Our Northern Neighbors

I was in Canada this weekend, so the first restaurant review here will actually not be in Rochester. Don't worry, I'll make up for it later.

It's so easy to hate on Canada. They seem proudest of exporting maple syrup. They have little to no cultural heritage. And of course they talk funny. All the other English-speaking nations have awesome accents (think Bret and Jemaine, Sean Connery, Cool Runnings) but they just talk funny. Though there are many reasons to look down on those Up There, there are few that make it worth a visit-- particularly the food-- even in Canada is a bit bland. Real Mexican food may be amazing, but at least Toronto is not Juarez.

Toronto is a foodie oasis, and two hours closer to Rochester than NYC. It is an ethnically diverse city, so it's a double-bonus of a competitive restaurant market with almost every kind of cuisine featured.

Jumbo Empanada on Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market is a tiny, crowded, Chilean outpost that is very similar to Juan y Maria's Empanada Stop. The Jumbo version had hard-boiled egg, raisins, and olives, just like the Don Francisco that Juan & Maria had (no longer on the menu). This filling is called pino. The Jumbo was more like a calzone though, with a thinner, burnt crust from cooking in a pizza oven instead of a deep fryer. And the beef was boiled down and shredded, not ground. I really liked the pico de gallo on the side, though the tomatoes are clearly not in season yet. It was also bigger than J&M's. It was a perfect start to our late morning, especially since the Kensington Market neighborhood of Toronto operates in the same way as the Rochester Public Market. We got to watch the 10 year old daughter of the Chilean owner buzz around bussing tables and complaining in the most world-weary Latin way. Then stroll through the cheese shops, bakeries, and fish stalls with our Vietnamese coffee and shop at the vintage clothing stores. There are no better Saturday mornings.

Kensington Market is definitely my favorite section of Toronto, but Little Italy, Chinatown, and the trendier Queen Street West area are all short walks away. And in a surprise twist, one of the best meals on my entire life actually took place at a restaurant in the Financial District (pinstripes not required).

The Beer Bistro sounded like the kind of place you could get a decent burger and something besides Labatt. Then we realized it was in the Financial District. As we got further and further from the quirky-hippie vibe that we love about Toronto, my enthusiasm started to wane. When we walked in and were asked if we had a reservation for one of the white tablecloth-covered tables in front of the contemporary art, my doubt had morphed into full on regret. But such auspicious beginnings tend to set up more rewarding meals because the expectations are bottomed out. We luckily grabbed a spot at the bar, facing Kings Street East, a major thoroughfare perfect for people-watching (it became even better when they started shooting a FOX pilot there later). The beer list was almost as long as Tap and Mallet's, but our adorably helpful waitress came through with some mind-bogglingly perfect recommendations so I didn't fall back on the old favorites when faced with so many choices. It helped that I now knew about my hoppiness-aversion and could be slightly more informed to give her clues about what I liked. I also liked that they treated beer like wine and had pairings for everything on the menu, and beers divided up under user-friendly headings like "sociable" and "spicy." She recommended the Neustadt Springs 10w30, a brown ale from Ontario. I've never even heard of the brewery before, but it is definitely a new favorite. Plus I love it when a waitress says it's drinkable enough to have 4 or 5!

Everyone has a "last meal" of choice. It's hard for me to pick just one favorite food, but if I knew I would die immediately after, I'd probably choose to eat moules frites-- mussels with enough fries to scandalously dip into the butter-wine sauce the mussels cook in. Followed by lots of dessert martinis. (Actually that was my birthday dinner at 2Vine). Mussels are both tactile enough to be fun in a play-with-your-food way and sophisticated enough to require their own utensil. They come in their shells, so they seem more tied to their natural state, but they don't require nearly the amount of effort lobster or crab legs do. They're pretty perfect. And the Beer Bistro had a whole section on the menu devoted to them! Which totally made up for the complete lack of hamburgers.

I went with the baked mussels florentine, because seafood + cheese = bizarre. Mussels were cooked on the half-shell and covered in beer, gruyere cheese, bacon, and spinach (Florentine always means spinach, though I don't remember spinach playing a visible role when I studied abroad there). The Boy had Kobe beef tacos. Neither was a lot of food for the price (just two tacos for a little over $9) but the flavor was amazing. And they thoughtfully supplied me with a little loaf of sourdough to sop up the beer-cheesiness to the point of total gluttonous embarassment. Plus they had those Chex mix bar snacks like Lux, but with candy-coated peanuts! I was content to die, and suspiciously close to doing so had the waitress not taken the melted-cheese-covered plate away from me.

Here's a recipe that's a close approximation-- just replace the wine with beer and add bacon. And for the advanced class, an empanada recipe.