dubchild's Profile
Bristol Yard
I didn't actually have a pie. They had five or six pies listed on the chalkboard for take out (steak and ale, chicken, some sort of curry etc.), but the display case was empty. They also had a sticky toffee pudding listed which was available for the evening only. I had the Glasgow which is a sausage patty, a poached egg in a biscuit sort of bread and the whole thing on gravy. We stopped by because we shop at Fiesta Farms.
ISO Hing (asafoetida) pure???
I bought some a long time ago at that spice store in Kensington market on Augusta. I can't say if it was pure or not. Just a lead.
Bristol Yard
In Toronto Life it is listed as a British style cafe providing working-class food for working-class people and it's exactly that. We were by around noon, maybe the menu changes at night, but mostly egg based dishes were offered. They offer take away pies for $5 and that's probably their strong point. They seem interested in honestly presenting "working-class food" rather than trying to elevate it into something special. At least they don't thicken their gravy with corn starch. Queen and Beaver is more of a "gastro" take on the genre. Given the low prices (how much can you really charge for beans on toast?), the lack of pretension, and that some care goes into the preparation, I don't feel I can knock them. If I lived in the neighbourhood and they worked on getting a liquor licence, then maybe I would occasionally drop by for a Guiness and pie, because that's what I feel like eating sometimes.
Actinolite - new spot on Ossington north
I had heard and read positive things about Actinolite and we were glad we tried it. The room feels open with decent spacing between the tables. The menu consists of 5 apps and 5 mains. With the exception of Lorenzo Loseto, Susur's best known alumni: Jason Carter, Dustin Gallagher and now Justin Cournoyer, have moved away from fusion towards classic pairings. We started with the pork shoulder and ham salad. The pork shoulder was cider glazed with beets and hazelnuts, the ham salad was smoked Tamsworth with artichokes, pickles and a gribiche sauce. Both dishes were excellent in that all the flavours were in balance, properly seasoned, showcased a variety of textures, and composed of just the right amount of elements.
For mains we had the ricotta mushroom ravioli and the grilled lamb. Both dishes came out hot and showed similar finesse as in the apps. I wished the ravioli had a stronger mushroom flavour and the lamb sofrito was good enough to steal the focus of the dish, but otherwise still excellent dishes.
Only two desserts but both were excellent, one chocolate the other strawberry with rhubarb. Both had homemade ice-cream. We both felt portions throughout the meal were appropriate, we left full and satisfied rather than heavy and stuffed. Much like the food, there were no missteps in service. At first I thought they were over staffed until I saw how it filled up at 8pm.
Despite the small wine list with a couple of reds and whites by the glass, we managed to find excellent pairings for each course. Two apps, two mains, two desserts and six glasses of wine totalled $167 with tax. Well worth going across town for.
High end dinner for executives
Has anyone been to Lucien lately? I walk by on a Saturday night around 9pm a couple of weeks ago and the wait staff was sitting around because the place was empty.
Bloor Street Diner - Voted BEST FRENCH BISTRO for 2012
I must have been writing my post while you were posting yours.
Bloor Street Diner - Voted BEST FRENCH BISTRO for 2012
Was it the spring rolls, quesadilla, veal parmesan, or the lamb curry that you thought made them the BEST FRENCH BISTRO?
Origin: restaurant review - Cool vibe, tasty food but schizophrenic menu
The chef mentioned in some article that the name Origin referred to his background working in various types of restaurants, asian, italian, latin american etc.. So that all over the world is very much deliberate. Others have made this criticism, I think it was Pataki, that there was a problem with having so many different styles. I still don't get that, after all you did the ordering. If fish and cheese don't go together, then don't order them. If you weren't aware that the dishes would come out as they were ready, which seems to be the case with all our tapas bars, then that's a different story.
Burgers in Toronto
Reading the comments on the link are interesting. Obviously there will be some disagreement with which is really the best and many will complain that so and so was left off the list. All in all I agree with many of the choices. I would have like Fanny Chadwick's to have made the list and I consider lamb burgers a separate category with Le Select's being the best, mind you, I haven't tried Blue Plate's. I guess I have some homework to do.
