Taste of the Danforth! Opa!

Taste of the Danforth is an annual street festival located in the heart of GreekTown. This event celebrates Hellenic food, music and culture, and offers a variety of other cuisines as well. At this event, you can find calamari, gyros, baklava, spanakopita, burgers, quail, souvlaki, roasted corn, thai food, crepes and more. I don’t know if it's the gyros or the souvlaki that draws me back every year, but whatever it is…it’s an excuse to pig out. Taste of the Danforth = pure gluttony.

I started it off with one of my Taste of the Danforth favorites, a Messini gyro. It’s filled with chicken, tomatoes, tzatziki sauce, onions, and best of all…fries! Imagine all those delicious flavors mingling in your mouth, this alone is worth the trek down to Danforth.

Then, I had a bite of one of these furry fellas. I bet this kangaroo knew she was being photographed, because she looks like she’s trying to do a sexy pose! Oh yeah, that’s the money shot right there! Work it!

The burger was puny! Hungryleafsfan was nice enough to let me have a bite of his kangaroo burger ( haha actually, I was doing him a favor since it didn't taste too good). Kangaroo meat is said to be high in protein and is fairly lean with about 2% fat. It had a strong distinct flavor and left an odd aftertaste. Even though I only had a small bite, it took about half a bottle of water and a Demetres ice cream cone to get rid of the aftertaste. Never again!

Cookeo ice cream from Demetres never disappoints. I got it in a waffle cone for $3, and I even got an extra cone because the vendor cracked my first one while scooping ice cream. Cookeo is better than your typical cookies and cream because it's creamier and has the right amount of sweetness. Later, the melted ice cream seeped through the cracks and dripped all over the ends of my hair while I was eating. No wonder bees were coming after me!

To end my food journey, I tried a Spanakopita. It’s a savory spinach pie filled with feta cheese, spinach, and onions in a phyllo pastry. It was hot, flaky and slightly cheesy, but a bit too salty for my taste.

I didn’t try this souvlaki because I was too full and my pants were feeling a bit tight. According to hungryleafsfan, Astoria has larger portions and it tastes so good that the "only explanation is that they sprinkled their pork with crack before cooking it". I know how it feels to fiend for a food like that, because that's exactly how I feel about my beloved Bin Bin Rice Crackers. Damn, I love my MSG crackers.

By the way, I’m an idiot! I accidentally put my Sony camera on a “VGA” setting, which takes pictures at lower quality and size. I was too busy stuffing my face with food so I didn’t realize it until I got home.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from Taste of the Danforth: