phoenikia

Has anyone dined at the Parlour recently? Wondering if the food has improved, with Chef Max Hollbrook at the healm http://theparlour.ca/pdfs/Dinner2010.pdf Have any of you dined in Stratford in 2010?

Enjoyed a burger at Globe Earth a couple weeks ago. Thought it was better than the last burger I ordered at Globe Bistro. Also enjoyed the grilled octopus, the buffala ricotta agnolotti, the loukamades and the chocolate marscarpone cannoli at Malena. Was not wowed by Malena's Fritto Misto or the chilled crab claw with dill "avgolemono". What did you order besides the Black Forest Cake at Simple Bistro? I'm thinking about doing brunch there in the near future.

I find the food at Nota Bene decent, but ordinary and somewhat boring. Nota Bene isn't a restaurant where I would choose to dine on my own, or for a special occasion, unless I was dining with people with conservative palates. I wouldn't describe anything I've eaten at Nota Bene as excellent. I'd go to Splendido for a birthday dinner.

Interesting that Whole Foods would choose Yonge and Sheppard, with the new Pusateri's opening at Bayview Village just 2 km away. Hopefully the presence of Whole Foods will mean some better quality restaurants open near Yonge & Sheppard. The second location will be in Mississauga. According the the National Post, the Yonge and Sheppard location won't open until 2013. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/02/16/whole-foods-to-double-its-gta-footprint.aspx

Thanks jayt90- will have to check this place out. Haven't seen pimento wood chips anywhere, but will post if I come across any,

It's the Au Pied de Cochon in Miami that closed in December 2009. http://blogs.wherethelocalseat.com/category/Restaurant-Closings.aspx As far as I know, Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal (to which this thread is devoted) is alive & well, and not related to the APDC that was in Miami.

Where are your favourite places to shop? I'd love to hear about your favourite independent shops, that might sell things like burnt sugar syrup, and other West Indian ingredients that aren't likely to be available at a standard supermarket. Charley's on Morningside was mentioned in the Black Cake thread on the baking forum. I realize there are a lot of shops in/near Kensington Market, Eglinton West, Oakwood & St. Clair & Scarborough, but was curious if anyone posting has any shops they go out of their way to visit. Thanks for any suggestions!

So at 4:30 p.m., the manager from Globe Bistro called me to let me know that Globe Earth was closed due to the power outage in Rosedale/Yorkville/the Annex, so our dinner at Globe Earth would have to be cancelled. He mentioned they had room at the Globe Bistro at 7 pm, so we agreed to move our dinner to the Globe Bistro at Broadview & Danforth. As I waited for my friend, I looked over the current dinner menu at the Globe Bistro. I had trouble finding anything I wanted to eat on the menu. Each dish seemed to have some component I didn't like or didn't want tonight- fennel and oranges in one dish, grapefruit in another, radicchio & baby squash in the pasta. Many dishes on the current Globe Earth dinner menu appeal to me, and almost nothing on the current Globe Bistro Dinner menu appeals to me. My friend I was dining with is a fairly plain eater, and I could see that finding something that would work with her was going to be a challenge with the current Globe Bistro dinner options. We ended up asking the server if it was possible to eat in the Globe Bistro lounge, and order off the lounge menu. It turns out that you can order off the dinner menu and the lounge menu in the lounge. We ended up sticking with the lounge menu. The big, thick, juicy but salty burger, on a very fresh bun, with crisp but salty frites, hit the spot. Much bigger than the burger at Harbord Room, and almost as good. My friend tried the goat cheesecake with bacon brittle, and I tried a bite. Interesting I guess, but one bite was more than enough for me. Friendly service, as usual. Will have to try Globe Earth on another occasion.

re: Mtl recs -anytime! re: JK's preserved peach pancake re-emerging at Gilead Bistro's brunch- I hope so! It's not on the current brunch menu (page 3 of the PDF), as of yet: http://www.jamiekennedy.ca/PDFs/GB-winter2010-menus.pdf Currrently, the only pancake on the menu is a smoked whitefish on red fife pancake. Although there also is a bacon rosti (with scrambled eggs) which could be considered a type of potato pancake. Hope Jamie is reading this thread

Thanks Darienne! Which WI stores would you recommend in Scarborough, or elsewhere in TO? I sometimes pick up WI groceries when I see them in Kensington Market, and my local Loblaws carries some WI condiments, curry powders, produce, and beverages, but I don't really have a go-to WI grocer!

Getting a chance to try Globe Earth this weekend for supper. Looking forward to trying the curds, the pig bits, and maybe their daily plate. Or possibly the orechiette with butternut squash or the tagliatelle with mushrooms. I'm glad they're including a couple vegetarian options on the menu ;-) http://www.globeearth.ca/Menus/dinner/tabid/9411/Default.aspx

Thanks Jen. Turns out the lunch destination was chosen by the other party. We'll be dining at Biff's. Does anyone have any recent experiences at Biff's? Are there any specific dishes you'd recommend? The grouper was fine the last time I was there, but it's been several years since then. How is Biff's duck confit? Sort of frustrated by the choices- lots of choices, but not too many items I would usually choose to eat. Looks like I'll probably end up with the branzino or arctic char. Biff's website: http://www.oliverbonacini.com/biffsmovie.html Biff's lunch menu: http://www.oliverbonacini.com/pdf_files/biffs_lunch.pdf

The cake turned out well. I'll make sure I stir in the fruit mixture a little more carefully next time- there were a couple pale spots where the batter and the fruit weren't fully mixed. But the flavour was great- it got better each day! I brushed the cake with rum daily for about a week, until New Year's Eve when we had some guests over, when I covered the remaining half with rolled out marzipan. We still have about 1/5 of the cake left. Next time I make the cake, I'll either look for burnt sugar syrup in a WI store, or I'll make a syrup with the burnt sugar, rather than my recipe's approach which just had burnt sugar stirred into the soaked fruit. Will also probably try another recipe next time. Definitely worth the effort, but it is a considerable effort!

nice post! In Toronto last year, my top dish was a scallop & meyer lemon risotto first course at Scaramouche during their first lobsterlicious. Also liked a preserved peach pancake at the former jkwb on their brunch menu. And the huevos divorciados at Easy Restaurant on Queen W at Roncesvalles. Most of my other favourite dishes were in Montreal- at APDC, Le Montee, Bronte and Milos.

