Endy'

yeah, I asked an HK co-worker about those car-tire buns; he confirmed the name and said they're available at just about any bakery. As far as letting you know how I find them, though -- I was only going to go scouting; I don't like raisins so I wasn't about to TRY any . I haven't tried T&T's baked goods, but I liked most of the stuff I got from that place at Metro. Mostly flaky red and green bean and green tea pastries, and maybe some taro stuff.

OK, I'm not advocating living in Richmond Hill here, guys. Just driving there for decent dim sum; I think it's well worth the time/gas for the vast vast difference in quality you'll get. I haven't enjoyed any dim sum I've had downtown in the last 5+ years. The only exception would be Lai Wah Heen, and that's a whole other price range and culinary style. I'll try Golden Leaf and King's Garden (I assume these are Spadina/Dundas?) but I think I'm so disappointed because I know how good it was downtown 15 years ago (I think it was KevV who commented same). edited to add that I'm surprised about Rol San. I went there once for dinner and it was one of those fluorescent sweet-and-sour sauce places.

Renka, maybe T&T supermarket? They seem to have a large bakery section. Also, there's a decent bakery that I like inside Metro Square, although they seem to be more TW-style (and I assume from the name that the raisin thing pastry is more HK?). If those are a trek for you let me know and I can go pre-scouting at lunch next week.

I'm really enjoying this article. Thanks to both of you for making me aware of it.

I bought one from Chan Chi Kee in Pacific Mall (NE corner Kennedy/Steeles) and it's served me well for a number of years. It does require a lot of maintenance (scrubbing with steel wool, washing, and then drying it and oiling it, plus a bit of seasoning at startup), but hey, you did say authentic after all

Hero is a chain around Toronto, the locations I know of are on Queen west of Bathurst, and in Yorkville somewhere (possibly also one in the PATH?). I tried Johnny Burger and found it OK, nothing special. There's a place just north of Steeles on the east side of Yonge, I think it's called Golden Star, that I liked a lot more.

(Yang Sing. Good call)

Ding Tai Fung (First Markham Place, S side of hwy 7 just E of Woodbine) is supposed to have the best "in" the city, from numerous reports that I've heard, but none newer than ~6mo. which Asian Legend did you go to? I would say that the ones they serve up are OK, especially for a chain like that, but you can probably do better within 3 or 4 samplings of no-name places.

while being a fan of McDonald's in a for-what-it-is kind of way (seriously), I'd give best fast food burger to Hero Burger. Gimme 2 6oz.s with avocado, double Brie, and honey mustard.

this thread is generating a lot of good energy... Italian: Terroni's pizza is very good as well; both it and Five Doors North would fit between Grazie and Romagna Mia's ambiance and price range. Korean: totally second the table-cooking idea: this is available at many places; I really like the food at Harubang (SW corner of Yonge and Finch). Also had good luck at Se-Jong (north side of Bloor in that strip between Bathurst and Christie). Don't forget the soju! ramen shops: Kenzo (Yonge W side 1 block south of Steeles) is good (run by Koreans), Konichiwa on Baldwin is almost as good (owners are Japanese). Chinese: for dinner, Ambassador is very good, and for late night (2am weekdays, 4am weekends I think), Swatow (Spadina E side 1 block N of Dundas)

none of the downtown Chinatown options are worthy for dim sum. If you must have dim sum downtown, do it at Lai Wah Heen. Otherwise go north to Richmond Hill and hit Ambassador or something else around there. Italian - Romagna Mia (a suggestion I originally got from sadistick), or for something more casual/affordable (great pizza), Grazie.

this is a weird one, but Don de Dieu from Unibroue brewery in Quebec. I like Fin du Monde, and Maudite is nice too (both of which you can get here)...but DDD, yum!

