Michael Eats

Tasty Sandwiches at Vero Italian Sandwich Co.

Published on October 26, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 477 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://verosandwich.ca/

All restaurants are Italian sandwich shops now. Don’t like it? Sorry, them’s the breaks.

But you know what? Based on the quality of places like this and Alfie’s, I for one welcome our new Italian sandwich overlords.

They have a handful of meaty sandwiches on the menu (and one vegetarian). I went with the Gabagool: “Capicola, Mortadella, Fresh Mozzarella, Giardiniera, Tomato and Arugula.”

Yeah, that’s a top-notch sandwich. The bread is great (it’s got a nice balance of chewiness and crispiness), there’s a generous amount of good quality cold cuts, it’s nice and zippy, and the fresh mozzarella adds a nice creaminess that rounds things out.

It was a little greasy (it was dripping with oil) and the flavours don’t quite pop like in the best versions of this type of sandwich, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

Quality Eclairs at The Happy Chocco

Published on October 23, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 100 City Centre Drive (inside The Food District at Square One)
Website: https://www.thehappychocco.ca/

I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical of The Happy Chocco. They always have a million eclairs on offer, and they never seem to be particularly busy. And I’m like, are these all fresh? Because it seems like they won’t all be fresh. There’s nothing sadder than a stale eclair with soggy pastry.

Well, I just went with two other people, and we all tried different eclairs and found them to be quite fresh (and quite delicious!) so I’m happy to say that I was wrong.

I went with the Dubai chocolate eclair: “classic eclair filled with pistachio pastry cream and Belgian milk chocolate dip with roasted kataifi.”

I really enjoyed this. The choux pastry had a great texture and was clearly not stale at all, the pistachio pastry cream was creamy and delicious (if a bit light on the nutty flavour), there was a decent layer of good-quality chocolate on top, and the roasted kataifi added a nice crispy texture. It’s a quality eclair.

Tasty Rice Bowls at Omai Rice Bar

Published on October 21, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 21 Baldwin Street, Toronto
Website: https://omairicebar.com/

Omai Rice Bar is a spin-off of Omai, a high-end Japanese restaurant. The rice bar is much more on the casual end of things — they serve a selection of six rice bowls that are all around 15 bucks, and it’s take-out only (they also have a few benches on a patio out front).

I went with the Oh-My Fried Chicken: “Korean fried chicken, garlic yuzu glaze, wasabi cucumber, kimchi slaw and pickled daikon. Every bowl comes with our signature Omai salad on a bed of steamed white rice.”

I liked everything about this. The fried chicken was fresh, crispy, and tender, and was tossed in a tasty sauce (that was maybe a touch too sweet — my only complaint). Everything else in the bowl complemented it perfectly, with a whole bunch of bold, zippy flavours.

Even the salad on the side was a noticeable upgrade from the standard vinaigrette-tossed greens, with a nice citrusy punch that was really satisfying.

It’s all served on a bed of fluffy white rice, and it’s great. I wish I lived closer to this place, because I feel like I need to try every bowl on the menu.

Quick Bites: Kumain Kitchen, Kezy Doner, Salad King

Published on October 19, 2025October 19, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Chicken Inasal at Kumain Kitchen

Kumain Kitchen is a “Filipino inspired pop-up” that was in the pop-up space in the Food District at Square One last year (yeah, I have a bit of a backlog). I tried the chicken inasal (“grilled lemongrass chicken served with garlic rice and cucumber salad”) and mostly, it was quite tasty. The chicken was slightly on the dry side, but it was so well seasoned and absolutely crammed with vibrant flavours that this wasn’t a big deal. I really enjoyed it. But I guess they ran out of garlic rice, because it came with plain old rice instead, which was a shame. As for the cucumber salad, it was actually just undressed cucumbers, radishes and tomatoes, along with pickled onion. I actually Googled this to see if that’s just a Filipino thing, but nope — Filipino cucumber and tomato salad is called ensaladang pipino, and it’s definitely supposed to be dressed. Still, that chicken was delicious enough to make up for everything else.

Chicken Wrap at Kezy Doner

The chicken wrap from Kezy Doner was thoroughly okay. Did anything about it stand out? No, not even remotely. But it came up to exactly ten bucks with tax, came crammed with a healthy amount of relatively juicy chicken, and was satisfying enough for what it was. It’s not something you should go out of your way for, but if you’re in the area and you don’t feel like spending too much money, sure, why not? This place is in a food court right near the OCAD campus, and I can definitely see it being popular with broke students.

Lime Leaf Chicken at Salad King

Speaking of restaurants with (relatively) cheap eats that are popular with students… Salad King. This is a Toronto institution (it’s been around since 1981) that I’ve somehow never tried. I got the lime leaf chicken (“Chicken breast slices, snap peas, red pepper, lime leaf, & carrot in a spicy chili sauce with Thai herbs”) and it was perfectly fine. The chicken was a bit dry, but otherwise it was flavourful and satisfying. I’m not exactly going to be dreaming about the place, but I can see why it’s so popular. They are also, famously, not kidding around with the spice here, and yeah. I chose 10 out of 20 on their spice-scale, and it was thoroughly fiery.

Delicious Sandwiches at Sammie’s

Published on October 17, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 594 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.alwaystastysandwiches.com/

What’s this? A new sandwich shop in Toronto that isn’t selling Italian cold cut sandwiches on some kind of focaccia-type bread? Is that even allowed??

(They actually do have a few cold cut sandwiches, but it’s all served on hoagie rolls, so it feels a bit different from the many Italian sandwich joints that have sprung up in the last several months.)

I tried a couple of sandwiches. First up: the Brisket Philly Cheese (“chopped Brisket in gravy with melted cheese and sautéed onions; our take on the famous sandwich”).

I think calling this a Philly cheesesteak is a bit of a stretch. The sandwich contains beef and cheese, and… the similarities end there. But you know what? If you’re serving something this delicious, you can call it whatever the hell you want.

The combo between the ultra-tender brisket, the gooey cheese, and the silky caramelized onions just works. I know this sounds vaguely like a Philly cheesesteak, but the gravy-soaked slow-cooked brisket has a very, very different (but no less delicious!) personality from the griddle-cooked beef in a cheesesteak.

The menu doesn’t mention that the brisket is smoked, but there’s a distinct smoky flavour here that makes me think that it might be.

I also tried the Meatball (“Beef meatballs/Tomato sauce/shredded cheese/and diced jalapeños”).

This was just as tasty as the brisket, with a generous amount of tender, flavour-packed meatballs, more gooey cheese, and hot peppers for some nice pops of spice.

Not much more to say about this one. It’s everything you want a meatball sandwich to be: great quality meatballs, rich tomato sauce, melty cheese.

And the bread is quite nice; it’s fresh and fluffy, and it holds up well to the very saucy sandwiches. It doesn’t have a ton of personality, and is really just there to highlight the various fillings; I like a nice tangy sourdough as much as the next guy, but sometimes you want the bread to just get out of the way and be a vehicle for some tasty, meaty stuff.