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09/16/11
There’s something to be said about good old-fashioned word of mouth and really good, artisanal gelato. Within 15 minutes of opening on its first night, Arte Gelato, the new gelato shop at Bloor and Dovercourt (housed in the old Belo Fashions wedding shop) had a lineup.
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09/12/11
When it comes to a meal at The Stockyards, it’s always the same story for me. On the way there, I’ll vow to try something different because owner Tom Davis is continually testing out new, experimental dishes like fish tacos or Korean-style chicken; it’s always worth a try because everything The Stockyards does is just plain good, and you never know how long it’ll be on the menu.
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08/31/11
It’s opening night at Hardys: A Hogtown Brasserie, and owner John Hardy (the III, according to his business card) is cool as a cucumber, even if he’s in a bit of a pickle. His brand new barbecue joint is rammed; it’s bursting at the seams, and servers can barely keep up. Hardy doesn’t appear phased, even as local barbecue legend Darryl Koster gets a table.
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08/31/11
If The Black Hoof’s twitter account is to be believed, Grant van Gameren is leaving the highly regarded restaurant. This intensely disheartening message was just sent out a few minutes ago:
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08/31/11
Last winter, much to the surprise of many North York residents who had been frequenting the place for years (and in some cases, decades), Lorne Pancer decided to sell the deli his grandfather Moe opened in 1957. Now, months later, he has opened a new eponymous deli in Richmond Hill. We spoke with him about his decision to get back into the pastrami business.
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08/29/11
When a restaurant’s logo is a straight-up dollar sign — complete with a fork stabbing through the “s” — there’s little question as to the market it’s gunning for. And when one considers that the executive chef is Todd Clarmo, formerly the corporate executive chef at Oliver and Bonacini Restaurants, and that the restaurant’s name is STOCK, of all possible monikers, it becomes clear that, yes, you’ll probably need to suit up to hang out there.
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08/29/11
August has been a good month for Aboriginal cuisine in Toronto. First, there was the opening of indigenous-centric restaurant Keriwa Cafe, and now, we have Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants’ newest endeavor, Bannock. Opening today at the corner of Bay Street and Queen Street West (at ground level in the Simpsons Tower, across from Old City Hall), Bannock keeps with the O&B tradition of serving Canadian cuisine (a la Canoe) and, as you might expect, serves bannock.
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08/26/11
This is a great time for a pink sparkling wine. Actually, the colour is more of what the French call “eye of the partridge.” A delicious, light-bodied bubbly, with a nose of raspberries and violets and a taste that’s dry, with raspberry and tobacco leaf flavours. A very versatile food wine as well as an excellent aperitif. Well-priced when you consider rosé champagne. Food match: cold salmon, chicken salad.
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08/25/11
It was just last month that we reported on the closure of Forest Hill’s longstanding China House, and now Toronto is set to lose yet another Chinese food institution. Lai Toh Heen, uptown’s sibling restaurant to the Metropolitan Hotel’s much-lauded Lai Wah Heen, will be closing on Sept. 18 after five years in business.
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08/24/11
Hassel Aviles’ efforts to create Canada’s first underground food market are about to pay off. On Sept. 24, Evergreen Brick Works will host the Toronto Underground Food Market’s first event, bringing in a lineup of home-cooking virtuosos.
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08/24/11
It is with great anticipation that I crack open a bottle of Great Lakes Brewery’s latest creation: Miami Weisse. Get it? As a child of the ’80s, in a number of my high school years I was called Don Johnson almost as much as my actual name. So I feel a certain connection — nay, a kinship — with his new wheat ale crafted right here in Toronto.
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08/23/11
When Sam James Coffee Bar first opened on Harbord Street nearly two years ago, people weren’t exactly complaining about the coffee. In fact, owner Sam James is pretty much universally credited with upping the ante for coffee shops around the city. Still, he’s relentless in his search for the perfect cup, and has implemented several improvements to his shop.
