March 29th, 2010 by Dawn Becker

March for many conference planners is one of the busiest months out of the year. It’s usually the first big crunch before the insanity of the fall event season, especially for those of us who do events for clients that utilize government funding where it’s essential to use available monies before the government fiscal end of March 31.

Right now, I’m at the Venture4Change conference held at Whistle Bear Golf Club on the outskirts of Cambridge, just off Highway 401. This dynamic event brings together social entrepreneurs, defined by the Skoll Foundation as society’s change agents; pioneers of innovation that benefit humanity. It’s a room filled with some of the brightest minds in this area who have come together to solve some of the most pressing social and environmental problems from a for-profit and non-profit basis.

Tomorrow I will be at the second half of the ISAP conference for immigration and settlement workers. I posted about my conference food dilemma at events such as ISAP a few weeks back. Needless, to say, with two conferences back to back there has been little time to indulge in one of my other great passions… ruminating about food and culture. Yet both conferences do have an impact on me in that they offer “food for thought”. And new stimulus is important to keeping the mental palate refreshed and intrigued.

As an event planner I have been privileged to be around these great thinkers and doers for the past ten years. I suppose I’ve been feeding myself a little differently this month. Included in these activities, I decided to start writing restaurant reviews for blogTO. You can see my first post for them here and more to come in April, when my event work goes back to normal hours. Then I’ll be in the development stage for the PROFIT 100 CEO Summit in June and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association conference on Who Belongs? Rights, Benefits, Obligations and Immigration Status, based on a research project they are undertaking on the status of immigrants in Canadian society in September.

In the meantime, I’ve been eating out a lot, mostly for fuel rather than my usual lingering enjoyment. In times like this a home-style meal, made by my own hands with fresh, local ingredients, is what I crave more than anything else. Sadly, there’s been no time lately but I’ll be making up for that in April.

I did squeeze in a quick meal at the newly opened Ajisen Ramen on Spadina Avenue on the west side, just north of Dundas. Here’s a link to the Ajisen Ramen site which hasn’t been updated yet with the Spadina Avenue location but it gives a brief feel of the otherwise extensive menu.

You can’t miss the new location. There’s a giant Ajisen Ramen dolly noodle mascot outside. However, since it’s so new I’m not prepared to give it an in-depth critique. I believe every restaurant needs some time to work out their kinks before they get properly assessed. I also believe a reviewer should eat at a restaurant a few times sampling a wide range of items to offer a fair assessment. I hope that readers appreciate my commitment and that of my stomach! (Oh how I suffer for the integrity of my work ha!)

That being said, here’s a sample of some of a few of the basic dishes I tried on my first quick trip. I like to give the standards a go to get a sense of how the staples are. So here’s a teaser before a more extensive review in future.

Miso BBQ Pork Ramen using a different type of wheat-based noodle imported from Japan that’s more like Italian spaghetti than traditional ramen.

Roasted garlic topping available at each table along with shichimi and soy sauce which can be added to any ramen noodle dish.

Ground pork gyoza – tasty but not delicate. The gyoza at Konnichiwa are made with much more love.

Tender Ajisen Octopus on Seaweed Salad.

Ajisen Ramen has hundreds of options to try and I look forward to giving them a chance though I’m always leary about restaurants that try to do too much. But I’m open-minded and I’ll be hungry when my schedule settles down in April.

March 21st, 2010 by Dawn Becker

By far one of my favourite informal Japanese restaurants downtown is Tokyo Kitchen located at 20 Charles Street East just east of Yonge Street. Strangely housed inside a municipal Green P parking lot just off Yonge Street, Tokyo Kitchen features an authentic selection of Japanese cuisine from home-style curry dishes to steamy soba noodles in soup to tasty donburi, rice bowls with a variety of cooked or raw fish toppings, as well as the standard nigiri, sashimi and maki sushi.

My favourite dish is their version of oyakodon, salmon sashimi and ikura (salmon roe) on a bed of perfectly seasoned sushi rice. Oyakodon translates into “parent and child” rice bowl and is usually made with a chicken and egg topping on plain rice. This chirashi-styled (raw fish on sushi rice) version at Tokyo Kitchen is a heavenly update. It is absolutely the sushi rice that sets Tokyo Kitchen leagues apart from any other moderately-priced Japanese restaurant in this city as it has such a bright flavour and texture with just the right amount of mirin, sweetened rice vinegar, added to it. Some might think $14.95 for the oyakodon at lunch is a bit steep but when you taste the heaping spoonful of fresh bulging salmon roe and at least eight generous slices of tender, melt-in-your-mouth salmon sashimi plus a healthy pinch of seasoned nori (roasted seaweed) slivers, I think you’ll agree that it’s worth the price. The oyakodon is also accompanied by a side of mixed green salad, not the iceberg lettuce with watery miso dressing variety.

