ALL MY SINGLE LADIES!

So we recently did a Couples Cooking Class but last night we went undercover for the Singles version! (Or tried to - our foodie friends Suresh, Joel and David kind of blew our "single" cover - or maybe that was Mark and I who blew it!) Here's our impressions of the Singles Cooking Class that Chef Vanessa Yeung from Aphrodite Cooks held at Nella Cucina:

THE FOOD

• Menu was similar to Couples class (and was delicious as always - last night was the first time I made couscous and I could not believe how easy it was to make!)
  
  
• The featured dessert was different - this time Preena Chauhan was there helping us make a chai pineapple bundt cake spiced with Arvinda's spices. It was moist and tasty, and was served with...
  
  
• Toronto's Frozen Vines KILLER Pina Colada Gelato! Honestly, best part of the night for me. I LOVED it. We got our hands on a list of all the booze-infused treats they make and were also told they experiment all the time and make items NOT on their usual menu - They also have some other wild flavours of gelatos and sorbettos, like Chilli Tequila Gelato, Limeoncello Sour Cream Mint Gelato, and Sangria Sorbetto - their list is really extensive and I highly recommend giving them a try.

ALL MY SINGLE LADIES!

• There were certainly more women than men - guys, this would be a good place to go to meet a lovely girl!
  
  
• If you didn't meet anyone special last night, Jean from No Loves Lost was holding a draw for her professional services.
  
  
• As with all Aphrodite Cooks classes we will be emailed all the recipes - great for singles who may want to impress future dates with their cooking skills!

Be the next Dinner Party Legends on TV!

Here's your chance to be the next dinner party super-duo on this new Food Network Canada show.


They're looking to cast the show ASAP. Each episode includes 3 teams of 2 people attempting to stage the BEST dinner party. 2 judges will render the final verdict.

For more information, contact Dan Pasqua at dpasqua@cineflix.com

Posted by: Mark Rodas

Cooking Class: Simple Dim Sum

To celebrate the Year of the Tiger, Chef Vanessa Yeung of Aphrodite Cooks held a Dim Sum cooking class at Nella Cucina featuring her Year of the Tiger dumplings.

These cooking classes are tons of fun. Not only do you get to socialize with other food lovers, you also learn new skills and recipes. Oh and did I forget to mention that you get to eat what everyone cooked!


Click on video to play

Chef Yeung and her mom Millie taught us all we had to know to make such yummy treats as bison potstickers, stuffed eggplant, vegetarian water dumplings and siu mai.



Click on video to play

I love siu mai! Though other kinds of dim sum may be more intricate and tasty, there's just something very comforting about steamed pork and shrimp.

The sweet and savoury pork stuffed pastry was also deeeelish!

The class was very informative. Dim sum turned out to be quite easy to make, with fresh, inexpensive ingredients. We were even talking among ourselves about how easy it would be to pull off making several kinds of dim sum with only slight variations of the same ingredients if you had to throw a dinner party in a pinch.

Click here for more cooking class photos.

Posted by: Mark Rodas

Additional links:
Aphrodite Cooks
Nella Cucina cooking classes

Sarah B. Hood's blog post
No 'Ugly Dumplings' here, Dim Sum recipes from Chef Yeung

Fondue Feastivul at the Esplanade Bier Markt

Here's a great date idea: "Me, Yu, Und Fondue" at the Bier Markt for their Fondue Feastivul.

I love how the Bier Markt runs these themed festivals throughout the year. At other times there's an Asparagus Feastivul and a Gamey Meat Feastivul. I also love how the Bier Markt makes my spellcheck go awry, haha Feastivuuuul...

The Bier Markt has 2 restaurants, but I always find myself at the Esplanade location. It's in the funky yet peaceful St. Lawrence neighbourhood, and it represents my idea of Toronto's original gastropub. The Bier Markt, along with another favourite, Beer Bistro, have an astounding selection of brews from all over the world. They also have the high-calibre food to match.

We started off with some Paulaner Dunkel, a smooth, malty Bavarian beer. It was dark, crisp, and fragrant, a great way to wake up the palate.

For apps we had the Cheese and Lager Fondue: appenzeller, emmental and raclette cheese, Stella Artois lager, asparagus, grape tomatoes, cornichons, and fresh baguette.


That was a big appetizer. I'm glad we shared. Needless to say we mopped up all the cheese with the baguette.

