gravy – Michael Eats

Delicious Roast Pork at The Carvery

Published on July 26, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 486 Front Street West, Toronto (inside Wellington Market)
Website: https://thewelltoronto.com/directory/the-carvery/

Wellington Market at the Well recently expanded a bit — they have a handful of new restaurants, including locations of BEAR Steak Sandwiches, Chen Chen’s Nashville Hot Chicken, and the one I checked out, The Carvery.

This is an outpost of a Windsor restaurant that specializes in various roast meats — chicken, pork, lamb, and beef — that you can have in a sandwich or on a plate.

I went with the roast pork plate, which comes with the pork, a crispy piece of crackling, peas, carrots, squash, potatoes, and a dinner roll. At $13.90 for a massive plate of food, it’s an incredible deal.

No, it’s not the most photogenic dish ever — it’s basically just various shades of brown, though there is a generous amount of vegetables buried under there.

But if it tastes this good, I can’t say I’m too concerned about what it looks like.

Most importantly, the roast pork is great — it’s tender and nicely seasoned, with the gravy on top just amping up its flavour. There’s also the ultra-crunchy piece of crackling on top, and yeah, that’s good stuff.

As for everything else, the vegetables are all cooked perfectly (the potato has a satisfyingly crispy exterior), and the roll is clearly fresh, with a nicely buttery flavour.

And again: it’s $13.90. It’s an amazing value for the quantity and quality of the food you’re getting here.

Raptor Chicken Nacho Poutine at McDonald’s

Published on November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1001 Islington Avenue, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I’ll admit that the Raptor Chicken Nacho Poutine kind of sent me into an existential panic. Like, where did I go wrong in my life that I’m sitting alone in a McDonald’s on a Friday evening, scarfing down an ill-advised novelty poutine so I can review it for my food blog? What wrong turn did I make to get here?

The Raptor Chicken Nacho Poutine is not good. But hey, I ate it. It caused me to look deep down inside myself and not like what I see, but I did eat it and finish it, so of course I’m going to blog about it. Otherwise what was it all for??

Here’s how McDonald’s describes this thing: “this new offering is made with 100% Canadian-raised seasoned chicken, our World Famous Fries™ layered with stringy cheese curds and savoury gravy, topped with tortilla strips and drizzled with nacho cheese sauce.”

Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit about how bad this is. It’s not gross, I guess, but I didn’t find anything about eating it to be particularly pleasant. It’s mostly just an odd hodgepodge of flavours and textures that don’t particularly belong together.

I think the nacho cheese sauce is the worst offender. I actually like nacho cheese sauce, but combined with the gravy and curds it had an odd sourness that I found off-putting. The tortilla strips were fine, but again, they just seemed odd in the context of a poutine.

As for the big chunks of chicken that they had plopped on top — like everything else, they’re just kinda there, doing their own thing. They don’t really add anything to the dish.

Then there’s the poutine base, which is fine, but I don’t think McDonald’s has a great poutine in the best of times, and this was certainly not the best of times (the fact that the fries were paler and soggier than usual didn’t help).

Gravy Lovers Sandwich at KFC

Published on November 10, 2022November 10, 2022 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 1610 The Queensway, Toronto
Website: https://www.kfc.ca/

KFC just came out with a sandwich called the Gravy Lovers Sandwich, and yes. Of course. Of course I’m going to try that sandwich. I’m sold just based on the name alone.

The Gravy Lovers Sandwich, as per the KFC website: “features our delicious hand breaded chicken filet, 1 slice of Monterey Jack cheese, creamy mayo and 1 crunchy indented hashbrown with an individual gravy.”

Here’s the problem with ordering anything from a big fast food chain: it’s a crapshoot. Sometimes you get food that’s nice and fresh, and sometimes you get food that’s… not. I very much got the latter.

It’s a decent enough sandwich in theory, I’ll give it that. How could it not be? Fried chicken + gravy is always going to be a good thing.

It comes with a surprisingly large container of gravy (which is standard KFC gravy — thick and generically salty, but tasty enough), and you’re supposed to take off the top bun and pour it onto the sandwich. I poured out about a quarter of it, and used the rest as a dip between bites.

The biggest problem here (aside from the fact that they forgot about the slice of cheese, and I guess decided to give me lettuce instead) is that both the chicken and the hashbrown had clearly been sitting in one of those warming trays for hours. Days? Weeks?? The meat had a texture that I will charitably describe as leathery, and the hashbrown (which you expect to be crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside) was crunchy and dry throughout.

The copious serving of gravy actually helped quite a bit in this regard, because the sandwich otherwise would have been inedibly dry. I finished it, and I don’t think that would have been the case if not for the added moisture from the gravy.

Also: the sandwich (on its own — no combo!) costs $11.50 before tax. Maybe I just don’t eat enough fast food these days, but I’ll admit that this gave me sticker shock. For around the same price, you can go to a local joint like Chica’s or PG Clucks and get a sandwich that’s roughly a trillion times better.

Mediocre Fried Chicken and Poutine at Rudy

Published on February 4, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 619 College Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.rudyresto.com/

I love Rudy. I’m on record calling their burger the best in the city. So it pains me to say this, but the meal I just had there was not great.

To be fair, I didn’t have a burger; going to a burger joint and not ordering the burger is probably not the smartest thing in the world.

Instead, I got the fried chicken sandwich and the poutine. Neither was particularly great.

The chicken sandwich is dubbed the Valentino: “Fried Chicken Sandwich, Coleslaw, Valentino Sauce, Mild Hot Sauce.” I’ve had this before and found it to be quite tasty, so maybe they were just having an off day?

The biggest issue is the chicken itself; it was dry, overcooked, and incredibly salty.

The first few bites were outright bad, but then I noticed that the two sauces were actually in little plastic containers on the side rather than on the sandwich. I’m not sure why they did it that way (I certainly didn’t ask for that), but once I applied them both to the chicken, things improved considerably. The tasty ranch / hot sauce combo helped to smooth over a lot of the chicken’s faults.

As for the soft squishy bun that works so well on the burger — sadly, it has a hard time holding up to the more substantial chicken sandwich.

I also tried the poutine, which Toronto Life recently called the best in the city. It was fine? I guess? The gravy was overabundant and bland, the curds were stale (no squeak to be found), and the whole thing wasn’t hot enough to even vaguely melt the cheese. It certainly wasn’t unpleasant to eat, but it’s a far cry from the best in the city.

I should note that someone else got the burger and said it was as delicious as ever, so unsurprisingly, the burger is the thing to order at the burger joint. Who would have guessed!

Gross Meatballs and Tasty Dessert at Ikea

Published on June 12, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1475 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.ikea.com/

Hot tip: Ikea serves chicken meatballs now, and you should absolutely, positively never order them. You’re welcome.

They’re actually quite similar to the standard beef meatballs, which are junk — but tasty junk. I wouldn’t want to eat them on a regular basis, but they’re not bad for what they are.

The chicken meatballs, on the other hand, are not tasty junk. The flavour is basically fine; they taste a lot like the beef meatballs, but saltier and with a vague chicken-like flavour.

But the texture is horrific. Remember those rubber Super Balls that would bounce and bounce and bounce? I’m pretty sure these meatballs have most of the same properties. They were so rubbery and horrible that I couldn’t even cut through them with a fork.

On the plus side, I also had a slice of the chocolate caramel cake, and it’s surprisingly great. It’s certainly not gourmet — it actually reminds me a lot of the brownies they used to serve in my high school’s cafeteria, but with the addition of caramel — but it’s rich and sweet and satisfying. I think the next time I find myself in Ikea, I might just skip straight to the dessert.