Canada

Tacos, Pizza, Brunch, Oh My!

Posted on July 24, 2019

First off, I want to start this post by apologizing for being a bit MIA in the recent months. First off, summers are always chaotic. When you live in a country with four seasons, you’ll know that we try and cram everything fun into the few nice months of the summer before we go back into hibernation in the winter.

I’ve also not been traveling much because I hate leaving Canada in the summertime. Toronto is the best in the summer months and the city really comes alive when the sun is shining.

Last summer I spent most of my summer weekends celebrating friends marriages at their bridal showers, bachelorettes, and weddings. So this summer since I don’t have any weddings to attend, I decided I was really going to take advantage of all the things I didn’t get to do last summer, especially the yummy food fests the city puts on.

Now first off, there are hundreds of food festivals in Toronto you can attend. I’ll add a list of some at the end of this post, but the festivals I was most interested in were put on by a company called Taste Toronto. Each summer they have a series of festivals they put on such as:

Pizza Fest
Taco Fest
Brunch Fest
Beer, Bourbon, BBQ

I wasn’t that into the bourbon idea, but I went to Pizza Fest, Taco Fest, and Brunch Fest over the last few months (this is probably the reason that most of my shorts from last summer don’t fit me anymore). I wanted to breakdown what I loved about each of these festivals, and most importantly, what I ate!

Brunch Fest

First up was Brunch Fest back in early June. The issue with this festival is I attended it super hungover. In your head, you’re probably thinking this would be the perfect place to be when you’re hanging, but, I was the level of hungover that felt to nauseas to eat.

This festival was on the grounds of Hotel X in Toronto. It was much smaller than the Taco and Pizza Festivals. They did however have a ton of different vendors offering your favourite breakfast foods like different crazy variations of tator tots, waffles, eggs and bacon, etc. There was also a caesar bar which was amazing!

I had some potata bravas tator tot edition from Get Your Own Taters, a cold-pressed juice from Revitasize, and of course, a caesar. I wish I was more hungry on this day because there were so many yummy things to try! They also were sponsored by Bud Light and were giving out free Radlers to everyone.

Taco Fest

Next up is Taco Fest, this one was probably my fav of all three. They had great Mexican entertainment and dancers, salsa lessons, and tons of amazing tacos. This event was in Ontario Place and was much bigger than the previous Brunch Fest. I tasted:

Jerk Lobster Taco from Busters Sea Cove
Pad Thai Fried Shrimp Taco from Heirloom
Mexican Street Corn
Butter Chicken Roti Taco from Rick’s Good Eats
Churros from Pancho’s Bakery

They of course also had margaritas, so I obviously needed to get one or two of those to wash all this tasty food down!

Pizza Fest

Lastly, I attended Pizza Fest last weekend which was also at Ontario Place. I had lots of amazing pizza such as:

Aperol Spritz popsicle from Chill Pops
Tried my friends amazing Fuoco Pizza from Noce which had roasted eggplant, and was topped with arugula and fresh parm
The Sweet Hornet Pizza from Piano Piano which had sopressata, fior di latte cheese and spicy honey
The Diavola Pizza from Pizza E Pazzi topped with spicy salami and a flavourful chili sauce
Risotto ball from Pizzeria Via Mercanti
A slice of S’Mores Pizza for dessert which was to die for

Pizza Fest was absolutely delicious. All the vendors were amazing. The bar was also serving sangria which went down too easily.

How all these festivals work is you buy a ticket for one of the days for around $10 CAD, then you buy tickets when you arrive at the event to use at the different vendors. To give you context, 10 tickets is $20 CAD and I bought around 15-20 tickets at each event. Obviously at Brunch Fest I ended up with extras since I was hungover and didn’t eat much.

Overall they were all super fun activities to do on a summer day! I would definitely go back next year, however, maybe going to all three within a month was a bit much!

What’s the best food festival you’ve ever attended? Here are some other ones that take place in Toronto you can check out: