Trattoria Mercatto at the Eaton Centre

Looking for a patio after shopping or a long day at work? Trattoria Mercatto at the Toronto Eaton Centre may be the spot for you. Serving classic Italian comfort food in a smartly designed space, it's a welcome addition to the three other Mercatto restaurants: Toronto St., Bay St., and Elizabeth and College.

Interior design by: Munge Leung
Identity, signage, menus and uniforms by: Device222











Posted by: Mark Rodas

Toronto Taste: THE food & beverage event of the year (and for a good cause to boot!)

Mark and I were lucky enough to be Official Roving Twitter Reporters for Second Harvest's largest fundraiser, Toronto Taste, and it was a BLAST! If you do only one charitable thing next year, make sure it's Toronto Taste - it was a ton of fun for a great cause!

Since the first Toronto Taste 21 years ago (then known as Taste of the Nation), the event has raised over $4 million, enabling Second Harvest to secure enough fresh food to deliver over 8 million meals to those in Toronto living with hunger. That’s enough to feed almost every one of Regent Park’s 2,045 families with children three square meals a day for a whole year.

As it's held at the Royal Ontario Museum, the ambiance was great - with the way it's set up, you get the best of both worlds - food and drink were served up by 60 top chefs and 30 beverage purveyors both inside and outside the ROM. There was live music plus a ton of opportunities to win great prizes through a raffle as well as via live/silent auctions.





While we certainly didn't get around to every chef and beverage purveyor (you couldn't possibly in just one night!), we had a couple stand-outs to share:

• Brisket burger with kimchi from Nota Bene
• Cider-braised pork belly from Epic
• Mushroom polenta from Scarpetta
• Chicken lollipops in a mayo-spice sauce covered with Indian rice puffs from Roger Mooking which we paired with a Rickards White with the help of our friend Steve Riley from Better Beer.com
• Salty Chocolate Caramel from Xococava (served by men walking around with old-style candy boxes strapped to their chests no less!) and washed down with a Henry of Pelham 2008 Riesling
  
• Ricotta orange donut with candied orange and cardamom orange smoothie shot from Pangaea
  
• White chocolate mascarpone meringue with strawberry sauce from Baker Street

We also learned, again from our friend Steve Riley at Better Beer.com, how to taste beer. Check out the diagram to the left or visit his site to find out more!

Food and beer pairing


Roger Mooking drops in

Like I said, if there is just one charitable thing you do next year, make it Toronto Taste. You will not be disappointed!

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Bloom-ing good fun at Bloom Restaurant

We recently had a chance to check out Bloom Restaurant's new menu. The restaurant's philosophy is to be an extension of your family, rather than being "the stuffy aunt who visits once a year." While being chic, it also felt like a family-friendly space too, and they have a kids menu too which I'm sure parents appreciate.

We're not out in Bloor West Village often but we really enjoyed our time there and since we love walking around the city, we spent some time exploring the area and relaxing on a bench that one of the local businesses had sponsored (maybe I'm a weirdo but I'd say there are an abundance of benches compared to other neighbourhoods we frequent! Seriously! So many places to rest your weary feet and many shops to explore). The restaurant itself was at Bloor and Windermere, about equal distance between Jane and Runnymede subway stations.




You can click through to see the full online menu, but here are some of the highlights:

• Cassava frites - what a smart idea! Never have I had cassava in the form of fries. Cassava is a starchy tuberous root popular in tropical climates - though be careful, if not cooked properly it can make you ill! I've had cassava cake quite often, since it's a Filipino recipe. But I've got to say cassava in the form of fries was a very, very pleasant surprise! Note: This item doesn't appear on their online menu, so I'm not sure if they offer it on the regular.
  
  
• The chimichurri sauce on the pan-seared flank steak was to-die-for. Chimichurri is basically a sauce made from chopped parsley, minced garlic, vegetable or olive oil, white or red vinegar and red pepper flakes (although there are variations with added ingredients). Flank steak is known to be a bit tougher than other cuts of meat no matter which way you slice it, but boy oh boy, that chimichurri sauce made up for that!
  
  
• The Malivoire 2008 Icewine Riesling VQA was a truly delicious dessert wine to end the night with. It's no secret that I love icewine, and this was one of my favourites. Note: All wine pairings that night were Malivoire, so again I'm not sure if they keep this specific icewine on the regular.
  

Check out our full set of pics or watch the slideshow above. Thanks to Sizzling Communications for the invite!

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Starving Artist: where waffles take the place of bread!

With summer on its way, I was reminded that there's something I wanted to share with you all from last summer: Mark and I decided to check out Starving Artist, an awesome place on Lansdowne known for using waffles in place of bread products.

Yes, you heard me right: You can get some great classic dishes and sandwiches here where they put their own twist on them: waffles in place of bread products!

We had the Waffle Benny (two poached eggs, two mini potato waffles, caramelized bacon, hollandaise sauce) and the Monte Cristo (roasted ham and mozzarella sandwiched in between French toast waffles). Both were served with a bed of greens and a fruit salad but you also have the choice of getting the bed of greens with baked beans or potato salad instead of fruit salad if you wish.

Oh, and of course they have dessert waffles served on a "waffle boat" too - we split a S'mores waffle (graham crumb waffle, roasted marshmallow fluff, chocolate chips & chocolate sauce).

They have a cute little patio area, so we sat outside and enjoyed the nice sunny weather. We recommend you all pick a nice day this summer and make your way over there at least once. It's tasty and affordable, and what's not to love about changing up bread for waffles once in a while?!

See mouth-watering pictures below!



