Random Toronto Meal Pictures

I took a ton of random food pictures while I was in Toronto. Since work, sleep and paying attention to The Husband gets in the way of blogging I decided to make one huge post with brief explanations.

These are platanos fritos (fried plantains). They are plantains left to ripen and then fried unlike the patacones which I made a while back which are made with green plantains. They taste sweet and can be eaten as is or with cinnamon and some sugar sprinkled on top.

 

 

 

 

This is a pie which my Mom made with fresh cherries. She makes great pies, she always manages to make a very flaky, buttery crust.

 

My Mom made a seafood boil with shrimp, mussels and lobsters that she bought that morning. It was accompanied with corn and purple potato salad.

 

 

 

 

My Dad made steak and chorizo tacos. Whenever people ask me where the best tacos are I always say my parents' house. They make the most amazing tomatillo salsa with a base of charred garlic and onions.

 

These are Singapore noodles and my absolute favourite food in the universe, Chili Chicken. This is a recipe that originated from the Hakka people, who are ethnic Chinese living in India. I would pay good money for this recipe which I have tried to duplicate many times with mixed results.

Huevos Rancheros which my Mom made for breakfast.

Fresh herbs and zucchini blossoms from the garden.

My dinner for the plane which my Mom packed for me which consisted of a shrimp salad sandwich and an heirloom tomato salad, picked that day from my parents' tomato plants.

One last picture of Toronto from the plane. If you look in the middle of the frame you can see a teeny tiny CN Tower and Skydome with Toronto island behind.

This is the last of my Toronto picture posts. I hope you have all enjoyed seeing them. I certainly enjoyed eating everything!

Pupusas (Stuffed Tortillas)- Toronto

I was born in El Salvador, a tiny country in Central America with many problems but with good food. The national dish is something called pupusas, which are basically stuffed tortillas served with curtido (sort of like a vinegar base coleslaw) and tomato sauce. They are usually filled with refried beans, soft cheese and chicharron (fried pork meat). Alas, I think that the name pupusas is rather unfortunate as it has hampered their popularity as it is not particularly appetizing sounding.The Pipiles which are the indigenous native group in El Salvador started making them more than a thousand years ago. I know, Pipiles eating pupusas, it doesn't sound too good does it?

 

There is a Latin store near my parents' house in Toronto which also houses a small pupuseria (place where they make pupusas). I like going there because it is like a little slice of Central America and as close as I'll probably ever get to being in El Salvador again. There is always loud Latin American music playing and everyone in the store speaks Spanish.

Here are some shots of the decor. Not fancy but it works.

 

Now for the actual pupusas. I always get a chicharron and cheese pupusa. I got two this time but I should have ordered another one since I don't get to have them often.

Here is the curtido.

 

Here is the tomato sauce. 

 

Here is everything together. This is not first date food as it is eaten with your hands and invariably becomes a rather messy experience although it is part of the fun.

Here is a shot of the inside of a pupusa.

And to wash the whole thing down I had a Cola Champagne, which is basically Central America's version of cream soda. It's really hard to describe the taste but cracking one open always reminds me of being a kid in El Salvador.

Sushi Inn- Toronto

I love Japanese food. When I was 14 I was lucky enough to live in Japan for a year as part of a student exchange program and the food was one of my favourite parts. Another restaurant I always like to go to when I am in Toronto is called Sushi Inn. They have more authentic Japanese food like katsudon and Japanese style fried oysters than you will find in an average Japanese restaurant and the price is really reasonable. I started going there when I was going to university in downtown Toronto about 10 years ago (wow, time flies by!) and even back then the lineup was always out the door. Since then they've expanded because they are so popular. The quality of the fish is impeccable, it is always fresh. While we were there on a Saturday for lunch we saw the sushi chefs get a delivery of salmon. High turnover and a busy restaurant are always good signs for a sushi restaurant.

I asked the sushi chefs if I could take a picture of their bar and they gave me a weird look but said ok. I don't ask before taking pictures of food that I have ordered but sometimes places can get weird about general pictures of the place so I decided to ask.