Rubino Brothers
I believe Ame is still open and that is in conjunction with the Rubinos. They will also be opening Acer at the airport. Granted they had Zoom which saw talents like Claudio Aprile and Lorenzo Lossetto, but since then they seemed more interested in developing themselves as TV personalities or musicians. What I'm getting at is, does anyone care about their cooking anymore? I haven't eaten their food, or Lorenzo's more precisely, since Zoom and I had only been to Rain for drinks.
Critique my "must try" list for Toronto!
Queen and Beaver is a gastropub with a decent burger.
Origin - review
For the amount you spent, you could almost get a private room somewhere else. Just curious, what time did your party arrive and were you told there was a time limit on the table?
Need a foodie friendly "lux dive"
4 of us did Folia grill about a year ago. The food was excellent, we had more than we could eat, two of us had a beer each, and the bill was about $15 pp. it feels like a take out spot, but one can still sit and enjoy.
Harbord Room
We were just there. Can't speak for the whole menu, but the burger is still, in my mind, the best in the city, Nota Bene's is a very close second. Desserts were competent, drinks good, service friendly and efficient. Their back patio is lovely, so maybe plan on going when it gets a little warmer.
Latest Charlie Burger
It sounds like some of you are excited about this dinner. I thought dinner at Atelier sucked, big time. My suggestion is before dropping the cash is to read some reviews. I can't imagine anything more painful than sitting through, my guess is, 5 hours of bad food.
Rhubarb lovers, check out Canoe's current Rhubarb tasting menu
Thanks for posting this, I agree it does look interesting. Generally rhubarb ends in desserts, but I often pair it with fish or pork. Rhubarb is also magical with riesling. I have done a black cod dish similar to the one on their menu and it worked well with riesling. My experiences with Canoe have been mixed, but I may have to check this out.
Restaurant with best desserts in Toronto/GTA
I forgot to mention one place where not only have I been consistently pleased with desserts but they have a long and well chosen dessert menu, Bymark.
Toronto Life Reviews [split thread]
I was also about to comment on that remark. It seemed a little questionable.
Restaurant with best desserts in Toronto/GTA
We love desserts and I always finish a meal with something sweet. I've been very happy with everything I've had at Frank AGO, the only exception was the apple prune turnover I had recently because they used too much cardamon, otherwise a great dessert. Steve Song, a name pastry chef, is currently at Carisma. I love his banana tart. Scaramouche has a much respected pastry chef, I forget her name. We had a dessert tasting when she was at Pangaea and I thought they were ok but not great. I've always had good desserts at Grace, others may disagree with this, but their pastry chef is Dustin's girlfriend and he has left, so I don't know if she's still there. Everything I've had from Soma is world class, but it's not really a restaurant. We had a great donut and carrot ice cream at Earth on Bloor, can't speak for all their desserts. I hope this helps a little.
Keriwa Cafe
Given the chef's experience, the positive reviews, and that it was something different from a regular bistro, namely an Aboriginal cafe, I had some expectations. We were seated and there was no place to hang our coats, or at least none that was offered or in view. The room was nice and smelled of wood smoke. Bathrooms were even nicer. My heart kind of sank when I saw the menu. Having 6 apps and 4 mains was fine for me since I was happy with the choices. 2 desserts with one of them being a molasses polenta, which may quite possibly is the best thing in the world, meant that there was really only one choice, the apple galette. Wine choices was even worse, 3 whites and 3 reds by the glass, a very limited number of bottles and only two beers. We settled on a bottle of wine, the soup, bison pemmican dumplings app, chicken main and the pork shoulder main.
The bread with the whipped pork fat was excellent. The pork fat was spiced but still managed to have some pork flavour. All the plates were well presented. The potato soup was good, a little sweet, but nothing special. My pemmican dish came with 2 dumplings in a broth, shaved carrot, pickles, pickled cabbage, and shaved bison. I like tart, sour foods but I found this dish vinegary. The problem was the broth with mustard seeds was tart and when combined with the other pickles, it was too much. I also didn't get the point of the broth, it wasn't like anything was dry and if something was you still had two quarter pieces of (Stubbs ?) pickles. The bread dumplings were tasty from the spicing but the amount of braised bison in each amounted to maybe half a teaspoon. The two thin slices of bison were fridge cold on an otherwise hot dish. Not much point in drinking wine with this type of dish.
