The Mississauga Rotary Ribfest was on this past weekend. Pretty much the same, though we went in the middle of the recent heat wave (feels like high 30's!) we were experiencing, so we didn't have much time to linger. This year, too, they blocked off Duke of York Boulevard next to the Living Arts Centre, which, along with the construction, caused major traffic grief getting in to Square One. All I got this year was a pulled pork sandwich, with beans and rice and corn bread.
This year's Carrassauga in Mississauga (held on May 28, 29 and 30), the yearly (in its 25th Year) Multicutural Festival, featured some new countries (like Guyana and Vietnam) and some new pavilions (including quite a few tents outside of Hershey Centre). We usually catch this Festival, mostly for the chance to see some Culture, and buy some products) from various countries, but also for the chance to sample some good food (okay, expensive food). We found the crowds this year to be less; we had little trouble finding a parking place or getting a seat to see the show; perhaps it was the rather hot weather!!
Some highlights for us:
The China pavilion was actually a showcase of Taiwan, there was an interesting demonstration of Wushu Martial Arts; later in the evening was a special showing of well-done and interesting cultural dances.
The Guyana pavilion I checked out, because I wanted to have their chicken roti; unfortunately, while tasty, it didn't match up with the great roti I enjoyed long ago at Tony's Roti on Victoria Park (and I believe he came from Guyana).
The murtabak were back again at the Malaysia/Singapore pavilion, a sort of Asian roti filled with chicken or beef or vegetables.
The Thailand pavilion was serving food from P-Tom's in downtown Toronto; tasty, especially the mango salad!
Baytana Bakery in Mississauga (near Tomken and Britannia), which had a booth in the Lebanon Pavilion, makes their own phyllo dough, and uses a mixture of nuts (cashews, pistachios, walnuts, other nuts) in their baklava. They also make other lebanese sweets, such as sesame cookies and semolina with honey.
Pistachio mammoul from the Egypt Pavilion.
I've written about the Apple Market in Mississauga before; they have lots of fruits and vegetables, a meat section and so forth, but attached to them is a small health food store. I was surprised to learn that this health food store sponsors a yearly Health Fair, this being the 10th year in existence (why didn't I know about this before?!). The Fair has passed, being held on Saturday, September 12th (and I believe it's held the middle of September each year) from 11 am to 3 pm. The Fair takes over a section of the Apple Market where they normally sell plants, as well an area behind that where they put up a large tent. There were many Health vendors there, with lots of free samples and a discount of 15% on their products sold at the Apple Market. We enjoyed some free food, saw one deal that we couldn't pass up, and took home some samples and literature. It's not as elaborate or large as shows I've been to in Toronto, the booths for each vendor are fairly small and sometimes doubled up, but it is a good representation of the major Health product vendors in Canada (a large number of them are Canadian). We plan on going again next year.
The Mississauga Rotary Ribfest is on this weekend, with lots of different Ribbers, and with more non-meat selections (other than Bob's Blooming Onions). There was grilled corn; one stand selling churros (Spanish fried sweets); another selling Indian vegetarian; and another selling juices.
For me, ribfests are all about the pulled pork. This year, I decided to try Gator BBQ, from Michigan, their pulled pork looked how I like it, tender (some places seem to make them crispy). I bought the 1 pound pulled pork for $10, which doesn't come with a bun (that'd be a heck of a sandwich!); it's probably good for 3 to 4 meals (as opposed to the regular pulled pork sandwich; $7 and good for one meal). Tasty. We also got half a chicken, which was tender and juicy.
One interesting and tasty thing we found and bought, was crinkly-cut sweet potato fries, $6. Excellent!
Natrel was there, handing out free small 2% milk cartons. And Kraft was there, handing out samples of their new crackers.
We went again this year to the yearly multicultural festival in Mississauga, there are about 15 pavilions set up representing 20 or so countries. Again, some of the pavilions are great (the Ukraine one has traditional dancers that are quite flashy, and some of the dancing looks quite similar to break-dancing), while others are not. This festival is about culture, and finding out about the many cultures that make up Canadian diversity, and part of that culture is represented by its food.
Some of the highlights that we sampled this year included some food that we had not eaten, and finding restaurants that we did not know existed in Mississauga. in the International pavilion, we ate murtabak, a Indian Muslim wrap popular in Singapore and Malaysia, it's a roti filled with various fillings (curried vegetable with chickpeas, red kidney beans, carrots and potatoes; Halal beef with carrots, potatoes and cilantro; or Halal chicken with peas, potatoes and white beans) is then grilled for 5 minutes and served with homemade coconut chutney and chili-garlic sauce. There was also Lebanese baklava and sesame-topped barazik. In the Portuguese pavilion, we ate two dishes, one with baked salted cod, another tasty pork alentejana (with clams and wine, garlic, oregano, bay leaves and cumin). A restaurant called Tarboosh (located at Central Parkway and Dundas) had excellent middle-eastern food in one of the pavilions.
We enjoyed mostly Carassauga, one complaint we have, is that the sound system is too loud in most of the pavilions, we can't really enjoy the music and dancing with the sound blaring.
As it turns out, we didn't have to travel so far to see Japanese Cherry trees blossoming, there are some right here in Mississauga, though only about 27.
Since 1981, Mississauga has enjoyed a twin-sister relationship with Kariya, Japan, which lies between Kyoto and Tokyo. The park honouring Kariya was opened in 1992, and features many of the trees and flowers that grow in Kariya, including Kariya's official city flower, the rabbit-ear iris (Iris laevigata), and rhododendrons, pine, gingko and sweetgum trees, as well as several varieties of sakura.
In the main entrance of the park stands another Japanese feature, a gift from Kariya, a friendship bell, a very large bell cast using traditional methods, it has both Japanese and Canadian symbols.
The park has a number of winding trails, several ponds, and various wildlife, including geese and duck (and recently I saw several ducklings and goslings).
The park is located south of Burnamthorpe, west of Hurontario, on Kariya Way (southeast of Square One). There is very little parking available.
You could be forgiven for passing by this unimposing store, you also could be forgiven for thinking this store only sells apples (no, not Apples, as in Apple computers, rather, the fruit). Located at the corner of Queensway and Camilla Road, a couple stoplights west of Hurontario, I've driven by it a few times before we decided finally to make that turn south and into the parking lot. This used to be a 15-acre farm, specializing in apples, onions, carrots, tomatoes, and rhubarb, eventually a small store was opened to sell seasonal fruit, there was a garden centre as well. Over the years, this evolved to include fresh-baked goods, unique groceries (with a fair number of them Organic or healthy), a full-service meat counter, and, so you're thinking now this is a big store, it also includes a health and wellness section (and they stock some of the health products that I had to go downtown for!). There is also a Health and Wellness fair every September. Going up to the main entrance, we noticed people go into a shed, looking like it was sunk into the ground, and other people coming out holding big baskets of apples. Another thing I like about this store, is an emphasis on local, Ontario, produce (though there are lots of produce I see that you find in any supermarket); I would like to see more emphasis on local products, but perhaps that's just because we haven't got much produce yet from within Ontario. The staff is friendly, it's a family-owned and run business, the prices are fairly reasonable; all good reasons to check this store out!
