You’d be remiss not to visit this bustling food bazaar, local chefs serve up everything from paella with pork belly and duck from a local, all organic farm to Tibetan dumplings. Toronto has the second biggest Tibetan population in the world. It’s early summer and the market, with its edible cornucopia, reflects that. Grab some asparagus and make sure you try the strawberries. The reason Niagara makes great wine grapes is the same reason we have superb strawberries. It has a unique weather system, so even when it’s crappy, they grow the same found in France.
Trying proper maple syrup is like experiencing a good Bordeaux after years of low-quality Chilean red, or dipping bread in local Puglian olive oil when you’re used to Napolina: there’s just no comparison. We stop at one stall and try a few shots of a complex, not too sweet, just a bit smoky syrup.
Within about an hours’ distance of the city, you start finding some real bush but further out you go, the better. Go North. Avoid being downriver from farms due to the chemicals they churn out unless you know they are organic.
The most exciting food in Toronto is similar to new Nordic cuisine, and the best example is Boralia in the West End, stimulated by sampling wild Canadian produce so close to the source. The menu gives the date of each recipes origin: there’s a pigeon pie from 1611 and a 1605 mussels dish, from the first European settlement in Nova Scotia, but it’s modernized with an injection of pine smoke.
While not as flag-wavingly French as Quebec, Ontario still has bon vivant coursing through its veins. For some proper Garlic fare, you can head to La Banane, just down the road from Boralia, and enjoy the excellent seafood platters and some creative, modern twists on French classics.
There are all sorts of great music, great restaurants, and great night spots. That’s because 50 per cent of the city’s population were born outside of its walls. And nowhere is that more apparent than when you head into Chinatown. Toronto has four of Chinatowns, Make your way down to Dundas Street and you will find yourself on the biggest, catering for the huge Asian population brought to Toronto to work the railways in the late 19th century and as post-war migrants in the early 20th. There’s another in town and two out in the suburbs to cater for the second generation, more affluent immigrants.
End of part2, continued part 3
Trying proper maple syrup is like experiencing a good Bordeaux after years of low-quality Chilean red, or dipping bread in local Puglian olive oil when you’re used to Napolina: there’s just no comparison. We stop at one stall and try a few shots of a complex, not too sweet, just a bit smoky syrup.
Within about an hours’ distance of the city, you start finding some real bush but further out you go, the better. Go North. Avoid being downriver from farms due to the chemicals they churn out unless you know they are organic.
The most exciting food in Toronto is similar to new Nordic cuisine, and the best example is Boralia in the West End, stimulated by sampling wild Canadian produce so close to the source. The menu gives the date of each recipes origin: there’s a pigeon pie from 1611 and a 1605 mussels dish, from the first European settlement in Nova Scotia, but it’s modernized with an injection of pine smoke.
While not as flag-wavingly French as Quebec, Ontario still has bon vivant coursing through its veins. For some proper Garlic fare, you can head to La Banane, just down the road from Boralia, and enjoy the excellent seafood platters and some creative, modern twists on French classics.
There are all sorts of great music, great restaurants, and great night spots. That’s because 50 per cent of the city’s population were born outside of its walls. And nowhere is that more apparent than when you head into Chinatown. Toronto has four of Chinatowns, Make your way down to Dundas Street and you will find yourself on the biggest, catering for the huge Asian population brought to Toronto to work the railways in the late 19th century and as post-war migrants in the early 20th. There’s another in town and two out in the suburbs to cater for the second generation, more affluent immigrants.
End of part2, continued part 3