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Pastry Perfection at MoRoCo Chocolat

Published on March 2, 2018March 2, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 215 Madison Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://shop.morocochocolat.com/

People: this is not a drill. The chocolate hazelnut croissant at MoRoCo Chocolat is mind-blowing. It’s the best pastry I’ve had in a long, long time, and yes — I’m including my recent ten-day trip to Paris. It’s an all-timer.

Everything about it is amazing: you’ve got the croissant itself, which is buttery and flaky and delicious. There’s the perfectly crispy sweet hazelnut topping, which is basically like the topping of an almond croissant, only with hazelnuts, and which goes perfectly with the rich, chocolately filling.

And the icing on the metaphorical cake? The absolutely astonishing custard, which might have been the best custard I’ve ever had.

And I mean, who expects custard in a croissant like this? It’s weird, right? But good weird. The best weird. It’s what pushed this over the top and made it one of the best damn things I’ve eaten in such a long time. It was creamy and rich, with a flavour that I can only describe as the platonic ideal of custards. It’s the kind of custard that makes all other custards taste like garbage, because it’s so damn perfect.

It took something that was already delicious and made it crazy delicious.

I’m not sure why you’re even still reading this when you should clearly be driving/walking/sprinting to MoRoCo to buy one. Just be warned: after taking a couple of bites and realizing that this was the best thing ever, I promptly went back into the store so I could buy another one or two (or three). But that was it. Apparently they only make one or two a day. So get there early. It’s worth it.

Consistent Mediocrity at Panera Bread

Published on March 1, 2018 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 197 North Queen Street, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.panerabread.com

I continue to be baffled by the success of Panera Bread. It’s really expensive, consistently mediocre, and always busy. I don’t get it.

The bread’s not bad, I’ll give it that. I’ve had a few sandwiches here, and the bread is always the highlight.

I got the “Pick 2,” which means you can pick two smaller things and pay a lot for it. I got a small sandwich and a little bowl of chili, and it came up to a bit over 14 bucks, and just get the hell out of here with that. This should cost about half of that for the quality of food they’re serving.

Specifically, I got the Fontiga Chicken Panini, and the Turkey Chili.

They were both fine. The sandwich had a mild smoky flavour — I guess either the cheese or the chicken was smoked — but was otherwise the sandwich equivalent of white noise. It’s neither good nor bad; it’s just kind of there.

The chili was fine, but it was about on the level as a can of soup from the supermarket. A nicer can — maybe one that costs a buck fifty instead of a buck — but a can nonetheless.

And of course, as usual, the place was packed. Why? I guess it’s better than the literal garbage that they call sandwiches at Tim Hortons, but still: why is this place so popular?

Ladurée

Published on February 23, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

The macarons from Ladurée were delicious. You probably shouldn’t eat them.

I got four of them, and they cost about 15 bucks with tax ($14.92, actually), and seriously: get the hell out of here with those prices. I don’t care if you’re using the highest of high-end ingredients, there’s no way to justify charging $3.73 each for these tiny little things.

They are quite good, though. I tried hazelnut, pistachio, salted caramel and coconut lime.

They were amazing; maybe the best macarons I’ve ever had. The texture was the perfect contrast of crispy, airy, and creamy, and the flavours were uniformly great. Even the coconut lime, which I was kind of skeptical about, was top notch. It had a really satisfying coconut flavour, with a mild zinginess from the lime that never overwhelms.

But those prices? Nope.

Beast

Published on November 16, 2014 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 96 Tecumseth Street, Toronto
Website: http://thebeastrestaurant.com/

I’ve actually written about Beast before, on Serious Eats, where I raved about the Beastwich. But I have to rave again — the Crispy Pork Hocks at Beast were so damn good that I felt compelled to bring this blog out of semi-hiatus so I could talk about them. Immediately after eating them, I was hit by a powerful compulsion: I need to tell someone about this. I need to tell everyone about this.

The hock — the part of the pig where the foot attaches to the leg, usually served as one big, unwieldy hunk of pork, bone and all — has been streamlined by Beast into convenient little cubes of crispy, porky goodness. It has been perfected.

Each cube is maybe an inch-and-a-half square, with an amazingly crispy, crunchy exterior, and a rich, perfectly cooked interior of tender, decadently fatty pork. I’m not even sure I can put into words how amazingly good this was.

Seriously, look at this and tell me you don’t want to eat this right this second:

That layer of crispy, crunchy amazingness is just so incredibly satisfying, and the interior is the perfect combination of extravagant fattiness and fork-tender pork. You might think it looks too fatty, but trust me, it’s not too fatty.

It’s served with a thick, sweet variation on soy sauce called kecap manis that kind of reminded me of hoisin sauce; it worked amazingly well with the pork. It also comes with two eggs cooked how you want them, crispy potatoes, toast, and a fairly generous pile of zingy kimchi.

I don’t want to over-sell this, but I think it might be one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. This is not a drill. Drop whatever the hell you’re doing right now and get yourself to Beast. If they’re not open yet, just camp out and wait. Because who cares what else is going on when something this good exists in the world and you haven’t tried it yet.

Me Va Me

Published on April 27, 2014 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 240 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.mevame.com/

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting a heck of a lot from Me Va Me, and so its level of quality was actually a pretty delightful surprise.

They have a decent amount of stuff on their menu, but I homed in on their laffa wraps. I had a pretty great experience at Dr. Laffa a few months ago, so I was hoping for more of the same.

(For the initiated, a laffa is thicker and more substantial than a pita; it’s somewhere between traditional pita bread and naan. It’s delicious.)

They have a few different wraps on the menu, including the mysterious Jerusalem Mix. There’s no mention of what this is anywhere on the menu, so I asked: it’s a mixture of chicken liver, heart, thigh, and sauteed onions.

it’s hard to tell from my shoddy picture, but this thing is crammed to the gills with stuff. They give you a very, very generous amount of meat, and cram a ton of other stuff in there as well (the usual assortment of pickles, veggies, and sauces). I asked for everything except for onions, because raw onions are the worst and no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

Again, you can’t tell from my terrible picture, but this thing has heft. It’s about the size and weight of a newborn baby: those with smaller appetites are advised to share.

I was getting worried that it was going to turn out to be overstuffed, but somehow, all the various flavours worked perfectly together.

Foremost were the various chicken bits that make up the Jerusalem Mix. Seriously good. It was perfectly cooked, with the juicy thigh pieces working perfectly with the liver. I like liver, but even if you don’t, the flavour is mellowed out by the sauteed onions and all the the other stuff. I’m not entirely sure that the heart was necessary — there were a few vaguely rubbery pieces that I’m assuming were heart. Still, tasty stuff.

I don’t think the laffa itself was quite as good as the one from Dr. Laffa, which was amazingly fresh and close to perfection. But taking the whole package into account, I’ve gotta give the edge to Me Va Me. All the stuff they mix in there worked really well, and the chicken itself was above average.