French taco – Michael Eats

Location: 678 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://brickncheese.com/

Brick ‘N’ Cheese specializes in French tacos, which is basically a French burrito that’s crammed with meat and pressed flat in a panini press.

There used to be a great restaurant in the city called Mister Frenchy that served these things; alas, that place shut down. So if you’re looking for a French taco in the GTA, I think Brick ‘N’ Cheese might be the only game in town.

The menu at Brick ‘N’ Cheese is pretty customizable; you can either make your own creation by picking from an assortment of meats and sauces, or you get get one of six of what they call “premade bricks.” I went with the original premade brick: “extra lean ground beef & chicken, ketchup, cheddar, and pickles” (the menu doesn’t mention it, but there are fries in there as well).

Nothing about it particularly blew my mind, but it’s a satisfying wrap. It’s meaty, cheesy, and rich. I couldn’t help but compare it to the French taco I had at Mister Frenchy, which was greatly enhanced by a delicious, zippy sauce that helped to cut through the richness of the wrap. I wish they had something like that here (and the fries tasted like stale fries that had been dunked in oil prior to assembling the wrap, which meant that they were roughly a trillion times hotter than the other fillings), but this was otherwise a solid wrap.

Location: 675 Danforth Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://www.misterfrenchy.com/

Mister Frenchy is an unassuming restaurant on the Danforth that specializes in something called French tacos.

No, I had never heard of a French taco either. But it’s a real thing, apparently — it’s basically a meaty, pressed wrap that was popularized in the Lyon region of France.

I think it’s safe to say that this is the only place in the city where you can try one, which is something that you should absolutely do. It’s shockingly amazing.

They have a variety of French tacos and baguette sandwiches on their menu; I went with the Le Lyonais French taco, which comes with “ground beef, Algerian sauce, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, French fries, and sauce fromagere.”

It was so good. The wrap was perfectly pressed, giving you that perfect combo of crispy and chewy. And the filling was pure comfort food perfection: an amazing mix of nicely spiced beef, perfectly cooked veggies, zingy sauce, and abundantly gooey cheese.

Oh, and there are fries in there as well — I’m normally not crazy about potatoes in a sandwich/wrap, but the fries here add substance without getting in the way or calling attention to themselves. The whole thing is ridiculously satisfying.

Alas, the fries on the side didn’t work nearly as well as the fries in the wrap. They were undercooked, the herb mixture they were tossed in was overbearing, and the sauce on top was way too zesty to work as a dipping sauce.

Which is fine — the wrap is a perfectly satisfying meal on its own. Plus, it’s way heavier than it looks. It’s a bit of a gut-buster.

Tag: French taco

Satisfying French Tacos at Brick ‘N’ Cheese

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