Thursday, September 22, 2005

Toronto Restaurants
Downtown Toronto has a lot to keep the urban office warrior happy after the day at work is over, well the downtown area does. The rest of it is a vast concrete wasteland scattered with generic shopping malls and people ricocheting between their places of work, their homes and shops in cars the size of Belgium on overcrowded freeways.

The financial district, reminiscent of New York has it's fair share of good eateries and the Queen Street East is an incredible multicultural melange with something reasonably priced to eat inspired from just about every corner of the globe.

Today's exciting restaurant mini-review will concentrate on the places you should probably take your significant other if you want to make up for a medium size atomic row. Or somewhere you should consider taking your next potential significant other if you want to have a medium size atomic row with the current one.

The Fisherman's Wharf on Richmond Street West has a cosy candle lit atmosphere, attentive staff and some excellent grub. I started off with the Boston Clam Chowder which, to be honest was tasty but not quite as pleasant in the mouth as say... Shakira.
Their signature dish though is worth the $60 even if you discount the bad bits. The bad bits are the deep fried breaded cheese stuffed shrimp, cheesey oysters, deep fried scallops and stewed mussels. All of which strike you as the sort of food that McDonalds would sell if they opened a fast crustacea cafe'. The good bits and they are very good indeed; are the longitudinally split Alaskan king crab legs which are simply perfect with a little lemon juice on them, the lobster tail and the tiger shrimp. These together are worth the asking price.
Soundbite: Forget the other half, go on your own and order king crab legs for two.

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse is buried under the Hilton also on Richmond Street West. It is as good for steak as Jesus is for Christianity. Marvelous! I started off with the Crabtini which is basically a large martini glass piled with thumb sized lumps of crab meat tossed in a vinaigrettee with a Creole sauce and attractive, pleasant tasting greenery around the side. I could eat this every day.
I am not a huge steak fan, by which I mean both that I do not like huge steaks and that I am not normally greatly impressed by steak at all. This place has changed all that despite having a ridiculous name. I ordered a medium cooked ribeye. It arrived on a plate hot enough to melt the tines on my fork. I asked about this, apparently they heat the plates to a waiter bullshitting 500F. I didn't have a thermometer with me but it was bloody hot and did the job, keeping the steak warm until the last perfectly cooked morsel had been reverently consumed. The steak itself, was I believe about as good as it is possible for a dead animal to taste. Good enough in fact to throw Darwinism into doubt. Nothing that tastes this good could have survived 2 million years of human existance without having been eaten into extinction several times over. It was tender, juicy and all that other hyperbole that steak is always supposed to be but never is. Well, almost never. Apparently the steaks are cooked in some special broiler at 1800F that fires at them from both sides. I can't vouch for the technology, but I only remember one steak this good before and that was at The Capital Club, a stone's throw from The Bank of England.
Soundbite: Flights to Toronto are available from all major international airports, get there somehow, anyhow.

Intelligent Design and Creationism are to common sense what Parmigiano-Reggiano is to watchmaking.

2 comments:

Carlos Guzman said...

I totally agree with you about Shakira!!
Great blog, you've given me some ideas...

Cathy said...

my undercooked steak hot off the barbee tonight somehow no longer stacks up...glad to hear you're finding some decent food in beantown. you know that we've been having some trouble with mad cow here in canada, though, eh?