Momofuku’s master chef: a profile of David Chang
You walk into Momofuku and it doesn’t feel like any place else — at least any place else in Toronto. The three-storey restaurant complex hums with a vibe of effortless cool.
Category: Food
Toronto’s Dîner en Blanc transforms a dismal parking lot into a magical dining experience
An hour before Toronto’s second official Dîner en Blanc was slated to commence, 1,600 people were eagerly checking their emails because they still hadn’t a clue where this year’s event was going to take place. Last year, 1,400 people gathered at Fort York (in the rain no less!). Part of this international pop-up dinner party’s magic is that guests don’t know where they’re headed to until the eleventh hour (6 p.m. in this case).
Tony Aspler’s Weekly Wine Pick: an Australian red that pairs well with barbecue
A little sister to Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch Shiraz. Deep ruby-purple colour; savoury nose of black fruits, herbs and pepper; dry, full-bodied, spicy, licorice, blackberry and toasty oak flavours. Good value.
Coming soon to Toronto: hamburgers from Marky Mark and Donnie
Mark and Donnie Wahlberg — yeah, that Mark and that Donnie — own a hamburger chain, and it’s coming to Toronto. Wahlburgers, as it’s called, will be opening at the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel by early 2014. The brothers own the chain with one of their other siblings, Paul, who acts as executive chef and who nobody has ever heard of.
First Draught: Switchback IPA, an excellent hop-driven beer from BC
It wasn’t too long ago when beer from BC only reached Ontario in a very slow stream of drips and drops. We would get an occasional selection like Red Racer, or a few entries from Howe Sound, but things finally seem to be changing. A few weeks ago, a six-pack sampler of BC beers arrived on LCBO shelves.
Drink This: The Beaver’s El Diablo
The Beaver has been a Queen West staple since before the street’s westernmost reaches were deemed cool. The low-key space, fit with a long bar, wooden tables and a large picture window — perfect for people-gazing — is full of freelancers and café dwellers during the day. Come sundown, things get a tad rowdier, with some nights witnessing karaoke and others resulting in a raging party on the tiny dance floor.
Tony Aspler’s Weekly Wine Pick: an impressive white from France’s Loire Valley
Silex is a flint-and-sand-based soil type found primarily in the Loire Valley. It’s formed from a mixture of clay, limestone and silica, and it gives the Chenin Blanc grape a special flavour in Vouvray. Pale straw in colour, this wine has a nose of quince and honey. It’s medium-bodied with a minerally, pear flavour.
Acclaimed chef Oliver Glowig makes a guest appearance at The Ritz-Carlton’s Toca
For the next four nights, esteemed chef Oliver Glowig will be taking over the kitchen at The Ritz-Carlton’s Toca as a sort of pop-up concept. Glowig, a German-born chef who is currently based in Rome, has earned numerous Michelin stars throughout his career. At Toca, he will be offering items from his eponymous restaurant in Rome.
First Draught: Roman Candle, a firecracker of an IPA from Bellwoods Brewery
Encouraging readers to try new and interesting styles of beer is something I consciously try do with this column. This week, though, I have something more familiar (everyone’s heard of IPAs, right?), but I think this one is particularly well-made.
Drink This: Black Dice Cafe’s Hime
Black Dice Cafe is a neighbourhood gem. Perched on a once-sleepy neck of Dundas Street West, amidst Portuguese sports bars and a bevy of newcomers like Cafe Bar Pasta, this retro space from owner Hideki Saito rings in its fourth birthday come September. Inside, regulars sit at ’50s-style tables — dotted with lamps emitting a greenish glow — and nurse beverages against a backdrop of rockabilly tunes.
Eating Gross Things: stinky rotten fish from Sweden
What is up with the lack of rotten fish in Toronto? Seriously, anyone who has a craving for decrepit old herring, the kind that smells like terrible diaper caca, is kind of screwed in this town because it’s nearly impossible to find surströmming here.
Playa Cabana’s Dave Sidhu sets his sights on Koreatown
Dave Sidhu, the man behind the Playa Cabana restaurants, is opening new taquerias at a lightning-fast pace, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. After just opening Playa Cabana Hacienda in July, he’s set to open a fourth restaurant in Koreatown, which will be named, appropriately, Barrio Coreano.