebrating it's 4th year and moving to Yonge and Dundas from the former Daniels Spectrum venue.

I went to check out the Chef's Challenge and had a chance to chat with Chef Jagger Gordon.  Chef Gordon has an organization called Feed it Forward where he utilizes his skills as a Chef and an activist to feed people in need.  He has recently opened a Soup restaurant that feeds people in need using tokens paid for by other customers.  He is looking for a space to be able to set up cooking meals for more people and wants to open a grocery store to share donated food.   At the Pan American festival he set up a Chef's Challenge using some of the produce from his farm and other donations and had 3 local chef teams competing to create some great dishes using the food provided.  In 45 minutes they had to test their creative skills and feed the people in the audience for a $5 ticket.  Chef Gordon operates using skilled and non skilled volunteers and is always looking for more help to expand.  He would also like to get people to sign a petition to get the government to make it illegal for grocery stores to throw food out but have to donate it to charities and food banks.  
You can sign the Petition CLICK here:

The Chefs competing in the Chef's Challenge included local Chefs Devan Rajkumar, Doris Fin and Nick Vorlicek.   I don't even know who won because it was chaos afterward with the audience jumping to the front to get their food.  They got to try all 3 dishes for $5.   Chef Devan was the first to finish using his Ninja knife skills to make his version of a vegetarian Ceviche.  Chef Doris also made a salad and Chef Nick made a pasta dish.

Chef Devon

Chef Doris

Chef Nick

           

 

Here is my quick interview with Chef Jagger Gordon on Feed it Forward and the Chef Challenge.




After the Chef Challenge there was also a butter tart challenge.  For $10 you could try 6 different versions of butter tarts.  The 2 people i knew put a creative spin on theirs.  Vanessa from Holy Cannoli made butter tart Cannoli's and Olivia Simpson from Hawthorne Food & Drink made Coconut charcoal activated crusted butter tarts.  Another competitor added beer and another one added peach bits and there was a pecan one and a gooey traditional one which was the winner the previous year.  I really like that one.

 

 There is also a few food trucks and vendors at the festival to sample things from BBQ'd meat to Corn on the Cob and more.

I was there for the food mostly but heard the music in the background and a lot of the chefs  were even dancing to the music.  I saw a little bit of one of the dance groups but I couldn't stay late to watch more.   But everyone had a great time and even when it rained nobody left and it didn't seem to bother anyone.

It was also nice to see my festival friend Pamela volunteering at the program table.  She volunteers at a lot of the festivals around town and I run into her at both film and food festivals all the time. I used to volunteer and now I write but it's always fun to be at a good festival.

Noshfest packs Wychwood Barns with Jewish Food lovers

I would have to say that NOSHFEST at Wychwood Barns was a big success for the organizers and for most of the vendors selling their Jewish food.  I would say it wasn't as successful for the many people lined up to get in.  There is clearly a demand for these type of Ethnic centred events and since a Jewish Food Festival isn't a common thing in Toronto it brought out a whole lot of Jewish people and more looking for something to do and eat on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in November.

It was so packed that I only stood in one line to get food.  I waited somewhere around 20 minutes for a Lox and Cream Cheese Bagel from Schmaltz Appetizing.  I waited because the only time I finally got a chance to go there when I had my car I found it to be the best Lox in the city.  I would say the lox was good but the bagels weren't as fresh as they could have been so it wasn't as good as my trip to their tiny out of the way spot.  Unfortunately I don't even have a photo because it seems my phone was too full to save the photos I was snapping away.  I guess I should have checked them.  Luckily I used my Canon camera for a bunch of photos at the beginning when i scoped out the vendors.

Well known restauranteur Zane Caplansky was kept very busy slicing meat for his deli sandwiches.  Because he is so familiar to Torontonians he had a very long lineup too. I prefer to get food from his trucks or restaurants and he attends a lot of shows so I didn't feel the need to wait in line this time.

