Considering the large Ukrainian population in Toronto, there is a surprising lack of standout Ukrainian restaurants. Barrel House Korchma easily vaulted to the top spot when it opened last year. The ambience and cookery certainly merits this.
Barrel House Korchma
The food
What I like about Barrel House Korchma is that it goes beyond the common Eastern European fare of cabbage rolls, vareniki (dumplings), and sausages. But if you are looking for those, Barrel House Korchma does them well.
Venerable institution for simply great Southern BBQ
Memphis BBQ and its sibling Big Bone BBQ have been around for decades. They brought BBQ to the Toronto region before (most) people could tell the difference between the regional styles of Southern BBQ. Since then, more BBQ outlets have opened up with different styles and price points. Even so, Memphis BBQ remains one of the few restaurants that serve Memphis-style BBQ.
Memphis BBQ
Memphis-style BBQ is all about the pork. The sauce is moderately thick and sweet and can either be incorporated during cooking or omitted entirely. Wet and dry preparations are equally popular. Memphis BBQ (the restaurant) does the wet style.
Excellence that goes much more beyond roti and doubles
Toronto has a thriving Trinidadian food scene, so it’s hard to pick favourites. Leela’s Roti & Doubles should be in the top 3, given its breadth and quality of its offerings. There are few places where one can reliably get specialties such as saheena or bake and shark.
Leela’s Roti & Doubles
The original location is in Mississauga, close to Square One. They’ve opened up a second branch in Scarborough in 2020. Being a foodie, of course I visited the flagship location for this review.
Guatemalan cuisine isn’t well-known. It’s vaguely Mexican and doesn’t have many distinctive dishes compared to its neighbouring countries. It doesn’t help that there aren’t many Guatemalan restaurants outside of Guatemala. In Toronto, there’s just one: El Quetzal Panaderia y Restaurante.
El Quetzal Bakery
Also known as El Quetzal Bakery in English, this tiny establishment sells snacks and imported goods from Guatemala and the region.
Joummar is probably the only restaurant of its kind for hundreds of kilometers: an upper-tier Iraqi restaurant. The setting is elegant and more importantly, the food is bountiful and tasty.
Vegan street food as good as (or better) than Bombay
Mumbai is known for its street foods. Until recent years, good renditions of them were hard to come by in Toronto. It was difficult to find a Bombay restaurant in the first place. Today, there are more choices available and Bombay Bakers is the best I know of for quality and cost. I’m frankly amazed at how they can keep prices competitive with India.
Bombay Bakers
The foods of Mumbai (Bombay)
For less worldly readers, Bombay is the old colonial name for Mumbai, the financial and movie capital of India. Other than its snacks, it doesn’t have a distinctive cuisine, taking its cue from neighbouring regions like inland Maharashtra, the Konkan coast, and Gujarat state. Endemic to the area is the endangered Parsi cuisine, brought over by Persian immigrants a thousand years ago and adapted to local tastes.
While Parsi food is rare in Toronto, these Mumbai street snacks are easy to find. Nearly all are vegan.
Bhel puri: Savoury mix of rice puffs, fried bits, boiled potato cubes, and chutneys.
Falooda: Rose syrup drink that is found from Iran to Indonesia. The one in Mumbai comes with layers of vermicelli jelly, basil seeds, and a scoop of ice cream.
Pani puri: Crisp shells filled with chickpeas and doused in sauces.
Papdi chaat: Savoury mix of round crackers, fried bits, yoghurt, and chutneys.
Pav bhaji: Bread rolls with a dip of mashed curry vegetables.
Vada pav: Deep-fried potato patty sandwiched in a bread roll and smeared with chutneys.
These street foods are harder to find.
Bombay Sandwich: Grilled sandwich with chutney spread. Found at Bombay Bakers.
Frankie: Round flatbread that is fried, rolled into a tube, and stuffed with various fillings. Bombay Snack Bar and sibling Bombay Frankie have them. So does Bharuchi’s.
Keema Pav: Bread rolls with a dip of curried minced meat. Bombay Snack Bar is the closest place to downtown Toronto that has this.
