Toronto Round 1

I love Toronto, just putting that out there. I know that apparently half of Canada hates the other half that lives in Toronto, but I think it is an amazing city. I guess I was technically born there, so it does have to be at the very least incredible, just for surviving my first living years. Beyond that though, there are other boasts. It is a phenomenal place full of awesome people of every age, race, sexual orientation and culinary preference. It has little Italies, Portugals, Greeces, Chinas and Koreas, though the Chinas are not so little. Nor are the Italies, I guess. It is a city with surface culture, sub culture, counter culture, and some obscure other culture so sneaky it has yet to be named. I think it kicks ass in a million ways. I could walk around and eat in Toronto until I was homeless, and then build back up my bank to do it again at all different restaurants. The city is so saturated with food it's insane. We picked up Greg in Guelph on the way back into Toronto, and rode out as the three horsemen of the apocalypse. Toronto was great, though difficult to find a place to sleep in. For the moment, we parked at Home Depot and took a short train ride downtown to wander. We walked through the Eaton Center and around, all the way to Chinatown and Kensington market. We had a couple pints and something to eat in Kensington and then split with Greg to bring the van to it's overnight location. We ended up at a friend of my mom's, who was at her cottage, and therefore had a free driveway. It was way too far out of town for us to really manage comfortably, but we did it. After that, we took the train back into town and went to 'the hot and spicy festival' which was an embarassing place, though we had good posole. After that we met up with a motley crew of people and proceeded to drink pitchers of gin and tonic. That night got pretty out of hand, with Greg and myself meeting some friends from university and generally causing a fuss. It was nice to see people again, and great to get some social life back into the scene. You get tired of one another after a couple months in tight quarters, so it's a refreshing change. After the night out, it was a hell of a hike back to the van to sleep, but I eventually made it. I'm serious when I say it was grueling to find. The next morning we were late to get to the market, as the hangovers were in full effect. We managed to show up an hour before closing, have some interesting chats, and see the Monforte Dairy truck get painted up. Ruth was hanging out at her market table, so we chatted a bit. She introduced us to Luis, a mexican chef currently running the restaurant Torito in Kensington. I'd read about the STOP community program that his restaurant was part of. He's a genuinely concerned chef with a lot of plans and things on the go. He invited me to visit the restaurant when we return, and see what he is doing there. I was glad to accept. Other people at the market were interesting, but time was limited and we already had plans to re-visit Stratford for a cheesemaking mission and pig festival. We decided we would try to chance it with the car, and move closer to the city. Somewhere accesible by train at night would be optimal. We found said spot in the beaches. It also had easy access to showers, which are provided free down at the beach. Why there are so many dirty homeless people in Toronto boggles me. You can just go mutter to yourself in the shower for a bit. No biggy. That was a joke, some will take it in poor taste, but they have no sense of humour. We then decided we were going to take the thirty thousand or so recommendations we'd received to go to the Black Hoof, because though thirty thousand people can be wrong, it still improves the odds. It was amazing. We ended up eating seven courses, lots of wine and beer, and having some decent conversation with Grant, the resident chef and charcuterie fiend. It was a lavish meal, very rustic and refined at once. I was extremely impressed with the level of craftsmanship that he puts into his food, particularly the charcuterie. We had a platter with 7 different types of cured meats and pates, followed by a big peice of bone, full of juicy marrow, served with toasted points. After that it was horse tartare, complete with hot sauce. To chase that awesomeness we had sweetbreads, which he lightly smokes before cooking, with chanterelles and peas. Stellar dish. A tongue sandwich on brioche with tarragon mayo rounded out the parts of the animal we were used to. More uncommon than even I'm used to was a crispy pigs ear salad with radishes and a buttermilk dressing. Delicious and super crisp. The last and most confusingly delicious dish of the evening was pork belly, squid, and watermelon. I can't imagine how he came up with this combination, but it is amazing. He reduces watermelon juice with a variety of spices and fun seasonings until the sweetness is altered into a fruity, red sauce, reminiscent of tomato sauce. In that, he heats chunks of what I think was compressed watermelon, pressed in the sous-vide machine, or could have been just extremely dense melon he got somewhere. Underneath is a huge slab of pork belly, and it has a couple peices of seasoned, cooked squid resting atop the whole thing. I was astonished when I saw it on the menu, astonished that I asked for it, and even more astonished that it was so good. It is a dish that would suffer hugely from poor execution, and happily didn't have to. The owners, Jen and Grant, were both hugely kind to us, and we had a great time picking Jen's brain about places to visit for wine in the Niagara area. I really admire Grant for his mentality about the whole business. He says that he doesn't want the hoof to last forever. I respect that hugely. He likes it for now, but the day it becomes a stressful, hard place for him, he'll be happy to shut it down and commence something else. For now, they've opened the hoof cafe across the street, where not only their overflow, but it's own loyal followers, go to eat. Intelligent business practices, wicked cuisine, and a sound ethical philosophy based mainly around flavour. He gets the best pigs around, which happen to be the most free, natural and ethically treated pigs. He wants more control over the produce he is getting in, so he plans to open a grocery next door. Chef and his cooks go out picking mushrooms and foraging for what they can, run specials and run out. It is an awesome arrangement. I'm extremely impressed with the food, the people, and their dedication. I can't wait to see what happens next.

After a wicked meal, we went for a pint nearby, and then wandered the entertainment district. I had gotten home late the night before, so I retired while Fabian went out to work the scene alone. The next day showers and such were directly down the street, and then we went to a blueberry festival in the Brickworks market we had visited the previous day. At the blueberry festival we met a few new people and a swath of folks we already knew. The festival itself was relatively tame, and we had to leave before the pie competition, so we didn't really see the pinnacle of it all.
Not dissappointing, however, because we were off back to Stratford, to see both our friends and a pig, who would likely be delicious.