Miracle Fruit

We went to the National Film Board this past Sunday to partake in a Miracle Fruit foodiemeet, organized by Andrea Chiu (@TOfoodie) and Suresh Doss (@spotlightcity). We saw a couple of familiar faces Jess Bennett (@jessbennett) and Nina Popovic (@popNina ), and were looking forward to finally finding out what this Miracle Fruit was all about.




We cleansed our palates with some Cave Spring Chenin Blanc, sparkling white, and couldn't wait to get started.

Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum), a.k.a. Miracle Berry is native to Ghana in West Africa. It was first documented in 1725 when explorers noticed the locals eating the berries before meals. Miracle Fruit contains a glycoprotein called Miraculin, that binds to taste receptors on the tounge and is activated by the presence of acids.

We were presented with thawed out berries, as the freezing prevents the Miraculin from degrading after the berries have been picked. We were instructed to place the berries in our mouthes for a couple of minutes scraping the flesh off the big seed in the middle of the berry without eating the seed. The berry's effects should last 30-45 minutes, so we started testing various foods and drinks.

The Miracle Fruit tasted and looked a bit like cranberries. For something that's supposed to shield us from sour tastes, it oddly enough tasted sour. However as we continued to roll the berries in our mouths the the sour taste began to dissipate, and we were left with a sensation akin to eating a lychee. That done, we rid ourselves of the seeds and started trying out sour foods starting with wedges of grapefruit and lemons.

The first bite into the lemon was a thrilling feeling. We could not taste a hint of sourness, yet our mouths watered and puckered-up. That was really weird! There was a sensational void, like stepping out of a noisy club into an empty alley... white noise for your tounge. It tasted like a sweet refreshing lemonade. The bite into the grapefruit was even more heavenly. That was the best citrus taste you'll ever have, I kid you not! The grapefruit was sweet, and had flavours exposed that were normally overshadowed by its sourness.

Next up was the real test: Shots of vinegar.

Gah! I let out a small cough as the white vinegar seared the back of my throat and crawled down like a gulp of bathtub moonshine. I'll get the hang of this yet. I found out that it's better sipped like a fine whiskey. That actually tasted good, sans the alcohol vapour. An even better swig was the apple cider vinegar. If the white was vodka, the cider was a single malt. Something tells me we'll pay for this later. Who drinks vinegar? Isn't it a household cleaner?

I thought we better start putting some solids into our stomachs to mop up all the acidic swill. We grabbed some chips and started munching. "Hmmm, tastes like regular chips. Wouldn't it be cool if they served us vinegar flavoured chips?," I mused. It turns out they were Miss Vickie's Sea Salt and Malt Vinegar chips. Ah silly me. Like I'd taste vinegar at that moment. There was also a BBQ flavoured chip, but that tasted quite normal.

We then had some vegetable cocktail to wash the chips down. That was quite nice and went down easily. Tomato juice seem to react well to Miracle Fruit.

I wonder what stout would taste like? We tried some Guinness... and voila... Guinness Lite. We couldn't believe that it would make one of the heaviest beers light and refreshing. Strange indeed. It was smooth and thirst quenching like an iced cafe Americano.



Better yet, how about some Rickard's Honey Brown. The ladies loved that one. It tasted caramelly, as if Skor made a soda.

Oh we missed the lime. Why not some of that, chased by a kiwi? That sounds odd, but it's an odd food event. The lime cut right through. Wow that didn't work. Maybe a little? The miracle fruit definietly reacted better to the other citrus fruits, not to mention the vinegar. The kiwi tasted like kiwi, but maybe a little sweeter.

And a pickle? Pickly... is that a word? Just a little saltier and blander, but not much different from a normal pickle.



Let's go Tabasco! What, slurping Tabasco after shots of vinegar?... not good. OK that wasn't any less hot! I love Tabasco. I drench my pizza in it all the time, but strip the sour from it and it's all burn. Where's that Rickard's? Lineup... let's just squeeze some lemons into a cup of water... mmm lemonade.


