Taste of the Danforth and BBQ

Monday August 13, 10:41 a.m.

Since my period of time in Japan was from 1994 to 2011, I had missed out on the birth and maturing of The Taste of the Danforth in Greektown. In a way, I think I still missed out since I dropped by a couple of hours before it officially opened for its final day on Sunday. So, basically, I arrived when people were just setting up. Of course, the question is why would I get to a foodie festival before it actually set up?

Well, I had that BBQ at CG's place all the way out in Oakville so I couldn't stay on The Danforth, but I needed to bring something to the party. If there's one thing that's been hammered into me, it's that one doesn't go to a house empty-handed. Ever.

I was walking around Greektown for a number of minutes, looking for something to get when I came across this bakery called Dough Bakeshop. The folks inside were pretty busy but I did venture whether they could whip up a couple of boxes of sausage rolls as they had advertised on the signboard. I caught a couple of the women there off-guard but just as I was about to rescind my request, the head baker inside yelled out that it could be done and to come back in 40 minutes. I didn't really mean to make such a rush order; I'd thought that I could get whatever was on the shelves but what was done was done. I had the time to spare so I just cooled my heels outside and came back. I was definitely grateful to Dough for the rush order considering that they were probably going to be crazy busy on the final day of The Taste, so I left a nice tip for them. The boxes were definitely warm and CG was grateful.

As for the BBQ itself, everything went off without a hitch. Although the GO Train out to Clarkson was a couple of minutes late, it turned out that CG himself was running a bit late so everything worked out. He and his family had moved out to their new house in Oakville a year ago from Markham, so they live in a pretty grand home. Got to see some old faces like The Entrepreneur and his young family and met some new ones in the form of former Japan hands like me. The weather, which had been threatening rain, remarkably held off so the BBQ could get off the ground without any need to flee inside.