Igloo Shaved Ice (Shaved Ice Cream/ 雪花冰) in Toronto.

shaved ice cream... The first time I tried shaved ice cream was in Hong Kong around 2 years ago and saying that it impressed me would be an understatement. I literally ate every flavour from different HK dessert shops including one called Tong Bak Fu (糖百府).  The dessert is called 雪花冰 in chinese and is basically a mountain of shaved ice that tastes like flaky, crumbly ice cream (no lie)! Check out my friend Janice's blog for a mouth watering review of these shaved ice cream desserts in HK.  As you'll see in her epic review, the flavours offered in HK range from Sesame to Green Tea to Chocolate to even Horlicks!  They also usually come with flavoured sauce and bubble tea like toppings (jelly, exploding tapioca, etc.). 

Lucky for people in Toronto, you can try this crazy dessert out this weekend at the Night It Up! event at Markham Civic Centre, which takes place July 13-15, 2012 (formerly known as Toronto Night Market/ Asian Night Market). A friend of a friend has worked long and hard to bring this delicious dessert to our great city. They have renamed the shaved ice cream dessert as "Igloo Shaved Ice" and will have a booth (L7) at the Night It Up event.The booth will be open Friday 7:00 pm to 12:00 am; Saturday12:00 pm to 12:00 am; and Sunday 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Igloo Shaved Ice will be offering these following ice flavours: milk (traditional),strawberry, mango, and coconut. They will also have many toppings for you to choose from: condensed milk; fresh strawberries, mangoes and blueberries; lychee, mango,and green apple jelly; lychee popping bobas; and also sweetened soft red beans,taro, and peanuts.  MMM! it really is as delicious as it sounds. Unfortunately, Chocolate is not being offered as a flavour. After eating ~20 of these in a week in HK, I can safely say that Chocolate is hands down the greatest flavour (see picture above!).  Once you have experienced the decadence and richness of Chocolate Shaved Ice Cream...mmm.. I can't even finish this sentence while thinking about it!

Mount Pleasant Village Restaurantacular 2012.

food festival!... I just wanted to share another event called Restaurantacular that I heard about from my brother. Restaurantacular 2012 is a doors open event being held today from 12pm- 9pm, in Mount Pleasant Village area. Select local restaurants, patisseries and cafes on Mount Pleasant between Eglinton and Davisville will be featuring sample foods for $2, $4 or $6.  This will be good chance to check out different local shops and restaurants in that area, while satisfying your hunger.  There are a wide range of participants including Cheese Emporium, Hero Burger, The Friendly Thai, Lollicakes and even Second Cup (hopefully it's not a $6 coffee. LOL!). You can see a full list of participating stores here.   There is also a map (PDF file) to help you plan your eating adventure!

2 Free Tickets to "Lobster Love" Event.

free lobster contest!... An event for lobster lovers, appropriately named "Lobster Love" is being held at Evergreen Brickworks on July 19, 2012. Earlier this year, I enjoyed great seafood and lobster during another event held at Evergreen Brickworks. The event runs from 6 PM - Midnight and will be a night full of delicious lobsters prepared by Toronto's finest chefs.  Tickets include admission and also food, with guests selecting a main course of a 1.5 LB lobster prepared in one of the following ways: Lobster Roll, Lobster Thermidor or Boiled Lobster.  There will also be warm drawn butter for dipping, garden fresh side salads and steaming golden cobs of corn-organically grown.  Tickets are $39 (+ $4 service charge) per person and can be purchased here, but here's your chance to get in on this event for free...


"Good Food Toronto" will be giving away a pair of tickets for the "Lobster Love" through a random draw on Facebook.  Follow the instructions below and on Friday July 13, 2012, one winner will be selected and contacted on Facebook. See Good Food Toronto Facebook Page for full details.


To enter the contest, all you need to do is:
1. "Like" the Good Food Toronto Facebook Page
2. "Like" and "Share" the Good Food Toronto "Lobster Love" post to your Facebook Wall
3.  In the comments of the Good Food Toronto "Lobster Love" post, write down your favourite way to eat lobster (ex. Lobster Roll, Boiled Lobster, Lobster Thermidor, Lobster Bisque, Chinese Style... the list goes on.)


Lobster Love, July 19, 2012
Evergreen Brick Works 
550 Bayview Avenue
Toronto, ON
M4W 3X8

7-Eleven: Free Doritos Chips + Free Slurpees.

free doritos!... 7-Eleven is giving out free samples of their unreleased Doritos 3rd Degree Burn Tortilla Chips today (May 17, 2012).  As long as you're 17 or older (not sure how they picked this random age), you can head into any 7-11 location in Canada and grab a sample, while quantities last.  The bags are small at 16 gram bags- half the size of their usual snack sizes by weight, but they are FREE! 

