Blogs

Any excuse to eat.

Food Day Canada, on July 31, is a coast-to-coast celebration of all things edible that seeks to stir food enthusiasts from every corner of the land to express sincere appreciation for the bounty of the groceries to which we have such abundant access.

For the eighth year running, this national event looks to make some noise about the regional diversity of this country’s culinary offerings by inviting Canadians to cook and eat in a way that acknowledges their wealth. Held the first Saturday of August when most of Canada is already in the throes of a civic holiday weekend, Food Day Canada is meant to keep the party sizzling....more

It ain’t rocket science, really. The closer you are to your food source, the more likely it’s gonna get you. 

A clutch of bona fide researchers confirmed same, recently, with a study that explored the relationship between where a person lives and her physical condition. According to scientists at the University of Buffalo, the greater the number of restaurants near a woman’s home, the higher her body mass index is gonna be.

The study, which was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Planning Education and Research, looked at 172 women in Erie County, N.Y., who lived in urban, suburban and exurban areas. ...more

Let’s say you’re thinking of throwing a party anyway. It’s a mid-summer kind of urge, undertaken in response to the nagging sense that you have yet to properly exploit the social potential of this short and glorious season.

So why not enlist the aid of a nifty new outfit in this pursuit, and enjoy the largesse with which its unique concept seeks to furnish you? LetsPartyTalk is a novelty of an idea that takes word-of-mouth marketing to its limits with the somewhat cryptic offer of access to new products, prizes and promotions for individuals who volunteer to host a party....more

It’s either a concept whose time has arrived or an idea as hare brained as they come. Either way, the pay-what-you-can restaurant is a fledgling notion that remains under advisement.

In the States, where the economic pinch was more tightly felt than here, restaurateurs have increasingly extended this offer, inviting patrons to cough up only that which they believe reasonable exchange. At Terra Bite Lounge in a Seattle suburb, for one, diners are urged to drop dollar bills into a “donation slot.” Sometimes, they just up and leave....more

There’s at least one restaurant in this city with a unique way of pricing its menu items. By weight.

Le Commensal, on Bay St., just this side of hospital row, has a vast and healthful selection from which diners may choose. There’s eggplant in ginger sauce, Portuguese bean stew, chicory and pear salad. There’s trifle, chocolate mousse cake, even maple syrup pie.

Yum, right? Worth every dime of their fee? Well, that kind of hangs in the balance.

Patrons of this establishment must weigh each dish’s potential for pleasure against its price tag. Quite literally.

Every purchase at this cafeteria-style eatery must be trotted up to the cashier who dutifully drops it onto a scale—and rings up your bill accordingly....more

Ideally, a trip to a restaurant is a full-body experience that engages every last sense. The just-so caramelized onions, to-die-for banquet seating and atmosphere-is-everything mood lighting are good to go? Fabulous. But if the pre-apple-tart bathroom break falls short, all is lost.

It's a reality Cintas Corporation acknowledges with its Canada's Best Restroom Contest, the finalist list for which, recently announced, includes a pair of Toronto restaurants....more

Summer mornings will dawn a whole lot differently for a lot of folks next weekend when they stumble into the sunlight in search of sustenance only to discover their brunchtime standard is no longer. Musa, a popular eggs benny hotspot near Dundas and Euclid, was all but destroyed by fire this weekend when a five-alarm blaze swept through it and neighbouring homes Sunday afternoon.

We’ve been waiting for it with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for root canals, and now it’s upon us: the HST. This harmonized tax thingie that is being lowered over our collective citizenship—at least that of British Columbians and Ontarians—on Canada Day, of all days, as if a true patriot would ever have signed on for such malarkey.

The lengths to which marketers will go to convince consumers of the value of their products often veers into the ridiculous, and food marketers are among the worst offenders. Tomatoes, in this world, are “vine-ripened.” Lettuce is “hand torn.” Potatoes are “twice baked.”

Ah, the ever-lovin’ G20 and its attendant stream of madcap developments. Whatever will the good burghers of Toronto talk about when the world’s big-name politicos pull up anchor and head home? It’s a thought too barren to contemplate. For now, best to busy ourselves with more summit chatter.

Water cannons? Check. Wool underwear? Check again. Three squares a day? Let’s check....more