Fat Bastard's Burrito

I'd love to love this joint in Etobicoke since it's close to us and we are burrito obsessed. Alas, it's rather inconsistent with the latest folly being burnt burrito shells. It appears they had their grill cranked up a little too hot. It should have been pretty obvious to the burrito assembler that every one was coming off blackened, so I have no idea why they didn't correct for it. Obviously quality is not a high priority for these people.

The veggies, mainly lettuce, was also watery creating patches of icky-ness.

All that being said, the pulled pork is delightful and guacamole is free!!! So there are some positives here.

Here's the website.

Suko Thai

This has made it into the regular Friday lunch rotation (even back to back weeks) due to excessive yummy-ness and cheapness.

We go to the Mississauga location on Winston Churchill.

For $7.95, I like to order red curry veggie tofu with a spring roll and little salad. All in with tt&tw (tax, tip and tap water) you can spend about $12.

My coworkers have ordered cashew chicken, mango chicken, pad thai etc and left happy.

My only extremely minor beef with the place is rather small portions, but for the price and quality, I suppose that something has to give. For big eaters, order an extra appetizer or soup and you should be ok.

Here's the lunch special menu.

The Lazy (Wo)Man's Sushi (Salad)

For the cheap and/or lazy, this is pretty easy to make at home to satisfy some maki cravings. Assemble in a salad the following:

• Short grain Japanese sushi rice - white or brown.
  
• Splash on some rice wine vinegar with sugar and salt premixed. Let cool slightly.
  
• Cook some fish (salmon, or really any fish will do so long as it's not battered or fish sticks etc)
  
• Chop up red peppers, cucumbers, carrots
• Tear up some nori, toss on at the end
• Cubed avocado
• Optional - roast some butternut squash or make into veggie tempura
  

California Sandwiches

A couple weeks ago I went to the Dundas and Winston Churchill location in Mississauga with co-workers and I was pretty impressed. For about $8, I got a fresh bun loaded up with yummy eggplant and an extra $1 worth of mushrooms. Coworkers were happy with their veal and steak etc.

For the low staffing of 3 people, this place pumped out a rather amazing quantity of food in short order!

As a side note, for the single ladies out there, I would suggest you start frequenting this joint. The clientele was about 90% men!!!

Here's the web link.

Chorizo (Mississauga)

This burrito joint is ridiculously busy with the local engineering company employees happily picking up and munching on delicious cal-mex food.

With a ridiculous number of extremely efficient employees, the line keeps moving allowing the next wave of happy customers to get their burrito in a timely fashion!

My only beef about this place is their ridiculous use of Spanglish - like "Salsa Verde" is actually red etc etc. Either get it right, or stay away from the Mexican terms for things.

Spoon & Fork (Etobicoke)

For a Sunday night, this place was shockingly busy and reservations are definitely required!!! This place is one of the nicer looking joints in Etobicoke.

The format was all you can eat Japanese, including sushi, and thai.

Some stuff the table got:

• Coconut shrimp was awesome (and I'm not even a shrimp fan)
• Beef & chicken skewers - good
  
• Veggie tempura was decent
• Gyoza - so so no major complaints
• Mango salad had a weird flavor
• Edamame was meh
• My avocado-cucumber roll was meh too
  

The highlight of the night for me was a veggie/tofu golden curry and pineapple fried rice. The sauce was awesome with a great assortment of veggies. The fried rice had lots of good mystery items in there - shrimp, chicken, currents (I think).

At about $30 a person for the dinner buffet, the best plan is to come hungry!!

Heritage Days (We Eat Edmonton)

Once again, E-town proves itself to be the king of the festivals with approximately a hundred food and culture tents scattered around the rather large Hawrelak Park.

For $20, we got lots of tasty stuff including Peruvian donuts, some sort of middle eastern chickpea/potato salad, Afghani potato/green onion fried cake, Filipino meat on stick with rice and pickled veg, pina colada and a couple other dishes I'm probably forgetting about.

Toronto's cultural/food festival situation is pretty weak by comparison!!!

Heritage days link here...

Bad Ass Jacks (We Eat Edmonton)

I had fond memories of this joint from my Edmonton days, but it turned out to be not so good last week when I convinced Ian to go for lunch. We went to the U of A location and at noon on a Friday, the chicken wasn't ready and they were out of rice?? Huh??

For $7 (with our 2:1 coupon), we had 2 falafels with noodles, veg and thai sauce. It wasn't terrible, but the Toronto burrito selections really do have the Bad Ass beat in the wrap department.

Here's the link.

Chorizo Fresh Mex

The main thing this place has going for it is "close to the office" and free guacamole. Aside from that, decent beans and rice, pork is alright although a bit boring and salsa is good - choice of salsa fresca, pineapple, corn or one other one. Add in some cheese and sour cream too.

I know grilling the final product is against the "authentic" Cal-mex burrito style, but it really would result in a product that holds together a bit better. It's pretty much impossible to eat the Chorizo burrito without making a gigantic mess and dropping chunks onto your nice work pants...oy!

Here's the link....

Alice Fazooli's

For those office worker types in Mississauga, the Alice Fazooli's has a fantastic deal for lunch (not appearing on website menu). For $10.45, you get a half salad, half pizza of your choice. Considering that the full size salads and pizzas go for about $15, this is a steal!

The portions are good too - in fact, the first time I ordered this, I questioned the waitress because I thought they had messed up and brought me full portions!

Sandwich Box

With everyone talking about the Sandwich Box at Bay and Bloor I figured I should give it a try. The place makes grilled to order sandwiches with a bunch of different toppings. I was overwhelmed by the bread selections so I made a rushed decision for some type of whole wheat bread. Then came another big decision on what type of spread. I was getting comfortable with having lots of choices so I went with a basil pesto. I would have liked a guacamole spread but it came with chipotle's in tow so I had to pass. Instead, I used one of the 3 toppings for avocado. The signage says you're allowed three toppings but when I tried to get chicken and roast beef for my remaining two I was told they added to three by themselves. My cheapness meant that I had to go with boccocini cheese then instead of the beef. With all the options set they put my sandwich on the press.

The whole thing looked small so when I saw there was a tomato lemon grass soup I took the plunge and got that as well.

My whole meal rang in at just over 12 bucks so this definitely wasn't a cheap eat. However, once I got back to the office and begun eating I was fairly impressed. The Ian-sandwich was delicious and the soup was pretty good. The salad though that comes with the sandwich unfortunately was not great. For a place with some many choices, I would have expected more customization of the side but instead I had this green salad that was soaked in some sort of dressing. If I go again, I'd definitely ask for less dressing or maybe try to trade my salad for another topping. Overall, the place is alright for a light (as in not super filling) splurge (both on the wallet and in healthiness with the dress fiasco) and I'd recommend an Ian-sandwich which consists of unknown tasty bread type that I'll recognize if I saw again, basil pesto, grilled chicken breast, avocado and some boccocini.