Month: July 2008

While most people think of Hyundai as a car company, they actually started as a construction company and over time turned into a conglomerate producing everything from semiconductors to ships (other examples of such companies include Mitsubishi, which makes everything from fruit juice to jet engines, and General Electric, who make everything from lightbulbs to jet engines to NBC/Universal).

I’ve seen all sorts of things bearing the Hyundai brand, but I had no idea they made accordions (or other musical instruments)! Better still, their C-level execs seem to “eat their own dog food”: here’s a video of Mr. Kim, president of Hyundai Music Corporation, playing When the Saints Go Marching In on a green Hyundai 12-bass piano accordion:

[Thanks to chiamattt — owner of the blog smokehard — for telling me about Hyundai accordions!]

“Engrish” — the gramatically and often hilariously incorrect English that you often see in East Asia or on East Asian products — typically makes at least a little sense. Not this t-shirt, which I spotted on an outdoor rack at the corner of Spadina and Sullivan Streets:

“Enquired? Bump? Brush culuff?” Feel free to theorize in the comments.

(This stores sells other shirts with Engrish, such as this one from back in May.)

Here’s nature’s answer to gummi lighthouses — I saw this yesterday at the High Park organic farmer’s market:

What do they label the aisle with the adult diapers? I guess I should go check the next time I’m in the drug store…

Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

If they were still making chips with Olestra, the “chips” and “incontinents” aisle would be the same.

I was at the corner of Queen and Sherbourne early Friday morning to drop my car off for maintenance (it’s at the 100,000km mark, which isn’t bad considering it’s ten years old and still looking good) and saw this mural:

Here’s a slightly wider shot:

Every year around Canada Day, the Rotary Club of Etobicoke holds the Toronto Ribfest, a festival attended by tens of thousands and featuring about a dozen different barbecue places Ontario and the U.S. and held at Centennial Park.

Barbecue places at festivals like these traditionally set up stands with giant facades festooned with signed boasting about how good their barbecue is and the awards they’ve won:

Many of them set up tables showing off the trophies they’ve won at various ribfests:

And the ribs themselves? Really, really good. Wendy and I might have to say that some of the ribs we had there were better than those at Cincinnati’s Montgomery Inn, a place known for them, and where we’d eaten just a couple of days prior:

Perhaps it’s because with the crowds and the rate at which they have to make the ribs, everything you get was just on the grill moments before:

Since a lot of barbecuers from the U.S. like to come up here for Canadian ribfests, they’re the best opportunities for those of us here in Accordion City to get our hands on real American barbecue. It’s amazing that while you can get cuisine from the most distant lands here, we really fall down when it comes to certain dishes from the States, our neighbour and biggest trading partner. The local places that purport to serve American-style barbecue — Phil’s Original BBQ and Cluck Grunt and Low, I’m lookin’ right at you — are poor facsimiles next to barbecue places from Boston (Blue Ribbon and Uncle Pete’s come to mind), never mind the American cities that are actually known for their barbecue.

I’ve taken my photos from Toronto Ribfest 2008 and put them into a Flickr photoset, which you can see on Flickr or in the slideshow below:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Upcoming Local Ribfests

“K-Chan” of the blog I Can’t Believe I’m Back in Toronto has put together a calendar of upcoming local ribfests. I might have to add the one in Burlington happening around Labour Day to my calendar…