Snack Bar Mississauga
Snack Bar Mississauga
Fantastic Bistro
For 2 years the Taste of Italy run by Emanuel and Maria Messina was a food place revered by the vendors of the Fantastic Flea Market, regular customers and curious visitors. The restaurant offered different kinds of sandwiches such as chicken breast, sausages meatball and your regular hamburger. If you were really hungry and had enough space in your stomach, the larger dinner plate could solve the problem. You can buy coffee pop or juice for around $1-2 each. You could get in the dinner plate (with rice) and with various side dishes chicken breast, sausages, meatball and hamburger. Every week there was always a special such as veal, stuffed red peppers and yes lasagna.
Around 2-3 every Saturday afternoon Emanuel and Maria prepared and cut by hand potato wedges. They are similar to French Fries that you buy in the store, but much thicker. The wedges are either dipped (in beef sauce) or baked first in the oven with the sauce applied later. It was and still is such a favourite of the flea market that Emanuel would see as many of the vendors (after Maria put the wedges in the oven) and asked if they wanted to order potato wedges. Many of the vendors would pre pay for their order. By the time it was ready around 3pm, if you wanted an order, better be fast or it would be gone in an hour.
As you may well know, “All Good Things come to an End” or Do They? Around early April of 2013 Emanuel and Maria informed Mr. David Lansdell, owner of the Fantastic Flea Market that they intended to retire from cooking at Taste of Italy after 2 years. Vera Brough? a former vendor at the Dixie/401 Flea Market signed with Fantastic Flea Market and ran a booth that offered Soft Laser MIR6 and Micro Current therapy from January 2013 to April 2013. Mr Lansdell, aware of the fact that Vera had a kitchen business at the Dixie/401 Flea Market asked her if she was interested in taking over the business from the Messina’s. She agreed and the torch was now being passed over to a new owner.
From April 15-30, 2013, Vera and her friends and family worked tirelessly some times 12 hours per day rebuilding and modifying the former facilities of the Taste of Italy. The restaurant was painted, new equipment was built and lots of supplies were purchased. On Saturday May 3, 2013 The Fantastic Bistro was opened.
The menu of the new restaurant is a mix of the old and the new. The Fantastic Bistro still offers Hamburgers and Cheese burgers and the delicious potato wedges, but it now offers hotdogs. You can still get your coffee and pop at a reasonable price. The only thing that has been added to the beverage choice line up are apple and orange juice.What is new on the menu is a hot breakfast which is served around 8am every Saturday and Sunday till 12:00pm. The addition of salads is a move towards satisfying consumer demands for healthy meals. This pressure is being felt severely by fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s. The Fantastic Bistro now offers three kinds of salads. They are: fresh tossed garden salad; Caesar salad and Greek salad.
The Bistro is introducing more tasty and delicious foods such as soup, tuna salad , egg salad sandwich and crab meat salad. If you fancy something more European you can order a cappuccino or get a crep. If you crave more traditional deserts you can grab an apple pie and ice cream.
Vera is planning to add more food from her home land of Czech Republic in the near future such as Veal with potatoes, Veal Parmesan and Goulash or the finger sandwich.
Overall Fantastic Bistro ran for about 6 months. The owner Vera had to leave the business for personal reasons. Fantastic Bistro was taken over by a new vendor and was reopened on October 5, 2013 as Fantastic Snacks.
Fantastic Snacks
The owners of Fantastic Snacks a Father and son team who emigrated from Brazil to Canada around 1970 made a complete change to the menu. First the business was restructured to function as a snack bar. This means that it offered a somewhat fast food menu. So if you were in a hurry you could get steamed hot dogs (a chicken & pork mix), hamburgers, debrezini (mild polish sausage), grilled chicken sandwich, Bacon-Lettuce and tomato sandwich and a meatball submarine. All meals come with a free pop.
The next set of foods on the menu had a mix of Canadian and ethinic styles. If you wanted West Indian style food, Fantastic Snacks offered spicy Jamaician patties for $4 plus a free pop. If you wanted French fries by itself, it was the same price with a free pop. You could have it as a side dish for $3.
