Basic greasy fried decent pub food. At least that's been my experience.

My apologies - I checked the menu again, and they do have a California Dream dog which is chicken and avocado, with pea shoots, tomatoes, and radish coriander cucumber jicama slaw.

It must have a pork casing though, because I asked which dogs were pork-free and was told either the Kobe Carny or the Asparagus Bun-dle.

No chicken and the veggie dog is the Asparagus Bun-dle, which I'm not sure is a proper hot dog, or just asparagus spears with toppings. I was told it tastes a lot better than it sounds! Menu says sheeps milk ricotta, smoked pepper mayo, arugula and grilled onion.

This was mentioned in the Openings thread, but since they opened today and I had lunch there, I figured I'd start something new.

Arrived around 11:45 am, and was their third customer.

I don't eat pork, so I asked which hot dogs didn't use a pork casing. My choices were the "Kobe Carny" hot dog or the "Asparagus Bun-dle". I went with the Kobe Carny, fries and a sparkling water.

The menu states that the Kobe Carny hot dog comes with Kobe beef chili , raw onions and yellow mustard. As I had a few meetings this afternoon, I asked for no raw onions.

In a word, the hot dog was delicious! The chili was amazing, and the hot dog was tasty with a nice crunch from the lamb casing.

The fries were a tiny bit undercooked, but I told them when they asked me how everything was, and they said that they would fry them a bit longer. As I said, I was their third customer, so I wasn't upset.

There were a number of people walking in when I was eating. I was gone by 12:10, so not sure how busy they got.

Bill came to just under $15 for the hot dog, fries and the water. Not cheap, but definitely worth it for the quality food.

They have a liquor licence and serve beer in bottles and on tap.

My biggest complaint is that they don't serve Diet Coke, but rather have artisanal soft drinks available. I didn't ask if any were sugar free.

It's a great addition to the neighbourhood. I've attached the hot dog menu attached as their website isn't up and running yet.

23,000 square feet of retail at grade and 45,000 square feet on the second floor (Whole Foods).

Went for dinner this past Saturday night. Wasn't impressed.

Sat down at 8:00 pm and they were reasonably busy - at least where we were sitting. Our waitress didn't show up until 8:40 pm, by which point we decided to just order drinks with dinner.

Appetizers included the Misto Wood Board, Caprese Salad, and Caponatina Crostini. The salads and crostini were bland at best, thought the Wood Board was decent.

Main courses were two pizzas (Margherita and Piccante), Spigola, Mucca Pezzata (steak) and the Pollo Scaloppine. Everything was OK - not bad, not great, and the Piccante pizza had no flavour except for the spice of the chilis. The size of Spigola was possibly the tiniest piece of fish I've ever seen.

Also had a couple of rounds of cocktails and Heineken. Had hoped for draft beer, but they don't have a list of beers and rely on the wait staff to provide the information. However, our waitress had such a thick accent, that we honestly couldn't understand what she was saying.

All of the cocktails, including martinis, were served in coupe glasses. The drinks were at maximum 2 oz, and priced between $10 and $16, we all thought that they were small for the price.

Only reason to return would be to have a beer and maybe an appetizer on the patio when the weather heats up. Definitely feels like they're trying to cater more to the Rosedale crowd than anything else.

Certainly not worth the $80 per person, without dessert.

Noticed signs for another gourmet hot dog place called "Craft Dog" in the old Pastabilites space on King Street, just west of Church Street. Looked ready to be open soon.

"what I've sampled from there was top notch"???

Wasn't this from before they opened, when they were probably trying to impress you?? How many times have you been since they starting charging for their food?

I also looked at the pictures of the samples from your review, and they bear nothing to what is actually being served (for $10!!) except for it being meat on bread with mustard.

4 months after they starting posting on Twitter, 8 days after they've opened, and on the day of their "Grand Opening", they haven't hired a meat carver????????

Makes me wonder what else they aren't doing.....

Yesterday at lunch, they had someone carving the meat near the take-out counter in full view, until just before noon. Then as they got busy, the meat disappeared, and the board and knives were wiped clean. Not sure where it was coming from afterwards.

Went today for lunch for their supposed "Grand Opening". I say supposed because there was no indication of this being any sort of event or special occasion, which is totally fine.

