School? More like a zoo. Sunday noontime means throngs of famished folk loosely queued and snaking back out the entrance waiting to get a seat at School Bakery and Cafe - a bright, lofty, Liberty Village cafe.

Fortunately, mere moments before tempers get unmanageable and threaten to get our contingent thrown into detention, a tray of hot, deliciously crumbly cranberry scones pulled fresh from the oven makes its way through the buzzing crowd taking the edge off. Suddenly the nearly 20-minute wait for a seat seems a little more bearable and the quickly devoured pastry is hopefully a sign of good things to come.

Read the full review of School Bakery and Cafe in the restaurant section.

Zane Caplansky's been on a bit of a roll this week. His humble Monarch Tavern deli digs were graced Monday by two high-ranking members of the fooderati: Bonnie Stern, and Ruth Reichl.

Bonnie's a cooking school guru and all around food media type who's done a lot for raising the level of cuisine in the city, and Ruth's the editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine who stopped in Toronto as part of a national book tour.

Ruth apparently knows her smoked meat being an inveterate New York deli fiend; she also spent a good chunk of her formative years studying in Montreal. After chowing down at Caplansky's she effused in a review (okay, it was more a tweet than a review):

"Caplansky's smoked meat awesome. Along with the single most decadent knish ever made, involving smoked meat, puff pastry, schmaltz..."

I mean we could've told her that if she'd just asked.

I want to lie to you. I want to keep you as far away from the foot of Sukhothai's smiling elephant awning as possible. Sorry Jeff, Nuit, this may not be good for business but I'm a selfish bastard and don't want to share your food with anyone else. If people knew how good your tiny little outpost of Northern Thai nosh was, they'd gather every friend and march them fife and standard straight down Parliament en masse-- a crazed culinary Drumcree ready to usurp the rightful place of hungry regulars in the snaking take out line while leaving behind a grand guignol of blood and noodles staining the streets crimson with hot sauce-- like a brothers Chapman diorama... well.. minus the Nazis...

Okay, so the only riots you're likely to experience here are the flavours running riot in your mouth as you eat some of the best, tastiest, most authentic Thai this city has to offer.

Read the full review of Sukhothai Restaurant in our restaurant section.

While there was ultimately no truth to the rumour that Zane Caplansky had sold the recipe for his Toronto-style smoked meat to Sysco Foods who planned negotiations with Porter Airlines to offer this noble sandwich on their Toronto-Montreal service in order to foment some kind of misguided cross-border brisket rivalry, it is true no single sandwich has stirred as much collective controversy as the humble smoked meat on rye at Caplansky's.

Read the whole just-in-time-for-Passover (but not open today!) profile of Caplansky's Deli in our restaurant section.

Are you as depressed as the markets are because there doesn't seem to be any affordable nosh left in the city? Well check your expectations and your irony at the door and get ready to eat some honest to goodness diner fare at this ghost of Leslieville's past - Gale's Snack Bar.

In an attempt to demonstrate that you can still occasionally get value for money, I arrive this winter afternoon with several hungry friends and a solitary $20 bill to see exactly how much chow we can get.

Read the results in our profile of Gale's Snack Bar in the restaurants section.

The internet definitely makes for interesting dining companions. Thanks to cyberspace, I recently enjoyed the opportunity to share a meal at an amazing suburban restaurant with a complete stranger.

I've never met Charles Yu before this particular snowy pre-Chinese New Year evening but he's already been one of my food heroes for quite some time. Anonymous and insightful, this local foodie is at the vanguard of the new DIY school of culinary crit (he doesn't have a blog but he definitely has a posse - check Chowhound for the ever-growing list of people who follow his posts), and he's had a more than passing influence on how I eat this town.

Still, kinda like online dating, y'never know how someone'll represent in real life. Is this meal gonna be an ordeal? Will the minutes drag on until the only chomping I'll be doing'll be at the bit to get out?