If that price is too steep, Tokyo Kitchen offers daily specials that are seriously wallet-friendly. For $9.95 my friend Marc had the Bento Lunch Box consisting of shrimp and vegetable tempura, salmon teriyaki with rice, green salad and two pieces each of California roll and salmon sushi. Marc’s salmon was slightly overdone but I noticed he finished it all. The tempura batter was crisp with the variety of vegetables including a sliced daikon and a fat shiitake mushroom in the mix. I had the Sushi Lunch Combo for $8.95 which included four pieces each of the California roll and spicy salmon roll plus one piece each of unagi (barbecued eel), salmon, and shrimp sushi also with green salad.

I tried the ankake tofu which had a very homey feel to it. Ankake tofu is like having the more common agedashi tofu (silken tofu lightly coated with cornstarch and deep fried, served with tentsuyu tempura dipping sauce) stewed with shiitake and enoki mushrooms, carrots, and spinach in a thick bonito-based dashi glaze. It’s rather soupy and I’m not sure if it would appeal to all palates as the texture is extremely soft and silky with a distinct fish flavour from the bonito, which I think is fabulous.

Sadly Tokyo Kitchen no longer offers ramen but their assortment of noodles in soup and the cold zaru soba dish are still available. Other standards include the eight piece Spicy Salmon maki and Dynamite maki (salmon, shrimp tempura and avocado roll) for $5.95. If you’re ordering a la carte, two must-haves are the scallop ($3.95 for two pieces of nigiri sushi) and hamachi or yellow tail sushi ($5.95 for two pieces of nigiri sushi). The scallops are delightfully sweet and the hamachi is so tender you will never forget it.

I love the fact that there are as many patrons that are Japanese-speaking as not. And yes, the chef is Japanese and a woman at that. Despite what I’ve seen in various discussions, I am of the camp that feels strongly that there is a noticeable difference if the restaurant has a Japanese, Chinese or Korean chef. Not only does it come down to presentation – Japanese chefs seem to present dishes with a slightly heightened artistic flair – but to me, the rolls are more delicate and appropriately sized, not gargantuan, messy, choke-worthy pieces. Each plate at Tokyo Kitchen is beautifully choreographed and you can taste the care and deliberateness in each bite.

As an endnote, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Tokyo Kitchen has exterior bathrooms. The trek in winter can be a cold one as you have to don your coat and wander into the parkade to relieve yourself. Bewildering to say the least but not enough to stop me from repeat visits to Tokyo Kitchen.

Hours:

Monday to Friday – 11:30 am to 2:30 pm (prompt) and 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm

Saturday – 5:30 to 9:30 pm

Sunday – closed

March 17th, 2010 by Dawn Becker

My friend Richard Willet is the Vice President of Food & Beverage at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC), Canada’s largest trade show and convention site. You can read how serendipitous our first meeting was in my previous post. Since we met, Richard and I have dined at Guu Izakaya Toronto, attended the Terroir symposium and the latest, an invitation to attend the MTCC’s North American Wine Council. Richard wasn’t able to attend but I was thrilled to participate, which for many would be considered a true once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Imagine having a guided tour through a blind tasting of 117 wines (plus 3 Zinfandels that we just couldn’t get through). Read 120 wines in one sitting! I’m still flabbergasted that there were so many options to try. Above, one of several tables that featured the wine bottles for us to peruse after the tasting.

The wine tasting was led by Jamie Drummond. He’s been a sommelier for nearly 20 years including the Granite Club and the defunct but always memorable Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar (Wine Bar as it is now called has new owners). Now, Jamie is the director of Good Food Revolution and when you read his blog you’ll instantly realize you’ve got the wrong job. Jamie walked us through the various wine flights keeping his comments at our entry level. The first thing he told us was there’s no right or wrong when judging the wine. This put us instantly at ease. We started with a Pinot Grigio wine flight, pictured above. The blue chicken bucket pictured beside the glasses acts as the spittoon. If you don’t spit you’ll never make it through the entire tasting and I didn’t want to be on the floor at 4 in the afternoon.

Here’s what the set up looks like for the Sauvignon Blanc wine flight, and it’s proof that I did not crash the party. While tasting each variety, we recorded our rating for each glass of wine based on aroma, taste and finish, out of ten. All our scores were calculated and we received a copy of the group totals so we could see which ones were the most popular. Some of the more interesting tasting notes I recorded included a Pinot Grigio that tasted “like my grandmother’s sock drawer”. I later realized the flavour was reminiscent of moth balls. I also discovered I do not like the green, viney taste of the Gamay varieties pictured above. We smelled acetone (as in nail polish remover), caramel, citrus, nuts, miscellaneous berries and even gasoline. There was one chardonnay that was so smokey it tasted like “licking a hearth”. After three hours, my tongue felt numb and my nasal passages were stuffed from the histamines. I had a greater appreciation of what it takes to be a sommelier. To be honest, it started to feel a bit like work a third of the way through. No complaints. I like to work. How sommeliers keep their olfactory senses and taste buds sharp is a wonder though.

