Photo by portfolium. Samosas—those centuries-old puffy tetrahedrons continue to sweep up Toronto in their potatoey wave of popularity. Though available pretty much anywhere you look—"Memories of Punjab," anyone?—we decided to stretch out our search, from the Junction, to Little India, and a couple of places in between. So find yourself a comfy pillow, throw some Anoushka Shankar on your gramophone, and read on as we find out just who will come out as Toronto's......

Photo by DimsumDarren from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Famished one bright, sunny, morning, Torontoist was in no mood for the greasy spoon fare most oft served for weekend breakfast. We felt the need for something with a little heart, and so turned our gourmand gaze towards Spadina and Dundas, and the delightful dim sum options on offer in that colourful and cacophonous square block radius. One of the more adventurous ways to fill your......

Photo by milowinningham. Mmm, soy. From tofu, to sauce, to the good old bean form we will explore here, soy just tickles Torontoist something fierce. Full of healthy-slash-trendy properties, frozen soy beans are now widely available for home consumption. Though tempted to stick with edamame, or "twig-beans", we wanted to—no pun intended—branch out to new territory. The results were varied—tasty, green, and sometimes, a little frightening. As the old, marginally related, Japanese proverb says,......

Photo by sylvar. Have ye heard of a thing called butter? Golden in colour and slippery to the touch, it is quickly replacing olive oil and salt as one of the ways to be demonstrably "in the know" with the foodie set. With farmers' markets and all things organic continuing to gain momentum in the culinary world, we decided to see what Canadian small production options were available. Throw in some standard grocery store......

Photo by n0wak from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Stadium food, generally, sucks. Not only is it uninspired—nachos, cheese, and society-sanctioned violence, together at last—but it's so bloody expensive that we wouldn't be surprised if they started taking internal organs as payment. What a welcome development, then, when BMO Field and Toronto FC decided to mix it up and commit to bringing a variety of stadium edibles that "incorporate food from countries where soccer is......

Photo by mag3737. Brimming with ice, syrup and syntho-flavours, the right slushy can truly hit the proverbial spot on a hot day. Refreshment possibilities aside, our research has indicated, as per undoubtedly reliable sources, that these concoctions are also capable of giving you the power of not only song, but dance—Broadway style! With that in mind, jazz hands a-ready, and our insulin levels relatively in check, we went slushy hunting.......

Photo by Word Freak. Water, it would appear as of late, is most oft discussed within the realms of the environmental and the geopolitical; and rightfully so. Landfills, drought, and container concerns aside, we, weak humanoids that we are, still need to stay hydrated, and if we're not at home, we often buy the bottled stuff. We here at Torontoist figured, well, you might as well know which one to go for.......

Photo by blmurch from Flickr. Flour? Check. Yeast? Check? Three pounds of butter? Mais, bien sûr! While we realize that we have been a bit starch heavy as of late here on Torontoist, we just can't help but love these sorts of snacks, and what could possibly surpass any of our previous contestants, in terms of pure indulgence, than the ultimate bakery offspring, the croissant. With a self-made commitment to run at least 10......

Photo by roboppy from Flickr. Don't be fooled by the beanage—red bean paste, eaten most often in Japan, Korea, and China, is sweet and not overly legumey on the palate. Boiled down and mashed to a paste of varying levels of smoothness, red beans are not only tasty, but also super healthy—high in iron, thiamin, protein, fiber, and low in fat. Sure, you could pull out your bean-eating spoon and straight-up consume a can......

Photo by Chenette from Flickr. Generally eaten in its native Trinidad and Tobago as a breakfast food, the loveliness that are doubles reminds Torontoist, yet again, why it's frustrating that the powers that be won't let us expand our street-vendor scope past encased meats. Luckily, there are a slew of places that serve up doubles from "proper" store fronts, and while we have a feeling they taste way better off the back of a......

Photo by chef@isimmer from Flickr. The least processed form of tea, white tea is considered to be the healthiest of the family, with more catechin than any of its brothers and sisters. And, what with everyone and their pet giraffe on a bit of a tea kick lately, we thought we'd go for the top notch stuff. Though generally considered a Chinese specialty, white tea can also be found in India, Sri Lanka, and......

Photo by Darcie. We blew out our flip flops. Stepped on a pop top. Cut our heels; had to cruise on back home. But there's booze in the blender, and soon it will render, that frozen concoction that helps us hang on. Wastin' away again in Margaritaville, searchin' for our lost shaker of salt. Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but Torontoist knows (doo doo do do doo), it's our own......

Photo by ethervision from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. We wanted to start off this challenge with a proclamation, in Japanese, of our deep love of sushi. Unfortunately, all the online translators we tried just came up with a bunch of squares. We're pretty sure the Japanese language has evolved past this, so we're going to have to blame it on our inferior translator-finding skills and move on. Invented as an early form of fast......

