Video: Snowboarding Through Downtown Montreal

by Kraig Becker on

Snowboarding through downtown Montreal isn’t exactly a common sight, but judging from the video below maybe it should be. This wonderful short film follows snowboarder Seb Toots as he starts at the top of Mt. Royal, a park located not far from the heart of the city, and glides down its slopes right onto the streets below. Along the way he shreds fresh powder, rides handrails and jumps a variety of obstacles. I don’t exactly expect urban snowboarding to become a full-fledged sport, but it sure looks like fun.


“Seb Toots Montreal snowboarding run” from Seb Toots on Vimeo.

Toronto In Transition: Changing Before Your Eyes

by Micheline Maynard on

If you ask a native Torontonian how things are going in their town, you might receive an eye-roll and a laugh in response – the Canadian equivalent of a New Yorker’s “Oy, vey.” Things in Toronto are turbulent these days, to say the least.

For one thing, nobody is sure who the mayor will be in 2013, given the conviction of Mayor Rob Ford. Toronto neighborhoods are mulling whether they want to allow casino gambling. And, big chunks are falling off the Gardiner Expressway, the municipal freeway that runs parallel to Lake Ontario on Toronto’s eastern shore, leading to renewed calls to tear it down.

The sense of change goes beyond just politics and infrastructure. All over Toronto, neighborhood borders, once defined by ethnicity and income, are blurring. Long-time immigrants have decamped for the suburbs, as new residents and merchants with different backgrounds take advantage of location and lower rents.

These things might not be readily apparent to casual visitors. For them, Toronto has always been laid out in a sprawling “I.” Their well-trod path has begun just north of the lake on Front Street, stretching from the Rogers Centre (or Sky Dome, as many here still call it) and the CN Tower to the west, and to the east across Union Station to the Air Canada Centre and St. Lawrence Market.

Heading North, many visitors have plied Yonge Street, the clogged commercial district, or University, which is home to the Art Gallery of Ontario. The northern boundary, for many visitors, is Bloor, border on the tony Yorkville district, where upscale stores like Holt Renfrew and outlets of international brands are found.

But the Toronto neighborhoods where most savvy residents reside lie outside the I, in eastern and western stretches of streets like Queen, Dundas and College. And these are where the biggest changes are taking place.

“There’s a lot of hidden neighborhoods that you don’t see in Toronto on first visit, but you’ll see it if you come a few times and hang out a while,” says Shawn Micallef, the author of “Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto” and a senior editor and co-owner of the magazine Spacing.

%Gallery-174398%Micallef says there are two types in neighborhoods in Toronto – your own, and the places considered to be “destination neighborhoods.” He explains, “Your neighborhood is self contained and has everything you need.” Locals can go to their nearby stretch of shops and restaurants to eat and grab a coffee. But if they hear about new places, “they’ll travel there,” he says.

The home base versus destination identifier is changing faster than many Torontonians find to be comfortable. All over the city, neighborhoods that were settled for decades by a single group are now seeing new establishments owned by a younger, hipper crowd, some launched by locals, others by people from out of town.

One example is Leslieville, set about two miles east from downtown Toronto, with its main commercial district running along Queen Street East.

There’s been a community in place since the 1850s, and it got its name from George Leslie, who owned the Toronto Nurseries. Many of the people who lived in the solidly middle class neighborhood worked as gardeners, or in nearby brick factories. But it was always overshadowed by a much trendier (and some might say prettier) area nearby called The Beach, named for its parks along the lake.

“It was a nice, stable, unpresuming neighborhood between downtown and the Beach. Everybody talked about The Beach, the Beach, the Beach,” Micallef said.

The big change came in 2000, when a local tannery caught fire, burning for days and showering the neighborhood with ash. After the clean up, with industry gone, Leslieville began to gentrify. “I remember walking around in 2005, and there wasn’t a place to get a proper coffee. There were fast joint bars and the coffee places were coffee shops,” he says.

Now, old-fashioned corner stores with Drink Canada Dry signs are the exception. Leslieville, called “Toronto’s Brooklyn,” has become a jumble of espresso bars, bakeries, bike stores, cheese shops, retail and restaurants like Queen Margherita Pizza, which opened three years ago with a menu featuring wood-oven fired pizza.

Queen Margherita Pizza is on the farthest east end of Leslieville, overlooking one of Toronto’s car barns, home to the streetcars that ply the city. Drive just a little farther east on Queen, however, and the neighborhood fringes on Little India, another Toronto spot on the edge of change.

There are still plenty of merchants and eateries with Indian and Pakistani names and wares on Gerrard Street, the area’s main drag a few blocks away. In the summer, hundreds of diners jam into the outdoor tent at Lahore Tikka House, savoring butter chicken, spicy cauliflower and fresh made naan. Shops across the street sell kulfi, the frozen concoction that cools the tongue after a spicy meal.