I didn't taste the chicken dish but the amount of chicken was visibly small, maybe 3 oz. I was told the dish was fine but nothing special. The pork shoulder was a little more generous and came with sweet spiced cabbage, creamy celeriac puree, large pieces of parsley, matchstick cut apple and and walnuts. The pork was braised with molasses and lacking pork flavour. If the shoulder had been oven roasted and with crackling, it would have stood up better to the supporting elements, as such it was a little lost.
Cheese, a sorbet trio, and chocolate truffles were also available. We both settled on the apple dessert which I thought was excellent. Nicely cooked apples with a little bite left in them, flaky pastry and the right amount of cardamon. My girlfriend thought the cardamon was little too much, I obviously disagreed and it was much better balance than the apple dessert with cardamon I had at Frank AGO a week earlier.
Service was efficient and there were no awkward waits for food. A brown bag with two cinnamon buns was brought with the bill, a nice touch. The total for 2 apps, 2 mains, 2 desserts, a $55 bottle of wine and a tea was $180 before tip. Given that it was mostly misses and that the ingredients were all inexpensive, I don't really consider this a deal. I'm glad that Toronto has an Aboriginal cafe, which on paper sounds good, and granted I know nothing about Aboriginal foods, but this restaurant struck me as like any other bistro. I doubt I'll be back.
An Amazing ' Food and Riesling Pairing ' Experience at Splendido!
I'm jealous. My guess is the scallop and chestnut dishes were the best matches. What did those who attended think were the best pairings?
ISO dried French Puy Lentils in GTA....
I'm sure they should be easy to find. I bought some a while ago at Wholefoods.
Affordable tasting or prix fix menus in Toronto
Simple Bistro has an upstairs which would work well for 10, the food is great, and they offer the whole menu as a $40 prix fixe (as in chose any app, main and dessert).
Holy Chuck... Priest has nothing on this place.
No doubt this is delicious burger and I'm glad fast food is moving in this direction. But I find that eating one of these is like smoking a cigar, great fun at the time only to be regretted later. I find it so greasy and heavy that I feel dopey afterwards. I've only been once a couple of months ago, loved it, but haven't gone back and I live in the area.
Niagara Street Cafe
Given that I gave no argument for why Steve Gonzalez is more of a brand than NSC, I guess I can't fault the opposing comments for not giving an argument. My impression is that Origin received much more press than NSC and that the consensus seems to be that it was at its best when Steve was at the helm. I imagine Top Chef also helped give him more exposure. As far as I know no one from NSC was part of a TV show.
Niagara Street Cafe
Along the lines of what everyone is saying but in different words: isn't Steve Gonzalez more of a brand than NSC ever was.
Jam Cafe - Carlton & Ontario Streets
The bit on their website with Jennifer Huether about how the chef paired some dishes with wine definitely caught my interest. The pricing seems very reasonable. I would like to hear more feedback from other people on the food and if anyone has been to their wine events.
N44 - Huge rating downgrade!!
The review, I believe, you are referring to ends with the line "Overtaxed waiters struggle under the demands of high-maintenance regulars." I guess the reviewer is close enough to overhear the neighbouring tables, I hope in this day and age the regulars are not the snap your fingers types. I assume high-maintenence regulars also overtax the kitchen, which is never good for the whole dining room.
I have actually never eaten at North44, I've been to Bymark and One a few times. Bymark strikes me as the better of the two. The food is safe, crowd pleasing, consistent, expensive and in no way blazing any trails.
Many restaurants start with a vision but in the end become a business and just cater to market demands. Maybe North was once a great restaurant and the food has changed, or maybe the food hasn't changed and we've moved on. Based on a couple of lines in the review it sounds like their clients are there for reasons other than just the food.
