Toronto restaurants run the gambit from expensive and elegant to budget and eat on the run. They are truly an international city with representation of cuisines from many parts of the world including Italian, Asian, Greek, and their own Canadian style of cooking. There are steakhouses and burger joints giving patrons a little bit of everything for a variety of prices. If you enjoy food, then Toronto is the place to be.

One of the most elegant and visible restaurants sits a top the CN tower and revolves a full 360 degrees with floor to ceiling windows for a full view of the city of Toronto. The name is, appropriately, the Restaurant 360 and it offers a moderate menu along with a choice of over 550 different types of wines from all over the world. This restaurant has won awards for the food but has won more for the novelty of being 114 stories above ground level. Reservations are advised and meals will cost about C$70 to C$100 and wines can go upward to over C$1000 per bottle.

Two other fine restaurants that will cost you upwards to C$100 for a meal are Splendito and Truffles. At Splendito in the Distillery District seasonal ingredients are used to make great tasting and unique Mediterranean cuisine. The great thing about this restaurant is that you can choose from an a la carte menu or go to the tasting menu where you only get a little bit of everything you want. This restaurant has a great wine list as well. Truffles is located in the Four Seasons’ Hotel and is an award winning restaurant. Everything is quite elegant and very extreme in French style.

If these restaurants are a little steep for your taste you can go down a notch to some moderately priced restaurants that will cost you C$35 to C$75 per meal. A great Canadian restaurant is Canoe Restaurant and Bar where maple sugar reigns supreme. The local fruits and berries are used to make wonderful offerings and there is even the choice of venison or caribou on the menu. This restaurant is right on Toronto Harbor and the ambiance is similar to that of a forest lodge. Make sure to secure reservations because it is not open on the weekends.

If you want something unique and interesting try Lolita’s Lust near Greektown in Toronto. This is a fun restaurant with interesting recipes of meats and seafood.

There are many budget conscious restaurants in town where you will pay less than C$35 for a great meal. Look to the Midtown area to find a place that gives diner a good name at Fran’s. Specialty of the house is meatloaf but you can get a great tuna melt and interesting chicken wraps. This restaurant is open 24 hours and you have to check out the wildly enormous breakfasts they serve.

Another cheaper place is Fresh on Bloor located on Bloor street where you can find healthy menu items from vegetarian to organic. The food is great and it also offers 40 sublime to the ridiculous juices that would rival any expensive restaurants wine list.

For those who are budgeting, remember to factor in taxes. Keep in mind that food prices at restaurants in Toronto come along with a provincial sales tax of 8% and alcohol has a 10% tax. There is also a 5% federal goods and services tax and all of this is added to the bill at the end of the meal. You can find any type of food you desire in the city and for a variety of prices. The restaurants mentioned are but a handful of the many in Toronto from which to pick your favorites.

See what the City of Toronto has to offer by dining at a Toronto restaurant this weekend. If you’re in Quebec, then a restaurant Montreal is a great idea for spending some quality time.

Rice is the most commonly eaten cereal crop in the world, being the mainstay of the diet in much of east and southeast Asia, the Caribbean and central and South America. Of course, rice is eaten in literally every part of the world, including North America. Rice is grown in the United States and more apropos to this article, Mexico. After corn, rice is the most important grain in Mexican cuisine and there are too many different Mexican rice recipes to list in the space we have here.

As central as rice is to Mexican cooking, it is a relatively recent arrival in the grand scheme of things, having arrived in what is now Mexico with colonists and explorers from Spain and Portugal. The peoples of the new world took to the new grain with enthusiasm and rice was soon one of the most important staples in the Mexican kitchen. Some of the dishes, which are now considered to be traditional Mexican rice recipes date from the early days after rice, began to be cultivated in the Americas.

Authentic Mexican Rice Recipes

One of the best known of all Mexican rice recipes also happens to be a classic Mexican chicken recipe. Arroz con pollo or rice with chicken is Mexico’s own unique version of this popular combination of ingredients. If you have gotten tired of the American version using cream of mushroom soup, give this traditional Mexican rice recipe a try next time.

Arroz con pollo is an excellent example of how recipes, which originated in Spain became Mexican recipes through adaptation to use locally available ingredients as well as to work in flavors and ingredients, which became popular with the European settlers. In the case of this recipe, tomatoes found their way in to the cooking pot, as did the more assertive Mexican oregano as a substitute for the European variety, which was unavailable in the country.

