Grab your bibs and let’s roll. Lobster roll, that is. The Star is reporting that Toronto Underground Market favourite Rock Lobster Food Co. has secured a location for a new restaurant on the Ossington strip. Owner Matt Dean Pettit intends to bring a variety of crustacean creations to the ’hood (think lobster poutine, lobster cappuccino and lobster mac ‘n’ cheese).
Requiring a mosey down an alleyway to get in — complete with a sign that flips between “ping” and “pong” — SPiN Toronto feels like an illicit pleasure from the get-go. The subterranean social club spans two rooms, with picnic tables sharing space with ping-pong tables, while artwork from both New York-based and local graffiti artists dot the walls. Denizens include basement-dwelling ping-pong players in addition to others who are just there for kicks.
Toronto’s chef incubator (a.k.a. The Black Hoof) is seeing the exodus of one more righteous chef and, in turn, is welcoming new talent. According to The Black Hoof’s website, Brandon Olsen is calling it quits after running the show at the Dundas West institution for about a year and a half, and Jesse Grasso is taking the reins.
If you’re looking for a new spot to shuck some oysters and hang with some buddies, Hopgood’s Foodliner has you covered — come November at least. The restaurant plans to open its back room for private seafood feasts for groups of 15 people or less.
Friday Restaurant Recap rounds up the week’s Toronto restaurant news. In this edition: gourmet hot dogs, a barbecue food truck, Japanese tapas, a brewery in the Junction and more.
The Toronto Garlic Festival is happening this weekend, but come on, what’s so great about garlic? It’s a fad. It’s only been in use for a few… thousand years. But seriously, what is it good for? Turns out, garlic does just about everything. We’ve listed 10 uses below.
Chenin blanc (formerly known as steen) is South Africa’s signature white grape. Currently at the LCBO, this bargain-priced chenin is a highly versatile food wine. It’s light straw in colour and offers a minerally nose of pear with a floral top note. It’s medium-bodied, clean and dry with pear and peach flavours. A well-made wine of good value.
Toronto’s taco craze is showing no signs of letting up: popular Mexican restaurant Rebozos has expanded with a new location on College Street, just east of Bathurst. Previously, Rebozos was a bit of a trek for downtowners who wanted a taste of its highly-regarded tacos (Toronto Life recently deemed Rebozos’ beef tongue taco as one of the best in the city).
Most whisky-themed beers pick up on the spirit’s more easy-drinking characteristics: soft spices, vanilla or a burnt sugar sweetness. The Saints from England’s St. Peter’s Brewery is a glaring exception to that rule.
Hogtown is in the throes of a throwback cocktail fever — something for which Sidecar is partially to blame. Situated on Little Italy’s main thoroughfare, this restaurant was one of pioneering forces behind Toronto’s resurgence of Prohibition-era tipples. Four years ago, when the bar opted to eschew ’90s-style beverages, people would send back their drinks, proclaiming they were too strong for their saccharine palates. Now, of course, people can’t get enough.
Friday Restaurant Recap rounds up the week’s Toronto restaurant news. In this edition: Montreal-style bagels, cupcakes on wheels, Texas-style barbecue, a new spot for chef Grant van Gameren and more.
Monkey Bay winery, a label of Nobilo vintners, specializes in bargain-priced, easy drinking wines. Jumping on the Pinot Grigio bandwagon, Monkey Bay has produced a 2011 wine that is more like an Alsatian Pinot Gris than the light Pinot Grigios of northern Italy. The 2011 vintage is coppery-straw in colour with a rich peachy, floral nose. It’s a mouth-filling wine with well-extracted, peach-flavoured fruit and citrus acidity.
