Canada – Page 168 – Michael Eats

La Forchetta Ristorante at Taste of Little Italy

Published on July 20, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 613 College Street, Toronto (but it’s only served during Taste of Little Italy)
Website: http://laforchetta.ca/

The Taste of Little Italy street festival is a decent event for food — lots of interesting vendors, and generally some pretty good eats to be had. However, every year there’s one clear highlight, and that’s the Risotto al Parmigiano Reggiano served up by La Forchetta Ristorante.

Oh man, that risotto. It’s pretty basic: it’s got some green onions for colour, sometimes some chopped asparagus (though I didn’t taste any this year) but it’s otherwise no-frills risotto. I think what really pushes it over the edge is the big wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano that they serve it in. The Italian cheese melts generously into the rice, giving it a luxurious richness, and a really satisfying, almost nutty flavour. As they serve it, they scrape the bottom of the wheel with the spoon, ensuring that each serving is as packed with cheese as possible. It’s seriously good.

Dairy Cream

Published on July 16, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 715 Lakeshore Road East, Mississauga
Website: http://www.dairycream.org/

As a kid, one of my favourite things about going to Canada’s Wonderland was the ice cream; I’d either get a chocolate-dipped ice cream cone from the place right near the entrance (which, sadly, eventually turned into a Dairy Queen), or if I was feeling particularly hungry, I’d get a funnel cake.

Ah, funnel cakes. What’s not to like? You’ve got the plate-sized piece of delicious criss-crossed fried dough, the icing sugar, the very sweet strawberry-chunk-infused strawberry sauce, and finally, a heaping mound of soft serve ice cream.

No, it’s not fine dining, but if it doesn’t put a smile on your face, then I don’t even know what to say to you. You’re dead to me.

I almost never find myself at Canada’s Wonderland these days, so my funnel cake cravings have gone unfulfilled.

Imagine my delight when I found out that Dairy Cream in Mississauga serves a Wonderland-esque funnel cake, and that their version is just as it should be. The warm, freshly-fried dough, the strawberry sauce, the above average creamy soft serve: it’s all here. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but if you’re looking for a mind-blowing funnel cake, you’ll probably be searching for a while.

Grand Electric

Published on May 26, 2013May 26, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1330 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.grandelectricbar.com/

I don’t need to tell you about Grand Electric. It opened in 2011, and since then, everyone in the GTA with even a vague interest in food has been there and has raved about the place. Everyone.

I was afraid that it had been over-hyped to a level that no restaurant could reasonably reach. I was wrong. It is crazy delicious.

The small, no-frills restaurant is laid out with the menu written on a blackboard on the back wall. And yes, as you have heard, it is very loud. They like their hip-hop here, and they like to crank it up. I could converse with my dining companion without having to raise my voice too much, so it wasn’t too bad (though I went for lunch and I suspect it gets louder in the evening).

The menu is very reasonably priced, with all the tacos being sold individually for $3.60. I went with Pork Tinga, Beef Cheek, and Scrapple. I also got an order of the Pig Head Fries, because how can I resist a menu item entitled Pig Head Fries? (the answer: I cannot.)

Did I mention that it was crazy delicious? Because it was. All three tacos were pretty great, though the highlight was the scrapple. Featuring a rectangular, crispy-on-the-outside-and-deliciously-porky-on-the-inside patty of pure deliciousness, which is topped with avocados and green onions and features a perfectly complimentary sweet sauce, it is one of the best things I’ve eaten in a while. If you told me this was all I could eat for the rest of my life, I’d be cool with that.

The other two tacos were more traditional and were perfectly delicious, though they never quite reached the levels of transcendent awesomeness of the scrapple.

As for the Pig Head Fries, they were crispy and salty, with a creamy interior and a delicious dipping sauce that tasted vaguely like the Big Mac sauce from McDonald’s. They were quite tasty.

Bake Sale – Carrot Cake

Published on May 9, 2013October 17, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3076 Bloor Street West, Etobicoke
Website: http://www.bakesaletoronto.com/

So the carrot cake from Bake Sale bakery? Best store-bought cake I’ve ever had. Seriously. Most store-bought cakes have the same airy, vaguely processed texture that I find somewhat unappealing. Not this cake; this one is dense, moist, and very close to cake perfection.

It has walnuts interspersed throughout, which add a satisfying textural component as well as a vague nuttiness that complements the cake quite well.

The cream cheese frosting is rich and sweet, but not overly so. It’s also really well proportioned, giving you a perfect amount of cake and frosting in each bite.

It’s raisin-free, which I found delightful. Hey raisins: what’s the point of you? Go home. No one likes you.

Look, it’s a classic carrot cake. They’re not reinventing the wheel here. This isn’t someone’s take on a carrot cake; it is a carrot cake, executed to absolute perfection.

Panera Bread

Published on May 5, 2013May 7, 2013 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 197 North Queen Street, Etobicoke
Website: http://www.panerabread.com/

One thing I like about Panera Bread is that its Canadian and American menus seem to be pretty consistent. A lot of times there’ll be an interesting item introduced on the menu at a fast food joint, only for it never to materialize here in Canada (like KFC’s boneless chicken, McDonald’s Egg White Delight McMuffin, or Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Tacos, among many others).

Panera Bread, on the other hand, seems to actually let Canadians try its new menu items, which is nice.

The latest thing at Panera is pasta. They’ve got Tortellini Alfredo, Pesto Sacchettini, and Rustic Penne Bolognese. I went with the Sacchettini, which is described as a “purse-like pasta filled with six cheeses.” Pesto? Six different cheeses? Sign me up.

There’s a choice between small and large, and though the small initially seems comically undersized, it’s actually fairly heavy and a good amount for lunch.

It’s not bad. It is, as advertised, quite cheesy, and the generous amount of pesto clinging to each Sacchettini gives it a good amount of flavour.

It was, however, unevenly hot in the way that only food that has been quickly microwaved gets. It’s also pretty much the opposite of al dente, with pasta that is disconcertingly close to Chef Boyardee in the texture department.

It comes with either a soup or a salad. I got the Classic Salad, which is dressed with a passable balsamic vinaigrette. It complimented the pasta fairly well; the occasional bite of the vinegary salad helped to cut the richness of the oily, cheesy pasta (and the pasta is definitely not kidding around with the oiliness — when I finished, there was a pretty substantial pool of oil at the bottom of the bowl).

It’s not bad, but at the price I don’t know how heartily I can recommend it. I got it with a lemonade to drink, and it came up to almost 15 bucks, which is kind of absurd for the caliber of food you’re getting.