The Yum Yum Factor

Hurry up, get off your butt and get down to Fort York for the annual Taste of Toronto festival, on until tomorrow, Sunday June 18. This is one of the first outdoor food extravaganza's in Toronto and it's always packed with vendors offering old favourites as well as the odd new discovery.  The skinny: general online admission tickets are $21/session for adults, $10 for 12-17 and under 12 is free but it's $26 at the gate so make sure to use  this link  to buy them online before you get there There are premium VIP tickets that get you all kinds of extra stuff so you can see if those are sold out or not In the past, they used a "crown" system where you had to keep reloading a card with crowns (worth a buck each) but this year, the only way you can pay is with a debit or credit card. To be honest, I think it's a good thing because it's easier to budget when you are spending actual dollars and it means no more lining up to refill your...

Taste of Toronto So, the weekend of June 23-26 was the annual Taste of Toronto at Fort York here in Toronto and it was bigger and badder than ever, with a giant roster of guest chefs doing cooking demos, presentations, wine tastings and food to try from a veritable who's who of Toronto restaurants. This year, due to construction inside the Fort, it was held on the grounds surrounding the actual interior area of Fort York and everyone I spoke to preferred it. There was a ton of shade and it felt more spread out and less crowded than in previous year. Tickets to the three day event were $29 online and you purchased your food and drink using a "crown" system. You loaded up a card with "crowns" with the word crown really meaning $1, probably in an attempt to take the sting off paying $10 for a small plate of food. This is not a cheap event and it's best to go in a small group that so you can not only divide and conquer to avoid lots of line ups but so ...

I am still getting back in the saddle, as far as attending media dinners and events so this is really more of a "a few weeks in yum" than a true week of it.  As part of my personal code of conduct, I tend to only accept invites to places that I either already know that I like or that I have been dying to try, because I like to keep it real but I also like to keep it positive. Think of my posts about places i have been and stuff I have tried more as enthusiastic recommendations than reviews. As much as I love and appreciate a chance to enjoy some free food, I also visit the restaurants I write about on my own time, spending my own scratch (or, if it's new to me, I will visit in the future) and if I don't like a place or a product, I don't write about it. There have been one or two instances where something was so disappointing that I do share that information but, for the most part, I like to share things with you the way I share things with my friends a...

From June 23-26, at Fort York,  Taste of Toronto  is coming to the city for the third year in a row. Bigger and better than ever this year, there are more chefs, more restaurants represented and that means, more tasty things for you to eat and drink.

Taste of Toronto I don't always love festivals like Taste of Toronto simply because I don't like huge crowds and long lines but I do like good food, so I wasn't going to miss this one. In it's second year, this festival takes over Fort York for four days and turns into a food lover's paradise, with local chefs, breweries, wineries and other sellers of delicious things offering up their best for Toronto to try. Each chef serves three dishes at his/her pop up restaurant and you wander from place to place, spending crowns (basically 1 crown=1dollar and it's loaded onto a refillable card) and catching food demos and wine tasting sessions. As luck would have it, I was leaving for Montreal on Friday night so the only time I could go was for the Friday afternoon session and I am so glad that this is the one I picked. It wasn't crowded, there were barely any lines at all and I could really see everything and if I had been with friends, we could have really t...

I am posting my Week In Yum a day early because I am on the road to Montreal tomorrow after lunch at Taste of Toronto. Keep an eye out for my posts about my trip to Detroit in the coming weeks. First up, after telling you about the Shepard Fairey exhibit, I will be doing a round up of the amazing restaurants I ate in and then I am going to share a story or two about some of the people making things happen in Detroit, but for now, if you can swing a trip to Detroit before this wonderful art show is gone, move heaven and earth to do that. Shepard Fairey "Printed Matter"  Renowned American artist, Shepard Fairey, spent most of May in Detroit painting a 184 ft mural on the back of the Compuware Building at the behest of Quicken Loans founder and CEO, Dan Gilbert. Gilbert also commissioned him to tag the outdoor walls at his Beltway Alley outdoor gallery, behind the Library Street Collective, which is currently housing a large Fairey exhibit. It seems that this ...