Grocery Stores
Yummy Market
Yummy Market is the largest Eastern European supermarket in Toronto. While its location (on Dufferin between Finch and Sheppard) is not the most accessible by public transportation, the food definitely makes up for the hurdle.
Eastern European food is famous for its cured meats, pickles, baked goods, sweets and dairy products. The market is known for its home-made foods, locally made organic products, and goods imported from Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and other countries.
The market features an on-site bakery that outputs a variety of baked creations, ranging from familiar to the western palate baguettes and loaves, to traditional Eastern European and Middle Eastern pastries, such as pierozhki that come in variety of sweet and savory fillings and eastern-inspired bourekas. The bakery works during the day so if you're lucky you may catch the batch of fresh-out-of-the-oven goodies.
Right next to the breads lies the sweets section, ready to rival any Portuguese bakery with the wildness of colours and flavours. Beneath the top vitrines with the bright-coloured bite-sized baked beauties the lower floors are taken by the mouth-watering cakes of all shapes and adornments, which can also be made to order and signed with any message.
Next up, the cheese section, a good half of which is occupied by a soft cheese called tvorog. Tvorog is very similar to cottage cheese, but not as salty. It comes in both sweet and savoury versions and is occasionally mixed with dried and fresh fruit. Tvorog is every Russian pre-schooler's nightmare as it is a very popular children's food, kind of like broccoli in Canada. I confess that I went through some rough patches with tvorog too, but now we are best of friends it makes an absolutely lovely and healthy breakfast.
Right next to tvorog, the freshest goat and ewe cheeses rub elbows the small globes of young mozarella.
In the deli section, the variety of cured meats and sausages easily beats my other favourite store - European Quality Meats and Sausages in Kensington Market. Those lost in the selection can rely on the friendly enough staff for advice. My favourites are the hunter's sausages - long dry salty sausages that come in spicy and non-spicy flavours, and doktorsakya kolbasa (it looks somewhat like ham) - great as is, in sandwiches or substituting for ham in salads; or pan-fried as a healthier stand-in for bacon in bacon and eggs combo.
My absolute favourite part of the store is the salads and pickles section. It boasts a wonderful hodge-podge of eastern and western pickles, salads and aspics made of everything from cabbage, garlic sprouts, bell peppers, to cheese, herring, and pickled meats.
Eastern European food lays on the cross-roads of Middle Eastern, Far Eastern and French cooking traditions, and often has foods familiar to those kitchens but made in a uniquely Eastern European manner. Kim chi is a great example. Originally brought from Korea and cross-bred with German sauerkraut, it took very well on Russian soil and now is an extremely popular pickle.
For the adventurous, the display offers many other Korean and Japanese inspired dishes - seaweed, seafood, and a variety of other pickled salads similar in technique to kim chi but with different ingredients.
Herring dishes deserve a separate mention. There is herring pickled and marinated a million different ways: in wine, oil, tomato juice or mayonnaise, or mixed with beets and eggs in the shuba salad, and ground to pate in forshmak. Right next to the herring are trays with caviar ranging from very expensive to very affordable, flanked by smoked fish of all sorts.
The prepared foods section is full of heart-stopping cooked meats, poultry, fish and vegetables. The most popular item is "the meat the French way" (myaso po francuski) which has nothing to do with France, and is actually pork baked with potatoes, onions and mayonnaise. The prominently-displayed sign on the display advertises whole roasted lambs and suckling piglets that can be made to order. The tubs of borsch, solyanka, and other soups stand nearby, ready to be taken home and re-heated.
As far as frozen foods, a good half of the section is comprised of perogies with everything from potatoes, cheese, and meat to black currant to sour cherry, to stuff you had no idea could be stuffed in perogies.
If all those treats aren't enough, the gluttons can indulge further in the aisle wholly dedicated to candies and chocolates, and swing by another aisle for pickles and yet another one for teas and juices, and finish at the dairy section with a gazillion of varieties of yogurt and sour-milk products.
Yummy Market is open daily 9-9, including public holidays, and Christmas Day. It does close on Easter European holidays though, which are New Years Eve and New Years Day and Orthodox Christmas Day (January 7).
Writing and photos by Maria Kubysh
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http://www.blogto.com/grocery/starsky
On an unrelated note, WTF is "the Sheppard Airport"? What next - Pearson as "The 401 Airport"?
I too was wondering about the "Sheppard Airport", also in what way is the Keele Reservoir notorious?
It would have been clearer (and a little more accurate) to say its on Dufferin between Finch and Sheppard.
They have a tonne of great food and treats, however I find it a bit more expensive and out of the way compared to other Euro Deli stores around the city. I guess the price difference goes towards covering the greater overhead.
There are however many great little stores, especially along Bloor West and High Park that have a lot of the same things
I'll stick to the Polish versions on Roncy, much, much closer and available in numerous stores up and down that street. Such as Bena's. ok, no caviar in giant tubs, but seriously.... great smoked fish including eel.
For pastries, Granowska's.
1) the processed cheese Янтарь was stale and had neither production nor expiration date
2) the cash register receipt is itemized only by price, but there is no item description
Anyways sick store, good food, quality of food went down big time since their opening. But still better than the small bakery stores. The difference between Yummy and Starsky is that Starsky is a bigger rip off than yummy, plus who wants to see polish people when they shop for food. Now the german market prices are bettter, food is different, at time better than yummy.
The biggest problem there is no consistency in quality of products.
More than once I bought a product that was impossible to eat.
Today it was "smoked mackerel" that had to be thrown in the garbage because was absolutely raw.
My husband and I visited Yummy Market last week, we got those ice creams in the package called "Snickers". When we came home we found out that it was outdated!The date best before was August 2012 and we bought it on November 29th!!!!So I called the store and they said o we apologize, u can come any time and we will return your money, it just happened by mistake we promise we will take it away from our shelves. So I was lazy do go there just cuz of ice cream so I just didn't return anything and just threw the ice creams aways. In a week I went back there to buy some deli stuff and guess what those outdated ice creams were still there!!!!!I called the manager, and she started telling me that this is not the best before date and that it is the date when it was made!!!!What a bulshitt! those people who work there are just crazy liars! please do not go there!!!!they have no respect for their customers and they are ready to make money on everything!they act like they are still in USSR!By the way I am russian and I feel so ashamed of those disrespectful and careless employees!!!!!AVOID AT ALL COST!!!!!!!
Quality kosher products can be found all over the GTA and across Canada. IN FACT yummy market has a kosher aisle as well. Why don't you go back to commi mother russia and be anti-semetic there.
Goodnight bazarniya baba.