More Like Good Sandwich?

I knew we were in for a delicious dinner. I had first heard of Good Behaviour when they were a small popup ice cream shop last summer. Fast forward a few months and now they’re also making sandwiches? Using bread from Tre Mari bakery? Within walking distance of my house? Heck yes! It had been on my list since they opened that location. But what sealed the deal was that another pandemic pop-up, Breadhead, had finally opened up permanent digs next door. It was a done deal. 

We ordered one cold and one hot sub from Good Behaviour. Both had been featured on top lists in Toronto Life. The meatball sub was amazing, if hard to bite. Similarly the assorted cold cuts (known for the mortadella): delicious but impossible to bite. I added a pint of the bourbon vanilla pecan to my ever-growing ice cream collection (I had three pints of the new Tim Hortons ice cream already in the freezer, best to worst: salted caramel iced capp, birthday cake Timbits, chocolate donut).

Breadhead was not as impressive. The croissant was a dry let down. The pizza bagel bomb was amazing but the cream cheese one was a bit of a letdown, I preferred the bagel part and ate around the cream cheese. The pecan sticky bun was delicious and not too sweet. Glad I finally got to try it after seeing it on Instagram, BlogTO and Toronto Life.

And it goes without saying, Blood Brothers, around the corner from all this: the best damn seltzers ever. So good, I actually enjoy drinking them! Shocker! (Just get your food elsewhere- I can’t remember if I wrote about the atrocious food from the Momofuku popup at Blood Brothers back in the winter).

 

It’s Been A While…

Fooding from home is still going strong. We went out twice during the summer-autumn lull but it didn’t last long. We had dinner on the patio at Wynona as the sun was setting, munching on a plate of “gabagool” (capocollo) and talking about what we thought might happen in the Sopranos finale (I had somehow managed to go all those years sans spoilers). Fast forward to…November?! And we were sipping on drinks at Blood Brothers. We thought the food would be good, Momofuku had taken over the kitchen. It was flat out nasty bad. Some of the worst food of the year. Thank god I had packed some emergency clementines in my purse. My hands froze as I tried to eat them. Our top pick of the year for 2021? It was a no-questions asked, clear hands-down winner: Antler. No other place even came close. One stand out was Primrose Bagel, the smoked whitefish bagel sandwich is legit one of those “I could eat this regularly” and it’s close enough that maybe I might. A big disappointment, especially given how trumped up it was: Famiglia Baldassare. Womp womp. We went on a Wednesday, waited an agonizing 30 minutes in line. Agonizing because as is becoming tradition: annoying people in line! Insufferable business bro talk. The clam and pasta dish was ok but it was nowhere near as stand out as we were led to expect. The barley soup was more porridge-y and not great. I was much happier with the scoop of bourbon pecan ice cream I was munching on (in the freezing cold, mind you) from Good Behaviour around the corner. While down there we also stopped in at the Blood Brothers bottle shop. Those guys know how to make a spritzer, apparently something no one else in the world is capable of?

The new year started off groggy. One weekend we just plum forgot about fooding. Too many snacks I guess. Even though I was back at my home branch and back to my part-time position, I was working full-time hours…until suddenly I was not. (Hence the long silence). Well fuck, what now? MORE TIME FOR KITCHEN PROJECTS!! Turns out I make a mean deli rye, one to rival the best Polish bakeries? Almost. I’ve gotten better at trouble-shooting, even if it’s the next day, long after my failed attempt has been tossed in the green bin (hello bagels made with bread flour AND added vital wheat gluten, FLOP). The plan for the year was to get better at making cakes. It’s mid-February, CHECK. I found a recipe that accurately recreates super-fake-from-a-can-give-you-cavities-frosting which pretty much sealed the deal. I now like baking cakes. I just need more people to help eat them. I guess now all that is left is: expand my base cake repertoire (so far I only have chocolate, vanilla and yellow) and work on my paltry decorating skills. It’s pretty bad. But I did find small packages of rolled fondant at Bulk Barn that can up my game. Also on the horizon is a complete and well organized compendium of recipes. I’ve started, it’s just a lot of work.

Back to fooding. Our ever-growing list of restaurants to eat at has become unmanageable, just rows and rows of replied emails. At some point I got lazy about citing sources or why I wanted to eat somewhere so it got even messier. Paris Paris (not to be confused with Piano Piano) was only on my list in reference to another restaurant. It was on Toronto Life’s Top 100 though. The selection on Uber Eats was small but there were a few contenders. We ignored the fried chicken as that was technically a different restaurant. We ordered the braised beef (it seems French-ish) and the shrimps in garlic butter. SWEETMOTHEROFGOD. It’s only February but our top contender has earned that place rather than being “not as bad as the rest.” The beef arrived in a sealed ziploc bag, marinating in it’s juices and gravy, having evidently been cooked sous vide. It was fall apart tender and so so so good. The potatoes must have been cooked separately then added in? The bag resealed? Who knows. Who cares. The lemon garlic butter shrimp was equally amazing. While the portions were a little on the small side, it was incredible. 

Up next: I need to get better at making marshmallows. First round was only a semi-success. Must invest in a candy thermometer.