eating – Tiana Feng

A Food Tour of Toronto Urban Roots Festival

July 11, 2013July 11, 2013Food, Street1 Comment

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!

Burgers and Tacos @ Tallboys

January 25, 2013March 27, 2013Food, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Before yesterday’s installment of The Big Smoke Music Festival, we grabbed food inside the venue, Tallboys Craft Beer House.

I ordered the Pan Seared Fish Tacos ($12). The fish sat in a soft corn tortilla with guacamole salsa fresca, lettuce and sour cream. They were served with fries. They’re very similar in style to the fish tacos at Tacos El Asador with just the right amount of coriander. The fries made it a decent amount of food, and I swear they had a little bit of sour cream in them because of their interesting taste.

Nash had the Tallboys Signature Bacon Chili Burger ($13). The chili was mixed in with melted cheese and onions resulting in awesomness between two buns. They also have a burger with kimchi in it which we will definitely come back to try.

Since we were at Tallboys, it was only appropriate that we did get some tallboys. I had the Nickel Brook Green Apple Pilsner. It was a good amount of sweetness in a beer. Nash had some kind of cider, I forgot.

We’ll definitely come back again since the food is decently priced. Also, we learnt that the menu is half price on Sundays with a drink!

Healthy Eating at By the Way Cafe

July 22, 2012March 27, 2013Food, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

A few weeks ago, my stomach was a little iffy so I opted to find something healthier (that wasn’t burgers) to eat. From random window browsing, we made our way to the By The Way Cafe located in the Annex. I had walked past it a million times in the past but never wandered inside. The restaurant is really bright and has a homie feeling even though they do consider themselves a fine dining restaurant. I was actually quite surprised to find that it served middle-eastern cuisine. I always thought that it served sandwiches or generic coffee shop food because of it’s name.

We ordered light, mainly because we wanted an excuse to get froyo after. We opted for the combination platter which contained hummus, tabuleh, babaganough and Israeli salad. We also had the spicy and crunchy calamari which lived up to it’s name. Ok, I admit the calamari is not considered “healthy”, but whatever it was delicious.

The platter was basically like bread and dip but it was flavorful and we finished every drop of it. It’s a tiny bit pricey though ($12) for how much there is. There’s definitely a ton of choices on the menu for those who choose not to eat meat (never) including a vegetarian lasagna. At least I’ve finally eaten something besides sushi in the Annex!

I Don’t Mind Eating Burgers Alone But…

June 3, 2012April 2, 2013Food, Life, Restaurant Reviews2 Comments

I’m not ashamed to go eat a burger alone. It’s quite a normal occurrence during busy times. Burgers are bunned happiness. Who has conversations with someone while eating a burger?

Anyways, this week was Burger Week in Toronto so of course I would participate. I chose Burger Bar because it happened to be the closest joint to the Supermarket, where I was going to see a show afterward. I headed there after work and starving. I had actually been to Burger Bar once before with my best friend 2 years ago. It wasn’t the greatest experience because her patty was bloody and under-cooked. I figured if the place still existed than it must have improved, so I gave it another chance.

I wandered in and asked for a table for 1. Either the waitress was loud or being a jerk, but she made me ask like 10,000 times. I finally sat down at a table (with no menu) and 15 minutes later a waitress came up to me and asked, Are you just sitting here? I was starting to get irritated. WHY THE HELL WOULD I BE JUST SITTING HERE IF I DON’T WANT A BURGER? but I replied, “Um, no, give me a menu.”

I decided to just stick with the Burger Week special as it was only $5. It was a local beef burger infused with hops and chipotle aioli. I felt I needed to calm down so I also tried to order a drink off the placemat, but apparently you can’t order the drinks on the placemat….

Why put these on all the tables, when you can’t order them?

I watched as a group of 10 people tried to do the same. Even though one waitress already took my order, another kept asking me if I was waiting for someone. I told her NO 3 times. FML, I just wanted to enjoy a burger alone. Oh yeah, I waited almost 20 minutes for said burger and it looked like this:

I was so hungry, I took a bite out of it before I took a picture.

Wrinkly bun, small as hell. It was okay I guess since I ate it fast (or I was just fuckin’ hungry). I guess I can’t expect much for $5, but I WAITED 20 MINUTES. They were lucky I gave them another chance, but I don’t think I will come back to Burger Bar EVER again.

As for eating burgers alone, luckily there are plenty of other places to do that in Toronto. My favourite being Gourmet Burger, where people and environment is friendly and the burgers are delicious.

Mac and Cheese With Bacon

April 2, 2012Food, RecipesLeave a Comment

mac and cheese is really awkward to take a picture of

Having the house to myself again means more cooking adventures. Today I decided to make good ol’ Mac n Cheese from scratch. I read a bunch of recipes and basically did a spin of my own with whatever ingredients I had on hand. I used a mixture of mozzarella and cheddar as well as some thyme that was leftover from a random turkey I roasted last week (my parents liked the one I made at Christmas that much). I also added onion and bacon on top as garnish and it turned out delicious and worth making from scratch. I’m sure we all have KD in the cupboard right?

Here is my take on classic.

Continue reading ➞ Mac and Cheese With Bacon

WTF is a Slim Burger?

February 19, 2012February 19, 2012Food2 Comments

Hero Burger is just one of those okay burger joints in Toronto. I think they just have too many choices. I prefer places were the burger toppings have been worked out to perfection and are presented at a price that isn’t an absurd. I always seem to make a fail burger at Hero Burger because I either forget to say an important topping or I just don’t say much or I’d be that annoying pretentious person in line. But anyway, this isn’t a rant about toppings at Hero Burger.

The other day I was at Hero because it had just happened to be a convenient place for lunch. I had an average “Hero Burger” but was enjoying the freshly hot fries. While I was eating, I was appalled from the little table sign that was sitting in front of me. It was an introduction to what would be called the Slim burger. To me, it just seemed like a burger with a lack of bun. Sure less bread does mean fewer calories, but it also means it would be an atrocious thing to eat. The sauce would break the thin bread and the contents would just fall out. It’s a disgrace to a burger.

Honestly, if you are trying to diet, what on earth are you doing in a burger joint? It’s not cheap either. I hate people who call themselves foodies and obsess over dieting. Go back to the celery you came from. This stupid sign was an idiotic reminder that I should probably be eating healthier, but I don’t want to be. I eat what I want. Whoever comes into Hero Burger probably doesn’t give a crap about their diet, they just want a burger. If you’re one of those people who do, is eating a slim burger going to make you feel better? slimmer?. The answer is no. The Slim Burger needs to go away and soon. It is just something that shouldn’t exist, like the veggie burger, except those people know what they’re getting into.