The Restaurants Canada Show is back!

 

The last Food Trade Show Event that I went to just before everything got locked down in the world was the Restaurants Canada Show at the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place.  So it was fitting that over 2 years later that was my first big show back to almost normal.  It was a hybrid version so there were some things that you could check out virtually but you can't sample food virtually.  I did do the preview with Chef Elia Herrera and made chicken tacos at home after they sent me a Chef Drop box.  That was fun but I really missed the in person experience.

Imagine 4 food bloggers trying to cover a huge show in a day.  It was great to be back with my friend Mary (Mary's Happy Belly) and our friend Ray (https://travellingfoodie.net/)  and we met up with Jon IG(jon_dimsum).  We arrived around 11:30 and walked around until it closed at 5 trying to conquer everything we could.  There are so many samples there,  I had to be strategic this year,  I had a plan to only try things that were new or my favourite things I couldn't get.  I realized about 3 quarters of the way through that I didn't see any oysters while the last time I was there they were at about 3 or 4 booths.  We started at the end of the show where there was a Pop Up set up and food trucks.  I skipped the food trucks because they are full orders so I would have been done after that.  Weirdly the first thing I ate was freshly sliced prosciutto mixed into a salad and then it was on to Donna Dooher's famous Mildred's Temple Kitchen blueberry pancakes.  I have only been able to go to Mildred's once and it wasn't for brunch so I have been waiting a long time to try these pancakes that people line up for.  We timed it great.  Donna herself actually served them up for us.  They were as good as people say.  That was a great start to the day.  

Funny that I saw Trevor Lui in the exact same place on the phone as the last time I saw him at the show.  He is the food entrepreneur who has multiple businesses and was involved in making the Pop Up happen.  I used to see him at so many events and haven't seen him since that last show.

The show was the same yet different.  On one end is the food trucks/pop up as mentioned, then various food vendors and in the middle there are restaurant businesses focused booths with everything from huge steam ovens to tableware and uniforms and even food serving robots.  With the return to the food business the challenges that owners have been having has been staffing so there was a trend to more electronic ways of doing business to save time or reduce staffing needs.   Not great for people entering the industry but a way for restaurants to survive in a tough market.

At the other end of the show was the Bar area.  That's the party area.  Im not a drinker so we kind of whipped through it at the end.  I did stop to get a Seedlip drink.  One of my favourite non alcoholic drinks. 

There are also stages for Cooking Competitions and Industry Panels.  When we walked by the main stage my friend Matt Dean Pettit (@mattdeanpettit) was one of the panelists talking about the ghost kitchen that he is a partner in and how that operated during the pandemic.

Speaking of Ghost Kitchens, that is one of the new trends.  Ghost kitchens are kitchens that operate just for food delivery and can have multiple restaurants involved in one kitchen.  Lots of kitchen hubs are popping up and lot's of restaurants are reducing their risk by partnering up spaces with other restaurants.  Trevor Lui just opened an all Asian permanent Night Market in the Annex called Superfresh (@superfresh.to)

Some of the other trends that I noticed were everything Plant Based.  My friend thought it was funny that they kept calling things meat when it's not actually meat.  I didn't try it because it's not new to me.

As usual there was a lot of pizza but there was attempts to do pizza different ways.  I tried one that used a flour that was mixed with different flours like rice flour and others to reduce the gluten and calories.  I was impressed at how light the pizza was.  

On the other end of the Plant based trend was actual meat.  We tried a steak from England and it was so tender we all fell in love with it.  Lots of charcuterie and steaks this year. 

One of our favourite things was 2 chefs making Beef Birria tacos.  It was mesmerizing and delicious.  Beef Birria tacos seems to be another new trend and popping up a lot on social media as the way to eat tacos these days.

Lots of ways of using technology to solve problems.   One of the things that caught my eye while we were waiting for Mary was a vendor who was selling re-usable take out containers.  I actually thought of this about 5 years ago because I hate styrofoam and some of the bad takeout containers that just go into landfill.  They have a code you scan so I am not sure how it works financially but you scan it when you return to the restaurant and I think you can use it at whatever restaurant follows the program so it may take a while to spread but I think this will be our future.  They are well designed and an attractive clear and teal color so I wouldn't mind storing them in my kitchen if that was available at my favourite places.

This show is so big that I never know what I missed until I see people I know post on social media that they were there and I didn't see them.  

I literally walked 10,000 steps that day and boy did I feel it at the end of the day and the next day.  

