Cheap Eats Toronto restaurant guide blog

Your Favourites from 2008

The final post in this series of Favourites from 2008 is from you.  Favourite restaurant, food or drink event, taste experience, ingredient, dining adventure – they are all options. 

Here are some of the responses that have already come in via twitter (@ceto)

michalhay what about Cafe Crepe on queen west, definitely under $15 or even under $10 including a drink

• Cafe Crepe, 246 Queen St W, 416.260.1611, CheapEats Toronto pg. 49

TO_realestate just used a 2 for 1 coupon (c/o Toronto Life magazine) at Joe Badaldi's. the food was AMAZING and not that expensive!!

• Joe Badali's, 156 Front St W, 416.977.3064

tribal Best dim sum in Toronto. Bright Pearl is my favourite, but it's 5 blocks from my house. There HAS to be better: http://tinyurl.com/85g6b2

• Bright Pearl Seafood Restaurant, 346 Spadina Ave, 416.979.1103, CheapEats Toronto pg. 45

robtyrie cheapeats.... Yitz’s, Ackee Tree on Spadina, Swatow on Spadina, Jules on spadina, Seven Numbers on Eglinton, Five Doors North

• Yitz’s Deli, 346 Eglinton Ave. W, 416.487.4508, CheapEats Toronto pg. 152
• Ackee Tree, 170 Spadina Ave, 416.866.8730
• Swatow, 309 Spadina Ave, 416.977.0601, CheapEats Toronto pg. 140
• Jules Restaurant Tarterie, 147  Spadina Ave, 416.348.8886
• Seven Numbers, 516 Eglinton Ave. W, 416.322.5183, CheapEats Toronto pg. 131
• Five Doors North, 2088 Yonge St, 416.480.6234

jasoneano brunch at Moroco in Yorkville, ribs at Foxley, Falafel plate at College Falafel, Steak&Fries at Sidecar, Ninja roll at Asa, Vera's Kitchen

• MoRoCo Chocolat, 99 Yorkville Ave, 416.961.2202
• Foxley’s, 207 Ossington Ave 416.534.8520
• Sidecar, 577 College St, 416.536.7000
• Asa Sushi, 18 Jane St, 416.604.3001
• Vera's Kitchen, 90 Eglinton Ave E, 416.482.2878

What were your foodie favourites from 2008?

Technorati Tags: robtyrie,jasoneano,michalhay,tribal,TO_realestate

Anna Withrow’s Favourites from 2008

Here's my list of favourite things of 2008.

• Ali Baba's on Queen near Lansdowne: I don't generally eat a lot of take-out so I'm sadly unfamiliar with what's available in my hood. Returning from a cottage weekend late and weary one Sunday this summer, my boyfriend and I agreed it would be best to pick up dinner somewhere that didn't demand a long wait for our order; we ended up at Ali Baba's. I've deeked into various Ali Baba's, including this one, for the odd falafel or kebab and it's always hit and miss. What I hadn't experienced was the lamb, served on the bone, dripping with juices over lentil rice with the cabbage salad, tabouleh and enough garlic sauce to ward off co-workers at the water cooler the day after ingestion. I've returned for this meal several times since and it's consistently magnificent, enough food for two meals, and at about $8, a real steal.

• Foxley's - It ain't cheap, but it sure is cheerful. We went with two adventuresome food-fiends and ordered something like 8 of the tapas dishes, a bunch of wines recommended by our friendly waitress and had one of my very favourite meals of 2008. Among the selections were 3 kinds of ceviche, one with crispy shallots, devoon, I'll never look at fish the same way again. Some dumplings stuffed with lamb and duck proscuitto made us all bow our heads for a moment of silent gratitude; tangy beef heart made the two anti-organ-meat eaters at our table question what they had been missing all these years.