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08/23/11
Veteran restaurateur Johnny K is opening up a playpen in Toronto's east end. That's actually what he's calling his new venture: The Playpen Restaurant and Dining Lounge. The co-owner of the trendy Leslieville restaurant Tomi-Kro is partnering up with wife Laura Prentice, who will be The Playpen’s head chef, to open up a spot equally as cool as 'Kro, but completely different.
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08/22/11
For years, Jamba Juice has been running the smoothie-show in the United States. Now, it’s Canada’s turn. Thanks to the family that brought us Yogen Fruz and Yogurty’s, Jamba Juice is moving north, and Toronto will be its testing grounds.
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08/22/11
It’s Monday morning in Little Italy, and we’re waiting outside Rodney Bowers’ soon-to-open restaurant, Hey Meatball!, to catch a sneak peek. The door opens, and Bowers puts his head outside. “Did you see any babes?” he jokes. It wasn’t the first thing we expected him to say, but no, we hadn’t. We were too busy dreaming of meatballs.
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08/22/11
Soup in the summer? Why not? Especially if it’s a gazpacho that’s not on a Summerlicious menu. Woodlot, located in an old garage space near Litte Italy, has been celebrated time and time again for its distinctive cuisine. Call it what you may: farmhouse-chic or “lumberjack” cuisine, the bottom line is that chef David Haman and his team create hearty, humble cuisine that’s as tasty as it is friendly to both carnivores and vegetarians.
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08/19/11
This weekend, legendary competitve eater Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi battles Toronto’s own “Furious Pete” Czerwinski in the second annual pizza pie eating competition at PIE, Barrie’s only wood-fired pizza joint. The Let ‘Em Eat Part Deuce competition will see the two — along with nine others — hoovering sauce and inhaling cheese like human garburators.
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08/19/11
College street’s bustling indie java spot Manic Coffee has a sweet new project in the works: house-made gelato. Owner Matthew Lee, who apprenticed at Vancouver’s famed Elysian Coffee, plans to approach his artisanal gelato with the same science-driven zeal and attention to detail that he takes with his coffee.
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08/17/11
After lots of hype (and just as many delays, apparently), Toronto finally has a restaurant focused on Aboriginal cuisine. Parkdale’s Keriwa Café is now open for business, promising a menu of fresh, local and organic ingredients.
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08/17/11
It’s no surprise that women seem to be less into beer than men. While ads rife with midriff-bearing women are appealing to some, they can make it seem like beer is exclusively a man’s drink. “They’ve got to go,” says Toronto beer specialist Mirella Amato. As organizer of Toronto’s chapter of Barley’s Angels, a girls-only beer club, she knows that women can appreciate the beverage just as much as men if given a chance. So, how can breweries get women more into beer?
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08/16/11
When Toronto’s club king boasted about changing the face of dining in Yorkville a couple years back, many an eye did roll. After all, Charles Khabouth is more closely associated with night spots such as Kool Haus and the Guvernment. But then he goes and opens French bistro La Société, and it seems as though many people will be eating their words along with the classic French cuisine on offer.
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08/16/11
It’s difficult to fathom how a low-profile spirit like pisco could spawn an enduring rift between continental neighbours: it’s nearly odourless, with an unremarkably anemic hue. But the strong and stealthy South American grape brandy has been the viciously sought-after prize in an ongoing cultural tug-of-war between Chile and Peru for centuries.
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08/15/11
When R Squared Café opened up in the Trinity Bellwoods area earlier this month, we couldn’t help but be curious about the name. Turns out that the shop is simply named after the two Rezas — Sheikh and Yazdjerdi — who own it. Nothing more complicated than that.
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08/15/11
Here’s a wine that can stand up to just about anything you throw at it. I took it to an Indian restaurant and had it with curry. Bommarito is the second label of Whitehall Lane and remembers one of the founding fathers of the Napa Valley industry, Dominic Bommarito, who moved to the Valley in 1929. The wine is juicy blackcurrant and blackberry with notes of dark chocolate. Ready to drink. Food match: BBQ meats, aged cheddar. (Vintages #213918)
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08/12/11
Good things grow in Ontario. And the second annual Conscious Food Festival, happening this weekend at Fort York, is celebrating just that. In the midst of barbecues and beer festivals, this unique event champions healthy, sustainable food while emphasizing the importance of supporting local farms.
