I don’t know what it is about Jack Astors, but every time I attempt to take a photo of my meal, it ends up looking like slop. I’m not saying that the food there is slop, just the food isn’t too photogenic. For instance here is a photo of my half eaten scrumptious red velvet cake:
It was delicious, there was nothing inherently wrong with it, but no matter how hard I tried the photo I took turned out horrible. It looked like the mud pies you make as a child. It wasn’t even something I could instagram prettier. I didn’t think that could happen.
On another occasion I tried the Lamb Skewers entree. It came with hummus bread and a mini salad. This was the photo:
You might say “well hummus always looks like slop” but I had blogged about the hummus at By the Way Cafe previously and it didn’t look a thing like that. Not to mention the skewers look a bit like penis on sticks. Again, it wasn’t that bad of a meal just not very photogenic.
Have you ever run into a situation where you couldn’t show your delicious meal to your friends on Facebook because the photos were just horrible? I’d love to know!
A few weeks ago, my stomach was a little iffy so I opted to find something healthier (that wasn’t burgers) to eat. From random window browsing, we made our way to the By The Way Cafe located in the Annex. I had walked past it a million times in the past but never wandered inside. The restaurant is really bright and has a homie feeling even though they do consider themselves a fine dining restaurant. I was actually quite surprised to find that it served middle-eastern cuisine. I always thought that it served sandwiches or generic coffee shop food because of it’s name.
We ordered light, mainly because we wanted an excuse to get froyo after. We opted for the combination platter which contained hummus, tabuleh, babaganough and Israeli salad. We also had the spicy and crunchy calamari which lived up to it’s name. Ok, I admit the calamari is not considered “healthy”, but whatever it was delicious.
The platter was basically like bread and dip but it was flavorful and we finished every drop of it. It’s a tiny bit pricey though ($12) for how much there is. There’s definitely a ton of choices on the menu for those who choose not to eat meat (never) including a vegetarian lasagna. At least I’ve finally eaten something besides sushi in the Annex!
On Saturday, I went to Edgefest at Downsview Park. The weather was 30 something degrees, but your touch hit the mark.
I met you next to a super delicious stand, that sold me this sandwich of pemeal bacon:
You were pale, yellow and cold. Your flavour was bold. We met 3 times that day. What the hell am I talking about? It was a $6 lemonade.
I blame the poem above on the 37 degrees weather Toronto’s experiencing today. It made me miss this delicious (but super over priced) lemonade. I don’t have any pictures of it. I also have no idea if the vendors have a store outside of Edgefest, but if anybody knows I’d love for you to help me solve this missed connection!
Located at 600 Bloor Street West, Snakes and Lattes has become one of my favourite new discoveries. Simply put, it’s a board game cafe. A place where you can have a drink and play a game with your friends.
The place is only a few years old, but already they’ve expanded into the building next door. For now, only one side is liquor licensed so if you’re looking for some drunk board game times ask specifically for that side. When you walk in the place its usually full of people playing games of all types. I saw some pretty complicated boards with islands and giraffes.
The atmosphere is friendly and inviting. There are a couple of walls lined up with thousands of board games. According to their site they have over 2208 games. There are even really limited edition versions of the board games that you can’t even buy any more. I got really nostalgic when I visited the shelves. I love Jenga and I found the Mario version (which I later ended up buying).
I was there for a birthday party and we asked for game suggestions. The staff is pretty knowledgeable about all the games and will teach you how to play if you’re too lazy to read the instructions. We discovered a game called Cards Against Humanity which is a hilarious and dirty minded version of Apples to Apples. Definitely a great one to try if you’re there to drink.
I wish I lived beside this place, because I want try all the board games. It’s a great place to kill time and hang out with friends. For only a $5 per person charge, you can sit in the cafe all day. There is also food and drinks available so you won’t starve if you really do decide to stay the day. It’s also a great place to try out new board games before you buy them. They have a bunch of new games on site that you can purchase if you do become attached to one.
I definitely will be back to play some more games soon!
I learned about the Yellow Griffin from their tempting ads mentioning their huge variety of burgers that they’ve had up occasionally in subway stations for the past couple of years. Last week, I finally decided to visit the joint. It’s a pub style joint, but there’s always a top floor where you can book parties. Their menu has an offering of over 35 styles of burgers which you can get with beef, chicken, lamb, bison, veggie, turkey or even salmon patties.
I ordered the New Mexican with a regular burger patty. On top of it sat guacamole, santa fe salsa, tobasco sauce, diced sweet potatoes, peanut butter, chopped coriander. I thought I’d try something other than the heart-attack inducing burgers I usually order. I chose sweet potato fries as my side.
The patty was pretty huge. The burger had a lot of flavour. The peanut butter blended really well with everything else, which was surprising because I thought it would be really strange. It was also texturely interesting with the sweet potatoes (that were almost like a mash) and the salsa. The fries were crunchy and addictive.
Nash ordered the Hold the Port, which had a giant portebello mushroom and blue cheese. These 2 ingredients both have strong flavour on their own but together they marry so well. I stole a bite and I tasted the mushroom first, but when my tongue finally touched the blue cheese it was awesome. His onion rings were also delicious, kind of wish there were more of them (it didn’t come with that many) that I could steal.
