2012 Gourmet Food & Wine Expo Giveaway - CLOSED

Thanks to my friends at Mott's Clamato (@CanadasCocktail)...

I'm giving away TWO PAIRS of tickets to this year's Gourmet Food & Wine Expo (@GFWE) at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (North Building)!!! 

The two pairs of tickets are for 

Sunday, November 18, 2012 from 12PM - 6PM

The Gourmet Food & Wine Expo offers over 40,000 guests an unparalleled opportunity to sample over 1,500 fine wines, beers and spirits from around the globe. The Expo embraces the style and sophistication of a cocktail party paired with unprecedented educational opportunities and compelling feature areas.

HOW TO ENTER

1) You must follow me (@foodieyu) on Twitter,

AND

2) Tweet the following sentence, exactly as shown (nothing before or after it PLEASE):

I want to win a pair of tickets to the Gourmet Food & Wine Expo! http://bit.ly/QfX2G4 #GFWExpo

*Limit one entry per person*

*Contest is tracked by the #GFWExpo hashtag stream*

CONTEST DURATION

Contest starts on Thursday, November 15th and ends on Saturday, November 17th at 12PM.

TWO winners will be picked randomly from random.org and I will be announcing the two winners early Saturday afternoon.

GOOD LUCK! ^_^

Patria [VLOG]

Tucked in an alley beside Weslodge, Patria (Twitter: @PatriaTO, Facebook: PatriaTO) is the newest venture by Hanif Harij and Ink Entertainment's Charles Khabouth (they also opened Weslodge earlier this summer). While Weslodge is a "modern saloon" with a contemporary American menu, Patria is all about Spanish cuisine. From small and large tapas, mains, to a large, cooked-to-order paella for the table, Patria's concept is authentic and rustic Spanish food with the integration of products and wine imported from Spain.

Without question, Patria is a gorgeous space.

Taken from the second level. 

Café Boulud's Tasting Menu

Located at the new Four Seasons (@FSToronto) on 60 Yorkville Ave., chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud opened Café Boulud in the prestigious hotel early October of this year. With Café Boulud restaurants in both New York and Palm Beach, Daniel Boulud's third restaurant of the same name is his first Toronto venture. In case you are not aware, Daniel Boulud has seven other restaurants in New York other than Café Boulud, including DANIEL, a three Michelin star restaurant, as well as restaurants in Miami, London, Beijing and Singapore.

I went with three friends for dinner at Café Boulud (@CafeBouludTO) several weeks ago. Because the four of us are pretty much on the same page when it comes to what we like to eat, where we like to eat, and most importantly, how we like to eat, we all agreed that having Café Boulud's tasting menu with wine pairing was the way to go. In case you didn't know already, I absolutely adore tasting menus because I usually want to try everything.

Café Boulud is on the second floor at the Four Seasons above dbar, a bar and lounge which offers a more casual food menu (also part of the Boulud empire). Café Boulud has a very open, loft-like feel with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlooks Yorkville Avenue and Bay Street.

Everything we had in our tasting menu that night can be found in Café Boulud's prix-fixe menu. Their menu is divided into four sections or "culinary muses": La Tradition (traditional French cuisine), Le Saison (seasonal delicacies), Le Potager (the vegetable garden) and Le Voyage (flavours of world cuisine). 

Without further ado, lets start with the bread basket. Café Boulud's bread basket is probably one of the most addictive bread basket I've ever had. Actually, no, let me rephrase that...it is probably the most addictive bread basket with the most addictive BUTTER I've ever had. A bit embarrassed to admit this but I think we went through three bread baskets that night (one of my friends actually continued to have bread after finishing his main course haha).

GwaiLo Pop-Up at Senses

For a limited-time on every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night from November 1st through to November 24th, chef Nick Liu (@Ninjachefnick) of GwaiLo will be offering a 6-course tasting menu at Senses Restaurant (@Sen5esTO) in the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel. From GwaiLo Pop-Up's press release:

"GwaiLo Pop-up takes guests on a culinary tour of tastes and textures from delicate bite-sized morsels to robust and deep-flavoured dishes. While the form of the menu is set, the dishes will vary from week to week. Guests will begin with an exquisite amuse bouche, followed by four courses, a palate-cleansing pre-dessert, and then round out their meal with one of Chef Liu's whimsical dessert creations."

Over the course of the pop-up, GwaiLo (Facebook: GwaiLo Asian Brasserie,Twitter: @GwaiLoToronto) will also be hosting Sunday School, six industry nights with seminars aimed at bar service professionals and spirited guests. Cocktail seminars will be led by GwaiLo co-founder Christina Kuypers (@deKuypers). 

I was invited to GwaiLo Pop-Up's (#GwaiLoPopUp) media dinner yesterday night :)

The 6 course GwaiLo Pop-Up tasting menu went something like this:

Amuse - Korean shrimp salad, fried green tomato, iceberg lettuce

General Tso's Sweetbreads - Jellyfish slaw, scallion, chili, coriander

CHEESE PLEASE!

I.LOVE.CHEESE. 

So, can you imagine how deliriously happy I was when Valerie from Charming Media (Twitter: @CharmingMediaPR, Facebook: Charming Media) gave me a buytopia (@Buytopia) gift voucher for the Cheese Emporium?

 The gift voucher was for a gourmet cheese package at Cheese Emporium which included:

Spanish Cabrales Artisanal Blue Cheese

12-Year-Old Quebec Cheddar

French Truffle Brie

What should I do with all this cheese? Obviously this:

Pure bliss.

