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A Delicious Sandwich at Falafel Plus

Published on December 7, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1065 Canadian Place, Mississauga
Website: https://falafelplus.ca/

I’ve had the falafel at Falafel Plus a few times now, and it’s consistently delicious — some of the best falafel in the GTA. I figured it was probably about time to try something different; despite the name, this place actually serves a whole bunch of Middle Eastern standbys.

I went with the magaly, which is a fried eggplant and cauliflower sandwich. You can get this topped as you’d like, but by default it comes with creamy garlic sauce, zingy cucumber salad, hot pepper, and (I think) a different garlicky sauce.

It’s really good. The eggplant has a great flavour and is luxuriously creamy, and the cauliflower adds a meaty bite. Combined with the tasty toppings, it’s a top-notch sandwich.

Given how good the falafel is, I was expecting this to be tasty, but I was actually pretty blown away by how much I enjoyed it.

Great Filipino Brunch at BB’s

Published on October 26, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5 Brock Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/bbs.bbs.bbs.bbs.bbs/

BB’s is a delightful Filipino joint that’s mostly known for their brunch, though they are open in the evenings on the weekend, serving… not brunch? I don’t know, they don’t have a website. Maybe it’s all day brunch? Who knows; go and find out!

What a useful blog post this is. Not a waste of your time at all.

What I can say with some level of certainty is that if you show up between 11:00am and 4:00pm between Friday and Sunday, you can brunch it up. Even more of a certainty: the food is delicious.

I ordered the BB’s Silog, which the menu describes as “breakfast plate w/ garlic rice, two fried eggs, atsara, & your choice of house made longanisa, corned beef hash, fried milkfish.”

It’s a seriously, seriously tasty breakfast. I went with the corned beef hash, which is exactly what you want it to be: it’s super tender, the flavour is great, and it’s got a bunch of delightfully crispy bits from the griddle. It also has a perfect ratio of perfectly-cooked potato cubes to meat, which is to say that it’s mostly meat, with a few little potatoes interspersed throughout.

I also tried the longanisa, which is basically a Filipino take on chorizo. This was great, with an interesting sweetness and a great meaty texture. I’m a big fan of sausages with a more rustic grind, and that was definitely the case here.

As for everything else on the plate, the garlic rice was, as advertised, extremely garlicky, with an intense browned-garlic flavour and an interesting texture (it’s reminiscent of Vietnamese broken rice). The eggs were perfectly cooked, and the atsara (pickled papaya) was a perfect zingy counterpoint to everything else on the plate.

The only odd note was the big dollop of ketchup, which could not have been more unnecessary or unwelcome here. I tried a bit on its own, and as far as I could tell it was just plain old Heinz. I’m not a ketchup hater, but there was absolutely nothing on this delicious plate that even remotely needed it.

Tasty (and Cheap!) Eats at Shanghai Dim Sum

Published on October 18, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 330 Highway 7, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.shanghaidimsum.ca/

If you’re looking for a delicious and delightfully affordable meal, you could absolutely do worse than Shanghai Dim Sum. If you show up before 11:00 AM (and you should definitely do this) you can order off a special early morning menu that includes an order of four soup dumplings for 99 cents.

99 cents! Are they they best soup dumplings you’ll ever have? No, but they’re quite tasty, and for the price, they’re outstanding.

Everything else was quite good as well. We managed to try a generous amount of stuff (I was quite full by the end of the meal) — the total bill? About 30 bucks for three people. You can’t argue with that price.

The restaurant also has the distinction of serving what might be the garlickiest dish I’ve ever had. The boiled pork with garlic paste features tender slices of pork belly doused in a sauce that’s effectively pure, uncooked garlic. It was actually quite tasty, but that garlic taste lingered on my palate for a solid 24 hours.

More Delicious Pasta at Shiso Tree Cafe

Published on October 3, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3160 Steeles Avenue East, Markham
Website: https://www.facebook.com/ShisoTree/

I mentioned recently that I generally prefer checking out restaurants I haven’t tried over revisiting ones I have. There are, however, exceptions to that rule, such as: Shiso Tree Cafe, a restaurant that fuses Japanese and Italian cuisine with some seriously delicious results.

On this visit I had the shoyu mushroom spaghetti: “shimeji, enoki, king oyster mushrooms in mentsuyu butter sauce.”

It’s so good. It looks a little bit dry in the photo; a lot of the sauce is at the bottom of the bowl, but once you mix it up, it becomes creamy and amazing (and the sauce is rich enough to cling perfectly to the pasta — there wasn’t any left in the bowl when the spaghetti was done).

It has an incredibly satisfying buttery/savoury flavour, and the various types of mushrooms add a nice variety of textures and flavours. It’s a top-notch bowl of pasta.

It’s also an incredible deal; every pasta on their lunch menu costs twelve bucks and comes with a salad, soup, and a slice of garlic bread. The salad looks a little sad, but features a sesame-infused dressing that’s a cut above the standard Japanese-inspired salad dressing you’re expecting. The creamy seafood soup is rich, flavourful, and packed with tasty chunks of seafood — it’s way better than a free soup has any right to be. The garlic bread is quite tasty, too.

Disappointment at General Assembly Pizza

Published on September 6, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 331 Adelaide Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.gapizza.com/

The last time I checked out General Assembly Pizza, I noted that the crust didn’t quite have the level of chew that you’re looking for; sadly, that issue has not gotten any better. If anything, it’s worse.

Their current special is a TIFF-inspired pizza called the Pink Panther: “rose sauce, shrimp, lemon, red jalapeno, garlic, scallion, mozzarella.”

It’s not bad. The flavours all work together relatively well, and the shrimp is perfectly cooked. But it’s an off-kilter pizza, and unlike the off-kilter pies at a place like Descendant, I kinda wished I was eating something a bit more traditional. Nothing about it particularly pops.

Still, it’s tasty enough — aside from the crust. As you can see from the photo, it’s perfectly cooked, with a delightful amount of char from the hot oven. But it lacks substance, and it’s kinda bland. It almost dissolves in your mouth; you barely even have to chew it.

I also tried the General Bread from the Snacks portion of the menu, which is described as “aged mozzarella, grana, garlic, aleppo pepper, wild oregano.” It had the same issues with the dough, but it’s loaded with enough cheese and garlic (not to mention the tomato dipping sauce) to overcome the crust’s deficiencies. It’s quite good.