My friend arrived at 11:40 am to an empty restaurant and was asked to take a counter seat, even though he said there would be two of us. He had to ask for a table by the window, which they gave him.

Not sure why they were pushing the counter, though they said that they were expecting a party of 15 people, which never materialized. They had the tables set for a large group, but they quickly moved the tables back as the place got busy.

We ordered a smoked meat combo with matzo ball soup, and a corned beef combo with fries.

The waiter returned shortly and said that "there was a malfunction with the matzoh balls, so there are none available". The only other option was chicken/vegetable soup which was good but a bit salty.

The sandwiches and fries came out just as the soup was being finished. The corned beef sandwich was a mess, with lots of small bits of meat falling off the bread, though it tasted good. It was also about 2/3 the size of the smoked meat sandwich.

Unfortunately, the smoked meat was dry and tough, and cut very unevenly, which made it hard to eat without big pieces of meat coming out of the sandwich.

The fries (McDonalds style), pickles and bottled mustards were fine.

In addition, the service was to put it mildly, very amateurish. Our waiter was friendly but didn't seem very confident. I also had a view of the servery/kitchen and it was quite amusing watching the goings on. I'm sure this will improve with time.

Needless to say, the place was packed (though there didn't seem to be a line up at any time). There was also a constant stream of people coming in for take-out.

I'm sure that they will do very well, but since I don't keep kosher, I don't plan on returning. For $10, I'd much rather have a laffa (let the flaming begin!)

Definitely Carpano Antica - still can't buy it in Ontario.

$6000???? Try $60,000.

Have you tried the cheese bread (more like a log-shaped roll) that Kozlik's sells in the south market on Saturdays? It's really good.

Hold on a second - who says they're not using a taboon? According to this Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabun_oven - a taboon/tabun can be made out of metal.

I was at the south location yesterday, and while I didn't look THAT closely, I couldn't see a conveyor belt being used. All I could see was the back of the metal oven.

Lola's Kitchen sounds like it would work perfectly. They have a second floor space that could accomodate your group.

http://lolaskitchen.ca/

Opus

Leslieville Pumps!

Buster Rhinos

The Toronto District School Board offers a continuing education Indian vegetarian cooking class. $170 for 8 weeks. The Spring term began this week.

If you go to through their Twitter feed, the guy tweeted that he missed the Friends and Family night, so they invited him to come by tomorrow.

They also tweeted the following yesterday:

"Izzy and I are planning something special for all of our very patient twitter friends. Exclusive first taste to follow. Stay tuned."

I always put some of the meat back into the soup, but then I'm still left with a lot of basically boiled chicken.

Does anyone have a recipe or technique for a main course that doesn't involve shredding the meat? Is it even possible not to shred it?

And since this is for Passover, Chicken Pot Pie isn't an option.

Thanks!

Sort of surprised to find out that La Carnita is actually part of the Pegasus Group - http://pegasusgroup.ca/brands

It also makes me wonder about the comments in CNS's review from July 2012 - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/f...

Maybe they'll do something really crazy like open before Passover as being Kosher For Passover, obviously not making or serving laffa or pita until Passover is finished. Given that everything is new, shouldn't be that difficult to have a limited KFP menu for the first 3 weeks.

I heard this morning that the Bathurst St location is supposed to open this week, and that they are now looking for more locations downtown and in office buildings. Should be interesting.

Via Allegro

150 Adelaide Street West

Wow - thanks for all of the suggestions. I actually think I'm going to put a few tablespoons in a few different bowls and try out some of the ideas.

So far I've tried the smoked paprika, salt and chili flakes. Was pretty good.

So I bought a different brand of hummus than usual, and it has absolutely no taste. Instead of throwing it out, I wanted to see if anyone had suggestions on how to make it taste better.

I've already tried adding lemon juice to a little bit of but that just made it taste like lemon juice.

Thanks!

Why is this surprising at all?? A restaurant operator works hard to ensure that they have a great concept and a thriving business, and decides to cash out to let someone else own and run the business. Why do you assume that a new owner and name means that what was there before wasn't working?

Your best bet is Hawthorne Food and Drink - it's literally one block from St. Michael's.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hawthor...