LUCKYRICE Festival, an American based food event celebrating Asian food and drink, held their inaugural Canadian event in Toronto this July. LUCKYRICE began in New York in 2010 and have since spread to running events in Chicago, LA, Miami and San Francisco, all with the aim to highlight and share Asian food culture. The Toronto Cocktail Festival, sponsored by Bombay Sapphire East Gin, took place at Berkeley Church and featured Asian inspired cocktails from some of the city’s hottest restaurants like R&D, The Good Son, Bent and Brassaii. Chef Susur Lee was in attendance, representing Bent and mingling with guests throughout the night.

Disclaimer: Event tickets were provided complimentary by Luckyrice Festival. All opinions expressed below are wholly mine.

Berkeley Church was a stunning event space, decorated with colourful paper lanterns and lit with string lights, I loved people watching from the second floor balcony. All of the restaurants featured had their own station, except The Good Son who commanded the bar. Each station offered a choice of two drinks and were spaced out on each floor. This didn’t stop traffic jams on the main floor or in front of popular choices. Line-ups did move quickly. Cocktail tables had been set up throughout the venue with napkins, stir sticks and bowls of trail mix. Overall, this was a really well organized event.

For a one-fee ticket, guests were free to enjoy as many cocktails as they could, many of which had a liberal splash of Bombay Sapphire gin. All of the cocktails had an Asian twist, such as lychee liqueur or use of Asian spices like five spice and star anise. Hands down my favourite drink of the night was the Green Dragon from The Good Son featuring Vodka, lime juice, spicy bitters, lemongrass syrup and pickled dragon fruit. I even braved the lineup twice to get seconds.

As the night went on, guests continued to arrive and Berkeley Church filled with music and excited voices. There was no end to the colourful cocktails being mixed and guests having a good time. I can’t wait for LUCKYRICE’s next Toronto event, maybe with a focus on food? A Slurpfest?

Every year for my birthday, I go out for dinner with a group of girlfriends to celebrate. There was 8 of us in total this year and two weeks before the date, I started calling my short list of restaurant choices. It was surprisingly difficult to secure a Friday night reservation at a decent time. Many restaurants also only did set menu for groups of 8 or more. Thoroughbred was able to accommodate us at 7pm and we took over their big communal table.

Atmosphere: Since opening in September this year, Thoroughbred has won plenty of acclamations for their cocktails and inventive food menu. The restaurant was dark, cozy and relaxed. There were flannel shirts and thick rimmed glasses but the feel was subtle, more backdrop than in your face. I loved the long open shelves, lined with bottles of liquor, behind the bar. By our third decanter of wine, our group was lively and Thoroughbred was a great venue to catch-up, relive memories and gossip.

Service: All of the servers, bartenders and wait staff we met at Thoroughbred were excellent. Friendly, patient while we debated on what to order (and ended up ordering everything) and professional. At dinner, Thoroughbred offers a bar menu and a dinner menu. 80% of the items overlap and diners are able to order from both menus, which made the two menus confusing and somewhat redundant.

Food: Along with copious amounts of wine and a couple of cocktails, we nibbled through 10 dishes. All of the dishes at Thoroughbred had strong flavours, intricately assembled with playful presentation. Simple, fresh ingredients were transformed and elevated with spices and innovative technique.

Kung Pao Cauliflower, Chicken Liver Mousse and Roast Broccoli Marrow were the first three dishes to arrive and all delicious. I loved the heavy seasoning on the cauliflower and the richness of the liver mousse. Broccoli is my least favourite vegetable, but deconstructed and cooked perfectly, I could become a fan. The stalks were roasted and the broccoli head shaved, creating a bed of quinoa like beads.

The Roast Mennonite Lamb and Duck Confit nachos were both meaty with crispy elements. There was little gaminess to the lamb and the shredded duck confit was lean. One of my favourite dishes was the Sweet Potato Mac n Cheese. I don’t recall all the toppings, but each spoonful was creamy and rich. With the heavy hitter starts, I found the Miso Poached Pickerel and Brussel Sprout Caesar to be forgettable. Still solid plates, but not the ones I’m raving about.

On the other hand, the Assador de Chorico was hot in spice and presentation; the sausage was served on a flaming pig and then carved at the table. The platter was presented with roasted vegetables, toasted crostini and a whole grain mustard; perfect for sharing and a great accompaniment to Thoroughbred’s drink menu.

Dinner ended with a platter of dessert selections including decadent homemade truffles, tart lemon meringue and a classic apple crumble. If I had to choose just one, the truffles would win.

Within the past year, a few of the restaurants at Yonge and Sheppard have turned over. One of the newcomers is Han Ba Tang, who opened their doors on Canada Day this year. Since day one, the restaurant has been full and lively every time I walk by. When I received the invitation to sample their menu at a blogger event, I jumped on the opportunity.

Disclaimer: All drinks and dishes were provided free of charge by the restaurant. All opinions expressed below are wholly mine.

One of the highlights of the blogger night was meeting Han Ba Tang’s (HBT) owner, Chae, who immigrated to Canada over a decade ago and used to run a traditional Korean restaurant with her sister. After 10 years, Chae wanted to create food to feed a younger generation and introduce classic Korean flavours to everyone. This is the main aim behind HBT’s decor and ever-changing menu. The food is Korean fusion with 50% catering to traditional tastes (ie. kimchi and kalbi) and the other 50% playing with innovation (ie. lots of cheese and modern cooking techniques). Throughout the night, Chae introduced each dish with an obvious passion and care for feeding her customers.

