toronto : Sheryl Kirby

Category : toronto

Hopgood’s Foodliner Rocks the East Coast Flavours

February 7th 2012 - Posted in downeast cooking, Food, Halifax, restaurants, toronto
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Anyone who knows me or who reads this site regularly knows my feelings on donairs. Particularly that we don’t have any good ones here in Toronto, and that it’s a crying shame because we do so much to celebrate the street food of other cultures, but we seldom, even within the realm of “local”, celebrate the food of Canada. That goes for all Canadian foods, actually, not just street food, and it’s truly a delight to see restaurants like Keriwa Cafe, and Acadia to some extent (Chef Matt Blondin has a specific niche but there’s definite Canadian influences) and now Hopgood’s Foodliner (325 Roncesvalles Avenue) picking up on Canadian regional cuisine.

Geoff Hopgood has been very quiet about his recent restaurant opening. Few people knew it was even happening until news of the soft opening broke on Twitter and an exclusive with the Globe and Mail’s Chris Nuttal-Smith ran the following day. A website with the most basic info was made in late January, but wasn’t getting indexed by Google as Toronto food freaks desperately searched for more information last Friday.

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Shut Yo’ Mouth – Stuff I Wrote this Week – February 4th, 2012

February 4th 2012 - Posted in Food, other writing, toronto
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Mill Street Brew Pub closed for renovations

More places to catch the super bowl

Restaurant news – Lil’ Baci, Focaccia, Ici Bistro

Cheesewerks lets customers meet their maker

Challenge of the Super Bowls

Marben to host iYellow Wine School

Souper Bowl Sunday

Speakeasy combines burlesque and dinner theatre

Pack a lunch for Lunch Money Day

Nota Bene to expand eastward

The Depanneur to host dinners featuring the flavours of the world

Restaurant News – The Real Jerk, Balzac’s, Little Anthony’s Italian

New menus – The County General, L’ouvrier, The Sister

A horse, of course

Fidel Gastro pops up at the Superbowl

Flowers from the Bird Lady

January 30th 2012 - Posted in books, flora and fauna, Life, The World at Large, toronto
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BIRDLADY from FORTNIGHT LINGERIE on Vimeo.

Parkdale, my neighbourhood since 1993, is known for its many characters. People who make the place unique and colourful, people who definitely dance to their own drummer. For 90 some-odd years, one of those characters was Annie Ross. Born in the building that stands on the south-west corner of Queen and Dunn in 1913, she lived there her entire life until her death in 2004. Miss Ross never married, instead running her family’s flower shop at the front of the building, and spending her retirement years in a small apartment at the back where she was known for feeding the local pigeons; thus her nickname, The Bird Lady.

Miss Ross could tell you stories of how Parkdale had changed and grown. She could remember when the lot directly across the street from her on Dunn was a field for horses. She could tell about how the buildings went up along Queen, or how the mansions along Jameson came down to make way for apartment buildings. And she could tell you about books. In a 4-minute short documentary filmed before her death, she talks about how she began keeping track of all the books she read in her lifetime, some 8,600 different titles.

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