a toronto food blog
I’m pretty lucky. I work near some of the best coffee places in Toronto and on Wednesdays and Saturdays you might find me lurking at Crafted Te Aro trying to sneak in some shots of their beautiful little Ossington spot. The light there in the morning and late afternoon is just gorgeous. The fifth picture was taken at the original Leslieville site.
Canon AE-1 | Kodak Portra 400, Portra 400vc, and Lomography 400
I met Amy last Sunday for one the most sophisticated brunches I’ve had in a long time. If the food eaten can serve as a harbinger of what to expect for their dinner service, complex flavours alongside an earthy play on textures, I would not mind visiting Keriwa Café again. Though I can’t speak about the Indigenous/Aboriginal influences in the dishes, it definitely tasted different from the usual brunch fare. I really liked it!
Eaten:
Confit Pork Belly, $15 – A hearty little portion of cubed pork belly slathered in a mouth-watering mustard sauce and topped with a sprig of watercress. It sat on a bed of wild mushrooms and caramelized leeks and shallot with red fife toast. Between the mustard and the sweetness of the shallots and the tender pork belly, my mouth was very happy. I would order it again in a heartbeat.
Picnicham Hash, $14 – Two eggs and slices of ham with a side of bright greens, roasted carrots, and elderberries. Amy says it was quite good! It definitely looked tasty.
Hashbrowns, $5 – A bit plain, but a nice addition to the meal. I shamelessly used them to scrape up as much leftovers as I could off my plate.
Americano, $4 – I added cream because of doctor’s order to get as much calcium as I could….aahh…
After a very disappointing visit at Crema’s Spadina and Richmond location, Leo recommended I try Sense Appeal Coffee Roasters a couple of doors down. Can’t believe I never heard of them until then! The space is gorgeous, a combination of white walls and furniture with beautiful wood pieces, and I like that it’s a bit hidden away. I only tried their Turkish Latte, flavoured with cardamom and cinnamon, it was similar to Starbucks’s Pumpkin Latte but less sweet and more full bodied. I plan on going back for a drip sometime.
Sense Appeal Coffee Roasters
96 Spadina Ave | Website | Yelp
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In other news…
I’m back on instagram after a couple of months of being iPhoneless. You can find my gallery stream here if you don’t have the app yet! :)
I met the wonderful Amy of Amy’s Food Adventure on Sunday for a fantastic brunch at Keriwa Cafe. It was dark and gloomy, but I think we both got some good shots! We spent the afternoon exploring Roncesvalles Village. Yay for making new friends!
I’m planning on making some time this Friday to have a post go up before Leo and I go on a mini trip to New York at the beginning of May. Let’s see how that goes. I’ve neglected this blog for too long now.
After thinking about it for over a year, I’ve finally decided to create a portfolio. I have no idea what I want to do and what purpose it’ll serve me, but it’d be nice to have a clean and curated space to put up my favourite pictures. I’m also thinking maybe I should get a business card for myself?
Anyway, hope you all have a nice week ahead of you. Friday is only three days away…courage!
A list of some of my favourite blogs
(French toast from Saving Grace.)
What Should I Eat for Breakfast Today?: Between Overnight Oatmeal and Beer and Cheese Pull Apart Bread, this Tumblr covers pretty much every type of breakfast item you can imagine and then some. If you ever hear anyone complain that breakfast food is boring, whip out your smartphone/tablet/laptop/fancygooglegoggles and show them this blog.
Alberto Cassani’s photography: Soft tones, very filmic and cinematic. His NYC set is amazing.
Chasing Delicious: A Saveur-nominated food blog with great recipes, prose, photography, and graphics. (How can one person be so good at all of this?!)
Le Dans La: Ah, la belle vie!
Apt 2B Baking: The undeniable warmth of Kodak Portra combined with comfort food makes Apt 2B my top favourite food blog right now.
Snacks Snacks Snacks: A great Tumblr run by two Toronto restaurant industry folks. (One of them was our server once! We recognized her badass tattoos.) They recently came back from an epic food stint in New York with hourly notes detailing everything devoured from morning to daybreak (or should it be dusk to daybreak? daaaybreaaaak), including a ‘late night snack’ at the Blue Ribbon consisting of champagne, steak tartar, and ox tail marmalade. This has seriously made me reconsider my silly plan to save up to eat at The French Laundry and to simply do what they did, have an all out Hangover-style night of feasting and restaurant hopping.
Holgarific: Coffee. Medium format film. Need I say more?
The Trip, the BBC series: Not a blog, but if you like to call yourself a foodie and you like British-style comedies, do yourself a favour and go watch it! The series is filled with gorgeous Northern England scenery and beautiful mouth watering shots of scallops lovingly pan-seared in sinful amounts of butter…I’m drooling already.
It can only mean Friday is just a day away, right?
I’ve been craving a lot of comfort food and baked goods lately. While they’re not exactly what I was looking for, I eventually decided to make the easiest things I could this past weekend: bread and another simple cake using up some overripe pears. Recipe for the cake can be found here and the bread is Jim Lahey’s (I coated the crust with thick cornmeal for extra crunchiness).
P.S. I’m kinda obsessed with bread making.
