Last Saturday, We attended The Gourmet Food and Wine Expo, although it may have been more accurately named: The Wine, Beer, Liquor, Cocktails, and Gourmet Food Expo. It was a telling (and more than a little ironic) that upon entering we were greeted by a representative for a M.A.D.D. associated non-alcoholic beverage company. That appeal to moderate drinking was soon lost as liquor took center stage. Granted, you didn’t need to get loaded wandering around the convention center, but we witnessed many who chose to. And even while trying to take a conservative approach to the drinking, there were so many tempting beverages to try, it soon became a marathon for our livers.

The show

This was the third major food festival of the year which we've attended and although we enjoyed ourselves and had a good time, it was the least memorable of the trio. Why? Well as stated above, the focus wasn’t really on the food. There were food vendors and some really good ones, but they seemed vastly outnumbered by the wine, craft beer, and other alcohol purveyors.  Kiosk that offered food were so few and far between in some stretches, we found ourselves wondering when we’d get to the next one. This was unexpected for an event with "gourmet food" at the head of its title.

Another reason we were disappointed was that the cost. Instead of small bites for a few dollars, thee were larger portions with prices to match. Most items went for a minimum of four dollars and it wasn’t hard to spend six to eight per plate. This made it harder to try a lot and sure made you run through the tickets quickly. 

Which brings me to my final complaint: the tickets. Organizers really need to modernize and move to an electronic payment method like Taste of Toronto or Toronto Food & Wine were using this year. The plasticized tickets were cumbersome and a challenge to tear off, especially once you were holding a purchase in one hand and a wine glass in the other.

The drink

There was no lack of choice in this department. If there is a style of wine, beer, or liquor you enjoy, you were bound to find it. David was overwhelmed with the craft beer selection and we tried many fantastic wines that we will be looking out for the next time we’re at the LCBO. But unlike a wine tasting, these pours were rather substantial and more often than not we turning up things we would have loved to try because our glasses were still nearly full. We mostly kept clear of the hard alcohol but we did have to end the day with some fine cocktails made with gourmet mixers from Fever-Tree. 

I feel that since this was such a big part of the show, I am being neglectful with describing the choices that were available and the great things we sampled. And the truth is we did neglect the beverages. We took almost no pictures and we kept few notes. We were there for the food and perhaps we stuck to that notion too rigidly during our tour.

The demonstrations

Throughout the day there were many different presentations and tastings.We attended The Wine Sisters' holiday tasting. Erin and Courtney Henderson are both sommeliers, who run an event planning business here in Toronto. A small fee was required but this was offset be the four wine tastings that the sisters walked us through. The show covered proper tasting techniques and many holiday entertainment tips. The sisters gave a lively and entertaining change of pace to the day and after a few hours of walking around the convention center, a welcomed chance to sit down. The four wines we tried were under $25 crowd pleasers perfect for the holidays. And one of their top tips was to always hold the glass by the stem, not just to keep your hand from warming the wine (the reason we knew) but to keep oily deposits from building up and grossing out the people you're mingling with.

The Food

There were a few items that we had read about before coming, like the sushi burrito and the "Pig Mac" (on a side note, this was actually the third sandwich in our travels we’ve had called a “Pig Mac.”), but we found both lacking as the concept proved better than the execution. As far as high concept street foods go, we’d have top award the spam sushi the winner. Although not all that original (it’s been a staple in Hawaii for years), it wasn’t something you often in the T.O. and it was our first chance to try it.

But the hands down winner of "the best thing we ate" prize was the Filipino poutine from Casa Manila. We’re huge fans of this North York gem and were eager to see what they brought to GFWE. We had a couple of their extremely tasty skewers but the decedent chicken sauce doused with aioli and sriracha covering our fries wowed us with it’s tart sour notes and generous but not overpowering heat. It was something we could have eaten a few plates of. But then we would have needed a long nap.

Runners up would be: Little Fin’s shrimp and bacon mac & cheese. It was a small portion but packed big flavors; and Bake Three Fifty’s build your own ice cream sandwich. Selecting from different cookies, ice creams, and toppings, it was easy to construct some truly wild and heart clogging combinations.