Next on the menu was food that had an Italian style, but with one specific difference. Most of the foods on this menu was GMO (Genetically Modified Organic) Free and/or from organic Canadian/Ontario farms with multiple options.First you can get your traditional pasta with meatballs or get the vegetarian option of pasta with steamed vegetables. Alternately you can get the Polish Sausage with mashed potatoes and vegetables with with tomato sauce. If you don’t want or like meat, you can have the pasta by itself with Parmesan cheese. If you are really hungry you can get the pasta with meatballs with vegetables on top.
If you don’t want to have heavy food with meat we have salads as an alternative. Fantastic Snacks offers two different kinds of salads, Garden and Greek salads. The garden salad consists of lettuce, purple onions (optional), tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers and orange peppers and cucumbers. Your choice of salad dressing could range from ranch, French, Catalina, Italian and balsamic vinegar. The Greek salad has all the same ingredients as the garden salad except that olives and feta cheese is added. Finally we add 11/2 tablespoons of Greek salad dressing plus black pepper and a dash of salt. If you want to spruce up your Greek salad with meat you can add grilled chicken breast or sliced Polish sausage.
We can also do special request such as, toast on brown ranch bread, grilled cheese sandwich or a vegetarian stlye consisting of melted cheese on one side topped up with tomatoes, cucumbers onions and lettuce and cut in half.
One of the greatest advantages of a snack bar in Mississauga is the variety of beverages to quench your thirst or put a little energy in your body to shop for great products at fantastic prices at the Fantastic Fleamarket. We have your traditional Coke-a-Cola, Diet Coke, Pepsi and diet Pepsi
So do all Good Things come to an End? That depends on your view point. If you were used to the food offered by the Taste of Italy, the pace of change will be somewhat difficult. If you have an open mind then it probably did not end, its only different, and a lot better with much more choices than you can think of .
VISIT FANTASTIC SNACKS AT THE FANTASTIC FLEA MARKET AND HAVE A MEAL AND OR REFRESHMENT DURING YOUR TREASURE HUNT FOR BARGAINS, DEALS AND COLLECTIBLES
As the only Snack Bar at the Fantastic Flea Market, Fantastic Snacks is not only a place to eat, but acts as a catalyst to bring and entertain visitors to provide a pleasant shopping experience.
Fantastic Snacks offers the following MENU
FANTASTIC SNACKS MENU
WE NOW HAVE ICE CREAM!!! DID YOU HEAR THAT ICE CREAM!!!!!
REGULAR MENU
1. Two Hot Dogs and a FREE Pop
2. ANGUS Hamburger/Double Hamburger and a FREE Pop
3. Cheeseburger and a Free Pop
4. Hot Sausage on A Bun and a Free Pop
5. Mild Sausage on a Bun and a Free Pop
6. Meatball Sandwich on a Bun with a FREE Pop
7. Soup Special: Choice of Chicken Noodle, Pea or Minestrone
8. Gourmet Hotdog
9. Meal Deal: Choice of-
6 Meatballs
Hot or Mild Sausage with mashed potatoes or vegetables
7. Greek Salad/Garden Salad
8. Sliced Chicken on Greek Salad
9.Grilled Chicken Sandwich
With mashed potatoes and steamed Vegetables (fresh and all natural)
10. Penne Rigate pasta with 6 meatballs
11. We now have FRENCH FRIES
12 TWO JAMACIAN BEEF PATTIES AND a DRINK
From time to time Fantastic Snacks tries to introduce variety in is menu list. This week it is offering mashed potatoes with sausage or meatballs with a choice of tomato sauce or beef sauce with a free pop and water.
So if you are shopping in the Dixie Mall and decide to visit the Fantastic Flea Market, look at the wall adjacent the door and check out the menu of Fantastic Snacks. It has fresh, great tasting food with an interesting selection that you may not find at the food court and at prices that won’t break your wallet. Check out OUR VIDEO:
WE ARE ONE OF THE OLDEST FLEA MARKET IN THE GTA GOING AS FAR BACK TO 1976!!
THE FANTASTIC FLEA MARKET HAS 100 SHOPS LOCATED AT THE LOWER LEVEL-DIXIE OUTLET MALL !!!
Please visit https://www.fantasticfleamarket.com and Mississauga-Fleamarket.net/
We are located at 1250 South Service Road, Dixie Outlet Mall-Lower Level Mississauga Ontario,L5E 1V4