The Drake Hotel’s Anthony Rose dishes on the Dining Roadshow and the secret to his famous burgers

Later this month, The Drake Hotel is hitting the road but isn’t leaving its backyard. Beginning June 23, Chef Anthony Rose and his audacious posse of cooks are taking the dining room on a field trip to a mess hall and Chinatown. The “restaurant-within-a-restaurant” concept will come complete with ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles, cafeteria trays and tomato alphabet soup. In September, the restaurant will transform yet again into circa 1940s Chinatown in Los Angeles. Just in time for TIFF, The Drake Hotel will be dishing out pork belly fried rice, firecracker maple shrimp and oxtail wontons.

The devil is in the sweet details: Q&A with cake master Bonnie Gordon

Intricate, detailed and fussy. That’s how master cake artist Bonnie Gordon loves her cakes. Over the years, as a cake instructor and decorator, Gordon has paid her dues, putting in serious time with precision pastry cutters, paint brushes and her trusty turntable. Now serving as the director of the Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionary Arts, it’s Gordon’s turn to have her cake and eat it too.

On Sunday (May 15), the college will host its annual Cake Show at the Artscape Wychwood Barns in Toronto’s St. Clair and Christie Neighbourhood. The event will be a battling ground for ardent cake artists to showcase their sweet stuff in various competitions. One competition, the Cake Star Face-Off seems especially grueling – 3 contestants (accomplished cake decorators in their own right) will have 6 hours to create a cake that evokes the four seasons. For the faint of heart, another competition will feature 3 designers who will be given one hour to create a mere 6 cupcakes.

On a recent afternoon, Gordon invited OurFaves to visit the college for a behind-the-scenes peek into a real cake factory. With furrowed-browed students working carefully on their final cake projects in the background, Gordon let us in on the cake the brought her out of her self-imposed cake-making retirement, her favourite dessert (it’s not cake!) and the first baking cookbook she ever owned.

BIXI bike share program launches in Toronto

It wasn’t quite bike weather on Tuesday morning in Toronto as rain fell, puddles formed and the clouds obscured the sun. You wouldn’t know it, but a new biking revolution was brewing on Yonge and Gould Streets. BIXI has rolled into town and today marked the launch of its bike sharing program. With 300 shiny new black bikes lined up neatly in their docking stations, it’s going to get a lot easier for Torontonians to hop on a bike and take a tour of their city.

Q&A: Illustrator Jack Dylan preps for the Drake Spring Market

Hailing from Montreal but now happily entrenched in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood, Jack Dylan is an illustrator whose work has graced the pages of Toronto Life, The Walrus, Maclean’s and The Globe and Mail. Best known for poster art reminiscent of what you’ll find on the cover of The New Yorker on any given week, Dylan’s wares are on display this weekend at the annual Outdoor Drake Spring Market. Alongside handmade jewellery, one-of-a-kind art pieces and vintage furniture, Dylan’s posters depicting the Trinity Bellwood’s gate and a Mount Royal beach scene are up for grabs.

If you’ve ever wondered what went on inside the head of a talented illustrator with a penchant for podcasts and sandwiches, look no further. We cornered the busy artist recently and asked him about the most scathing criticism he’s ever gotten and his favourite place in the city to put pencil to paper.

A few of iYellow Wine School’s Angela Aiello’s favourite things (ie. Riesling)

Angela Aiello, founder of the Toronto-based iYellow Wine School inadvertently practices what she preaches. Throughout the year, Aiello can be found standing with a wine glass in hand leading a class on how to to appreciate a fine sparkling wine (among other varieties). The fizzy wine is bubbly, refreshing and focused, she might say. But so too is the teacher. It all started in 1998 when Aiello popped open a bottle of Vineland Estates riesling after work at the winery. “I just turned 18,” Aiello told OurFaves. “I brought it home from the winery and I had to push the cork into the bottle. I definitely remember that memory a lot.”

What was meant to be a summer job slowly turned into a career. In 2006, Aiello inaugurated iYellow Wine School. Since then, more than 6,000 people have sipped and sniffed reds, whites and sparklings with Aiello. Recently, OurFaves hitched a ride with Aiello as she toured a bus load of iYellow Wine Clubbers around Niagara-on-the-Lake. There was wine, there was cheese and there was a singing bus driver.

After the tour (and a new appreciation for all things riesling), we sat Aiello down and made her tell us about a few of her favourite wine things…

Nikki Sixx on iPhones, motorcycles and dealing with demons

Nikki Sixx on iPhones, motorcycles and dealing with demons. #CMW http://ow.ly/4c2h2

The Verge Music Awards touch down in Toronto

Hannah Georgas has performed at Lilith Fair, wrote a jingle for a Walmart commerical and has received props from Taylor Swift. But last night, she had to make sure she brought her mom’s car home at a decent hour. Georgas was one of three rising Canadian indie acts feted on Tuesday night at the annual Verge Music Awards. The show, presented by XM Canada and held at The Mod Club in Toronto, celebrated Canadian music talent in three categories: Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year.