CLOSED: 120 Diner (Toronto)

Posted on Wednesday, April 15, 2015 by

120 Diner

Replacing a former chain restaurant, 120 Diner offers classic favourites at reasonable prices. On Saturdays, they even offer a special Latin menu to complement their Latin Live show. As you walk into the restaurant, it has a modern retro feel to it so you don’t feel like you’re in a diner at all. But, it's more than just a restaurant, a sizeable stage is along one side and hosts a wide range of comedy shows, karaoke and live music entertainment throughout the week.  

The fragrant crunchy coconut shrimp ($11.95) arrives piping hot and I can’t wait to tuck in. Admittedly, the coating could be thinner as there were a couple that had softer parts. Perhaps, if the shrimp were covered in smaller granules of coconut first and then the larger flakes sprinkled sparingly, it may taste better. But, the slightly sweet kick mixed with the spicy mayo (a must) made this a satisfying starter.

120 Diner coconut shrimp

A diner favourite is the meatloaf and mash ($13.95). I’m not a fan of soft meatloaves where bread crumbs overpower the mixture causing it to get soft and overly smooth, so I was particularly happy with the dense beefier one 120 Diner serves. The earthy mushroom gravy paired well with the meatloaf and buttery smooth mashed potatoes.


120 Diner meat loaf

For club goers, the 120 grilled cheeseburger ($15.95) would be perfect to share after a night of dancing. Stuffed with three cheeses, the dairy definitely stole the show from the lean beef patty.
120 Diner grilled cheeseburger Although the menu notes this is served on rosemary focaccia bread, it arrived on a soft ciabatta roll instead. Likely it’s a better choice as the meat and cheese is already so heavy that an oily focaccia would be overwhelming. But, I like the idea of an herb mixed into the bun to help add a fresh element to the dish.

120 Diner grilled cheeseburger

Like most good diners the portion sizes are substantial and will leave you full, if not with leftovers. If you’re not in the mood for food, they also have a number of cocktails that can be enjoyed while enjoying a show.  The cucumber margarita ($9.75) is a great summer drink with cucumber pulp mixed throughout – it’s refreshing without being overly sweet. While the Long Island iced tea ($9.75) is strong but goes down so easy… almost too easy.

120 Diner cocktails

The restaurant’s name is certainly misleading as although the menu contains diner favourites the atmosphere is much more entertaining. From comedy acts to karaoke, it’s great for a night out. And, if that’s not enough, there’s always Club 120 right upstairs, just purchase a ticket for a special event first.

 Overall mark - 7 out of 10
Disclaimer: The above meal was complimentary. Rest assured, as noted in Gastro World's mission statement, I will always be honest.
How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 120 Church Street
 

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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!

Is That It? I Want More!

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CLOSED: Boralia (Toronto)

Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2015 by

Boralia, wine

 Boralia features Canadian cuisine without being kitschy - there's no wooden log or beaver in sight.  Instead, the Canadian theme is focused on the menu which is composed of dishes from the 18th and 19th centuries. From delicious wild game that the Aboriginal enjoyed to the pigeon pie of early settlers, the dishes are different but still approachable. Boralia also celebrates Canada’s diversity by featuring Chinese chopsuey croquettes, Polish pierogies and the Austrian linzer torte; reminding us of all the cultures that contributes to the Canadian landscape.

Their l’eclade ($15) is probably the most photographed given the impressive presentation of being brought tableside in a cloche of smoke. As the lid is lifted, the pine needle smoke slowly escapes permeating the table with a forest smelling smoke.

Boralia e'clade or mussels

When the smoke dissipates what remains is a delicious bowl of mussels. Its meat is tender and silky, while the broth has a hint of creaminess from the butter but is relatively light and tangy. Despite being encapsulated in smoke, there’s no char taste in the mussels so its natural sweetness comes through.

Boralia e'clade or mussels

On the side, they suggest ordering some of the red fife levain bread with cultured butter ($3). The slightly warm spongy dense bread is perfect for soaking up the cooking liquid.

Boralia bread

One of my favourite dishes of the night was the pan roasted elk ($15). The lean meat was prepared rare to allow it to retain its tenderness. There was no gaminess to it, yet doesn’t remind you of beef … after all, its elk and should taste different.