For our main, we shared the Surf and Turf: Atlantic lobster, AAA center cut striploin, asparagus, rosti potato, peppercorn demi-glace, with a Leffe Brune Ale broth.

The lobster looked pre-cooked, and was a little tough. A side of salted, melted butter would also have been nice, but was sadly missing.

The striploin on the other hand was amazing! It was so soft. We were also warned earlier by the couple sitting next to us who just had the same fondue that the green peppercorn sauce was to die for, and we should try not to fight over it. She was right. The sauce complemented the meat perfectly.

For dessert, Stacey had the Caramel and Toffee Fondue: ladyfingers, French macaroons, biscotti, bananas, strawberries, and housemade marshmallows.

I had the Belgian Chocolate Fondue: Valrhona dark Manjari chocolate, French macaroons, biscotti, ladyfingers, bananas, and strawberries.


The housemade marshmallows were great with the caramel, and the French macaroons were heavenly with the chocolate. That's gotta be one of the best chocolate sauces I've ever had.

Get thee to the Bier Markt.


Click here for more mouthwatering pics.


The Fondue Feastivul runs from Jan 13 - Feb 28, 2010.

www.thebiermarkt.com


Posted by: Mark Rodas

Have you tasted Toronto's cooking classes?

Sure, Tasting Toronto cooks at home, reports back on restaurant experiences, seeks out new ingredients/recipes and visits food festivals - but another part of discovering what Toronto's food scene has to offer is to learn directly from the very talented chefs who populate this city - the best way to do that is to attend a cooking class led by one of them.

Valentine's Day weekend we were at a couple's cooking class at Nella Cucina with Aphrodite Cooks. Looking around at the other couples, I realized this was a really cool bonding experience - cooking in your own kitchen is similar, but being in a professional kitchen is even more fun. I drooled the entire time staring at the KitchenAid Mixer and deep fryer, wishing I had my own at home! And even without the gadgets, you still come away with the recipes so you can dazzle your friends and family. Much cheaper than going to George Brown's culinary school (although if I won the lottery that's probably where I'd run off to)!

We were manning the dessert station: we made a delicious flourless dark chocolate tequila torte with banana/avocado sauce.

Click here for more pics from the evening!

Sunday morning we're doing a Dim Sum cooking class - we'll be sure to have mouth-watering pictures from that as well so stay tuned!

French microbrews at The 3 Brewers

Don't let this little microbrewery fool you. The 3 Brewers or Les 3 Brasseurs is not the small pub out of Quebec that some who've visited its Montreal location may believe. It is in fact a chain from France, bringing the old European tradition of fresh non-pasteurized beers brewed on site to it's Yonge-Dundas location. The simple yet tasty menu includes brasserie fare and bistro dishes, culminating in their specialty flamms. The Flammequeches, flamms for short, are pizza-like Alsatian-style open faced pies with various toppings. Though calling them pizzas is like calling this French brasserie a British gastropub... same difference.

What better way to start the evening than to have a pint of craft beer. We just missed the regular brewery tour that they offer, but maybe next time we'll catch the brewmaster in action. We had the Virago and the Amber Passion. The Virago's rich profile comes from a unique blend of malts, caramel, chocolate, and a hint of coffee. The Amber Passion is a vibrant and well balanced beer brewed with a special blend of pale malts. The beers were nice and fresh, full-bodied and very flavourful. They were a little flat for my liking though. Maybe I have grown too fond of megacorp Interbrew's Belgian offerings, as I expect the top of my tongue to be assaulted while the bitter flavours mellow in the back.

As pub food goes, The 3 Brewers fills a unique niche in this city's foodscape. The flamms are simply delectable. We had the Smoked Meat flamm: smoked meat a l'ancienne, gruyere cheese and pickles. Though it was a little odd eating it with huge pickle wedges, the flamm was awesome. The smoked meat was definitely Montreal. I wished they put a lot more on. The gruyere was deeply fulfilling, and made us think that maybe other pizza places should really take a look at using this cheese. Yeah we know it's expensive -- if you build it, they will come.

We also had the other house specialty, the Beer-braised pork shank, served with a salad, baked potato, and sauerkraut. This might need getting used to for some people, as pork hocks are not the most appealing sight. At first all you see is hairy, gelatinous skin, fat, and bone. I knew however that this was gonna be good. Filipinos have a similar dish called Paksiw na Pata, and my Eastern-Euro friends attest that pork hock is a beer garden staple.

