I’ve been listening to a podcast called The Happiness Lab and within an episode, host Laurie Santos explains that people tend to start things during a time of significance – on a Monday, after their birthday, or perhaps the biggest milestone of all… the start of a new year. It’s a time for resolutions and one of the most popular resolves is to eat healthier and lose weight. Inevitably, 2021 won’t be a year of shedding for me, as the first meal we dug into was a midnight feast of fried chicken. To soak up all the alcohol we consumed, of course.

Since we were ordering on a busy night, the soy garlic chicken ($20.99 for small) took a while to be delivered, so it wasn’t as crispy and was warm on arrival. In my heart I knew giving it seven minutes in the toaster oven would really help, but we were really looking forward to the greasy eats so tucked in anyways. While I do enjoy my fried bird plain, the lightness of the sweet soy blended with garlic was delicious and really helped give the chicken flavour without adding a heavy glaze.

In general, Korean fried chicken is lighter to begin with. The batter is just a coating of flour, so it doesn’t soak up as much oil and isn’t as greasy. The Fry cuts up the half bird into smaller pieces so you can pick and choose the cuts to your preference. For me, I like to pick at the bones, which is complimented by my husband who enjoys big nuggets of boneless white meat. I knew I met my perfect match: he leaves the flavourful pieces for me and is opened to indulging in fried chicken late at night.

Little did we know the chicken arrives as a “combo” with a can of Coke and a container of lightly pickled sweet daikon, which really helps cut through the grease.

That light acidity and freshness helped to balance off the side of fries ($5.99 for small), which was surprisingly hotter and crispier than the chicken. Despite being a “small” order, there was a lot of fries and the spuds were also coated with flour to give it that extra crunch – sort of like the ones you’d find at Taco Bell and Costco, excepted jazzed up with a light dusting of green onions.

I loved that The Fry uses paper-based containers for delivery. And if you want a fully plastic-free experience, skip the pickled turnip (with the fried chicken) and the ketchup (with the fries) in your order.

This New Year’s, what I’ve heard the most is good riddance to 2020 and let the good times begin in 2021. So, with that in mind, I skipped on my traditional resolutions of being healthier or more responsible. Instead, this year, I resolve to live it up and enjoy the good things (and people) in life. And it seems I subconsciously knew this already, as this year started off with a greasy bang.

Watch food shows about Asian countries and they will inevitably feature street eats. The compounds may be located outside or indoors, but the common themes are the array of dishes available, the no frills communal dining area, and the unfathomed low prices compared to the hard work that goes into creating the dishes.

In Toronto, our closest comparison is the da pa dongs set in GTA strip malls. Scarborough food courts were once bustling in the late 1980s and 1990s, my parents and I used to regularly visit them in my youth. But once eateries switched to using disposable containers (they previously used real dishes and you could request a takeout container for leftovers), the environmentalist in me steered my parents towards restaurants like Congee Wong instead.

It’s a shame, as having stir-fried dishes at a da pa dong is the epitome of how they should be enjoyed. Within a minute, it’s out of the hot wok, onto a plate, and you’re digging into the fragrant dish in no time.

My favourite item is the stir-fried rice noodles with beef or gon chow gnow ho. Since the pandemic started, it’s also a dish that I’ve been getting from various Chinese restaurants around the city, always disappointed with the outcomes. Hence, after seeing it featured on Great Fountain’s Instagram feed, I worked in a visit to the eatery after dropping off provisions to my mom, who lives in the area.

The stir-fried noodles with beef ($7.50) was exactly what I had been craving - the noodles cooked long enough so there are bits of caramelization on the ends and to give the dish wok hay. There was enough soy sauce and condiments to flavour everything giving the noodles a lovely deep brown hue, yet they remained dry and not clumped together. I could even do without the beef, to be honest, as what makes the dish are the chewy aromatic noodles, sweet onions and chives, and crunchy bean sprouts. If it is this good after a 20-minute commute, I can only imagine how delicious it would be dining there.

Perhaps there was a bit too much bean sprouts in the Singapore stir-fried vermicelli ($7.50) as the noodles were a little soft for my liking. My hypothesis is the water from the bean sprouts soaked into the thin noodles as it sat in the container. Slivers of green bell peppers would have been a nice addition to substitute for some of the sprouts and add a pop of colour. Regardless, the dish a lovely curry flavour and was a nice balance of noodles, barbeque pork and vegetables.