But within eye sight of Lahore Tikka sits the sales office for a new condo development.
Its owners aren’t calling the neighborhood Little India. They’ve given it a new name: East Village Leslieville. And the development looks as cutting edge as anything found across the city, or in other parts of the world.

The arrival of new residents comes as many of the Indian and Pakistani families who lived in Little India have moved to the suburbs, leaving behind affordable, solid housing that appeals to the families that are starting to appear in new groceries and coffee shops.

Even the newcomers aren’t sitting still. The owners of Queen Margherita Pizza are expanding into another one of Toronto’s changing neighborhoods.

In a few months, they’ll be open on Dundas Street West, on the edge of Little Portugal, where the pattern of new espresso bars, moms with strollers, and young residents on bikes amid an old style enclave is repeating itself, once more, leading to a sense that it will be the next spot to emerge in the ever changing city.

For more on Toronto In Transition click here

[Photo Credits: Micheline Maynard]

Photo Of The Day: Victoria Pier

by Alex Robertson Textor on

This Victoria pier, the Ogden Point Breakwater Pier in James Bay, Victoria, British Columbia, is today’s Photo of the Day. Piers are strange metaphors for travel, as they function both as cul-de-sacs and tethers to the familiar, but there can be no question they are great for centering images. This photo was taken by Flickr user `James Wheeler on Christmas Eve. He observes in his image notes that this pier has been deemed dangerous. As a consequence, it will soon feature handrails.

Upload your favorite images to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. We choose our favorites from the pool as Photos of the Day.

Where They Ate: Food Writers’ Favorite Eating Experiences Of 2012

by David Farley on

I get annoyed with myself when I eat a bad meal – especially at a restaurant. And even more so when I’m traveling. Such a waste of time and money and calories, I think. Yes, these are first-world problems but frustrating nonetheless.

Rather than meditate on the meals we’d prefer to forget, let’s remember the ones we want to stick with us; the ones we wish wouldn’t end; the one’s we’d travel halfway around the globe to savor again.

This is the third year in a row I’ve asked chefs and food writers to compile their favorite meals of the previous year. (Read 2011 part 1 and part II and 2010 part I and part II.) I had such an overwhelming response this year, I broke the post into two. First chefs and now food writers.

Here are some of my favorite food writers’ most memorable meals of 2012 (in alphabetical order).
SARA BOGUSH
Snackish

In 2012 I had the first of many doughnuts from Dough in Bed-Stuy. Dough makes yeast doughnuts – crisp, pillowy wonders that cool from their fryer bath for mere minutes before you hold them in your hands. They’re dusted with cinnamon and sugar, or dipped in delectably tart glazes made with crushed berries, hibiscus flowers, blood oranges or lemon and poppy seeds. I’m still amazed that this much happiness costs just two dollars and change.

Although I’ve been enjoying the artisanal food truck boom in my hometown of New York, the finest lunch I’ve had from a kitchen on wheels was in Orange County, CA. at Taco Maria. The menu takes a sophisticated spin on tacos and burritos, making it possible to enjoy a three-course meal in a parking lot. Everything we had was amazing, from the arrachera taco with tender hanger steak, caramelized onions, applewood bacon and a charred shishito pepper; to the jardineros burrito with roasted pumpkin, black beans and cotija; down to the salad, agua fresca and the heavenly flan.

I haven’t yet braved the wait for dinner at Mission Chinese Food on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, but the lunch service is relatively speedy whenever I’m craving a midday flavor bomb. The thrice-cooked bacon with rice cakes, tofu skin and bitter melon will leave you in quite a state – numb lips, sweaty brow and a poorly-timed food coma coming on fast. I should add that it’s totally worth it.

GABRIELLA GERSHENSON
Senior Editor at Saveur magazine

My most memorable meal this year was the bacchanal that extended from New Year’s Eve until New Year’s day, 2011/12. I was with my friends Dan and Tom in London, and we had made plans to see in the New Year at a rental cottage in Dorset with their friends, a couple named Issy and Toby. We met them at a train station outside of the city, and when Issy, with her mouth full of some snack from Marks & Spencers, said “Y’want some?” through a bolus of chocolate, I knew we would be good friends.

It turns out Issy had grand designs for New Year’s dinner, which also happened to be the eve of Dan’s birthday. She was going to make Julia Child’s boeuf bourgignon, and start off with a prawn cocktail. A prawn cocktail in British English, it turns out, are shrimp cloaked in French salad dressing served over lettuce, not a steakhouse style shrimp cocktail at all. As they say in England, it was lovely. I offered to make a trifle for dessert, one that had recently appeared on the cover of Saveur, because it was made with syllabub and seemed British. We went shopping for provisions at Waitrose, one of the greatest supermarkets on Earth, and Issy again won me over by digging into a packet of smoked sausages before we got to the register, asking, between chews, “Y’want some?”

