Last night’s The Stop for Food Chef Challenge was the kick off event for Stop for Food 2010. From March 1st to 31st, dozens of Toronto’s finest restaurants will offer locally-focused prix fixe menus of either $35 or $50 per person, with proceeds from each meal ($10 or $5 respectively) being donated directly to The Stop. Check out The Stop’s website for a list of participating restaurants.

I chose to buy a ticket for the challenge for $20 rather than ask for a media comp. I feel strongly about The Stop because it’s part of my community.

The evening was set up in a Top Chef-inspired manner. The crowd was treated to a video of the teams shopping for their ingredients at Fiesta Farms with a budget.

The teams:
Team 1: Jamie Kennedy, Anthony Davis (the Roosevelt Room) and Jason Inniss (Amuse-Bouche).

Team 2: Luis Valenzuela (Torito Tapas Bar), Bertrand Alépée (Amuse Bouche), Ted Corrado (C5 – home court advantage) and Chris Brown (The Stop, and formerly Perigee).

Jamie was serving up French fries with aoli, the ones that he and his son sell at the Brickworks farmer’s market:

I started out with the sashimi canape…

…and moved to the rabbit poutine….

…to the lamb sausage…

…deep fried potato gnocchi that were very light and melted in my mouth. They were like potato pillows…

…mushroom ricotta strudel…

…halibut…

And desserts, which I didn’t get photos of: Apple freezies (better than any freezie I’ve ever had) and these frozen apple truffles that I was about to snap on the tray, but then the tray was empty.

Wines were provided by Chateau des Charmes. I had a very tasty glass of Gamay Noir “Droit”, a wine that upon sniffing I eventually identified as tobacco. Not pipe tobacco associated with an oaked red but something subtler, like a cigarette from a fresh package (I’m not a smoker nor have I have had the habit). As the wine sat in my glass the flavour seemed to get smokier.

The Gamay was my second of two glasses that started with a white, a Riesling. This proved to be a good choice of starting colour when a woman walking near me tripped (?) and knocked my wine class, sending it upwards and its contents into my face, on my front, on the floor. I had wine on my forehead and it later occurred to me that had I not been wearing my glasses I probably would have had wine in the eyes. Fortunately I have a sense of humour about such things.

The evening didn’t disappoint. Good food, nice view and some of my favourite food enthusiasts were there. Although I was confused as to which team was producing which food (a list would have been helpful), it wasn’t all that relevant to me. As for who won? That would be Team 2, but really, the Stop was the winner. At the end of the evening Executive Director Nick Saul and Director of Development Cheryl Roddick accepted a cheque for $40,000, proceeds from last year’s Stop for Food event. This money will go towards carrying out The Stop’s mission to “increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds community and challenges inequality.” The Stop FTW!

Don’t forget to check out Stop for Food 2010 during the entire month of March.