• Oyster Boy - Without a doubt, the best thing that happened to me in 2008 was falling in love and shacking up with my Newfie boyfriend. We discovered our mutual love of oysters on our first date jump-starting the quest for the best oyster joint in Toronto (and some pretty steamy dates!). By date five we had declared the winner, Oyster Boy on Queen West near Shaw. Friendly and very knowledgeable service, tasty, simple side dishes and a casual, warm atmosphere making it easy for us to meander over in jeans and T-shirts when we have a late night hankering for our favourite meal - 2 dozen oysters, a Caesar salad with smoked trout and a couple of pints of beer.

• 2008 was the year of smoked sea salts. My dad used to bring these back for me from his annual trip to France and I got used to making a small bag last the entire year using only a smidgen in soups and fish dishes. When The Mercantile moved into my neighbourhood on Roncesvalles, I was thrilled to find their large variety of salts, the prices are steep but as I already knew, a little goes a long way. On my last trip to the Metro in Liberty Village a similar variety of smoked salts was on top of the deli meat coolers, I'm happily sampling my way through all of them.

• 2008 was the year of discovering all the yummy sausages at Segovia Meat Market in Kensington Market. I've had a spotty attendance record at Segovia over the last decade so I don't know when Segovia expanded their incredible homemade sausage collection, I'm just happy that they did. While I've been a big fan of all the sausages I've tried from Segovia, our old friend, the classic Segovia chorizo is still my favourite and bar none, the best in Toronto.

• Gourmantra Indian Meal kits - Channa Masala and Tandoori Chicken. I know, I know, in a city like Toronto with so many great restos, take-out joints and local stores fully stocked with great ethnic ingredients for making virtually any meal you want, it feels pretty silly to turn to the grocery store aisles to find great Indian food in the form of a boxed meal kit. Gourmantra submitted their kits for consideration in a competition I was putting together for the Canadian Liver Foundation called the LIVERight™ Awards, the quest for the most nutritious and delicious prepared/packaged foods available in grocery stores. Our judging panel raved about the Channa Masala and Gourmantra won the Best Ethnic Item category at the LIVERight™ Awards. I'm pretty die-hard about making foods from scratch but I had to see why Chatelaine's food editor asked me how she could lay hands on a box of this stuff so I made several trips to Metro stores until I found it and let's just say I understand why the judges were so wowed, absolutely delicious. I love their very spicy tandoori chicken too and regularly stock both meal kits in my pantry now.

Restaurants included in Anna’s favourites list:

• Ali Baba's, 1430 Queen St W, 416.536.2100, CheapEats Toronto pg. 31
• Foxley’s, 207 Ossington Ave 416.534.8520
• Oyster Boy, 872 Queen St W, 416.534.3432

Anna Withrow is a regular contributor to CheapEats, a culinary adventurer and an activist based in Parkdale. Eager to try everything from the diviest greasy spoon to the chicest fine dining experience, she’ll never steer you wrong.

Alexa Clark’s Favourites from 2008

I'm always challenged by these "favourite" lists.  I never seem to be able to keep my favourite to just one thing, so I was delighted the rest of the CheapEats crew had the same issue.
For me, 2008 has been a year of great food adventures.

