sandwich – Page 36 – Michael Eats

Mind-blowing Smoked Meat at SumiLicious

Published on June 28, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5631 Steeles Avenue East, Scarborough
Website: https://sumilicious.ca/

Holy crap, SumiLicious. Holy. Crap.

I knew I’d have to check the place out as soon as I read this thread on Chowhound. A new smoked meat place? Yes please. Started by someone who worked at the legendary Schwartz’s in Montreal for 18 years? You had me at “new smoked meat place,” but now I’m really sold. And it’s delicious? Buddy, I’m sold already, you can stop. I’m there.

I’m kind of glad this place is such a trek from where I live, because if it were nearby, I’d be there every single day. It’s smoked meat perfection.

I can’t emphasize this enough: the smoked meat sandwich at SumiLicious is absolutely magnificent. It’s the best smoked meat sandwich that I’ve had in ages. Certainly, it’s the best smoked meat in the city, and it stands side-by-side with any sandwich I’ve had in Montreal or New York. It’s ridiculously good.

The sandwich is a heaping tower of intensely flavourful, ultra-tender, hand-sliced goodness. It’s quite fatty, but that fat is so perfectly cooked it’ll make your knees buckle. It just melts in your mouth like unctuous, luxurious meat butter.

And the meat itself is almost absurdly tender, but retains enough texture that it never feels mushy. It’s perfect.

The flavour is really unique, too. It’s got enough of the classic smoked meat seasoning to be pleasantly familiar, but it’s also got its own thing going on; they’re obviously doing something a little bit different with the spice blend (but don’t ask me specifically what — I’m terrible at identifying spices).

It’s a bit less salty than your typical smoked meat, which lets the beef’s natural flavour shine through more than you’d expect. It’s something special, that’s for sure.

But I mean, don’t take my word for it. Just look at this close-up:

Sexy AF. Downright NSFW. And it’s just as good as it looks.

I also tried the coleslaw, which is a tad too sweet, but otherwise has a nice vinegary bite and is a good foil for the heavy sandwich.

Oh, and it’s delightfully affordable, too: it’s nine bucks (not including the coleslaw), and considering the quality and the sheer size of the sandwich, that’s a crazy deal.

Of course, the question is whether or not they can keep up this insane level of quality. The last couple of high-profile smoked meat joints in the city — Caplansky’s and Ben & Izzy’s — both started out great and then slowly (or not-so-slowly in the case of Ben & Izzy’s) went downhill.

I’m very, very curious to see if SumiLicious can continue to pump out smoked meat of this calibre in the coming months and years. I hope they do, but I’d advise you to go there now so that you don’t lose out on basking in its magnificence.

Egg BLT Bagel at McDonald’s

Published on June 15, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4333 Bloor Street West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.ca

I like McDonald’s. The place tends to get a bad rap, but if you’re craving something junky and quick, it (usually) hits the spot. I’m sure a childhood’s worth of nostalgia helps, but there’s always going to be a place in my life for the occasional visit to the Golden Arches.

That being said, the Egg BLT Bagel was super duper gross and you should absolutely never eat it.

I got it on a plain bagel, which was overly sweet and substantial. The egg was dry and overcooked, the bacon was paper-thin and soggy, the lettuce was so stingy that it may as well not have even been there, and the mayo overload meant it was impossible to eat without making a greasy mess. There just wasn’t a whole lot of flavour here, other than the sweetness from the bagel.

The tomato was okay, though, so… hooray for that, I guess?

Epic Fried Chicken Sandwiches at Chica’s Chicken

Published on June 5, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2853 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.facebook.com/chicaschicken/

I’ve already talked about the Nashville hot chicken at Chica’s, which is amazing. Well I just went back and tried the sandwich, and yeah, it’s pretty damn good, too.

The first thing that you notice is that it’s monstrously big. The piece of fried chicken in the sandwich is almost comically oversized. It’s not easy to eat.

It looks like it might be one of those fried chicken sandwiches that’s about fifty percent batter and fifty percent chicken, but it’s surprisingly meaty, with a pronounced (but not overbearing) outer layer of crunchy goodness.

I think they might have somehow managed to combine chicken breast and thigh into one enormous mega-patty, because aside from the fact that it was insanely large, some of it tasted like dark meat, and some of it tasted like white. Maybe I’m going crazy and it was all white meat; either way, it was perfectly cooked and not even remotely dry.

I ordered it hot AF, and like on my last visit, it was abundantly spicy — but not overwhelmingly so. It’s an outstanding sandwich.

I got the bean salad on the side, which was corny, beany, garlicky, and delicious. I also tried the waffle fries, which are battered and crispy. Battered fries aren’t my favourite, but these were good.

I’ve pretty much tried the entire menu at this point (the only thing I haven’t had are the wings), and there isn’t a dud in the bunch. If you haven’t tried this place yet, you need to rectify that immediately.

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.

Noodles and Buns at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Published on April 12, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 190 University Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://noodlebar-toronto.momofuku.com/

I don’t really have a favourite restaurant in the city — I have a tendency to want to try something new every time I eat out, so it’s rare that I’ll go to the same place more than a couple of times.

So I guess Momofuku Noodle Bar is one of my favourite restaurants by default, because I’ve been there several times, and it’s consistently very good.

On this particular visit I tried a couple of their buns — chicken burger and cod cake — and both were quite tasty. The chicken burger, which featured a generous spread of pepper hummus, was the more interesting of the two. But the crispy, tasty cod was quite good as well.

I also tried the onigiri, and with its crispy fried bottom layer of nori, it was certainly an interesting take on the ubiquitous Japanese snack. But it was a little bit bland, and probably not something I’d order again.

The Jaja noodles, which the menu describes as “bacon, black bean, cabbage, pickle,” was good, but it was another item I probably wouldn’t get again. It had a meaty, umami-filled flavour, but it felt one-note. It really needed a bit more vibrancy to round out its porky richness (it probably didn’t help that it reminded me a lot of a dish I had in Malaysia called chili pan mee that was superior in every regard).