Tasty Slices at Revolver Pizza

Revolver Pizza
Location
: 388 Royal York Road, Etobicoke
Websitehttps://revolverpizza.com/

Revolver Pizza is clearly doing quite well.  They now have four locations, and when I visited on a weekday afternoon, the place was packed.

Revolver Pizza

And yeah, I get it.  I got the margherita (“sauce, fresh mozzarella, fior di latte, and basil”), and it was a solid slice of pizza.

I wish the slice had been a bit crispier on the bottom (or crispy at all — it had a softer texture, closer to Neapolitan than New York style), but otherwise, I quite enjoyed this.

Revolver Pizza

I think the prodigious amount of cheese might have something to do with the crust’s lack of texture — I’m certainly not going to say no to a lot of cheese on a pizza, but there probably could have been a bit less here.

Revolver Pizza

Still, the overall quality is pretty high, including a good amount of flavour and a nice chewiness on the crust.  I don’t know if it’s up there with the best in the city, but it’s a top-shelf slice of pizza, that’s for sure (bonus: it costs about five bucks for a pretty sizable slice).

Great Pizza at King Slice

King Slice
Location
: 1598 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.kingslice.ca/

Whenever there’s a discussion of the best pizza joints in Toronto, King Slice pretty much always comes up.  They’ve been around since ’89 and predate all the trendy spots in the GTA by a few decades, so clearly they’re doing something right.

And yeah, okay.  I just tried a pepperoni slice, and I get it.  I don’t know if it’s my favourite slice in the GTA, but it would be in my top 10 for sure.

King Slice

It’s a simple slice of pizza, but everything is just right: it’s got a good amount of cheese and pepperoni (it’s heavy on both, but doesn’t feel overloaded), the sauce has a zippy richness and definitely doesn’t taste like the canned stuff you might expect from an old-school place like this, and the crust is nicely baked (if a bit bland) with a light crispiness on its exterior.

King Slice

That’s not to mention the famous garlic oil, which they can either slather on just the crust or the whole slice (I went with the former).  This stuff is herby, garlicky, and delicious, and definitely brings the pizza a bunch of personality.  The crust is otherwise a bit lacking in flavour, but once you add a bunch of that garlic oil, you’re in business.

King Slice

The pizza doesn’t taste as fussed-over as some of the trendier joints in the GTA like Badiali or One Night Only (I’m pretty confident that there’s no sourdough or 48 hour proofs happening with the dough here), but for an old-school, no-frills pizza joint like this, it doesn’t get much better.

King Slice

I liked it so much that I came back about a week later to try the margherita slice, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I should also note that the slices are comically oversized; I don’t think I’ve had such a gigantic slice of pizza since the heyday of The Big Slice (RIP).

Great Sandwiches at Leslie’s Sandwich Room

Leslie's Sandwich Room
Location
: 969 Queen Street East, Toronto
Website: https://www.lesliessandwichrooms.com/

Leslie’s Sandwich Room is a great little sandwich shop on the east end.  Pretty much every sandwich on their menu is something I want to try immediately, but I did manage to narrow it down to a couple.

Leslie's Sandwich Room

Up first: The Cure (“focaccia, salmon, beets, horseradish dill mayo, rye croutons”).  This was basically like an upscale tuna salad sandwich, with a really great flavour and texture on the salmon (and zero fishiness), and with some nice pops of flavour from the beets, not to mention the creaminess from the horseradish mayo.  And the focaccia its served on works perfectly, with enough substance to hold up to the overstuffed sandwich, but not so much that it overwhelms.

Leslie's Sandwich Room

The highlight here might have been the rye croutons, however.  It never would have occurred to me to put croutons in a sandwich, but their satisfying crunchiness perfectly balances out the softness of the other components here.

Leslie's Sandwich Room

I also tried La Bomba (“focaccia, roasted chicken, white American cheese, sriracha mayo, sweet pickles, spicy garlic bomba”).  This was a really satisfying sandwich: meaty, cheesy, spicy, and profoundly rich.  I kinda wished there was something here to cut the heaviness a bit (the pickles are presumably supposed to do that job, but they’re more sweet than zippy, and get a bit lost among the other flavours), but it was still a top-notch sandwich.

Tasty Slices at Di’s Pizza Pies

Di's Pizza Pies
Location
: 115 St. Paul Street, St. Catherines
Website: https://www.dispizzapies.com/

Yeah, Di’s Pizza Pies is in St. Catharines and is a bit of a trek from the GTA, but if you’re in the area or passing by, it’s worth stopping in.

Di's Pizza Pies

They had a few slices on offer; I went with the pepperoni (“Red Sauce, Mozzarella, Battistoni Cup and Char Pepperoni, Pecorino”).

Di's Pizza Pies

The pizza is interesting.  I sort of assumed this was going to be the usual thin crust, NYC-style pizza that you can find at so many pizza joints in the GTA.  But the focaccia-like crust is actually quite different from that style of crispiness and chewiness, with a crunchy exterior and a fluffy, bready interior.

Di's Pizza Pies

It definitely works, with the more substantial crust doing a great job of holding up to the flavourful sauce, salty peperoni, and generous amount of cheese.  It’s a great slice.

Matty Melt Sandwich from KFC x Matty Matheson

Matty Melt Sandwich from KFC x Matty Matheson
Location
: 1610 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.kfc.ca/

KFC is making a pretty big deal out of their collaboration with celebrity chef Matty Matheson.  At the location I went to, there was signage all over the restaurant, and even the bag was emblazoned with Matheson’s name.  It’s in the news.  People are excited!

And sure, it is kinda exciting.  An ostensibly talented chef teaming up with a fast food joint?  Yeah, I’m all over that.

Matty Melt Sandwich from KFC x Matty Matheson

There are three new items in this promotion: the Matty Melt Sandwich, the Matty Melt Slider, and the Matty Mega Melt Poutine.  Hilariously, that poutine weighs in at a whopping 2390 calories (??), which seems like it’s probably too many calories?  I briefly considered ordering this just for the novelty of it, but I just don’t think I’ve reached the level of self-loathing required to want to consume a 2400 calorie poutine from KFC.  Sorry.

So I went with the Matty Melt Sandwich: “The Matty Melt Chicken Sandwich features our signature triple-breaded chicken fillet layered with cheese sauce, sweet caramelized onions, and creamy mayo, all stacked on a potato bun.”

Matty Melt Sandwich from KFC x Matty Matheson

I did not enjoy this sandwich.  It’s that “cheese sauce,” which has zero cheese-like properties and is mostly just one-note salty in an oddly unpleasant way.  If you served this to me blind, I never in a million years would have guessed that it was supposed to be a cheese sauce.

KFC doesn’t mention this in their description, but the only flavour there (aside from the vaguely off-putting amorphous saltiness) is truffle oil.  I might be wrong, but there’s either truffle oil in there, or something that tasted a lot like truffle oil to me.  I’m not particularly crazy about truffle oil, so can’t say I enjoyed this.  Your milage may vary if you like the stuff more than I do.

Matty Melt Sandwich from KFC x Matty Matheson

The only other thing that differentiates this from a standard KFC sandwich are the caramelized onions.  Some sweetness actually would have been nice, considering how salty the sandwich is, but I can’t say the onions added much.

It probably didn’t help that the chicken itself had obviously been sitting out for quite a while, and was dried out and chewy around the edges.  This is partially my fault — the last time I visited this particular KFC location, I had a bad experience and someone commented that it was “the worst KFC in the GTA.”  But that was a few years ago, and I had hoped things had gotten better since then.  Clearly not!  Oh well.