another new year to celebrate (Songkran edition)

An amazing day was had with friends, good food, good music and water guns as we celebrated the Thai new year. Since we couldn't travel all the way to Thailand, we joined in on the party on this side of the pond with the help of Khao San Road (still one of my favourite Thai restaurants). I was pleasantly surprised with the food that was available at the festival. Junk served up some fantastic pork belly skewers - $6 for 3 which is a steal when it comes to food festivals! It was also quite an experience drinking milk tea from a clear plastic bag (a first for me).

Aside from the food, the actual water fight was a blast! At first I had my reservations about squirting random strangers with a water gun, but once I got into it, I didn't really think about it anymore. I just had one goal and that was to run around and get everyone wet! This is definitely a festival that I will revisit next year and hopefully I will win the Super Soaker raffle next time around...

♥ j

burgers: classic. comforting. tasty.

Although I'm not one to eat burgers often, I do have cravings for them every once in a while. Picking up on my craving, Nathan brought me to Goody's Diner hidden away in the middle of an industrial area near Eglington and Warden. I was quite surprised to find the Toronto East Detention Centre just down the road from this little 50's themed diner. But I figured if a detained person were to escape, they would probably try to get as far away from the detention centre as possible - so we were safe.

Anyway, back to the burger. 

on the menu

highway man with sweet potato fries

rhinelander with salad

a glass bottle of coke

My burger was a massive piece of work: cheddar and swiss cheese, a sunny side up egg, triple stacked onion rings stuffed with pastrami with Jack Daniel's barbecue sauce on top of a beef patty. My burger definitely had the wow factor, but Nathan's burger choice was actually the tastier one with caramelized onions, peameal bacon, havarti, and pommery beer mustard served on a pretzel bun. I haven't been to many gourmet burger places, but I think my taste buds know a good burger when it tastes one.

The specialty burgers were $14 a piece and came with fries or a side salad. Although some may consider this to be a bit pricey for a burger, I think it was definitely worth the money seeing as how a chain restaurant will sell their burgers anywhere from $10 - $15. What made Goody's stand out wasn't their creative burgers, their weekly special, or the quaint decor. It was the way they treated every customer who came into the little diner. Fantastic little local business that I will definitely be revisiting in the future!

trains and tea

I finally had the chance to visit Snakes & Lattes a couple of weeks ago and it was everything I had hoped it would be! It had an expansive collection of games, extremely friendly service and a pretty good menu for small sips and nibbles. There is a $5 charge for just sitting down, but it is well worth the money because you can sit for as long as you want without being hassled. Plus, you get to revisit some childhood board games and hang out with nostalgia for the evening.

Just make sure to bring some hand sanitizer as some of the games are well used.

summertime and the living is easy

What marks summer for me isn't the hot weather or tanning on beaches or trying to cool off in front of the fan. Summer for me has always been about all the festivals going on in the city - especially the ones that involve food! I was feeling a tad blue on Sunday, so Nathan decided to bring me out to cheer me up. We ended up at the Taste of Lawrence Festival which spanned roughly 2 blocks along Lawrence avenue. Local shops and businesses had set up tents so Nathan and I took this opportunity to feed our bellies. 

on our menu

1 pineapple juice 

2 chicken murtabak

3 fried fish cake wrapped around a hot dog

4 taro, durian and vanilla flavoured coconut rolls

and my new favourite

5 cinnamon kurtos (a hungarian donut!)

It was cloudy for the most part, but the sun came out to say hello as we were heading back to the car.

(I kicked myself when I got home for forgetting to pick up business cards)

♪ :: one direction :: what makes you beautiful

restaurantacular

 

Lately, I've been feeling like I'm missing out on all the events in the city - Taste of Little Italy, Taste of Asia, Rib Fest to name a few. So today, Nathan whisked me away after work to Restaurantacular! It took place midtown with many of the local restaurants offering $2, $4, and $6 nibbles and samplers.

on our menu

$6 halibut & chips @ penrose fish and chips

$4 mango salad @ the friendly thai

$12 assorted tapas, a chipotle pulled pork sandwich & a goji berry green tea (very refreshing) @ pimenton

$2 salad @ culinarium

$5 fruit tart & a slice of apple blueberry pie @ the flaky tart

I am absolutely in love with the pie and tart crust from the flaky tart. I wish they made a pie filled with just crumble crumbs. Culinarium, an interesting little shop that supports local, organic and sustainable products, also stood out during our food adventure so I will definitely revisit this one in the future. And although I'm no fish & chips connoisseuse, I really enjoyed the halibut & chips at penrose...though I might have been more smitten by the look and feel of the shop than the food itself (it gives me an excuse to visit this place again).

