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.

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.

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.

Taste of the Kingsway

Lots of good treats here!

Green mango - $6 for pad thai (kinda boring) + green mango curry chicken (very good & lots of chicken) + 1 spring roll (large and sufficiently crispy).

Kingsway Fish & Chip - $6 for two mini pieces of battered fried fish + a hearty serving of chips & tartar sauce. This place is always good, although not exactly good for the arteries!

Chutneys Indian - $5 for a rather small portion of butter chicken and plain rice. Definitely not worth the money and probably the worst butter chicken I have ever eaten. The chicken was pretty tomato-y and lacked flavor. Where's the creamy goodness??? Ian and I both felt happy that we haven't wasted our money and eaten at this restaurant. The head booth lady was also rather mean and rude to her assistant. Kinda awkward all around.

Cafe Demetre - $3.50 for a decent sized waffle cone with lots of premium ice cream choices. Cookeo for me and Tira Misu for Ian.

McD's

Occasionally I pick up a grilled cheese happy meal for lunch. Oddly enough the price is slightly different depending where I purchase in the GTA. A low of $3.77 to a high of $4.24 with a $4.00 in there too.

Harbord Fish and Chips

The final verdict -highly tasty but not very healthy (obviously) and possibly a bit overpriced (at least vs what we recall paying a few years back).

Halibut x2 + chips x 1 + pop x 1 = about $23. Friendly service I suppose makes up for it a bit - at least your moola is going toward nice, hardworking owners who try hard to make customers happy.

T&T Supermarket

Seriously get yourself to the local T&T for a quick and easy dim sum replacement meal!

Pan fried pork dumplings, steamed shrimp/beef balls and a pork/egg sticky rice package for about $7.

Packed with authentic looking asian people with a minimum of white people like ourselves!

BBQ Express

This place has the nickname "hole in the wall" at the office. When I first heard that I thought the place would be a just a typical random restaurant. I was wrong, the BBQ Express on Belair (just north of Bloor) really is a whole in the wall. They don't even have an actual door. You enter in the tiny ordering area through a sliding door that people have to quickly close manually

Anyway on to the food. The menu is simple. Chicken or Pork Souvlaki, Fish Sticks or Bul-go-gee. Maybe there are other items, but that's all I've ever seen ordered. The restaurant is run by 3 Korean ladies (or ajuma) so it's sort of surprising that korean fare isn't featured a little more prominently.

I have always ordered the Chicken Souvlaki. It comes with: Salad (with dressing if desired - I don't get of course), Pasta Salad, French Fries (with ketchup), rice and the actual chicken souvlaki (with tzatziki sauce). All that in the normal large size take out container for the decent price of $7.40. Not bad - I suspect the visitors to Harry Rosen's flagship store next door, aren't BBQ Express' target customers.

As to the eclectic combination of food, it's all reasonably tasty. Unfortunately, the chicken is generally overdone so it's fairly dry. The french fries are decent and while I'm usually against pasta salad, their salad isn't bad.

This place is definitely a good place for a pick up lunch in this neighbourhood. Apparently it's a chain so maybe there's one near you.

Burrito Fresh

As with most neighbourhoods in Toronto, Yorkville does not have an abundance of burrito joints. The only one I know of is in fact Burrito Fresh (208 Bloor Street West) so I had to check it out.

Besides my lunch group, the restaurant wasn't that busy. It took a fair amount of time to process the orders though. I had a chicken burrito (no real surprise) which was

Verdict - if you're in the area, get the cheap chinese next door or better yet get some Pho Hung

Z-Teca Gourmet Burritos

The Z-Teca Gourmet Burritos on King (near Peter) recently opened up so I couldn't resist checking it out. I went in with high hopes due to their talk of "Gourmet" burritos and, while reasonably tasty, I wouldn't personally call them gourmet.

I had a chicken burrito on a whole wheat tortilla. It came stuffed with all the usual items including rice, beans, salsa, sour cream and cheese for $7.86 all in. Guacamole was of course extra so of course I didn't get any.

