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Prior to the global pandemic, one of the perks of living or working in the City of Toronto was its endless supply of culturally diverse restaurant offerings. Torontonians could find any kind of cuisine, from traditional steakhouses and recognizable food chains to small independent specialty or fusion, family-operated businesses. Now, with limited indoor seating due to current restrictions, and limited menu options to accommodate the decline in business, the people of the city have had to find another way to discover new meals. 

Meal Kits on the rise

The meal kit delivery industry is growing at a rapid pace. With a wide variety of companies hopping on this new way to cook, city consumers have a plethora of options when it comes to ordering a pre-portioned, ready-to-make meal kit. There are a number of prominent brands that have existed in this space for a while and offer a robust selection of recipes, including HelloFresh, GoodFood, and Chef’s Plate. These larger, more established brands continue to service the City of Toronto, but now the city is seeing some smaller organizations emerge targeting niche audiences. Some examples of smaller, more targeted meal kit delivery options that can be found in Toronto include; Power Kitchen, whose focus is on consumers that need help building a meal plan to accompany a new or ongoing health and fitness journey, Mama Earth Organics, a company that promotes sustainability and offers an option of local-only products for a few of their pre-composed baskets, and Porta who sells authentic Italian meals and desserts. The competition continues to grow with new meal kit delivery brands emerging, and restaurants starting to join the meal kit game as well. 

Independent restaurants have begun to expand their offerings

The restaurant industry is undoubtedly one of the main industries that have had to rework how they do business amidst the global pandemic. Although takeout is still a viable option, a number of businesses have seen the merit in adding meal kits to their menus and have adapted some of their popular in-house menu items into this new form of food delivery. For instance, the popular casual dining chain, Earls, offers a variety of meal kits for two that can be ordered from their locations directly, or through a food delivery service like UberEats or SkipTheDishes. These kits come with all the portioned ingredients you need to replicate a restaurant favourite at home, and even have instructional walk-through videos that you can reference while you cook. Rustle & Still Cafe is another example of a business that hopped onto the meal kit train. This small, independent cafe bar is known for their Asian-inspired drinks and Vietnamese bites, and are now offering Banh Mi kits for 2-4 people. These kits includes the Vietnamese buns and all the beloved toppings of a traditional Bahn Mi dish, and can be ordered through UberEats. For those looking for a way to enjoy treasured Toronto restaurant dishes, but are not sure where to look, Chefdrop is a unique organization that delivers premium meal kits prepared by popular restaurants and chefs in Toronto. Similar to the experience of ordering from a subscription-based service like HelloFresh or Chef’s Plate, consumers can order meal kits using the Chefdrop website. Accompanied by beautifully captured photos of each dish, consumers are able to see which restaurant or chef each dish comes from, the total number of servings, and the list of ingredients. 

There is something for everyone

Options for meal kit delivery continue to be on the rise in the City of Toronto, even as we slowly move closer to normalcy and restaurants begin to open back up for indoor and patio dining. With the wide variety of options, Torontonians have the opportunity to find the brand that best fits their lifestyle and cuisine interests. Alternatively, consumers in the city can also now pivot to a few local restaurants for meal kits replicating some of their favourite in-house menu items, and have these brought to their door through a food delivery service. There truly is something for everyone, regardless of your cooking skill level, dietary restrictions, or preferred cuisine, be sure to go to mealkitscanada.ca to learn more about meal kits available in Toronto.

As the hottest side in the NBA right now, pundits and fans are starting to question how far the Toronto Raptors can go this season.

It was a tough start to the campaign for the 2019 NBA Champions, who looked to be a long way off recreating their heroics of a couple of seasons ago.

However, six impressive wins on the bounce from the start of 2022 have got plenty of big names in the game believing that the Raptors could once again be one of the main sides to beat in the play-off shake up.

Currently residing in 6^th out of 15 teams in the NBA Eastern Conference, the Raptors are a side on the up and their latest win over the Charlotte Hornets exemplified their incredible scoring power.

Their first ever NBA title back two years ago captured the imagination of a generation of the whole city of Toronto and there is a real sense of expectation as a consequence surrounding Nick Nurse’s side in every season they head in to.