Boralia elk

In the centre sits a wild rice crusted egg, which when cut through oozes onto the plate and mixes in with the cranberry gastrique and burnt onion puree. The crust goes quite nicely with the liquid yolk and has a sweet nuttiness to it. Crunchy paper thin radish slices and a pieces of tender braised turnip round out the dish.

Boralia elk

Their pan roasted trout ($17) was moist with a thin crispy skin. Being a milder and less fatty fish it went well with the sweet Iroquois popcorn grits. The salad of thinly sliced heirloom carrots and parsnips dressed in birch syrup vinaigrette was also light and refreshing. This is a wonderful dish for the warmer weather.

Boralia trout

Thankfully, the lighter trout came before the rich pigeon pie ($23). The golden brown crust was so flaky yet rolled thinly enough that it didn’t become too heavy. Chunky pieces of tender pigeon, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables were packed into the pie within a light gravy.

Boralia pigeon pie

But what stole my tastebuds were the succulent pieces of lean roasted squad breast on the side. Boralia seriously does meat well with a quick sear and light seasoning so that the meat's flavour profile shines through. In all, dishes are artfully presented and constructed to offer different tastes and textures while relying on natural ingredients.

Boralia pigeon pie

The caramelized onion and potato pierogies ($13) were large and a great combination of thin outer crispy crust and a generous filling. The crispy onions topping it went so well with it that I wish there was more of it to balance out the smooth stuffing. After the heavier pigeon pie and pierogie the crispy sauerkraut on the bottom contained just the right amount of sourness to provide a refreshing quality to everything.

Boralia pierogies

At Boralia, there’s no maple syrup with snow desserts. But, their Louisbourg hot chocolate beignets ($9) sure did hit the spot. Unlike other beignets that tend to serve the sauce on the side, at Boralia the ganache is piped into the centre and oozes out like a molten lava cake. The darker chocolate, paired with the beer batter dough and lemon sugar ensures the dessert isn’t overly sweet.

Boralia beignets

But, it could have been flipped in the fryer more liberally as I found for a couple of pieces, although mostly golden and crispy, contained spots which were pale and doughy.  

Boralia beignets

So, what will I say next time someone asks what Canadian cuisine is all about? It’s about the abundance of delicious proteins we have from the elk and squab found on land or the fish and mussels of the sea. Or the wonderful dishes that gets invented when different cultures collide. And although our climate doesn’t provide any tropical fruits, there are many delicious root vegetables and corn which is just a juicy and sweet.

Boralia is a place you should bring out-of-country visitors who appreciate good food. Although they won’t be eating in the former tallest free standing building, they will learn that Canadian cuisine is filled with delicious fresh ingredients and goes beyond beaver tails and poutine. After all, isn’t the diverse offerings and approachable nature of our cuisine which really represents the Canadian culture so well?
As an aside, you may notice in the title photo that their name is spelt “Borealia” and on various sites such as Urbanspoon and Instagram that’s also how it’s found. There’s no confusion amongst the community. Originally, the restaurant was opened as “Borealia”, which happened to be the name of another restaurant. So, to avoid trademark issues they have had to drop the “e” and the name morphed to “Boralia”. So, if you’re searching “Boralia” and there are no results, try the first spelling and you may find what you’re looking for. 
Overall mark - 9 out of 10
How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 59 Ossington Avenue

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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!

Is That It? I Want More!
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Deer Garden Signatures 鹿園魚湯米線 (Toronto)

Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2015 by

While pho uses beef bones for their stock and ramen uses pork or chicken, Deer Garden Signatures offers their noodles with fish. First opened in Vancouver, there’s now two outposts in the GTA serving quick but satisfying meals. Although they have a variety of other rice and noodle dishes on their menu, what people come for is the no msg fish soup.

The broth is creamy and rich but has a lighter quality to it since there’s not an ounce of grease in sight. It’s the type of soup that you want to continue drinking even after the noodles are done and won’t leave you feeling parched an hour later. For those who don’t enjoy seafood, rest assured it’s not fishy; plus there’s always white pepper at the table that helps to mellow out the flavour.