Honestly it felt really weird not wearing a mask the whole day and I was concerned about it but it was so great to run into so many people that we haven't seen in a couple of years and just sample food like we used to.

I also stopped at Pluck tea for my favourite Verbeena Blues iced tea.  It was a mix of a few of my favourites and some new things.   

I didn't see any really out of the box things this year in the food side.  I think because of the pandemic it may not have been the time to take on something risky.

 

Coronavirus and the Food Industry

If you read my previous post I talked about the Restaurant Canada Show that I went to in March 2020.  I had high hopes for 2020 because I had a very rough year in 2019 physically, career wise, financially and of course that affected my mental health as well.  I was hoping to shake off that year and start fresh in 2020 and do what I wanted to do and spend more time with people I like spending time with and do less rushing around for no good reason.   While January and February started off quietly March came in like a Coronavirus Lion. 

I was looking forward to and hoped to have some more fun things to look forward to in 2020 but one thing I have learned over my lifetime is that as soon as I try and plan something too far in the future life smacks me upside the head and changes everything.

Luckily timing was good and I was able to attend one of my favourite trade shows of the year,  The Restaurant Canada Show,  as I said more about that in my previous post but just to sum it up it is one of my favourite shows because it's organize so well and it's the restaurant industry leaders who have booths, do panels and demos and visit the show.   My day job isn't in the food industry but because of this blog I have met so many people in the business and want to know as much as I can so that I can write with knowledge when I write these posts.

I had a fantastic time hanging out with my blogger friends, seeing chefs I knew and sampling all kinds of food over the 2 days that I visited the show.  But little did I know that it would probably be the last big event I would go to for possibly another year. 

Everything changed only a week later.  At the time I was at the Enercare Centre with loads of people, although it is so big it's not crowded luckily,  but just east of the Enercare Centre someone at a Mining Conference at the Metro Convention Centre tested positive for a new Coronavirus - Covid 19.  This virus started in 2019 in China and if you don't already know you are living in a bubble.

I was at the trade show on the Sunday and Monday and within 2 weeks I was working from home.  That doesn't sound unusual but my job was never supposed to be a work from home job.  I work in Public Service.  I knew things were serious when I got a laptop pronto and we had to figure out another way of getting work done.  Luckily I had already started thinking of getting more things done by sharing files on more cloud shareable platforms.  We can't do everything but it's now been about a month since I have been working from home and who knows how long this will go on.

So I will get to my point now,  I never expected the whole food industry to change after that Restaurant Canada Show and i am sure nobody at the show did either.

All of a sudden all events were cancelled until July and then things ramped up with the big step of non essential or big groups had to shut down so that meant Restaurants had to close and they could only provide Take Out.

There are thousands of restaurants of all sorts of sizes and kinds in Toronto and that shut down and within a couple of weeks destroyed the restaurant business.  The restaurant industry in Toronto has already been struggling to keep up with the high rents and the construction, transit issues and staffing issues and now this.  Over night restaurants closed and most will most likely never open their doors again because they won't have the money to keep them going through the reduced business that will occur for a long time to come.

So here's the other effect that happened because of a Virus that spread like wildfire across the globe.
People now fear going for groceries.  I ordered a pizza to support a Chef that owns a couple of pizza places.  It cost me $30 after charges and tax and tip to the Uber Driver for a pepperoni pizza.  I would never normally do that because I have like 5 different pizza places within a few blocks of where I live but ok so I supported local with my $$ and then got a firestorm of opinions about ordering takeout food on social media.  Some understanding supporting the restaurant industry and some totally paranoid about anything anyone touches that they would come into contact with.


While I will probably not order that pizza again it made me think that if this is what the public will think then we may lose 90 percent of the restaurants in this city out of fear and paranoia.   I say 90 percent because I know there are people out there who will still support their friends in the business no matter what.  Even though there are a ton of restaurants in the city the community is very tight.

So what else changed?  Well people buying up all the bread and yeast in the city.  Why?  Well to make all the Sourdough breads and Banana Breads that have been flooding Instagram accounts.

There are a few Instagram Food trends happening.  Here's what you will see.

1.  Banana Bread
2.  Sourdough or other types of bread that require time.
3.  Dalgona Coffee - the whipped coffee craze
4.  Pasta - especially Carbonara and straight up tomato sauce
5.  Gnocchi - following the pasta craze but making it at home now.
6.  Bowls of all kinds - smoothie bowls, bowls of Ramen, soup bowls.  any comfort thing in a bowl.
7.  Mac and Cheese- who doesn't love Mac and cheese... it's pasta with more cheese.
8.  Wine - people are trying to drink the virus away drinking wine while they are on zoom chats.
9.  Beer - craft beer in particular because people need their beer.
10.  And finally Desserts,  mostly chocolate chip cookies but there are lots of muffins, cakes, and whatever they can come up with.  Did you know that people are waiting in a drive through Krispy Kreme for 3 hours?

