I Feel Like 🐔 Tonight

Having recently had Chick-Fil-A after it opened in Toronto (we had tried it before but we still had to go) I was keen on finally having the chicken sandwich from PG Clucks, still the best chicken sandwich in Toronto according to BlogTO. I had to go while the memory was still fresh.

Thankfully the location next to and serving Birreria Volo was still open. It had been ages since we’d been there. Plus Cantillon’s Zwanze Day had just passed the previous week- maybe they’d have some different Cantillon brews on tap?

I was drooling just thinking about the honey and jalapeno sandwich. Luckily I didn’t drool into my cherry cola sour beer. It was so good, it had all the right flavours. For my second I had a cider from Revel that I first had to confirm I didn’t buy. It had plums and elderflowers. Brent had the Nashville hot chicken sandwich, the coleslaw was good but by the time I got my half it had turned into a soppy mess. And the honey jalapeno one was a thousand times better. And certainly way better than Chick-Fil-A. Quite the debate ensued on the walk home. Firstly, where to place it in our rankings. It slowly inched its way to the top tier. But that was where we parted ways, hands-down I would eat that honey jalapeno sandwich over anything from Chick-Fil-A everyday. Even now, a few days later, I am already sort of craving it. It was that good, just oozing with honey.

🐔🐔🐔

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Poke? Nope!

I can safely say: I am still not a fan of poke bowls. This time around it was better, but I am still not a convert. North Poke was in Kensington and on the way there I scoped out a shop that might have Thai iced tea mix (I was on a mission to find it, having found out about a cookie recipe- it is impossible for me to turn down a cookie recipe).

Each part of the meal was good, it’s just that it’s a taste/texture…food… that I quickly tire of. I gave up on it, not full but just over it. Something about the heavily-sauced marinated fish, it soon started getting to me, threatening me with a stomachache. I did like the addition of the taro chips and they provided some respite, as did the seaweed but in the end I gave up. In retrospect I should have gotten a snack size BUT I went in there for dinner, so it wouldn’t have been enough. Live and learn.

At Ding Dong Exotic Sweet they didn’t have the tea mix but we did get a Japanese Coke, matcha green tea ice cream Oreos, mango Kit Kat and most importantly: freeze-dried Durian. Which we have yet to open. I’m a little scared. We also had fried eel Lay’s (which taste like what they promise which is actually not a good chip flavour) and beef sauce flavoured Lay’s- ditto.  The name of the store reminded Brent of a bakery of the same name, which happened to be just up the street.

Ding Dong Bakery had been voted best Chinese bakery and I could see why. Very efficient system of trays and checkout and so damn cheap. Things started out great, the almond cookie was not too sweet and had an odd dry texture that somehow really worked. The pineapple bun was delicious. The red bean sesame ball was barely alright. From there things went downhill. The egg tart, recommended was awful. The taro item was awful. The worst one by far was the winter-melon bun. I expected something like a fruit danish, not a dense bun tasting of flour.

One day we will open the Durian.

 

Why I Never…

I have never been a big fan of fish & chips (even now as I write this, after having listened to How Fish & Chips Works from SYSK). Kingsway Fish & Chips was on the list of essential Toronto restaurants for tourists to visit. Which makes no sense given its location at Royal York and Bloor. But who am I to question a best-of list? And who am I to question possibly the best fish & chips, based solely on geography?

Bonus points for it being conveniently on the way home from work. I cannot believe how many times I walked right by the place in the past. We ordered fish tacos to start. I was expecting little tiny tacos not these giant behemoths. They were topped with the house coleslaw which was every bit as good as I had been led to believe. Oh man the tacos were good, with breaded and deep-fried haddock. Eating it we realized that it was the same fish as would be in my main. I had ordered a fish & shrimps & chips. Brent had the steak & kidney pie. I am still not a fan of meat pies. I’m barely even a fan of regular pies, often only eating pecan/sugar pies.The fish was so good. I was thoroughly impressed, it almost made me a fan of fish & chips, hence my initially very high ranking of the place. It was only after some debate and remembering past meals that it got bumped down a few notches. It was good fish & chips BUT compared to some other meals we’ve had it ranked around the middle.

I would happily go back for more fish & chips and coleslaw. The fries, while really good and tasting of the beef fat they were fried in, were a bit much. I also accidentally dipped one in marinara sauce, mistaking it for ketchup.

 

Bye-Bymark

I didn’t expect that around #19 on a top 100 list I would be seriously considering if it was worth it to continue making our way down the list. Bymark wasn’t terrible by any means but I kind of had higher expectations for it. Until I remembered taht we had previously eaten at a McEwan joint in Yorkville and my short review was: too much butter. I don’t get why it was so subpar given how good the hot table at the McEwan grocery store is.
We split an order of the house made focaccia bread and an order of the calamari and octopus. She warned us that they had recently updated taht dish and it now had shishito peppers. I was thrilled! Shishito peppers are so good! She was legit surprised that I even knew what they were. The bread was so good. The seafood had absorbed some flavour from the peppers. My cocktail had gin and cucumber in it, so I could claim it was mildly restorative as I got over my cold and allergies double-combo.

Brent ordered the burger (that the article assured, was worth the price). I had the (what was once 72-hours sous vide but was now braised) beef short ribs with chimichurri. It was a bit salty for my liking and reliant on the chimichurri to be a good dish. The meat itself was soft and fell apart and so juicy but just the littlest bit too salty. I also don’t get why the meat mains didn’t come with sides. It was an enormous portion and a side would have been nice (along with it being a smaller portion). Drink number two was just as good, cherry liqueur might be one of my new favourites.

We didn’t stick around for dessert (even though we were given a menu after settling the bill). For one, I was pretty full but also I was not really tempted by anything on the menu. Plus there’s always Bulk Barn on the walk home.

