Insider’s Tips - Jan.30

Toronto’s major wholesale market at the Ontario Food Terminal was cold and dreary, with little business when Chef attended this week. With few new produce offerings, we are at the bottom of this year’s produce cycle. Another way to look at it is that we are on the cusp of the start of a new produce season, and things will only improve.

Ontario hothouse products were essentially restricted to tomatoes and cucumbers. With the cold, Chef’s major supplier of hothouse peppers had given up. Eggplants also joined the no-show list. Nevertheless, Chef found cold-storage root vegetables in excellent shape, including Ontario leeks.

Prices–though not the quality–of California produce were down this week, with pineapples from Costa Rica back to normal. The prices of Mexican avocados were stratospheric, according to Chef. He liked the look of the Brazilian mangoes–they were the right size and had a nice colour. Chef skipped the Israeli and South African fruits.

Chef bought the last of the Oregon wild chanterelles, which were bigger than he liked, but he will chop them before using them. He also found some King Cepes from the US, which he is trying.

Last week, we mentioned that Chef had bought hiramasa, a yellowtail amberjack sashimi fish, for the menu. It was so successful he will be using it on our special Valentine's menu. You can also try it on the regular GEORGE menu. Another success was the Hokkaido Japanese scallops he bought. He sears them with chili star anise salt and serves them semi-raw with shaved cauliflower. For the Valentine's menu, he has brought back Glacier bass, which he roasts with an umeboshi glaze.

For the lunch special (GEORGE is open from Tuesdays to Fridays), Chef will be offering hanger steak as a special.

Chef Loseto is making another batch of his delicious limoncello and will be ready by tomorrow! It makes a perfect digestif at the end of dinner if you ask for it.

Winterlicious starts this Friday and looks like it will be popular. GEORGE will be open for dinner on two Sundays, February 2nd and 9th. On Sunday, February 16th, GEORGE will also be open for a special Valentine's menu for dinner at $125pp++, compared to GEORGE’s regular Valentine's Day menu on Friday and Saturday at $250pp+.