How many of these did I jump on the bandwagon with?  Well I would say 8 out of 10 just because I am not a beer or wine drinker but I have been putting Kahlua in my dalgona coffee.

The good thing to come out of this insanity though is an appreciation for the hard work that servers and chefs do and how we actually rely on them a lot more than we realize.   I always knew this and miss them a lot.

The servers should be paid more because they rely on tips to make ends meet and most have no benefits so at a time like this their only option is unemployment with will give them half of what they were making.

Also, the other good thing is that people are forced to get back into their kitchens and up their cooking skills or they will just be eating the same thing everyday.  It's a great time to teach kids cooking skills which they will have for life so that they can take care of themselves at any time this or anything worse happens.  I believe more people will start food gardens this year too.

I like to cook when I am inspired but not everyday so I like a balance of cooking and going to restaurants or getting takeout when I have other things that will occupy my time.  That option may not be available as much if this pandemic continues for a long time.

It's interesting how we now realize that Nurses, PSW's, grocery store workers, chefs, servers, Police, Firefighters, EMS, truck drivers and farmers should be paid a lot more than celebrities and sports people.  They aren't going to keep us alive.  We do need entertainment to lift our soul but it's not going to do anything for us if we get Covid 19 so I hope that people's priorities and values shift a lot after we return to somewhat of a normal existence.   Although I believe we will never go back to the way things were.  The world changed after Sars, 9/11 and some other large disasters.   We will never look at handshakes, hugs, crowds and food sources the same way again.

Never take things for granted because everything can change like a virus spreading overnight.

Thank the people that keep you alive.  Help whoever you can.

Covid 19 cancels events in Toronto until July

Today the Mayor of Toronto announced that all events and Parade permits are now cancelled until July 2020. 

Will the Food, Events and Entertainment and Travel Industries survive the effects of this COVID 19 pandemic?

The last large event that I attended was the Restaurant Canada Show  it is one of my favourite annual shows and I haven't gotten to my blog post yet because there were so many things that I want to write about and need to have the time to do it.   But I mention it now because I had no idea that it was to be the last big event that I would be able to go to at the time and how it would affect all the people that attended that show.  It was only a couple of weeks later that so many Restaurants in the city had to shut down because Toronto is now in a state of emergency and people are told to stay home.  Restaurants had to let their staff go and either convert to pick up or delivery or shut their doors.

With Bloggers Mary Tang (Marys Happy Belly) Jenny Roger (Ice cream and Knishes) and restauranteur Trevor Lui

I worked at Sunnybrook Hospital when Sars hit in 2003 and it affected the Restaurant industry and many restaurants lost money and some closed but not to the extent that it has hit the industry in such a short time frame.  Restaurants workers work long hours for minimum wage or less in some cases and don't have a lot of the benefits some people enjoy. 

I have gotten to know many people in the food, events and entertainment industry over the past 10 years while writing this blog and my heart breaks for them now.

If you have been reading my blog you know that I volunteer for the Toronto Film Festival who's building on King Street has now shuttered until an undetermined time and the next festival could be up in the air at this time.

I also have an events management background and know how hard it is to organize events in this city and how long it takes to organize a festival or even a small event.  It requires many people getting together to plan and execute which is not possible at this time.

For the first time in my life I am working from home.  I am lucky that I can do that at this time but I can't do all of the tasks of my job so I don't know what it will be like when everything is back on track.

The Mayor has cancelled the Pride Parade,  the Hot Docs Film Festival, Comicon, the Juno Awards, the Green Living Show, The Canadian Screen Awards and too many more to mention have been either cancelled for this year or have been pushed to a much later date.

This will affect my blog but it won't silence it because I have been writing about events for almost 10 years but it's not the only thing I write about luckily.   I had already reduced my attendance at events and had less restaurant invites.  I have been spending more time at home cooking my own food and trying to reduce my waste.

But here is the thing that I am concerned about.  What will happen when this Social distancing and State of Emergency has lifted?  Will people go back to life as normal?  Will we lose a lot of great things for good?

While I love the fact that people are now having to embrace cooking at home and you see loads of people making bread on Instagram I also miss meeting up with friends at restaurants or going to food events and meeting the chefs and vendors making the food.

