The Taste of Toronto (
@tasteoftoronto) is one of the newer food festivals taking place in Toronto.
Lasting for three days,
17 restaurants around the downtown area (and their
chefs) came out to Fort York and served their signature dishes to give all the excited foodies a taste of what they served in their actual restaurants.
In addition to walking around and smelling all the amazing food, there were other stations around the festival such as wine tasting, the Electrolux Taste Threatre where a chef would do some demonstrative cooking, live music, cooking classes, and a marketplace for local stores to sell their goods.
And of course, there were multiple areas that served alcohol, and Nespresso was also there to make sure you had enough energy to continue eating throughout the day!
Here were our choices of the day:
Barque Smokehouse
Smoked duck tacos with pickled radish, carrots, crispy fried chicken skin and a hoisin BBQ sauce on a flour tortilla
If you're Asian, this tasted like a play on Peking Duck (aka delicious).
Khao San Road
Thai tea shake: Black tea, ice, condensed milk, spices
V brought up a good point - why don't they serve this at the restaurant?! I liked this slushie version of Thai Iced Tea more than the normal tea.
The Grove
Duck scotch egg with English accompaniments
Food Network's food trays, featuring V's hand.
The McEwan Group (Bymark and Fabbrica also had a signature dish here)
One’s Fried Chicken with a Buttermilk Biscuit, Housemade Slaw and Chipotle BBQ Sauce
Chef McEwan himself! Eeeeeeeeeee!
A much needed coffee break, in the cutest cups! - that I brought home with me :)
Patria
Seafood Paella: Bacalao, Mussels, Shrimp, Bay Scallops,Fish, Peas, Crispy Serrano
We waited in line for almost 30 minutes for this bad boy! I thought it'd be super amazing but it was meh.
The Grove
Octopus, pork, corn, black garlic
The octopus was very chewy and the pork was basically a block of fat. But if you ate all of the components of this dish in one bite, it tasted pretty good.
We actually ended up staying a lot longer than we expected to, since the weather permitted us to walk around slowly and aimlessly. It was an afternoon well spent, to say the least :)
