sausage – Page 3 – Michael Eats

Fantastic Mexican Food at Itacate

Published on November 4, 2024November 4, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 998 Saint Clair Avenue West, Toronto
Website: https://itacate-toronto.com/

Itacate is a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that serves some seriously, seriously tasty eats. They only have a handful of tables, so I guess it’s mostly a take-out place, but it’s worth either waiting for one of those tables or eating in your car. It’s so good.

I tried a couple of things. I wanted to try at least one taco, and their menu is extensive, with almost a dozen choices. I went with the carnitas, which comes with a very generous amount of ultra-tender pork on a double corn tortilla.

They asked if I wanted onions and cilantro, and I said no because I am a card-carrying raw onion hater; in retrospect, I probably should have said no to the onion and yes to the cilantro, but that pork was so incredibly tender and flavourful that it was beyond delicious with just a little bit of the zippy salsa that comes on the side.

I like corn tortillas, but they’re always a bit of a crapshoot, because if they’re not very fresh, they can dry out and become unpleasant to eat. That definitely wasn’t an issue here.

I also tried the pambazo: “bread dipped in guajillo sauce with sausage and potatoes, with sour cream, lettuce and cheese.”

Man, what a sandwich. Perfect bread (with a light crispiness on its exterior and some nice flavour from the guajillo sauce), tasty sausage, and some great texture and flavour from the lettuce and cheese. Once you add some of the aforementioned salsa? All-time great sandwich. Crazy good.

Unique Thai Brunch at Kiin

Published on November 3, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 326 Adelaide Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.kiintoronto.com/

I initially tried Kiin in 2018 and I found it tasty, but a bit overpriced. Since then, they’ve been featured in the Michelin Guide, and they’ve started serving brunch. I figured another visit was probably in order.

After visit two, I’m still more on the “like” than the “love” side of the fence, but it was a tasty meal and a pretty solid value.

I ordered the jhok: “Thai rice porridge, housemade chicken meatballs, sous vide egg, crispy vermicelli noodles, ginger, green onion, coriander, Thai cruller.”

This was a hearty bowl, with a generous amount of tender meatballs and tasty sausage (which wasn’t mentioned on the menu), a nice textural counterpoint from the crispy noodles, and pops of freshness and heat from the coriander and the sliced peppers.

And the porridge itself was creamy and comforting, with a satisfying savoury flavour. The silky sous vide egg complements the porridge quite well, adding extra richness and oomph.

It might have been too rich, however; it was crying out for a vinegary hot sauce or something with some brightness to cut the heaviness a bit.

I also tried the bua loy for dessert: “sticky rice flour balls, sweetened coconut milk, pandan, sesame, young coconut.” This was thoroughly tasty, with a bunch of pleasantly springy mochi-esque balls swimming in a sweet, flavourful coconut milk concoction. I was expecting this to be cold and was a bit shocked when my first mouthful was quite hot, but once I got used to the temperature, it was a great dessert.

Bonus: unlike my last visit, the prices seemed quite reasonable. The jhok was $18, and considering how crammed with tasty stuff it was, it’s impossible to argue that it’s overpriced (the dessert was $15, which is a bit less of a steal, but it was delicious enough that I won’t get too worked up about it).

Jodie’s is a Hidden Gem

Published on March 26, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 331 Horner Avenue, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.instagram.com/jodiesrestaurant/

Jodie’s is basically the definition of a hidden gem. It’s tucked away in an industrial area of Etobicoke, it looks extremely unassuming, and there’s very little information about it online. But yes: it’s a gem.

The menu consists entirely of no-frills diner classics. I came at breakfast and ordered the morning mixer, which comes with two eggs cooked as you like; a pancake or French toast (I went with the pancake); your choice of bacon, ham, or sausage (I got sausage), with a side of home fries and toast.

It’s an exceptionally basic diner breakfast that could very easily be fine, but not much more.

Jodie’s knocks it out of the park, however, with perfectly prepared eggs, a pancake that strikes a great balance between fluffiness and substance, nicely crispy/creamy home fries, and some tasty sausages that I think are fried (they had an exterior crispiness that’s quite delightful). It’s quite simple, but when the execution is as good as it is here, simplicity is where it’s at.

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.

Quick Bites: Aquarela Restaurant, Hey Noodles, Good Taste Casserole Rice

Published on September 27, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Mofongo at Aquarela Restaurant

After realizing that I had never tried mofongo — a Puerto Rican dish in which plantain is mashed with garlic and crispy pork skin — I quickly discovered that Aquarela is pretty much the only game in town. Thankfully, they seem to be doing a pretty great job of carrying the torch for the dish in the GTA; I have nothing to compare it to, but it’s tasty, that’s for sure. It’s rich, creamy, garlicky and abundantly delicious. It’s kinda like mashed potatoes on steroids. It also comes with your choice of meat; I went with the crispy pork belly, and yeah, that’s a great combo. Something to cut through the plate’s overwhelming fatty richness would have been nice, but that’s a minor complaint for a very tasty dish.

Noodle Soup at Hey Noodles

The noodles at Hey Noodles are great (as you’d hope for from a place with “noodles” right in the name of the restaurant), but what really blew my mind was the price. I ordered the Chongqing Street Noodles, which is a very large bowl of soup that’s absolutely crammed with noodles, and that somehow only costs $6.99. The egg was an extra dollar, but even still, that’s a fantastic deal, especially considering how tasty it is. The noodles are nice and chewy, and the soup is delightfully zingy, with that addictive combo of spiciness and numbing heat that you get in this style of Chinese cuisine.

Clay pot rice at Good Taste Casserole Rice

Clay pot rice is an extremely simple dish — it’s basically just plain white rice that’s topped with meat and cooked in the eponymous pot, which makes the bottom layer of rice nice and crispy. It’s simple, but immensely satisfying when done well. The one I ordered was topped with eel and various meats and sausages, and yeah, it’s super satisfying. The fluffy/crispy rice, the tasty meats, and the sauce they have on the side (which was in a soy sauce container, but I’m fairly certain was more than just soy sauce) was a great combo.