Restaurant guide

***** THE restaurant

GUIDE to suit

everyone business families friends

FOOD

events

this week Dec 3rd-8th

3rd

Workshop—Naturally Fermented Condiment Gift Pack: Holistic nutritionist Kate Leinweber leads a workshop that covers the how and why of simple fermentation while you prepare a delicious batch of homemade ketchup, mustard and relish, perfect for holiday gift giving. The Depanneur, 1033 College St., 416828-1990. Also, Burger Mondays: Enjoy $5 burgers and $5 pints on Mondays, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the Gladstone Melody Bar.

the restaurant 21st 5th GUIDE to suit 23rd 7th your needs

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A Chef’s Tour of Little Italy: Join the Culinary Adventure Company on a behind-the-scenes tour of Little Italy’s finest kitchens. 416-5651730.Also, introduction to Pie Making: Perfect your pie-making techniques with the pros at Le Dolci, just in time for holiday baking season. Le Dolci, 1006 Dundas St. W., 416262-3400

02

Culture.Licious Dining Event—A Taste of Southern Vietman With Minh: Raised in Ho-Chi Minh City, Minh will explore Southern Vietnamese homestyle cuisine with a menu that includes Vietnamese puff pastry savoury meat pies, fresh spring rolls, tamarind seafood noodle soup and cassava cake. Culture.

Licious headquarters, 713 Lansdowne Ave.

9th

DIY Vegan Gingerbread Houses at Tori’s Bakeshop: Tori’s Bakeshop, 2188 Queen St. E., 647-350-6500.

4th

22nd 6th

24th 8th

Holiday Entertaining: Chef Angie MacRae teaches you how to throw a stunning and stylish dinner party with little effort. Menu includes cauliflower velouté with scallops, smoked haddock and parsnip fish cakes with garlicky winter greens and a cranberry toffee tart. Dish Cooking Studio, 390 Dupont St., 416-920-5559. Also, Local Food Movement Dinner by Jamie Kennedy.

Festival of the Crazies at Tutti Matti: In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Tutti Matti is bringing this centuries-old Tuscan celebration of food, wine and La Vita Toscana to the restaurant every Thursday night for a month.

Enjoy family-style dinners the way Nonna serves them, with a different theme each week, special wines by the glass and, they’re promising, a crazy good time. Tutti Matti, 364 Adelaide St. W., 416-597-8839 Discover Greektown on the Danforth Walking Tour: Explore this quickly changing neighbourhood with the Culinary Adventure Company. Sample some Greek mezethes, indulge in Greek wine-tasting and find the perfect addition to your kitchen while gourmet shopping. Culinary Adventure Co., 416-5651730. Also, Stop Market Café: Enjoy a weekly meal sourced from ingredients found at the adjacent farmers’ market. Green Barn, 601 Christie St

our picks for

corporate style

diners

Akco asian 100 king street west 4163687171

Akco Lounge is a busy, mid-scale wine and sushi bar catering to the busy business crowd along the Financial District’s underground PATH. Nicely decorated with dark wood tones and silver Korean-style metal chopsticks you can sit at the bar and chat with their tender, or conduct meetings over an extensive menu.

Blowfish on Bay sushi 333 bay st.

4168600606

The owners of King West Asian fusion restolounge Blowfish are banking on the Bay Street crowd with their newest venture, An expansive new restaurant in the Bay-Adelaide Centre.

The new location boasts a more refined take on the look than the King Street original— think business lunches and after-work cocktails instead of late dinner and drinks.

our picks for

corporate style

diners

Earls Toronto pub food 150 king street west 4169160227

Earls’ Toronto location on King West in the Financial District is the first in the city for the west-cost chain. The restaurant caters to a similar crowd to The Keg up the street with its extensive menu of pizza, pasta, burgers, sandwiches and other pub like fare.

electic 66 wellingston st. west 4167771144

Bymark is lin the TD Centre, concourse level and courtyard. The concourse level accommodates the main dining with three private rooms each with a 14 guests capacity. The rooms could be joined to allow larger number of guests to dine. The Bar (Downtown), is located in the courtyard with a glass enclosure to view the towers and the stars.

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Bymark

pub grub forthose

nights

outs

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The Rhino

Wide Open

1249 Queen Street West 4165358089

139a Spadina Avenue 416 7275411

So, the service isn’t quite up to Four Seasons standards. Whatever. With bottles starting at $3.80, I’ll shine my own shoes, thank you very much. The Rhino is an old faithful on the Parkdale cheap drinks (and food) scene, with an incredible selection of bottled beers and pints priced at $4.75. You’ll have enough left over for that famed Rhino burger, I’m sure.

Pitchers push $13.

Wide Open is cheap drink heaven depending on the day. It offers 2-for-1 $10 pitchers on Mondays, $3.00 rail drinks and domestic bottles on Sundays, $4.50 pints on Wednesdays and much, much more. But the pièce de résistance for this downtown cheap-drink-gem is definitely its Happy Hour Thursdays (from 5p.m. to 8p.m.) when all drinks are priced at $2.50. Yes, EVERYTHING. Best to mark it in your calendar right now

06

Sneeky Dees 431 College Street 4166033090 You’ll need more than a single beer to wash down a huge Sneaky Dee’s plate of nachos, and its bottles and pints are priced with that fact in mind. A pint will cost you $4.50 any day of the week, plus bottles starting at $3.50 except on Wednesday when they’re a cool three bucks. And though you typically don’t think of cocktails when you think of Sneaky Dee’s, you might start to if you know you can get them for $3.75 each.

