Every year in August, Danforth Avenue hosts the Taste of the Danforth celebrating Greek food and culture. It has expanded to include other cuisines from Thai to Brazilian and Spanish to Indian.
It is one of the biggest and most popular street festivals in Toronto with entertaining shows & performances, games, rides and tons of food!
It spans the Danforth closing down traffic on the road from Broadview to Jones for three days.
Near the start of the street festival (outside of Broadview station) was Embrujo Flamenco, a Spanish tapas restaurant, and they were serving dishes of paella and churros.
Paella $5
The paella had mussels, shrimp, peas, chicken and chorizo sausage. The rice wasn't quite fluffy or sticky enough to absorb the flavours from the saffron and seafood broth, so it wasn't as fragrant or delicious as the paella I had at Frank or the Boqueria in Barcelona.
Right next to Embrujo Flamenco's food stall was Rodeo Brazilian Steakhouse Rodizio - a Taste of Brazil
Grilled Pineapple
Great snack! The cinnamon and sugar on the pieces of grilled pineapple brought out the sweetness of the fruit. Yum!
As we walked east from Broadview, we started passing food stalls selling skewers of chicken and pork souvlaki, gyros and roasted quails. More people were trickling in to the festival as the rain started letting up, and we started seeing longer line-ups along the street. After passing by a few people eating these perfectly wrapped gigantic gyros, I was seriously craving one for myself. We kept walking until we found the place selling them - Messini Authentic Gyros and we got in line.
Chicken Gyros $5
This totally hit the spot.
First, I've got to praise their tzatziki sauce because it was amazing! Great balance: fresh and tasty without being super heavy. Top that with fresh tomatoes, onions and strips of tender & savoury chicken all inside a warm and toasty pita and you've got a winner. Super filling and delicious!
The french fries were an interesting addition to the gyros; I didn't know that french fries in gyros were customary in most Greek Cities (I learned that from the website after)
Baklava $2
Fantastic! It was very nicely balanced: sweet with the honey drizzled on, but not too sweet and really flaky with sticky layers. I loved the mixture of grounded nuts in the middle layer. It was a little hard to cut with a plastic fork though.
I was actually excited to come here because BlogTo considered Dolce Gelato the best gelato place in Toronto.
Small cup of Candied Pistachio and Tiramisu $3.75
I love the candied pistachio flavour! I tried the Sicilian pistachio as well, but I chose the candied pistachio because I love that it was a sweet and enhanced version of the classic pistachio taste. The sicilian pistachio was smooth on my tongue and had a great finish, but the candied pistachio just delighted my tastebuds (I could eat tubs of this stuff).
The tiramisu was okay - there were chunks of soaked cake (or ladyfingers?) in the gelato, but I found the taste of the gelato leaned pretty heavily towards the espresso flavour.
Conclusion: Taste of the Danforth is a blast! You get a ton of freebies (bags of chips, hummus, McDonald's smoothie samples, and more) and you can sample a ton of food - what more could you ask for?
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