Chinese Traditional Bun (536 Dundas West) The multivalent face of the international dumpling is astonishing. Each culture invariably has its own variety of dumpling, crafted in any number of ways. People have prepared dumplings steamed, boiled or fried, depending on the tools at their disposal. Dumplings can appear with crimped ridgebacks, or folded and wrapped →
When Nosh Bistro finally closed after the transit standstill on Dundas had past the month-long mark, I realized the Roncesvalles storefronts were in great peril. I recently attempted to visit Bistro 299 at lunch for a midday plate of pierogi, and instead witnessed a team of men filling the last panel of the entrance, the →
“WHAT is the first business of one who studies philosophy? To part with self-conceit. For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows.” – Epictetus Anthony Duff, a philosopher at the University of Stirling in Scotland, lists two factors that define a rational being: intellectual capacity →
I am feeling extraordinarily patriotic. Earlier tonight, I joined in a robust chant of “Fox, fox, FOX.” If the reader is of Canadian birth and/or upbringing and does not understand the reference above I would be appalled. On September 30th, the annual Terry Fox Run was held in schools across the nation. Terry the Tireless, →
HRMPH. I hrmph the contemporary Canadian National Exhibition. Far from the days when organizers would reveal cutting-edge technology and giant redwoods, perhaps one enters compelled to ride one of the many inane, regurgitated rides? Patrons can also enjoy the multiple gambling booths and large casino, take a gander at the the masses of crafts and →
The first pulsing resonance each day at Edmonton Folk Fest fills the air in front of the main stage with a time-honoured clack-a-lack-clack of hammers knocking in tarp-pegs. A raffle system gives those fortunate enough to be drawn the opportunity to claim a prime location, and patrons line up in droves in hopes of being →
photos by Madd Hattere It’s four o’clock in the morning in Montreal at a dive restaurant down the street from a student residence, where you go for the most drunken drunk food of your life. They’re closed, but someone’s in there, so a woman starts to bang on the door with six of her friends →
Sharing in the Chicken of Knowledge Past was evidently not enough to satiate me. But it was cognitively far too much: the digestion has dislodged my primary processors and severely damaged my biological rhythms. I lay flummoxed at the side of the road, watching the traffic pass. My circadian rhythm had been knocked askew. My →
Let’s all have a big, gratifying round of FUCK YOU MARKHAM. Oh, I knew it was too good to be true, that something revolutionary could come from the majority of minds that run Markham. A vote that was meant to protect an additional 2000 hectares of viable farming land in Ontario’s Greenbelt was voted down →
At the Boutique | Photos brought to you by the Cheese Boutique I have said it before and I will say it again: the Cheese Boutique boasts stellar cuisine at every opportunity. A veritable cheese palace complete with ceremonial throne lording over the boutique from a position atop the stairs – glory be. This month →
After seeing an ad posted on the TTC last month I attended the COG festival on February 20th, an organic growers conference held on Chestnut Street. I wanted to experience a gathering of the minority market in food production, a market vehemently protesting the dominant norm. I skipped down the road to the hotel conference →
Sweet Shaddock | Photos by Madd Hattere The good captain Shaddock brought grapefruits to the sunny shores of Jamaica over one hundred years ago, and when Count Odet Phillippe planted the first Florida grove in 1823, he could not have foreseen the integral contribution the fruit would supply for the State infrastructure. With a number →
The “B” Word | Photos by Matthew Filipowich I have always been a bit hesitant towards the word myself. I thought brunch was a typically bothersome title given to a meal that didn’t fit within the standard pre-planned three-meal mold of childhood. My youth rarely gave me the opportunity for such late-morning explorations and when →
The seascape of this installment of Killin Food is ever a-changing. In the fish and chip scene in Toronto there have been some notable changes in the last few years: local Queen East favourite Wood Green has capsized permanently; Danforth and Broadview location Deep Blue has also abandoned ship, a location previously serving some of →
Photo Credit: Matthew Filipowich// Finding a good, reasonably priced chunk of cow in the downtown sprawl is no simple task. A couple of bars may have specific steak nights that allow for cheaper meat, combined with pitchers of cheap beer, but more often than not such events turn into drunken flops that end up serving →
Do you ever find that when you try to do anything productive in your house, you always just end up reading arbitrary Wikipedia pages and back-articles from Pitchfork? Does the combination of rumbling roommates, a cat that’s always doing something weird and having all of your personal belongings in one spot make accomplishing things a →
