What are calamari fries, you may wonder?
At Pier 87 Fish Market & Grill at the upscale food emporium known as Market & Co. inside Upper Canada Mall, it’s about much more than fresh squid rings sliced into strips and deep fried to a golden, perfect crunch.
Hungry patrons who turned up at the first Taste of the Danforth-style foodie fest billed as Taste of Market & Co. festival Aug. 22 got a taste of the calamari fries for only $5.
After braving a long line-up, the calamari fries are served up in a heaping mound of seasoned and battered squid strips mixed in with fresh, hand-cut, skin-on French fries that spilled out of the container in a crispy yet tender mess on the tray. A wedge of lemon and a mouth-watering, tangy cajun smoke tartar dipping sauce made it difficult to stop noshing until the last little bits of calamari and fries had disappeared.
The Taste of Market & Co. Festival, the inaugural event in a series, marks the upcoming Sept. 7 anniversary of Newmarket’s unique mall-food mecca.
Merchants and restaurants offered up tapas-style items of their best-selling menu items for $5 or less, including free tastes of products, wine, beer, and cider sampling, activities for children, live music, and a make-your-own barbecue dry-rub station, while chef and TV personality Matt Dean Pettit held court in the demo kitchen known as Kitchen & Co. that anchors the open and airy 40,000-square-foot space.
For those worried about finding a parking spot, complimentary valet service was offered throughout the course of the 5 to 9 p.m. event.
From sweets that included a make-your-own ice cream sandwich with two toppings and unlimited sauce (more caramel, please!) at Bake Three Fifty to a mini pimped-out ice cream of your favourite flavour from Sweet Jesus, to a slice of Amadeus Patisserie’s signature macaron & cake, sugar cravings were covered.
Amadeus Patisserie owner Anat Aronovich noted that the three-decades long family business that also has a shop in Thornhill make all their desserts and cakes in-house and by hand. The cakes are so beautiful they belie their edibility. The gluten-free signature cake known as Amadeus is described as milk chocolate hazelnut cream with caramelized hazelnuts on layers of hazelnut meringue ($47).
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“Everything is decorated by hand. We use no preservatives, no lard,” Aronovich said as she stood by the temperature and humidity-controlled display case greeting food fest guests.
Other drool-worthy tastes included a cold-pressed energy tonic from Village Juicery that reminded one of fizzy orange juice with a warm hit of ginger and ginseng, a wedge of avocado toast with sprouts and a drizzle of citrus-flavoured oil from Our Farm Organic Bakery, and the dirty shooters (don’t ask!) from Newmarket Olive Oil Co., one of which included vanilla yogurt infused with blood orange olive oil and chocolate balsamic vinegar at the bottom of a small tasting cup.
“You have to use your tongue to get to the bottom,” owner Denise Tucker said with a hearty laugh.
Over at the Wine Shop & Tasting Room, a trio of Trius wines were being sampled, including a 2017 sauvignon blanc, a 2018 rose, and The Icon, a 2016 Bordeaux-style red blend.
Tasting room staff explained that the vines under the Andrew Peller Ltd. brand are maturing and that local consumers are “starting to come around to the idea” that Canadian wine offers good value for the money. Some of those include Peller Estates, Wayne Gretsky, and Niagara's boutique winery, Thirty Bench.
Market & Co.’s first food festival drew a large crowd Thursday night and, by all appearances, provided merchants and restaurateurs with the chance to connect with new customers and show off what makes them stand out in a sea of increasing local choices.
For more information on Market & Co., at Upper Canada Mall, including special events and classes put on by resident chefs in its educational kitchen, visit here.