Yours in food,
-Stacey

Need a culinary weekend getaway that's still close to Toronto? Try Hockley Valley Resort

Hockley Valley Resort is a resort one hour from Toronto (near Orangeville). We had the good fortune of touring the resort, eating at one of its three restaurants, and meeting their General Manager John Paul Adamo via the folks at Pilot PMR who gave us and a few other bloggers a lift (thank you!)

Upon walking into the resort, there is very much a family feeling about the place, which is likely because it's a family-owned business (it was first purchased by John Paul's father and, at the time, it needed a lot of work). Mark and I found it to be both sophisticated and stylish without being pretentious.

Here's a quick rundown on the resort's three restaurants Babbo, Tavola, Restaurant 85 as well as the wine cellar's "table for two" and their Farmer's Market:

• Eating at Tavola is a unique and participatory experience - first, you get to walk in their garden and pick items that their talented chefs will turn into your dinner - talk about fresh and local. You can also go into their kitchen and write a message on the kitchen walls - I could've stayed in there all day reading all the messages (which are now creeping onto the cieling). You'll get to start off your meal by tasting the chefs' in-house cured meats and cheeses, and you'll also get a tour of the wine cellar. Tavola consists of a single table in a separate room beside the kitchen, so it's very intimate - not like a restaurant at all but more like sitting around a dinner table with friends and family.
  
  
• Restaurant 85 seats the largest number of people and, as far as we know, is the newest of the three restaurants.
  
  
• Babbo is somewhere in between the other two restaurants in size, and it looked like a great place to grab a drink and relax.
  
  
• We thought this idea was genius - there was a table for two in the area where they keep their wines - no, it's not a wine cellar in the basement, it's a beautiful glassed-in walk-in wine cellar. That would probably qualify as the quietest, most intimate dinner you could have with another person since it literally is just the two of you - that would be the PERFECT gift for a pair of married wine-lovers: Spend your anniversary dinner in there!
  
  
• The resort holds a Farmer's Market every third Sunday. They don't charge the vendors anything. Jean Paul emphasized repeatedly that it's not a revenue stream for them, but rather it's their way of showing support for local producers.

For those who want to do more than just eat while at Hockley, (weirdos!) there is skiing and snowshoeing in the winter, and in the summer they have a great saltwater pool and a golf course. There is also a year-round spa.

In case you are curious about exactly what we ate at Tavola, here's the full menu - can I just add that the Tawse Gewurtztraminer was TO DIE FOR?! We were served different wines with each meal from Ontario and Italy and the Gewurtz was, as usual, my favourite. Favourite dish was the cod wrapped in prosciutto, hands down. Also really appreciated the neat idea to candy celery and put it in a dessert - very unique and actually worked quite well in terms of flavour!

Executive Chef: Rabii Jaouhari

Restaurant Chef: Daniel Mezzolo

Lunch

First Course:

Served in Kitchen

House-cured & Imported Cheese & Salumi

Antipasti

Second Course:

Potato Soup

Crispy asparagus, parmigiano foam, truffle oil

2008 Viewpoint Estate Winery, Arneis, VQA Lake Erie North Shore, ON

Third Course:

Scampi Bagna Cauda

Slow poached in olive oil & thyme

2010 Tawse, Gewurztraminer, Quarry Road VQA Niagara, ON

Fourth Course:

Tortelli

Filled with 3 years aged parmigiano cream, Pingue speck

2007 Le Clos Jordanne, Oaked Chardonnay, Jordan Station, ON

Fifth Course:

Fiddlehead Risotto

Braised fresh house sausage

2008 Foreign Affair, Sauvignon Blanc, VQA Niagara Peninsula, ON

Sixth Course:

Cod

Pingue prosciutto wrapped, quenelle of rapini & garlic, braised shallots, carrot cream,

2007 Brovia, Barbera D’Alba DOC, Italy

Seventh Course:

Suckling Pig

Rosemary roasted apples, Dijon mustard sauce

1994 Antica Sleva Di Meana, Pinot Nero, Scambia, Allerona, Italy

Eighth Course:

Pre-Dessert

Melon granita, semifreddo, fizzy, limoncello foam, candied celery

2004 Daniel Lenko, Select Harvest Vidal, VQA Niagara, ON

Ninth Course:

Dessert

Pistachio crème brulee + raspberry, apricot, orange house made truffle + orange vanilla marscapone cake with raspberry & strawberry sauce

Also have to give a big shoutout to Hockley Honey for the amazing creamed white organic unpasteurized wildflower honey (try saying that five times fast!) they gave us. Delicious!



Yours in food,
-Stacey

World's largest ice cream cake

On May 10, 2011 at Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto entered the record books as host to the world's largest ice cream cake. Guinness World Records was on hand to officially weigh it in at 10,130.35 kilograms. That's over 10 tons or over 22,000 pounds.

A forklift and 22 workers from Dairy Queen assembled the ginormous treat with a vanilla ice cream core, 90 kilos of sponge cake, and 136 kilos of icing and crushed Oreos.

The record was previously held by an 8,000 kilogram cake from Beijing, 5 years ago. Dairy Queen hosted the event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its ice cream cakes.












Posted by: Mark Rodas

Our Markets Media magazine article

Check out our restaurant review for Bay Street types featured in the New York based, Markets Media magazine.

Read about:
1) Ame
2) Sen5es
3) Le Select Bistro
4) The Esplanade Bier Markt
5) Bardi’s Steakhouse
6) Smoke’s Poutinerie
7) Burrito Boyz

View pdf: MM Mag - Tasting Toronto

Ame



Sen5es

Le Select Bistro

posted by: Mark Rodas