Downtown Toronto’s celebration of food offers tastes from around the world daniel forrester

#thesheridansun Feb. 6 - Feb. 12 2014 \ 11

Around Town archeo photograph

photograph by samantha maich

This winter put down those pots and pans and head to downtown Toronto to feast on some of the finest foods the city has to offer. You can wine and dine in some of Toronto’s top restaurants during the city’s most anticipated winter culinary celebration – Winterli-cious, which runs until Feb. 13.

The Prix Fixe Program con-sists of more than 200 of the city’s best restaurants offering three-course menus ranging in price from $15 to $45.

The Prix Fixe Program in-corporates different cultures with a wide array of tastes. You have the option to choose the culinary flavours of: Italy, Korea, Japan, France, the Med-iterranean, Latin America, In-dia and of course, Canada.

Winterlicious’ Culinary Event Series involves 16 inter-active events offering some of Toronto’s most exciting food

experiences.A few of the restaurants par-

ticipating in the series include: Campbell House Museum, The Drake Hotel, Spice Route, Dyne Restaurant, Ciao Wine Bar, Beast Restaurant, Arca-dian Studio & Arcadian Loft, Mildred’s Temple Kitchen and the Rosewater.

“It’s been great. It’s every year, new business, new peo-ple, and it gives our chef a chance to showcase new dish-es,” said Alexander Saldini, manager of Aria Ristorante in Toronto’s Financial District.

“We’ve simplified our menu

with typical recipes,” said An-gel Martinez Jr., assistant chef at Archeo Italian restaurant, lo-cated in the Distillery District at 31 Trinity St., E., Toronto. Martinez adds that Winterli-cious can help restaurants at-tract new diners to areas of the city they may not be familiar with.

According to Toronto.ca, since Winterlicious began in 2003, restaurants involved have served more than 4.3 mil-lion meals to participants, in-cluding during its sister event, Summerlicious. The restaurant industry has generated more

than $190 million in economic activity due to the success of both events.

Visit Toronto.ca and view an interactive map that includes information on participating restaurants sorted by key-words, price and cuisine type. You can also view menus for each restaurant and check for updated reservation lists.

Also, you can try your luck integrating Twitter into your dining experience. Tweet pho-tos of your meals with the hash tag #LiciousTO and #Interac-FoodCritic for a chance to win Interac’s daily prize of $200.

Hundreds of people glided down the slopes of the Niagara Escarpment during last week’s Winter Fest at Glen Eden in Milton.

Winter Fest included skiing, snow-boarding, tubing, games, races, and more. Guests paid $25 online or at the event last Friday for access to the hills, lunch and a Tim Hortons card worth one coffee.

It was Glen Eden’s first Winter Fest, and was organized by the Oakville Hospital Foundation to raise money for equipment for the new hospital being built in Oakville. Suzanne Hallsworth, community giving and communica-tions director of the Oakville Hospital Foundation, said that the hospital is projected to open in December 2015.

She also said that the event took six months of planning. It was held on a PD day to involve more children throughout the day. There was even a Hawaiian Punch activity for children, where they tried to throw juice packets in one of two holes in a poster to win the juice. Two children were helping hand out the juice packets at one point

during the day.“It’s been a great event,” Hallsworth

said, “We wanted to involve children and families. It’s definitely been a great success.”

Ruby Singh was there with her three daughters Maya, Amrit and Jaya. They came from Burlington because Jaya needed to learn how to ski for one of her school trips. After vising Glen Eden, she said that she felt more confident for her upcoming trip.

“Basically, you’ve got to come here with no fear and be prepared to fall a million times,” Singh said, describing what it was like to learn how to ski.

The event had a great turnout, and there were a few veteran skiers at the event as well. Eileen Warden said that she has been skiing for around 40 years, but this was her second time in the past 18 years. Her kids had all grown up and moved, so she stopped skiing as frequently, but she now needed to keep up with her grandchildren.

Her granddaughter, Olivia, was there with her that day, along with Warden’s husband, son, and a friend. She said

that her grandchildren started skiing last year, and that they had tried tubing last winter. They were pleasantly sur-prised to see the Winter Fest activities, since they came from Cookstown.

Richard Plourde, a Mississauga res-ident, said that he has been skiing for more than 40 years. He comes to Glen Eden frequently, as his twin daughters take skiing lessons every weekend.

“It’s exhilarating. It’s a nice sensation, you can control some of it, but not all of it,” said Plourde. He explained that he had never taken lessons, and that it was a different experience when he was learning to ski.

“It was a lot more reckless of a sport,” he said, “you would go up to the top

and fall all the way down.”These days, Glen Eden offers skiing

and snowboarding lessons for all ages and skill levels. They have 14 slopes available, including the West Beginner Hill/Progression Park, and a slope com-monly called “The Bunny Hill.” They also had more challenging slopes, such as Falcon and Night Hawk, for more experienced skiers.

Archeo restaurant, in the Distillery District.

“it’s been great. it’s every year, new busi-ness, new people, and it gives our chef a chance to showcase new dishes,”

alexander saldiniaria ristorante Manager

Great food, lots of snow, what do you get? Winterlicious!

Young and old hit the slopesto celebrate first Winter FestCrowds came out to enjoy snowboarding, tubing, games and races at hospital fundraiser saMantha Maich

Winter Fest was planned for a school PD day so children could take part.