Their noodle combos are the way to go – just pick up a slip of paper and check off the soup base, noodle type, toppings and drink you’d want. It’s a satisfying portion of food for only $8.75. With five fish soups, for my first taste the plain original option seemed to be the way to go. My mom had the tomatoes and pumpkin one, which completely changes the flavour profile with the freshness of the vegetables: it’s good but I find the tomatoes really drowns out the seafood essence.


For those who aren’t into seafood, other choices include chicken broth, tom yum, laksa, Szechuan and peanut sauce with chili. Sure, they all sound delicious but somehow I know they will remain a mystery to me as I’d much rather go to a Japanese, Thai or Malaysian restaurant to have these. If you’re going to visit a restaurant always order what they’re known for!

Next is a choice of 32 toppings (two are included with the combo and extras are $1.50). Mine incorporated the sliced cuttlefish and fish tofu to maintain the seafood theme. But, there’s also meat and vegetarian options available. Deer Garden certainly didn’t skimp on the cuttlefish, it seemed like every bite of noodles had a piece in it. The fish tofu is worth a try and has such a great salty flavour. They also throw in cabbage, mushrooms (button and prince), beancurd sticks, parsley and green onion so it ends up being a very hearty bowl.

The thick rice noodles ended up being a poor choice as they were much too soft for my liking. The Korean style sweet potatoes crystal noodle would have been better as they maintain their springy texture much better.

Ordering a couple side orders is a great way to start for the table. For only $1.95 they’re inexpensive and there’s just enough to share amongst a table of 2-3 people. The pan fried pork chop in maggi sauce was tender and flavourful. While the desert wings with ginger wasn't nearly as exotic as the menu describes, they were still decent crispy hot chicken wings.


One of my favourite foods is a big bowl of noodle soup – there hasn’t been a variety that’s disappointed me so far. I’m so glad to be able to add Deer Garden to the mix. It’s inexpensive, fresh and so satisfying. It’s that good that it'll become a year round eat – hopefully the restaurant has adequate air conditioning for the sweltering summer months.

 Overall mark - 9 out of 10
How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 633 Silverstar Blvd

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog

____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!




Part 2: The "Master" Plan

Posted on Sunday, April 05, 2015 by

If you’ve just stumbled upon this post. Get the background of what this is about by visiting the main page of my journey in developing a career with food.
Now that I’ve decided my career should revolve around the food industry, things will just fall into place right? After all, it’s something I’ve thought through and so passionate about it. But, being a taste advisor and food writer isn’t just a walk in the park. There is tons of competition out there and frankly what I feel is little demand for paid services.

Nonetheless, for achieving a life of contentment and happiness you have to give it a try. So, to begin, I start with what I do best – develop a plan. At the beginning, you may feel like you don’t know where to start, planning helps calm me and focus efforts to specific purposes. Unlike my past efforts of planning a wedding or vacation, this one will be more fluid and I’m certainly willing to branch out and do more as I become immersed in learning about the industry.

Generally, the “master plan” is made up of the following rough steps:

Develop credibility. Just like attending a well-known University and earning a designation developed my current career, I have to distinguish myself in the world of food. Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources to return to school to study journalism, but some continuing education courses wouldn’t hurt. Luckily, George Brown offers a food writing course, and starting mid-April the weekly evening classes begin. I can’t wait to learn from someone who does this professionally!

Connect with the industry and develop the necessary connections. Admittedly, this is the area where I’m stumped. Attending more media events and speaking to more food bloggers certainly has helped. But, I’ve yet to meet individuals who actually do this for a living. If you’re a food writer or menu consultant and are feeling generous with your time, please connect with me, I’d be so grateful.


Gain and build experience to prove my work abilities. At Gastro World, I’m able to do plenty of posts on restaurant reviews. But, for food writing the articles need to be more diverse. So, expanding into more interviews (I did one with Kanpai Snack Bar) and product placement are a few areas I need to work on. If you’re a company with a food product please reach out. If it’s something I enjoy and can stand behind we can do some interesting things together.

