TasteTO – Page 17 – Sheryl Kirby

Sunday Brunch – Rustic Cosmo

Rustic Cosmo
1278 Queen Street West
416-531-4924
brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $30

I am, admittedly, one of those people who go out for brunch specifically because I hate making eggs benedict at home. It’s not that I can’t, but the endeavour inevitably leaves me cranky, covered in hollandaise and left with piles of pots and pans to wash.

But the dish is a favourite of mine, especially from places like Rustic Cosmo where an order of eggs benny comes with options. For out of this tiny open kitchen, customers are offered eggs benny ($9.95) with 6 different toppings, and are allowed to mix and match. Along with the traditional peameal bacon, spinach or smoked salmon, café owner Nicole Crowe also offers mixed grilled vegetables with brie, portobello mushrooms or grilled asparagus. On our most recent visit, I opted for oozing brie atop grilled peppers, eggplant and broccoli, along with lovely green asparagus, grilled al dente.

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Would You Like Fries With That?

friedebate In Lauren Simmons’ piece earlier this morning, we ran what we’ll refer to as an essay from a server working at a local restaurant. The article started out as the details of a basic restaurant service day, but one comment from the subject caught my attention as I was editing the piece. It was about how customers who order half fries/half salad make the server “cry inside”. I asked Lauren to delve further, hoping to truly find out why this order creates such a fuss at many establishments, and her piece this morning was the response she received.

When the essay arrived in my email inbox, my first thought was that it completely and utterly exemplified the rude, snotty attitude that we, as customers, fear from restaurant servers, and that has given particular areas of town a deplorable reputation in terms of restaurant service. (Okay, actually, my first thought was that it was a huge joke, because I can’t strip the little faith I have left in humanity to believe that there are people out there who think like this.)

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Not So Many Fish in the Sea

seachoiceoysters

There’s an old cliché that goes “there are plenty of fish in the sea”. This is meant to convey options and opportunities, but nowadays, it’s not a particularly apt analogy. Because fish stocks are dwindling due to poor husbandry and overfishing, and there aren’t a lot of fish in the sea anymore.

SeaChoice is a program by Sustainable Seafood Canada designed to mobilize consumers and industry to buy sustainable seafood, which is caught or farmed with consideration for the ocean’s ecological balance and the long-term viability of the fish. SeaChoice offers guidance to restaurants and consumers on what to buy and what to avoid.

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Sunday Brunch – The Irish Embassy

Irish Embassy Pub & Grill
49 Yonge Street
416-815-7562
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and beer: $56

They call it the breakfast of champions, and there was a point when a glass of stout, such as Guinness, was touted as a healthy start to the day. I don’t know if I could do that every morning, but when settling in for brunch at the Irish Embassy, it seemed wrong not to be sipping a glass of Ireland’s favourite beer.

Normally the domain of Bay Street brokers and executives, on an early Sunday, the sun streams through the high south-facing windows of this former bank and the light bounces off the architectural details of the arched ceiling. Never having been to Ireland, I’m not sure if all the locals there are this impressive, but the Irish Embassy is surely one of the most ethereal places I’ve eaten brunch. That may be because it’s not especially busy. This is an odd state and apparently not the norm, but explains why the sharply-dressed and aproned servers outnumber the customers by about 2-to-1.

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The Good Kind of Loud

Allen’s
143 Danforth Avenue
416-463-3086
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer: $90

The hot new thing for restaurant critics these days is to complain about the volume at the places they’re reviewing. Having to scream across the table to be heard is never a good thing, and the more, um, mature, our ears get, the harder it is to like a place that makes us work so hard. Not so at Allen’s. Yes, on the night we were there for the A Taste For Life fundraiser for Fife house, the place was packed and loud, but it’s the first restaurant I’ve been to where the loud volume added to the atmosphere.

Allen’s website states that “Allen’s stands as owner John Maxwell’s loving tribute to the Irish-American saloons of his native New York.” He’s made a homey, comfortable place with blue-checked tablecloths, a tin ceiling and warm oak floors. The tables are arranged so there is actually space between them – the volume is not because the place is over-packed, but from customers actually having a good time.