7-eleven is also giving away free slurpees next Wednesday, May 23, 2012 as part of their SlurpFREE day promo. First 1000 guests at 7-11 locations across Canada between 11 am- 7 pm will recieve a free 7.11 Oz Slurpee. 

Macaron Day TO.

free macarons!... Tomorrow (Macaron 20, 2012) is Macaron Day in Toronto, where a bunch of patisseries across Toronto are giving out one free macaron per customer- you just have to mention that you are celebrating Macaron Day TO. Apparently, this event is being held in New York and Paris as well, so free macarons across the world! They are also donating 25% of each additional macaron to charity, so it sounds like a cool event to try some of these tasty meringue pastries. Check out the event and all the participating Patisseries here.

California Sandwiches.

veal sandwich!... My friend Chris has been telling me about this place that serves a crazy good veal sandwiches called California Sandwiches, so I had to check it out.  They have a few locations around Toronto, and I went last Saturday to the Dufferin location.  They have a pretty basic menu of different kinds of sandwiches including Chicken, Steak, Meatball, Eggplant, Sausage, Veggie and of course Veal!  I was there around lunch time and there was quite a long line up of people, who pretty much all seemed to order the Veal sandwich, which come in either sweet or mild or hot. 

The sandwich itself is pretty expensive for $8.25 + tax getting you only the basic veal sandwich on a bun, but it is soooo tasty!  Once you've paid that much for this sandwich, you still have to pay a bit for the toppings. I got mushrooms ($1.07 + tax), sweet peppers ($1.07 + tax) and cheese ($1.07 + tax), which puts the sandwich over the $10 mark, but once you open it up from the wrapper and taste it you will be satisfied. The bun is super fluffy and and theres 2 giant pieces of deep fried veal in sauce- with each bite being an interesting blend of moist and crispy, it's the best veal sandwich I've had in Toronto. Also, one sandwich is quite a bit for 1 person.  You can tell that people love this place by the busy line ups.  They also serve some hot food like meatballs, which looked like pretty large portions.  They also have locations a Warden/ Eglington and Yonge/ Elgin Mills. Check out there other locations here. There was free parking at the Dufferin location, but even parking seemed a bit busy. It's open till 10 pm everyday and 8 pm on sundays. It is an expensive sandwich, but definitely worth trying one of these sandwiches (kinda like Burger's Priest that it's expensive but so goood!).

California Sandwiches

2474 Dufferin St.

Toronto. ON

Evergreen Brickworks Cooking Workshops.

seafood!... Every second Thursday until May 12, 2012, there are cooking workshops held at Evergreen Brick Works, an environmental community centre in Toronto.  I had never been here before, but had seen this place countless of times during drives along the DVP/ Bayview extension to and from down town. I had the opportunity to take part in the Winter Shellfish workshop run by Kristin Donovan and her husband Dan, which featured an awesome menu of oysters, clams, lobsters and mussels! Jess and I arrived just in time to grab the last 2 aprons, and before we could dig in, there was lots of shucking, cracking and cooking first. The class was led by Kristin and Dan, who are both the owners of Hooked Inc., a super cool sustainable seafood store on Queen East.  They both introduced us to how seafood is farmed and the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources- it truly is their passion!

The workshop was at full capacity with about 12 participants in total and we each stood at our stations where a cutting board, a towel, and an oyster shucker were ready for use. They were very generous that we could grab as many oysters as we could shuck and eat, but although my stomach is bottomless, shucking was the limiting factor.  Kristin and Dan taught us how to crack these oysters open, but I struggled the entire time (I almost cut my hand and Kristin even makes fun of me for it later- see video below).  I did get a couple open at the end and enjoyed some tasty fresh raw oysters, along with lemon and some random sauces. Pictures of my successful shucking are featured below. lol
My favourite part of the workshop was definitely the lobsters! They showed us how to de shell the tail and the claw separately, then we could each pick a tail or a claw to de shell ourselves.  According to Dan, the gold standard of de-shelling lobsters is being able to get the meat out of the claw as one piece...did it like a pro! The lobster was pre cooked and after the meat was taken out, it was butter poached.  Throughout the workshop, Kristin stressed the importance of using quality ingredients and knowing where your food comes from, whether its lobster or the butter you use.  The lobster tasted awesome in the buttery sauce, which I soaked up with a few helpings of french bread. I know they own a seafood store, but damnnn, they need to branch into dining, especially with both Kristin and Dan being trained chefs.

