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Punch made with rum from Barbados

Seal tartare

While I didn’t get a chance to speak with Muskoka Wineries this year, I did try fruit wines from Newfoundland, including cloudberry (it’s white, so you serve it like white wine – chilled.  It was a bit on the sweet side for me, however) and strawberry, which I liked.  The wines are supposedly available at the LCBO, but I did not see them online.  Other regions represented this year included Spain, California, South Africa, and of course, Ontario.  Beer and spirits were also available and I tried a punch made with rum from Barbados.

Boring samosa from Magic Oven

Tacos!

The food was kind of boring.  As mentioned, Magic Oven was back, and once again took up a large area, serving food from their catering menu.  I FINALLY tried their samosas.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find it to be all that good – it was a little too…supermarket freezer and mostly pastry rather.  A good samosa should be about the filling!  I realize that they want to promote their catering, but at least serve SOMETHING from their regular pizza menu – it’s what they do best!  Maybe a Margherita pizza with a spelt crust or something like that.  Fontaine Santé, a supermarket brand of hummus and other Mediterranean spreads was also there.  Now THEY had something a bit more interesting – hummus tacos (basically hummus and beans (for example) in a tortilla).  They also featured their new vegan frozen desserts.  A new Indigenous Canadian restaurant was there, serving seal tartare on bannock (which I tried for the first time.  I’m really unsure how to describe it as there was a lot of sauce, making it hard to distinguish the taste.  One other interesting item I tried was a dessert arancini – a rice ball stuffed with ricotta and an organic chocolate hazelnut spread!

Dessert arancini

I had a good time this year but spent $80 on sample tickets.  Since samples are getting more expensive, I think they need to start at $30 or even $40 rather than $20 per package!

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