Ontario – Page 162 – Michael Eats

Reliably Great Smoked Meat at Centre Street Deli

Published on May 12, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1136 Centre Street, Thornhill
Website: http://www.centrestreetdeli.com/

Ah, Centre Street Deli. Other delis have come and gone over the years, but Centre Street has always been around, quietly and consistently pumping out some of the best smoked meat in the city.

A couple of years ago, some of the employees got together and bought the place out. I was afraid the quality might take a hit, but nope — still delicious.

They have a couple of types of smoked meat: mild smoked meat, and old fashioned. One has a bit more spicing than the other, and I don’t know why but I can never remember which is which. I have to ask every time. I just ate this and I’ve already forgotten again. I think the old fashioned is the more aggressively spiced one, and the most popular.

The platter is a great deal — a generous sandwich, a heaping mound of fries, coleslaw, and a pickle for $16.50. Hard to go wrong there, especially when the food is this good.

I got the old fashioned (I think?), and it was quite tasty, as usual. It was, however, a bit too lean, and the meat was slightly tougher than it should have been.

I’m starting to think that I should be ordering my smoked meat sandwiches fatty instead of medium. Ordering your sandwich fatty feels weirdly indulgent, but hey: I like what I like. I think I need to own it.

Amazing Cupcakes at Prairie Girl Bakery

Published on May 10, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 150 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.prairiegirlbakery.com/

Prairie Girl Bakery might just serve my favourite cupcakes in the city. There are some other contenders (the Cupcake Shoppe comes to mind), but Prairie Girl is right up there.

I like that they actually have three different sizes — standard, mini, and cutie. The mini size is absolutely perfect if you’ve just had a big meal and you want something sweet that isn’t going to make you feel completely sick. It’s still a couple of decent bites’ worth of cupcake, so it’s enough to satisfy, but not so much to make you question the way you’re living your life.

On this particular visit I got the banana peanut butter, which features peanut butter frosting with banana cake. Not surprisingly, it was great — the cake basically tasted like a lighter, fluffier banana bread. It had a really distinct banana flavour that worked perfectly with the very creamy peanut butter frosting.

The whole thing was sweet, but with enough of a balance to not be a complete sugar overload. It’s good stuff.

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.

McFlurry Deliciousness at McDonald’s

Published on May 5, 2018May 5, 2018 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 6170 Bathurst Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.ca/

Generally speaking, I think McFlurries are a waste of time. I mean, they’re just a poor man’s Blizzard, right? If I’m craving a blended ice cream treat, why get an imitation when I can have the original?

It turns out I might be wrong about this, because I just had the Butterscotch Blondie McFlurry, and it was easily better than any Blizzard I’ve had in recent memory.

It had a really rich caramel flavour from the abundant butterscotch, and the sizable blondie chunks were chewy, tasty, and satisfying. It’s super sweet, obviously, but there was enough going on here that it didn’t feel one-note.

The ice cream was a little too melty, but aside from that? Shockingly good.

Chicken Strips at the Burger’s Priest

Published on May 3, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1599 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.theburgerspriest.com/

I love Buffalo sauce. I know there are some people who find it too vinegary, and I totally get that, but me? If you toss something in Buffalo sauce, I’m going to eat it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

The Burger’s Priest recently introduced chicken strips to their menu; you can get them plain or tossed. Obviously I went with tossed.

They’re quite good. The exterior has a good amount of crunch, and the chicken inside is nice and tender.

And I don’t need to tell you that good-quality fried chicken is delicious when you toss it in Buffalo sauce. That just goes without saying.

It comes with a side of ranch, as well as your choice between BBQ sauce and something called G14. I got the G14, and man, whatever that was, it was crazy delicious. It was tangy, a little bit spicy, and seriously addictive. Easily one of the best dipping sauces I’ve had in a while.

I should note that there are some consistency issues. Two of my chicken strips were as described: crispy, tender, delicious. The third was somehow simultaneously overcooked and undercooked. The chicken was completely dry, and yet the batter was doughy and underdone in parts. You can kind of see what I’m talking about with the batter in the picture below.

With all of the Buffalo sauce and the dipping sauce it wasn’t a huge issue, but it was an issue nonetheless.