The verdict

Although we were disappointed that the focus of the event wasn’t on gourmet food, we would recommend it. And in fact, we did recommend it later that night when it came up in conversation. Perhaps next year our expectations will be more in line with the spirit of the show and we’ll go in thinking more about the wine and beer we’ll be trying rather than the food.

U-Feast, We Feasted

Monday night, we were lucky enough to take part in a unique foodie experience: the "Wet" Your Appetite  dinner by Matt Basile. The night was organized by U-Feast, a young company with big dreams.

U-Feast is the brainchild of a few local entrepreneurs, including Terry Mocherniak and Kenn Koid, who I spoke with at different points during the night. The concept is to create an online community of food lovers and create fun and unique experiences for them. Toronto is staged as the testing ground for the enterprise, which began offering "pop-up" foodie events in May of this year, but their goal is to go international with it.

We first heard about U-Feast at Toronto Food & Wine, and we were intrigued, first by the novel idea and then by the amazing looking dinners they were advertising on their website. With the events usually taking place on week nights and not being entirely sure what we were getting ourselves into we hesitated a bit, but finally decided to take the plunge with this one.

A big draw was chef Matt Basile, the hot, young chef storming Toronto's culinary scene with Fidel Gastro and his restaurant Lisa Marie on Queen West. Lisa Marie has been on our radar for months and we had just been waiting for an opportunity to dine there. But this dinner offered something remarkably unique: we wouldn't just get to try Basile's food, we'd get to see his interpretation of Filipino street food. Matt Basile has recently returned from a trip to the Philippines and every dish was inspired by his experiences in their wet markets. As he said afterward: the food wasn't exactly traditional but all of the flavors you would expect are there. It had his own twist on them and also Toronto had made an impression upon them. As people who have spent time around chefs and seen firsthand the injection of inspiration that comes from experiencing new cuisines, this really spoke to us something that could be amazing. 

Not your average dinner party

The night dinner was held in an area of town more famous for its meat packing industry than fine dinning. Walking up to the nondescript building next to a self-storage facility made us feel like we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. But once we stepped through the door of the loft space and smelt the heavenly aromas of food, it was clear we were in the right place. The location, a it turned out, is Matt Basile's studio kitchen used for photo shoots and the filming of cooking shows.

The night had a convivial atmosphere of a friend's dinner party, where no one knew each other. As one guest was overheard to say, "But it's a party where you don't feel guilty about not sticking around to clean up." A room full of strangers could have become a quiet and cold place but the common love for food broke down any barriers and as people eyed the preparation of the meal with a glass of wine in hand, the conversation was loud and friendly.

The Feast

At a cozy, communal table, the feast was served up family style, starting with sambal head on prawns and smoked lechon lettuce wraps. The prawns were gorgeous and meaty packing lots of sweet flavor offset by the spicy sambal sauce. The pickled cucumber that accompanied it wasn't just garnish, it was just as good as the seafood. The pork lettuce wraps was one of the stars of the night. By midway through the meal, it was winning the informal poll of people's favorite bite. The meat was succulent and smokey. The pickled mango, sweet, tart, and fresh. And the fried pork skin light, salty, and crispy

Wine was being poured by John Paul Adamo of the Adamo Estate Winery, a vineyard in one of Ontario's non-traditional wine making zones and one of the event's sponsors. John Paul accompanied this first round with a  crisp and refreshing Chardonney Musque

From there, we moved on to spicy curried mussels and adobo chicken wings. The mussels were perfectly cooked and the broth was lively with coconut, green curry, and kalamansi limes. To sop up all that wonderful broth, coconut cheddar  hominy grits were brought out. They were rich and creamy and worked some fantastic alchemy with the curry. As for the wings, the smoke taste wasn't overpowering and added to their addictiveness. It was hard to stop eating them with all their fall-of-the-bone goodness and the platter sitting temptingly close. These dishes were perfectly paired with an Adamo Riesling, which had the right amount of sweet to balance the spicy and the right amount of citrus to balance the richness.

By this point we were getting to know some of our dining companions well and restaurant recommendations were flying across the table quickly. It was a nice change from a restaurant atmosphere. Just about everyone here was a foodie and no one was here for some other reason than to revel in the food. It was also nice that you didn't get any odd looks for photographing the food, since everyone was doing it.