For lunch my Dad decided to get one of their sushi specials which came in a cute little boat.

My Mom got mixed seafood and veggie tempura since she is not a raw fish fan.

And since I was on vacation and everyone know that vacation calories don't count I got one of their bento boxes and a rainbow roll which has crab, cucumber, avocado, tobiko, tuna, salmon and white fish.

As always the food was great. The bento box is an amazing deal. For 12.50$ you get miso soup, salad, shrimp tempura, vegetable tempura, 3 pieces of salmon sashimi, rice and chicken teriyaki. I really like their chicken teriyaki as it is not the sugary, sickly sweet affair you will find in most mall food courts. The chicken is actually grilled rather than just pan fried and it makes a big difference in taste. The contrast between the smoky grilled chicken and the sweet and savoury teriyaki sauce is especially pleasing. Their fish is buttery and firm like all good quality sushi fish should be. It was a bit difficult to get to this restaurant due to traffic but it was well worth the effort.

St. Lawrence Market- Toronto

Whenever I go back to Toronto there are always a few places that I visit. The St. Lawrence Market is one of those places. It is big and you can find pretty much anything you are look for there, it was even chosen as one of the 25 best food markets in the world by Food and Wine magazine.

The market building itself used to be Toronto's original City Hall and was built in 1850. The St Lawrence Market started in 1803 in another location and moved to its present location in 1901 and is right in the middle of downtown Toronto. The neighborhood surrounding it is very pretty and nice to take a stroll through. Here are a few shots:

The market boasts an amazing variety of food vendors. We went on a Saturday and it was absolutely jammed packed with people. A lot of Torontonians makes the market a weekly stop to go buy food.

First of all we stopped off at the southern section of the market which houses mostly the produce section.


Check out all the rows of juicy Ontario peaches. One of the bonuses of buying at the market is that the produce is local and since you're buying directly from the farmers you are supporting the little guy.


This stand was selling fresh Borlotti beans. I really wanted to bring some home but I didn't think that they would make it through the trip back to Montreal.





This stand was selling fresh wild mushrooms which are so hard to find in Montreal. I sometimes find little anemic looking packages of shitake mushrooms at my supermarket but that is it. Look at how huge those yellow oyster mushrooms are. Just walking around made me want to buy a ton of veggies and run home and start cooking.


There were also people selling homemade jams, jellies and spreads.


Afterwards we moved to the main section of the market. The ground floor is the purvey of the butchers and the fishmongers. The market is famous for its peameal bacon sandwiches and many of the butchers sell giant slabs to take home.





Oh, I almost forgot. There are also many cheese vendors. You can even get Greek yogurt here which is extremely difficult to find in Canada for some reason. Usually I end up straining Mediterranean yogurt at home (not the same thing in spite of what many people think), to get something closer to Greek yogurt.


The lower level of the market is full of bakeries and small grocery stores usually specializing in one kind of food.




As my parents are also foodies we used to comes often to the St Lawrence market on Saturdays and we would always visit the Stonemill bakery which specialises in organic and artisinal breads and pastries. This place is always mobbed. You would think that they are giving things away. If you don't get there early in the day everything will be gone by the time that you arrive.


Whenever we would go there my parents would always buy us raspberry twists so when I am in Toronto I always go get one since they are still my favourites. I also ended up buying a butterscotch biscuit.


Now for the speciality stores:


This place sells only caviar from around the word and caviar paraphernalia. The photograph above is of their mother of pearl spoons.


This is from a store which just makes truffles.


This places only sells sauces. I get my favourite barbeque sauce here and I also ended up buying jalapeno mustard this time.


This little stand specializes in honey from around the globe but particularly New Zealand. I wanted to go buy some of their French honey but there was a big lineup.


This little grocery store had a crazy amount of gourmet products. I think they had something like 6 different kinds of smoked paprika from Spain on top of their variety from Hungary. I wanted to buy some of their Meyer lemon oil but my suitcase was getting rather full at this point.


Going to the market is always fun, even when I don't buy a lot. When I got home I was dying to try the raspberry twists and the butterscotch biscuit that I had bought.



Yep. Still as good as I remember!