Bread is one of the most concise and versatile film props. It was bread that finally drove Sam and Frodo apart. Yet when a film needs to look idyllic, the art director can still just pop a baguette in the scene (preferrably sticking jauntily out of a bike basket) and take the rest of the day off.

Toronto's taste in bread is growing up. We're getting away from the "how many grains can you fit in a loaf" game, which, while fun, isn't all that bread has to offer. These days we're favouring artisanal loaves, and we won't settle for any bread without a crust sturdy enough knock a man out at a thousand paces.

Little kids are juice junkies. They're on a hamster wheel of sipping a juice, spilling a juice or being offered a juice. When we're young and finicky, our list of acceptable fruits and vegetables is about five items long. Which is why our parents hit us with the juice. Juice sneaks under the radar and quietly delivers vitamins and nutrients to unsuspecting children.

Then we get older and we eat the real thing. We show off with our full fruit bowls and elaborate salads. Juice falls by the wayside. Forget about it, we can barely remember to drink enough water. And there are so many interesting fermented drinks to explore. And the coffee. Oh god the coffee.

Enter the juice bar. Juice bars make juice newfangled and interesting. You don't just drink juice, you design, compose, substitute and supplement it. Virgin orange juice no longer. Beets! Parsley! Wheatgrass! Coconuts! Take all those fruits and vegetables you have been unable to bend to your will (I'm looking at you, kale) and turn them into a refreshing beverage. Juice bars wrangle those tricky pineapples and beets, distilling them down to their tasty essence.

By the time these top juice bars are through with them, fruits and vegetables have turned from something to quench your thirst into protein power-boosting smart smoothies --getting as close as we've come so far to Willy Wonka's three-course-meal gum.

Health food stores have come a long way, baby. When I was young, and my well-intentioned hippie parents were raising us on a diet of fruit leathers and wild rice casseroles, I spent a great deal of time in health food stores. If I close my eyes, I can still see the giant unmarked tubs of natural peanut butter, and smell the slightly astringent smell of chewable vitamin C.

But right around the time Lisa Simpson admitted she was going to marry a carrot, things started getting better for healthy eaters. A lot better. Even these days, while big business is slapping 'natural' and 'organic' all over themselves, independent health food stores are increasingly mainstream, stylish, and plentiful, with fantastic options all over downtown Toronto.

It's not fair: who wants to take over the space of a neighbourhood favourite like Queen West's Sugar? Wait, no. Would that be harder or easier?

Urbano is the new "Italian-inspired tapas parlour" at Queen and Shaw. Which, honestly, I got a little excited about.

(Though I couldn't go for a few months because I was still mourning the end of Sugar brunches. Too soon.)

Then I went, I saw, I ate. And I got a little less excited.

This is where you go to fill up on Calabrese bread and straightforward food (like that lemon chicken over on the right). And it'll be good. But your socks will remain on your feet (because they won't be knocked off, get it?).

Read on in the full Urbano review in our Restaurants section.

Only a few months old, La Merceria on Adelaide St W is a lethal combination of beautiful things, great coffee and sweets.

La Merceria is a hybrid home decor boutique and cafe. Which roughly translates to playing dirty. All the while you're sitting in comfort against an oversized pillow, sipping a perfectly prepared espresso, you're surrounded by purchasable home design goodies. And if your decision making isn't already impaired from your first (or second) cup of coffee, they sucker punch your resistance with sugar -- a little something made of dulce de leche?

Many of the people who came in while I was there were first timers, just walking by. Every one of them was instantly smitten with the place. So I don't really need to sell it, you can just go, and experience the smittening yourself.

Though you can also read the full review of La Merceria in our Cafes section.

It must be hard to be the restaurant inside a structure that evokes such strong feelings as the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal does. But given a chance the restaurant in the belly of the beast can win you over.

If you love the Crystal, you don't need to be talked into going. If you hate it, close your eyes and run to the elevator that'll take to you up to some very scrumptious eating on the 5th floor.

Read on for an updated Winterlicious review of Crystal Five (C5).