Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

That's what I intended to do. The festival looked fun, I was told I'd be going solo for the harvest part. Didn't know that much about icewine before the trip and we brought home bottles of vidal, vidal oak aged and riesling.

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

I thoroughly enjoyed Toronto. Really and truly one of the best places I've gotten to travel to.

We stayed right along Yonge at Charles St so a majority of our eating was there even though I had my list of places, it wasn't always possible with our entertainment plans inside downtown as we tried to walk as much as possible. On Saturday we bought an all day subway pass to get around for Nuit Blanche. The food trucks at Nuit Blanche were so far away and we got started late enough that we decided not to venture out and stuck to our walking area.

Off the top of my head, we ate at a couple of semi-decent sushi places, a very good Korean place for some basic late night food (kimchi jigae for me, bulgogi and rice for her), Korea Grill House for AYCE grilling which was a stellar deal at $15/pp and a very nice assortment of meats, excellent Sunday Brunch at Brownstone Bistro (a huge breakfast for the price), breakfast crepes/coffee at Cafe Mania and we ate our way through the permanent building of eats at St. Lawrence Market on Saturday.

We did go out to Niagara on the Lake to visit Inniskillin which was a gorgeous area that I'd really like to try to head back for the Ice Wine Harvest (though the girlfriend said I could go alone if I wanted freezing temps). While we were kinda hungry at the Falls, we looked at the restaurant there which was casual eats, but $18.75 for a grilled chicken sandwich!! I live in Orlando and that area was more touristy than even I could have guessed.

But St. Lawrence Market is one of the crown jewels of North America for anyone that loves to eat and cook. What a place. The variety of local produce, terrific cheeses sold by the makers, and even more important to me, the assortment of meats and game. I can tell you that I was so envious of people making their Thanksgiving orders and seeing all kinds of wild game, custom cuts and the variety of suckling pigs ready to take home. The next time that I go, I'm going to try and rent a house or apt instead of a hotel so I can have access to a kitchen.

On the other side of the street, we had a peameal bacon sandwich, lots of samples with the Kozlik's mustards, at one of the seafood vendors I had fresh shucked oysters and if I hadn't stuffed myself, would have definitely saved room for the seafood place at the end of the top level for grilled sardines.

Thanks again to everyone that helped me out!

Evan

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St. Lawrence Market
92 Front St E, Toronto, ON M5E, CA

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

South American would be terrific, as I'm really interested in Argentine food as a start point, though I've done the Brazilian rodizio more than a few times before.

What's the most far out ethnic food Toronto has and any place with really authentic Sichuan?

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

With no sarcasm, help me out.

The info I was starting with was based on Chinese/Korean food being a strong point and that the places serving nose to tail style food were the best options. I've got a car and a decent amount of time to drive a bit to find really excellent places.

There's really nothing I won't try in regard to international foods or something uniquely Toronto.

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

This has been really enlightening along with looking at the results of the top reviewed restaurants on Yelp and Urbanspoon.

I would have genuinely thought that Toronto as a major metro city would have a lot of places that were very forward thinking with their food ideas along with many 'best of' ethnic places. What I'm finding out is that Toronto is getting those things even a little bit behind Orlando where I live and feel like we're 1-3 years behind the curve of places like New York, San Francisco, Chicago.

Luckily you've all done a great job in making me informed on where we eat this weekend. I hope to get back up to Canada again later in the year to try out Montreal's food.

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

We're definitely good, basic breakfast folks so that suggestion is much appreciated. $40/pp for the Korean BBQ will probably be our pricey meal for the trip so hopefully we can do that.

Thornville looks to be a decent little ride into the burbs. Anything cool to see out there?

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

That menu looks fantastic, but I think it would put a hurt on the food budget for the trip, overall. Thank you very much and you took fantastic photos!

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

Awesome info! We're planning on going to Nuit Blanche locations for sure and the food trucks are something we like to do down here so that's a great suggestion (also on the driving situation).

Which truck(s) do you like?

Regarding Black Hoof. I looked at their website and it looks interesting, but definitely a little pricey. Any idea on whether the items come with any sides? Didn't want to go somewhere that was going to put a big dent in my wallet without knowing it will ahead of time.

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The Black Hoof
928 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M6J, CA

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

$20 or less for local oysters. Imported stuff between $20-$35 depending on provenance.

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

Thanks for the quick reply.

Starfish seemed good, but prices were higher than I expected. $30 for a dozen oysters is well beyond what I'm used to paying for the local ones here in FL.

Any recommendations for lunch/brunch inside of St Lawrence Market?

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Toronto this weekend - Here's my short list, please comment & add suggestions!

I'm traveling for work and staying pretty close to downtown on Charles St. E near the Univ. of Toronto.

We're pretty adventurous eaters and will be going to Inniskillin Winery on Friday and St. Lawrence Market on Saturday. Here's what I've come up with and I know we won't be able to eat through everything.

We'll have a car and I guess I don't have anything set yet for breakfast or Chinatown. I was hoping we could find a pork-centric place like Au Pied De Cochon or Sugar Shack in/around Toronto or close to Niagara. Definitely Korean-heavy, but we want to try a really good K-BBQ place.

Acadia
Owl of Minerva
Oh Geul Boh Geul
Taste of Quebec
Korean Grill House
The Ceili Cottage
STARFISH OYSTER BED & GRILL
Cho Dang Soon
The Rebel House

Thanks very much in advance!

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Rebel House
1068 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W2L4, CA

St. Lawrence Market
92 Front St E, Toronto, ON M5E, CA

Oh Geul Boh Geul
5320 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M2N5P9, CA

Ceili Cottage
1301 Queen St E, Toronto, ON M4L, CA

Owl of Minerva
5661 Steeles Ave E, Toronto, ON M1V5P6, CA

nerditry in Ontario (including Toronto)

Downtown Tampa - Bachelor Party Recs

I second Charley's. We went there for my friend's bachelor party and had a great time.

nerditry in Florida

Orlando Birthday Dinner

Ran-Getsu of Tokyo on I-Drive. Great authentic Japanese and steaks all the way through Kobe if you'd like that.

For a group, seafood yosenabe is a shared hot pot that I really like.

nerditry in Florida

Knife Sharpening in Orlando

Looking for a retail/walk in to get my knives sharpened. All that I've found so far are commercial service companies.

Thanks!

Evan

nerditry in Florida

Do all farmers markets in Florida stink?

Mustang is by far the best farmer's market in Florida. As MsRetro said, Asian and tropical along with some good mexican staples. You'll also find them selling some more interesting cuts of meat (usually pork), eggs (including duck) and recently I've seen the first vendor near the fence selling lots of live snails of various sizes.

Right across from them you'll also find a large truck with produce with an ongoing special of 3 items (usually quart containers) for $5.

nerditry in Florida

Tasty Wok & Charlie's Steakhouse

I'm a huge fan of both restaurants, Tasty Wok being our go-to place downtown, especially before Orlando Magic games.

Charley's uses orange wood to grill the steaks over an open flame which gives it that exceptional flavor. They also own some other restaurants which I recommend:

Texas Cattle Company - Little farther down on the ladder in terms of class/price, but same quality of beef and same grilling methods. I think only in the Tampa Bay area.

Moonfish - Went there for grandparent's 60th anniversary. Some of the same meats and great seafood including whole fried fish.

nerditry in Florida