• Best Find - Gourmet Burger Co. on Parliament. They only opened this fall, but they serve the best burger I've had in Toronto for years - gourmet or otherwise. I’ve gotten some grief for this statement, and I’ll be blogging about that in the new year. As good as their burger was their onion rings were better.  
• Best Local Meal – This summer, I got a last minute invite to join a friend at Coupe Space’s Tasting Club.  It was delightful and oh so tasty!  It was the last event of the season, and focused on local and sustainable food. I’m eagerly awaiting it’s return this year. 
• Best Indulgence for a Good Cause - Toronto Taste (disclosure, I was on the 2008 committee) but what a feed and, frankly, what a deal for the price.  
• All That Training Finally Put To Use - In 2008, my lifetime of cooking over fire and drinking beer were finally put to good use.  I was invited to judge the Rickard's Griller of Glory BBQ Competition. It may sound a little silly, but this really was one of those lifetime goals you hope will some day come true.  And it did.  (psst... looking for a cooking competition judge?  Ask me. CheapEats is made up of a whole team of opinionated foodies, and I'm sure there's someone on the team who is both qualified and eager to help you out.) (photos)
• Favourite Educational Moment - the Beerology guided tasting by Mirella Amato at Hart House's Craft Beer Festival & Summer BBQ. I learned some cool new info about the history of beer in Ontario, the development of different styles of beer and I was really impressed by Mirella's depth of knowledge and ability to make it accessable to a group of people slugging back glass after glass of beer. (photos)
• Best Foraged Meal of 2008 - it's a draw between 2 meals we made while on vacation from foraged goods.  First a gnocci with wild forest mushroom & whisky cream sauce, (no, we didn't forage the whisky) and roasted duck with a Montmorency cherry gastrique.  The cool part about the gastrique is that the cherries were from the cherry tree I planted about 10 years ago.  This is the first time I’ve been home in season to harvest them, and the resulting meal was spectacular.
• Biggest Dining Thrill - Dinner in the Sky!  With 22 other diners I was hauled 50 feet in the air to eat breakfast.  This adventure falls into my top 5 dining experiences ever.  I was scheduled to go up for breakfast, so the food, well.. meh.  The "thrill" sauce? outstanding! (photos, including at least one of me with a big stupid grin on my face.)
• Best Reason to Stay Up All Night for food – Toronto’s Night Market.  Parking was nuts, it was crowded and smelly (blame that on the Stinky Tofu) but what a blast!  Well worth the effort and the Stinky Tofu just takes a little getting used to. (photos)

Restaurants included in Alexa’s List:

• Gourmet Burger Co, 482 Parliament St., 647.344.5103

Alexa Clark is Chief CheapEater, editor & publisher of the CheapEats Restaurant Guide Series. Sometimes mistaken for a food paparazzi, she constantly in search of good food-porn shots and looking for ways to stalk and capture CheapEats in the wild.

Gerry Thorpe’s Favourites from 2008

This year had a number of interesting, food-related finds:

• Super-fantastic dim sum at Emerald Chinese in North York
• Much-improved dim sum at Sky Dragon on the corner of Dundas and Spadina. They also have an awesome view of Chinatown
• A suspicious lack of places to eat in tech park area of Markham
• Surprisingly good hamburgers at the GroundHog Pub on Bloor, near Sherbourne
• Messini - for amazing Greek food that always delights - the Danforth
• Nirvana - breakfast enlightenment - beautiful space, great and interesting breakfast
• Beerology beer tasting at the Craft Beer Festival and Summer BBQ at Hart House - We owe the huge variety of beer we have in Canada to the British occupation. Their soldiers were guaranteed a ration of 6 pints of beer a day. Rule Britannia! Hic. Also, got to try some amazing pulled pork sandwiches express delivered to us by my cousin Benjamin Kroetsch, who was working the food catering part.
• Pickled fiddleheads thanks to my father-in-law Jim Clark
• Alexa's homemade onion confit.

Restaurants in Gerry's favourites:

• Emerald Chinese, 30 Eglinton W, 905.890.9338
• Sky Dragon, 280 Spadina Ave, 416.408.4999 
• GroundHog Pub, 401 Bloor St E, 416.975.1867
• Messini Authentic Gyros,  445 Danforth Ave., 416.778.4861
• Nirvana, 434 College St, 416.927.8885 

Gerry Thorpe is the main go-to guy for CheapEats and visits over 80% of the restaurants recommended in both Toronto and Ottawa. Lex likes to think of him as her arm-candy, but is pretty sure he doesn't see it that way. Constantly prowling for new spots to eat in the Junction, Markham and Bay Street, Gerry often comes up with the most interesting finds.

Jeff Plotnikoff’s Favourite Foodie Things from 2008

It's hard to choose just one favourite cookbook for 2008, so I'm choosing a few!