For my trifle, I bought British things that I had never bought before: Lyle’s Golden Syrup for the ginger sponge layers, ready-made Waitrose brand custard (which was really more like a crème anglaise and thus the wrong consistency for a trifle – oops), and everything else that I needed for the other baking I had planned, including “wholemeal flour” (British for whole wheat) for the jammy dodgers (British for jam thumbprints) that I would make the next day for Dan.

When we got back to the cottage after going to four liquor stores in search of sherry for the syllabub, Issy, whose mission it seemed was to ensure that our mouths were never empty for more than ten minutes at a time, toasted some crumpets in the oven and topped them with loads of butter and aged cheddar cheese. I will never forget how that crumpet seeped butter onto the paper towel she gave it to me on. It was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted, and I still long for another. Nothing holds, and releases, butter quite like a crumpet.

While Issy napped in the afternoon, I made the components of the trifle. When she awoke, she put Julia Child on YouTube and made the boeuf bourgignon according to her instructions. Like Julia, she made fast and boisterous work of the dish.

Then we ate. As I write this, as good as the food was, I realize it was the activity around the meal that was really the best part. The next morning, we ate fresh scones that I had made the dough for the night before, and nibbled jammy dodgers in honor of Dan while watching Mildred Pierce and Sherlock on BBC. If I ever felt like I was living in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” or “Four Weddings and Funeral,” those two days were it. Only these people were real, and during that brief period, I had made a wonderful new friend. What’s more, I was relieved that, for once, someone thought more about food than I did. With Issy around, I knew I’d always be fed.

GREG MORABITO
Editor at Eater NY

My single best meal of 2012 was at Legend in Chelsea with about 13 other people last February. We consumed maybe 35 plates that evening, plus about five rounds of Tsing Tao. The food just did not stop coming out. Eggplant with garlic was a huge favorite, and the comforting “fish soup” was the star of the show. Outstanding. With a big tip, dinner cost us $40 each.

My second best meal of 2012 was at Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria just last month. Chef Justin Smillie knows how to create totally original dishes out of classic Italian ingredients and techniques, and his menu has a lot of variety. Make sure to try the panna cotta with aged balsamic.

MATT RODBARD
Contributing Editor, Food Republic

2012 was a big travel year, so I fell off on following the NYC opening scene at bit. Though, Seersucker in Brooklyn is always doing exciting things with seafood. I went there a lot.

In January, I was in Melbourne and blown away with the degustation lunch at Vue de Monde (wagyu beef, rose petal, anchovy dust, booyah) and the cumin cauliflower at Huxtable in Fitzroy. Down the road in Sydney, Momofuku Seiōbo felt nothing like a David Chang restaurant. The fried egg, presented as egg custard, was one cool trick.

In London, the Young Turks plied us with blood orange Negronis and dry-aged beef rib tartare dotted with oyster aioli. Pop-ups aren’t supposed to be this polished. On a similar tip, the nice guys at Catbird Seat in Nashville plied us with Fernet and cooked their asses off. Think deconstructed cheese plate. Deconstructed hot chicken.

I got to spend a couple hours at Noma in Copenhagen and had a couple of bites of staff meal. Simple vegetable pasta and chocolate-covered frozen bananas. René and Nils run one of the friendliest, warmest kitchens around.

I just finished writing a guidebook for Korean restaurants in New York City, which took me all over the place (60 in total). The best, hands down, was Myung San in the Auburndale section of Queens. I found a great cheonggukjang jjigae – a fermented bean curd soup that makes the restaurant smell like a cat shelter. It’s wonderful.

DAN SALTZSTEIN
Assistant Editor, New York Times travel section

Recette, NYC – This cozy spot in the West Village was a terrific surprise. I expected a nice meal and got a pretty flawless tasting menu of great character from chef Jesse Schenker. It was late summer, so no surprise that the highlight was a very summery corn soup with crab-stuffed squash tempura.

Mission Chinese Food, NYC – Surprise! Just kidding. Everyone loves this place, and rightly so. Yes, the wait is ridiculous and yes, they pack diners in like sardines, but Danny Bowien isn’t screwing around. The best of many good dishes was the brisket with sesame-flavored Chinese broccoli. The funny thing is that I had forgotten we had ordered the brisket and the dish arrives as a big pile of Chinese broccoli. So I looked up at my dining companion and said something like “this is great Chinese broccoli.” “Look under it,” he said. Glistening pieces of brisket were revealed – best brisket, in fact, I think I’ve ever had. (Sorry, Mom.)

The Grove, Toronto – A really fun hyper-Anglophile spot that opened this year. Our meal was, as they say across the pond, awesomesauce. Our favorite dishes were probably the parsley root (!) soup with snails and bacon, and a lovely plate of celeriac dumplings, hen of the wood mushrooms, garnished with truffle, duck egg and watercress.

