Brightly coloured signage made Maroli restaurant standout from the other restaurants in Korea Town. I was drawn in by their promise of exotic spices.
The Malabar Chicken ($11.99) is their signature dish. It’s a deep fried chicken with 16 spices and might actually be my favourite fried chicken in Toronto. The chicken didn’t feel heavy, yet it was crunchy and flavourful.
The other thing we ordered was the Shrimp Malabari ($14.99). It was a lovely coconut curry much like the one I had at Banjara.
To accompany the curry, we had some Garlic Naan ($3.25) and Maroli Special Naan ($3.25). The latter had cheese, garlic and crushed chillies.
The service was very helpful in explaining what everything was. I was happy the place has free delivery (up to 5km) on their website. I’ll eventually make my way through their entire menu!
The July Lootcrate is almost on its way but I didn’t have time to talk about the June one until now. June’s theme was “mashup”; the joining of two separate ideas.
My favourite item in June’s crate are these 8-Bit sunglasses. Mine came in Loot Crate’s orange and black colours but apparently some people got plain black ones in their crates. They are also selling pink and white ones in their gift shop. I’m super tempted to grab a pair of those too.
This sticker Harebrained shows two classic characters helping each other out.
It’s a pen. No, it’s a stylus. Wait, it’s both. The 2 in 1 pen from Bic is a smooth ball point pen and stylus in one. I hope I don’t actually use the wrong side on my iPad.
I haven’t decided what I want to use these sticker anagrams for. What would you make? My imagination can only think of boats.
Loot Crate got mashed into this a robot on this sticker from Danger Brain, a really cool company that makes logos.
I was so excited that this crate had a T-shirt which was totally worth the price of the box. The design (from Graphic Lab) mashes up antihero Deadpool with Kool-aid to make DEADPOOL-AID.
Lastly, there was a golden ticket for Stan Lee’s Comikaze. It’s a coupon where you have a chance to win admission or a percentage off. Personally, I don’t have much use for the item but I think they just added it as a bonus in the crate.
Though there were a lot of stickers in this month’s edition, the T-shirt and the sunglasses more than made up for the price! Next month’s theme is VARSITY. If you’re interested in subscribing use the referral link below:
Last weekend was the inaugural Toronto Urban Roots Festival. If you’re interested in the music portion of the festival, you can check out my reviews here. This, however, is a look at some of the delicious food options that were available.
Collective Concerts did a great job organizing the event. They hired mom and pop restaurants instead of chains like Pizza Pizza. Environmental Defence was a sponsor providing free filtered water via Event Water. Nestea and Vitamin Water were also on-site giving people an unlimited amount of free drinks. I have to say this was one festival where I hardly saw any garbage on the ground. All the patrons were very courteous and thoughtful of the environment. Per Se Mobile
I ordered their Short Rib Sandwich ($9). There was a generous portion of meat with cheese, arugula, pickled red onions on a fluffy bun. There a chipotle-esque flavour in the sauce. Kettle-chips were included with the sandwich.
Feng’s Dumplings
This place shares my last name, so it only seemed fitting to try them. I had 6 dumplings ($8) and told them to mix it up. Vinegar was sprinkled on them. I’m not sure what kinds I had, but they were all moist and delicious. Pricing wise, I thought it was a little expensive at more than $1 a dumpling.
Manual Labour Coffee
I had seen the adorable Manual Labour truck on the grounds on Thursday and Friday night. I was really excited to have them Saturday morning since the festival started bright and early that day. However, they were not set up until 3:30pm that day. What a missed out business opportunity! Anyways, they seemed to learn their mistake because on Sunday they came much earlier.
A popular option was the Coffee Pop. ($2.75) It was a carbonated expresso drink. I added some liquid honey in mine to taste. It was a bit weird. One sip would be bitter than the next sweet and tingly with carbonation. It was definitely something unique!
I also tried their Ice Break (not on the same day). They described it as a take on an Australian frappuchino. It was sweet so no additional sugar needed and cold enough for the hot day.
Capalansky’s
As per a security guard’s suggestion, I ordered their Smoked Meat Sandwich ($8). It came with a pickle and there was a variety of mustards to choose from at the truck. I went with a simple honey mustard. I thought I may have been lacking vegetables during the festival so I had a small order of potato salad ($1).
Bacon Nation
My favourite food item at TURF was probably Bacon Nation’s Porkfection ($8). It was a spectacular sandwich with pemeal bacon, pulled pork and crispy bacon strips that were actually crispy. It was worth the messy fingers.
Summertime Lemonade
To limit my amount of caffeinated and vitamin filled drinks, I decided to buy a classic lemonade.
Bonfire Catering
For $5 I had a slice of their Mexican pizza. It was just okay that day. It was a little dry from sitting out in the sun.
Kanga
On Sunday it started raining really hard during dinner time so I forgot to take photos of food. But I did have Kanga’s delicious meat pie and blueberry iced tea!