Each dish is served with a complimentary drink (I skipped to cut down on plastic waste) as well as a free soup. Great Fountain’s hot and sour soup was still surprisingly warm after the drive home and while it’s not the greatest, it’s also not terrible for a free addition. It could be a touch spicier, but where it lacked in the “hot” there was enough of the “sour” element to give it flavour. It reminds me of the hot and sour soup found at Chinese buffets, and even comes packed with big cubes of tofu.

The popcorn squid ($5.99) was the sole disappointing dish; another item I’ve ordered regularly during the pandemic, and once again reminded why it must be eaten in a restaurant. Of course, it was no longer crispy, which is such a pivotal part to making the squid delicious, but Great Fountain’s also lacked seasoning, despite the slightly fiery red tinge.

During the lockdown, when we’re forced to take out from restaurants anyways, it’s the opportune time to visit da pa dongs again - the guilt of relying on plastic and Styrofoam containers dissipates slightly. So far, the meal from Great Fountain has been the tastiest alternative to eating stir-fried noodles at a restaurant. Long live “street eats”. 

Aside from soup-based noodles, a comforting dish I crave in the winter is pork bone soup. There’s almost a primal sense of survival in picking up the massive hunk of bone in your hands and trying to get to as many of the meaty bits as possible, dissecting and sucking until it’s picked clean. Kam ja tang is served in most Korean restaurants, but Owl of Minerva introduced the dish to me and it’s where I return for a fix.

As difficult as it is to transport, Owl does delivery and takeout - the kam ja tang ($10.99) is vacuum sealed so that no drop of the fragrant soup is lost. Without the hot stone bowl, it’s warm on arrival, so we always re-heat it in a pot before tucking in. It needs to be enjoyed in its full glory: blistering hot, burning the fingers, and stinging the tongue. No pain, no delicious gain.

While waiting for the pork bone to re-heat, snack on an order of gu man du ($10.99). The deep-fried dumplings still surprisingly crispy and hot despite also being entombed in plastic. Truthfully, I’d much rather Owl switch to a piece of tin foil to wrap the beef dumpling instead of using so much plastic. We can all benefit from less waste and if someone wanted to re-heat the dumplings in the toaster oven, the tin foil will even save the customer a preparation step.

Back to the pork bone. Once it’s bubbling hot and placed into a bowl, here’s how I like to enjoy my kam ja tang: I help cool it slightly by placing a couple of pieces of kimchi into the bowl. I prefer the fermented cabbage hot and enjoy that extra bit of umami spice that the sauce adds to the broth. Then, it’s a hands-on marathon – first picking off the easy bits of meat with chopsticks, before switching to the primal eating ritual described earlier.

In between it all, I place bit-sized pieces of steam rice on a spoon before adding some broth to the utensil and getting a delicious mouthful of the salty garlicky soup. Some like to add all the rice into the broth and mix it with the meat, creating a Korean congee. I like mine separated, bite by bite. To each their own.

Once the pork bone is done, it’s down to the cabbage with rice. And if I’m feeling particularly ravenous, the hunks of soft potatoes will round out the meal. A meal from Owl of Minerva leaves you stuffed and almost uncomfortably full. It’s my quintessential meal during the winter, where a girl needs to eat to survive. 

The battle cries this holiday season have been to buy local and support small businesses. Sites have sprung up showcase alternatives to Amazon’s marketplace and hashtag surfing through Instagram reveals a plethora of options. Not surprisingly, for me, the food accounts are prominently featured, with so many options that narrowing down where my gift giving would come from became difficult.

As luck would have it, a fellow food lover posted about Scoops n’ Bite’s luscious cheesecake, a favourite sweet for a group of my friends. This is how the Basque cheesecake ($20) soon made its way into the gifting rotation. But, not without purchasing an extra one for my household … to make sure what we were giving was good, of course.  

The Basque-style is so delightful: a cross between the fluffy Japanese cheesecake and the richer dense New York style. It’s a towering creation that has a moist and delicate centre that breaks into crumbs of smooth creamy cheese. For such an innocent looking bite, it’s surprisingly cheesy (still lighter than the New York) and the caramelized top creates a buttery bite, not unlike a graham cracker crust.