Also there slicing corned beef were the people from Pancer's Deli.  I didn't have any but my cousin did.  I know it can't be the same as getting a hot steammy sliced stack on rye from the restaurant.  It's hard to keep the food hot at these pop up events so the food suffers a bit.

The predominant thing at Noshfest seemed to be pickles,  pickles on sticks, sweet pickles, garlic pickles and more.  I did sample 3 of the pickles and it's nice to see a variety for different people's tastes.

 There were different babkas, cookies, brownies, and other desserts.

Not so traditional foods included Beer, Fried Chicken with Moroccan seasoning or something like that and some vegan plate of food I couldn't exactly tell what it was but my cousin tried it and it didn't look like something I would seek out so I didn't try it.

There was a matzoh ball soup,  and lemonana lemonade drink and oddly there were fish tacos, falafel, hummus and pizza.

I think I had higher expectations of what this festival could have been.  I would have liked to see someone like Anthony Rose there showing some interesting Jewish Food and more traditional dishes that are harder to find or elevated.  I suppose I have gone to too many festivals and I am always looking for a bit more.  There was gefilte fish from Central Epicure but it's the stuff you can buy at grocery stores and I would have loved to see things from Regina's Deli or something similar with hand rolled Gefilte fish and dishes like chopped liver, knishes, dumplings, latkes and other delicious Jewish foods.  It seems that Jewish food has kind of fallen out of trend in this city while Asian food is booming.  Most of the Jewish food restaurants are very dated and need a little modernization and updated way of serving the food.  I know there are people out there doing some interesting things and i would have like to see them showcase those things at this festival.   Maybe next year.  It's always hard to get people involved at the beginning.   Maybe people will jump on the bandwagon and turn Jewish food into trendy food.  One can hope.

Coconut Festival 2016

COCONUT FESTIVAL

For the 2nd year in a row I attended the Coconut Festival at David Pecaut Square on August 28, 2016

There were different vendors this year than last year.  Not just coconuts there were all kinds of vendors selling things like (in photo below):

• Coconut Soap
• Watches
• Hats
• Sunglasses
• Cocobutter
• Coconut Milk
• Thai Food
• Jamaican Food
• Hawaiian Food
• Coconut Candle

and a whole lot more.

I tried a sample of fresh mango smoothie and a thai bar and chocolate nut bar.

I purchased a great Thai Noodle Dish called from Pai for $5 with a great coconut curry flavour.

I also purchased a Chocolate Coconut Pie for $4 from Big E.

I didn't stay as long as last year because a bunch of my friends showed up last year but I did enjoy the foods that I tasted and it's a festival you can pop into and stay for a minute or a while.

Sweetery Festival - sweets and more

SWEETERY

I checked out the 2nd Annual Sweetery Festival at David Pecaut Square on August 21, 2016.  It was the second year but it was the first time I attended.  It had expanded from a parking lot the previous year. Still a very young festival run by very young people so it has a bit of growing to do.
It is an initiative of George Brown College to have some of their advanced Baking students and other Sweets and confection vendors have a dedicated show to showcase their goods.

The name Sweetery is Sweets and Eatery combined as explained by one of the organizers.
The George Brown Students use this event as part of their grading and also the proceeds of the sales of the products go towards a trip to France that they had planned.

David Pecaut Square is a lovely square easily accessible off of King Street West.  With a lovely grassy open area.  You can see from this photo that they set up red and white umberellas for people to sit and have shade.  It looked really nice and had a function which is what I like to see.

 There was all kinds of different treats.  From some of the things in this photo,  shaved ice from ,  Cookie topped Iced coffee, Macarons from Masterchef winner baker Sui from Daan Go.   Also a vanilla custard cake, really great butter tarts from Andrea's Bakery, pizelle and gelato, cookies and other croissants and pastries from George Brown College, not pictured.

I didn't try very many things.  I did try the shaved ice with sweet soy and condensed milk.  It was very light and nutty tasting.  Very popular on the hot day.  I also sampled the fantastic butter tarts and the vanilla custard cake and a bit of a couple of the macarons.