Service there was slightly awkward, but we both enjoyed our food and will definitely be back to try the other burgers!
Are you one of those people who cry when cutting an onion? I am when the purple ones are involved. I decided to google up ways to lessen the tears when chopping onions and this is some of what I found.
1. Cut onion over an open flame. 2. Chill your onion in a freezer. 3. Wear gas tight goggles or a mask 4. Stick your tongue out 5. Whistle
These all are seemingly ridiculous. I’d like to know if you’ve tried any of these and if they work!
I heard of Novo Horizonte because a friend posted this Spice City link on my wall. As a burger aficionado, I had to try the place Since I was heading to the Drake for a concert it was the perfect pre-concert meal.
Located at 1430 Dundas Street West (at Gladstone), it’s a tiny little place where you’ll see a bunch of Brazilian’s hanging out and drinking. We seemed like such foreigners walking in. At first glance, it simply looks like just a bar. The waitress politely asked us what we would like to drink and we had to specifically ask for the menu.
The menu consisted of only burgers, which were very decently priced. You could get a burger of under $4, if you weren’t picky. Of course we opted for the X-Everything Burger (not the X-Challenge because we still needed to live) and I also ordered this mango orange juice thing. It was a pretty sweet nectar like juice in a mini container I probably could have drank in 2 gulps.
The X-Everything Burger was a glorious combination of things. It consisted of hamburger, chicken, bacon, ham, egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, corn and shoestring fries (which were hickory sticks). They all combined together really nicely with some interesting textures.
It was easily devoured and this is what was left of the burger less than 10 minutes later:
We had 2 X-Everything Burgers, the mango orange drink, and a Moosehead beer and our bill only came up to $24. I don’t get it.. that would mean the beer costs close to nothing here! We’ll definitely be back, for drinks and more burgers. Perhaps, we’ll take on the X-Challenge next time.
I’m not ashamed to go eat a burger alone. It’s quite a normal occurrence during busy times. Burgers are bunned happiness. Who has conversations with someone while eating a burger?
Anyways, this week was Burger Week in Toronto so of course I would participate. I chose Burger Bar because it happened to be the closest joint to the Supermarket, where I was going to see a show afterward. I headed there after work and starving. I had actually been to Burger Bar once before with my best friend 2 years ago. It wasn’t the greatest experience because her patty was bloody and under-cooked. I figured if the place still existed than it must have improved, so I gave it another chance.
I wandered in and asked for a table for 1. Either the waitress was loud or being a jerk, but she made me ask like 10,000 times. I finally sat down at a table (with no menu) and 15 minutes later a waitress came up to me and asked, Are you just sitting here? I was starting to get irritated. WHY THE HELL WOULD I BE JUST SITTING HERE IF I DON’T WANT A BURGER? but I replied, “Um, no, give me a menu.”
I decided to just stick with the Burger Week special as it was only $5. It was a local beef burger infused with hops and chipotle aioli. I felt I needed to calm down so I also tried to order a drink off the placemat, but apparently you can’t order the drinks on the placemat….
Why put these on all the tables, when you can’t order them?
I watched as a group of 10 people tried to do the same. Even though one waitress already took my order, another kept asking me if I was waiting for someone. I told her NO 3 times. FML, I just wanted to enjoy a burger alone. Oh yeah, I waited almost 20 minutes for said burger and it looked like this:
I was so hungry, I took a bite out of it before I took a picture.
Wrinkly bun, small as hell. It was okay I guess since I ate it fast (or I was just fuckin’ hungry). I guess I can’t expect much for $5, but I WAITED 20 MINUTES. They were lucky I gave them another chance, but I don’t think I will come back to Burger Bar EVER again.
As for eating burgers alone, luckily there are plenty of other places to do that in Toronto. My favourite being Gourmet Burger, where people and environment is friendly and the burgers are delicious.
I found Fusia Dog one day when I was wandering downtown. We decided to try it. Located in the Entertainment district, this mini joint puts an asian fusion twist on the hot dog.
I ordered the Fusia Dog which had kimchi, daikon carrot salad and coriander wrapped in a paratha. For a hot dog, it was very light and refreshing. There was a wasabi mayo that had quite the kick. For some reason I thought the hot dogs would be over $10, but it was only $6.95. I finished it in less than 5 minutes.
Nash ordered the Boston Dog. It had more American toppings with baked beans, cheese, crispy bacon and fried onions. I stole a bite and it was delicious and surprisingly not too heavy.
It was another concert night and since we finished our hot dogs way too fast, we decided to hit up another local coffee joint. We ended up at Manic Coffee at College and Bathurst. I ordered a mocha.
It’s amazing, how many coffee joints there are in Toronto that aren’t chains. I think I’m going to make an effort to support more little places. Not only are they cheaper than Starbucks, but can be more delicious too!
I bought this package of Pocky yesterday. I had assumed they were cheesecake flavour based on the colour of the box.
However, I assure you they are not. They were much lighter and lemony tasting. It reminded me of Italian biscotti. That would explain the back of the box:
Why then was there a picture of a cheesecake on the front of the box? I’ll never know, as I cannot read in any Asian language. Maybe one of you know what this box says?
Tiana Feng 