Toronto – Page 93 – Michael Eats

(Mostly) Tasty Wheel Cakes at Formocha

Published on December 26, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 55 Eglinton Avenue East, Toronto
Website: https://www.formochabubbletea.com/

They sell Taiwanese-style wheel cakes at Formocha (which are essentially pancakes that are cooked in a circular mold with a sweet filling) and they’re mostly pretty good. But there are a couple of issues.

The first (and biggest) issue? Red bean wasn’t a filling choice, at least when I went. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to deduct about a million points for its absence. I mean, come on. It’s the classic filling. Red bean or GTFO.

I wound up trying custard, and Oreo custard. They were both tasty enough, but (and here’s the second issue) the custard tasted off. There was something weird about it, with an almost fruity flavour that was vaguely off-putting.

The Oreo was much better — rather than the chunks that you might expect, it was filled with an entire cookie, which was surprisingly delightful.

Plus, the cakes themselves were super fresh (they cook them to order), with a slightly crispy exterior and a fluffy interior. They were good, but… come on. Red bean. Give it to me.

Rich, Chickeny Ramen at Touhenboku Ramen

Published on December 20, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2459 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.touhenboku.ca/

The ramen at Touhenboku is a little bit different than the norm. Most of the ramen shops in Toronto serve tonkotsu-style ramen, in which pork bones are boiled for hours and hours until you wind up with a very rich, porky broth.

Touhenboku, on the other hand, subs out the pork for chicken, and yet still manages to retain that intense richness that you associate with tonkotsu.

If your average bowl of chicken soup is the soup equivalent of white meat (lighter, with a more restrained flavour) then what they’re serving at Touhenboku is more like dark meat, with a really intense flavour and a fattier texture.

In fact, the soup might be a bit too fatty, with a heavy oiliness that’s borderline too much. I’m certainly not going to complain about a very rich bowl of ramen, but this one was slightly too greasy.

I ordered the sea salt ramen (a.k.a. shio ramen) from the “Tomo’s favourite” section of the menu. It’s a pretty standard bowl, with the usual assortment of veggies, an egg, and chasu.

It’s (mostly) quite good. The noodles were a bit too thin (thick is also an option, however — I think that’s the one to go with), and the flavour was slightly one-note in its rich chickeniness (chickeniness… that’s a word, right?), but it was a satisfying bowl of soup.

Most notably, the very intense chicken flavour is pretty remarkable, and the thinly sliced chasu was ultra-tender and perfectly seasoned, with a great porky flavour. The egg was also perfectly cooked, with a great gooey yolk, so there’s definitely more good here than bad.

Tasty Peanut Sauce at Nimman Thai

Published on December 18, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1060 Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto
Website: https://nimman.ca/

I think a really good peanut sauce is one of those things that can make pretty much anything taste delicious. It really doesn’t matter what it is; slather enough peanut sauce on it, and hey, what do you know, it’s delicious now. How about that.

Case in point: the Nimman long song at Nimman Thai, which features some kind of saucy chicken on top of rice, with a side of Chinese broccoli and, of course, the aforementioned delicious peanut sauce.

The chicken was tough and its sauce was pretty bland, but once you dip it into the intensely flavourful peanut sauce, you’re off to the races. That peanut sauce! I would have dipped anything into that.

I got the dish as part of their lunch special, which is actually a really great deal — for twelve bucks, you also get a bowl of soup, a salad, and a spring roll. The soup was pleasantly zingy, and the salad had a really interesting dressing that tasted strongly of fish sauce.

The spring roll, on the other hand, had a funky flavour and an overly thick wrapper. It wasn’t great, and since the peanut sauce wasn’t on the table yet, I couldn’t even dip it into that to save it.

A Mediocre Croissant at Gouter

Published on December 17, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3507 Bathurst Street, North York
Website: http://www.gouter.ca/

I assumed I was in good hands when the woman behind the counter at Gouter spoke with a heavy French accent. Not that every French person can automatically make delicious pastries, but it made me think that the place was probably legit.

Yeah, about that.

I had the raspberry croissant, and it was fine. I certainly didn’t dislike eating it. But there wasn’t a single element that was better than okay.

The first sign that something was amiss was the paper bag it came in. The croissant was in there for about twenty minutes before I ate it. A good croissant should be buttery enough to immediately leave grease stains on a paper bag, but that bag was pristine.

The second sign that something was amiss came when I tore it in half and saw that it was filled with about a jar’s worth of raspberry jam. That’s too much jam. And I mean, it wasn’t unpleasant to eat, but there’s no balance there.

And as suspected, the croissant — though mildly buttery — wasn’t nearly buttery enough. It also had zero exterior crispiness other than at the very ends, and was generally lacking in flavour.

The overall experience was basically like eating a slice of Wonder Bread slathered with raspberry jam. There just wasn’t much to it — the lack of textural contrast and the one-note flavour was a bit of a bummer.

A Very Memorable Meal at Cava

Published on December 14, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1560 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.cavarestaurant.ca/

I tend to focus mostly on places that offer prices on the cheaper end of the spectrum; aside from the obvious (they’re cheap!), I generally find them more satisfying. There aren’t many things in the world that I love more than a really great bowl of noodles from a hole in the wall.

Still, it’s nice to venture out to pricier restaurants every now and then. There’s a level of craft and a quality of ingredients that you just can’t get without shelling out some cash.

Cava is a great example of this. It certainly isn’t cheap, but holy moly the food was good.

They focus on Spanish-inspired tapas, so I got to try a handful of things.

The chicken liver and foie gras mousse was deeply flavourful and luxuriously creamy. It’s served with a little bowl of grainy mustard on the side, which does a great job of cutting the richness of the mineraly pate.

The “Supergilda” features a deliciously fishy sardine on tomato-spread toast, speared with olives and anchovy. It’s simple, but immensely satisfying.

Next up was the jamon croquetta, which was a crunchy fried tube of creamy goodness. It was a bit light on the jamon, but was otherwise really tasty.

The beef salpicon was one of my favourites of the evening. It had a seriously intense beefy flavour, a tasty combo of high quality olive oil and acidity, and a fantastic contrast between the tender beef and the crispy bits on top.

My absolute favourite dish of the night was the eggplant with queso fresco, bonito, and tomatillo sauce. Holy crap, this dish. The contrast in textures here was insane — the deep fried exterior was shatteringly crisp, and the eggplant within was absurdly creamy. The combo of those two textures was bonkers, and the gooey cheese, smoky/funky bonito flakes, and zingy tomatillo sauce complimented it perfectly. So damn good.

The last savoury dish was the roasted pork belly and morcilla in a kidney bean stew. This was basically an upscale version of pork and beans. It was almost absurdly rich, with the blood sausage really amping up the luxurious flavour of the beans.

We had the churros for dessert, which was probably the only real disappointment of the night. The cinnamon- and sugar-dusted churros were certainly tasty, but nothing about them stood out from the churros you can get at any number of places throughout the GTA.

It did, however, come with a small cup of drinking chocolate that had an amazingly intense flavour. Just give me a big mug of that and I’ll be a happy man.