potatoes – Michael Eats

Delicious Ukrainian Food at Barrel House Korchma

Published on February 14, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2385 Lake Shore Boulevard West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.instagram.com/barrelhousekorchma/

I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to a Ukrainian restaurant before visiting Barrel House Korchma; even when I was still updating 196 Plates, the blog where I attempted to eat at one restaurant from each country in the world (without leaving the GTA), I never got around to that country.

Well, if Barrel House Korchma is anything to go by, I guess Ukrainian food is pretty tasty (if not that dissimilar from the cuisine in any number of Eastern European countries).

I tried a couple of things. First up was the fried stuffed buns: “Two fried buns stuffed with potatoes and dill.”

I can’t say I’ve ever had anything quite like this; though the menu calls this a bun, it’s not really bun-like at all, with a thin exterior that’s crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, and a fluffy mashed-potato interior that’s infused with dill. It comes with a garlicky dill sauce on the side that complements it perfectly. It’s a great dish.

Up next was the Chicken Kyiv: “Breaded chicken fillet with melted butter and herbs.”

This was a tasty version of a pretty well-known dish, with a delightfully crunchy exterior, and a buttery (but not overly greasy) interior that helps to compensate for the inherent dryness of the chicken breast. It comes with a sweet, Thousand-Island-esque sauce that pairs nicely with the savoury chicken.

You can choose your side; the waitress recommended the roasted potato, which was a solid choice, with a lightly crispy exterior and a bit of a garlicky flavour that’s quite satisfying.

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.

Big Rösti at McDonald’s (The International Menu Heist)

Published on June 30, 2025June 30, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2736 Lakeshore Boulevard West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I’ve now tried every item featured in McDonald’s International Menu Heist (aside from the Sweet Tangy Chili Dip), and it looks like I’ve saved the best for last. The Big Rösti from Germany? Quite tasty!

Here’s how McDonald’s describes it: “Picture a beautifully beefy burger, hickory-smoked bacon, melt-in-your-mouth processed cheese, delicious cheese sauce, and the jewel in the bun: our golden ‘Rösti’ hash brown. Served on a fluffy bun topped with rolled oats, it’s time to say ‘Willkommen.'”

The cheese sauce here is interesting; it’s more like cheese-flavoured mayo than the Cheez-Whiz-esque sauce that you might expect, but it works. It’s nice and zippy, with a noticeable cheesy flavour.

The Quarter Pounder patty was quite dry, but there was enough of that tasty sauce to (mostly) cancel this out.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had a burger with a hash brown on it, but it works surprisingly well — it adds some nice crispiness, and helps to round out the saltiness from the cheese sauce and the bacon.

The placement of the cheese slice was odd, however; it’s on top of the bacon and the hash brown rather than the burger, which means that it doesn’t get particularly melty. That’s a shame, but everything else here is tasty enough that this never feels like a huge deal.

A Cheap, Tasty Lunch at Brandt European Food Market

Published on December 2, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1878 Mattawa Avenue, Mississauga
Website: https://brandtmeats.com/brandt-food-market/

I’ve written about hidden gems on this blog before, but it doesn’t get much more hidden than this place. It’s located along a dead-end industrial road, and unless you happen to work in the area, there is zero chance that you’d drive by the place.

(And even if you did, it’s so nondescript that you likely wouldn’t even realize that a delightful little Eastern European supermarket and restaurant can be found within.)

It’s actually a factory outlet for Brand meats, a Mississauga-based manufacturer of various Eastern European sausages and meats, and it features the aforementioned supermarket, along with a hot table with a nice spread of stuff like schnitzel and cabbage rolls.

I went with the BBQ pork chops, which features tender braised pork and mushrooms in a zippy sauce. The meal comes with two chops piled on top of a mountain of sides (you can pick two, and they are generous). I had the potatoes, which are basically like hash browns, and the sauerkraut, which is well above average.

Nothing about it particularly blew my mind, but the plate cost ten bucks and was piled high with food, so it’s a fantastic deal.

Pretty Good Brunch at Death and Taxes Free House

Published on November 11, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1154 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.freehouse.co/locations/death-and-taxes

I’ll admit that I mostly wanted to go to Death and Taxes to sample one of the cask ales they (are supposed to) have on tap. Alas, they had zero cask ales available on the day I visited.

(For the uninitiated, a cask ale is a type of beer that’s naturally carbonated, unfiltered, and fermented in the cask, giving it a more complex flavour and a more subtle level of carbonation than a typical beer. I was recently in London, where this style of beer is served at basically every good pub; sadly, it’s much trickier to find here.)

I tried the breakfast burrito (“crispy bacon, hash, scrambled egg, feta, spicy mayo, flour tortilla”) along with the BLT (“toasted sourdough, butter, bacon, American cheese, curry mayo, garlic mayo, avocado, tomato, iceberg lettuce”). Both were tasty enough, though the BLT was the better of the two. Avocado is a great addition to the BLT formula, adding a nice dose of creaminess and richness. And the curry mayo is a great addition as well, bringing a ton of flavour to a sandwich that otherwise could have felt pretty routine.

And while the potatoes were under-seasoned and under-crispy (they weren’t crispy at all — intentionally?), they were well cooked and satisfying enough (though they definitely needed the provided cup of spicy ketchup).