And to thank us for our efforts, the MTCC served palate cleansing chilled beer and delicious appetizers (some are shown below) after the tasting was complete along with a parting gift of ice wine. Thanks to Richard and the MTCC for letting me be a part of this.

Smoked salmon on cucumber slices topped with whipped cream cheese, endive and chive.

Tender fish cakes topped with a type of tomato salsa.

Goat cheese and arugula crostini.

March 10th, 2010 by Dawn Becker

I’m working at the ISAP 2010 Conference held at the Westin Harbour Castle this week for my friend Mark Jacot who owns Jangles Productions. For event planners like myself who enjoy food adventures on a daily basis, having to eat conference catering for a week can be painful. It’s not that the food is bad, it’s more that the variety is lacking and usually mundane in order to please the lowest common denominator.

Side effects of conference food specifically with buffet-style service include sore tongues and swollen fingers and toes that end up looking like chubby pork knuckles caused by excess salt and preservatives that keep things looking freshly appealing. A short-term diet of too much coffee, with meals eaten too quickly, and too much junk food from the “snack-to-stay-awake methodology”, can really knock your system out of whack. While it’s usual that a planner might be preparing for these events months in advance, we thankfully only have to subject ourselves to conference food for the duration we’re on site. (Photo of lunch buffet below courtesy of Caitlin Bar, official photographer for ISAP 2010, for Jangles Productions.)

The ISAP conference is geared towards immigration and settlement workers where every continent is represented in the delegation, yet ironically the food options at the lunch buffet are pretty much vanilla. The only thing that stands out are the bottles of Tabasco hot sauce that are offered with the salt and pepper at each table.

Of course, dealing with the overwhelming variety of religious laws and dietary requirements such as Halal, vegetarians or allergies (such as lactose intolerance common to the Asian delegates) can make it challenging to offer more exciting internationally-based cuisine in a conference setting. Shown below, soy milk offered along with cream and milk at the coffee stations.I think hotel chefs need to recognize that they have to offer meal options with broader global appeal on even their most basic corporate menus AND at a price point that budget-conscious clients can take part in. As a country, our palates are expanding and venues need to keep up with this diversity. Hotel chefs and caterers have to develop better ethnically-inspired food that’s more than a mere nod. Adding a bit of ginger or scallions to a soba noodle dish, a dash of sesame oil or soy sauce to a sprout salad, or a pinch of curry powder to a fish stew, are nice but inevitably not quite satisfying enough.

Having said that, the overall quality and freshness of food at the Westin Harbour Castle this week have been decent, despite the lack of true variety.

Green Bean and Chickpea Salad

Shaved Roast Beef Sandwich on an Onion Bun

Egg Salad on Multi-Grain Buns

Chicken Salad in Spinach Wraps

Dessert Bars and Cookies

I’ve got to get back to the conference at hand but I’m sure you can understand that I am seriously craving something flavourful and homey, like spicy kam ja tang or a big slurpy bowl of pho.

March 3rd, 2010 by Dawn Becker

As an event planner for more than ten years, you usually find me behind the scenes orchestrating the timing and execution of a conference or awards show. So it’s nice to report on an event that I attended as a guest where I could fully participate and network with like-minded people at yesterday’s Terroir 2010 hospitality industry symposium.

When you’re talking about the hospitality industry you can bet that the food is going to be outstanding and that it was. In a few days, I’m sure there will be many photos posted on Flickr showing the multitude of scrumptious food items that made an appearance at Terroir 4. Today, I’m betting the die-hard organizers are simply recovering from yesterday’s revelry. My copy of the delicious but slightly overwhelming lunch menu is above. To me, the true value of this event comes from meeting the eclectic participants. Terroir 4 offered great networking, if you’re into that kind of thing, where every single person I met had a serious passion for food, whether they were restauranteurs, chefs, servers, industry suppliers, culinary students, writers or otherwise. In terms of content they touched on a variety of areas. Here are the comments that stood out to me.

Alan Richman is a distinguished writer who was recently appointed Dean of Food Journalism at the French Culinary Institute. He was a panel speaker on Media In The Kitchen and stated that “no one listens to writers any more”. (Interesting viewpoint to a new food writer!) Later when asked “What makes a great food city?”, Richman replied that “you can’t plan it. It becomes what it becomes. It has nothing to do with the media.” He also said he had a problem with reviewers today focusing their attention primarily on new restaurants. The old restaurants, he said, should be reviewed to see if they are improving or getting worse. I see the merit in this comment.