Spanish Cuisine Becomes Mexican In The New World

After the Spanish began to grow rice in Mexico, it quickly became a hit, working its way into dishes, which combined old and new ingredients, with some of the results now known as authentic Mexican rice recipes. One dish, which we think of as Spanish as can be is paella, but a look at the ingredients commonly, used in this dish reveal something very interesting. For example, tomato is a common ingredient; a new world ingredient, which must inevitably have found its way into a pot of rice and seafood long before a cook in Valencia, thought to do the same.

It so happens that the paella eaten in Spain actually has a bit of a Mexican accent to it as well. Tomatoes and bell peppers are both common ingredients in this dish; two ingredients which were brought back to Europe from the Americas! Paella is also an incredibly popular Mexican rice dish in its own right and there are even regional variations on paella throughout the country, particularly in those states, which lie along the coast.

Another popular Mexican rice recipe is the lightly seasoned rice served as a side dish with many meals, especially bean dishes. You may have noticed the similarity between this dish and Spanish rice - and the two do share some ingredients other than rice; again, tomatoes and bell peppers are part of the equation.

Rice is an incredibly important ingredient in the Mexican pantry; this oldest of old world staples has become as essential to the Mexican diet as it is in Asia, Africa and much of the rest of the globe. Like many of the ingredients introduced by Europeans and later waves of immigrants to Mexico. it has been welcomed with open arms, combined with the native ingredients of the Americas, and become something all its own - from Mexican rice recipes to soups, which include this grain, Mexican food, is a distinct cuisine unto itself and rice has been a big part of its development.

If you would like to know more about Mexican food or learn how to making authentic Mexican recipes, you will find lots of interesting facts, information and recipes at MexicanFoodRecipes.org as well as plenty of articles about Mexican food culture and the wonderful spices which give this cuisine its unique flavor along with interesting information like the history of enchiladas.

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Juicing vegetables is a superb way to get heart healthy nutrients. Which vegetables are best for fighting heart disease? Researchers has shown these 3 vegetables have wonderful benefits for your heart and arteries.

SPINACH

Spinach adequately supplies vitamins A and C and together these are both powerful antioxidants that protect artery walls and cholesterol from free radical damage. Cholesterol becomes sticky if it is oxidized by free radicals and will then adhere to the artery walls leading to possible blocked arteries and a heart attack.

Two minerals found abundantly in spinach are potassium and magnesium. Both these minerals are vital for your heart to beat properly and have been shown to help bring down blood pressure levels. If potassium levels fall too low in the body, a heart attack can result.

Spinach also contains the nutrient folic acid (folate). Folic acid is needed to lower the blood levels of a chemical called homocysteine. High blood levels of homocysteine is a powerful factor for the development of heart disease. If the homocysteine levels in the blood increase too much, it can cause heart desease. Folic Acid’s job is to change homocysteine into harmless molecules.

Juicer recipes idea: You will need a good amount of spinach to get enough juice. I recommend four to five cups or even more. You can also add an apple juice to sweeten. Spinach juice alone isn’t very palatable and apple also has heart healthy benefits.

BROCCOLI

Sulforaphane is an antioxidant plant chemical that is found abundantly in broccoli that can indirectly safeguard the heart from cellular damage. Research from the University of Connecticut has shown that sulforaphane some how activates a release of the protein thioredoxin into the body. It is then thioredoxin that protects the heart’s cells.

According to researchers at the University of Connecticut, thioredoxin protects the heart from cell damage.

Juicer recipes idea: Juice the florets and the stalks to get maximun nutrition benefits. Also the stalk contains more juice than the florets.

TOMATOES

Lycopene is the amazing phytochemical that makes tomatoes so heart healthy. Lycopene is also the pigment that gives tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables their red coloring. Many studies have shown lycopene to considerably reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, lower blood pressure and protect the arteries from cellular damage. One study conducted at Harvard proved that giving women lycopene every day for 5 years, decreased their risk of heart disease in half!

Juicer recipes idea: You can make soups or salsa with the left over pulp.

Darren Haynes enjoys writing about health subjects and especially about food and its healing properties. Check out my juicer recipes blog Juicer Recipes

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