Photo by Hanoian from Flickr. Considered a traditional Vietnamese dish, pho actually only came onto the foodie scene about 100 years ago, tracing its roots to the French occupation and the desire to create a dish that was a happy medium between Viet (the noodlage) and French (le boeuf) cuisines. History lessons aside, pho is a low cost, low fat and healthy way to fill your tummy. It tastes really damn good too.......

Photo by natmeister from Flickr. With all the readily accessible gourmet-quality food on offer here in Toronto, we have quickly become a city of foodies, expounding the joys of this boîte, this bar, and that beanery. Unfortunately, as travel season gets into its fullest swing, we urban folk may find ourselves in an airport lounge or even somewhere outside of Trenton on the 401, at a service centre, hungry, and with limited choices. The......

Photo by knittingskwerlgurl from Flickr. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or Festivus, this is the time of year to give gifts and eat way too much food. Torontoist is no exception in enjoying these pastimes, and finds that giving a gift that is food is most often the best way to go. Giving a box of chocolates is a pretty sure way to make someone's day better, and is a firm favourite of......

Photo by apanatchi from Flickr. Usually considered a street-stall food, pad thai is not available in Toronto a la cart due to some stringent law in our fair city about hot dogs and their superiority. That having been said, there is still oodles of great pad thai on offer in Toronto, for sit-in, take-out and, as chosen for our challenge, delivery. Please note we used the word "oodles" because it rhymes with "noodles." You......

Photo by Simon Chambers from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. For a change of pace, Torontoist decided to do a liquid-based challenge for this edition. Being fall, and since we enjoy being contextually appropriate, we decided to head down to Cider Town for some of the good old brown and tangy. We stuck with the non-alcoholic version, and tried to test out both some of the "home-made" and the café procured varieties. We have to......

Photo by aliocha. Poor carbs. They get such a bad rap. With people turning to wraps and crackers in an effort to minimise their consumption of these misunderstood organic compounds, Torontoist has decided to show some solidarity and dedicate a challenge to our carb-laden and most tasty friend, the baguette. With a lot of wonderful bakeries in our city, we had a great selection and decided to test them the simple way—tear off a......

Photo by dviousto from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Ah, autumn. While the weather hasn't quite hit the pinnacle of crisp suniness, the leaves are turning colour and walking the dog through Trinity-Bellwoods has gotten decidedly crunchier. Another key aspect of the fall season is the food—Thanksgiving dinner and all the sleepy joy it brings. So while the long weekend may be over, the remnants are probably still biding their time in your fridge. We......

Photo by luxsaber from Flickr. Loved by students, stoners, Torontoist's mum and artistically named deviant reptiles alike, pizza was inevitably going to grace at least one edition of the Great Torontoist Challenge. While Torontoist truly enjoys going for the sit-down shmancy pizza or the late-night slice, we decided that for this challenge we needed to explore one of the paradigmatic aspects of this flat-breaded delight—the delivery. With this, in our endeavor of keeping a......

Photo by Amy the Nurse from Flickr. Torontoist's slumber was interrupted just the other night by the jovial and raucous yells of dozens of inebriated teens. In early September this can only mean one thing—frosh. This got us to thinking of our own days in university and, being hungry at almost all times, this quickly led us to think about the food that kept our brains going through those four (or five, or six)......

Photo by Jon . Torontoist loves a good stroll. In these late summer days, one of the more favourable strolling options is Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market. Provided you bring an ability to control your breathing against many an olfactory assault and sport a well-prepared munching arm, Kensington has also been deemed the prime venue to get your snack-on in Toronto. And so, with our noses prepared, a spring in our step, and a......

Photo by kstashuk. Nothing says loving like a cold beer on a hot day. Luckily for us, the good people at The Beer Store decided to open up Fort York to us again this year, allowing us to drink, frolic and be merry in an enclosed and historic setting. In such an environment as this, how could we help but pit four GTA-centric Ontario Craft Brewery beers against each other? To make things a......

A lovely photo of our winner. Torontoist recently found itself tackling the age-old puzzlement: how do you enjoy the barbeque season without owning a barbeque? While we acknowledge that the easiest way to accomplish this is to crash someone else’s backyard gathering, we felt that it may be less offensive to your unwitting host if you just trucked on over to your favourite burger joint, got some take-out, and sat on your very own......

Photo by Blaine Kendall from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Unless you’ve been living under an air-conditioned and rather spacious rock, you will have noted that Toronto has had some decidedly “hot” spells lately (barring this past weekend, of course). One of the best ways to beat the heat, which is certain to back in mere moments, is through the medium of ice cream. With this in mind, we here at Torontoist decided to pit......