Every year Toronto hosts the Food and Wine Expo for a weekend at the Toronto Convention Centre and it turns into a frenzy of people buying tickets and waiting in line to sample tons of delicious food and wine. Personally, this is not my thing – I hate crowds and I hate line-ups. So this year, we struck right at the opening – Friday at 2pm when the doors opened, there we were ready to get our food and wine on. No line-ups, happy people and tons of winemakers and restaurateurs! That’s my idea of a perfect Friday afternoon.
Some fantastic chefs and restaurants were present: Chef David Christian (Top Chef Canada) of Victor Restaurant, Embrujo Flamenco, Local Kitchen & Wine Bar, The Windsor Arms Hotel, Canyon Creek and many more. I sampled everything from prime rib sliders (Canyon Creek was my favourite), to the amazing lobster roll by Rock Lobster Food Co., “a la minute” gnocchi in a sweet potato sauce from Local Kitchen & Wine Bar and my personal favourite, chocolate churros from Embrujo Flamenco. We also sampled some lovely wines from all over the world – yes, I left slightly tipsy… but that’s no big shock to anyone!
Overall the event was great – that said, I did feel it was 70% wine, beer and spirits and only 30% food. I would’ve liked to see more Toronto restaurants participate. Hopefully next year we will some new ones now that Toronto is more of a culinary destination than ever before!
For now, you can watch as I eat and drink my way through the Toronto Food & Wine Expo….