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!

Black Garlic: Mission (Almost) Complete!

So near the beginning of this blog's birth we said we wanted to try black garlic. Thanks to our awesome friend Kasia, we were able to get our hands on some!

We made a black garlic tapenade - completely eyeballed and not measured in this case - with black olives, capers, black garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and a bit of salt. It was AWESOME spread atop some lightly-toasted french bread.

Black garlic tastes almost balsamic-y - definitely sweeter than regular garlic - and it is, in fact, black. Squishy too - you have to be careful not to squish it whilst peeling the skin off around it.

I still have another bulb of black garlic here... then once I've used that I can truly say our black garlic mission has been completed!

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Recipe: Mark's healthy Adobo

Adobo is the quintessential Filipino dish. Though adobo is a Spanish term for seasoning or marinade, the Filipino Adobo is a method of stewing with vinegar indigenous to the Philippine islands that the Spanish encountered during their colonization of the Philippines in the 1500s. They called this method of cooking Adobo. It has few ingredients and is easy to cook if you know how, but ridiculously complicated to understand if you don't appreciate the alchemy that goes into it. Pork or chicken are the common meats used in making Adobo.

I refer to my recipe as healthy not because it is low in sodium, which it's not, but because it is low in saturated fat, and makes for a good satisfying staple. You don't have to ingest all the sodium, making it healthier. I'll get to that later.

It's common for Filipinos to eyeball their cooking, so I won't be giving exacting measurements here.

Ingredients:
- 3 or more cloves of garlic
- 3 or more dried bay leaves
- black peppercorns (see photo for a rough quantity)
- soy sauce, vinegar, olive oil, water
- 1 pork loin or 2 chicken breasts

Here we go!


This recipe calls for chicken. Cut the chicken breasts into cubes. I use "Marca Pina" soy sauce and "Datu Puti" white vinegar. This dish tastes best with Filipino ingredients as we know that local recipes evolved with local ingredients in mind, albeit this locale is half-way around the world. Don't sweat it, the soy sauce and vinegar can be bought cheaply from No Frills. If you don't have them, use plain soy sauce and white vinegar. Don't use VH brand... it's a Kraft company and VH stuff sucks. Soy sauces have very different flavour profiles (enough for a separate blog post), so stick with plain or No Name.


In a pot, put just enough olive oil to saute garlic. Throw the garlic in while the oil is cold so that the garlic flavour transfers to the oil. Set the stove to high, and throw the chicken in before the garlic starts to brown.





Lightly sear the chicken till most of the outsides turn white, to lock in the juices. Vegetable oil is commonly used due to its higher smoke point and neutral flavour, but we're trying to be healthy here.





Throw in 2 shots of soy sauce








Throw in 2 shots of vinegar








Throw in 4 shots of water






The actual amounts aren't crucial, depending on how much sauce you want. What is important is the relative ratio of soy sauce, vinegar and water.


Toss in the dried bay leaves and whole black peppercorns. Don't grind the pepper. You want the pepper flavour without the pepper heat.

Now for the tricky part. Assuming your stove was on high this whole time, wait for everything to start boiling then put a lid on the pot. Let it boil for a minute or two then reduce the temperature to medium. I realize that simmering might keep this thing boiling even at a low of 2 or 3, but it's important that you keep it at medium or 5 for the chemical reaction to occur. And don't take the lid off to look at it because this will cause an immediate drop in temperature. Wait 30 minutes.

This is the crap shoot part. You know that it's done when the vinegar smell piping off the edges of the pot loses its acidity and turns into a sweet smelling steam. This miraculously happens instantly. Make sure that you don't boil all of the sauce off after this, though you can keep it on the stove longer if you want a richer tasting sauce. The sauce goes well on white jasmine rice. Most of the sodium is in the sauce, so you can just regulate the amount you use on your rice. But you'll probably want to use a lot.

That's it! Chicken Adobo!!! You are now Filipino :)




Danger! Now for the Adobo I'm not allowed to have:

- First off, use vegetable oil instead of olive oil.

- Use fatty slices of pork (ex. rump), or chicken thighs or drumsticks with the skins.

- After cooking as above, pull the meat out and refry in a separate pan with a little oil till you get brown and crispy outsides, whilst some of that fat is rendering off. Trust me those crispy bits will have concentrated sweetness and tartness that will blow your mind away.

- Toss everything back into the sauce. Yes that's both meat and oil. You'll see a layer of oil separate from the black sauce. Spoon both layers onto hot fresh jasmine white rice... let me repeat, jasmine white rice. Yummy!!! Don't forget to see your doctor about that cholesterol of yours.

2 bright pies: Buko pandan pie, ube macapuno pie

It's as good a weekend as any, just chillin', killing Nazi Zombies in Call of Duty, and having lots of pie. We're sampling two classic Filipino pies:

The bright green pie is "buko pandan." Buko is coconut, and pandan is a long and slender leaf used in Asian cooking. As Canadians have various words to describe snow, Filipinos have many words to describe coconut.

Buko is the general name for coconut, but more specifically it is fresh coconut meat from green coconuts. When you chop the top off this kind of coconut you can slip a straw in and drink a lot of refreshing coconut water. After which, you can crack the coconut open and eat the soft white meat.

Niyog is from more mature coconuts. I'm tempted to say ripened, but they're not fruits so they pretty much just dry up. Niyog is where you get coconut milk from, which is used in many Filipino dishes, as well as Thai curries. This is also the type of coconut that shows up in your local grocery's baking isle. This coconut has but little juice left, and the meat is dryer. It's commonly grated or shredded, and coconut milk is squeezed out of the shredded meat. Note the distinction between coconut juice or water and coconut milk. Watch a video: http://bit.ly/2CGdQ0

Pandan doesn't normally make dishes look neon green. This pie uses pandan extract, as we're too far from the tropics to do fresh pandan justice.

The purple pie is "ube macapuno." Ube is purple yam (pronounced ooo-beh), a staple of many Filipino desserts, from cakes to ice cream. I'm not quite sure how to describe ube's taste, but it's yummy. Macapuno is yet another coconut variant. It's made of young coconut strips cooked in sugar and water, producing a thick syrupy concoction. Real macapuno comes from "mutant coconut" bred by the Philippine Coconut Authority, which yields more of the soft flesh required for macapuno's production.

Both pies were really good but the buko pandan pie would have to be our favourite. They are a little dry and though stored in the fridge are best served at room temperature. I can say that buko pie from Laguna, just south of Manila is the best I've tasted, though living in Toronto, this pie is a good fix. Buko pie, legend has it, was invented by an old American woman in Laguna during the American occupation coz she couldn't find enough apples around. I miss the Laguna pie's soft pliable crust, and big chunks of coconut meat packed in a sweet gooey filling. Yumm!

- Mark