One of my favourite things at the show wasn't even food but food jewellery by Smitten creations.  It was so creative.  I first spotted sushi rings and then saw all the cute dessert rings, necklaces and ear rings.   I bought one with a chocolate birthday cake in a dome.  So cool and I think reasonably priced.

There were also a couple of food trucks and other food vendors there.   One of the other interesting things not in the photo was flavoured marshmallows from I love Puffy Love in flavours like Merry Mojito that could be set up for your next party.

David's Tea also had some great cold tea samples like strawberry flavour on hand to cool you off.

I would love to see this festival grow and become a bit more organized.  There were a few issues with setting up on the sunday morning that I hope they can sort out for next year.

Look out for some of these treats in the city in the future.

Toronto Food & Wine Heats up Brickworks

The Aspen born Food & Wine Show is now a thing in Toronto with the 1st Canadian Show held at Toronto's Everygreen Brickworks on the Bayview Extension.

The Toronto Food & Wine Festival brings in some of the Top Chefs in North America and a lot of the best chefs in Toronto were present with booths or to do Chef talks or food demos.  There was a lot of Chef love in the air and it attracts a lot of high profile chefs because they get to hang out with each other and try each others food.  There was a lot of chef hugging going on all weekend.  It's kind of a nice thing to see them all get along so well since in a lot of other industries they would be competition but in food you can have 10 chefs all doing different things so you really only compete against yourself to produce good food.

The show took place over 3 days from September 18-20th.
I spent 2 days doing as much as I could at the show.

Although the main part of the show takes place at Brickworks it is also broken up into different events at Brickworks and also offsite at different restaurants like a special dinner at Mark McEwen's Bymark with Chef Curtis Stone.  There was also 2 brunches at both Buca and Cafe Boulud.

There were ticketed Chef workshops held onsite but I didn't attend any of those but I did attend the Cochon 555 Heritage BBQ on friday night.   I will do a separate post about that event.

Some of the Celebrity Chef demos that I sat in on included Top Chef's Gail Simmons who hails from Toronto but left at 18 to pursue her culinary career in New York and worked with Food & Wine Magazine.

Gail Simmons

Highly regarded Montreal Chef's Antonio Park and Chuck Hughes were also on hand for informative and entertaining demos.

The handsome and fun Aussie Chef Curtis Stone had the whole audience laughing and shaking their asses in his crazy cocktail, chocolate and salsa and chips demo.  He pulled a few people from the audience to play a hilarious game of chocolate love.

Curtis Stone and friends

There was also ahead of the Tech Curve West Coast Chef Tyler Florence on hand for a demo of the best fried chicken recipe I have ever tasted.  He also introduced everyone to a new recipe app that he is a part of that will be introduced in a couple of weeks that will change the cookbook game.

Tyler Florence

Besides the Celebrity Chef Demos there were Chef Talks where Chefs like Jason Bangertner from Langdon Hall, Matt Dean Pettit from Rock Lobster, and Roger Mooking from Twist and Antonio Park chatted about their careers and their food philosophies.

Amy Rosen & Jason Bangertner

There were plenty of well known Chefs heading up food boths in the Tasting Pavillion too.
David Rocco was on hand to promote his wines and well known Brickworks regular Doug McNish also had a booth.  Other popular restaurants represented included Beast, Cluny Bistro, Dirty Bird, Tabule restaurant, Pizzeria Libretto, El Catrin, Carver and a whole lot more.

David Rocco

The quality of the food was fantastic.  There was a lot of food to try but I couldn't eat as much as I would have like to try.

A few of the things that I did try that I loved included Carver's porchetta sandwich which was pretty popular with the Chefs and food bloggers.

I was also blown away by Tori's bakeshop's smoked beet and cashew cream crostini's.

Gail Simmons was also sampling her bread pudding recipe with little bites of both sweet and savoury bread pudding.  I only tried the sweet apple and it was delicious.

I also shared a Vegan pad thai dish but the vendors name unfortunately but they were set up in the area where the Brickworks regular vendors were.

