Christmas dinner – Sheryl Kirby

Where To Eat in Toronto on Christmas Day – 2014 Edition

You crazy kids have been hitting the 2012 edition of this post so much (there wasn’t one last year), my site stats are going to be pitiful come December 26th. But it seems that there are an awful lot of you out there who have no intention of sitting around with the family wearing those silly hats that come in the Christmas crackers, and who instead want to have someone else do the cooking and cleaning for you on the big day.

I have concentrated on downtown Toronto, but if you’re in the burbs, I think David Ort of Post City is planning a list with a wider range. Even though my list is cross-referenced and confirmed, I’d still recommend calling to book a reservation at anything other than the most casual places, and reservations are required for any of the hotel restaurants.

Enjoy!

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Where to Eat in Toronto on Christmas Day (2012 Edition)

Heya – Updated version of this list for 2014 can be found here.

Despite the pervasiveness of the festive season, not everybody gives a damn about turkey and stuffing and sitting around with the family listening to some pop singer butcher the holiday favourites, for a whole variety of reasons. Some folks might want a more low-key celebration (one in which they don’t have to do the washing up) and for others, it’s just, well, Tuesday.

I’ve been putting together a “Christmas Day dining for heathens” list since the first year we ran TasteTO, and it was very popular last year when I was writing for Toronto.com. So here it is again, modified and updated and fact-checked for your dining pleasure. (Parkdalers – the Beaver is closed on Christmas Day this year, so check the list below before heading out!)

As usual, I’ve not included a lot of Chinese restaurants because they are usually open on Christmas Day as a default. However, because Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year, and many Chinese-owned businesses are closed on Tuesdays, do yourself a favour and call ahead if you’ve got a favourite spot in mind.

Also, reservations are required for all of the options offered at hotels.

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Shut Yo’ Mouth – Stuff I Wrote This Week – December 23rd, 2011

Fry, fry, baby – The Burger’s Priest gets a song

Just opened – The Hot n Dog

Where to get Christmas dinner if you don’t cook

Boehmer cooks up an early Christmas

Restaurant news – Scarpetta, The Gabardine, Ruby Watchco

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Death by Turkey

I am spending this week watching holiday specials. Not the cartoons and tired old movies of yore (Come on admit it, It’s a Wonderful Life is three hours of tedious, sentimental schlock.), but holiday food and cooking shows, specifically of the UK variety.

As it turns out, holiday cooking shows are the big thing for UK chefs, and anyone with an existing series, or a cookbook, or a well-known restaurant, is there on the screen, setting fire to booze-soaked puds and making the holiday hassle look easy. But because there are so many shows, so many chefs competing for viewers’ attention, they’ve all got to do something different, to jazz up the traditional Christmas dinner in some way to make it unique.

Stuart Heritage of the Guardian sees the mass of holiday cooking shows as a as testament to gluttony in the “so… much… foooooood” vein. Because, he claims, it’s all about the watching and not about the cooking. But isn’t that really the saddest part? By which I mean, I bet that your Christmas dinner this year will be exactly like the Christmas dinner you had last year, and the year before that, and the year before that… there will be no trying of new dishes from Jamie or Nigella or Gordon. It’s fun to watch, sure, but hey, don’t fuck with Christmas dinner.

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Lucky Dip – Monday, December 12th, 2011

Rob Ford looks only to the here and now, and fails to look at the long-term viability of city programs set to be chopped. Such as the school nutrition programs that keep violence down, test scores up and that help to create responsible citizens who have jobs and pay taxes. [The Grid]

Dear Nigella, enough already. It’s just food. And the rest of us are laughing at you in the same way we laugh at people who buy cheap see-through lingerie. [Guardian]

Okay, so we all know we’re not supposed to eat raw cookie dough. But who knew that it might be the flour carrying the e.coli? Crazy! [NPR]

If you’re still suffering Bright Pearl withdrawal symptoms (I know I am), Dim Sum King Seafood Restaurant might fill the void. [Toronto Life: The Dish]

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