3 Brewers 275 Yonge Street 6473476286

A Dark Horse A Dark Horse is a fairly large English restaurant and bar in the heart of the Bloor West Village. Nicely equipped with a large patio, dark wooden interior and a healthy selection of spirits, wines and ales.

Duffy’s Tavern 1238 Bloor Street West 4166280330 Can’t get enough of that wonderful Duff-y’s Tavern. Duffy’s sets the bar high (or should that be, “low?”) with its $3.50 bottles every day, but the real deals are the daily specials.

Monday are for beer-lovers with $10 pitchers, followed by $4.00 tequila Tuesdays, Wellington pints for $4.75 on Wednesdays and so forth. And for the Caesar-fiends (guilty), Sundays are your days with $4.00 for the drink

181 Bathurst St. 4163649320

416 Snack Bar is an ode to Toronto. With a close eye for detail, owners Adrian Ravinsky and David Stewart have crafted a venue and a menu that pay tribute to the city, its neighbourhoods and its culture.

Abbey Pub 2401 Bloor St. West 4167694696

The Abbey Pub is a low key pub on College St. that serves up standard pub fare along with sports on TV and a casual front patio.

Nirvana 434 College Street 4169278885 Mmm, mimosa. Brunch at Nirvana is not complete without a $4.75 mimosa to go with that eggs Benny. But it gets even cheaper the later you come, with bottles of beer starting at $3.95 every day except Wednesdays, when domestic bottles are priced at $3.25. Count on $3.50 rail drinks on Thursdays, too, with shooters at the same price on Fridays and Saturdays. Plus $6.25 martini Mondays, if you’re classy like that.

989 College St 41653055954

Best cheap drinks

deals

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3 Brewers is a restaurant and microbrewery with great seasonal beers and rave-worthy Flammekuech on its menu. The multi-level Yonge Street restaurant also offers everything from beer-soaked sauerkraut to steamed mussels.

416 Snack Bar

04

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Chef spotlight

Family friendly

restaurants for

you Caplansky’s Deli Caplansky’s on College boasts a staff that doesn’t blink when kids turn their smoked meat sammies into abstract works of art.

The deli has booster seats and a few bigger tables meant for family-style dining. There’s also a small kids menu that includes grilled cheese, a kosher hot dog and an adorable mini breakfast.

356 College Street 4165003852 $$$$

Pickle Barrel Lots of options for picky eaters here. Pickle Barrel—with locations close to main shopping centres across the city—is a convenient drop-in for hungry diners on a budget. The deli-style resto has an extensive, kid-friendly menu with faves like burgers, chicken fingers, wings and shakes and most items run about $6 to $7.

Zane Caplansky Caplansky’s Deli

For Zane Caplansky, it’s not just about great food — it’s “great feelings about great food” that make a restaurant. And that authenticity and comfort is exactly what this deli owner and food personality strives for in his own little corner in the city’s west end. But that isn’t to say his renditions of many Jewish classics aren’t top notch; his smoked meat sandwich is arguably the city’s best, which Caplansky spent years developing after being inspired by one of his favourites, the legendary Shwartz’s.

312 Yonge Street 4169776677 $$$$

Rainforest Café Baby mall rats have their own special hangout at Yorkdale Shopping Centre. It’s not so much the menu that has kids raving at Rainforest, but the décor. Both little ones and parents will appreciate the revamped children’s menu and rainforest atmosphere complete with lifesized alligator, simulated rainstorms, fish and wild animals peeking out from floor to ceiling.

1 Yorkdale Road 4167804080 $$$$

This well-known chain has been serving families for more than 30 years thanks to their consistently good Chinese Canadian buffet. Kids will enjoy Chinese noodle and meat dishes. In addition, the menu includes a soup and salad bar, grill tables, prime rib, a sushi corner, a multitude of desserts and an ice cream sundae bar. Children five to 12 pay half the price of the adult buffet while children four and under pay just $2.

2200 Yonge Street 4164862222 $$$$

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Mandarin

restaurant spotlight Aria **** Italian 25 York St. 416-363-2742 $$$$

www.torontofoodforyou.ca

Glamorous yet approachable, rustic yet refined, Aria reclaims fine dining for our postrecessional city. The room dazzles with set dressing before the food even arrives—the ceiling, adorned with monumental sphere chandeliers, dwarfs diners, and the wine list chronicles a cellar worth more than $750,000. Chef Eron Novalski’s beautifully made Italian food shows more restraint.

Luscious chunks of buffalo mozzarella, for example, are served simply with oven-dried tomatoes and pesto. Hand-hewn bigoli tossed with chunky roasted tomato-garlic sauce and delicate air-dried botargo are a humble evocation of Sardinia. Servers bring grappa at the meal’s end. Closed Sunday.

08

The ceiling— three storeys up and adorned with monumental sphere chandeliers—dwarfs diners. And the wine list is the size of a small-town phone book, chronicling a cellar worth $750,000. Chef Eron Novalski’s classic Italian menu doesn’t compete with the room for ostentation. It appeals to palladium cufflink–wearing titans as well as the hoi polloi who stop in for pasta before a Leafs game next door, and he executes most of it beautifully. Luscious chunks of buffalo mozzarella from Capua, for example, are served simply with oven-dried tomatoes and spicy pesto. Hand-hewn bigoli tossed with chunky roasted tomato–garlic sauce and delicate air-dried mullet roe are a humble evocation of Sardinia. Waitresses in black mini-dresses pour grappa at the meal’s end.