Will they persevere or give up and be forced to do something else to survive?

After Sars lifted there was a huge Concert at Downsview Park.  What will we do this time?

I wish I had unlimited funds to be able to order food from all the places that have been able to adapt and stay open during this time to keep them going.  If you have the means I would urge you to order food every other day maybe.  Build your cooking skills and appreciate the people that cook the food for you.  They may not always be there to make your favourite foods.

Starving Foodie guide to best places to eat during TIFF19

Guide to good eats near TIFF theatres.

This will be my 19th year doing Tiff and between my festival experience and my foodie life I have picked up a few fav picks for eats close to the festival.  I have been trying to do this list for the past few years and it changes every year especially since King Street West has changed so much because of the King Street Project.  Most of my choices are based on proximity and the food being tried and true.  Most are fairly reasonable and quick because sometimes you just don't have a lot of time to eat between films and sometimes you might have time to kill and want to catch up on the films you like over a decent meal, for myself I start craving a good meal after the first weekend because that's the busiest time.  These places aren't chosen for celeb spotting but more on where me and my fellow film lovers would actually go.

1. TIFF Bell Lightbox

350 King St. W,

Pizzaolo on John Street at Adelaide $5 for a cheap and quick slice
A&W on John Street south of King St. always has special deals so a meal under $10
Luma at the Lightbox 2nd floor- Great place for drinks and an appy between films
Montecito - lots of money and time to kill and get a great meal.  Director Ivan Reitman is one of the owners so you will find Ghostbusters items and lots of photos near the washrooms.

2. Scotiabank Theatre

259 Richmond Street West

Melt - 300 Richmond St. W, - Want a grab and go hand held bite?  It takes a few min for the grilled cheese but it's worth it.

Blaze Pizza - Open less than a year but this franchise is spreading around the city.  You can get whatever you want for around $10.

3. Princess of Wales

300 King Street West-

PAI-18 Duncan St. - This place is really popular so there may even be a line to get in.  This Thai resto is a hot spot for foodies in the know in Toronto.
FIGO - 295 Adelaide St W -  This place is lovely and has the best zucchini fritti. This is a linger with some wine kind of place.

Montecito - lots of money and time to kill and get a great meal.

4. Roy Thompson Hall

60 Simcoe Street

Ritz Carlton -181 Wellington St.W..   This is where industry meetings happen and a lot of people watching.  I really like the Truffle fries on the back patio.
Elephant & Castle -212 King St. West -  Consistency is key to this long standing successful resto.  This is where you might find my entourage team having dinner while a film is happening at Roy Thompson Hall because the food is good, reasonable and hits the spot.

5. Elgin/Wintergarden

189 Yonge Street

Richmond Station - Richmond St. W. if you have some $ and time this is a great bet for a great meal. Get the burger.
Pusateris - 176 Yonge Street. - Inside the Saks at the Bay is a great place to grab a roast beef sandwich by the inch or my fav Poke bowl or a freshly tossed salad and Greenhouse juice.  You may spot an incognito celeb even because of the Bay and Eaton Centre shopping there.
Sud Forno - 132 Yonge Street. - This is a fancy Italian eat in or take out place.  Not just a slice of pizza but a decent variety of salads and sandwiches and sweets.

6.  AGO - Jackman Hall

317 Dundas St, W.

Pizzaiolo - 289 Dundas St. West.  - I listed this twice because it's fast and cheap.

Village by the Grange Food Court - 109 McCaul St. -Mean Bao, Helene's  Magic Kitchen, Jerk King - a great variety of fast food kiosks.  I eat there during the week a lot.  This is a daytime place though.

7.  Ryerson Theatre

43 Gerrard St. E.

Banh Mi Boys - 399 Yonge Street - They have the best $5 fried chicken Bao. and the Banh mi sandwiches are great too.
Hot Star Fried Chicken - 374A Yonge Street - Craving a big hunk of KFC that you can walk down the street or stand in a rush line at Ryerson and eat.  This is a good deal for that but sometimes it takes some time to wait.
Salad King- 340 Yonge Street - This is a Ryerson Student favourite.  Eat in or take out.  

Restaurant Canada Show 2019

Restaurant Canada Show 2019
Enercare Centre
Feb 24-26, 2019
#RCShow19
@restarantscanada
Web:  RCShow.com

I am always on the hunt for new, interesting, fun and time saving things so I always like to visit the Restaurant Canada Show to see into the future of the Restaurant world.  Besides seeing innovative restaurant equipment there is also things you don't even think about if you don't run a restaurant.  This show is really a one stop shop for the Restaurant Industry where you can get everything from a Pizza Oven, food packaging, technology that will make your business run more efficiently and of course food of every kind.  Meat, Gelato and Pizza seemed to dominate this years show.  Low fat,  not so much.  Full Flavour is in this year in whatever form you are looking for.