Overall, I thought there was a fantastic food selection at TURF. There was a very homey and family atmosphere to the entire festival and I quite miss it already!
In The Power of Habit, Chris Duhigg looks at how the smallest act of habit can have a huge impact on our lives. It also delves into how businesses build marketing plans around our studied human habits. For example, when you walk into a grocery store the first thing you see are fruits and vegetables. They are purposely arranged this way so that we will buy healthy things first and can later convince ourselves to buy junk food.
He also looked into how Febreeze began from failure to a now conscious habit as well as how Target knows what you want to buy, before you even do. There’s plenty of unlikely anecdotes from Starbucks to Martin Luther King Jr and the Indianapolis Colts.
At the end of the book, there’s an appendix that teaches the reader how to integrate some new habits in their lives. There are 4 overall steps:
Identify the Routine – Look at any bad habits you want to change or a good habit you want to add in your life
Experiment With Rewards – Why did you do the bad habit? Did it give some type of satisfaction? Identify how to gain that sensation another way, or to replace it with another reward.
Isolate the Cue – What makes you keep up the habit? Perhaps a friend? Location or time of day? State of mind (ex bored)?
Have A Plan – figure out exactly how you are going to rid a bad habit or add a good one. When will you start?
Two pigeons having a conversation at Union Station
To celebrate Canada’s birth I headed down to the Harbourfront Centre, mainly to eat bacon.
For $7, Barque Smokehouse offered a plate of bacon samplers. There was a mini smoked pork belly with pineapple skewer, peameal bacon taco, a smoked tofu with lettuce, bacon wrapped sausage, nachos and lastly a root beer float with candied bacon. To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed. It was too bite size to really give you a bacony kick. I think I would have preferred to pay more to have a full-sized version of each of these things made in less of a rush.
Does anybody else find this sign hilarious?
Luckily, there was plenty to eat at The Harbourfront Centre. There were many vendors around and some worldly offerings at the World Cafe. Maybe since it was Canada’s Day, two corners were occupied by our country.
Beaver Tail!
A beaver tail felt like an obvious choice considering it was Canada’s birthday. In case my American readers don’t know, it is deep fried dough (sort of like a churro or fountain cake) in the shape of a beaver tail and served with a variety of yummy toppings. They are usually quite rare in city and are mainly found out East or at ski resorts. Anyway we chose a light offering of apple cinnamon.
Does not actually contain any Kool-Aid
To wash it down, I had a fruity alcoholic drink called Krazy Kool-Aid. It was sweet and refreshing despite not having any actual Kool-Aid. We enjoyed some tunes from The Toronto Mambo Project as we enjoyed our drinks.
We returned a little later to the World Cafe to sample the other Canadian offering Portobello Burger which had various vegetarian dishes on the menu. We ordered the Tasty Tacos and the Portobello Burger. The tacos had black beans & garbanzo beans, sauteed in onions and cooked in a tomato sauce. It was served in hard corn tostados with a traditional Mexican salsa and topped off with an old cheddar cheese. The cilantro was generous and even though it was a hard shell taco, it wasn’t messy at all. The portobello burger was served on a whole grain Ciabatta bun. It contained chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion, sweet red peppers, and goat cheese melted into a portobello mushroom cap. For a vegetarian burger, we ate it before remembering to take a photo of it.
When we were not eating, we explored some of what Harbourfront Centre had to offer. We were quite entertained by some hilarious karaoke rap. I totally should have busted out some Eminem but I thought that was not clean enough for the diverse audience. We ventured into the buildings to see what was in them and discovered an Architectural gallery as well as another with Inuit art. At Paws Way they celebrated Canada’s Day with a presentation of Canadian dogs and cats. Here are some random photos:
Harbourfront Centre’s fireworks had happened on Sunday so I headed home to see some with dad at Mississauga Celebration Square.
Since we sort of failed at finding the ships last weekend, we decided to go see them in Hamilton. We saw them this time as they were all settled along Hamilton’s Pier 8.
The area is much smaller than Toronto’s Harbourfront so we found all the booths full of historical 1812 paraphernalia as well. Oh, and delicious ribs.
I’m 25 so I’ve already sat through many lectures as a university student, college student and the conferences of music festival. By far the most inspirational has been Johnny Cupcakes‘ talk during Toronto’s NXNE. I could be biased because I am a huge fan of the T-shirts myself and it has become a large part of my own personal branding. However, I’ve seen a lot of my favourite bands, labels and companies speak over the years and few have come close to being so memorable, not to mention hilarious.
I had not planned to go to many panels this year during NXNE. I didn’t even look at the schedule. I thought I would need the sleep or extra time to edit photos. However, I ran into @plafleur and she had saved me this Johnny Cupcakes history booklet she found on the ground. Apparently it was in all the delegate bags (with exception to the media ones). I then looked at the program and discovered THE Johnny Cupcakes was doing a panel. Of course I HAD to go.