Starfish has a private room that I know they've put 23 in before, but I suspect 30 would be too much.

well, I believe our party member who made the reservation did ask about Kelly, but he obviously wasn't specifically working our table. Again, it may be that he doesn't do general service anymore, maybe someone else in the know can fill in this blank. I think only the best of his service, BTW, but as I don't think he does any work in the back of the house I don't think he can do much about making courses appear sooner, unless you think the problems in timing were that the front of the house was not communicating to the kitchen the progress of your meal.

pairings were made, no we didn't have to buy bottles; I did not partake (mostly anyway) and I don't know my wine so I didn't mention, but here's what I did manage to scribble down (highly incomplete): with the venison: St. Joseph "Offerus" 2003 with the squab: Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2002 (DOC) with the foie (A): a Pinot Noir of some sort with the foie (B): ??? ??? Santa Barbara County late harvest Sauvignon Blanc (again my writing fails me but the name of the winery might be ____ Stokes?) with sablefish (A, I think): Hillebrand ??? ??? Chardonnay (my scrawl looks like it might say something like "hillside select" but I was unable to confirm that Hillebrand makes such a Chardonnay) with the asparagus (A?): Gruner Veltliner of some sort?

presumption excused, no problem I'm sorry I didn't have time to go through and kick up the gamma on the pics before I posted them, I was in a rush to get these posted as I'll be out of town for a few weeks.

apologies first for the delay, the incompleteness of the descriptions (it's hard to listen, write, admire, and eat all at the same time...!), and the quality of the pictures...hard to pick up detail without blasting the flash. As customary at Susur, the tasting menu comes in different 2 "editions", which I've labelled A and B. Photos by Elaine Ho, and any mistakes and omissions on the text are mine. Here we go... (A) amuses bouches: soy cheese mousse with soy mirin; tomatillo tart; citrus segment with candied orange peel (B) amuses bouches: grape jelly ???; gazpacho with basil seeds; beet, goat cheese, pistachio-crusted ??? (A) MEAT: venison wrapped in prosciutto, foie gras-vanilla-Madeira sauce, white asparagus in pancetta, stuffed tomato with compote of ??? and cornmeal, sea asparagus the sauce really made this for me, although the description of it freaked me out a bit. (B) MEAT: smoked squab breast and leg, taro, apple, vidalia onion+???+beet (A) FOIE GRAS: the mystery pot arrives! "Don't peek or you'll regret it later when there's no heat left" (A) FOIE GRAS: foie, ???, truffle wrapped in beef carpaccio, dunked shabu-shabu style in beef consommé (mystery pot above), with a salad of cucumber, peeled grape tomatoes, and radish this one was so incredibly good that I ordered another...after finishing dessert, when others were tacking on extra a la carte desserts. (B) FOIE GRAS: seared foie gras with broad beans and a sugar tuile (sorry for the lack of details here) this is the one that caused one of our party to exclaim "this dish made my night" after her first bite. (A) FISH: black cod in ??? and white asparagus, with Calamansi lime and lemongrass stalk, crab/lobster sauce with lobster chunks, corn, ???, ??? (B) FISH: black cod with corn fritters and ???, ??? (sorry) (A) SHELLFISH: Colville Bay oyster with bacon mignonette; lobster+lobster mouse; octopus with ??? relish (ginger/curry/cumin/???) (B) SHELLFISH: prawn in a pink peppercorn lobster bisque, milk foam, sweetbreads, asparagus tips I've only uploaded one pic because they were so similar. (A+B) VEGETABLE: white Belgian asparagus with chantrelle (A) / morel (B) mushrooms and chantrelle/morel sauce, and pear (A+B) SORBET: strawberry and rhubarb sorbet with strawberry and rhubarb jam, wild blueberry sauce it doesn't come through here but the rectangular holder under the round dish is filled with dry ice to cool the sorbet. (A+B) DESSERT: TOP TIER: orange tart with orange segment stewed in Grenadine; chocolate mousse bombe; strawberry citrus tart; angel food cake; BOTTOM TIER: BOTTOM TIER: black tea crême brulée; chocolate cake with banana and crême Anglaise; pineapple raviolo; passionfruit and lychee salad all in all an excellent meal, well-timed (we were a 12-top!), nicely judged, delicious. Several of our party commented on how good the bread was. Kelly Kwan was around but unfortunately not serving our table, actually, is he in a different role now? He seemed to be doing a lot of the setting up and co-ordination, and was the only server not in the white-shirt uniform. They also paired wine flights for both "editions" for some of us, of which I didn't catch all the details. as I said in my first post, this is the first time I've been back since December 2004 -- a visit that very much impressed us -- and I was even more impressed this time. If Susur has been suffering of late they're hiding it from us very well. I should note that Susur himself was _not_ present on that night.