 I really liked the sharp blue flavour and the grassy aroma of the Spanish Cabrales Blue, and the wonderful crumbly texture and richness of the Quebec cheddar, but what I loved most of all was the French Truffle Brie. The delicate yet strong flavour of the truffles in the soft, nutty interior of the brie altogether in a amazingly creamy concoction was just CRAZY GOOD! I can't get enough of it because I mean, come on, it is 

TRUFFLE + BRIE!

'Nuff said :P

Thanks again, Val! 

Arriba Restaurant

I don't watch football. NFL or CFL. To be honest, I don't even know the rules of the game. But somehow I found myself at Arriba Restaurant two Fridays ago, watching a CFL game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers with my friend Audrey, who also does not know anything about football. I know, right? What the heck? 

Well here's the low down. Audrey bought a groupon for Arriba and was supposed to go with a friend of hers that Friday night for dinner, but her friend suddenly couldn't make it so she asked me if I wanted to go with her. And I said sure, why not? Who cares if I don't know anything about football? I certainly don't. And there will be food! Which was a VERY IMPORTANT MOTIVATION.

Arriba (@Arriba_Toronto) is located within the Renaissance Hotel. The restaurant and lounge has an incredible view into the Rogers Centre. 

Photo Credit: Tripadvisor

The view from our table.

Audrey and I shared: Chicken Quesadilla - Roasted chicken, black beans, cheddar & mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions ($14)

Bannock

Bannock (@Oliver_Bonacini), located at the south-east corner of Queen and Bay, is one of six Oliver & Bonacini restaurants in Toronto. Serving a menu that is "eclectic and approachably Canadian", Bannock pays homage to traditional Canadian comfort food while incorporating ingredients that are reflective of Canada's cultural diversity. A form of flat quick bread, bannock can be found integrated throughout the restaurant's menu in sandwiches and pizzas, as well as in the form of garnishes in soups, salads and main courses. Aside from being a dine-in restaurant, Bannock also has a grab-and-go café that is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, offering an assortment of house baked pastries, breakfast wraps, salads, soups, stews, artisan sandwiches andddd bannock :) 

I was at Bannock last Tuesday night. Most of the tables were already filled before 6pm (and here I thought I was the only one that eats so early!)

Bannock Caesar - Vodka, Canadian imperial sherry, clamato, salsa, maple bacon ($9)

The Winner of the Culture.licious Cooking Event Contest is...

@beachrockinc

Congratulations Graham! =D Please email Culture.licious at info@culturelicious.ca to let them know that you're the lucky winner of my contest. I hope you will enjoy the Cooking Event with Kyunga as much as I did!

I also want to say a big THANKS to the 23 contestants who participated in this giveaway! 

Here's a snapshot of the Excel spreadsheet where I tracked the #cultureliciouscontest stream from day one of the contest. The tracking was done using chronological order, as in, #1 was the first person to enter the contest. To enter the contest, the person had to tweet "I want to win and attend a free @Culturelicious Korean cooking event worth &75! http://bit.ly/QBHdnj #cultureliciouscontest". Once the contest was over and everybody's entries from the hashtag stream were accounted for, I went through the list to check if everybody who entered actually follows me on Twitter (I also sent the list of contestants to Culture.licious for them to check).

After weeding out the people that did not follow us on Twitter, I was left with 21 contestants. I went to "True Random Number Generator" from random.org to randomly pick a winner for me from 1 to 21.

The Winner of the Stubbe Chocolates + Choco-Locate Giveaway is...

@fleetfreesia

Congratulations Brittany! Please please me at foodjunkiechronicles@gmail.com for details on how to redeem your $75 store credit at Stubbe Chocolates! I guarantee that you will enjoy all the wonderful truffles, bonbons, chocolate bars and more at Stubbe!

I also want to say a big THANKS to all the contestants who participated in this giveaway.

The rules of the contest were as follows: 1) You have to follow me (@foodieyu) on Twitter, and 2) You have to sign up for an account with Choco-Locate using Choco-Locate's iPhone App (or on Choco-Locate's website) USING YOUR TWITTER HANDLE AS YOUR USERNAME / LOGIN. You need follow both rules exactly in order to qualify for the contest. Once the contest was over, Choco-Locate sent me a list of all the new accounts registered ever since my contest started, I then checked the list to see who also follows me on Twitter. The 13 accounts below followed all the rules:

I went to "True Random Number Generator" from random.org to randomly pick a winner from the above list.

The Winners of Air Canada's enRoute Magazine Giveaway are....

EVERYBODY WHO COMMENTED ON MY CONTEST POST! :D

1. JingLoh

2. Yvonne T.

3. itslunchtimeca

4. Yyztwinkie

5.Jeff M.

6. Orsolya

7. polar bear

8. Nic

9. Peter Visima

10. Nicholas Wong

11. Cindy Y.

12. Grace

13. David D.

14. Lina

15. Frank L.

16. Audrey

17. Carmen

18. April

19. Adil

20. Andres Busse

Since I was going to give away 20 enRoute magazines anyway and exactly 20 people commented on my post, you are all winners! Please email me at foodjunkiechronicles@gmail.com with your first name, last name, and address at the LATEST by Thursday, November 1st. If I don't hear from you by then you will NOT get a magazine. I will be forwarding all addresses to enRoute (they will be mailing the magazines to you).

Here are the winners of Canada's Best New Restaurants 2012

1. Edulis (Toronto)

2. Model Milk (Calgary)

3. Ursa (Toronto)

4. Acadia (Toronto)

5. Pastaga (Montreal)

6. Hopgood's Foodliner (Toronto)

7. Grand Electric (Toronto)

8. Keriwa Café (Toronto)

9. Borgo (Calgary)

10. Nora Gray (Montreal)

GO TORONTO!!!