The first new one on the list is Please to the Table. When I say new, I mean new to me. It's a collection of Russian and regional recipes - including Georgian. It first came to my attention a few years back, as I was looking for a good katchipuri recipe - I kept hearing it referenced but sadly it was out of print. It's great for a number of reasons - easy to find things, clear direction and so far everything I've made from it tastes right. And that's a big thing. The subtitle is "The Russian Cookbook", which makes me laugh - either there's that Russian obliviousness to the direct article or there's a superiority thing going on. And given what I've tasted from it to date, I vote door number 2.

I'm also really liking a book the bf gave me for Jeffmas - Aromas of Aleppo by Poopa Dweck. I LOVE books like this, it's obviously a labour of love and a passion of hers, and you can hear the pride in her culture and heritage as you read it. Plus the recipes look terrific. It honestly made me want to track down little Aleppo in New York to check it out. Plus you want to support someone with that name, buy two copies.

I am in love all over again with Alice Waters, and her The Art of Simple Food is just terrific. Pick it up and give yourself a few hours to enjoy it with a cup of tea, sit back and settle in for a great read. If you're in love with gastronomical chemistry/chemical gastronomy - you probably already have a copy of El Bulli! I love it, it's terrifying and intriguing and this is how kitchens get blown up.

A guilty pleasure of mine are the annual collections - Fine Cooking, Cooks Illustrated and Food & Wine. I know, why get the magazines and then get the books too - but I can't help myself. Pick up a copy and you'll see why...

I love Diana Kennedy's explorations of Mexico and its cuisines. I like Rick Bayless as well, but there's a special place in my heart for Diana. If you have never read any of her work or tried her recipes, I highly recommend you do so. And follow it with a trip to Oaxaca ;)

Jeff Plotnikoff is the king of Food Porn and the resident chef at CheapEats which is why he focused on cookbooks for his favourites in 2008. He’s constantly trolling Toronto for new flavours, ingredients and hidden gems. Jeff has recently started documenting his kitchen adventures on Kit & Kaboodle.

Jennifer Vetterli’s Favourites From 2008

Some of my best food experiences in 2008 were simple things that I enjoyed over and over - whatever the season, whatever my mood, these were the go-to items that never failed to please my tastebuds and lift my spirits:

• The pulled pork burrito from Big Fat Burrito: Pulled pork was hands-down my #1 comfort food this year, and these burritos were chock-full of dense, moist, tummy-filling goodness.  I was thrown for a loop at one point when Big Fat Burrito changed their hot sauce/spicing system and went from a simple mild/medium/hot scale to a series of sauces numbered 1 to 5, but even the mouth-igniting mistake of ordering Sauce #4 didn't do much to dampen my overall enjoyment. 
• Honourable mention for a source of pulled pork comfort goes to the pulled pork BBQ sandwich from the St. Louis Bar & Grill.  While not nearly as spicy as the aforementioned burrito, I also found these sandwiches to be pleasingly dense and moist, and even better when washed down with a pint of Keith's Red.
• The Franglaise Toast from The Rebel House: A tip of the hat to Rebel House for elevating your typical fried egg-dipped bread preparation by layering fruit compote between the two slices of French toast and serving it with both Creme Anglaise and real maple syrup on the side.  A lot of places try to fancy up French toast in various ways, but this is the best in my books - it's not overly fussy, and the flavours co-mingle nicely without being overpoweringly sweet.  Another moist, dense, comfort-food favourite.
• The havarti, jalapeno, and avocado grilled cheese sandwich from Shanghai Cowgirl: Once again, a middle-of-the-road favourite gets taken up a notch.  The jalapeno lends a nice slow heat, while the avocado and havarti - both tasty on their own - work well together here.  Getting it with sweet potato fries and a side of wasabi mayo makes it complete.

