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A Decent Sandwich at Gold Standard

Published on July 19, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1574 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://breakfastsandwich.ca/

There’s basically nowhere to go but down from Gold Standard’s breakfast sandwich. It’s bordering on sandwich perfection.

I just tried the Sabich from Gold Standard’s new location on Queen, and yep: it’s not as good as the breakfast sandwich. It’s not even close.

The sabich, per their menu: “egg salad, fried eggplant, cucumber, pickles, parsley.”

It’s fine. It’s decent enough, but the breakfast sandwich is clearly the thing to order here.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with it; the egg salad is nice and creamy, as is the meaty eggplant. The cucumber adds a bit of crunch, though some additional texture would be nice.

The biggest problem is that all of the components are basically on the same wavelength; the flavour is one-note. It’s boring. It needs some acidity to round things out. The pickled onions add a slight vinegary bite, but there isn’t enough of them to make much of an impact.

Beyond Sausage Egg and Cheese from Tim Hortons

Published on July 12, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2960 South Sheridan Way, Oakville
Website: https://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/index.php

The fake meat gold rush continues; I think it’s safe to say that, before long, all of the fast food chains will have imitation meats from places like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods on their menus.

Tim Hortons is the latest, with three new breakfast sandwiches featuring sausage that looks and tastes like sausage — but isn’t.

I tried the Beyond Meat burger from A&W last summer, and I thought it vaguely approximated real meat, but wasn’t going to fool anyone.

The Beyond Sausage at Tim Hortons is much more convincing.

I got the Egg and Cheese, which features a Beyond Sausage patty, an omelette patty, and processed cheese on an English muffin.

The sausage certainly isn’t great, but it convincingly tastes like an actual sausage — a mediocre sausage, mind you, but if I hadn’t known it was fake meat, I wouldn’t have guessed. That’s impressive.

(Of course, emulating a lousy, ultra-processed sausage is much, much easier than emulating one that actually tastes good, but one step at a time, I guess?)

There was something about the spicing that I found vaguely unappealing, and the flavour was particularly aggressive, presumably to cover up the lack of a meaty flavour. But for the most part, it’s decent enough.

The texture is dead-on. Unlike the Beyond Meat burger I had at A&W, it’s not mushy at all. It’s a bit dry, and no one’s going to confuse it for a decent quality sausage, but the texture is basically identical to the type of mediocre sausage you’ll find at a place like Tim Hortons. I was surprised at how close it got.

Otherwise, the sandwich was typical Tim Hortons, which is to say it was pretty lousy — the cheese was barely melted, the omelette was rubbery, and the English muffin was dense and dry.

Rich, Chickeny Ramen at Touhenboku Ramen

Published on December 20, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2459 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.touhenboku.ca/

The ramen at Touhenboku is a little bit different than the norm. Most of the ramen shops in Toronto serve tonkotsu-style ramen, in which pork bones are boiled for hours and hours until you wind up with a very rich, porky broth.

Touhenboku, on the other hand, subs out the pork for chicken, and yet still manages to retain that intense richness that you associate with tonkotsu.

If your average bowl of chicken soup is the soup equivalent of white meat (lighter, with a more restrained flavour) then what they’re serving at Touhenboku is more like dark meat, with a really intense flavour and a fattier texture.

In fact, the soup might be a bit too fatty, with a heavy oiliness that’s borderline too much. I’m certainly not going to complain about a very rich bowl of ramen, but this one was slightly too greasy.

I ordered the sea salt ramen (a.k.a. shio ramen) from the “Tomo’s favourite” section of the menu. It’s a pretty standard bowl, with the usual assortment of veggies, an egg, and chasu.

It’s (mostly) quite good. The noodles were a bit too thin (thick is also an option, however — I think that’s the one to go with), and the flavour was slightly one-note in its rich chickeniness (chickeniness… that’s a word, right?), but it was a satisfying bowl of soup.

Most notably, the very intense chicken flavour is pretty remarkable, and the thinly sliced chasu was ultra-tender and perfectly seasoned, with a great porky flavour. The egg was also perfectly cooked, with a great gooey yolk, so there’s definitely more good here than bad.

Decent Thai Food at Pai

Published on November 15, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 18 Duncan Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.paitoronto.com/

After recently having a mind-blowing meal at Khao San Road (which is just around the corner), I decided to Thai it up again, this time at Pai. Alas, the meal was quite tasty, but it wasn’t even close to being on the same level as KSR.

I ordered the Pad Gra Prow — “holy basil stir fried with your choice of ground pork, chicken, beef or tofu, steamed jasmine rice, thai style fried egg, nam prik nam pla sauce.”

I went with pork, and elected to go Thai spicy, which is the highest spice level.

And indeed, they were absolutely, positively not kidding around with the spice. I enjoyed the level of heat, but then I’m somewhat of a glutton for punishment in that regard (see also: my undying love for the “hot AF” chicken at Chica’s Chicken).

Sadly, aside from the impressive level of fiery heat, nothing about this dish particularly stands out. It’s perfectly tasty, but none of the flavours pop, even when you add the fish sauce that comes on the side. It’s a serviceable dish, but it’s boring.

Contrast that with the life-changing bowl of Khao Soi that I had at Khao San Road, and there’s no contest.

Of course, it’s not a fair comparison since the two dishes are so radically different. But my dining companion had the pad thai at both restaurants and was able to make a 1:1 comparison. He had the same reaction — Pai is fine, but KSR is magical.

Fried Chicken Breakfast Sandwich at Porchetta & Co.

Published on November 1, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 130 King Street West, Toronto
Website: http://porchettaco.com/

The Exchange Tower location of Porchetta & Co. is a bit different from the other ones — it opens early, and it has a breakfast menu. This menu includes a buttermilk fried chicken sandwich.

Fried chicken in the morning? Yes please.

Sadly, it’s not quite as great as you’d hope, but it’s fried chicken, an egg, and gooey cheese. Of course it tastes good. How could that combo not taste good?

Like all of the fried chicken at Porchetta & Co., the chicken here is perfectly cooked, with a satisfyingly crispy exterior. It’s dipped in hot honey, with a very strong emphasis on the honey. It’s sweet. I wish there were a bit more spice, and maybe some vinegar to cut the sweetness, because it’s tasty, but it’s a bit cloying.

The egg was overcooked, with a chalky yolk — but other than that, the sandwich was solid. The cheese was nice and melty, and the buttery toasted English muffin was the perfect vehicle for the chicken, egg, and cheese.