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

L’Unità and Maléna

L’Unità is a traditional Italian osteria & wine bar where you can experience handmade pastas, thin crust pizzas, and grilled meats and fish. They have a vast selection of 500 Italian and local wines to complement their seasonal menus.

We had a sample of their salumi board featuring delicious gamey cured meats from L’Unità’s suppliers: Dolce Lucano, The Cheese Boutique, Gabriele Paganelli and smaller producers that they deal with at the St. Lawrence Market.

A delectable favourite of mine was the bacon jam made from scratch at L'Unita and served as a garnish on the salumi board.

L’Unità also makes non-cured additions to their salumi plate daily, such as Rillettes, Terrines and Fresh Sausages.





Maléna serves up their interpretation of Ionian coastal cuisine, heavily influenced by the fresh Mediterranean flavours of Greece and Southern Italy.

Head Chef, Doug Neigel prepared the menu below to showcase the flavours of the region, with exquisite wines expertly selected by Sommelier, Zinta Steprans.


ANTIPASTO

Warm roasted olives & feta
roasted garlic, fresh herbs, peperonico & olive oil

Sardines 'in scapece'
pancetta, parmigiano fricco & garlic crema

Sea urchin crostino
avocado & black cyprus sea salt

Grilled octopus
pancetta & root vegetable fregola, greek yogurt & orange agro dolce

Fritto misto
calamari, prawns & chef's addition crispy gigantes & red pepper conserva


MAINS

Sheep's milk ricotta gnudi
braised rabbit, spinach & crisp parsnip

Berkshire pork chop
truffled celery root mash, swiss chard & apple caponata

Seared branzino 'in padella'
confit fennel, rapini & white anchovy lemon vinaigrette

Whole grilled sea bream
tomato braised gigantes, horta & cucumber tzatziki


SWEETS

Lemon phyllo tart
with lemon semifreddo

Greek honey 'loukoumades'
with pistachios & cinnamon crema

Mascarpone cannoli
with candied dates & walnuts

L’Unità
134 Avenue Road, Toronto
www.lunita.ca
Twitter: @lunita_enoteca

Maléna
120 Avenue Road, Toronto
www.malena120.ca
Twitter: @malena120

Click here for photos

Posted by: Mark Rodas

Every nut-lover's dream...

Nut-lovers: There exists a bakery in Toronto which specializes exclusively in nut products (there is 1/4 lb. of nuts in every bag of their product, actually). And I have to tell you - I've tried all their products first-hand and they are delicious.

The Nut Bakery sent us some samples of both their low sugar and pure cane sugar varieties of Grainless Granola (chunks), Grainless Granola (bars), Pecan Walnut Chocolate Macaroons, and Chocolate Nut Chunk. The latter two were definitely our favourites.

None of the products were too sweet, and just one or two pieces gave you energy for days (I'd recommend everyone have an emergency bag at work - you never know when a late night where you need brain power will come, because as we all know nuts are incredible brain food and I've also heard they can have a mood-stabilizing effect).

The only fault I found with them was that the low sugar varieties, of course, have a bit of an aftertaste that the pure cane sugar ones don't, which is simply part and parcel of having to use a sweetener in place of sugar. But it provides a nice alternative that diabetics can savour. Also, those with Celiac disease can indulge safely in these products, as all are gluten free because they use nuts in place of grains.

I had brought the remains of my least favourite, but still delicious, Grainless Granola Bars to work and my colleagues were amazed. I told them I wish they could've tried the Chocolate Nut Chunk and the Pecan Walnut Chocolate Macaroons, but I ate them all before any leftovers could make it into the office!

Here is a list of places where you can get your hands on their products if you're interested in trying them out.

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Trying out the new pistol-grip ShuckerPaddy knife with Guinness World Record holder Patrick McMurray!

This week the Guinness World Record holder for most oysters shucked in one minute, Patrick McMurray, launched his personal "ShuckerPaddy" oyster-shucking knife and even taught me hands-on how to shuck an oyster!

(By the way, he shucked 38 oysters in one minute - and he's not even left-handed - He was telling me how lefties have a big advantage, as they don't have to turn the oyster 180 degrees mid-way through the process of shucking like righties do, and that saves them time.)



He's got a great product out that I think both home chefs and professionals can appreciate - some highlights of the knife:

• Unlike any other on the market it features an ergodynamic "pistol grip" handle that puts your hand in a more natural alignment with your forearm, so you ultimately use less force to pry open the oyster. (I found it natural to hold and use)
  
• Its 4" blade is long enough to accommodate the largest of oysters.
• Patrick guarantees the ShuckerPaddy handle for 228,865 oysters (which equals two years for Patrick, or a lifetime for everyone else).
• Even though the blade may break, as all blades do eventually, Patrick says “bring it to me and I'll fix the blade personally.”
  

Check out the You Tube Tutorial on how to use the knife here.

The ShuckerPaddy is available at The Ceili Cottage, Starfish Oyster Bed and Grill or by calling Spirit of Hospitality at: 905-277-3380.

Happy shucking!
-Stacey