St. Lawrence Market pt 2

Call off the search. My pursuit for sweet potato pie is finally over.

Ever since I watched an episode on the old tv hit series "Fresh Prince of Bel Air", I have been yearning for a sweet potato pie for quite some time now (more like forever). The one in the show where their grandma Hattie Banks always bake for Christmas. Yeah that one.

I found my pie at the St. Lawrence Market from the vendor Round Plains Plantation. They grow their own sweet potatoes so naturally all their products have sweet potato in it. Just can't get fresher than that.

Funny thing is once I was faced with the actual pie I didn't want to buy the whole pie just in case I did not like it. I ended up buying the sugar free sweet potato tart instead for only $1 which is better than spending $12 on a pie I might not enjoy. The vendor told me the filling for the tart and the pie are identical the only difference would be the crust. Finally, I get to eat my sweet potato pie, well tart, and it was not what I had pictured. I think it tasted like pumpkin pie except that it was sweeter. It was yummy but I thought it would have been a burst of sweet potato flavor but the cinnamon kind of slightly overpowered it. Maybe after all that searching my expectations kept building up or maybe I should have just bought the $12 pie. I have to make another trip and see if I can split the pie with some friends.

Here were other products that were being sold and of course, sweet potato being the name of the game. A lot of them were gluten dairy free as well.

Gluten dairy free sweet potato and cranberry walnut muffins.

Gluten dairy free chocolate sweet potato muffins.

Orange date sweet potato muffins that were gluten free, eggs free, dairy free and sugar free.

Sweet potato cookies.

Onto the next vendor which was also on my list to try, Lemon Tree Patisserie. If you read her blog you will see enticing pictures of macarons and other sweet delectables. I had my eye on the macarons so I bought 2 for $3.50. The flavors I had were caramel roasted peanut and cinnabean. I wanted the salted caramel unfortunately, they were all sold out:( I have to say the caramel roasted peanut is the BEST macaron flavor I have ever had. Truly amazing.

The other treats she had were caramel peanut cake pops and mini layer cakes. Wished I could sneak away with that huge display of goodies there.

Lemon Tree Patisserie

Lower Level

416-970-1359

Next me and Kristy wanted to try the peameal on a bacon bun from Carousal Bakery. There was constantly a lineup at this place so I was pretty excited about seeing what the fuss was all about. It was OMG-fatty good. I wanted to add some dijon mustard but seeing the lineup for the condiments made me turn around and walk away. I was hungry and I couldn't wait any longer. The peameal bacon was juicy and meaty delicious. The bun was fresh and went perfectly well with the bacon.

They even displayed a poster which shows Emeril's approval. BAM!!! If he says it's good then it's BAM good.

Carousel Bakery

416-863-6764

I also got one elk pepperette to try. It costed $1. Tasted like beef. I'm not sure how elk taste but this was just ok for me. I prefer my turkey sticks over this.

I can't remember the name of the vendor but they specialized in game meat. Look at the variety of selections available. From wild boar prosciutto to bison rib eye steak to ostrich sirloin.

I love the farmers market. Wish there was one uptown. I would go there everyday to shop even though I don't cook lol.

Rancho Relaxo

I bought a voucher for Rancho Relaxo.

We arrived around 9:30pm or so and the place was half filled with patrons.

Me and my sister-in-law got seated at a tiny table for 2 since there were only 2 of us. We told our waiter, Jorge, that we will require a bigger table since we will be eating quite a bit of food. He didn't believe us and said he will be the judge of that. Later on I guess when the food was ready he figured we were right after all so he moved us to a bigger table. A 6 seater one lol. He should have listened to us in the first place. Never assume Asian girls can't eat.

Here were some random shots of the decor. Definitely a Mexican feel when you look around.

Here was my sangria. I had a tough day so I was in need of a drink. Albeit it's a girly drink but what can I say I can't take the hard stuff. I like my drinks where I can't taste the alcohol. I usually order a daiquiri but thought I would try something new. It was delish.

My sister-in-law got a beer unlike my girly drink however, she jugged down her first drink too quickly and ended up getting another drink. Here was her margarita. I personally HATE HATE HATE tequila so I cannot drink this. The thought of tequila makes me gag. I think it taste like stale medicine.

Here was the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa. The salsa was too watery so I snacked on the chips more until my companion pulled it away from me and told me to save my stomach for the real food lol. After seeing other people's dish we were kinda intimidated. The portions were enormous.

Here we have were the chicken tamales wrapped in banana leaf. It tasted like the Chinese sticky rice with fillings in it like ground pork or salted eggs. It wasn't extraordinary but it wasn't bad either.

