restaurants : Sheryl Kirby

Category : restaurants

Smörgåsbord – Acadia

July 30th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, smorgasbord, The World at Large, toronto
Comments Off

The story of the Acadians was part of the history of the place where I grew up. French settlers on the Bay of Fundy shore of Nova Scotia were expelled from the province in the mid 1700s when they refused to sign an oath of allegiance to Britain. The French settlers ended up scattered all along the eastern seaboard of the US, particularly in the rural areas of Louisiana, where many French-owned plantations made the settlers feel at home.

While many Acadians eventually returned to Acadie (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI) enough stayed in the Louisiana low country and adapted to the life there that the Cajun culture was born. Food, in particular, was still based around the rustic French food they knew and cooked up north, but began to encompass local ingredients and cooking techniques.

Read More...

Smörgåsbord – The Bowery

July 25th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, smorgasbord
1 Comment

We got to check out The Bowery (55 Colborne Street) a few weeks ago. Chef Tawfik Shehata is doing the exec gig both here and over at The Ballroom, with Chef Jason Maw running the day to day. Both chefs were on hand the night we dropped by with a couple of friends, and we tried a number of dishes that were very impressive. Above, the grilled octopus with tomato confit, nicoise olives, baby arugula, polenta and squid ink aioli. Nice tender bits of squid and the aioli was really interesting – it looks a little odd on the plate, but it has a great flavour of garlic and squid.

Read More...

Summer Reading – Lunch With Lady Eaton

July 19th 2011 - Posted in books, Food, food trends, restaurants, toronto
Comments Off

Lunch with Lady Eaton – Inside the Dining Rooms of a Nation
Carol Anderson and Katharine Mallinson
206 pages, Ecw Press; April, 2004

When the first department stores opened across the country, they were considered to be (as they sometimes still are now) the death knell for small Mom & Pop stores that specialized in one niche market. And while some department stores like Wal-Mart continue to expand their grocery offering, higher-end shops have all but wiped out their food and grocery departments to specialize in higher-end luxury goods. But there was a time when Canadian department stores not only sold every dry good item imaginable, but they also made and sold food, both in their restaurants and as grocery items.

Case in point would be the long-defunct Eaton’s. The beloved Canadian department store chain began as a dry goods and hardware store under the guidance of founder Timothy Eaton. Early on, the store included coffee shops and restaurants in addition to a massive food hall. Eaton’s made their own baked goods on site, they owned dairies in rural Ontario which supplied the cream for the store to make its own butter, and by the early 1900s, the lunchroom of the downtown Toronto store was serving 5000 meals a day.

Read More...

The Restaurant Website – What the Hell Are You Doing?

July 11th 2011 - Posted in Food, media, public relations, restaurants, The World at Large
7 Comments

I just rebooted my computer.

Who cares, you might ask. But I had to reboot my system because I was visiting the website of a local restaurant and the PDF file of their menu caused my operating system to freeze. This would be mildly annoying if it was the only time I ever encountered it, but it actually happens on a regular basis. Between the PDFs, the crap flash websites and sites that are just never updated, restaurants make my job of writing about them like pulling teeth, only with a lot more tears and crying.

Look, I get the fact that not everybody is good at (or interested in) everything. Cooks wanna cook, they don’t want to waste their time mucking around with computer stuff or marketing campaigns or anything that isn’t, well, cooking. I get it. Just about everybody who works in a creative field, making things to sell to other people, feels the same way. Farmers hate dragging their produce to market, craftspeople hate dragging their wares to shows, authors hate doing book tours, and chefs hate taking time out of the kitchen to deal with paperwork.

But it’s a reality of life.

One that more restaurants should embrace, because your website is the most important tool you have in marketing your business. It’s a 24-hour-a-day business card that can make people want to try your food or never set foot in your place ever. More than Twitter, Facebook or any other online social networking site, their own website is where restaurants need to be concentrating their efforts.

Read More...

School’s In For Summer at the Drake Hotel

June 24th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, toronto
Comments Off

Okay, so let’s be honest, it’s like no school cafeteria you’ve ever been in before; the tables are made from old bowling alley floors, the wall are covered in kitsch, and the juice boxes are spiked. But if you’re going to convert your hotel restaurant dining room into an ongoing art project, one in which the whole thing, including the menu, changes up every few months, school cafeteria food is surely a fun place to start. And of course, the food has got to be memorable too.

Chef Anthony Rose and the staff at the Drake Hotel (1150 Queen Street West) have a winner on their hands with the first instalment of the “Dining Roadshow”. Recent popular culture is rife with grown-ups wanting to act and look like children, so an opportunity to return to summer school for an evening and reminisce goes over like gangbusters with the crowd at the media preview earlier this week. We flipped through a menu presented in duo-tangs (menu order forms look like those dreaded fill-in-the-circle test sheets) and pulled condiments out of lunchboxes on each table.

