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Bacon Maple Chicken Sandwich at Wendy’s

Published on November 22, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1569 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca/home

I actually quite like Wendy’s. I mean, it’s still a fast food chain, so it’s not great — but it’s one of the better ones.

Well, usually, at least.

The Bacon Maple Chicken Sandwich definitely isn’t their finest hour. It’s a fried chicken sandwich served on a croissant bun and topped with Swiss cheese, maple glaze, and bacon.

It’s super sweet and super dry, and I just did not enjoy eating it at all.

The “maple glaze” is basically just thick, sludgy maple syrup. It’s intensely sweet and far too overwhelming for a sandwich like this. The mildly spicy chicken patty (you can get spicy or original) helps to balance out the sweetness a little bit, but it’s not nearly enough to overcome the sugar overload.

Everything else is dry. The fried chicken patty is dry, the “croissant” bun is dry (and aside from the cosmetic, it has zero croissant-like properties), the completely unmelted cheese is dry — even the bacon is dry. I like crispy bacon as much as the next guy, but the glass-like strips in this sandwich were taking it a bit too far.

It really needed additional sauce to give it moisture, but adding more of the maple glaze would pretty much be instant diabetes. The whole thing is head-scratchingly misguided.

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!

Japanese Domination Continues at Koi Koi Sake Bar

Published on July 30, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 170 Baldwin Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.koikoibar.com/

Joining places like Little Pebbles, Sakoshi Mart, and Millie Creperie, the Japanese domination of this stretch of Kensington Market continues with Koi Koi Sake Bar, which features a tasty selection of Japanese eats. I, for one, welcome our new Japanese overlords.

I tried a few things. First up was a nice little snack that every table gets by default. I meant to ask what these were and completely forgot, but they were crunchy, savoury, and a little bit sweet.

Next up was the katsu sando, which is a fried pork sandwich topped with a generous amount of mayo and tangy tonkatsu sauce, with some romaine lettuce for added crunch and freshness. It’s a solid sandwich, though the pork was overcooked (I had a hard time even biting through it in parts).

The miso nasu followed, which is a dish consisting of grilled, miso-glazed eggplant. It feels like it’s missing something (a crunchy counterpoint to the soft eggplant, perhaps?), but it’s enjoyable enough; it basically tastes like they distilled the flavour of miso soup into a glaze and then brushed it onto an eggplant.

The last dish was the bacon fried rice, which food writer David Ort called “possibly the best fried rice [he’s] ever had.” This is mostly what made me want to come here.

I’m not sure if it’s the best I’ve ever had, but it was definitely top-shelf fried rice, with a nice meatiness from the generous bacon and a satisfying level of crispiness from the fried garlic slices. The creamy mayo on top was a nice touch.

Smoky Mushroom Bacon Cheeseburger at Wendy’s

Published on March 24, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Wendy’s is probably my favourite fast food burger joint (it’s neck-and-neck with A&W). But of course, being the best fast food burger chain isn’t exactly a tall mountain to climb. That’s why I was so shocked at how much I enjoyed the Smoky Mushroom Bacon Cheeseburger at Wendy’s.

It’s topped with mushrooms, bacon, aioli, fried onion tanglers, and Asiago cheese. It’s easily the best fast food hamburger I’ve had in a long, long time.

It’s still a fast food burger, so the patty itself wasn’t particularly great — but it wasn’t too dry and it didn’t have any off flavours. For a big fast food chain, that’s about as good as it gets.

Burgers from a place like this tend to be more about the toppings than the burger itself, and that’s where this one really stood out. The Gouda was pleasantly sharp and creamy, the aioli was tasty, and the bacon was substantial enough to not get lost among the other flavours.

I’m normally not a huge fan of mushrooms on a burger, but these were well cooked and suited the burger well. But what really put this over the top were the fried onion tanglers. I assumed these were going to be the typical crispy fried onions that come out of a bag, but they were actually little onion rings that had clearly been freshly made. They were great.

At first I was thinking that the price was a bit much — it’s about $7.50 with tax for the burger alone — but then I ate it, and yeah. It’s worth the money. It was good. Not just good for fast food, but good, period.

I should note that the Wendy’s I went to was staffed entirely by adults who seemed to know what they were doing. It was obvious that all of the components were relatively fresh, and it was assembled with care. But it could have just as easily been thrown together by a bored teenager, so as is always the case with fast food, your mileage may vary.