Here was the steak enchilada with spicy chocolate mole sauce. I never tasted mole sauce before and I remembered seeing it on Top Chef Masters where Chef Rick Moonen made some sort of mole sauce. It sounded interesting. Don't think this tasted anything like Rick's sauce but we thought it was delicious.

Here was the highlight of our meal, the fish tacos. The fish was extra crispy and absolutely sumptuous. The tacos practically disappeared within seconds after it arrived. The first bite was WOW and then another bite and then another till I was like 'That's it?!!'. I wanted MORE!!!

All the entrees came with a serving of refried beans and some sort of sweet mango salad.

I tried to finish everything but when we noticed it was 11:15pm we had to get going so that we wouldn't miss the last train otherwise I think we could've finished our food. Well if my sister-in-law wasn't on a meat strike we would have finished everything. Then again more food for me hehe but man was I stuffed. I was pretty much wobbling to the bus stop lol.

TOTAL BILL $55...EAT HERE NEXT!!!

Goodies from the One of a Kind Show

My sister-in-law was helping out a friend at the One of a Kind show. Lucky for me she was able to get me in for free. Woohoo!!!

It was my first time at the show so I was excited to see what goodies I would find.

I zoomed through the entire room in half an hour. Let's just say nothing really caught my eye except for aisles C and D or was it B and C. Either way it's the aisles that sells food hehe.

I got 6 macarons for $10 from Sweet Definition. That was cheap. The flavors I got were passionfruit, coconut, chocolate raspberry, pistachio and a few other flavors I can't seem to remember. It was yummy.

They also had cupcakes as well.

I also got a bag of Demerara butter crunch white chocolate and almond from Milsean. One bag was $10 or 3 for $24. These were truly melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

Here is chocolate almond brittle from Brook's Delectable Chocolates. Sorry the picture is blurry should've taken a picture of it when I ate it but sadly I forgot. It was $5 for a small bag. I love brittle and this definitely hit the spot.

Here were treats from The Hot Lollies. $8 each or 6 pack for $42. They looked tempting but when I tried a sample it was slightly too sweet for me. I prefer the other treats that I got.

Here were cookies from Mad Batter Bakers. They didn't give any samples at least not when I was wondering around so I didn't buy any to try. You have to give me a sample before I buy. Well at least all the other vendors were doing it lol.

Here were some caramel apples from Bruce County at $11 each. Wow just for an apple. I personally don't like caramel apples so I didn't buy it but they sure did look adorable. This one here was called Mojito.

To me, there wasn't enough food vendors at the show but I heard the Christmas show has way more vendors to browse through. I definitely want to check out the Christmas show now. Thanks Jane for getting me in. Looking forward to the next show:)

Cookie Stuffed with Oreo Cookie

One of my foodie friends, Alfonso, baked up some yummy cookies and was so nice enough to share it with us. Make sure to check out his site FoodbyFonz. There are tons of mouthwatering pictures which will surely make you drool. Also did I mention that he cooks pretty much all the dishes you will see on his site.

Although it was March the cookies were wrapped in Christmas wrapping since that was all he had. Hey it doesn't matter to me how it's wrapped as long as I get to eat it.

He found the recipe from the site Picky Palate. Look at the size of these monstrosities. I can't believe he actually made them.

I took a bite and it was delicious. I warmed it up in the microwave and it was even more divine. I was smiling just like the picture below. Doesn't it look like a smiley face? I think it's happy that I got to eat it as well and taste all the moist chocolatey goodness.

Thanks again Alfonso for the decadent treats. I can't wait to see what else you will brew up in your kitchen. Do I hear macarons in the near future?!!

Pizzeria Libretto

I recently joined twitter because I wanted to attend these tweetups I kept reading about on Stella's blog. Stella (aka @foodieyu), is an amazing food blogger and a serious foodie. Definitely check out her blog called Food Junkie Chronicles. Also it's because of her blog I wanted to try the duck confit pizza at Pizzeria Libretto.

Earlier this week I was just catching up on my tweets and I saw a retweet about Pizzeria Libretto from Alfonso (aka @msgfonz), also another amazing foodie I met on Twitter who also has an awesome food blog called FoodbyFonz. Also some of his posts are stuff he cooked up in his own kitchen. Double SHABAM!!! I also love going onto Foodspotting to look at all his foodie pix. Believe me once you are on that site you can be on it for hours. Picture after picture of mouthwatering shots of yummy food. These 2 cool foodies were my first 2 followers on Twitter so we were bound to meet up eventually in person and of course somewhere that involves food.