ALYSSA SHELASKY
Author of “Apron Anxiety: My Messy Affairs in and out of the Kitchen“

I had the pleasure of eating and drinking my way through Burgundy this fall. The most memorable meal – of many – was at the 3-Michelin starred Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu. The chef who took over for the late Loiseau, Patrick Bertron, swept me away. The meal was lavish, yet light, and the Burgundian cheese plate – staring Époisses, of course – is something I will truly never forget. Absolute enchantment.

I was in Rome alone. My food writer friend suggested I try a chic roman wine bar called Ai Tre Scalini in Monti because I was staying in a 70-euro room/coffin across the street. A little drowsy and disoriented, I planted myself at the bar around 5 p.m. with a Negroni. Needless to say, I stayed there for ten hours. I made friends, fell in love, inhaled the carbonara and later, the polpette in sugo, drank a lot of red wine and cold Italian beer … I never wanted that night to end.

When I’m nervous, I cannot eat. So the days leading up to my book launch were anything but satiating. However, the day after the launch, I felt like I could breath again. And I was ferociously STARVING. My friends picked me up in a car (a treat in itself!) and we all went to SriPraPhai for a meal, which turned into an outrageous, over-the-top feast. I let it all go, and completely enjoyed myself. Ahhh!

ANNA WATSON CARL
The Yellow Table

Just when I thought I couldn’t eat one more bite, the pork trotter arrived. Wrapped in bacon, and glistening with a Bourbon maple glaze, the roasted pig’s foot – in all its cloven glory – was ceremoniously presented to us on a white platter. Filled with an earthy foie gras and prune stuffing, the dish could have easily fed eight. There were three of us at the table. The trotter was course number five of the evening, and had been preceded by a host of pork-inspired delicacies: crispy fried pig ears with chili and lime, coffee-and-tobacco rubbed pork belly (served with tender boudin noir and apple beignets), cornmeal-pumpkin waffles topped with mole-smothered pulled pork, a corned pig tongue terrine, thinly sliced pastrami-spiced pork loin, and a surprisingly delicious blood and rye bread pudding. Moderation, as you might gather, was not on the menu.

It was October, and I had traveled to Nantucket for American Seasons‘ annual Hogtoberfest. Though I wouldn’t call myself a glutton, this two-day celebration of pork, beer, and sustainable farming – culminating in a six-course Whole Hog dinner – sounded like a great way to spend a weekend. The brainchild of Chef Michael LaScola of American Seasons, and Chef Matt Jennings of Farmstead in Providence, R.I., Hogtoberfest began four years ago as a boisterous pig-themed feast at LaScola’s restaurant. The festival grew, as the duo added butchering demos and charcuterie-and-beer tastings, and it has given them a platform to share their passion for whole-animal butchering and nose-to-tail eating.

The day before the dinner, I watched LaScola and Jennings break down a 240-pound Nantucket-raised pig using a saw and a boning knife. They explained multiple ways to use nearly every single part of the animal, with the exception of the eyeballs and a few tiny glands in the leg. As they pointed out, farmers don’t raise pork loins, they raise whole animals. Though pig’s brains (or tongues, ears, or feet that matter) had never been on my list of must-try items, LaScola’s and Jenning’s enthusiasm was contagious – I was determined to try everything they put in front of me.

Which brings me back to the roasted trotter. Having met the pig the day before, I felt it would be a disservice to the animal not to at least give this beautiful dish a try. The flesh, far more tender than I could have imagined, had a pinkish hue and a smoky flavor. The glazed bacon and tangy fruit stuffing pushed it into the transcendent category, and I found myself cutting another slice. With the room wrapped in a hazy glow (part candles, part wine), the final course was served: a slice of carrot cake with caramel ice cream and a ginger beer reduction. But one bite told me this wasn’t any ordinary carrot cake. The cake, so moist it was nearly the consistency of fudge, had a salty kick, with frosting that instantly dissolved on my tongue. I later found out it was made with rendered guanciale (pig jowls) and covered with lardo frosting. Amazing.

Though this was not a meal for the faint of heart (or appetite), it was one that will live on in my memory – both for the fantastically creative food, but also for the chance to see two chefs’ common visions come together in edible form.

[Photo taken in Puerto Vallarta by David Farley]

Video: Around The (Snow) Globe

by Kraig Becker on

Looking for a beautiful distraction this Christmas Day? Then why not take a virtual tour around the world with this wonderful video? It features some great time-lapse images from a variety of cities around the globe, including Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Québec City, Montréal and London, England, all contained in a festive winter snow globe. These cityscapes are simply gorgeous and full of life, giving us a glimpse of life in each of these places.


“Around the Globe- A Snow Globe Timelapse Journey from Canada to London “from All Cut Up Films on Vimeo.