Restaurants included in Jen’s round-up for 2008

• Big Fat Burrito, 285 Augusta Ave, 416.913.7487, CheapEats Toronto pg.41
• St. Louis Bar & Grill, 2050 Yonge St, 416.480.0202
• The Rebel House, 1068 Yonge St, 416.927.0704
• Shanghai Cowgirl, 538 Queen St W, 416 203 6623, CheapEats Toronto pg. 132

Jennifer is a big fan of brunch, scotch and wasabi peas. She has been sharing recommendations and giving feedback on CheapEats since 2002 as part of the CheapEats community. After years of trying we’ve finally roped her in to do a little brunch blogging for CETOblog.com.  This is her first post, so please take a second and say “hi”.

Sarah Ramsey’s Favourite Foodie Things for 2008

Sarah covers off her favourite cookbook, most envied job, farmer’s market and pear in her round up of favourites:

David Tanis' A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes ($47.95) is a lush cookbook written by the man whose job I envy the most; he works 6 months of the year at the famed Chez Panisse and the rest of the year travels around the world sourcing new ingredients. The colour photography accompanies simple, charming and beautifully written recipes, using only fresh, seasonal ingredients.

The East Lynn Farmers' Market is held Thursdays from 4-7 and it's where to find the best Flemish Beauty pears when in season. This variety is my favourite; round and supple with a ruby blush on its green flesh, a Flemish Beauty is sweet and surprising in a pie or cobbler, especially paired with a tart cranberry. Best from late August to early October.

Sarah is passionate about food and books. She’s been a regular contributor to CheapEats since 2003 and can be found all across Toronto testing out all-day breakfasts, sourcing ingredients for her latest food explorations, perusing cookbooks and travelling west for paczi’s.

Jennifer Sudbury’s Favourites of 2008

It's hard to commit to just one thing, especially when it should be just one favourite, first-place, can't-get-any-better-than-this type of thing.
However, a move this year up to the Corso Italia neighbourhood is making for some inspired, delicious food experiences.

In the spirit of talking too much, here's my 2008 discoveries.

• Best neighbourhood trat: St. Clair Village Trattoria, with a lovely menu of Italian comfort cooking that fits the cheapeats budget and will make your tummy very happy. The penne alla vodka is yummy, with chunks of pancetta floating in the sauce. Owners Silvio and Sandra will ensure you're satisfied.  
  [St. Clair Village Trattoria, 1182 St. Clair Avenue West 416.656.6870]
• Best Italian grocer: Centro, filled with all things Italian, including a deli counter that will make you weep, a cornucopia of pastas, fresh breads and sauces, and a full food service area for sit-down or to-go dining pleasure (it's in the back...follow your nose).
  [Centro Trattoria Formaggio, 1224 St. Clair Ave. W. 416.656.8111]
• Best “oh my god, it's 10:30, the movers just left and we haven't eaten since Wednesday” dining experience: huge chicken burritos with spicy salsa at Tita La Guanaca, bless her for staying open late enough in a torrential downpour to feed our sorry selves. Check out her pupusas, they're delish - and enormous.
  [Tita La Guanaca, 1072 Saint Clair Ave W, 416.656.3519]

Jennifer Sudbury is Queen-Wester recently relocated to Corso Italia and eagerly anticipating sampling her way through the neighbourhood.

Our Favourite Things from 2008

The end of the year always means end of year lists. Lists of heroes (local farmers) and villains (massive multinationals).  Lists of must try (salted caramel) and must avoid (kraft dinner).  Lists of bests (Crisp Perch Saltimbocca) and wursts (bratwurst, knackwurst).  So, we decided to jump on the listing bandwagon.  (We like bandwagons, they usually have good catering and an excellent selection of booze.)

As the year rolls over this week, we'll be featuring the favourites of one of the CheapEats Toronto team each day.  Favourite tastes, restaurants, experiences, neighbourhoods, and more. Since none of us could keep our favourite to a single thing there's plenty to enjoy.