Toronto foodies welcome American blog Eater—with a chorus of WTFs

Everyone picks on the new kid. Especially when the new kid is a U.S. mega-blog with virtual tentacles creeping into 22 American cities and, as of yesterday, three Canadian ones. Eater Toronto capped off its first day in the city’s food blogosophere in valiantly ballsy style: it ranked Toronto’s 38 “essential” restaurants. The online response was swift and, for the most part, mean-girlish. The popular kids raised their eyebrows, but didn’t say hi; the social conveners made nice at first, and then talked trash; the nerds got nerdily indignant; and the class thug got in a scuffle. We agree there were some odd choices. Queen Mother Café, while great for carb-loading before a Queen West bar crawl, looks rather conspicuous on a list that excludes Chantecler, and Daishō, and Shōtō, and JaBistro, and Patria. Not to mention Edulis, Toronto Life’s number-two best new restaurant of 2013 (and former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl’s top Toronto pick), which we’re fairly sure was originally absent from the rankings, but now appears to have sidled ex-post-facto into spot #38. Huh.