Since I was caught off guard with this mini date, I didn't have my camera so my pictures are a bit grainy - I'm just happy I was able to capture the evening at all!

I ate entirely too much, but am feeling over the moon!

♪ :: ingrid michaelson :: you and i

a reminder of summer

It's been refreshingly sunny in Toronto recently, not to mention really warm for this time of year. The temperature reached +7 on Monday! For some reason, whenever it's sunny and warm, I think of picnics. And when I was staring out the window on Monday thinking about summery things, I started thinking about a small surprise picnic Nathan had planned back in the summer that involved some really tasty lahmacun (pronounced: lahmaˈdʒun). After being driven around in circles trying to figure out where he was bringing me, Nathan pulled up to a small take-out place called Pizza Pide where we proceeded to have our very first taste of this doughy goodness. We ordered the lahmacun and the karisik, but the lahmacun definitely stole the show. Nathan and I first learned of this yummy Turkish pizza while watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and since then, we've been obsessed! Unfortunately, the sun is hiding again, but my lahmacun craving is still here.

I wonder if Nathan would be up for a chilly winter picnic...

macarons and wine

macarons. macarons. blurry face. burgers at earls.

a smidgen of a marathon

I like how they printed our names on our bibs

and yes, that's a banana in my pocket

I was also hiding a bagel in my other hand... 

I had started weekend jogs with Jess back when I first started this blog. Although the running didn't last long (roughly a month?), we still decided to do a tamer version of the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon which was 5km long. It took place on a very chilly Sunday afternoon - though the sun did peek its head out to say hello for a few minutes before the start. This was Jess' first run and I must say that even though she hadn't trained since the end of June, she did fantastic with an end time of 37:50! Aside from feeling accomplished, I think the best part was being able to catch up with a friend. I love the friends that I see often, but I really cherish the moments with those that I don't.

Always leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

things i love about toronto

One of the best things about strolling around downtown is the possibility of seeing things that you normally wouldn't see in the suburbs. For example, a tree house.

please don't mind the fuzzy streetcar

more food in trucks

The day after finishing the last of my final exams, Nathan and I ventured out to another Food Truck Festival. The long lines and the burning sun from last time didn't deter us from going again! This time, however, we decided to get to the Distillery District before the festival started (we got there at around 10:30am - half an hour early). We were prepared to wait around until everything started, but were delighted to see that most of the food trucks were already serving food. Our first stop was at a sausage stand where we got ourselves the Currywurst. Next we had a smoked meat slider, a beef brisket taco, a crab cake of sorts, some iced tea, a peameal bacon sandwich, pork neck tacos, king fish ceviche and a mushroom tamale. 

 

an unamused stranger copying Nathan copying the Caplanky's truck

We. Were. Stuffed.

(like always)

food trucks and popsicles

Several weekends ago, I decided to drag Nathan and the boys down to the Distillery District so that we can bake under the hot sun while we all lined up for hours, separately, to eat pork belly buns and catfish tacos.

Okay, so that wasn't the initial plan, but that's what ended up happening. This was Toronto's (actually, Ontario's) first Food Truck Festival and it was hosted by a food writer named Suresh Doss. Since this was sort of a pilot event, I was more forgiving of the long lines. I can even forgive them for running out of Korean chicken wings 1 hour into our wait...

Despite the crazy lines and no shade from the hot sun, it was definitely an event worth checking out. I ended up tasting a pulled pork sandwich, 3 homemade popsicles (grapefruit & ginger, watermelon, and piña colada), a catfish taco, a spicy pork belly bun, a lobster slider, a mystery spicy dish,  and the most delicious grilled cheese I've ever tasted thus far in my life - no exaggeration.

I believe another Food Truck Festival is scheduled to happen closer to September. This time, I hope they extend the hours and make it an entire weekend event. 11am - 3pm on one day is definitely not enough time for foodies to try out all the trucks and vendors. This small window of time also makes the venue jam packed since all of Toronto is trying to squish in all at once. Continuing with the theme of the weekend, I also went to the Scarborough Ribfest at L'amoreaux Community Centre. I am happiest when I am surrounded by friends playing mom to a food baby.