Sasha Chapman was on the same panel. She was the former food editor of Toronto Life and continues to write regular columns about food. When asked about her favourite food city, Chapman said Tokyo (currently mine as well). “When the food culture is so pervasive that makes a destination incredible,” she said. I wholeheartedly agree.

For the concurrent morning session, I chose to attend Restaurant Review which discussed what it takes to be successful in the restaurant business. Jenn Agg, co-owner of the Black Hoof said if you “do what you want and crystalize it, people will come.” I suppose if you have the fortune of opening a darling of a restaurant that’s seen pretty quick success this would be true for you. She also stated that the level of service in Toronto is appalling. Agree or disagree?

Chris McDonald, owner of Cava, said “You can’t follow a trend without sincerity. You have to believe in what it is.” McDonald had a humble moment saying that “I don’t feel I’m a particularly good manager. I get by, just barely, on passion and with the help of very skilled cooks and servers.”

In the afternoon, I attended a lively debate on tipping, whether we should abolish it or not. The first vote was 40% for getting rid of tipping and 58% against. I suppose 2% did not vote. After hearing all the arguments, the vote at the end remained stubbornly the same. If you’d like to know, yes I am all for tipping. I like to be able to comment on the service non-verbally with my tip. And I’m not one of those who feels I have to tip any standard percentage though I think I’m probably more on the generous side than less. It’s just my nature.

The day closed with David Kinch, Executive Chef of the many-starred Manresa Restaurant in California. To my delight, he predicts that Asian influence will continue to grow in restaurants explaining that “the great places there (in Asia) are based on terroir already.”

I walked away from Terroir 4 knowing that I got value for my money. The ticket was about $100 if I remember correctly. I would definitely attend again and if you’re at all interested in the food and hospitality industry, you should make a note to look for details on Terroir 5 in your day planner for 2011.

March 1st, 2010 by Dawn Becker

After a long winter of indulgence, starting back in October with Thanksgiving right up to Chinese New Year in mid-February, my body is craving something healthy and more simple. If you’re in tune with your body it usually tells you what you need to make healthier choices. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from having selective hearing but if you’re listening, white bean and kale soup is a nourishing choice.I’m a huge fan of the way soup simmering on the stove can fill the whole house with a delicious smell that instantly creates a homey, comforting feeling. It’s like sipping a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning or getting a big hug from a loved one. Accompanied by slices of a crusty baguette spread with country-style churned butter or our choice of toasted caraway rye (it’s what we had on hand), on the side for dipping, this soup makes a satisfying light supper. Making soup can be surprisingly easy as long as you have the right ingredients at hand like good homemade vegetable or chicken stock for the base. Of course, if you’re in a rush just pick up your favourite organic vegetable stock at your nearest grocer. The recipe below shows the single-mom weeknight-time-on-a-budget method using one can of white kidney beans (cannellini). You can also soak two cups of dried white beans overnight to reconstitute if you have time (and remember) to prepare them.

White Bean & Kale Soup

1 Tbsp duck fat (I had some around and it adds flavour but you can use grapeseed or canola oil, for a healthier choice)

1 large Vidalia or sweet onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

4 carrots, cut into 1/2” pieces (if the carrots are large, slice in quarters and cut in 1/2” pieces)

2 celery ribs, sliced into 1/2” pieces

1 bunch green kale, leaves removed (discarb ribs and stems) and roughly chopped

1 540 mL can white kidney beans, rinsed

1 bay leaf

1 sprig rosemary, chopped finely

6 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable stock

3 cups water

1 Tbsp kosher salt (omit the salt if your broth is already salted)

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 mild Italian sausage, optional

Melt the duck fat on high heat in a large soup pot. Add the diced onions and sautee for about 5 minutes until softened and translucent. Stir in garlic and sautee for 1 minute. Add chopped carrots and celery and cook till just tender about 4 minutes. Add kale and sautee, stirring for 2 minutes until the leaves are completely collapsed. Reduce heat to medium and continue to cook kale for a few more minutes until tender. Then add the can of white kidney beans, bay leaf, chopped rosemary, stock, and water and stir to combine. Add salt, as needed and freshly ground pepper. Simmer uncovered until the soup has heated through. Serve with crusty bread for dipping.

Meat Option: Remove casing from one mild Italian sausage and roll the ground meat mixture into small 1/2” mini meat balls. Heat a skillet on medium heat and cook stirring the mini meat balls until just browned all over. Be sure to stir them often so they don’t burn on one side. Add the cooked meatballs to the soup pot when you add the beans.