In what seems to be a common theme with burrito places, there was again a credit card issue. This time they resolved it without having to reset the machine

Once I sat down to eat the actual burrito was fairly good. It certainly wasn't large though and I would certainly have enjoyed something large. The chicken was enjoyable as it had a nice flavour but other than that there wasn't much exciting about it.

There were a few minor issues:
- the burrito wrapper was foil only and not the usual combination of foil paper combination. The issue with foil only is that it seems to tear to easily.
- the place was empty so I got my own table but a significant portion of the restaurant only has ski chalet style seating (possibly also known as picnic table or bench). It's not that big a deal but I could see getting mildly annoyed by it if the place were crowded.

Made in Japan A Teriyaki Experience

When it's cold, we head over to the Cumberland food court where I hit up the Made in Japan A Teriyaki Experience place. The special every day is steak and chicken teriyaki for $6.44 all in. The first time I went, like a fool I just got chicken even though it's the same price as the special. Since then I've never made that mistake again.

The food is reasonably tasty. I stick to one small scoop of sauce to ensure I'm having a stir fry with rice not a soup as other people do. My main complain is the small serving. The meat serving is actually reasonably generous for the price (Although I still fondly remember Edo's Sukyiyaki beef for 3.99 that allowed you to double the beef for only 99 cents more). The rice however is a little stingy. I'm left hungry by 4 and I have to dip into my reserve of chips.

And with the lack of choice in that food court, I'll definitely be back.

Hero Burger

Today for lunch, I went to Hero Burger in Hazelton Lanes. I hadn't been to this location in quite a few years but the menu was basically unchanged. I decided to be healthy and only had a 6 oz Hero Burger. The toppings are the "star of the show" as Janice would say. I, of course, stick with the free toppings. Today, I went with their BBQ sauce that was a Maple Chipotle BBQ sauce which Janice would have been all over. Aside from that I had the normal mustard, pickle, tomato and onion. I've had moister burgers but overall, the Hero version of the Ian Burger was pretty tasty.

Combo's were priced at 2.20 more than a burger alone. Since fries by themselves were $2.40, it's a pretty good deal even with the free pop back at work so I had a combo.

My only complaint (I have to have one) is that the place no longer seemed to have the same upscale burger joint it used to have. Sure it's still in Hazelton Lanes but it felt a lot more production and McD like than it used to feel like. Perhaps it was just an off day for the crew.

Taco Bell

Last week I tried to get back into the swing of North American eating as quickly as possible and to me that means fast food! We had our first hit with harvey's at YVR which was a walk down memory lane since I used to frequent that Harvey's/Swiss outlet back in the day. Anyway, that wasn't enough so I also went to KFC/Taco Bell last week. I had the fiesta platter with a chicken burrito for 7 bucks. For fast food, it was amazing!

The platter comes with chips, salsa, beans, rice and your item (a burrito in my case) and they're all on a nice platter - hence the name. They also gave me a cup for a drink. I'm not sure if that's normally included since the menu didn't mention it but I wasn't about to argue. Overall, it's a decent amount of food for a somewhat reasonable price but I really wish they'd throw in a KFC item to complete the meal. (Since as you know I have a longstanding relationship with the Colonel).

This was a big change from my usual habit of getting multiple Taco Bell and KFC items but I'll definitely get this platter again. Sadly though there are no KFC/Taco Bells near my new office so we'll have to get Janice to cross the border for some weekend lunches at Taco Bell.

Misc Funny Korea Food Stuff

Ian meets the Colonel
Ian makes friends with the Kraze Burgers guy

The Chipotle Invasion

Well a Chipotle opened up in Toronto last week just a tiny bit north of Yonge and Dundas.

I was super excited to hear of the arrival of a new burrito chain so I went today for dinner. It unfortunately didn't live up to my excitement due to a few disappointments:
- no guacamole in the burritos. The Chipotle's web site features guacamole but they want 2 bucks for it. I'm unwilling to pay over a dollar for an avocado so I'm certainly not paying 2 bucks for a tiny bit of guac. I'm not sure why no chains support the guac in canada. Are avocados significantly more expensive in Canada or is there just no competition forcing them to offer it?
- defective tortillas. The carnage out there was brutal as most of the burritos were falling apart during the burrito construction process.
- slow burrito making.
- price, $8.50 without chips, salsa or guacamole.
- too many ryerson students. Well I can't fault them for that.