Haute cuisine plating below: before I tried the Tabasco again, but this time on goat cheese and a cracker. Not an advisable combination, but it was suggested to us as an experiment. The cheese extinguished the heat, but it didn't taste so good. The goat cheese alone on a cracker however was rich, creamy, and delectable.





My hors d'oeuvre creation below: Yummmmy!


The grape tomatoes tasted good, but they weren't that acidic to begin with.

The Miracle Fruit was wearing off. Might as well, we were getting full. There were a lot of items to try. It's intriguing how different foods react to Miracle Fruit. It neutralized most sour notes, except for the lime, and seemed to heighten, or at least uncover the sweetness hidden in many foods. It is indeed a miracle.

Veging out at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair

We're omnivores at Tasting Toronto and enjoy meat quite a bit. So what were we doing at North America's largest vegetarian food fair? Well it's still food in Toronto, worthy of investigation, and we're here to share our findings.

The sight of Buddhist monks is auspicious, and says that we've stumbled upon something of import.


Our first stop turned out to be the best food we'd have that day. We picked up a sample platter from Hearty Catering. There was a vegan filo cup with a spicy cauliflower curry, a raw apple fennel salad, and a vegan filo cup with Moroccan chickpeas. The filo cups were yummy with a good textural contrast between the layered pastry and the soft hearty fillings. The apple fennel salad was also a treat from the crunch of raw fennel, to the softer juicy apple, then to the squishy tart punch or cranberries.

The platter also had a grilled tomato with a tofu basil pesto, garnished with a carrot beet salad. This was my favourite item. The tofu was reminiscent of ground beef and was heavily seasoned. It was so laden with flavour as it was, and to be sitting atop the juicy acidity of a grilled tomato was scrumptious. There was also a vegan red and white quinoa salad with broccolli. Again, well seasoned and garnished... delish. Ah and not to forget the dessert, a perfectly moist vegan carrot cake. I'm feeling healthy all over here, and we've just started.






We moved over to the Magic Oven booth where we sampled an all gluten-free selection. We had the chickpea power soup to start. A little hot and hearty soup is always good to get the tummy ready. Our main course was a serving of infused tofu bites and an organic spelt spinach pizza. The tofu bites were a little different from what was commonly served elsewhere. They were firmer and were a little bit like cheese bites.

The pizza was decent. I usually like my spinach a little more cooked, but it was good. We found the gluten-free spelt crust fascinating. It was ultra thin, and had a cracker-like bite. Oddly, we found that topping the pizza with the tofu bites was actually pretty good. For dessert we had a gluten-free chocolate cake... major kudos for making a GF cake that doesn't suck. That was impressive, maybe they cheated? Just kidding, the cake was good.



There was a lot of food on hand from the Indian subcontinent. We tried a combo of masala dosa, a couple of tiny onion pakoras, and a veggie samosa.



Our last full-meal stop was at Zara's Gourmet Kitchen. Vegan chicken? We've gotta check this out.

We ended up ordering a multi-curry combo of vegan lamb curry, vegan chicken curry, spinach and tofu, basmati rice, naan, and veggie pakoras. The lamb was actually a tough soy product. The texture was close to meat, but the sauce was so-so. The spinach and tofu wasn't bad, but since it looked so richly green and healthy, I persuaded my Popeye self to eat it all for nourishment. The basmati rice was fragrant, and a perfect side to the curries. The pakoras were good and a cheap add-on to our combo. The last place had really tiny ones. But most impressive of all was the vegan chicken. The sauce was yummy and all, but the texture... It pretty much looked and felt like chicken. Well about 90%, but for a soy product that's pretty darn good.



