Kalendar on College

Hey all,

Been lazy updating this in the past few weeks but I will throw a few out there this week.

If you are looking for a good birthday place that has great food, isn't too expensive and has some of the best dishes in the city, hit up Kalendar on College just west of Bathurst.

I have been here twice so I will report on both dishes that I have had there.

However, I will put it out there first that they have a great selection of beers both on tap and in the bottle. Good enough that it impressed a beer snob :)

On to the food.

They have a large selection of a unique dish that they call scrolls. Now a scroll is a crepe style roti with some delicious insides. The options are a sigle scroll, a single with salad, and a dinner (double). The dinner is a massive amount of food and will fill you for days to come.

I chose scroll 5 which was oven roasted chicken, avocado, plum tomatoes, feta & herbed mayonnaise. WOW. It was amazing. Each bite had all of the flavours that I needed and it was held together by the crepe roti that contained all of the goodness. Perfect idea.

The second time I was there I chose the New Zealand Spring Lamb Chops which were six delicious spring lamb chops with a mango chutney served with sweet mashed potatoes & sauteed vegetables. They were spectacular as well. The lamb was amazingly moist and I almost couldn't finish them it was so much food. The only thing I would change about this is the amount of chutney on the lamb. It was almost too much and I scraped some off but I ended up using it with the rest of my sides as it was delicious.

Go here and you will love it. I promise

BBQ in the North

Bamm. Hit some BBQ this week. The BarQue Smokehouse is located on Roncesvalles Ave in the west of the city.

This places screams good food right when you walk in and all you can smell is awesome smoked meat (they even have a smoker cam on their website http://barque.ca/?gclid=CNeAhvfomKwCFYXrKgodoUS5Ow ).

Right when you sit down you have a bucket of popcorn on your table along with 2 types of Bar-B-Que sauce. One is a mustardy sauce, that was my favorite, and the other is fairly regular sauce.

I could not decide what to get on the menu so I went for the taster platter.

You can choose 3 of 4 mains as well as 2 sides to your meal.

choice 1: Beef Brisket sliced into strips and slow cooked in the smoker. It was amazing and tender with a crispy outside that was perfect with the mustard sauce. mmmmmmmmm

Choice 2: Chicken thigh also from the slow cooker. It fell off the bone when I touched it. Thought it might be a little bit bigger but was delicious and juicy.

Choice 3: Beef Rib that looked like it was from the beginning of the Flinstones that tips over the car. It is huge and made for a great portion of the meal. Again dark and juicy and slow roasted to perfection.

Side 1: Smoked Cuban Corn that had some sort of spice on it that I didn't know what it was. It was a perfect compliment to the meal.

Side 2: Smoked Tomato Gnocchi that was in a skillet that was amazing. This is my fav side and has some spinach on top as well.

To top it off I had a bottle of Boylan Cherry Cola that went right along with the meal.

Side Note: When I left I still wanted to try their baby back ribs in a dryrub. Luckily they have them in carry out form where they are vacuum packed and ready to go. It is actually in the oven as I write this and I will edit it just as I finish them for dinner tonight.

Followup: They were awesome. Perfect amount of spice to not hide the amazing smokeyness from my mouth. They would be even better if I had them in the restaurant.

Thai One On

Hey all,

Some quick Thai food was had on Friday night down on Queen st East.

Went to the Friendly Thai on Queen East and I am pretty sure that it is a chain (Still not sure check this out http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2009/12/the_mystery_of_the_friendly_thai/).

The first thing that happened when we walked in was that someone gave up their seat to us even after a lot of insisting on our part. It was a very nice start to the night.

I started with an avocado spring roll which was very unique and different but I wish there was a little less other tastes so it would not overpower the avocado as much as it did.

Moving on, I love Pad Thai. So whenever I am going to a new place I try it. It was great. there was a great amount of peanuts on there as well as a sauce that was neither thick or soupy. It was a perfect consistency. For a $10 Pad Thai meal it could have been for 2 people. This thing was massive. I would hit it up for some good and fairly cheap food but you are not going to get anything different than a regular Thai menu which is good enough for me.

Off the Hook

Many of you might think that I made up this clever title for a post about Fish and Chips becasue I am amazingly witty........ not really. It is actually the name of the restaurant.

Off the Hook is located just south of Danforth on Broadview (conveniently only about 2 blocks from my house). It is small and it is fairly new but boy do they cook some good food.

Looking at the menu I knew they did not fool around. It was simple. Choose a fish, choose a side and choose a sauce. there were some other menu items but they were shifted off to the side and not very prominent.

4 types of fish on the menu: Halibut $12, Red Snapper $10, Sea Bass $12 and Mahi Mahi $10.
6 sides: Fries, cajun fries, onion rings, Sweet potato Fries($1), mixed greens ($1), poutine($2).
7 sauces: Tartar, Go go Pesto, Lost in the sauce (not sure what that is), the sizzler XXX, walking wasabi, chipotle mayo, curry mayo (if you want extra sauce on top of the 1st one it is $1)
Batter: Organic house, organic cajun, Gluten Free, or grilled
Everything comes with homemade coleslaw too.