I didn’t really know what to expect. I’ve done festival conferences before and most panels just say what everyone else is saying (THE CLOUD IS THE FUTURE etc etc) or gloss over fancy points. Johnny Earle aka Johnny Cupcakes taught us to think outside the box, and showed us examples of how he has integrated this philosophy with his brand.
Johnny Cupcakes making his signature face and I!
Johnny began by telling us his history. He told us how at a young age he tried to make money in different ways such as selling his father’s tools at yard sales (he got in trouble of course) and selling candy, lemonade, whoopee cushions and yearbooks. The name Johnny Cupcakes was something random that co-workers at Newbury Comics had given him. He played with the idea and that’s how the shirts were born. He began selling these shirts to friends and it spread by word of mouth.
Johnny Cupcakes now has stores in Boston, LA, London and of course online, where they ship internationally. The stores all look like bakeries and smell like frosting. Everyday somebody walks in mistaking it for a place that sells food. Delivered packages look like presents and often come with trading cards. You’re meant to be treated like it’s your birthday. Johnny had set out to sell more than just cupcakes. He wanted to give people an experience and it’s a huge reason why he has been so successful. In fact, he even gave the audience members a glimpse of the experience. At the end of the lecture, he told us he had put little gifts under our chairs. When we reached down there was a little packet of stickers, buttons, candy and a trading card. He had even gone to the trouble of making sure we each had different trading cards so that we could trade with our neighbours. After the lecture, he hung around and took pictures with fans old and new. There was candy, but I got hungry that week and ate it
Anyways, I had written down a lot of the things Johnny said in a notebook but I lost said notebook on the streets of Toronto. It was later picked up by some American musician who brought it home with them. Long story. Here are a few important points I did remember about entrepreneurship and about life:
– Building a brand is hard work, Johnny Cupcakes mentioned that he doesn’t do drugs, drink or play video games. He had put all his energy on video games. He even hired his family to help.
– Connecting with people is important. When he sold things growing up he always went back to the people who had purchased something form him once. Then when he started making T-shirts it was their word of mouth that got things started.
– Small details make a big difference. If you buy a Johnny Cupcakes the tag is an oven mitt. Online boxes are patterned and in-store ones look like cupcake boxes.
– Name 10 things that make you unique. It’s good thing to brainstorm for both job hunters and brands.
– Weird is Good. It gets people talking. Johnny Cupcakes has sold breakfast themed t-shirts with breakfast, put shirts inside icing jars and much more.
– Make things exclusive and limited edition because people like what nobody else has. Johnny had declined offers to mass produce his shirts because he didn’t want to be another fast fad like Ed Hardy T-shirts.
On Sunday, our family went down to the Harbourfront Centre to check out the Tall Ships at the Redpath Waterfront Festival. Teddy also came with us. Either we thought the boats looked the same as regular boats, or we were on the wrong side of Queens Quay but we couldn’t find too many to take photos of.
Since we had the dog with us we ventured into Paws Way. Inside was a cafe where you could share your food with your pet, a store and walls full of random beloved pet stories. To play in with the Tall Ships theme, in the event/activity room there were dog breeds that sailors used to bring on ships.
Since we seemed to fail at finding boats, we decided to go the island. It was somewhat cloudy so the sky in photos looked a bit boring.
Found my old NXNE friend Jessica Stuart!
Last week during NXNE there were plenty of day parties. The one I ended up staying the longest in was the Exclaim! and Jagermeister BBQ.
Everybody in the Toronto music industry was around so it was nice to catch up and relax amidst a hectic week. To drink, there was free Jager shots, Monster energy drinks and Pabst. Attendees were given punch cards for food and drink.
Me and Nash with patties from the mysterious snack truck.
There was a snack truck full of everybody’s guilty pleasures: chips, chocolate, candies, cookies and more. Everything free. The guy seemed lonely so I visited the truck multiple times. Apparently he was doing market research, so his data is going to have some weird Asian girl eating one of everything.
Brisket sandwich
The cards entitled us to one small sandwich (or poutine) from onsite food truck Hogtown Smoke. I ordered the brisket sandwich and there was tons of meat sandwiched between the little bun! There wasn’t too much to it (no slaw), but it was tasty on its own. There was also a huge selection of hot sauce by the truck from mild to adventurous for those looking to tickle their tongue.
Nash got the pulled mushroom sandwich, mostly because while in line we were wondering what that would be like. He’s also a mushroom fan. I liked the smokey flavour they were able to injected in it.
The Malabar Chicken ($11.99) is their signature dish. It’s a deep fried chicken with 16 spices and might actually be my favourite fried chicken in Toronto. The chicken didn’t feel heavy, yet it was crunchy and flavourful.
The other thing we ordered was the Shrimp Malabari ($14.99). It was a lovely coconut curry much like the one I had at Banjara.
To accompany the curry, we had some Garlic Naan ($3.25) and Maroli Special Naan ($3.25). The latter had cheese, garlic and crushed chillies. 
Tiana Feng 