That passion and care extended to the rugged, industrial look of the restaurant itself. The wood decor was salvaged from a barn roof and the large communal table featured beautiful live edges. There is no exterior signage because during renovation, discontinued glass tiles were uncovered and Chae wanted to preserve the history of the building. Pretty cool.

HBT has a great cocktail menu with an amazing price range of ~$10. Many of the drinks were built around their infused soju flavours. I tried the Kandy Crush, which was balanced, full of fresh strawberries and not overly sweet. Everyone else at my table also enjoyed their choices. Stand alone, soju is already pretty easy to drink; infused with flavour, it’s stellar. That night HBT had lemon, pineapple, cucumber, apple cinnamon, ginseng and strawberry infused soju flavours that could be ordered in a flight of 4 shots. The flight comes with another shotglass full of wasabi peas, which was a great pairing. My favourite was the apple cinnamon soju that tasted exactly like apple pie, followed closely by pineapple with was very sweet.

In total, we sampled 9 dishes, which was a lot of food. The first two dishes served, sweet potato chips and chili shrimp, set the night off to a good start. The chips were served with an addictive wasabi mayo and I liked the sweet/spicy combination. Similarly the chilli shrimp were also crispy and doused in a sweet and spicy sauce. Next were two fusion dishes, Korean Tacos and Kimchi Fries. I loved the spicy crispy pork taco that was exploding with spicy mayo, so good. HBT’s take on kimchi fries was complex with layers of flavours and textures. Top down, we started with fresh scallions, a basil aioli, bulgogi, a mild kimchi, crispy fries and at the very bottom, a crunchy fried tortilla. That tortilla was like finding the toy at the bottom of a cereal box, but more delicious. I would highly recommend both of these dishes.

We also sampled some special, seasonal menu items such as the steamed lobster (special lobster menu event to come) and squid ink pasta (from HBT’s Halloween menu). Both these dishes were a demonstration of HBT’s creative side and how they’re continuously trying new ideas. Personally, I found the squid ink pasta dish over complicated with too many components. The lobster dish was only ok but I’m excited to see what’s to come from HBT’s special lobster menu (coming soon!).

Two fusion dishes that we tried was the spicy chicken and rice cake fondue and spoon pizza. I liked the idea of both dishes but the execution on the cheese fondue was spotty. Our fondue pot didn’t do a great job of melting the cheese and we ended up scooping the stringy cheese onto the chicken with each bite. The spoon pizza was made with a sweet potato “crust”, filled with veggies and topped with cheese.

Our meal ended with the most traditional dish of the night, a spicy seafood soup that was full of chopped up blue crabs. I only wish the soup was served earlier as I was too full to enjoy more than one savoury bowl.

Han Ba Tang is a great new addition to the Yonge and Sheppard area with their tapas style menu that is perfect for sharing. I loved the infused soju and can’t wait to be back for more with an order of kimchi fries.

One of my friends has recently joined the consulting world, which means she’s usually travelling. We took advantage of a Friday when she was in town to catch up over cocktails at East Thirty Six. The downtown location, tapas style menu and after work drink specials was a perfect combination.

Atmosphere: My last visit to the space was over 5 years ago when Lucien was still operating. The restaurant has been refreshed with slick tiled walls, dark tables and modern pendant lights. A long bar was the main focus of the dining area and most tables were filled with suits. Our dinner lasted a good 2-3 hours and as we were leaving, parties were arriving for after dinner drinks.

Service: Our original reservation was for 7pm. Plans changed through the day and we were able to make it for 6:30pm. I was hoping to take advantage of their $5 cocktails from 5pm to 7pm. We were seated at around 6:45pm and hurried to get our drink orders in. It was only our server’s second week and there was some miscommunication. We asked if we could order two drinks each to get the special pricing and it seemed to be ok. However when our bill came, all four drinks were charged at the normal price and we were informed that the special only applied to simple cocktails, not the listed menu ones. Both of my cocktails were delicious, but had we known this, we would’ve opted for wine instead. I would’ve loved some clarification before hand.

Otherwise, service was standard and friendly. Each dishes arrived promptly on a pretty plate.

Food: The menu at East Thirty Six was described by the server as tapas style and the dishes are designed for sharing. Lots of restaurants have been moving towards this trend and while I love to share plates, prices and portion sizes aren’t always reasonable. At East Thirty Six I found the portion sizes varied widely, I would recommend double checking with the server before ordering..

For appetizers, we ordered the Salmon Tartare and Scallop Crudo. Between the two dishes, I preferred the acidity and sweetness of the crudo but the tartare won on portion size. The scallops slices were very thin and a little hard to find on the white plate. The flavours of the salmon tartare were strong and the fish fresh, but there was no raw egg yolk.

With two light seafood appetizers we opted to split two heavier mains, the Short Rib and Berkshire Pork Belly. For me, the Berkshire Pork Belly won for both portion size and taste. I loved the fried egg served on top the tender, fatty meat and the chewy gnocchi. The dish was rich, had great textures and variety of flavours. The short rib was also a solid dish with a bit of spice. The sweet corn and chimichurri sauce really complimented the meat.

We ended our evening with a caramelized peach dessert. To be honest, by this point the delicious cocktails had kicked in and I don’t recall specifics about the dish (a sign of a good night). It was delicious though, a great balance between sour and sweet.