Read More...

Quince’s Indonesian Rijsttafel

June 6th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, toronto
Comments Off

Quick – tell me your favourite Indonesian restaurant in Toronto. Can’t do it? That’s because they don’t exist. Seriously, Google “Indonesian restaurant Toronto” and you get hits for a Thai restaurant, a Malaysian restaurant and a Vietnamese restaurant. And while those 3 cuisines are similar in many ways to Indonesian food, there’s a different interplay of spices and ingredients that make Indonesian food unique.

I first got hooked on Indonesian food back in the 80s, when the food court in the basement of Dragon City Mall had an Indonesian kiosk where my roommates and I could try various dishes to our heart’s content. I had no point of comparison at that time, so I don’t remember if it was particularly good Indonesian food, but since there are no other Indonesian places in Toronto (and no, nasi goreng at Movenpick Marche doesn’t count), I haven’t had much opportunity for comparison. Until last week.

Read More...

Brisket on Wheels – Caplansky’s Gets Around Town

May 20th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, toronto
Comments Off

The problem with the restaurant biz is that most restaurants are stationary. Folks have got to come to you to enjoy your food. But Zane Caplansky of Caplansky’s Delicatessen (356 College Street) has his wheels spinning in other directions with a bunch of new initiatives that take the restaurant to the customer.

Earlier this week, Caplansky’s did their very first bicycle-powered lunch delivery. The deli owner bought two large, sturdy bikes with sizeable baskets, and now customers within a downtown delivery area (Dupont to Queen, University to Ossington) can, for a $5 delivery fee, have their smoked meat sandwich delivered to their home or office. Caplansky points out that the bikes are a low-maintenance, high-capacity delivery apparatus – each bike can hold a minimum of 2 orders and with 2 bikes, he can send staff in different directions at the same time. It’s also a respite for his kitchen staff, who can take a break from bussing or dishwashing for a quick bike ride to make a delivery. And while Caplansky works with a local food delivery company to serve a wider geographic area, he points out that the bike system is more local and more personal. Not to mention more efficient in downtown traffic.

Read More...

Lahore Tikka House Trades a Trailer for a Tent

May 11th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, The World at Large, toronto
Comments Off

They’re gone. After years of construction delays and flapping tarps, the two trailers that served as a makeshift restaurant have been torn down as the main floor of Lahore Tikka House (1365 Gerrard Street East) opens for business. I was there on the weekend to take a photo to go with my piece on Toronto.com and happened to run into owner Alnoor Sayani, who happily showed me around.

The space directly east of the building where the trailers once stood is now home to a giant tent and patio area. Decorated with saris and colourful fabric as well as thousands of tiny lights, it’s already easy to imagine dining here on a hot summer night. Sayani points out where landscaping is still to be added, as well as a spot out front that will house a fountain. Large glass garage doors on the east side of the building also open up to make the whole indoor space feel like a giant patio.

Read More...

They’ve Got Sausages at Marben and They’re Happy to See You

May 10th 2011 - Posted in Food, restaurants, The World at Large, toronto
Comments Off

It seems as if every chef worth their weight in pork belly has been playing around with sausage-making lately. And with sausage and hot dog restaurants showing up as the next big trend, we’re all going to be eating many more of the things in the near future. So why not pit local chefs against each other to see who truly makes the best wurst.

Ryan Donovan and the gang at Marben (488 Wellington Street West) have decided to do just that. Throughout the spring and summer, select Wednesdays (2 each month) will see Sausage League take over the restaurant. While Marben’s regular menu will still be on offer, guests will have the option of ordering the sausage special for $25. What they’ll get is two dishes – one prepared by each chef – and they’ll get to choose their favourite. The chef who gets the most votes each night will move on to the next round of competition.

Read More...

What’cha looking for?
What’s going on
What came before

Sheryl Kirby

Food, Life and the World at Large

Category : restaurants

Smörgåsbord – Acadia

Smörgåsbord – The Bowery

Summer Reading – Lunch With Lady Eaton

The Restaurant Website – What the Hell Are You Doing?

School’s In For Summer at the Drake Hotel

Quince’s Indonesian Rijsttafel

Brisket on Wheels – Caplansky’s Gets Around Town

Lahore Tikka House Trades a Trailer for a Tent

They’ve Got Sausages at Marben and They’re Happy to See You

SalivATE – April 2011

What’cha looking for?

What’s going on

What came before