toronto – Page 22 – Sheryl Kirby

Sunday Brunch – The Liberty

The Liberty
25 Liberty Street
416-533-8828
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $35

We joke here at TasteTO about the “Restaurant Makeover Death Watch”; the jinx that seems to occur to so many places that participate in this particular Food Network TV show. But the truth is that many restaurants that participate actually go on to do well; not necessarily because of the publicity or even the new décor or menu, but because the process is a rejuvenation of sorts.

Such is the case with The Liberty, the longstanding café in Liberty Village. Already a successful neighbourhood lunch and dinner spot, a revamp of their menu on the show was quickly discarded after the film crews left, and even the renovated décor was tweaked to suit their needs better than the designer was able to.

Continue reading “Sunday Brunch – The Liberty”

Through the Cracks

This neighbourhood is an odd blend of rich and poor. Gorgeous Victorian homes on one block, crumbling low-income apartment buildings on another. It’s a struggle between the NIMBY dreaming of idylic times and high property values and the down and out cruising for a fix of something – sex, drugs, lotto tickets – to dull the pain for a few brief moments.

There is always a sad collection of lost souls on King just west of Dufferin every morning. It’s worse in the summer when tiny apartments or rooming house rooms become stifling in the heat. Then they sprawl across the doorsteps of shops, take over stoops and sometimes just situate themselves in the middle of the sidewalk – drinking, smoking, puking, turning tricks and getting high, as necessary, lather, rinse, repeat. Garbage seems to collect around them, like they’re magnetized; paper coffee cups, cigarette butts, broken beer bottles and fast food wrappers gathering at their feet as they sit through the night, getting high or coming down.

It’s better in the winter, when it’s too cold for them to spend the night on the side of the road. Then they all disappear, leaving the streets empty and nonthreatening, only crawling out of bed in the late afternoon to gather in front of the usual haunts, bleary-eyed and hoping to score.

Continue reading “Through the Cracks”

Falling Flat

Tortilla Flats
458 Queen Street West
416-203-0088
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and margaritas: $80

This was supposed to be a review of Tattoo Rock Parlor. But when we arrived to an empty restaurant, then waited for a server who never appeared while bad rock music blared on the sound system, we bailed. “Let’s go to Tortilla Flats!” sez the husband as we found ourselves on the Queen West sidewalk. “I haven’t been there since about 1989!”

While sharing his sense of nostalgia and spontaneity, I was worried. Tortilla Flats doesn’t have the best reputation for its food, and the things we like when we’re twenty often don’t translate well when we’ve advanced to middle-age. But Tortilla Flats has a small spot in the nostalgic “remember when we were 20″ place in my heart, so in we went, hoping to be wrong.

Continue reading “Falling Flat”

The New Neighbour

There’s a new guy, lives on the corner. He spends a lot of time outdoors. He’s pretty quiet, and has this aura of peacefulness that everyone in the neighbourhood is remarking upon.

The big Buddha is located at the corner of Dufferin and Melbourne, outside a high-end furniture store called Kuda. Kuda sells a lot of imported stuff from Thailand, Morocco, etc, and they’re big on Buddha as an icon, if not as a philosophy/spiritual path (they might well be Buddhists, for all I know, not making judgements one way or the other).

Continue reading “The New Neighbour”

Where Can I Find – Rugelach

My first encounter with rugelach was in the early 90s when I worked for a company owned by a Jewish family. During the Jewish holidays, they’d bring in platters of treats to share with the staff and the little rolled cookies had me coming up with all kinds of reasons to wander by the break room.

Yiddish for “little twist”, rugelach was originally made with a yeast dough, but American Jews introduced a dough made with cream cheese. The pastry is rolled around fillings such as chocolate, raisins, nuts or preserves such as apricot or raspberry.

Rugelach are supposedly easy to make at home, but while I consider myself an accomplished baker, I’ve never been able to get the cream cheese pastry to work well for me, despite trying a variety of recipes. As such, I’m always on the lookout for places that sell the things, because rugelach are quite addictive.

And while I’m sure there are any number of Jewish bakeries and delis in the north end of the city that make fantastic examples of this cookie (please feel free to share your favourites in the comments), I’m sticking to what is accessible to me, a car-free downtowner.

Note that as rugelach is considered a seasonal item, not all the places listed may have it at all times. While it should be readily available for the next week or so until the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah have passed, I’d advise calling ahead if it’s out of season and you really need a fix.

Future Bakery (93 Front Street East, St. Lawrence Market) – cream cheese or raspberry filling.

Harbord Bakery (115 Harbord Street) – offers a variety of flavours with chocolate being the most popular.