We scoped out the Brigantine tent for the rest of the vegetarian exhibit and found a mini trade show with purveyors of drinks and snacks, as well as displays for vegetarian and vegan information, massages, and other related products. One thing stood out that we didn't quite like. There was some hemp milk that just tasted horrible. I can't imagine anyone drinking that casually just for fun. My thoughts immediately wander to a greasy nappy-haired man, reclined on a furry couch in a smoke-filled basement, but I digress.

Our last stop was ice cream, or sorbet, or whatever you call this gluten-free, low glycemic index, soy based dessert from Soy-N-Joy. It's a good alternative to regular ice cream if you're on a health kick. We had a chocolate-mint and a lychee flavoured sample each. The chocolate mint wasn't the normal bright green, but tasted nice and minty nonetheless. I liked the strong lychee flavour in the lychee ice cream, but it left a noticeable soy aftertaste. Soy-N-Joy makes a good, light and healthy dessert.



That's it, the final food extravaganza at Harbourfront for the summer. We leave you now with some parting Harbourfront pics.

Hot & Spicy Food Festival at Harbourfront

This past weekend, Tasting Toronto was at the Hot & Spicy Food Festival at the Harbourfront Centre. It seems like we've been here every weekend this summer for some international food sampling at the World Cafe food tent. This time we were hoping for some fiery cuisine.

The Hot & Spicy fest featured a multitude of purveyors of hot sauces and spicy salsas. We made our rounds and found a few that we liked. We tried various sauces from SOHOT. They had exotic flavours like "Gingerly Hot" and a mangoey "Sweet Surrender." I liked the intense clean kick of "Climaxxx," but our favourite flavour was "Cilantro Sutra," a fiery blend of lemon zest and corriander seed, which we bought a bottle of.


We loved the Chili Chocolate hot sauce from Peppermaster. It'd probably taste great on some smoked pork, crackers, or just about anything. It gives new meaning to the phrase "hot chocolate."

Next we tried a unique twist to serving hot sauce, a la mode. This delectable treat was courtesy of Jake Albert's Fuego Rojo, a pomegranate habanero glaze, served on vanilla ice cream. I can't say I've had that combination before. And I must say, it was the taste highlight of the festival.The ice cream quickly smothers the heat so that all you get is a complex dance of sweet and spicy flavours. Yummy!!!


Moving on, we tried a variety of other hot sauces and salsas. We even tried some hot hummus, and a not so hot and not so impressive chocolate hummus. It's amazing how different peppers give markedly different flavour profiles, from the smokey full bodied habanero, to the super hot light zing of scotch bonnets. Some sauces are just hot like Fyah!


Enough about hot sauces, what about the food? Sadly we were less than impressed. There was a smattering of Caribbean food... and a good jerk or roti is always satisfying, but we were expecting some hot Mexican, maybe some Indian vindaloo, or some fiery Sichuan. We ended up getting an ackee and saltfish combo, with fried plantains. It was a hearty meal, but just OK.


Ahhh, another gorgeous sunny day at Harbourfront, with sailing ships on the horizon, and screaming fighter jets above us.

Bad restaurant experiences

I am the most non-confrontational person you will likely ever meet and I try really hard not to complain about anything, because I am so so fortunate just to even be able to afford going out to a restaurant to eat. As such, I can gladly say I've only had three negative experiences at eating / drinking establishments.

I'm going to detail them here because I just had my third one recently, but I'm curious to hear about other people's experiences so please leave a comment telling us about yours.

So two of the negative experiences involve tipping. At the Phoenix near Sherbourne St. and Carlton St., on my birthday no less, the 40-something bartender called me out on a 50 cent tip I left on a $3.00 shot. The best part of this story is HOW he called me out on it: by having the OUTRAGEOUS nerve to say to me as if I am a four-year-old who can't quite understand his plight: "Excuse me, I'm a student." Um, EXCUSE ME, forty-something-year-old man. I am a student too, half your age, and that comment is not going to make me tip you more either. Hey, I'm all for people going back to school when they are older, but don't expect more than a 15% tip out of my pocket because of the choices you made and don't you dare try to guilt me into giving you more! Terrible! Instead I just wanted to take my 50 cents back, but I believe I took the high road and left it there for him. The sense of entitlement was ridiculous and that was the FIRST time I had encountered someone questioning my tip.