The staff advises newbies to flip the layer of fat and skin over to reach the juicy, succulent, flavour-soaked meat inside. The meat was great, but I also treated myself to bits of the skin and fat, eaten with the meat and sauerkraut. An acquired indulgence that some may be squeamish of.

For dessert we had a flamm with apple and chocolate sauce. That was really good. It was like a crispy, flaky crepe with crunchy slivers of apple, a rich chocolate sauce and dollops of whipped cream.

The 3 Brewers is a delightfully casual place to have a beer and simple yet yummy food in a bustling touristy part of town. It's actually quite spacious inside despite the small street facade. I highly recommend the flamms. The wide variety of flamm toppings makes The 3 Brewers a definite food stop.

Click here for more photos: The 3 Brewers

Posted by: Mark Rodas

The 3 Brewers275 Yonge Street, Toronto, Canada(647) 347-6286‎

les3brasseurs.ca

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Captain John's Seafood and the good ship Jadran

For as long as I’ve lived in this city, I’ve wondered what it was like inside that old ship moored at the foot of Yonge Street. Like the CN Tower, Captain John’s Seafood was just one of those places the locals took for granted since it’s presence displaced not only water, but any notion that it would go anywhere else other than where it was berthed. Why go now when it’ll always be there?

The ship may remain, but alas Captain John is set to retire. So we scurried to his boat on a blustery winter day to get a final glimpse of this Toronto institution before it closes its doors for good.

A driving force in closing Captain John’s Seafood besides the passage of time is that the city considers the ship a structure, and hence subject to hefty property taxes. The actual vessel may remain where it is, while prognosticators and potential investors speculate upon the ship’s reincarnation as a fancy club or some other extravagantly themed venue.

As we approached the boat, we noticed that it certainly had seen better days. Random patches of mismatched paint covered swathes of the her hull. Not to be deterred we entered into a kitschy waiting area loaded with marine paraphernalia.

We waited for a maitre’d and were greeted by a charming old man in a bright blue nautical blazer. He escorted us to our seats in an elegantly dated dining room that screamed old folks home. This room was surprisingly comforting, not unlike visiting your grandparents. It's as though we fell through a rift in space-time. Neither did it feel like downtown Toronto, nor did it feel anywhere near 2010. “This is nice,” we thought, as we looked forward to our meal.

On our table was a photocopied menu with the life story of “Captain” John Letnik, and the good ship Jadran.

From humble beginnings in Slovenia, Captain John escaped poverty via Austria to finally find himself alone and penniless standing outside Toronto’s Union Station at the age of 17. Luckily, a young couple sensing his dilemma struck up a conversation with him in German no less, the only language the three had in common. John soon had a place to stay and a job as a houseman at a golf club. Through hard work at various kitchens, he finally scrounged up enough to buy his own restaurant. Later on, he got caught up in the idea of opening Toronto’s first floating restaurant.

In November of 1975, the MS Jadran (Adriatic in Yugoslavian) finally arrived from her transatlantic voyage to dock at it’s current location. Purchased from the Yugoslavian government in the fall of 1975, the Jadran has 5 levels, 355 staterooms, and a capacity of 700 people. We later found out from one of our sources that the ship used to be Marshall Tito’s personal yacht! Who knows what cold war mysteries she hides?

We ordered the combination platter for two: “A delicious array of Crab Clusters, Shrimp a la Scampi, Fried Shrimp, Sole, Scallops, Chicken and baked Fish. Served with rice and fresh cooked vegetables, with soup” for $31.95.

We munched on some really yummy, garlicky, butter soaked bread while we waited for our order.

Next up was the very satisfying Manhattan clam chowder. Unlike most chowders we’ve had, it was less creamy and very tomatoey. We loved the huge tomato chunks.

Between the rich bread and hearty soup, we were already feeling sated before the main course had arrived. And then it came... the seafood feast.

As you can see from the photo, there was an abundance of seafood, and we wound up quite full. There was a lot more crab and baked fish than we expected, and we were very happy with our meal.

Captain John’s was a good experience. It’s not haute cuisine, so if that’s what you’re looking for, we suggest you look elsewhere. It’s a cozy and laid back place for families or couples to enjoy a decent seafood meal in the heart of the city.

Too bad it’ll be gone soon. If you’re interested in carrying on the legacy yourself, the Jadran can be yours for a paltry $1.5 million here: MLS listing

Click here for additional photos: Captain John's Seafood