The world’s top food city, molecular gastronomy tragedy, props for Vivoli
• Forget New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. Food writer and blogger Michael Booth crowns the birthplace of the ramen noodle—Osaka—the world’s best food city, citing its amazing fast food, astonishingly lively restaurant quarter and “the world’s greatest cooking school” as the reasons for his choice. [Guardian]
• A 24-year-old German chef lost both his hands in a molecular gastronomy experiment gone horribly wrong. Though it’s not clear what he was attempting to do, reports indicate that the accident occurred when he tried to empty a bottle of liquid nitrogen—often used to flash-freeze food. [Local]
• The Star profiles entrepreneur and activist Nick Saul, executive director of “foodie bank” The Stop, which aims to fight the “two-tier food system” by bringing local, organic, high-quality food to the needy—with the help of haute cuisine chef Chris Brown, formerly of Perigee. [Toronto Star]
• College Street staple Vivoli gets some love from Degrassi alum and rapper Drake, who calls it his favourite restaurant in the city, because it is where he goes to party with his friends. [Examiner.com]
• Nutritionist Jonny Bowden delivers a riposte to trendy food zealots and their flash-in-the-pan diet trends. He argues that virtually any naturally occurring food can be called a health food, as long as it’s unprocessed and consumed in appropriate quantities. Still, he concedes that some health foods are healthier than others—and includes a top 12. [CBC]
