review – Page 18 – Sheryl Kirby

Feeling Brazen

brazenbar

Brazen Head Irish Pub
165 East Liberty Street
416-535-8787
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer: $80

In the still-barren wasteland of culinary choices that is Liberty Village, a beacon has been lit. Yes, yes, there’s Thuet and Liberty Café, but there really isn’t a cozy place with a decent beer selection and a reasonable price tag that locals can call their local. Until now.

For months we’ve all been peering across the vast expanse of parking lot at the nearby Dominion, straining to see if there was any activity in the historic industrial building that is now home to the Brazen Head pub. Progress in the retail sector of Liberty Village is slow and plodding, and while the renovations started this past summer, the doors of Liberty’s first pub didn’t open until just a few weeks ago.

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The Orange Glow of the Disco Era

Okonomi House
23 Charles Street West
416-925-6176
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and tea: $30

Despite its reputation as “Toronto the Good”, our fair city was supposedly quite the hedonistic place during the disco era. Centred around the Yonge Street strip, beautiful young things in white suits or wrap dresses and wedge heels congregated at the dance clubs to do the hustle, the bus stop and to drunkenly sing along to Dancing Queen by Abba. Like all club-goers, they likely wandered out into the night looking for a bite to eat, at which point, like so many generations of Torontonians after them, they would follow the beacon of the orange glow down Charles Street West to Okonomi House.

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The Number One Rule of the Buffet – You Get What You Pay For

Indian Flavour
123 Dundas Street West, 2nd floor
416-408-2799
Buffet lunch for two with all taxes, tip and lassi: $30

So it’s pretty much a given that no one actually expects great food at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet. Passable, possibly flavourful, but never outstanding. Reasonably priced, but with the knowledge that you get what you pay for.

Such is the case with Indian Flavour. Formerly located in the Atrium on Bay, Indian Flavour reopened its doors a few months ago on Dundas West, just west of Bay Street. Like so many Indian AYCE places, the new location is up a flight of stairs, lessening the draw to walk-by traffic. Yet at lunch time, the place remains busy, with local office workers teeming in, even on the rainy day we were there.

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Yes, We Have Some Bananas

Johny Banana
181 Bathurst Street
416-304-0101
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer/juice: $35

So I was at one of the many restaurant opening media thingies we get invited to. And while the booze was flowing, the food was sparse, and small when it actually appeared. On an empty stomach, a couple of glasses of merlot can hit a gal (even a strapping lass like myself) pretty hard, and it wasn’t long before I was past the point of tipsy. Not quite at plastered, but in that window where Mexican food is the ONLY thing that will fit the bill.

My husband Greg had been bugging me about checking out the reworked menu at Johny Banana. We had tried to go there once when it was a lounge, but it was loud and kind of obnoxious and we’d never actually eaten there. With Suresh and Nina from Spotlight Toronto in tow, we stumbled to the corner of Queen and Bathurst in search of great Mexican food. We’d have taken passable or even mediocre Mexican food at that point, but fortunately there was no need to compromise. Johny Banana rocks in the manner of a hurricane.

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The 21st Century Comes to Chinatown

E-Pan
369 Spadina Avenue
416-260-9988
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and soda: $50

I have a special place in my heart for Chinatown. Particularly on hot summer nights when the smell of black bean sauce, fryer grease, half dead crabs and that special rotting garbage smell of durian all combine to remind me of my youth. Twenty years ago, I wandered these streets, young, naive and fresh off the plane from the land of pork chops and two overcooked veg. Living in Chinatown was a huge culture shock, and my roommates and I delighted in wandering Spadina and Dundas West, watching the restaurant ladies pushing bins of raw chicken feet from the many slaughterhouses, and bringing home odd fruits or noodles, seeking guidance from our neighbour Mei Ling on what to do with the stuff.

We managed to eat at a lot of restaurants along the Spadina strip as well. The fluorescent lights and plastic table cloths were de rigeur at all of these joints, and not much has changed. The food is always cheap and usually good, but ambiance is generally low on the list in this part of town. Which is why I was so surprised by E-Pan.

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My Little Dumpling

Yu Shan Dumpling Cuisine
771 Dundas Street West
416-869-0606
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer (no dessert): $40

I’m always jonesing for the dumplings from that other dumpling place over on Huron Street, but never seem to make it over there. So when I found myself at Bathurst and Dundas recently, and in need of sophonsification, there was Yu Shan Dumpling Cuisine. That wasn’t there before, I thought, as the streetcar rolled past.

That’s because the space was formerly the Side Door Grill, abandoned after a round of Restaurant Makeover and a boiler explosion. The story circulating on local forums is that the landlord, once the previous tenants left, decided to try her hand at running the place herself.

With a fancy renovated front of house that really is more bar than “dumpling house”, all Jenny Tiao needed were some great dishes. And who doesn’t like dumplings?

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Maroc the Casbah

The Sultan’s Tent & Café Maroc
49 Front Street East
416-961-0601
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer/wine: Sultan’s Tent – $110, Café Maroc – $90

The first visit was the typical cliché – it was my birthday and I was fascinated with belly dancing, so I dragged everyone to the Sultan’s Tent. I had been warned for years, since the restaurant had been located up at Bay and Yorkville, that the food was terrible. Turns out it was the bellydancing floorshow that was disappointing (as the birthday girl I was forced to get up and take dance instructions from one of the performers), while the food was actually the hi-light of the evening.

The Sultan’s Tent/Café Maroc is actually two spaces in one with a shared kitchen and some shared menu items. The Sultan’s Tent sits at the back of a long space and is decorated in a more fanciful style with sheer curtains forming tents and walls and low tables and divans grouped together for informal gatherings. The long passageway to the kitchen also serves as a performance area for the twice nightly bellydance shows.

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Tis the Season at Il Fornello

ilfornellofig Il Fornello
491 Church Street (and others)
416-944-9052
Complete dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer: $90

I’ll be honest up front and admit that I haven’t actually been to an Il Fornello restaurant in over ten years. I had a super terrible service issue at the King Street location some years ago that made me never want to go back. But when we heard that Il Fornello’s chef Owen Steinberg had created a changing seasonal menu based on local ingredients in addition to the existing menu, I was happy to set aside my reservations and give the place another go after so long.

We opted for the Church Street location because it’s known to be the most attractive, and that’s definitely the case. The space is long and linear with clean, sleek lines. Tables are still traditionally dressed in white linen, but the room has a modern feel that is not the norm for your typical pizza and pasta place. I especially liked the co-ed style washrooms with individual stalls and a shared trough-style sink – very risqué for stuffy old Toronto.

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Bewildered by Bocca on Baldwin

boccacrostini Bocca on Baldwin
26 Baldwin Street
416-348-0731
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and wine/beer (no dessert): $65

The great thing about Baldwin Village is that you have your pick of cuisines. It’s a fun treat to stand on the corner and pick a country, and by extension, a restaurant, or vice versa. Recently we wandered into the neighbourhood with some friends we were treating to dinner and stood in front of each place trying to decide. We opted for Bocca on Baldwin, mostly because none of us had been there before.

I was familiar with the space in its previous life, the fun but somewhat rundown Dessert Sensations Café. The building has since been completely gutted and renovated and is now an airy space full of gleaming wood and light.

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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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