Second time was last week at one of my favourite patios and casual dining establishments, Hot House Cafe at Front St. and Church St. Service there had always been fine, food is tasty and comforting, and I always have a great time people-watching with my friends on their patio. I have brought many people there to eat dinner with me who had never been or even heard of the place - in short, I was bringing them business.

So last week a group of us went there for dinner. We had given enough money to the server (whom I haven't had before - maybe she was new) so that when she came back with change we'd leave that all as a tip. Sure, it wasn't an amazing tip, but this was a casual Thursday night dinner (do me and my twenty-something friends LOOK like executives?) and for the amount of $ that place gets out of me, paired with the fact that servers are in the wrong to EVER call a customer out on a tip, I was fuming. Again, the best part here is HOW we were called out on our group tip. I suppose she had been watching us to see if we added anything to the change we left on the table, which we didn't. As she was clearing our table and we were getting ready to go, she kept asking us repeatedly if we enjoyed our meal. This is kind of how it went:

Server: "Did you have a good time?"
Us: "Yes, thanks!"
Server: "You sure? You had a good time?"
Us: "Yes... sorry, just curious, why do you keep asking us that?"
Server: "Because your tip doesn't reflect that..."

Rude. Again, we left the tip, taking the high road, but frankly any server who calls someone out on their tip is disgusting in my opinion. Sorry, but it's the truth.

The other experience is less about service and more about a downright disgusting establishment. Mark and I went to Cfood near Yonge / Eglinton (now closed, I believe) and were served rotten scallops (a horrendous taste I hope never to taste again) and we got to watch our centrepiece die right in front of us, along with the other centrepieces around us, as they were live goldfish in small vases. One by one, they were flipping belly up as we were trying to eat. Truly disgusting and sad.

A colleague had been telling me about the bad service at Spice Route she had. The manager wouldn't split the bills and so they took a long time to count it out amongst about 12 people and he came back to them and said "What, you don't know how to count?" Again, rude. It's sad, because in that case, that was the manager, not a server... Spice Route was on my list to go to soon but it has dropped right to the bottom (if we go at all) because of that story.

So that's probably the only ranting you'll ever hear from me, but there it is - my 3 bad restaurant experiences. At least they make for entertaining stories! :) Happy long weekend everyone!

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Nobody's home: Is the death of the home cook imminent?

Earlier this week, Tasting Toronto had the pleasure of heading down to Edward Levesque's Kitchen in trendy Leslieville, for a lively panel discussion around whether or not home cooking is dead. A keystone of the talk was Michael Pollan's article in The New York Times magazine: Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, bemoaning the decline of home cooked meals. His most recent book is “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”



As tasting is Tasting Toronto's primary mandate, we have to mention a couple of delicious chicken appetizers we sampled: Stacey's favourite was the chicken sausage medallion with cilantro and guacamole served on a spoon, and Mark's favourite was the chicken liver terrine with an onion jam. We also had fried rice balls, chicken pizza, egg salad, rosemary frites, chicken satays with coconut-sesame dip, and ample red wine.




The event was brought to us by the Chicken Farmers of Canada. Theresa Albert from Food Network Canada moderated the panel discussion.

The panel had three bright and awesome foodie folks who helped colour the conversation:

Anna Withrow, Food writer / Founder of the LIVERight Awards (did you know a young child with a fatty liver has the same amount of damage done to the organ that a 60-year-old alcoholic has?)

Amanda Laird, Food Blogger and Communicator

Ryan Anderson, Web strategist and PR Blogger from Fat Canary

Anna talked about the health aspects of home cooking; Ryan was sharing his adventures in making everything from scratch, including butter, in The Home Cooking Challenge; and Amanda was discussing the intricacies of ingredient substitution and other fun cooking adventures on her blog.

