Tuesday August 7, 5:16 p.m.
Yesterday was my second trip to what has become a standing summer tradition in
the GTA:
Ribfest. This time, it was
Scarborough's turn to host the massive culinary orgy of grilled intercostal muscles from cows and pigs. The Ribfest gang got together which included members of The Anime Court and a couple of others.
As usual, we all got there early to secure a table under the shade. Unlike the one in
Etobicoke's Centennial Park on
Canada Day, we needn't have worried about baking under the sun for this
Ribfest. The sun was there, but the temps were definitely un-
August-like. Not cool but it was really comfortable.
Tokyo residents would've just wept if they'd even had a single second's exposure to the
Toronto air yesterday. It also helped that the organizers were smart and placed the tables under a lot of trees for automatic shade.
A grand picture of one of the rib shops represented. This is
Crabby's Ribs...actually a regional restaurant from
London Ontario. Another nice thing of getting to a
Ribfest early is that there is no real problem of standing in line. There are a few places whose reputations precede them and already attract a fair lineup right from the get-go, but in this case, Crabby's looked a bit lonely so I got there and picked up my contribution to the rib conversation and brought back a half-rack. That, and a sausage on a bun plus fries and gravy. Apparently, I do have a death wish.
These are
Crabby's ribs. They were probably the ones that had the thickest coat of tangy sauce on them. As is the usual custom within the Rib Gang, we all buy from different places and share. So, we all had a smattering of beef and pork ribs. I have to say that I prefer my pork ribs since I find them more flavourful and tender than the beef variety.
This wasn't my own dessert, but The Anime Bishop offered, so I took a piece of that great Canadian tradition of
funnel cake with plenty of
ice cream. The tasters found the cake a bit funky...although I thought the taste of fried dough had an added hint of lemon for some reason. In any case, everyone was grateful for the huge dollops of vanilla ice cream on top to help the stuff go down.
There was karaoke far down the
Ribfest area. I managed to filter out some of the more egregious examples of
"American Idol"-wannabes, but there was one amateur who actually did sound pretty good with her rendition of
"I Will Survive"by
Gloria Gaynor.
The bunch of us left at about
2:30 but there were still people just pouring into the area, apparently more than happy to try to find some space and lineup for several minutes for ribs.
As we left, I knew that there was still the final
Ribfest to attend....the one in
Burlington, which according to the Anime King, was 3 to 4 times the size of
Scarborough's Ribfest. But that won't be until
Labour Day.