Offered not so much as a palate cleanser but more of a respite from the meat heavy plates that had been served so far, the black noodles were the next to land on the table. Traditionally these are cooked in copious amounts of lard but Basile went with duck fat and it's impossible to say that was a bad decision. This simple looking dish just may have been the best of the night. My only complaint was that only one poached quail egg topped each family style bowl and I wanted my own. It was incredibly rich and decadent making it a revelation—this is how you cook noodles, people! Along with the noodles out came the Pinot Noir, which provided a surprising compliment with it's subtle fruits and acidic backbone. 
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We were starting to feel more than full, but we weren't done yet. Our last course was whole sea bream and stewed eggplant and king oyster mushrooms. The fish was lovely, delicate and light and the eggplant was creamy and tart. We wished we could wind back time and save room to eat more of these late arrivals, because it was feeling like we were bursting at the seams.

The night ended the way it began with lots of conversations. The hosts and the chef were out among us diners, talking about this wonderful experience we all had just been a part of.

Future feasting

U-feast is a concept and a business I hope will thrive and grow. This celebration of food culture is something that any resident of Toronto who loves food should experience at least once. As for the two of us, we're already anxious for our next adventure with them.

Halloween

Last Saturday was an important day in our calendar. A day where we usually go all out with costumes, a huge party, and with much time spent decorating and cooking. This being our first Halloween in Toronto, things were a little quieter. Our temporary housing doesn’t have the space for much more than a small get-together and all of our (many) Halloween decorations are boxed up at the back of a storage locker. So we decided to get tickets to an event and a have nice dinner beforehand.

Scary good

Despite that headline, there was nothing scary about Byblos, although it was hard to believe how good dinner was. We've been dying to try it for months, and it didn’t disappoint.

We ate upstairs in their very chic dining room. The décor was a beautiful blend of classic and modern. Showpiece light fixtures hung down just about everywhere, giving it the feeling of some indistinct era of the past or perhaps the future.

The service was incredible. There is something special about any restaurant the exceeds expectation in the service department. Service can so easily make or break a dining experience—it can elevate mediocre food and ruin wonderfully prepared meals. But when it's attentive, friendly, never hovering, and exceptionally helpful...and the food is amazing, then you know you have a winner.  Which might be why Byblos is a hard place to get a reservation, especially on the weekends.

The cuisine is described as Eastern Mediterranean and consists of items from the Greek, Turkish, Lebanese, and Israeli culinary traditions. Our waiter wasted no time making us feel at home with the somewhat unfamiliar selection and was generous with his help and suggestions.

We started off with two incredible cocktails that surprised us with their fresh and original flavors. Then we ordered six plates to share between the two of us consisting mainly of a selection of appetizers. I could easily spend a few pages gushing about the food that greeted us, but I'll save you having to read through it all with some food porn pix.

 

 

One of David’s favorite things about the meal was that thought was put into how the food came out. The dishes we ordered were brought to us in sensible courses, rather than simply their placement on the menu. So we got our grilled octopus main before our lamb ribs and duck kibbeh appetizers. It was a small thing but it showed the level of care that Byblos puts into its food.

We were pretty full by the time we were done, but not so full that we weren’t tempted by the dessert menu and ordered a couple, which were pleasantly light and not overly sweet.

The Main Event

But the big event was the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The symphony’s airing of films with a live orchestra providing the score occurs fairly regularly and the week before they did the same with Back To the Future. If you have never been to one of these screenings, you should definitely take advantage. It is an incredible way to elevate a night out at the movies into an event. And you don’t even need to spend a lot on the tickets because at Roy Thompson Hall, there really isn’t any bad seats.

We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of concert goers (and performers!) who showed up in full costume. Jen regret not wearing hers, but only slightly as the theatre was on the warm side and would have been hot under a wig and extra garb.

The movie is a classic for a reason, even though a few out-dated lines generated laughs from the audience. But overall, seeing the beautiful 35mm print on the big screen play out the twisted tail of Norman Bates generated all the right amount of tension and creep that one could ask for.

Thoughts of next year

So that was our first Halloween in the big city and it already has us thinking of next year. We found out about the Toronto Public Library Foundation's Hush, Hush party a little too late to attend this time, but a Halloween party in a library...how can we say no to that.