A man walks into a restaurant with his family, chatting amicably and smiling in preparation of a casual meal out, until he looks over the shoulder of another restaurant patron and witnesses utter carnage to a degree that he has never encountered in his narrow aesthetic with cuisine. He takes drastic measures: he roars and →
The Art in Slow Food | Photos brought to you by the Cheese Boutique Cheese is simply the most versatile food I can think of, for the inclusion or exclusion in a dish often acts as the catalyst for the entire success of the meal. And one dish consisting entirely of Italian cheese has become →
Taste of the Danforth | Photos by Matthew Filipowich Expecting over one million attendees over the span of the weekend, a Taste of the Danforth has vastly exceeded its humble beginnings: starting as a mere response to Taste of Chicago, Toronto’s festival grew exponentially every year starting 1994 until the city was coerced into shutting →
The sponsor of the Taste of the Danforth since 1997, Pilaros has been filling the demand for Mediterranean food in Canada for many years now, particularly notable as the largest importer of olive oil into North America. I was able to correspond with Nancy Antypas, Director of Marketing and Operations at Pilaros, to ask her →
There has been a continuous public outcry towards the civil workers from CUPE Local 79 and TCEU Local 416 since their collective strike put an immediate halt to several government funded services, including the weekly garbage pickup, as well as city-run daycares, recreation programming, park maintenance and applications for building permits. So I began to →
Taste of Little Italy | Photos by Matthew Filipowich A Taste of Little Italy: so easy to say that it rolls off the tongue, so enjoyable to taste that it rolls down the tongue and leaves me yearning for more. Luckily getting more is hardly a challenge as all food comes at low prices right →
These are a few of my favourite things, all of which find their happy home inside surrealism. Surrealism is ultimately indebted to Freud, which the group [the Surrealists] credits solely for enlightening people of the unconscious mind; Surrealists love psychoanalysis, which posits that the conscious mind does not merit the primary position that the layman →
Do you ever find that when you try to do anything productive in your house, you always just end up reading arbitrary Wikipedia pages and back-articles from Pitchfork? Does the combination of rumbling roommates, a cat that’s always doing something weird and having all of your personal belongings in one spot make accomplishing things a →
photo/Matthew Filipowich I have undertaken, in these notes, the challenge that a vegetarian faces every day: not eating meat. I am skeptically hanging up my canines to embrace the molar action that I predominantly deem less important. Not that I am against the vegetarian movement in general – I mean hell, everyone has got to →
Convenience stores have only entered common usage relatively recently – since the 90s became the dubious decade that wholeheartedly embraced convenience, these stores have cropped up as a necessity that had never before seemed essential. According to the Canadian Government, there are three denominations of these stores: - Convenience Store: specializes in selling basic food →
ACME Burger Company A little place called ACME Burger Company exists just west of Bathurst along Bloor street, and with thoughts of Road Runner and Coyote running through my head, I look above me to check for the requisite anvil drop. The coast looks clear so I stop to grab a burger. An unusually peppy →
DotA Allstars is a custom-mapped Warcraft III modification that has been around for quite some time, cited as one of the most popular non-supported game mods on the market. Dota is a strategy game such as none that I’ve ever played, supporting 93 heroes and 107 different items/item combinations, which are upper level items created →
Mom jokes are the longest lasting jokes from childhood I can recall; well after the “in your faces” and “I know you are, but what am Is,” people were still making fun of each other’s mom. I still remember as a kid when these first started to permeate into common usage, and what a stir →
I walk down College Street, struggling against the throng of Torontonians moving briskly in the opposite direction to try and escape the cold weather. As I get within sight of Fran’s diner I only have one, pervading thought: it is time to eat. As I walk in the front door, before I even have a →
Daft Punk are devout creatures of habit: they create all their album covers in the same motif, they’ve hosted large live tour circuits on both ends of a decade and, regularly as clockwork, have released a studio album every four years in March (please don’t disappoint me!). In lieu of the fact that that Daft →
Right on the cusp of Little Italy sits Kalendar, an Italian style restaurant that brings calming jazz and crooner music to sooth you into a mood of dining and conversation. Slothrop and I are waiting for Katje so I have ample time to check out the background. As we sit down I am amused to →