I went very standard as i wanted the base on my 1st trip. Halibut fries and tartar sauce.

AMAZING!!!!!!

I think they double fry the fish dip it in the fryer and then batter it. it was crisp but not too much batter for the amount of fish in there. It is all made fresh right in front of you and the fries are nice and crisp. The tartar is homemade and perfect with the fries and you can choose creamy or vinegar slaw (I got creamy).

Definitely one of the top fish places in the city. I will be going back a bunch and checking out all of the dishes.

Golden Pizza

Hey all.

It is pizza time. I ordered some pizza last week from a place around the corner. It is not a new place and I actually played on the hockey team they sponsored about 10-15 years ago.

You can order online. Not sure why more places don't have this option because it is awesome and convenient. Might be a cost thing. I went for the family meal. it was about $36.

Got a large 3 topping pizza, 2lbs of wings, large Caesar salad, 4 cans of coke.

Lets start with the salad. the Caesar was pretty big and had a great ratio of dressing to lettuce to croutons. It had some nice garlic mix in there.

The wings had med sauce on them and were pretty standard. Nothing special, not too bad either. decently crispy with some standard sauce.

Pizza was awesome. Good toppings, thick dough, large pizza but the cheese.................... mmmmmmmmmmm. The cheese was fried and baked to perfection on the top of the pizza and was some of the best I have ever had. Almost as good as the cheese curds that are melted at Danforth Pizza. I would say a top 5 cheese on a pizza I have ever had.

Pretty average for price. I will be ordering again though.

Beer Bistro

So on Monday night I was sitting in the Beer Bistro on King having a beer and watching the baseball game, and I felt a little twinge of hunger. Now I know what you are going to say. "How can you be hungry at all after you had 2 turkey dinners along with leftovers every day for lunch over the weekend?" Well I was so I took a look at the menu.

It is a solid menu with a bunch of different options at different hunger levels.

I chose the "Spicy Kobe Beef Tacos" and what a choice it was.

They were amazing with vienna lager chili, aged gouda, grilled vidalia, onions, sour cream & lettuce in a nice crunchy shell. They were spicy but they didn't have the killer that kills all taste buds and doesn't allow taste to linger. There were only 2 on the plate but I will tell you that it was plenty enough and I was very full after.

One of the best things about the menu at Beer Bistro is that they have a suggested type of beer for each of their menu items. For this one it was a bold IPA and so that is what I got.

If you like beer this is the place for you. You have to pay a decent price but it isn't unfair for what you get. I got the Muskoka Mad Tom IPA and it was amazing. GO HERE AND DRINK GOOD BEER AND EAT GOOD GOOD. It should be their motto.

One of my fav places in the city

http://www.beerbistro.com/

Taste of the Danforth and The Ex Festival Edition

Hey All,

It has been a while.

I thought I would bring out some good eats from the summer festivities that go on around the city.

1st up Taste of the Danforth

I live right near the Danforth so I had to hit it up for some food. 1st of all I would like to say that if you do not like crowds then this is not the place for you. But if you are ok with them then just right in and it is a great people watching place.
Off the bat i was hungry so I grabbed some chaved beef on a pita from a Brazilian restaurant right near Broadview and Danforth. It was amazing and I wanted more of the tender and perfectly spiced meat but I had to go on seeing as this was just 10 feet inside of the start of the festival.
Walking along I was tempted to get some food from my favorite places along Greek town but it seemed that everyone in the city had discovered where these places were and the lines topped 50 or 60 people so I moved along knowing that I could get there any day.
Corn is essential on Taste of the Danforth (TOD). There is 1 place on the south side near Pape Ave that has the best roasted corn. Not because of how it is roasted but becasue of the flavors that it can be topped with. Over 50 flavors cover the table and we chose black pepper lime and something else I cant even remember. GET THIS CORN!!
Moving along right beside this place there was some home made soft drinks in barrels that you poured for yourself into oldtimey tin mugs that you got to keep. It even came with a clip for your belt so you could carry it around. We tried the Cola and the Root beer and they were both great but especially the Root beer.

The Ex
I am not usually a huge fan of the Ex. I understand its appeal but for me I think there are som many amazing things to do in the city that you can do other things. However, the food building cannot be missed. It is very large and packed and has everything under the sun.
I ventured down here just before I hit up the Toronto FC soccer game (free admission with a ticket). I needed some food.
1st thing I got was some deep fried pierogies with tons of onions and sour cream. they blew me away as I love pierogies but had never had them deep fried like this. My suggestion is to find the oldest looking person who is serving and go to that booth as they for sure have had good experience.
I went onto the main course which consisted of a half pound burger bacon in between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches.......................... yes you heard me right. Wow!! I could not bring myself to get the burger that was between 2 Krispy Kreame Donuts but I had to go for this one. The cheese was whelming (but not over). I thought to myself as well, "I should do this at home". The bread was thick Texas toast so I almost had to unhinge the jaw to get around it all. It filled me for hours later. I would suggest getting it if you can handle it.


So that is that. get out during the summer and visit everything in the city because there are so many great places. Eat well during these places too.