 

Eggs Eh?

I am not a huge fan of breakfast sandwiches. I find they are usually too big and unruly and eggs, I am still kind of meh on eggs overall (except in cakes). But the sandwiches at Egg Bae looked pretty good. I definitely approved of the cheese. I was a bit confused as to what “soft scrambled” meant. Did that mean there would be egg yolk running with every bite?? We ordered one Egg Bae (could be argued it’s the original?) and one Bae Sic. I was not a fan of the second one, the pork belly sausage just wasn’t to my liking. My sandwich was alright. It was a sloppy mess and hard to eat. The bun was good, the cheese was good, the sauce (what little I had of it) was good. As far as an egg breakfast sandwich goes, it was decent. BUT I was not a huge fan of breakfast egg sandwiches to begin with. And Egg Bae did not sway me (unlike Porchetta & Co., which is an epic egg sandwich and still the best in the city in my opinion). The hash brown was also good, given I don’t like hash browns, I almost liked this one. It reminded me of a potato pancake but breaded. Honestly, I would rather have had a potato pancake.

 

Blech

It is kind of surprising that I had never eaten at Terroni. It is one of the few restaurants that I remember being part of the downtown Queen West walk and it has just always been there. It was on a list of top restaurants for Toronto tourists to eat at, and so ti was on my list of places to eat at. There was a 50-50 shot that Brent had eaten there for a business meeting. We opted for the Adelaide location as it was the most touristy and that was the one on my list. Before Brent got there I ordered a gin & tonic. I am really coming around on the drink when made right. It was nice because at Terroni you could choose the type of gin, type of tonic and the garnish. It is how I ended up with a rose gin and elderflower tonic garnished with a cherry. It was delicious. My only complaint is they gave me an entire small bottle of tonic, so the drink got watered down as I sipped and added tonic (who is going to drink tonic on its own?! Come on!).

So far so good. We ordered a charcuterie platter, the cheese and meat option. Brent ordered a salad. I was a little weary of the salad, this place seemed a little too not-fancy to do a tiny salad. Apparently this applied to the salumi as well. I have never in my life had this kind of experience: a giant, table-consuming, platter of meat and cheese and not one word of what was displayed. It was placed in silence. Be that as it may, the soft cheese was some of the best cheese I’ve ever had. No clue what it was though. It was way more food than we’d been expecting. This kind of worked out for the best.

Brent had ordered a pizza. It was delicious. So I ate some more. I was hungry. Why didn’t I eat my pasta dish you ask? It was terrrible. Godawful. Horrible. I was expecting tomato sauce and sliced sausage. Not dry-ish noodles and blobs of ground beef. A housemade spicy sausage sounds delicious. Ground beef not so much. The bites of pasta with mushroom were somewhat OK. But it was just so awful. What about the parmesan you ask? It was piled in a corner of the plate under everything. WHO DOES THAT?! Cheese goes on top! Given the quality I did not even want to touch what was probably just “parmesan” anyways.

This went down as one of our worst meals of all time. Which is too bad given the pizza was really good. What the f*ck?

 

On The Fence

Number 10 on Toronto Life’s Top 100 Restaurant was Quetzal. We had some idea of what to expect, as this was a new restaurant from the people behind Bar Isabel and and Bar Raval. I was a little bit hesitant, I was not impressed with Bar Isabel but I loved Bar Raval. As soon as I walked in I was wrapped in the smell of the giant woodfired oven in the open kitchen. This was going to be a good dinner. My outlook only improved after ordering a cactus-rose cider from 101 Cider House. I was torn between it and the rhubarb-infused gin feature cocktail. But that could be my second. Brent arrived soon after my drink and immediately pointed out the Revel cider I had missed at the bottom of the features menu. It looked like this was going to be a three-drink dinner. No complaints here (that is, until that night when I couldn’t sleep because my head was pounding).

Brent had his eye on three different starters: a chicken empanada, a citrus salad or something with a veggie in it. I had a very biased opinion on which he should get. I was worried though, the empanada sounded like it would be too much, but the waiter confirmed it was a fine starter. I couldn’t resist the wagyu beef skewers on the features menu. They were served together on one plate. It was the closest dish we had ever come to being a wow without being a wow. We did briefly debate if maybe it was a wow? But the fact that we had to debate it kind of answered our question. I was a fan of the beef skewers. So simple, just beef with a few large salt crystals- but so juicy and tender and just everything you want from a meat dish. The empanada with the smoked chicken, oh man it was so good. The cucumber in the salsa added a touch more but overall a great dish. The server had joked if we wanted any veggies, I just laughed. The sauces would count.

Brent ordered the steak, I had the red & green chorizos. We traded halfway. The chorizo was disappointing. The green one had a great seasoning but it kind of crumbled and fell apart as I was eating it and it was a bit dry. Both were. They greatly relied on the accompanying salsa. The steak was amazing, it came with the same salsa on the side but I preferred the chimichurri. I am a sucker for cilantro. The Revel cider was refreshing and borderline citrus-y but very light. It had something German in it starting with a G and going on for 12 letters. I had initially overlooked it because it just seemed like a beer item not a cider. Oops. The rhubarb cocktail won of all three, how could it not? Even though I now blame the gin for my headache (this morning I had mistakenly blamed the cider).

In the end though it was a lot of meat. I needed some non-meat. Thank god for dessert menus. How do you say no to a spiced mexican chocolate sorbet with passionfruit and pink peppercorns? It turns out that when they say sorbet they meant mousse/pudding. The passionfruit was weird, it was mushy and did not go with the dish at all. I scooped it off the side making the dish much better.

Half the walk home was spent debating where into the rankings it would fit. The next day I went to put on the same dress and I found it smelling woodfired stove- not in a bad way.