Cochon 555 Pig Out in Toronto

Cochon 555 started over 7 years ago in the U.S. as a travelling Culinary Event.  It's a culinary competition and tasting BBQ event that brings together local farmers, Top Chefs, distillers and pork lovers from all over.

Cochon comes to Toronto for the first time for the 1st Toronto Food & Wine Festival held at Evergreen Brickworks.  It was held on Sept. 18th and I was lucky to get an invite to go since it was a separate ticketed event apart from the festival weekend event.

Celebrity judges were on hand to sample all the tasty food and choose a winning dish from a great array of some of Toronto's top restaurants and chefs who skillfully prepared and some original creations of pork and accompaniments.

Evergreen Brickworks Heritage BBQ

Imagine Pork products and BBQ's spread out all around the open air Brickworks structure.  Fire and pork mostly but there were a couple of exceptions.  There was some great True North Salmon grilled by Michael Hunter (TheHunterChef) which was one of my favourite things I tasted that night.

And one unusual thing that was there were Cannoli's from Holy Cannoli.  But it was nice to have something different for dessert.

Roger Mooking

Another one of my favourite dishes was Roger Mooking (Twist) massive Ribs.  They were served with a dipping sauce but the sauce wasn't even needed they because they were flavoured so well.
Roger himself was stoking the fire on an incredibly humid night so I am sure he worked up some good meat sweats that night.

Some of the participating restaurants included P&L Catering, Twist, Lisa Marie, Beast, The Good Son and their Chef owners were all present busily preparing things like sausages, ribs, pork belly, bao's, fried things and even some empanadas.

With so many it's hard to eat that much pork dishes in one sitting but I think I tried at least 6 dishes but I know the judges probably had very full stomaches.

There was even a pop up butcher shop and the butchered a whole pig and sold off the different parts of it .  See first picture on the left.

Overall it was a big Chef Bro Fest with most of the Chef's being male and most located in the downtown hipster areas of town.  They had a chance to cook together and try each other's food all in the same place so I am sure they appreciated the fact that there was some play with all their work.

I think having it on a friday night around Jewish holidays limited the attendance but hey I guess they  figured there were enough Pork fans to fill the event.  It wasn't full and there weren't any long lineups which was nice for a change but I am sure they probably expected a lot more people.
Overall a good concept and I enjoyed the fact that there were large iced water dispensers on hand for those people that needed a non alcoholic refresher.

Overall it was a good event but friends of mine paid for VIP tickets and thought that it was pretty expensive for what they received.

For more information http://www.torontofoodandwine.com
And for future Cochon 555 events http://cochon555.com/

*Disclosure:  My ticket was complimentary but the opinions and photos are all my own.

Getting Piggy with it at Bacon Fest 2014

It was the 3rd Annual Bacon Fest this past weekend at the Leslieville Farmer's Market.   I love this market because they have great products and it has a community feel with all kinds of people just hanging around in the park eating, shopping and listening to whatever music is happening that week.

The last time I went it was extremely hot and I left to a ticket waiting on my windshield.  This time I found a better place to park and tried again and participated in eating as much piggy products as I could stuff in my face.   Not as much as I thought I could apparently.

It was a beautiful day with big fluffy clouds in a bright blue sky.   And the smell of bacon wafting through the air.  What's not to love about that.

First I had to stop and get my favourite Sesame Seed Baguette before they got sold out.   Then I walked around to see what the Bacon Fest vendors were selling and seeing what else I needed from the market.    I picked up a dozen Organic Eggs, smoked sausage, some Back Bacon, some garlic, some amazing cream cheese and I split a basket of peaches with my friend.  She picked up some Callaloo leaves.  She is from Gyana so it is native to her country.  I have never cooked with it but maybe I will try to one of these days.


There were a few very long line ups... and as I walked around I stopped at some of the shorter ones that had some yummy looking things.   I tried the Le Papillon booth for some Pulled Pork Belly on a bun with coleslaw.  Messy but good.   Then over to the Hooked booth for some bacon and white fish fried fritters.  So filling.  They kind of did me in but I wanted to try a few more things.   I was going to try the Smoked Bacon on a bun but while waiting in the line they ran out.   Just as well as I wasn't sure I could even finish it.  But I had to try at least one more thing so I opted for Be Good Gelato's Ice Cream Sandwich "Breakfast of Champions" with double smoked bacon, pecans, caramel sandwiched between dark chocolate chip cookies with cafe mocha gelato.  It was frozen solid and so large that I couldn't finish it unfortunately.

    

My friend only eats Chicken so the Bacon didn't appeal to her but she tried a few vegetarian/vegan options.   She got some of the bacon tofu on a stick.  I tried it and it tastes pretty close to a bacon flavour.  My friend not ever having eaten bacon wasn't as impressed because she couldn't relate to the taste of it.   She also had another appetizer that used dried eggplant as the bacon substitute.  I didn't try that one so I don't know how it was.   And my friends final taste was the fruit and cream waffle.

There was so much more to try but my eyes are bigger than my stomach as my mom used to say.   Although lately it looks like my stomach is looking as big but really I can't eat as much as I used to.  Not so good for a food blogger I guess.

 And the Winner of the 3rd Annual Bacon Fest was Sweet Sammies.  There were 3 dessert places to try so I didn't get to try their ice cream sandwiches.  I hope I will see them again at another event soon so I can try it then.

Also in the top 3 was County General, and I didn't have room to try their dish either.  I guess I wouldn't have been much of a judge if I couldn't eat everything.

And an honourable mention went to the Smoked Bacon Tofu on a stick.   Everyone seemed to be impressed with that bacon imitation.

It was a fun day and I hope I can go again next year and have more room in my stomach to try way more things.