Hungry Insomniac: Falafel and Shawarma

As it turns out Chamsine opened a new location, conveniently (or is it?) at Queen & Sherbourne.  Not a happy corner, I swear there were blood drops all over the sidewalk at the corner across the way and I stepped in it. As we had walked down we debated what our backup plans would be if this place failed us again.

Lucky for us, they set up shop where there used to be an old Irish pub and were open. We ordered a falafel, shawarma and kebab wrap. All three with the works and I just picked out the tomatoes, it was easier that way. At first I was bummed they didn’t have fries. Until I was halfway through my second half of a wrap, and I realized it would have been way too much food. It was already too much. Unfortunately I had gone in the wrong order. I started with the kebab, it was alright. The falafel was much better. But then the shawarma, oh man! I really wish I had gone in the reverse order. Twice I wiped my face and said I was done and twice I went back for more bites of shawarma.

 

Steaking It To The Eats

I was curious to see what the new iteration of Momofuku, Kojin would have in store for us. It was no longer a price fixe menu, instead it was more of a steakhouse. I had a vague notion of it being a steakhouse but I moreso remembered it just focusing on Ontario meats. Good thing we ordered the steak because when Brent went back and checked his notes he saw that it was indeed known as a steakhouse.

To start we ordered the corn flatbread because the server said they were known for it and served it in all the Momofuku restaurants. She didn’t really need to sell it on me, as I was already convinced: spiced honey sounded so good. Brent also ordered the fire-smoked beet salad because it had savoy cabbage in it, one of the 1001 foods. I picked out a few pieces of cabbage, it was alright. But he mostly on his own with this one. Beets taste like dirt to me.

For our mains Brent had the butcher’s steak because we were told that all the other steak options were meant for sharing and were large. Curiously it was the only one without a size listed and the steak Brent got was tiny by steakhouse standards. It does explain the low price tag though. I had the pork chop except the only accouterments were onions. I mean yes they added a nice flavour but I didn’t want to eat them. The pork chop itself was weird. Some bites were good. Some were super fatty and chewy. Some were tasteless. Overall it was a tough piece of meat and even the steak proved easier to cut.

For dessert we split an order of the peanut butter cake because it was served with hokey-poke ice cream (vanilla ice cream with bits of something similar to sponge toffee). It was just vanilla ice cream with barely a discernible hokey-poke. The cake itself was still warm, a nice touch but kind of mild on the flavour. I liked the mildness of the peanut butter but it needed something else still to go with it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t something I would crave.

At least the cocktails were good, further cementing my growing love affair with yuzu.

 

But First Dessert- Maybe Not

I had seen images on Instagram of a new cafe in the Distillery District that served mini donuts with different toppings. This was in the summer, eventually we got to it on my list. We wandered up and down the lane-way, did we have the address wrong? We looked at the legend map. I looked at my phone. We were in the right place, had we just walked right by it? After some more searching, we found a post on their Instagram that they were closing up shop and would reopen in the west end in 2020. Could’ve put that on the website. I was browsing the menu, salivating over the idea of mini donuts with salted caramel and chocolate.

At least dinner was nearby. I had seen Sukhothai on a list of essential Toronto eateries and they were known for their padthai. I remember not being a fan of either thai food or padthai. It’s the coconut milk I don’t like. Or so I thought. We started with an order of the chicken satay skewers and wouldn’t you know it, they were delicious! They were coated in coconut milk and that made them so much better. I had the cashew shrimps and Brent had the padthai. He got his spicy I got mine regular. Even still it was kind of on the spicy side, but in a good way. We traded halfway and I quickly figured out that the padthai was better if you avoided the boiled beef.

It was amazing how many people came in to pick-up to-go orders during the course of our dinner. When we weren’t commenting on that, we eavesdropped on the second date two tables over. It was awkward and I disliked them both. It was also of note that last year around the same time we had eaten next door at Aviary brewpub BUT this year it was our second outing of the year. We should have planned better.

With that we had our new first place winner. (Last year we decided Actinolite was number one- no contest).

 

New Year, New Fooding

The new year of fooding started out with a debate about what exactly a panini is. I thought it had to be grilled/pressed. Turns out it just means sandwich. We had gotten one of each at Forno Cultura. What I thought was lotsa cheese turned out to be egg in my rosemary flatbread with meat. There was still cheese in there, but not nearly as much as I had been expecting. I only had a few bites of Brent’s sandwich and promptly handed it back to him. It was alright but I preferred the warm flat sandwich versus the sub.  It was nothing I would crave or go back for, especially given how hard it was to find in the underground PATH. At least our first stop had been to Dineen Coffee, voted best cafe. It was packed which makes sense given the accolades. We each had a latte, and easily it was the best vanilla latte I’ve ever had, so creamy and smooth and not overly sweet.

For dessert we went to Butter Bakers in search of the city’s best danish. Did they deliver? Yup. Bonus points for the small size, and mega-bonus points for the fresh fruit and custard combo (versus the usual fruits in sweet sticky jam that gets all over everything). The only let-down was the chocolate crinkle cookie that was just too dense and hard for my liking.