I have heard from a lot of people that Second Harvest's Toronto Taste (#TorontoTaste) is, by far, the best fundraising event in Toronto. Toronto Taste is held every year since 21 years ago, and since then, the event has netted over $4 million, enabling Second Harvest to deliver enough fresh food to provide over 8 million meals to those living with hunger in Toronto. Hosted by Food Network Canada’s Bob Blumer, this year's Toronto Taste showcased 60 of Toronto's top chefs and 30 premium beverage purveyors - they all came together last Sunday, June 12th, and celebrated their love of food and support for Second Harvest.
So can you imagine how ecstatic I was when I found out I was the winner of the "So You Think You Can Tweat" contest? Where I got to be part of the Toronto Taste Social Media Team as a "Roving Twitter Reporter"? =D
I want to say a quick thanks to Alexa (@alexaclark) and Anna (@flozer) for including me in their team! And also a shout out to Kevin (@kevrichard), Mark and Stacey (@TastingToronto) and Andrea (@TOfoodie) because I had so much fun working with you guys.
Toronto Taste was held both inside and outside the Royal Ontario Museum. As part of the Social Media Team, I got there early and watched part of Avenue Road transform to a pedestrian-only road. Chefs were setting up their stations under these huge giant tents.
As the guests started pouring in, it was time for me to get to work and assume my role as a Roving Twitter Reporter =) I think I tweeted a lot during the event and most of my tweets would have included the pictures on this post (if you have been following me or #TorontoTaste on Twitter during the event then you probably would've seen these pictures already). I wasn't able to take any pictures with my SLR as it was just too difficult to take pictures with my SLR and my phone, and tweet, and eat, and drink ... all at the same time.
Anyway, this post is really more of a picture post because although I really wanted to sample every single item at Toronto Taste, I soon realize after I got there that my goal was impossible to achieve. I did not taste every single item on this post, unfortunately, but I did include some comments through out the post.
Without further ado, I will let you live vicariously through my pictures. Enjoy!
I regret not trying these. When I saw them it was still early and I didn't want to have sweets right away. I was going to pass by later but when I went back they were all gone =(
I really liked all the flavours here on this one tiny skewer.
I had a few. I had quite a few.
I ate 3 of these *I think* as they were so small. No I didn't take all 3 at the same time (as I did not want to look like a pig) but I grabbed one each time I walked by it.
Chef Michael Smith (@chefMICHAELsmith) offering me food.
I only ate the tartare *shhh*
This was very tasty ♥
One of my favourites that night. ♥
Every time I walk by the Didier station I took one. I walked by 3-4 times. ♥
Interesting combination!
I had a few of these as they were so refreshing and delicious~
I love the citrus-y lemon caper aioli on top of the hot fritter ♥
Cool, right? I didn't try them though. Please don't be mad at me.
I expected a bit more from Ici Bistro. Nobody was at the booth so I didn't know what it was (looks like smoked salmon wrapped around bread sticks). I didn't bother trying it.
Take a second and think about how much time and work went into these. Amazing.
I ♥ pork belly.
Another very unique item.
I had two of these. ♥ red velvet.
Aside from the endless food and beverage stations there were also wine auctions, silent auctions, and live auction at Toronto Taste. One of the prizes at the live auction was to join Chef Michael Smith in PEI for a culinary weekend.
That's all the food pictures I have! I know I missed a lot of other stations too and as you can probably tell, I did not include pictures of the wine / beverage stations on my post since I'm naturally more interested in food than wine / beer~ But believe me, there was a lot of nice wines & beer at Toronto Taste too~