- Address: Toronto’s Exhibition Place, Toronto
- Visited: 09/02/2013, Lunch, 4 people
- Cuisine: Carnival
- Rating: 4.5 5.0 Excellent, worth every $
4.5 Good, food & value
4.0 Good, but $$, would re-visit
3.5 Meh, good $, would re-visit
3.0 Meh, would not re-visit
2.0 Did not like $ [$] <20; [$$] <40; [$$$] <80; [$$$$] >80
- Website: http://theex.com
Signaling the end of summer each year, the CNE brings a carnival to Toronto. Fully equipped with rides, games, concerts, a casino and most importantly, festival food, a visit to the CNE is an annual tradition. For me, the draw has always been the promise of calorie-laden goodness. I’m over the novelty of deep-fried twinkies and chocolate bars. This year the focus was grabbing old favourites and trying new treats.
Epic Burger is a long time vendor, home of the “Crispy Cream Burger”, and was originally offering the much hyped “cronut burger”. Unfortunately, many customers fell ill with food poisoning after having the burger and the cause was identified as the maple jam topping provided by Epic Burger’s affiliate bakery. By the time we visited, the “cronut burger” had been removed from the menu and we didn’t have any concerns.
We ordered The Behemoth burger, a burger with grilled cheese buns. The burger looked good, fresh bread and stacked high but the grilled cheese buns disappointing. The bread wasn’t grilled very long and could’ve used more butter. The burger itself was fine but for an indulgent burger, this doesn’t quite compare to the Vatican, a similar burger concept, from The Burger’s Priest.
Next up was The Cheeseburger Poutine from Bouchard’s Poutinery. There are a lot of toppings on this poutine. I love the addition of pickles and ground beef, but could do without the mustard. I also like the classic and The Canadian.
New to the CNE this year was the Spread Nutellerie booth, specializing in all things Nutella. AMAZING. We ordered the Sweetchips, sweet potato fries topped with nutella, sea salt and icing sugar. This was my dish of the day and the wrapper was licked. I cannot wait for Spread to open their permanent location to try out every other menu item they offer.
Another classic food I have to get is the bloomin onion, a giant onion cut, battered, deep fried and served with ranch dressing. It’s always a challenge to finish the entire plate but we were pretty close this time between four people. This was also the “vegetable” of the day…
We finished the night with three dozen Tiny Tom donuts for the road and a need to hit the gym, eventually.
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