Post lobster, we moved into groups and cooked Mussels in Coconut Green Curry broth + Clams with Kale and Chorizo.  Everyone was split into 2 main groups and worked as a team to get these tasty dishes completed on time.  You have to know your strengths when working in a team, and my strengths are definitely more of the eating variety! lol seriously though, everyone pitched in and with easy to follow recipes, both the Mussels and Clams were cooked and ready to eat within the workshop's 2 hour time limit. The clams matched perfectly with the chorizo sausage and Kristin even stated that it was the only non seafood item they carry at Hooked Inc..  I also learned that you can flick raw mussels with your finger to check if they are alive- they should slowly close after you flick them if they are alive!
I had an awesome time learning, preparing, cooking and eating at the workshop and I'd definitely consider coming back to check out another class.  Kristin and Dan were passionate about the food, and their enthusiasm for seafood was shared amongst everyone who attended.  Evergreen Brick Works itself is a really cool place too, with a very modern industrial look, while still looking rustic (heard the resto there serves duck egg omelettes too!)! The walls were covered with repurposed items like electrical boxes as art.  

If you are passionate about cooking or food in general, these workshops are a great place to learn both the techniques and the background education about the food being featured. This is definitely a cool date idea as well, especially for those of you not used to cooking at home much. Price wise, these classes are really affordable at $55/ person (5 classes/ $225, 10 classes/ $450) especially when you compare it to other cooking workshops that run up to $200 each in Toronto.  The classes may not be led by a super famous chef, but they bring in local "experts" in the field and use quality ingredients! From this experience, Kristin and Dan probably knew more about seafood than anyone in this city.  Each class runs from 7-9 pm every second Thursday until May 17, 2012. Check out the full schedule and menus here.

Evergreen Brick Works Green Bites Cooking Workshops 550 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON  M4W 3X8

Panera Bread Workshop with Tom Gumpel.

bread!...About a month ago, I had the chance to take part in a Bread workshop at George Brown College.  This was an event run by Panera Bread to celebrate the opening of their new down town Toronto Bakery/ Cafe @ Yonge and Edward that opened on January 24, 2012.  I received an invitation to come to this workshop to try their food and also to learn about bread/ baking from Culinary chef Tom Gumpel.  I had honestly never heard of him before, but he has a loaded culinary resume- Captain of the World Cup of Baking winning 1999 U.S. Baking Team and named America's Top Ten Bread Bakers by Dessert Professional Magazine.  This was the first time I had heard of these accomplishments, but the most impressive title to me was that he referred to himself as Panera's Chief of Bread (his official title is Panera's Vice President of Bakery Development)!

I was super excited to check out the workshop, especially with promises of great lunch and a chance to sample some of Tom's bread recipes, while learning about bread from a true pro. I headed to George Brown on the day of, and there were about 10 other bloggers/ food writers attending the events. We all helped ourselves to a prepared lunch of sandwiches, breads, cake, salad- all of which were menu items at Panera Bread stores.  I had a chance to try their BRAVO sandwich, which consisted of smoked turkey breast, bacon, smoked gouda cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, some sauce on tomato basil bread.  I was told this was one of their most popular items and it was definitely tasty! The bread was really fresh as expected and once I heard smoked gouda cheese, I had to grab this sandwich.  I also tried their Fuji Apple Chicken salad, which had little apple chips in it!

After stuffing my face with the the lunch provided, Panera Chief of Bread, Tom Gumpel began his workshop, where he talked about the history and many uses of bread in today's society.  To start the workshop off, we each ripped off a giant piece of french bread, just to touch, smell and feel. I learned some pretty cool stuff about bread.. did you know that french bread is shaped after a walking stick and ciabatta after a slipper?!! There were 2 recipes he also showed us, and more importantly let us taste! haha.  The first was an Asiago Strata, a savoury bread pudding, that although not a Panera menu item, pretty much anybody could make at home. People often use stale/ left over bread for bread puddings, but Tom advised that fresh is the best! He had thinly sliced pieces of Asiago bread and basically layered it along with Asiago Cheese in a pan.  This was followed by pouring a creamy mixture of eggs, cream and pepper and finally baking the whole thing.  This was delicious, with no real overpowering flavours and hints of cheese throughout.
The recipe is below if you want to try making it yourself at home (taken from Toronto Star Food Editor Jennifer Bain, who also attended the event):

Panera Bread/ Tom Gumpel's Asiago Strata

Ingredients:

• Softened butter, at room temperature
• 2-1/2 cups (675 mL) half and half cream
• 2 large eggs
• Pinch cracked black pepper
• About 1-lb (450-g) loaf asiago bread, cut in 1/4-inch (1/2 cm) slices
• 1 cup (250 mL) shredded asiago or other hard cheese

Generously rub sides and bottom of 8-inch (20-cm) square baking dish with butter.

In large mixing bowl, whisk cream, eggs and pepper.