We had slices of the cake plain, but it would work just as well with some berries.

Scoops n’ Bite’s menu has a host of other baked goods: cookies, stuffed cookies, and brownies. Yet, it was the empanadas ($13 for four) that intrigued, stuffed with a choice of chicken and vegetables or ham and cheese. We went with the former and were presented with glossy stuffed pastries the size of our palms.

If only the company called out they considered raisins a “vegetable” … it is not. The sole ingredient that knocked these down a peg. For some, they may like the light sweetness and moisture it adds to the filling; I say give me peas any day.

Raisins aside, we still enjoyed the empanadas, with the juicy slivers of chicken mixed with small cubes of carrots and potatoes. There was a lovely earthy spice mixture added to everything and each were well-seasoned – perfect for me but could be slightly too salty for those who like to season lightly. The buttery crust surely stole the show, giving off a lovely aroma and flavour, yet still not greasy to the touch.

It’s nice to have a season to remind us about all the great local talent that’s out there. Still, after the holidays calm down, it’s important not to forget about these wonderful businesses. After all, a Basque cheesecake can be enjoyed on any occasion: New Years, Valentine’s, or even just for a lovely weekend treat.

The moment I lifted the hefty box of fruitti di mare ($17) pasta out of the bag, I knew it was going to be a good meal. The aluminum container was still blistering hot and the dome no match for the lovely seafood aroma that soon filled the kitchen. With bated breath I quickly snapped a few pictures before transferring the pasta to a plate and tucking in… oh my!

While the spaghetti wasn’t necessarily al dante, the pasta was still a great consistency and tossed with ample sauce so it didn’t clump together as some delivery pasta dishes can become. By and large the seafood was still cooked well - the prawns plump and the calamari nicely done – only the shellfish (mussel, clams, and split crab leg) were perhaps a little more shrunken than normal, but still good.

It’s the sauce that keeps me re-ordering this dish. The tomatoes taste so summery and infused with all the seafood flavours with a mellow garlic finish. Don’t let the extras go to waste: it’s perfect for dipping their soft fresh bread into, several slices arriving with the delivery order.

12 Tables makes their own sauces, including the salad dressings. While the Caesar salad ($15) was a bit too saturated for my taste, the dressing was at least a well-balanced concoction combining just enough anchovy and garlic to really create that umami-laced sauce without each element being too prominent.

With this order, my husband and I were in the mood for our all-time favourite 12 Tables pastas and for him, it’s their carbonara ($20). It’s sinfully good, the noodles sitting in a thick creamy sauce (the dish is offered with or without cream) that has a healthy blast of pancetta and just a bit of black pepper. If you’re in the mood for something rich, you can’t go wrong with the carbonara.

Sadly, the missing element was an aperitif shot with the owner – a digestive alcohol and some conversation is such a great way to let the meal sink in. Like shavasana for the stomach. We tried to recreate the experience by having another glass of wine. Don’t judge, you do what you can to keep the tradition alive. 

During the pandemic, pizza has been a permanent addition to our COVID bubble. We frequently order from Maker Pizza and when their delivery times are too long, moved onto chains like Dominos and Pizza Nova. As much as I love Maker Pizza, being a flexitarian meant I had limited options from their abbreviated COVID menu - there’s only so much Margarita or So Mushroom I can enjoy. As luck would have it, we discovered Moto Via while walking around the neighbourhood and they were soon added to the bubble.

Moto Via offers a dizzying number of items, but if you’re looking for something to have right away, order carefully as anything that’s not pizza or part of their “snack table” arrives frozen. Even the Nutella tiramisu ($8.99) arrived as a block of ice and required some thawing before having as a late-night dessert. The creamy part of the tiramisu was nice, a great thick combination of Nutella and mascarpone. But it was a shame the espresso element was missing from the lady fingers, so the sweet ends up more like mousse cake than tiramisu.

Even the Parmigiano nodini ($0.50 each) need a bit of prep. While they are a cheap add-on, they also arrive hard by the evening meal. So, they needed a quick nuke in the microwave to soften enough to enjoy.

What Moto Via does well is their pizza. The calabrese ($20) is a great combination of mild soppressata topped with roasted red peppers and green olives, all bound together with Crotonese cheese. While the olives can sometimes overpower other ingredients on a pizza, these were fresh Calabrese green olives so despite being scattered in large chunks, they weren’t overly salty. Just carefully pick up the first slice - when it first arrives, the hot melted cheese tends to slide off with all the other ingredients.