Wanda’s Pie in the Sky (287 Augusta Avenue) – a variety of flavours, likely seasonal as they don’t show up on their website.

What a Bagel (421 Spadina Road, and others) – carry the cookies year-round, with 4 flavours plus a sugar-free version.

Whole Foods (87 Avenue Road) – offers rugelach seasonally, sold pre-packaged, by the kilo.

Yitz’s Deli (346 Eglinton Avenue) – sold singly or by the kilo, there’s usually a nice mix of flavours including cinnamon and walnut.

I’ve also bought rugelach at Benna’s (135 Roncesvalles Avenue), but the person I talked to on the phone for this piece didn’t know what I was talking about, so I can’t guarantee they have them all the time.

Not Just Sprouts and Tofu

After the learning experience of last year’s visit to the Canadian Health Food Association’s Expo East Trade Show, we arrived this year well prepared. We didn’t follow the crowd and bring along an empty suitcase to carry home samples and info sheets, but we did show up at this massive health food trade show with empty backpacks and comfortable shoes.

Continue reading “Not Just Sprouts and Tofu”

Sunday Brunch – Peartree Restaurant

Peartree Restaurant
507 Parliament Street
416-962-8190
brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $30

Neighbourhood street festivals are generally not a good time to visit a restaurant for a review. Like other dining events, such as the seasonal ‘Licious series, the kitchen often isn’t at its best, forced to serve even more covers than usual as the hordes of people demand to be fed. So when we walked past Peartree on Parliament Street during last weekend’s Cabbagetown Festival and saw the make-shift patio that extended into the curb lane of the street, we were a bit concerned. Inside, the place was only about a third full, however, and we figured we’d give it a go.

The brunch menu we were offered was an abridged version of what is regularly served, but still included a variety of choices from variations on eggs benedict ($8.99 – $11.99) to classics like French toast ($8.99) and omelettes or quiche ($8.99 each). Wisely including a selection of burgers and sandwiches, as well as a pasta and a fish dish, Peartree covered all the bases and didn’t exclude the folks more in the mood for lunch.

Continue reading “Sunday Brunch – Peartree Restaurant”

Where Can I Find – Game Meat

This is not a ‘where can I find’ question! It is a ‘Why can’t I find’ question.

I was just wondering if you know why game is so hard to get in Ontario, relative to Quebec or even many places in the U.S. I know where to find it in town, but it is a pain; and mainstream markets never seem to carry it.

In Quebec the big chains like Metro even carry bear meat in season! Just wondering if there was some sort of law in Ontario that made selling game difficult or something?

There is indeed. Hunted game carcasses cannot be sold to the public, regardless of whether they are processed in a provincially licensed meat plant or not. Hunted game can be consumed by the hunter for personal use, but it may not be sold. As such, a lot of the more rare game meats such as moose or bear just aren’t available at the retail level.

Any other game meat available for sale throughout the province is farmed – whether it’s rabbits, deer, elk or bison, or more exotic meats – and is subject to the same laws and legislation regarding processing as more standard farm animal slaughter.

Continue reading “Where Can I Find – Game Meat”

A Tour of St. Lawrence Market, Part 2

As noted in Part 1 of our tour of St. Lawrence Market on Monday, the south market has just about everything needed to fill a pantry. But the fruit and vegetable stands, bulk goods and bakeries tend to mostly fill the perimeter and basement of the space. For most visitors to the market the first thing they see when they enter the main space of the upper level is meat. And that’s where we’ll begin part 2 of our tour.

Continue reading “A Tour of St. Lawrence Market, Part 2”

Flights of Fancy

It’s almost over.

It’s ten to four on Labour Day afternoon, and we’re sitting here waiting for the air show to finish. Make that the fucking air show. It’s an annual tradition – they fly a bunch of loud planes past the CNE grounds on Labour Day weekend, and we sit at home comforting the dogs and listening to car alarms go off as the F-16 passes overhead.

I don’t know a single person in the neighbourhood who actually likes or watches the air show. Yes, if I’m out on the street and catch some of it in the sky, it’s visually impressive, I won’t argue that fact. But for four days (the three days of performances and a practice day on Friday) our neighbourhood is inundated with noise and the stench of jet fuel.

Yet if we complain, if we dare to point out how disturbing it is, we’re big party-poopers. It’s a tradition, it’s for the kids, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then hold it in the ‘burbs. Not over the Toronto neighbourhood with the highest percentage of recent immigrants; people who left their countries to escape the terror of jet fighters flying overhead and noises that sound like bombs going off in the distance.

Continue reading “Flights of Fancy”