The Taste of the Danforth 2010, Aug 6-8

As my first post for this blog, I thought it would be very appropriate to begin with a food festival. The Taste of the Danforth Festival to be exact.

This festival is located right on the Danforth (Greektown) in Toronto and is the biggest street festival in Canada, bringing in over a million tasters to this event.

Out of the three food festivals I attended this summer, Little Italy, Little India and Greektown, the Taste of the Danforth is probably my favourite. It is filled with delicious food, music, entertainment and fun for all ages.

Finding authentic Greek food was not difficult, unlike the Taste of Italy, where all I wanted was a slice of pizza and not a single pizza booth could be found. Falafel, yes. Sushi, yes. Samosas, yes. Pizza, no.

I understand that Toronto has a great food culture, but if it is the Taste of Italy...they should have at least have ONE pizza booth.







I don't normally start by eating dessert, but my friends and I passed by a Greek pastry shop that caught our eye. There was the option of spinach pie, loukoumades, cheese pie and cream pie, all at $2.

One of my friends decided on loukoumades and he was kind enough to share a few with me. If you've never had loukoumades I highly suggest you go to your nearest Greek Bakery and try them. When you bite into one of these "tim bit" looking pastry you feel a gush of sweet nothings burst into your mouth, almost as if they were deep fried in honey.

I also tried the spinach and cheese pie, which were also quite fantastic. If you love cheese, you will loove the cheese pie.



Many of the booths featured meat dishes, such as chicken filled gyros, lamb souvlaki, and calamari. If you're a vegetarian, you may end up eating all pastries, which obviously, is not that bad an option.











Messini is a restaurant where you can get one of the best authentic Greek gyros in Toronto. You can spend $5 for a gyro that is topped off with fries, or $10 for a whole sit down meal. The line up for this booth was long, but definitely worth the wait.



Of course, before I left, I had to finish off with some tasty loukoumades. This time, I watched as they were being freshly made right in front of me. Yup, I was right, deep fried in honey :)