crispy – Michael Eats

Amazing Roast Pork at B’s Sizzling Kitchen

Published on January 22, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 430 Horner Avenue, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.bsizzlingkitchen.com/

B’s Sizzling Kitchen is one of those places that you’d probably never discover if you hadn’t heard about it from a friend or read about it online, since it’s kinda hidden away in a very nondescript industrial/residential area of Etobicoke. But it’s absolutely worth coming out of your way for.

It’s a Filipino restaurant that specializes in Cebu lechon — ultra-tender roast pork with delightfully crispy skin — and man, it’s good.

I started with the lechon sisig fries, which features a heaping portion of tasty pork on top of crispy, crinkle-cut fries. This was everything you want it to be. It’s porky, crispy, sweet, and addictive. It’s profoundly delicious.

But of course, the Cebu lechon is what you’re here for, and it’s just the absolute best. They make it with pork belly, and… I mean, just look at it.

Look at it.

The meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender, it’s perfectly seasoned and intensely flavourful, and the crispy skin is the stuff dreams are made of. Just give me a big bag of that skin and let me eat it like potato chips.

I’m going to like pretty much any well-prepared fatty pork dish by default, but this one is something special.

As I was leaving, there was a whole suckling pig sitting on a table waiting to be picked up, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything so badly in my entire life.

Tasty Fried Corn Dogs at Woofdawg

Published on July 29, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1357 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.woofdawg.com/

Woofdog used to operate out of a cart (called Kung Fu Dawg), where they made their own hot dogs from scratch and generally outclassed what you’d expect from a street vendor dog.

They’ve upgraded to a permanent location and changed their name to Woofdog; as far as I can tell, not much else has changed. They still make their hot dogs in-house — you can pick from beef and pork, beef, or chicken — and they’re still serving top-quality eats.

On this visit I tried the corn dog, and went with a beef and pork hot dog. You can get one that’s more extravagantly topped, but I went with the basic version that comes with grainy mustard and nothing else.

It’s very tasty, though I’ll admit that I was comparing it to the one I recently had at Disneyland, which, surprisingly enough, was clearly superior. The hot dog itself is very good — it’s meaty, not overly salty, and delicious — but the coating is a bit bland. It’s nice and crispy from the fryer, but it doesn’t have a whole lot of flavour.

Still, the hot dog / mustard combo is so tasty that this is barely even an issue. I think the regular hot dog is probably the way to go here, however.

Tasty Dipped Sandwiches at Hot Dip

Published on June 27, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1186 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/hotdiptoronto/

Hot Dip is a new sandwich shop on Queen Street that specializes in meaty sandwiches you can dip into things, and yeah, gimme that. That’s a genius idea.

They actually only have four sandwiches on the menu (at the moment, at least), which I appreciate. I always freeze like a deer in headlights when I see a menu with dozens of things on it — I know that everything on this huge menu cannot possibly be great, so just tell me what the good stuff is and what I can ignore.

Focusing on only a few things solves this problem entirely.

I ordered the Hot Dip (because you should always get the menu item that shares a name with the restaurant) which is a roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo topped with crispy onions and served on a pretzel roll. The dip, in this case, is sharp cheddar.

It’s a very good sandwich. The thinly-sliced roast beef is super tender with a nice beefy flavour, and there’s a generous amount of it — the menu says eight ounces (i.e. half a pound, i.e. a lot of beef), and based on how substantial the sandwich is, I have no reason to believe they’re skimping on the meat.

The pretzel roll is just as good as the beef. Sometimes pretzel bread can be a bit on the dense side, but this struck a great balance between softness and heft, with a lightly crispy exterior.

As for the dip, weirdly enough it’s the weakest part of the sandwich. Despite being called “sharp cheddar” it has a thoroughly mild flavour — it basically has the taste and texture of watered-down Cheez Whiz. It mostly just adds moisture to the sandwich, but between the fresh bread and the tender meat, it doesn’t particularly need it.

My other big issue: it’s an incredibly heavy sandwich, and it really needs something acidic to cut through the overwhelming richness. I guess the horseradish mayo is supposed to fill this role? But it’s completely overwhelmed by all the beef; you can barely even tell that it’s there. It’s certainly not a deal-killer (it’s still very tasty), but it makes the sandwich feel a bit one-note rich, which is a shame.

Bacon Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich at Wendy’s

Published on July 2, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1520 Aimco Boulevard, Mississauga
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca/home

The Bacon Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich from Wendy’s has pretty much everything I like in a fast food sandwich; it’s got gooey cheese (with both a melty cheese slice and cheese sauce), bacon, jalapenos, crispy fried onions, pickled jalapeno slices, and a smoky japaleno sauce.

So yeah, it’s good. They’d have to work pretty hard to mess it up.

The worst part about this chicken sandwich is, funnily enough, the chicken. The sandwich features their Spicy Chicken patty, and they keep it in one of those warming drawers (AKA the fast food ruiner).

So it’s dry, of course. It’s also a little bit too salty, and thoroughly infused with a vaguely unpleasant processed flavour.

The toppings are so abundant, however, that it’s barely even an issue. I only had one or two bites that weren’t crammed with stuff.

You’ve got the richness from the cheeses, crispiness from the fried onions, zestiness from the sauce, a nice meaty bite from the bacon, and a good amount of acidity from the jalapenos to help cut through the sandwich’s richness. It’s quite tasty.

It also has a decent kick to it — it’s nothing too aggressive, but for something from a fast food joint, it’s not bad.

Crispy Fried Goodness at Mr. Tonkatsu

Published on May 8, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 520 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.mrtonkatsu.com/

Tonkatsu is one of those dishes that’s very difficult to dislike. You can coat pretty much anything in panko breading and then deep fry it, and that thing is going to be tasty. A fried, panko-breaded pork cutlet? Served with rice and a delicious dipping sauce? Yeah, it’s hard to go wrong there.

And while Mr. Tonkatsu doesn’t serve the best tonkatsu I’ve ever had, they certainly do a solid job with it.

They have a couple of different pork options on the menu — loin and tenderloin, with the latter being an extra dollar. I went with loin, which comes with a bowl of rice, tonkatsu sauce, shredded cabbage, and miso soup.

The panko breading on the tonkatsu had an absolutely perfect texture — it was golden and lightly crispy, with just enough heft to make its presence known, but not enough to overwhelm the meat. But it was way underseasoned; it was actually pretty bland.

Thankfully, the tonkatsu sauce very thoroughly solves that problem. I normally like that stuff — it’s kind of like a Japanese take on HP sauce — but the version here was something special, with way more complexity than the norm.

It’s good that the sauce was so delicious, because the meat needed a lot of it. Aside from the distinct lack of flavour, the pork itself was overcooked and extremely dry. A prodigious application of the tasty sauce goes a long way towards fixing those problems, but they are problems nonetheless.

Everything else was quite good. The dressing for the cabbage was the usual sesame-infused concoction you’d expect; it was quite satisfying. And the miso soup had a mildly fishy funk that I found to be delightful.