The deliveries are quick, the pizzas arrived nice and hot., which allowed to the edges of the crust to remain blistered and chewy. Although, the middle does get a little soft with the tomato-based pies. A slightly soggy centre is a trade-off I don’t mind as their San Marzano tomato sauce is deliciously fresh and not too acidic.

It also gives the pizza flavour as I found the Zucca ($18), a white pizza, a tad bland. There isn’t a lot of oil on the crust, which means it’s probably healthier, but with white pizza you need that drizzle of oil and salt on top to make the pie pop. The dish has good bones: lovely fresh mozzarella, ribbons of zucchini, and thinly sliced rosemary potatoes that all blend together nicely. With a bit more oil and seasoning, the Zucca would be amazing.

When in doubt, you can always make your own pizza, there’s tons of toppings to choose from. Moto Via also allows you to customize the crust type between a thin wood burning, Southern style (a thicker crust cooked on a pizza stone), or having it folded into a calzone. One thing’s for sure, the pizza consumption in this household is going to continue throughout the winter, now that we’re blessed with choices abound.  

Patience pays when you’re ordering from Stack. The first time we used Uber, we thought there was a mistake when the quoted delivery time was an hour and a half out. “Surely, this was a case of the restaurant giving themselves a significant safety net and the meal will arrive in no time?” we thought. Nope, it took almost the full 1.5 hours, but then, things aren’t rushed at Stack. After all, their meaty creations spend up to 14 hours in the smoker before it’s ready for a bite, what’s another hour?

The restaurant isn’t about short cuts. Even the patty of the Smokehouse burger ($13.99) is ground freshly on site, which allows them to cook it to medium well so that by the time it’s delivered it’s not overcooked. A non-frozen patty tastes different, the brisket and chuck creation already so flavourful and rich that it’s more than enough on its own. But the Smokehouse is then topped with zesty Carolina BBQ pulled pork and crispy onions. It’s burger that’s made for someone who is HUNGRY.

After having so many toppings, Stack goes light on the spicy ranch so the meaty flavours of the beef patty and pulled pork is the main draw. So, if you’re someone who likes it really saucy, you’ll want to order more condiments to augment the sandwich.

The burgers are served “a la carte” so sides need to be added. The fresh cut fries ($3.99) are large enough to easily satisfy two people. Just some hearty freshly cut potatoes simply seasoned with sea salt.

To describe the ribs & brisket ($31.35) as a “plate” is misleading as it’s actually a platter that feeds two people (maybe even two adults and a child). A half rack of ribs and three slices of brisket goes a long way when it’s so richly flavoured thanks to the many hours in the smoker. And Stack’s meat is much leaner, so while it may not be as juicy as other places, the still tender meat makes for a densely protein packed piece. So much so that three ribs and a thick slice of brisket was all I could handle.

Of course, I also filled up on all the fixings. A lovely jalapeno laced corn bread that starts to soak up the pan juices creating a creamy savoury cake. There were so many fries that we wondered why we even bother with getting another order of it for the burger. And an ample serving of baked beans that’s thick and hearty, but too sweet for our tastes.

Truthfully, some of their sides aren’t the greatest: the apple coleslaw served in the Wednesday wing feast ($32.97) is drenched in a sugary mayonnaise. Consequently, they were also items arriving in a non-environmentally friendly container, so if you’re in the mood to be sustainable, skip the sugary beans and coleslaw.

Don’t let that deter you from getting the wing feast as the smoked chicken wings are tasty. Bite into one and you’ll see smell, taste, and see the lovely smoke ring. I was also surprised by how crispy they were and not oily at all. It’s still a mystery to us … are the wings deep fried or just baked until crispy?

The wings are coated with a lovely earthy rub but not too salty, which makes them perfect for dipping into one of the sauces - my favourite is the creamy garlic dill aioli, but the warm barbeque sauce is good as well. If Buffalo sauce is your thing, Stack’s zesty buttery concoction is a solid choice.

As winter starts to descend on Toronto our barbeque begins its hibernation. Thankfully, Stack’s indoor smokers are still going strong so there’s plenty of feasts and plates to come.