Toronto's heady food-fest is Hot & Spicy all weekend long at Harbourfront Centre

World Routes summer festival series serves up the 9th installment of Toronto's renowned and uniquely entertaining Hot & Spicy Food Festival. The '06 version welcomes our newest neighbour and lead sponsor - Sobeys, and presents more food than ever culminating in what has fast become one of the hottest annual free events of the summer season - The Hot & Spicy IRON CHEF Competition: The Toronto Neighbourhood Challenge!

Sobeys' Hot & Spicy Food Festival runs Friday, August 11 -- Sunday, August 13 and offers 24 food vendors, 20 cooking demos, 6 music concerts, 5 dance performances, 6 films, 2 performance art shows and 2 make and take projects for the kids and our International Market Place.

Musical concerts this year feature a stellar combination of world-renown, award-winning artists including Nino Moschello, NOMO, Britain's alternative State of Bengal, presented by Tilleys Endurables Cameroon, Muna Mingole and France's noJazz as part of our Pepsi Concert series. Besharam burns hot at Late Night NOW presented by Brahama .

Great music, along with gastronomically inspired films, dance, spiced-up performance comedy and a forum and photo exhibit on world food issues co-presented with ACT for the Earth and FoodShare Toronto. This is a chance for the public to experience the cultural aspect of food in ways not presented at other festivals. The Power of Place is Harbourfront Centre -- discovering the power of food and culture. Admission is Free.

Food-lovers and those who love to cook get up-close, learning the tricks of the trade from celebrity chefs as they fire up their grills. Chopping, stirring and shaking things up, this year's chefs offer over 15 unique recipes through demos, tastings and Q&A play! Highly popular with festival-goers, the cooking demos take place all three days on our Ann Tindal Lawn and in Lakeside Terrace and the Brigantine Tent. Demo food samples are $2 with tickets sold at each demonstration venue. Public information is available at 416-973-4000 or www.harbourfrontcentre.com/wr

A recent, new hot & Spicy addition (year 3) and extremely popular event, The Iron Chef Competition goes live, onstage in the Brigantine Room as our panel of food experts provide play by play commentary over two showdowns while judging who will be crowned as Sobeys' Hot and Spicy Iron Chef 2006. The Iron Chef theme this year is The Toronto Neighbourhood Challenge with chef representing the four corners of the GTA. Saturday sees semi-finals as North takes on South and later East competes against West with the final closing out the festival. (see event listings).

FOOD FEATURES:
Demonstrations include: Flaming Flambés, Caribbean-Thai Curry, Masala Girl spices, Firey Gazpacho, Hot sauce recipes, using Hot Pepper sauces, Jamie Kennedy's kitchen recipes, Ayurderic Indian Vegetarian cooking, Lime pickles, Curry Devil - a Straits Chinese dish, Sobey's chef recipe, Aussie-style Laksa and, New Orleans favourites.

Red Hot Market will be returning as a place for the public to sample and purchase an eclectic variety of spices, sauces, marinades and dips - all with that hot and spicy flair.

Harbourfront Centre's World Café is proud to bring diverse and delicious cuisine from around the world, from chefs established throughout the GTA! We've tasted and tested hundreds of dishes so that you can get the best international treats. Every weekend, visitors have a chance to try food from different regions - examples include Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, South Asia, the West Indies, as well fusion cuisine. Red Hot Market and World Café listings follow.