Most of my work colleagues are quite squeamish about food but I bought it up, and after several comments about being a wrong un we had gathered another real food adventurer, Andy Clarke. Plans made, on Thursday evening, Andy's last evening in Toronto we set off from Wellington, walking up Queen Street West - a favorite of all of us in search of "a meat and off-cut centric menu".
We arrived having been unable to book and were almost thwarted immediately, the wait was an hour, but we decided this was too important and hit a local dive bar to drink imported beers and increase our appetite.
On our return we could instantly see they had achieved their goal of being boisterous and casual, but with wine lists in hand and a big chalk board full of amazing foods our odyssey began...
Wissy had to have Roasted Bone Marrow, which was also the food to arrive, delicious and gloopy with a bowl of rock salt and a green garlicy accompaniment, already she looked satisfied!
Next up was Fois Touchon, a creamy slice of fois gras with honey and delicate brioche, again, shared, delicious, the balance of flavour between the honey and fois gras was devine, this was a dish we could of come to blows over.
Finally the starters were completed by a plate of meat - dried slices of hooved animals and fowl, all looking as good as it tasted with a pork fat whipped up into the guise of butter which spread on bread on its own would have been enough reason to visit the venue. By this point I had to stop taking pictures as I was going to miss out on the food...
On our second glass of wine or beer and onto the main events, everything we had chosen could be shared and we all sat forks poised for what ever would come next...
Beef Tartare - with slices of bread arranged quite prettily covered in egg yolk, again top notch, the best tartare I have had outside of Paris, the last slice of bread deftly cut into thirds by Wissy before we fought...
Pork belly and scallops came out, this could of been a heavy dish but the chef had captured the essence of the pork in bite size chunks without defeating us and again, the flavour combinations on the plate all matched, scallops and pork? We will all be trying this again before too long.
Finally, deep fried Sweetbreads, Fiddleheads and Ramps, as we are at the tail end of the fiddlehead season we couldn't of not ordered this dish, every element balanced and light, as it arrived while Andy was away from the table the temptation to scoff it down and hide the dish pretending it had never arrived was immense - but we would have been found out and we had to share so there will be one more person to discuss the meal with.
We had to end with dessert, there was no choice, just the menu item "Dessert", Wissy at this point was defeated but Andy and I ploughed on, and any dessert with deep fried brioche cannot be bad, right? Luckily it was yet again delicious, and just enough to complete a perfect evening of food. There was pineapple, passionfruit and the deep fried bread....
If I am in Toronto long term this will definitely be the go to venue when people visit, every dish was spot on, delicious and well presented, the staff were friendly, attentive and polite, and waiting an hour for a table was not a chore, especially as it was in a bar down the street waiting for our phone call from the waitress.
The bill - considering we drank and ate well was very reasonable, at $190 for 3 including taxes and tip. 10 out of 10 from all of us brave enough to visit.
Fun, food, and fiddleheads on Dundas West!
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