I got a chance to sample some of Chef Antonio Parks amazing fish demo with a citrusy fresh herb vinaigrette pesto.  It was fish seared with a nice crust on the one side and then raw like sashimi through the rest.  It was sliced like sashimi and placed on top of the citrus pesto.  It tasted like ceviche.  I have never had that fish before but it's a mild light fish. I could have eaten the whole plateful but i got 2 pieces of the fish.

Antonio Park

I also got to sample the unbelievable fried chicken that Tyler Florence made.  He marinates it in fresh herbs and then cooks it low and slow and then breads it in seasoned flour and fries it in herb infused oil.  The result is flavour throughout ever bit of it and a super moist chicken even the chicken breast and that crunchy skin that makes fried chicken so good.  We need a TFC joint in Toronto I think.
This is the second time I have seen Tyler Florence and he really impresses me with his industry savvy on where things are going.  He headed up the food truck craze before there was one.  He shot his last cookbook using his ipad.  He is gearing up to launch a social recipe app and who knows what's next.  And he is a nice guy and handsome too.

Well it was a Food and Wine show but I didn't drink any wine but one of my friends enjoyed one of the tutor tastings.  There were other beverages on hand that were great too.  I had some of Pluck Tea's Ice tea in berry berry flavour.  My friends at Craft Soda were there sampling away.  I also tried a refreshing Milagros tequila cocktail.

There was a huge Magnum ice cream booth that had mini magnum ice creams.  I think that was one of my friends favourite stops.  It was appreciated on the hot and humid days.

There is usually a Farmer's Market every saturday and sunday at the Brickworks but it was held at another location but some of the vendors rotated in a smaller market set up on site.  I'm sure sure it was very helpful as it wasn't really a shopping event but more of an eating event.

The best part of the show was seeing all my blogger buddies wandering around and trying to scarf in as much food as they could muster.  And all the friendly Toronto Chefs like Roger Mooking, Brad Long and more just chilling and having fun.  Even my foodie dentist and his wife were there enjoying themselves.   This show is really for serious food lovers, people that will spend money on a good meal.   If you are looking for a food bargain this isn't the show for you.

Mark McEwen, Brad Long & Roger Mooking

I enjoyed myself but there were a few glitches as there always are in a festivals first year.  Theirs came from the venue and the timing of the event.  The venue is a mostly open structure with a couple of buildings in the middle that are air conditioned but the open ones are not.   So rain, heat and cold can play into the success of the event.   The location.  It's not very accessible because there isn't enough parking on site and the off site bus shuttle locations are very inconvenient.

Also affecting the commute was the TTC shutdown of the subway from Lawrence Stn to Bloor Stn. which didn't help people that live north of the city get there very easily.  

The first day of the show was mostly media types and by the afternoon when they all went back to their offices it was much quieter but on Saturday when the buses and shuttles were more available it was busier.

The cost of the show can get pretty expensive.  You buy a pass to the show and then receive a wristband that has a computer chip that you top up to pay for food and drinks.

Abbey Sharp & Mark McEwen

You also have to pay for many of the extra ticketed events both on site and off site.  Private chef workshops and dinners.  The dinner collaboration with Mark McEwen and Curtis Stone was $350 or equivalent air miles.  It can get pretty expensive if you want to see a lot and go for all 3 days.  There are some samples but most of the food is ticketed at various amounts.

Afrim Pristine -Cheese Boutique

I asked one of the Chefs about the location and he said it was really hot for them and they were having some electrical issues and said it was difficult to have staff get there.  One of the guys helping him was told to go and park at Lakeshore.  It was a friend helping him out so that's a bit off putting to the vendors.   We also talked about how in the U.S. they have much better venues for these types of events.  This has become one of my pet peeves of this city.  We really don't have a great event space where it's easy for vendors to attend and easily accessible for people to attend.    I would love to have the money to design one and build it from the ground up and make it a user friendly flexible space.  I need to win a lottery.

Well unfortunately at the time of writing this the show is now over but hopefully you can check it out next year and some of the venue kinks will be worked out a bit better.

http://www.torontofoodandwine.com/