restaurants – Page 15

So Long, Jerry!

Tomorrow, my neighbourhood of Parkdale loses one of its most interesting citizens.

After 19 years of standing behind a counter every day, Jerry of Jerry’s Fish and Chips will be retiring. He will chop those potatoes, and batter that fish for the very last time.

Originally from Guyana, where he left in fear because he was a political dissident, Jerry spent many years in South America before ending up in Toronto. He took over a little hole in the wall chippy previously owned by a Greek family (the sign outside still says “Mom’s Fish and Chips”), and served up fish, chips and burgers to the locals, particularly to the kids from the high school next door.

Always with a smile and a wave for everyone, Jerry has handed out more than his fair share of freebies over the years to kids who were hungry but had no money to pay. When I broke my arm a couple of years ago, I’d head up to Jerry’s almost every day for lunch. One New Year’s Eve, we walked past just before midnight and he was still in the shop cleaning (cleanest hole in the wall joint EVER!). He waved Greg and I in, and pulled a bottle of brandy from under the counter and we toasted the new year together.

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I Should Have Turned Left at Albuquerque

jacalenchilada El Jacal
1056 Bloor Street West
416-244-4447
Diner for two with all taxes, tip and soda: $60

“Hey, what’s this place?”

It’s a steaming hot Saturday afternoon, and my husband and I are standing on the sidewalk on Bloor Street, just east of Dufferin, about to have one of those relationship meltdowns provoked by a foolish misunderstanding. Our intended destination was A Touch of Convenience to try out the brunch offerings from chef Christopher James, but both of us left the house firm in the knowledge that the other knew where we were going. The husband wanted to go south on Gladstone, I was pretty sure it was north, but there was nothing in sight that looked like a convenience store, so we wandered the hot city streets in search of sustenance like so many Mexican immigrants wandering the desert on their way to the US.

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Tea for Three X Three at the Fairmont Royal York

royaltea EPIC Restaurant, Fairmont Royal York Hotel
100 Front Street West
416-860-6949
Afternoon tea service for two with all taxes and tip: $50

While I generally have a reputation with almost everyone who knows me as being a loudmouth tchoula (Spanish slang for “ballsy broad”), I’ve also got a bit of a fussy girlie side that occasionally requires doses of pink, bouquets of flowers and formal dainty things like afternoon tea.

I hadn’t been to tea at the Fairmont Royal York in almost a decade, back when it was in a little open tearoom in the west end of the hotel just outside the magnificent ballroom. The space was light and pretty, designed to evoke a Victorian garden, with trellises of flowers, a high ceiling and a little railing around the space that I always wished was a picket fence.

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Zippity Street Food

Zippie Café
1718 Queen Street West
647-723-9292
lunch for two with all taxes tip and juice (no apps): $33

In the whole debate we’ve been having in Toronto about street food, one thing seems to have been forgotten – that it should be not only delicious, but simple and easy to eat with the hands. Local chefs are looking to countries in Asia and South America for inspiration for the dishes they’ll serve at the upcoming Street Treats Fair on July 13th, but there’s one country I’ve yet to have heard mentioned, one country completely overlooked. Poland.

No doubt, readers are scratching their heads in an attempt to come up with any kind of Polish street food that isn’t kielbasa. Turns out, Polish street food has turned into café food, and a little space known as Zippie Café is turning out open-faced sandwiches known as Zippies.

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Treated Like a King at Udupi Palace

Udupi Palace
1460 Gerrard Street East
416-405-8138
Dinner (no dessert) for two with all taxes, tip and mango lassi (unlicensed): $40

Everyone who visits Little India inevitably has their favourite place to eat. Mine happens to be a chain. Yes, a chain. Udupi Palace has locations in Maryland, Illinois, Seattle, Queens and Mountain View, California to name but a few. All focus on South Indian vegetarian food, and all are located in areas with a concentrated Southeast Asian population.

The Toronto location, smack in the middle of the Gerrard India Bazaar, is a basement space that disconcertingly resembles a banquet hall. Tile floors, granite tables, and trompe l’oeil paintings on the wall combine to make the space feel somewhat cold and stark. It’s freakishly clean to the point of being almost clinical, and while it doesn’t actually smell of bleach, I always have the impression that the whole place is “sanitized for your protection” every evening at closing.