I ate at La Maquette about 3.5 years ago, but at the time they were just right for the price/style. They left neither a reason to regret going nor a reason to go out of my way to go again. mkjr's recommendation of Starfish applies even more now. For a Friday night you'll want to try to reserve, but if you're dining alone it shouldn't be a big deal, plus there's good seating at the bar from which you can watch the shucking action up close . Hiro Sushi is in that neighbourhood too and also nice (get the $35 sushi/sashimi omakase, skip the stuff coming out of the hot kitchen), and so is Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar, but I like Starfish best of all those. and yes, the area should be plenty safe any time of day or night.

I should have pics and a list of what we had in a few days, but for now, suffice to say I had an excellent dinner. I'm lucky, I guess, to have missed the downturn that some have mentioned with respect to the restaurant; last time I was there was Dec 2004 and that was excellent as well. for now, just 2 anecdotes: when our foie gras course arrived, one of our party took a bit of hers and immediately exclaimed "this dish just made my whole night!". and after we had finished up dessert and others at the table were ordering some a la carte desserts, I went ahead and ordered another of the foie gras courses (different than the one mentioned above) -- it was _that_ good.

the choo choo pho restaurant is called Pho Xe Lua and has a green sign with the locomotive, of course. And the BBQ place is Gold Stone (red/yellow sign?), both are on the west side of Spadina just south of Dundas. I'm kind of neutral on both but they aren't _bad_ and should suit the requirements listed (well, Xe Lua might be a little small for 15 if they're already busy. I really like Swatow which is just north of Dundas on the west side of Spadina, but they too might have trouble with 15 if they're busy (and they often are). the Rivoli serves up surprisingly good food, they're just east of Spadina on the north side of Queen but I don't know if they do lunch.

we were very impressed with Kelly as well when we were there. I can approve of the obsessive-compulsive pursuit of perfect symmetry (mostly because I empathize too). there was also a point where he was at the table clearing with 2 other servers; all 3 made eye contact and each lifted a plate simultaneously, on Kelly's cue. 2 of us smiled about it (it _did_ look a little funny if you were paying attention), but the rest of our 6-top didn't notice and I'm sure it became part of the "background perfection".

Jake, to be fair, they really did just open...or did you find the food unable to overcome the service problems? Melianne, I like JK Wine Bar a lot, because they're open Sundays, the atmosphere is nice, sitting at the open kitchen is entertaining, and the food is tasty. JK Restaurant I've only been to once, and it was fine, but there's too many other places to try in that price range for me to go back yet.

tried Cava over the weekend, here's what we managed: caramel-chipotle popcorn salad of watercress, roasted beets, Valderon cheese, almonds (red wine vinaigrette, I think) charcuteria (pork rillettes, venison summer sausage, venison bresaola, pork hunter's sausage, served with rye (?) bread, mustard, cornichons) pinchos of avocado and avruga tuna ceviche Serrano ham cavatelli with arugula salad of fennel, orange, olives (and 1 more thing I've forgotten?) porky beans with 48-hour pork belly thoughts -- liked the wide selection (several dozen items) and the chance to try some things I haven't tried elsewhere. From what I could see, wines only available in 125 and 250mL pours (but I didn't look that closely). Very loud space...in a kind of weird location. Portions smaller than, say, JKWB, but that gave us the chance to try more things, which I liked. But I found myself ordering the "boring" cavatelli (and the beans later) because I felt like I needed the starch "balance" after so many just-meat and just-veg dishes. Food was nicely simple, pretty satisfying, not quite comfort food but that sort of idea. service was a little uneven...took a really long time to get some plates cleared even after several servers' visits to the table, other times they were right on top of things. I was in the middle of pouring some water for my companion when a server came over and did it for me...and I don't want to seem like an ass, because I appreciate the gesture, but I really don't mind doing it and if I'm already in the middle of it...found that a little overbearing. There were 4 servers working what they say is a 60-seat house (I'm not sure if that ratio is on the lean or rich side). I suspect the service issues will work themselves out as things get more settled there, though, the servers all seemed interested and well-meaning, so it's probably just a question of being used to the space.

thank you John. your reply is perfect, I'm just looking for a big list of things to check out which I can then look up. It's hard for me to be specific about what I'm looking for, because I don't *know* what I'm looking for...save that I'll know it when I see it, I suppose.

I will be visiting Paris with my sister for about a week at the end of June. Looking for recommendations on food I should check out while I'm there, especially things I can't easily find in Toronto/Canada. suggestions from the full spectrum are good, from high end to bistros/cafes/boulangeries/patisseries. Thanks very much