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Around the World at Local 4

Local 4
4 Dundonald Street
416-915-0113
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and beer: $85

When Local 4 first opened a few years back, we tried on a number of occasions to check it out, only to find it closed each time we stopped by. As a believer in the theory that the world offers us messages at every turn, those failed visits should have been a warning to head elsewhere and stay away. Finally making it for dinner at this pub-style restaurant, we realized we should have taken fate’s warning messages to heart.

Already faced with a barrier of many stairs and little tiled hallways to get into the place, diners also encounter an odd atmosphere. The entryway makes me think too much of the kind of place first year university students would frequent until they gained some knowledge of the city and found someplace more sophisticated. The room itself is cozy enough with dark walls, candlelit tables and a long bar that seems to be the gathering spot for the locals who were there the evening of our visit. A couple of other tables had diners when we arrived but they cleared out quickly and most of the activity seemed to happen at the bar.

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Sunday Brunch – Oyster Boy

Oyster Boy
872 Queen Street West
416-534-3432
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $55

Walking along Queen West on a sunny morning heading to Oyster Boy, a car passed us blaring a tune that was predominantly accordion music. We couldn’t really tell if it was a Newfoundland jig or some “welcome to the swamp” zydeco music, but fittingly enough, it set the theme of our brunch visit.

Oyster Boy offers a Maritime Pub Lunch on Saturdays and Sundays with a selection of items that are available all day such as fish and chips ($14.95), fish cakes ($11.95), or chowder of the day ($6.95). They also have lunch-specific specials from noon – 4pm with the likes of little jig’s dinner ($14.95) – aka corned beef and cabbage, and omelettes ($10.50).

We started by sharing a serving of clams steamed in white wine with roasted garlic and tomatoes ($14.95). More typical of steamed mussels, this flavour combination actually worked quite well, despite the lack of seawater and a big stretch of beach. A basket of fresh bread came in handy for sopping up the broth left behind after we had devoured the sweet juicy clams.

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The Brewer’s Plate – Delicious Local Food – Plus Beer!

What does local food look like in April? When the larders are getting bare and the first bright shoots of asparagus and lettuce are still just a twinkle in the farmer’s eye? Would it even be possible to put on an event and feed 300+ people on local food at this time of the year?

Turns out it’s not just possible, but really quite fabulous. The result was a delicious evening of not just local food but local beer, as the first annual Brewer’s Plate event paired some of Toronto’s top chefs with local craft breweries to come up with a dish that paired with and incorporated the selected beers.

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Sunday Sips – Archibald’s Estate Wineries

Fruit wine has long been overlooked when it comes to alcoholic beverages. For most folks, wine equals grapes. The LCBO does little to rectify this situation, with only a handful of fruit wine options available on their shelves. Which is too bad, because Ontario has many great fruit wineries offering wines ranging from dry to super-sweet, made from apples, berries, currants and more.

I had the opportunity to sample a selection of products from Archibald Orchards Estate Winery a couple of nights ago at the Locavore Unconference held at Montgomery’s Inn. In addition to the dinner of baked beans, coleslaw, maple ice cream and fresh baked bread, guests could sample a number of fruit wines from Archibald’s selection.

This fourth-generation farm is now run by grower and winemaker Fred Archibald and his wife Sandy. Many of their fruit wines place regularly in the top 3 at the annual National Fruit Wineries of Canada Competition, with the Spiced Winter Apple and Canadian Maple dessert wines placing Top of Category for 2004.

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Farm to Home

After the long hard winter we’re just now starting to see the back of, there were times when I almost believed that it wouldn’t end – that it would be perpetual winter forever. Fortunately Mother Nature takes care of things, and just like it has for every other year since the beginning of time, spring has arrived. Which turns the heads of farmers and gardeners to one thought – planting.

Since many of us city-dwellers don’t have access to a yard in which to grow our own vegetables, we rely on area farmers to keep us well-stocked with nature’s bounty. And as we become more in tune with the philosophy of eating locally and supporting local growers and producers, we city-dwellers need a quick and easy way to do that. While farmer’s markets are always a delight to visit, many people just don’t have the time, or else don’t have any way to haul their swag home.

Recently more and more smaller local farms have been setting up Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) programs in which customers can buy a share of the farm’s output for the year. Depending on the farm, customers can either pick up their weekly box of goodies at the farm, or else the farmer will make deliveries to a pre-set drop-off point a couple of times a week. But how are we city-folk who want to join a CSA supposed to find one? Drive around in the country, stopping at every farm we see?

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