Michael Eats

Decent Pizza at Scaddabush

Published on July 12, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1900 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: http://www.scaddabush.com/

I’ve mentioned before that Scaddabush is a surprisingly good casual chain restaurant; well, I just tried the pizza, and yeah, I still like the place.

I got the Mario: “prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, San Marzano tomato sauce, baby arugula.”

It’s good — it’s not mind-blowing, but I certainly enjoyed eating it a heck of a lot more than the pizza at Pizzeria Libretto.

The crust is basically Roman-style — thin and a little bit bready, with a satisfying amount of crispiness on its exterior. It’s not bad at all. And the toppings are solid. The tomato sauce is slightly garlicky and not over-applied, and the salty prosciutto and peppery arugula work quite well together.

It’s nothing that anyone’s going to get too excited over — but like everything else at Scaddabush, it’s better than you’d think, given the quality of the competition.

Matcha Overload at Golden Bubbles

Published on July 11, 2018July 11, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3276 Midland Avenue, Scarborough
Website: http://goldenbubbles.ca/

I don’t particularly like matcha. It has a vaguely bitter, swampy flavour that I find unappealing.

So obviously, when I went to Golden Bubbles, I ordered the Matcha Red Bean Waffle despite the fact that they have many non-matcha options that look perfectly delicious. Because I’m a stupid person?

In my defense, I’ve been craving a red bean dessert (probably because I’ve been watching Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman on Netflix, a delightfully quirky Japanese show about a dessert-obsessed businessman). Plus, it’s been a few years since I’ve tried a matcha dessert, so my general mindset was “prove me wrong, Golden Bubbles. Prove me wrong.”

Yeah, I still don’t like matcha. But if you do, I’m sure you’ll find this quite tasty. It consists of a matcha poppy seed waffle, green tea ice cream, and a sweet red bean topping.

The fresh Hong Kong style waffle was great, with a delicately crisp exterior and custardy interior. And, flavour notwithstanding, the quality of the ice cream was very good. It was rich and creamy. The beans were tasty as well.

But no, sorry matcha fans. It’s beloved, and I just don’t get it. I won’t say it’s flat-out gross, but its popularity baffles me.

I guess I’ll wait another few years and try it again.

Tasty Dim Sum at Yang’s Fine Chinese Cuisine

Published on July 10, 2018 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 9665 Bayview Avenue, Richmond Hill
Website: http://yangsfinechinesecuisine.ca/

I really like dim sum. It’s like brunch, but way more interesting. There are only so many times you can have eggs benedict or pancakes before they start to bore you. When that happens, the cavalcade of dumplings, buns, and other tasty bites at a dim sum joint are just what the doctor ordered.

And Yang’s Fine Chinese Cuisine in Richmond Hill (not to be confused with Yang’s Chinese Cuisine in Markham) is quite good.

I mean, look at all that stuff. If you can tell me you don’t want to eat all of that right now, then you and me are two very different people.

These little balls of shrimp surrounded by crunchy almond slivers might have been my favourite dish of the day. The shrimp had a really great texture, and the crispiness and nuttiness of the exterior complimented it perfectly.

And these pork buns? Chicken and waffles wish they could nail the sweet/salty combo as well as these little guys.

Quality Soft Serve at Hollywood Cone

Published on July 9, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1167 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://hollywoodcone.com/

Hollywood Cone is basically a superior version of Sweet Jesus — they have a similar selection of social-media-friendly cones, along with other Instagram-bait creations like elaborate milkshakes topped with entire doughnuts or slices of pie.

The quality of the ice cream itself is a solid upgrade over Sweet Jesus. And yet the place seems to be struggling to attract customers — go figure. On this particular day, I was actually intending to get a scoop from Bang Bang, but the line-up was intense, even by their standards. Meanwhile, Hollywood Cone (which is just a few blocks away) was a ghost town.

I ordered the Salted Caramel Skor (well, technically I ordered something else and they gave me the wrong thing — but I couldn’t be bothered to correct them), which comes topped with Skor bits, salted caramel sauce, and a chocolate drizzle.

It’s not bad at all. The sauces were middle-of-the-road, but the real attraction here is the ice cream. It’s super creamy and rich, and it lacks the artificial sweetness that you find in lesser soft serve. It’s really, really good.

Like at Sweet Jesus, their creations are designed to be Instagram-friendly cones instead of the sundaes they’re clearly meant to be, so the toppings run out pretty quickly. But unlike at Sweet Jesus, the quality of the ice cream is so good that you don’t particularly mind.

It’s odd that the place isn’t doing better than it is, though the aforementioned service issues don’t help, nor does the fact that the place is weirdly dirty and dark, with an atmosphere that feels more like a dive bar than an ice cream shop.

Lousy food at the Livelihood Cafe

Published on July 6, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 254 Augusta Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://www.livelihoodproject.org/

The Livelihood Cafe is a laudable endeavor — it’s part of a non-profit organization that helps new immigrants build a career in Canada.

So maybe I’m a jerk for saying this (okay, I’m definitely a jerk for saying this), but the food was actually pretty bad.

I tried a few things. The first dish featured multigrain toast topped with some kind of pepper spread, cucumber, and cheese (I forgot to take a picture of the menu and I couldn’t find one online, so I’m a bit fuzzy on the specifics). This was the best of the three dishes I tried. The grainy bread was a little bit too rustic, overwhelming the mild pepper spread, and the whole thing had an overriding bitterness, but it wasn’t horrible.

Up next was the baba ganoush, which came with a side of over-toasted pita bread that was halfway between crunchy and chewy. Baba ganoush is a spread that’s made primarily with roasted eggplant and tahini, so how this managed to taste of neither of those things is a complete mystery. It was just kind of salty and pasty and unpleasant.

The last (and worst) dish was the mana’eesh, which is a flatbread topped with a mix of za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice mix) and olive oil. Only there barely seemed to be any olive oil; the za’atar was overly dry and grainy, and the bread was off-puttingly thick and rubbery. I could barely eat more than a couple of bites of this.

Also: it was a bagel-sized piece of bread for nine bucks, which is gallingly expensive — though if you think of it as a charitable donation, it takes some of the sting away.

This is going to sound harsh, but everything was so bad I would have rather just flat-out donated money to charity without having to eat the food.