Oscar Wilde once wrote: “The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.” So when boredom strikes, the obvious thing to do is to gather a group of people, dress up as bananas and invade nearby bars on masse. And yes, that is actually going to happen in Toronto later this month when Banana Bar Crawl descends upon the city.
The Minervois region of southern France produces bargain-priced reds that are great candidates for barbecue. Currently at Vintages is the 2009 Château la Grave Expression — a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Carignane and Mourvèdre — which is a great buy. Dense ruby in colour, it has a smoky nose of blackberries and licorice and the flavour of raspberries. It’s remarkably elegant.
Enjoying Wellington Brewery’s Arkell Best Bitter is a study in not judging a beer by its cover. With a double-barrel name like that and its deep amber colour, who would guess that this is a very drinkable light beer?
With Taste of the Danforth kicking off Aug. 10, it’s time to eat Greek. Recreate those food-fest favourites in your own kitchen with these healthy Hellenic recipes.
There are two distinct styles for Sauvignon Blanc: the crisply dry wines from the Loire Valley, with their tart, gooseberry character, and the fruitier, tropical flavours of New Zealand. This Chilean wine leans toward the latter. It has a nose of passion fruit and mango; it’s richly extracted, with herbaceous and mineral notes adding complexity to the sweet, almost creamy fruit. It finishes dry.
Toronto loves Yelp reviews. But sometimes they’re, well, lacking something. Is it coherence? Is it credibility? Is it proper grammar? No, the missing link we’re thinking of is emphatic passion, the kind that can only be imbued by a skilled orator. Like an actor, maybe.
The Hoof Café used to serve up one of the most decadent and innovative brunches in town before it shuttered in 2011. From a “breakfast-appropriate” charcuterie platter to bone marrow beignets to French toast covered in foie gras, The Hoof Café, courtesy of East coast wonder-chef Geoff Hopgood, was a premier destination for nose-to-tail breakfast.
New breweries seem to be opening every couple of months in Ontario, and things are looking up for craft beer drinkers. That is unless they want to buy beer to drink at home.
A year that has been tough on local, family-owned restaurants and fresh food shops appears to have claimed its latest victim. Sun Valley Fine Foods (583 Danforth Ave.), a Greektown staple for nearly three decades, is shutting its doors for good this Sunday. We were not given a specific reason for the closure, but were told that brand’s other location, the Sun Valley Market (468 Danforth Ave.), will remain open.
“Ripasso” is a term Italians use for a wine that has been fermented on the skins of grapes from a previous fermentation. This technique originated in the Veneto region and gives extra flavour and heft. Recently, Vintages released this 2009 Valpolicella. It’s a medium-bodied wine that has sweet, spicy, raisiny-plum fruit flavours and finishes dry with a dark-chocolate note.
This is what happens when you visit Market 707, the makeshift food court at Bathurst and Dundas where vendors hawk street food out of shipping containers: you realize that Toronto does, after all, have a remarkable street food scene. You scan the options: buffalo milk ice cream, dim sum, pork belly, camel hamburgers, bubble tea, pupusas, crêpes, ceviche, roti and wait hamburgers are not made out of camel.
Toronto’s most buzz-worthy burger joint is at it again with the announcement that a new west-end location of The Burger’s Priest could possibly be open by the end of this year. Owner Shant Mardirosian tells us that he has signed a deal on a new location in the King and Spadina area, but still has to look into permit issues to make sure that the city will allow him to build a restaurant in that spot.
