brunch – Page 7 – Michael Eats

Cheesy Fried Goodness at the Cracker Barrel in Buffalo

Published on April 21, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 6643 Transit Road, Buffalo, NY
Website: https://www.crackerbarrel.com/

When I was a kid, my family and I used to go to Florida every summer. We’d always drive there, and a stop at the Cracker Barrel was a must. It’s not exactly gourmet, but if you’re craving greasy southern comfort food, it nicely fits the bill.

Their current special is something called Southern Bowls; I went with the Sausage, Grits Cakes n’ Green Tomato Gravy Bowl, which I couldn’t resist. I mean, read this description from their menu and tell me you don’t immediately want to eat it:

Enjoy a fresh take on Southern flavors with two deep-fried stone ground pimento cheese grits cakes and our Sweet Pepper n’ Red Skin Hash topped with sausage patties, two scrambled eggs, and shredded Colby cheese all smothered in our green tomato gravy with a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

Yeah.

And it’s pretty much exactly what you’d think it would be from that description. None of the individual components stand out as being particularly great, but they all kind of meld together into one cheesy, creamy, delicious mess. In particular, the zingy green tomato gravy does a great job of adding a pop of vibrant flavour, and cutting through the richness of the eggs and the cheese and the grits.

Eggs Benedict (?) at Smash Kitchen

Published on March 27, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4261 Highway 7, Unionville
Website: http://www.smashkitchen.com/

Is eggs benedict still eggs benedict if you don’t include the hollandaise sauce? Traditionally, that dish consists of an english muffin topped with meat (usually ham or bacon), a poached egg, and hollandaise.

That’s four things; the hollandaise is 25 percent of the dish. How far can you change something until it’s no longer that thing? Is it still spaghetti and meatballs if you replace the tomato sauce with alfredo? Probably not!

Which is to say that I just ordered the Smash Benedict from Smash Kitchen, and they replaced the hollandaise with gravy. To be fair, they also have a traditional eggs benedict on the menu, so that does kinda give them license to mess around with it in their other offerings.

The problem is, I missed the hollandaise. This particular benedict featured an english muffin topped with pulled pork, cheese, the standard poached egg, and the aforementioned gravy. The pulled pork was tossed in a very vinegary barbecue sauce that, while tasty, absolutely dominated the dish.

A heaping serving of creamy hollandaise might have helped to cut the vinegary sharpness of the pork, but the gravy was completely lost. It may as well have not even been there. I had to eat most of this with some hash browns to help mellow out that strong barbecue sauce flavour.

Still, it certainly wasn’t bad, and the crispy fried hash browns were a very tasty accompaniment. But if I came back, I’d probably just stick with the classic benedict (there was also a crab cake benedict that looked tasty, and yes — that one had hollandaise on it).

The Diner House 29

Published on March 8, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

I watch a ridiculous amount of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It isn’t often that I go to a restaurant that feels like it would fit in on that show (we just don’t seem to have a lot of restaurants like that in the GTA). But Guy would be right at home at the Diner House 29 in St. Catherines.

There were a few things on the menu that caught my eye, but I went with Porky’s Revenge: “Roasted Pork Belly on a Toasted Bagel Bun with 2 Fried Eggs, House-made Onion Chutney, Niagara-Peach Mayo & Monterey Jack.”

Pork belly is one of those trendy ingredients that’s popped up on pretty much every menu over the last several years. But I still have a hard time saying no to it.

And the version here is good. I have a friend who teases me over the use of the word “unctuous,” because it’s one of those words that really isn’t in a normal person’s vocabulary. It’s pretty much exclusive to food nerds/writers/bloggers (see also: mouthfeel).

That being said, this sandwich was unctuous AF. Between the rich, fatty pork belly, the runny yolk from the eggs, the mayo, and the gooey cheese, the sandwich screams unctuous. There’s really no other word to describe it.

And yet it wasn’t too rich. The sweet chutney helps to balance things out, and the flavours all work so well together that it never seems one-note.

The bagel bun was quite dense, with a very crispy exterior. It would have been too much for your average sandwich, but there was so much going on here that the hearty bun was just right.

My biggest issue is that the sandwich is so overstuffed and slippery that as soon as I picked it up, it immediately started to fall apart. I panicked, took a quick bite, then set the sandwich down and proceeded to eat the rest with a fork and knife.

The sandwich comes with a salad, soup, or potatoes on the side. I got the rice, beans, and pesto soup; it was absolutely crammed with stuff and had a satisfying pesto flavour. It was hearty and tasty.

Beast

Published on November 16, 2014 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 96 Tecumseth Street, Toronto
Website: http://thebeastrestaurant.com/

I’ve actually written about Beast before, on Serious Eats, where I raved about the Beastwich. But I have to rave again — the Crispy Pork Hocks at Beast were so damn good that I felt compelled to bring this blog out of semi-hiatus so I could talk about them. Immediately after eating them, I was hit by a powerful compulsion: I need to tell someone about this. I need to tell everyone about this.

The hock — the part of the pig where the foot attaches to the leg, usually served as one big, unwieldy hunk of pork, bone and all — has been streamlined by Beast into convenient little cubes of crispy, porky goodness. It has been perfected.

Each cube is maybe an inch-and-a-half square, with an amazingly crispy, crunchy exterior, and a rich, perfectly cooked interior of tender, decadently fatty pork. I’m not even sure I can put into words how amazingly good this was.

Seriously, look at this and tell me you don’t want to eat this right this second:

That layer of crispy, crunchy amazingness is just so incredibly satisfying, and the interior is the perfect combination of extravagant fattiness and fork-tender pork. You might think it looks too fatty, but trust me, it’s not too fatty.

It’s served with a thick, sweet variation on soy sauce called kecap manis that kind of reminded me of hoisin sauce; it worked amazingly well with the pork. It also comes with two eggs cooked how you want them, crispy potatoes, toast, and a fairly generous pile of zingy kimchi.

I don’t want to over-sell this, but I think it might be one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. This is not a drill. Drop whatever the hell you’re doing right now and get yourself to Beast. If they’re not open yet, just camp out and wait. Because who cares what else is going on when something this good exists in the world and you haven’t tried it yet.