Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. Now in its fourth season, Food Network Canada's Restaurant Makeover—wherein both established and struggling restaurants are overhauled with a......

Last week, we reported on a confrontation at College and McCaul Streets where a cyclist stabbed a motorist in the neck and face with a screwdriver. Police have arrested Yonan Inwia for assault, but give no further details. It's stories like this that need Rosie DiManno: "Yonan Inwia fell roughly to the ground, his hands reaching out in a Christ-like fashion to break the heavy fall. Little did Yonan know, today he would be......

Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got. After school specialBY INVENTOR_77 Rusted Faith 2BY RIDE MY PONY TD CentreBY ARCTICLAMB Dead DollsBY RIDE MY PONY WalktoworkBY RYAN COLEMAN The Broken Pier......

Mid-1970s diners expected a certain level of ostentation when eating at finer Chinese cuisine establishments. Decor was touted as much, if not more, than what went into one's mouth. The atmosphere diners were promised at today's featured restaurant hints at a feast for the senses. Except that the foo dogs were not mere decoration... The history of 346 Spadina Avenue reflects the neighbourhood's ethnic shifts. During the mid-20th century it was home to the......

Torontoist loves local artists, and we love short films, so naturally we try to support local artists who make short films. This Tuesday, recent York film grad Nick Butler is organizing the Annex Film Party, a fundraising event for his new project, A Thing of the Past. Butler has assembled an impressive lineup of performers, including thespian David Tomlinson, actress-singer Alsion Jutzi, and TVOKids host Nicole Stamp. Stamp is also remembered for her 2005 one-woman......

After some talk in April, we were worried that the movement on street food had fizzled out. Lo and behold, Councillor Filion is rounding up his troops of chefs for the promised Toronto Street Treats Event on Friday at Nathan Phillips Square from 12 to 2 p.m. with little to disappoint. A full list of the playful and potential street food that will be served was released along with the official word that August......

Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? This weekend, Torontoist got sent the above poster. While we can't reveal much beyond what the poster does, we can tell you that 418 Spadina is Lucky Dragon Restaurant, which has over three hundred items on its menu. We have been assured by the person or people involved in facilitating the lunch (see? we really can't say anything) that the free food line is......

This summer, Toronto will attempt "to probe the causes of panhandling and seek solutions" after business owners launched a complaint at City Hall yesterday. A Tim Hortons owner alleges that one beggar slapped her hard enough to draw blood after she asked him to leave her store. Restaurant owners complain that the homeless steal money and food off of patios and harass the patrons. Is it time Toronto did something about the panhandlers that......

If you're swapping spit with a lot of folk—and that includes passing dutches and sharing drinks—you might wanna take it easy for a while because the mumps are back! Due to concerns over a breakout on the east coast and three confirmed cases in our city, Toronto Public Health is warning citizens to be aware of mumps symptoms. Most of the time, mumps is hardly a concern to Torontonians, with only about five cases......

FYI: the cherry blossoms in High Park are finally bloomin'. Toronto-resident Matthew Vienneau is using the powers of the internet to help find his sister Nicole, who has been missing in Syria for the last 37 days. Matthew is calling upon anyone with friends or family in Syria to help him find her whereabouts, and has a blog dedicated to the mission. Talk about paranoid: army contractors from the U.S. Department of Defense filed......

To some concern and resistance, the City of Toronto implemented a significant taxi reform program in 1998, imposing a more consistent set of regulations and rearranging how the industry was run. From the public's perspective, cabs seemed to become newer and cleaner almost immediately, and drivers were (hopefully) to become less-intimidating. One of the most interesting programs resulting from the 1998 reform is still mysterious to most riders: the Ambassador Taxicab program. Driven only......

When Toronto's food disclosure program started in 2001, customers rejoiced and the Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association (ORHMA) took the city to court, challenging the validity of the by-law that forces restaurant operators to post health-inspection results. The ORHMA lost the challenge, and colour-coded cards started appearing in front windows after each health inspection. Most restaurants pass these inspections, and almost all that receive a yellow conditional pass (where significant infractions have been......

If there's one defining quality of being a major metropolis, a "world class city" if you will, it is undoubtedly having a hockey team that despite having tons of money and a psychotically loyal fanbase can never win the championship. CORRECTION! It is undoubtedly having heaps of access to cheap Chinese food, preferably of the all-you-can-eat dinner buffet variety. Sure, you can go to any old strip mall and there's even odds there will......

It's great when the Jazz Fest finally rolls around because it helps Torontoist justify paying all those banking fees. There are so many good shows that it'll be hard to catch them all, but hopefully this list will help you find your jazz beat. Aside from the acts listed below, music at 49 different venues around the city and the millions of tourist dollars the festival brings into the city, you can catch late......