None of that actually matters though, because no one comes here for the ambience. At Udupi Palace, it’s all about the food, and it’s the food that continues to pack people in.

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Plates From Brazil

Cajú
922 Queen Street West
416-532-2550

The word authentic gets bandied about a lot these days – to the point where I wonder if some writers know what it actually means, especially when it comes to food. In our cultural mosaic of a city, where so many cultures have their traditional foods on offer, it’s easy to confuse authentic with watered down versions made to appeal to Caucasians.

Ironically, at Cajú, where they’re upfront about the fact that their dishes have been modified to make a “Canadian” dish, Chef Mario Cassini is more respectful of the foodways of his native Brazil than most places claiming to serve only authentic cuisine.

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Restaurant Profile – Indus Junction

Indus Junction
811 Queen Street West
647-428-7119

If I say “let’s go for Indian food,” to any of my friends, their first thought is going to be buffet, where we all fill our plates over and over again with passable but not especially memorable food. Sure, there are some upscale Indian restaurants in Toronto, but even there, the focus is on traditional, with the compartmentalized plates reminiscent of a cafeteria. Like so many ethnic cuisines that are now part of the culture of our city, we have this idea that Indian food must be traditional. But India as a culture has embraced the 21st century, and there’s no reason why Indian food can’t be modernized as well.

Enter Alka and Poonam Dhir, whose month-old Queen Street restaurant Indus Junction serves up beautiful Indian food, laced with authentic flavours and techniques, but with a modern twist. It is the junction where east meets west, old meets new, and the traditionally male-dominated industry gets a feminine touch that is as breath-taking as a jewelled sari.

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Oyster Boy – A Down East Difference

oysterplate Oyster Boy
872 Queen Street West
416-534-3432
Dinner for two with wine or beer, plus all taxes and tip: $100

I’ve never been a fan of claiming you know about something because you’ve lived in close proximity to where it became popular. I once worked as a barista in a tourist area where a customer dissed my cappuccino because, “we’re from Seattle, so, you know, we KNOW coffee.” Apparently just by standing in the original Starbucks people are able to absorb absolutely everything there is to know about the beans, the production and the roasting of coffee. The same goes for people who have lived in London, England, and claim an expert-level knowledge of Indian food.

So it makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite to write a review of a seafood restaurant and pull out the old “I’m from Nova Scotia, so I know seafood” line, but if the cliché fits, you’ve got to wear it. See, we made two visits to Oyster Boy on Queen Street West; one with another Bluenoser who had a similar opinion of the food, and once with some friends from Moscow for whom many of the dishes on the menu were a completely new experience. Seafood appears to be a matter of perspective.

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Sunday Brunch – beerbistro

beerbistro
18 King Street East
416-861-9872
Three course brunch for two with all taxes and tip: $90

There’s an old cliché about the difference between night and day, but I’ve actually found a good example for which to apply it. I guess you could say I’m one of those “sensitive types”, or maybe my hearing is shot from too many industrial concerts in the 90s, but I hate, hate, hate loud restaurants. All that clinking of cutlery and loud music and raucous laughter. When you’re out for a quiet dinner or actually want to talk to the people you’re with, many restaurants are just not conducive to that situation.

Thus, I’ve become a bruncher. Even though I know how kitchen staff across the city, yea, around the world, hate the concept of getting up early after a night of busy service to poach eggs for those too intimidated to do it themselves, I really do prefer the usually quiet solitude of brunch over dinner.

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Good Phở Fo’ Shizzle

Phở Asia 21
1208 King Street West
647-436-0680
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beverage: $30

My immediate neighbourhood is not well known for its fine dining. Sure, there’s a couple of awesome Ethiopian places within walking distance, not to mention The Gladstone, The Drake, Beaver Cafe, and some interesting Tibetan restaurants if I’m willing to trek a bit. But anyone who’s ever found themselves at King & Dufferin looking for good food will know it’s a bit of a wasteland.

Once you rule out the two fast food burger joints and the two fast food sub chains, what you’re left with is a pretty awesome roti shop (Island Foods), a decent greasy spoon (The Gate) and a passable sports bar (Shoeless Joe’s). Which is why we were happy to see that a Vietnamese place had opened up around Christmas.

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