The increasing time squeeze, longer work hours, or more entertainment options of modern life has left less and less time and mental space available for cooking meals at home. The advent of the microwave and TV dinners has even led to a redefining of "cooking" to include actual preparation of ingredients versus plopping something out of a package and zapping it.

Not only is home cooking a much cheaper and healthier alternative to take-out, it also need not consume a lot of time to prepare. Simple examples include roasting a chicken, or just plugging in a rice cooker or slow cooker.

Stacey asked a question that was plaguing her: Does any one group (group meaning vegans, vegetarians, meat-lovers, etc.) cook at home more than the others? The always-lovely Alexa Clark noted that she knows some vegans who spend a lot of time in the kitchen and don't enjoy it at all. Some thought meat eaters cooked more at home. It was really tough to say. It also got us thinking about other groups (in the sense of ethnicity), and whether certain ethnic groups make a point of cooking meals at home more than others.

All-in-all it was a very cool event with great conversation and excellent food and wine. A perfect end to a Monday night!

Additional links:

Chicken Feeds - the Chicken Farmers of Canada Blog - http://www.chickenfeeds.ca

The CFC Video Podcast - http://www.chickenfeeds.ca/category/podcast/

Tasting Taiwanfest

Tasting Toronto risked a possible downpour last weekend to sample some Formosan cuisine at Taiwanfest at the Harbourfront Centre.

With the gloomy skies above it was nice to be greeted with some chamber music before heading for the food.

I started off with some Taiwanese steamed rice. It was steamed sticky rice moulded in a cup, topped with ground pork and mushrooms, with cilantro and a hoisin tasting sauce. That hit the spot. It was sweet, fresh and flavourful. I love cilantro.

Next up was something I've never seen before: oyster pancakes. A 20 minute lineup was in store for those who really wanted to try some, as it was made fresh, 4 skillets at a time. The pancake was quite a treat for me. I didn't exactly know what to expect... maybe a pancake... maybe an omelet? It turned out to be a novel meal made with 3 oysters, 2 eggs, some fresh greens, and what looked like a rice flour solution as the main batter, topped with a ketchupy sauce. The eggs weren't incorporated into the batter, rather cracked onto the pancake half-way through. The yolks were then broken and slightly stirred, leaving different areas of texture: some eggy, some battery and gooey.




On to another booth I spied some Taiwanese sausages and "Smelly Tofu" Smelly Tofu? Something must be lost in translation, I thought. Perhaps they meant aromatic, or even fragrant? No such luck... it was damn smelly, like rotting sewage, and the smell stuck to your fingers like a skunk attack. Before you ask, no I didn't eat it with my fingers. A little sauce dripped down my fork. It tasted horrible. I normally like tofu... wait, who likes tofu? Well I grew up with the stuff, so I like it :p , but I digress. This tofu was bad and crumbly, but hey, maybe it's an acquired taste.

The sausage was OK. Greasy and salty, it would go well with some rice. It was rich and savoury and I wouldn't be able to have too much.

Back to the tofu. I had to throw it out after a few bites for analysis. Blahhhck!




I was running out of tummy room when I saw a Takoyaki stand. It's Japanese octopus balls, but since Japan is right by Taiwan, it could easily be Taiwanese food so I ordered some up. I love Takoyaki, but this was a little sub-par. It looked great, but the batter was a little too mushy, and there weren't as many octopus bits inside. I could've done without the mayo. I like the Takoyaki they served at the Taste of the Danforth much better.



Alright, done with food, I needed something to wash it all down... but with what? Ah bubble tea of course! I had a mango milk green tea bubble tea with grape jelly instead of the usual tapioca pearls. That was refreshing.

That turned out to be a nice food day. The rain started up a bit but held itself back for the most part. The upside of the weather was that it wasn't so crowded. I love Harbourfront food festivals!