A head-to-head comparison of the ultimate beef extravaganza
Bò 7 món (literally 7 courses of beef) doesn’t come up often in Vietnamese menus. It’s a splurge and it takes a lot of kitchen prep work. I only know of 5 specialists in Toronto in the last decade. Only 2 remain today: Bo 7 Mon Restaurant and Phở Cửu Long Miền Tây. If there are other good ones, please let me know!
Since there are so few contenders, it’s easy to do a head-to-head battle to determine who makes the best bò 7 món.
What goes in a bò 7 món
Bò 7 món is associated with Southern Vietnam, which is more affluent than the rest of the country. In fact, the oldest specialist in Vietnam, Au Pagolac, is located in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). There isn’t a prescription about what the 7 courses are, but there is usually one sausage dish, a beef hot pot (bò nhúng dấm), and beef congee (cháo bò).
The contenders
Bo 7 Mon Restaurant
The name says it all. It’s a weird name if you think about it, like a burger restaurant naming themselves “Burger Restaurant”. Although they can’t trademark the name, it does make it clear what they sell.
Bo 7 Mon Restaurant
This restaurant is in a plaza dominated by Vietnamese restaurants. They’re all better than average and have carved out their own niche to avoid direct competition. Although Bo 7 Mon Restaurant’s specialty is obvious, they also have regular noodles and rice meals for those who want something simpler.
Dining area of Bo 7 Mon Restaurant
Phở Cửu Long Miền Tây
This restaurant sits at a junction that has a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants. Đà Nẵng Restaurant is a few minutes walk away and also has bò 7 món, though they are better known for their Central Vietnamese dishes.
The defining characteristic of Kansas City BBQ is its sauce: sweet and thick. Other than that, it isn’t very distinctive. The cooking technique and favoured meats are shared with other styles in Southern USA.
Kansas King is one of two Kansas City BBQ restaurants in the Toronto region (the other is Hank Daddy’s Barbecue). It stands out from other BBQ restaurants with its fast-food concept. Don’t underestimate it though; its food is a definite step up from regular fast-food restaurants.
There’s more to Turkish food than kebabs, pide, and baklava. Unfortunately that’s the limit of most Turkish restaurants in Toronto. A La Turk is no different but at least they put some creativity into their preparation and presentation. Prices are on the high side but the portion size and quality makes up for it.
This restaurant closed on 30 April 2022 and will be moving to a new location. Thanks for the memories!
21-days aged sushi in Toronto, edomae style
Sushi Nishinokaze is the latest darling in the omakase space. It opened in late 2021 and is one of three restaurants specializing in edomae sushi. If you’re wondering, the other two are Shoushin and Sushi Masaki Saito. Nishinokaze is also the cheapest at $169.50, compared to $316.40 and $680.00 respectively. Lots of Japanese air-flown imports and the intricacies of fish curing push up the price.
Sushi Nishinokaze
The 19th-century ancestor of contemporary sushi
Edomae (江戸前) literally means “in front of Edo”. Edo is understood to refer to the castle in Edo, now modern-day Tokyo. Edo is also the name of the imperial period from 1603 to 1867 before Japan opened up to the world and brought about industrialization, political reform, and World War II, among other things.
The sushi from the Edo period was quite different from that of today. Because of the lack of refrigeration, fresh fish sushi was rare. Chefs had to think of ways to preserve fish like curing in soy sauce, salt, or vinegar. To put it in a nice way, fish could be “aged” anywhere between a few days to a few weeks. There’s less moisture and the protein gets more mushy from enzymatic action.
Chef prepping fish slices. Box of aged fish on the right.
Edomae sushi is slowly gaining awareness in North America. Mainly in top-end omakase restaurants going for hundreds of dollars. Such an irony considering that edomae sushi was originally fast-food for peasants. I guess it can be justified because there’s more chef work compared to regular sushi.
Prepared fish
For example, one defining characteristic of edomae sushi is the red vinegar (赤酢; akasu) used to prepare the rice (酢飯; shari). It gives the rice a brown hue. This vinegar is more expensive to procure and the taste is more complex than the white rice vinegar used in regular sushi. If you arrive early like I did, you can watch the chef make the finishing touches to the giant tub of rice.