How far they can go this season remains to be seen, as they still have a side packed with quality and how they would love to emulate the successes of three years ago in the 2021/2022 campaign.

Currently, the Raptors sit 6^th in the NBA Eastern Conference table and with the likes of the Brooklyn Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks purring above them in the standings, it looks a tall order for the Raptors to overturn the deficit to win the league.

However, they have time on their side and decent players on their roster and stranger things have certainly happened in the history of the NBA.

A play-off finish would represent a very reasonable campaign for the Raptors, who have shown serious signs of improvement in recent games and at +145, they look a decent bet to finish in the top 8 of the Eastern Conference.

Six wins on the spin in recent games for the Raptors has certainly lifted the mood around the camp and whilst it is certainly a long shot, they are still mathematically in with a shout of winning the NBA Eastern Conference title at at bet365 Canada +2400.

The magnitude of the Toronto Raptors winning the NBA Championship title back in 2019 reverberated across American sport, as they became the first side outside of America’s borders to win a national title in any of the big 4 sports in over a decade.

Whilst sceptics say everything fell for the Raptors in 2019, their place in NBA history is etched and how they would love to go all the way once more in 2022.

Few atmospheres in the NBA are as intense as the Scotiabank Arena and they will be hoping to make that a fortress once more this term.

Going all the way and qualifying from the Eastern Conference, before battling the Western Conference sides will be top of the agenda to the Toronto Raptors this season and they are very much a dark horse in this year’s competition at +6000.

Building towards next year could well be the priority for the Raptors, who have a young squad and are now finally finding some momentum in the 2021/22 season.

It may look to be a long way off currently, but with some shrewd off-season acquisitions, the Toronto Raptors could well be battling it out at the top of the NBA Eastern Conference in 2022/23.

At +1400, bookmakers clearly feel the Raptors have more than an outside shot of dominating the East next season.

Have you found yourself stuck inside without any idea of what you could possibly do to pass the time and get rid of that agonising boredom? Not to worry, you’re most definitely not alone. Especially now that the whole world has to deal with all kinds of unforeseen quarantine restrictions and social distancing methods, many of us are facing larger amounts of time inside than we have ever needed to spend before, which is why a lot of us are ending up not knowing what we could possibly do to not end up sleeping for 20 hours a day or bingeing Netflix series unproductively for the greater part of the day. Luckily, we’ve piled up some things one could do from the comfort of their own home, to hopefully cut out some of that nasty boredom and make time feel like it’s not being wasted.

Learning a musical instrument

Music is not only a fun thing to learn, it can be massively rewarding and therapeutic, in order to help you make your daily stresses fly away. Playing a musical instrument puts you into a meditation-like state where you forget about everything and focus on just one thing, and that is the sounds you’re making. Not only can you build yourself a nice talent to show off to your friends, you could also market your own music and potentially earn some extra money playing live around bars, restaurants and other entertainment based establishments. If you want to take it another step forward, once you’ve mastered your instrument, you could even start or join a band, which could potentially change your life, if you build it with the right people.

Playing a board game 

If you come from a rather basic family household, you probably have a cupboard or unit which is filled to the brim with board games. Some are simple and easy while others are highly strategic and require a lot of thought and skill in order to win. Board games might look like a fun way to burn time straight off the bat, but what you might not know about them is the fact that they can also be very healthy exercises for the brain, and can help anyone, not just kids, grow into a better, more intellectual person. Some examples of really popular board games are Monopoly, Risk, Wheel of Fortune, Deal or No Deal, Chess, Chequers, and many more.

Playing Computer browser games

Even if you don’t have a special expensive computer which is built specifically for gaming, you can still access a plethora of online games to play for free through your internet browser. Whether you’re a fan of strategy games, puzzle games, adventure, tycoons, or even casino games, you can find all kinds of providers, such as Miniclip (for normal games) or Refuel Casino (for gambling games, as long as you are at least 18 years of age), which allow you to play their games securely and could even potentially earn you a little extra money on the side.