Torontoist wants to help one of the artists at last weekend's Santa Cruz find their missing squirrel. The squirrel dressed as a cobbler went missing from an artist station at last Friday's absolutely insane party on Captain John's Seafood Restaurant. He can be seen on the left-hand side of this photo. We hope that Schultzy (which is what we're naming the squirrel) is safe and hasn't been destroyed or worse ended up in the lake.......

54east, the half-art, half-BIAish, bus route inspired magazine recently released its Spring 2006 issue. The cover story, points of origin, profiles in a positive, hard working way, successful entrepreneurs whose businesses line the Wexford neighbourhood. The article includes photos of Ian Leventhal's murals of the same business owners. Fortunately, the subscribe button on the 54east website doesn't work, which means you'll have to go out and visit this free-from-gentrification-worry neighbourhood and pick yourself up......

Full disclosure: Torontoist kind of loves Billy Joel. At the age of 8, we memorized almost all the lyrics to We Didn't Start the Fire and chanted it regularly around the house - we had no idea what "children of thalidomide" meant, but we sure liked the sound of "space monkey mafia." We occasionally drift into daydreams about being the Uptown Girl of someone's dreams who wants us Just the Way We Are so we......

...Or,Canine Eugenics Is In for 2006...Or, If Jake Gyllenhaal is Doing It, Then Why Aren't We?...Or, Designing Dogs In retrospect, the story of the Puggle in Toronto was all-too-predictable: Someone in New York cross-breeds dogs, various influential celebrities pick up on the new breed, the trend inevitabley trickles down (or up) to Toronto. The puggle, developed seven years ago in New York, is the cross-breed between a pug and a beagle. The mix between the......

Torontoist believes that this sudden burst of summer weather has something to do with the excitement for part three of the he said/she said Summer Dating guide. This week, we take a look at some of the city's best places to eat on a date, with a focus on both vegetarian and carnivorous diets. And what makes this post so special is that it is the guest blogging debute of Matt Blair, Torontoist's new He.......

Winterlicious comes but once a year, but there’s no reason the more financially-challenged can’t eat like kings all the time. Case in point: Siegfried’s Restaurant. Located on the premises of George Brown College's renowned chef school, this restaurant is your opportunity to taste the delicacies of Toronto's future five-star chefs at *almost* student-dining prices. Going there may feel like you’re back at school or showing up for parent-teacher interviews, but this is a classroom in......

A favourable review from Now Magazine can do a lot for a local artist, musician or filmmaker but is it the kiss of death for Toronto restaurateurs? Even Now food critic Steven Davey noticed that favourable write-ups from the alt-weekly did very little for a string of Kensington Market restaurants in a review of the Streams of Blessings Fish Shack. That charming restaurant is still there, but the Now curse has claimed another victim, new......

The Toronto Restaurant Challenge is inviting you to come out to eat on January 26th, when a dozen participating restaurants will have their servers give their tips to tsunami relief. Toronto Councillor Adam Giambrone has thanked the selfless servers of the city, but TOist only feels bad for them. It's a sort of great idea, supporting local restos and tithing to Thailand, but at the same time it's a bit indulgent. Rather we ate a......

The appeal of New Ho King Restaurant(416 Spadina) is fairly obvious; affordable, promptly served, after-hours Chinese. After a long night of throwing back beverages on College St., the mix of Hunan beef, sweet and sour chicken balls and BBQ pork admittedly make for the perfect night cap. And relative to the neighbouring Burger King or the 7-11 frozen burrito rack, the restaurant even seems like the more refined choice in the area. But one look......

Oh Sam Roberts, how the fratboys love you so. And Torontoist likes you too, though you once looked our friend's girlfriend up and down so many times he thought you might strain something. But that was then, and you were getting photographed at Bright Pearl Restaurant, and they were eating Har Gau, and that's all water under the proverbial bridge. Now you're all grown up and playing pared down accoustic shows, with the likes of......

Get ready to be outraged and outpunned: According to the Toronto-based Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association, we're all getting bilked, er, we meant "milked" by greedy dairy providers – check out the "cowculator" to see exactly how much. Naturally, Pizza Pizza is leading the restaurants' charge since it is, afterall, one of the largest consumers of mozzarella in the country. And what have the milkmen said in their defence? Well, nothing yet, perhaps because they've......

Grapefruit Moon, that Seaton Village hub of hashed browns and fair trade coffee, is getting the makeover treatment. Its windows will remain covered with a fetching black plastic while a show, rumoured to be called 'Restaurant Makeover,' gives the resto the wham-bam-resplastered-mam redux. While Torontoist wasn't gaga for the Moon's previous look, it was cozy, and seemed to suit the local establishment quite nicely. We'll be curious to see what those speedy and dextrous......