Almost every week in Toronto we have a food festival. Some are hits, and some fail so badly that they’re talked about for years. The newest kid on the block is the first annual Toronto BBQ Week presented by Samuel Adams and it runs from June 6th to 12th. I just checked my foodie crystal ball and I can say for sure that this one will be a hit!
If the smell of roasting meat over an open flame has you salivating, then this festival is for you. For $15 you can expect some delicious dishes paired with a pint of beer at 15 Toronto restaurants. Yeah that’s right, beer and BBQ for $15. What I really like about the food at this week-long event is that it’s not what you’d consider traditional BBQ food. Sure, you have your ribs and sausages, but those ribs and sausages have all been given unique, “global” flavours before being grilled. Love Thai flavours? Well Pai is for you. Love apple smoked, beef ribs? Then you should head over to Boots & Bourbon. The other half of this deal is the pint of beer that’s served with it, Samuel Adams Boston Lager. This beer has a malty sweetness with a nice hoppy finish. The lingering bitterness pairs up really nicely with all the different spices that are used in all the different dishes.
So how do you decide which restaurant to visit? Well in the vein of “taking one for the team”, I reached out to Chanry Thach, Sid Friedman, and Jennifer Decan, 3 other food lovers, to join me on a visit to 3 of the restaurants for a sneak peek of their BBQ Week offerings.
Boots N Bourbon
Apple Smoked Short Ribs from Boots N Bourbon
Our first stop was at Boots N Bourbon, over on the east side of Toronto, where Chef Patrick Roy, the chef- not the goaltender, was grilling up some Apple-smoked short ribs, warm potato salad with tequila pesto, grilled honey zucchini and cornbread.
Chef Roy, the New Brunswick native, who has been cooking since he was 10 years old, is no newcomer to the grilled meat scene. His previous stints included one and a half years at Barbarians, the legendary Toronto steak house. I’m a sucker for beef ribs, so I was pissing-my-pants happy when I read about this dish. When I think of BBQ I envision big, hearty, servings of char grilled beef and this is what I got from Boots N Bourbon. There was a bit of fat on the ribs but the bitterness of the Boston Lager helped to cut through it. This was just the first restaurant and I was leaving with a very happy belly.
Beer Bistro
Hot link pork sausage with smoked onion dip and duck fat fries
After a long trek from our parking lot, we finally made it to the second stop on our meat, sorry I mean BBQ tour, Beer Bistro, where Chef Josh Wortley decided to serve up something a little more refined than the big ribs at Boots N Bourbon. Chef Wortley created a hot link pork sausage with smoked onion dip and duck fat fries.
As soon as these dishes came out onto the patio you could smell them. The casing of the sausages weren’t tough to cut through and the meat inside was moist and flavoured with various, but not over powering, spices which you could easily see in the photo above. The spices and the Boston Lager really played nicely together in this dish.
Pai Northern Thai Kitchen
Northern Thai Pork Belly Sausage Sandwich From Pai. Photo by Jeffrey Chan courtesy of Samuel Adams
Remember earlier on I was mentioning that many of the restaurants participating in BBQ Week had created some “global” dishes? Well, Chef Nuit Regular of Pai Northern Thai Kitchen has done just that. She created a house-made, Northern Thai pork belly sausage, with turmeric, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass.
Chef Nuit is one of those super successful chefs who grew up cooking in her mother’s kitchen. There she learned the skills needed to coax all the mouth watering flavours out of the many ingredients that make up Thai cuisine. She left a nursing career in Thailand to share her passion and life experiences through family recipes.
If you’ve ever eaten at Pai you know the big, bold flavours that make up their dishes and Chef Nuit took all that and stuffed it into this sausage. I could easily pick out the flavours of the tumeric, lemongrass and kaffir lime and when they came together in this sandwich my tastebuds were blown away. I love spicy food and the sandwich came with a dried thai chili, which you could easily remove if you’d like, but that kick of heat followed by a swig of Boston Lager put me in heaven. Can you tell that I loved this sandwich?
Three restaurants, three totally different presentations of BBQ. If you’re a fan then I highly recommend stopping by at least one of these restaurants for a meal, you have until June 12th and I’m sure you’ll leave happy.
One last thing, if you want a chance to win a trip to Boston then head over to torontobbqweek.com and enter the contest.
Disclaimer: I was compensated for this post and all food featured was complimentary. All opinions expressed are my own
