Good-bye Summer, Hello Fall! (Food Edition)

This summer has been amazing. As always, time flew by quickly and I feel like so much has happened since summer began rolling in in early June. Now that labour day weekend has come and gone, I feel like fall is soon in our midst. As such, I think it is best that we chronicle the good times of this summer because it was and continues to be amazing and full. This past summer was primarily centered on three key elements: food, travel, and, most important of all, people. Below are some of the key highlights of the food aspect of this summer.

Food
For foodies, summers in Toronto are often associated with three main events: Summerlicious, the taste of the Danforth, and the CNE. I had the pleasure of going to all three of these events this year and had fantastic experiences for each of them.

Summerlicious is a two-week long, city-wide event wherein restaurants create prix fixe menus with set prices ranging from $15 for lunch up to $45 for dinner. As steep as these prices may sound, they do let you try a three-course menu from the city's most expensive restaurants for the price of no more than a regular entree. This year, I went to Kultura for lunch with my university friends and to Luma for dinner with my grad school friends to take part in the Torontonian tradition.

My experiences at Kultura and at Luma were fantastic but I daresay that Luma was my favourite of the two. The food was delicious, the service was "on point", and the decor was clean and crisp. Although the dessert I had chosen was a little small for my taste, it nevertheless tasted amazing.

Soon after Summerlicious was over came the celebrated Taste of the Danforth event. For one weekend every year, restaurants from Chester all the way to Pape Station open their doors and their outdoor food stalls to hungry foodies like myself. This was my first year going to the festival and it was chaotic (albeit fun) to say the least. We had calamari and saganaki from Astoria and walked around along the Danforth. It really was an awesome experience and my only regret was that I had eaten too much at lunch.

Last but certainly not the least on the food front, I had the pleasure of going to the CNE, the annual exhibition in Toronto. I had only been to the CNE once before and was thus overjoyed that I got to enjoy the "Ex" as it is otherwise known twice this year. Both of my visits to the CNE were amazing! I got to enjoy the three things I often associate with the CNE: crazy food, rides, and games. However, seeing as this is a food-related post, I will concentrate on the food aspect of the fair. 

The list of foods we got to try at the CNE is extensive. Over two visits, my family, friends, and I got to try newer additions to the array of food offered at the fair. They were as follows: the blooming onion (great for sharing!), tacos in a bag (doritos chips and taco fixins), a spice cream cone (pizza dough, nutella, ice cream, and chili flakes), fried coke (dough and coke!), mac and cheese (your regular mac and cheese), a mac and cheese sandwich (DELICIOUS!), bubble tea (the Asian staple), and, my favourite, jalapops (jalapeno poppers smothered in nutella goodness). Thank you to Holly for the bright idea of splitting the bills for each meal between all of us and for managing the bills at the end. I think I had all of that food for no more than ten dollars!

All in all, it was a great summer of eating. They were other great food experiences and reviews not mentioned in this blog though I think I will add them later. :) Hope everyone is doing well! More posts to come in the future. Have a great Thursday tomorrow! :)