Overall, I liked the look of the restaurant with its large open kitchen. The burrito was reasonably tasty without the guacamole so I'll definitely go back but it probably won't be for a while.

Dairy Queen (on Bremner)

After the Jays game on Friday, we headed over to the DQ for that brownie batter blizzard that they've been advertising lately. The small blizzard isn't cheap anymore at $4.19 all in but since I'm eating for free on Monday (thanks to Pizza Pizza and the 7 strike outs promotion) we spent it up and shared one.

Now the last time I had been here last year, they double billed my credit card. Since I didn't want to go through the hassle of calling Visa again, I figured I would pay cash. I had been carrying a fair amount of change with me the past few days so I was able to eke out $4.20 from my pockets. The lady asked if I had pennies but the best I could do in that case was $4.13. She wasn't OK with that so instead she wanted the $4.20 only to tell me that they don't have any pennies. I'm not one to take getting scammed for a penny lightly, so I asked (half jokingly) if they could make the blizzard larger but she seemed to not think that would be a good way to resolve the issue. In my opinion, if they aren't going to keep enough change then the error should be in my favour. This was bad customer service and I won't be back any time soon.

Chez Ashton

On my way to the train station on Monday in the QC, I decided to stop for some fast foot Quebec style. I went to Chez Ashton's. The place was sort of bizarre with a very simple menu that seemed a little heavy on the poutine. They also had some deli meat items so I stuck with a classic, "Pain a la viande". It was basically a hot dog bun filled with ground beef, onions and ketchup. It was reaonably tasty but I don't think I'll be making a special trip to Quebec any time to pick some up.

Here's a picture of my combo
or "trio" as the locals say. I do like the french word for combo much more. I just wonder if it's a four item combo like say a happy meal (sandwich, fries, drink and dessert) what do they call it?

The Free Pizza Tour

So today I went to pick up my free pizza care of the blue jays and pizza pizza. It was an uneventful outing as I usually go early to avoid the crowds. While eating my pepperoni slice, these two guys came in after me. Nothing noteworthy except that these same guys were behind me in line at the McD's a few blocks away when I went for my post pizza sundae. I don't think I'm stalker worthy so it seems like this Pizza Pizza to McDonald's route is actually common.

While on the topic of sundae's I thought I should complain about the fact that McD's now charges 1.69 for a sundae. Outrageous. What happened to the 2 for 2 dollars promotions that I used to be so fond of

Taco Bell

Sunday after dropping Janice off at the airport I decided to go out for lunch. My first thought was Ikea of course so I stopped by. Unfortunately their three course mother's day meal (for 7.99 I believe) had a mushroom sauce as its central feature. So I took off down the street to Taco Bell instead. There I had the delightful "Bacon Club Chalupa" for $2.99. I would have liked to get something else but everything seemed to be more than a dollar which would have pushed me over the dreaded 4 dollar PST threshold. So Chalupa alone it was. I had never had a chalupa alone so I didn't know quite what I was getting. It's basically a funny taco with chicken and bacon + sauce with lettuce etc. The funny taco was really the highlight, it's what I'd call a soft hard taco. It has the shape of a hard taco but it's softer.

For Taco Bell history buffs (and admit it, you love Taco Bell history) the BCC first appeared in 2004 as the Club Chalupa. The addition of Bacon to the name has not changed the contents of the item.

For the health conscious, the taco bell web site does not list the nutritional information for the BCC. I'll take this to mean that it's so healthy you can't go wrong a BCC. Now that I think of it perhaps that's why the expression "A Chalupa a day keeps the doctor away" became so popular.

For the people who like random stories, the person in line in front of me was in a Taco Bell uniform which was a little odd but that wasn't noteworthy until he asked to talk to the manager. Apparently another Taco Bell had sent him to come "borrow" some chicken. After a lengthy discussion they finally agreed to something and off he went with three bags of chicken.

McRib Deconstructed Pics

Perhaps Ian sold you on the McRib. Don't be fooled!

Check out this link for McRib Grossness!