 On the taste advisory front, restaurants need to learn about the value of having someone who’s not their chef or employee trying their products. Likely, I’ll need to reach out to a few places to offer these services on a complementary basis first – if you’re a Toronto restaurant that want to try out my services please contact me.

Have the necessary resources to pursue the dream. By resources, it means both time and money. Certainly, at this point, leaving my job is not an option as there are still annoying financial obligations to maintain. But, I also can’t work in a role that expects a lot of my time beyond the 9 to 5 as between classes, writing, connecting and researching a lot of time will need to be spent on the dream. 

 Eventually, I’m likely going to have to take the plunge and focus my efforts full-time to make this work. Before this can happen, it's important to build a nest egg to get me through the “tough” times. Also, starting to develop some sources of income (even if sporadic) is needed to let me know that this could work. Simply developing a “Work With Me” section and adding an Amazon store are first steps at attempting to monetize the efforts.  

Thinking through everything and taking first steps towards some of the above goals has really gotten me excited! You hear time and time again that people now have numerous careers in their lifetime – some very different from each other.

Frankly, I never expected to branch out of the corporate world. But, with every year that passes, it’s becoming clearer that although it’s comfortable and safe, it’s not for me. Who knows, perhaps, I have a bit of my father’s entrepreneurial spirit in me after all… something I was so adamant to deny. 

 Next: Going on a roller-coaster ride

Casa Manila Sauces

Posted on Saturday, April 04, 2015 by

After a delicious media dinner, Casa Manila sent us all home with a bottle of their sauce so we could attempt creating a Filipino dish at home. This was what owner, Mila, envisioned when looking for something to complement the restaurant. Her mission was to find another way they could introduce Canadians to Filipino cuisine without opening another restaurant.


So, they worked with George Brown’s culinary division to develop a large batch recipe of their popular sauces so customers and purchase and use at home ($8.99). From the nutty Kare Kare, creamy and light coconut ginger coconut or tangy and zesty adobo sauce each has a distinct flavor profile. To inspire us, a cooking demonstration was done at the restaurant where parboiled vegetables or meat were stir fried to make a meal in less than 30 minutes.


I've always been a “just wing it” type of girl with cooking (unless I'm hosting a dinner party) so rather than relying on a recipe I made up my own. Somehow, the slow cooker seemed like a good option where I could throw in a bunch of ingredients and allow the chicken to cook in the adobo sauce seeping in all its flavours. After all, to me, cooking is like art where you need to just play with ingredients until you develop something that meets your unique tastes.

First, a layer of sliced onions were placed on the bottom of the slow cooker to add more aromatics to the sauce. This was followed by about 10 drumsticks of skinless chicken as food blogger Adrienne noted bone-in is best to give the dish a richer flavour. 


Next the entire jar of adobo sauce was poured in and cooked with the chicken and onions for about three hours on low. Wanting to add more to the dish, I decided to throw in some shrimp and long eggplant near the end for about an hour more on the high setting. When I could smell the wonderful vinegary garlicky sauce permeating through the air the dish was done!


Paired with steamed rice and green beans the meal was complete and looked impressive. I'd like to say that it was a resounding success and I should immediately publish this recipe for the blogosphere to see, but unfortunately things need to be tweaked and perhaps this art form wasn't one of my best creations.


Don't get me wrong, it was edible. But, if I were to attempt this again there would definitely be changes including:
  • Not using the entire jar of adobo sauce. I’d save a third of the bottle so a sauce could be made later and drizzled on top of everything. Unfortunately, with the onions and other ingredients the sauce in the slow cooker became very watery and not the most appetizing.
  • Skip the shrimp as how long to cook them is hard to gauge and I definitely over did them in the slow cooker.
  • Finally, I found the adobo sauce was more acidic than I would've liked. So, adding another sauce like hoisin or sweet bean paste, may be better to cut down the tanginess for my taste.
Although it wasn’t a success, it was so easy to use this sauce at home. And I'm sure that this was what Mila had in mind when Casa Manila developed the sauces. At home chefs need something else to use to help spark their creativity and broaden their tastes. I'd love to hear about your adventures with the sauces, so please contact me with what you did with it and if it’s a successful recipe please send it to me so I can share it on this post.


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 879 York Mills Road

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