I have a midweek business lunch coming up in February, and would love to hear your suggestions. Right now, I have Pangaea, C5, Vertical, Canoe, Forte and Nota Bene on my tentative list. Would like to stick to Continental, Italian or French inspired restaurants for this particular lunch. We also will need a table that would allow for easy conversation, rather than a bustling atmosphere. What other restaurants would you suggest? I am not interested in dining at Bymark, Reds, or One, but I'm open to any other suggestions that are in Yorkville or close to the Financial District. Frank ended up being surprisingly loud the last time I organized a lunch there. How loud is Nota Bene at lunch time? Thanks for any of your comments!

Just thought I'd mention there's a new restaurant in London called Braise, that has opened on Dundas Street across from Kingsmill's, in the old Pier 1, then Gielen Design space. It looks like you might be able to enter from Dundas or from the market side. It looks quite nice. Haven't had a chance to try it yet. Here is the website: http://braise.ca/

Thanks Darienne! Will let you know how it turns out. The batter tasted pretty good once I added the other ingredients, so I'm hoping that's a sign that the end result will taste pretty good. I hope there won't be any noticeably burnt tasting or crispy bits in the cake when I pull it out of the oven in 3 hours!

I was making Guyanese Black Cake today, and the recipe sets out a method for making your own browning or burnt sugar, by melting brown sugar over moderate heat, then boiling for 1 minute. It seemed to take a long time to get to the melting stage, then the brown sugar was a beautiful caramel colour, but it still wasn't boiling. After a few minutes, it finally started to boil, and I waited a minute. Suddenly, the melted sugar on the sides of my saucepan started to burn, and even as I removed the saucepan from the heat, the sugar at the bottom of the pan started to darken. I poured the sugar into my rum-soaked fruit, and I realized that my most of my sugar had reached the hard crack candy stage, and some of it was at the hard thread stage as I stirred the mixture. Hard crack chunks of burnt sugar amongst my rum soaked fruit. I removed the bigger chunks of sugar that I could find, and crushed them, and added them back to the fruit. Not sure if the sugar was too burnt, and if this will result in a burnt tasting cake, but after soaking fruit for about a week, I decided I'd rather just go through with it, and see how it turns out. Has anyone made a black cake recipe that involves stirring the burnt sugar (rather than a burnt sugar syrup) into the fruit? And has anyone had any experience with accidently stirring in hard-crack stage burnt sugar into the mix?

I bumping this old thread, to ask egulleters which burgers they consider the best in TO right now. I realize this topic has gotten a lot of coverage on another board, but there's so much noise over there, that I'd like to hear what egulleters have to say. I've had a good burger at the Harbord Room, but afterwards I had to drink litres of water, so the meal was a salt bomb. But maybe the fries were to blame. I've also enjoyed the Stilton Burger at Caren's Wine Bar, and a Blue Cheese & Avocado burger from Craft Burger. Where are your favourite burgers (lowbrow, midbrow or high brow) these days?

great review- thanks for including so much detail!

Looks good, Jen. Thanks for posting this!

Just thought I'd mention a restaurant in London that opened recently. Abruzzi Restaurant ((519) 675-9995) opened at 119 King Street, next door to La Casa. I've had one nice lunch there so far, and will be returning for dinner later this month. Warm bread on the table, an interesting chestnut and chickpea soup, and tasty orechiette with arugula. Light limoncello cheesecake. The only slight negative is that the place is quite noisy- no carpetting in the place, and lots of hard edges, so the sound seems to bounce around. Friendly service. www.abruzzi.ca I've also been lucky with 2 recent lunches at On the Fork. On the Fork recently changed their menu, to include a rabbit stuffed housemade ravioli (primi sized- not really enough for a main), as well as a quail filo pie. Interesting desserts, although the house-made donut was miniscule- smaller than a timbit. Friendly service. http://onthefork.com/ I'd say Abruzzi and On the Fork are my favourite places to lunch in London right now.

great post & beautiful pics, Jen I'm heading to Frank for brunch on the 19th so I'll report back!

Thanks Dryden. I ended up having a lovely meal at Hearth. I ordered the autumn tasting menu ($68) which included a pear and mixed green salad, tortelli di zucca, venison, pear ginger sorbet, bittersweet choc bread pudding and orange ice cream. Other people at my table tried the scallops, veal/ricotta meatball, chocolate pappardelle with wild boar ragu, and the cucina povera prix fixe ($35) which was a meal of ribollita, braised rabbit with olives and butterscotch budino. It was a good meal overall, although I would probably order the prix fixe (which was a great value at $35) or a la carte on future visits, rather than the autumn tasting menu.

SobaAddict70, have you dined at Hearth recently? Would you still say you prefer the food at Hearth to Ko? Beautiful photos, btw!