Restaurant Review – Page 89

Satisfying Eats at Running Pig

Published on October 5, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3636 Steeles Avenue East, Markham
Website: None

Running Pig is a no-frills take-out joint that serves various meat options and veggies on top of rice. It’s not the best thing you’ll ever eat, but it’s a hefty amount of meat and rice for $7.50; it’s hard to go wrong there.

I got the pork knuckle bento, which comes with a generous pile of pork knuckles (one is missing from my photo — I dug right in then realized I forgot to take a picture), a hard-boiled egg, tofu skin, and a variety of veggies on rice.

Pork knuckles can be mostly collagen without a whole lot of meat (particularly the way they’re cut here); if it’s not properly rendered, it’s going to be rubbery. And while these were mostly okay, they definitely could have braised for a little bit longer.

The various veggies and tofu were all tasty enough, and combined with the rice, it makes for a solid meal. Nothing here particularly stands out, but it’s cheap, quick, and satisfying. Sometimes that’s enough.

Great Margherita Pizza at Pi Co.

Published on October 3, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1200 Bay Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.pi-co.ca/

Fact: a margherita pizza, done well, is the best pizza. It’s just crust, sauce, cheese, basil, and olive oil, but when it’s done well, it all comes together in a way that feels magical. It’s one of the world’s few perfect foods.

Pi Co. does it well.

The restaurant itself is actually pretty interesting — it’s mostly a take-out joint, and aside from the margherita, they don’t have any pre-topped pizzas.

The restaurant is set up almost like a Subway, with a variety of toppings behind glass that you can choose from on the spot. And the Neopolitan-style pies bake fast, so you can be in and out surprisingly quickly, despite the fact that they’re starting every pizza from scratch.

It’s quite good. A pizza like this lives and dies by its crust; the crust here was solid, with a satisfying chew, a decent amount of flavour, and a nice blistery exterior. The external crisp factor could have been slightly higher, but that’s a very minor complaint.

Everything else was great, with a nice balance of sauce and cheese. It’s not the best margherita I’ve ever had, but it’s pretty damn satisfying (again: it’s a perfect food).

Ultra-Chewy Noodles at Potato Noodle Soup of Bai

Published on October 1, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4350 Steeles Avenue East, Markham
Website: None

I’ve had a lot of noodles over the course of my life, but — until now — I don’t think I’d ever tried potato noodles.

As the name implies, potato noodles are made with potato starch, which gives them a much, much chewier consistency than the norm.

Though I’ve heard good things about the cold noodles Potato Noodle Soup of Bai, I decided to go with the noodle soup — mostly because “noodle soup” is right there in the name.

I got the plain potato noodle soup, which comes with noodles, meatballs, fish balls, half an egg, and various odds and ends in a fiery broth.

The noodles are really interesting. There’s a Korean dish called jjolmyeon that features noodles that are so incredibly chewy you have to cut them with scissors before you start eating. These kind of reminded me of a thicker, slightly less chewy version of those.

The broth was a bit saltier than I’d like, but it was otherwise quite tasty, with a spicy kick and an almost creamy richness that you only get from a stock that’s been simmered for a long, long time.

The whole thing was fairly tasty, though with Sun’s Kitchen just a few steps away, I don’t know that I’d ever eat here again.

Hit-or-Miss Pizza at Nonna’s Oven

Published on September 27, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1285 Elgin Mills Road East, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.nonnasoven.com/

Nonna’s Oven is an Italian joint specializing in pizza (they also have pasta and sandwiches, though the pizza seems to be the main attraction) with locations in Richmond Hill and Oakville. It’s not bad, but it’s probably not worth going out of your way for.

We started with the frittura mista — a plate piled high with deep fried chunks of calamari, cuttlefish, shrimp, scallops, and whitefish. This was mostly pretty good, though the squid was rubbery (everything was a bit overcooked) and the cuttlefish had an unpleasantly fishy funk.

Still, it’s hard to go wrong with anything that’s battered and deep fried, especially when the batter is as light and crispy as it is here.

The pizzas were a bit of a mixed bag. The first was the Margherita Italiana (“homemade tomato sauce, topped with fior di late cheese, fresh basil and light drizzled olive oil”). The thing about a margherita pizza is that it’s so incredibly simple that if all the elements aren’t on point (the crust in particular), then it’s not going to be particularly good.

And the crust is definitely an issue here; it’s ultra thin and crispy, with absolutely no substance outside of a crispy crunch. It’s basically like eating tomato sauce and cheese on a really bland cracker. It’s not great.

The Hawaiian Inferno pizza (“pineapple, bacon, onion and hot banana peppers”) was definitely the better of the two. The more cheese- and topping-heavy pizza helped to compensate for the bland, crackery crust, and the toppings all worked pretty well together.

In the case of both pizzas, the real MVP was the jar of fiery chili oil they had on the table. It had little bits of hot peppers, and if you got a heaping spoonful of the peppers and the oil, it really kicked things up and helped to make everything a bit more interesting.

Breakfast Sandwich Perfection at Gold Standard

Published on September 25, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 385 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://thefed.ca/goldstandard/

I recently tried the burger at Gold Standard, and while I enjoyed it (and appreciated that a Toronto burger joint was finally serving an American-style slider), I wasn’t blown away.

Well clearly, the breakfast sandwich is the thing to order, because that one? That blew me away.

The Gold Standard breakfast sandwich, per their menu: “scrambled egg, cheddar, bacon, aioli, pickles, hot sauce, English muffin.”

Good lord, it’s delicious.

I really should have cut it in half so that you could see its glorious innards; it doesn’t look like much in that picture, so you’ll just have to take my word that everything was well-proportioned and perfect.

All the components work so well together. The perfectly cooked egg and the gooey cheese meld into something that’s downright magical. The generously-applied crispy bacon adds texture and a meaty saltiness. The mild kick from the hot sauce along with the vinegary bite of the pickles cuts the richness of the cheese, the bacon and the eggs. And the soft, fresh, perfectly toasted English muffin holds it all together (and adds a light crispiness) without getting in the way.

Best breakfast sandwich ever? Quite possibly!