Ok back to Pizzeria Libretto. They have a prix fixe menu which ends on March 31st. I was estatic since this was on my list to try and the deal makes it an even better reason to go check it out. Problem was I couldn't find anyone to go with on such short notice. So I tweeted my frustrations that I wanted to go to the pizzeria but got no one to go with. Then Stella and Alfonso came to the rescue. (My foodie heros). After tweeting back and forth, finally a date and time was set. Yayyy!!! I never met either one of them before so I was kinda nervous yet very excited to meet my new foodie friends.

I arrived at the restaurant around 5:30pm. There was no lineup nor wait. There were only a few tables of patrons. I got seated at a table by the end of the bar.

While waiting for my twitter friends I took a couple of shots of the restaurant. It was a long narrow room where one wall was lined abundantly with artwork and the opposite wall was a splash of bright grassy green. At the end of the room is the open kitchen where you can see the cooks working diligently on preparing the food.

Here is the $25 prix fixe dinner menu.

While waiting I was getting hungrier and hungrier by the minute and especially with all this food that was being passed around. I started tweeting trying to rush my foodies to hurry on over. Finally they both arrived around 6pm. Also one more thing the place was packed at around 5:50pm. I don't know how it even got filled so quickly. All I remember was snapping some pictures and doing some tweeting and then by the time I looked up there were no empty tables around me anymore.

After all the hellos and chitchat we got down to business. After a few minutes of contemplation I waved the server over and began ordering.

Here was the complimentary bread. It was really fluffy and yummy. I believe their breads are from the Thuet bakery. Well that's what it said on the menu. Once this came we all took out our electronics and started snapping away. Finally I didn't have to scream "WAIT" so I can take a picture of the food. It was nice to finally not feel rushed and can take all the time needed. Especially when I'm with my boyfriend he's just holding his fork giving me a "Are you done yet?" kinda look. It was amusing though all of us snapping a picture of this simple bread basket. The same procedure continued for all the remaining dishes.

Here was another complimentary dish. I don't really know what it was since the server was mumbling when he arrived with it. When I took a bite the first thing that came to mind was "funky". Stella was wondering if it was funky in a good way or a bad way. I just said funky haha. Just shows you my skills at critiquing. Not very good lol. I believe there's some sort of cheese since that's where the funkiness derived from (btw I like cheese and this wasn't bad cheese it was just different for me), some walnuts and some sort of dressing placed on a single endive lettuce. My companions enjoyed it and didn't think it was funky so guess it was just me.

Here was the arugula salad with sliced pears, piave cheese garnished with walnut pieces and drizzled with blackberry empire apple vinaigrette. I really enjoyed this salad. It was invigorating and refreshing. The arugula was crisp and the sweetness of the pears balanced perfectly well with the intense bold flavor of the piave cheese. I can eat this salad everyday. Good call on this one Alfonso:)

Here was the beet caprese salad with Cookstown seedlings, Ontarios Fiore di latte, basil all splashed with a bit of olive oil. Another crowd pleaser. I found this dish very tasty as well. If you don't like beets you haven't tried this dish yet. Great recommendation on this one Stella:)

The last remaining antipasto is the crocche di patate which were Neapolitan potato croquettes. I thought these were delicious as well. It was a great start to the meal. All the antipasti did not disappoint at all.

Now, the one I've been waiting for and tweeting about all day. The duck confit pizza. It was worth the hype. It was undeniably sumptuous. The sweetness of the sliced pieces of Bosc pears, the juiciness of the tender shredded chunks of duck confit all layered in mozzarella cheese. It was simply exquisite.

Here was the house-made sausage pizza with caramelized onions, mozzarella and chili oil.

Here was the hot peppers pizza with tomato, house-made sausage and mozzarella. All the pizzas were fantastic. Even though they were all thin crust I was pretty stuffed. Also it did not taste doughy like some pizza places. Maybe it has to do with the wheat flour they used called Italian Caputo doppio zero that is supposedly the most highly refined and softest flour used by many European chefs and bakers.

Here is a snapshot of our hard core foodies hard at work. It's serious stuff. Do not disturb or even dare touch the food. I mean just look at the cameras they use you know they mean business unlike me with my little iPhone.

Lastly our desserts. I had the tiramisu. It was too creamy for me. There was not enough cake at the bottom so got sick of it after a few bites. I was actually looking forward to eating my vegan chocolate cupcake that I had bought earlier at OMG Baked Goodness.

Stella and Alfonso both had the lemon panna cotta. I personally don't like any lemon flavor but I tried a spoonful just to see how it tasted. It is smack-in-your-face lemony. Not my kind of thing but they both enjoyed their dessert.

I had an amazing time with my newly found foodie friends. Thank god for twitter. Without twitter I wouldn't have made new BFF's (Best Foodies Forever). Thanks again guys for accompanying me and can't wait for all the upcoming food adventures/tweetups=D

TOTAL BILL $85...EAT HERE NEXT!!!