To assemble, place layer of bread in prepared pan, cutting pieces as needed. Sprinkle with cheese. After 3 layers, pour about 1/3 of cream mixture. Repeat, leaving 1/4-inch (1 mL) space at top of dish and finishing with remaining cream mixture. (Reserve any remaining bread for another use.) Let stand 15 minutes.

Place dish on baking sheet. Bake in centre of preheated 425F (220C) oven 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F (180C) and bake until richly dark and slightly puffed, about 30 minutes. (It will settle back after being removed from the oven.) Run knife around edges. Let stand 15 minutes.

Place large plate over top of pan, in one slow motion, flip plate and pan together. Place on counter. Let strata fall from pan onto plate. Cut into 2-inch (5-cm) squares, or as desired.

Serve hot or warm.

Makes 16 small servings.

In addition to the bread pudding, Tom also made an Autumn Harvest Panzanella recipe.  This was a cooked bread salad made with fresh vegetables that he picked out at nearby St. Lawrence Market that morning.  It was quite interesting as I've never had a cooked salad before, let alone with bread! The new down town Panera Bread is the 4th location in the GTA.  If you're like me and had heard of Panera, but never tasted their breads, it's probably because they have over 1000 locations across the US. I had a great time learning the ins and outs of the bread industry in north america and would like to thank Tom Gumpel, Panera Bread and Diana Conconi, for organizing and running this tasty event!  They even gave me a some free swag to take home!

Panera Bread (Downtown Toronto)

322 Yonge Street

Toronto, Ontario

M5B 1R8

(416) 205-9371

McDonald's Oreo Cookie N' Cream Pie.

oreo pie!... The newest set of McDonald's coupons floating around Toronto mailboxes had picture of the new Oreo Cookies N' Cream Pie from McDonald's.  Since Jan 3, 2011, these Oreo Pies (2/ $1.39 + tax, or $0.99 each) have been available in McDonald's around the GTA.  The pie crust is like the normal apple pie one with chocolate in it and it is filled with some Oreo cream that has melted marshmellow like texture.  I actually like this new creation by McDs as the not so sweet crust goes nicely with the sweet gooey cream inside. These have replaced the Mixed Berry pies and will probably be available for a limited time along with the available-all-year-round Apple Pies. They're still selling the Creme Brulee Mcflurry atm too. McDonald's, please make the Peach and Banana Chocolate pies available all year!!! Throw in all day Sausage Egg McMuffins too!

Fickle Viet Chinese Cuisine.

pho in the downtown core!... Fickle is a Viet/Chinese restaurant downtown Toronto that has been open for about a year.  I was quite ecstatic when I heard about a pho place opening up around Yonge and College, where fast food joints are a dime a dozen. If you walk or drive by, their crazy interior lighting/ decor will really draw your attention.  The restaurant looks kind of like a club with colour changing walls and ceiling.  The entire place slowly changes colours while you are eating, which is kinda trippy (reminded me a bit of the mood lighting they use in planes during a long flight to HK).

When I first tried this restaurant, they definitely had their share of problems, especially slow/ inadequate service (waited 45 mins for food, clearly understaffed, no water refills, missing orders), but I recently went again and things have definitely improved.  Fickle has an extensive menu of chinese, viet and asian fusion type items, but I was here strictly to eat some Beef Noodle Soup aka Pho close to where I live.  The Pho comes in 2 sizes, Regular ($7.99 + tax/tip) and Large ($8.99 + tax/tip).  It is served with slices of lean beef and 2 out of the following items: Brisket, Soft Tendon, Beef Balls, Tripe. There isn't much variety in the pho- especially with the absence of chicken, seafood and curry pho choices! Aside from the inflated prices (the Regular and Large sizes are more like Small and Medium bowls at other places), the Pho is decent and comes with the usual tray of beansprouts/ lime.  For $9.99 + tax/tip, you can have the Fickle Special pho, which comes with a mix of all the meats listed above (kinda like #101 at Pho 88).  I also tried their viet Spring Rolls, which they call Fickle Spring Rolls ($4.99 + tax/tip).  These were good deep fried viet spring rolls that came with 2 rolls cut up. 

In terms of pho, there are definitely better places across the city (and cheaper), but the convenient location just north of College TTC station will keep my coming back when I don't want to travel far to get my fix of Pho.  They have lots of items I haven't tried and any feedback would be great if you have been to this place. The service at Fickle recently was pretty good and it seems that things are running much smoother than half a year ago.  Alcohol is served here, so you can get wasted and jam out to the colour changing walls! haha.

Fickle Viet Chinese Cuisine

507 Yonge St

Toronto, ON 

M4Y 1Y3

(647) 351-3529