This blog post has a lot of photos and this show runs for 3 days but I walked the whole show and tried to cover as much as I could.  I don't get into the restaurant equipment as much since my blog is more food based but I am going to try and give you a bit of an overview of things that stood out to me.

One of the things I love after going to the show a couple of times is hanging out with my food blogger friends and running into other fellow food bloggers.  We are write about food but we all have a different view of what we are checking out at the show.  My friend Shuang was obsessed with the Latte art and my friend Jenny loves to chat with the Chefs while I am looking at overall trends, new things and of course I love to find out whats new with restaurant industry friends.

This year at the show I ran into Matt Dean Pettit who owns Matty's Seafood and who was at the show for a new partnership to produce plates for restaurants.  I really liked this blue plate.  They all have a slightly different look because of the glazing process they use

There are also lots of chef Demos and one of the demos was how to style a Charcuterie Board by another friend of mine Food Stylist Irene Matys from the Spicy Olive.  Irene's demo was very popular.

Sustainable Seafood expert Chef Ned Bell was doing a little catch up with Matt while I was trying his Seaweed infused brownies.  They were really good and think of it like salted caramel.  Just a hint of the salt from the seaweed but all chocolate.

The first thing I had at the show was Ice cream at 10am.  You need to have a strong stomach because there are every kind of samples to try.  Gelato is one of my favourite things and there was a lot of it there.

 

I like to pick up cool entertaining ideas because I never know when I need to pull something out of my hat for a work event.

Simple things like Egg Pops from the Egg Farmers of Ontario to Decorated Madeleine's from Petite Breton.

After my breakfast Ice Cream I then had a cocktail made with Sipsmith Gin because of course that's how you start a Sunday Morning isn't it?  There are cocktail competitions and loads of sampling and that's where we started because that area becomes the busiest at the show later in the day and also because the samples to carry are on the other end.  I tried to be more strategic to cover as much as I could this year.

The show has some fun stuff too like selfie activations and ways to make your business attract the Insta crowd.  Of course we had to do it.

I was also looking for interesting food and new products.  I liked the box of Tic Tac Toe cookies that are geared to kids in school to be interactive.  So much fun.  These are from a new vendor from Quebec and they are looking to get into the schools. It's not available in Ontario as yet.

I have become an oyster fan over the past few years and there were all kinds of Oysters to sample from the east coast to the west coast

One of the products I picked up that I am looking forward to using is the sample I got of Garlic scape pesto.  I am thinking a pasta dish maybe.

Some of the Innovative and new trends in how to set up your food business is the newly popular container restaurants and cool portable units like this ice cream cart. Stylish and practical. 

 Are you afraid of AI or do you want robots to take over monotonous tasks or from a restaurant perspective not have to worry if your employees are sick and don't show up to work.  Well check out this AI robot that will take your order.  More of this is on the way for sure as rents increase and so do payroll costs.

A couple of the yummy things I ate were the pairing of some cheese from Quebec with candied ginger.  You think it's weird but think of Brie and Cranberry.  It really works.  Try that on your next cheese board.  I also had some Welsh Rarebit that was demo'd at a Garland equipment station. Who doesn't love more cheese on toast?

These 3 products caught my eye as well.  Pancetta spread, Marshmallow whip cream and these cookie dough products.

 There was lot's of various teas and of course lot's of coffee but I didn't focus on it as much this year because I covered it more last time but look at these varieties and colors.  You can plan your menu and add a tea colored to match.  Fancy.

How about Sushi desserts?  Fun colored chocolate shavings and shapes? Heart shaped Macarons and all kinds of Nougat.  This would make your party food a lot more fun.

The Canola Girls were having a bit of fun at their booth.  How many of you use Canola Oil everyday? Ever wonder where it comes from?

 This guy was really old school making classic Roast Beef Sandwiches.   Beef is Back I think with all the Keto Diets around now.

Don't forget about your promotional items.  Aren't thse squishy things fun?

So that's my Restaurant roundup for this year.  I hope to be back again next year to eat, take photos and see new things and meet new people.

This is a Food Industry Trade Show so if you are in the Restaurant Business I would say this is a must for you to do to network and find new ways of doing things.

The Restaurant Industry is not for the faint of heart so let's all work together to make it work.