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08/11/11
As Rome's answer to ice cream continues to delight Toronto taste buds, some may be surprised to learn that Alessandro Settimi has sold the Mad Italian Gelato Bar.
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08/10/11
Boasting certified organic, sustainable and eco-friendly food is all the rage, but have we wrung those buzz words dry? The Grove, a soon-to-be “food emporium and smart market,” will take on many of those same values, but with a fresher approach.
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08/09/11
Kevin Durkee is intolerant of lactose intolerance, and his new restaurant CHEESEWERKS will follow suit. The 100 per cent cheese-focused restaurant, opening around the middle of September, will make no soy-stitutions.
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08/08/11
Paul Bosc has been making this red blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc since 1998 but only in fine vintages. It sounds pricey at $40 a bottle, but it has the quality and flavour of a French wine at twice the price. If you like red Bordeaux, this is the wine for you. Floral and spicy on the nose, it’s rich on the palate with cassis and dark chocolate flavours that finish dry and savoury. Food match: rack of lamb, filet mignon. Available at winery or winerytohome.com.
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08/08/11
A few times a month, my mother takes on the role of tour guide and shows me a new lunch spot in Scarborough. Although her taste in food is quite cosmopolitan, she tends to gravitate towards Indian and Sri Lankan restaurants. One of her favourites is Karaikudi.
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08/05/11
Whoever said Bohemia is dead was clearly not in attendance for the opening of Paul Boehmer’s newest restaurant. Queen West's new Bohemian Gastropub had its grand opening last night, and things were very much alive.
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08/05/11
Nothing tastes more like summer then shucked corn cooked over an open flame. This weekend, the St. Lawrence Market is hoping that charred kernels dipped in melted butter are enough to lure Torontonians away from their air conditioning and down to its farmer’s market, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.
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08/04/11
The Shops at Don Mills has been growing rapidly over the past couple years, and Robert Medal has been keeping watch. The general manager of Toronto’s Bier Markt — currently with one location on King Street West and another on The Esplanade — knew that the evolving outdoor shopping center was the perfect spot for a third Bier Markt location.
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08/03/11
It seems so obvious: queers and beers go together like, um, how they rhyme together. But it took Les Murray, the president of Toronto’s Festival of Beer — plus a Cyndi Lauper concert at last year’s Dyke Day festival — to make it happen. Sitting at the Queen’s Park event, Murray thought to himself, “This would be an unbelievable audience to do a festival with.”
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08/03/11
Last month, Rosedale’s Terroni Bar Centrale pulled horsemeat from its menu. The move — prompted solely by poor sales, apparently — wasn’t a complete surprise, since selling horsemeat is extra risqué for a chain restaurant. But what does it mean when, after over a decade, La Palette stops serving horsemeat, as it did over the weekend?
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08/02/11
It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride for fans of The Black Hoof lately: first, The Hoof Café closed to make way for Black Hoof and Company, originally set to open this spring. That opening was delayed, of course — for an entire year — leaving us to wonder what would happen with the space until then. The answer is a somewhat unsurprising (though wholly welcome) cocktail bar.
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08/02/11
With unsustainability and overfishing a huge threat to the world fish population, I notice that more and more friends abstain from enjoying sushi. I don’t blame them — most sushi restaurants in Toronto don’t care about destructive fishing practices or sustainability.
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08/02/11
I’m not usually a fan of wine that bears the name of a celebrity, sporting or otherwise. But this one won the gold medal at this year’s Ontario Wine Awards in the off-dry Riesling category. It has flavours of honeyed lime and cantaloupe,with refreshing acidity. It will make you think twice about Riesling. Food match: aperitif wine, smoked fish (Vintages # 229286).
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