Good morning. Happy Memorial Day Weekend and shit!

Woo!

We’ll be changing things up a bit for today’s home version of Sunday Gravy. Rather than doing the traditional recipes and such, I thought we could do a food based travelogue as kind of a companion piece to Brother Taj’s ongoing Canada series.

Who doesn’t love looking at photos of food you didn’t even get a chance to eat?

I’ll try to stop being a fucker now.

The whole, Taj does the landscape photos and I handle the food just felt right though.

Let’s begin, shall we?

On the recent trip to Toronto I specifically wanted to try 4 very specific food things.

Did I accomplish that goal?

Yes. I did.

Let’s go in chronological order just to keep things tidy. This first photo was from the night we arrived in Toronto and it was fucking snowing and windy as shit. We stopped at a local sports bar chain called “Jack Astor’s.” It was conveniently located right next to Roger’s Centre and Scotiabank Arena and it had a decent crowd for 10:30 at night local time.

The last thing I had eaten was a spectacularly awful burger at LAX about 8 hours prior and I was fucking starving.

There was only one cure.

Poutine! Damn this was tasty. I had heard of and seen a bunch of “loaded” variants on poutine around the city but this was simple, minimalist and classic. A perfectly twice fried batch of fries, standard curds and a beef bone-stock gravy.

Precisely what the body needed. I would have ordered additional items but it was after 11:00 PM local time and we had a day game to attend tomorrow.

Second day was game day so of course I was going to need a dog and some beers.

A decent dog. Good quality sausage but the bun was a little too large and definitely a little too dry.

Overall, a rock solid ballpark dog. Beers were lovely too. A damn good ballpark day. Worth a visit for sure.

Game Time Decision was on hand for both the game and for dinner/drinks afterwards. It was really good of him to brave traffic and conditions to hang out with us for the day. We all had the chance to prove to each other that we were in fact not imaginary which is always cool. Thanks GTD, it was a privilege and despite what everyone else says, you’re a damn good dude. We’ll have to do that again sometime.

For breakfast the next day, we found our local Timmy’s.

And grabbed the standard sausage biscuit with egg and cheese and a side of hash browns. They do make a pretty damn fine coffee, I must say. Plus they gave me a goddamn VAT of coffee with milk and sugar, even though I didn’t order it. Oh well. I’ll be juiced the fuck out with caffeine for the day.

Brother TAJ tried the Boston cream donut, as was suggested.

I believe the primary ingredient was “Mediocrity” from the reaction.

There was also a convenience store right across from the rental so of course we needed to stock up on room essentials.

That Thursday was a wide-open anything goes full on day of exploration. I knew exactly where I wanted to visit.

Oh yeah. I know LOTS about this here motherfucker. Where to start?

How about here?

For the record; poutine was the first of the 4 “must try” dishes for me on this trip. Let’s see if we can knock down a couple more.

Show us the menu board!

Here was the order, as if you haven’t guessed already.

Oh yeah, Baby. Fucking hell this was delicious. Perfectly cooked pork. The roll was fresh and still warm plus I gussied it up with honey-mustard, cheese and a runny egg. Learned that shit through pre-trip research. Accept no substitutes.

Item 2, checked off,

There was another one of the “four” items located right here in St. Lawrence Market and I was going to find it!

This looks promising.

While I have heard many a good thing about a Montreal style bagel, it just didn’t happen today. I could have easily gone back but this wasn’t one of my big 4 ideas. They did smoke their own lox though, which sounded fucking incredible.

But my quest was another food stall.

Wait a minute, I think I’m getting close.

Something smoky this way comes.

Well goddamn. I think we’re at the right place.

To the board!

Hell yes it is. Number one on the menu board is yet another “must try” food while in Toronto. Yes, it’s called a Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich and not a “Toronto” smoked meat sandwich but my ass ain’t in Montreal now is it?

I have had a Montreal smoked meat sandwich in the past at this place.

The Redondo Beach Cafe (conveniently located in Redondo Beach.) This place is Canadian owned, has classic Canadian style foods – including poutine! – and is a hang out bar for LA Kings players on their downtime. Their smoked meat sandwich was pretty damn tasty too but I wanted something a little closer to the real thing.

I ordered as described on the menu but added Swiss cheese. 

I watched them finish preparing the sandwich and took this shot.

Oh dear baby Jesus, yes I want my cheese melted by a goddamn blowtorch.

The full sandwich photos turned out shadowy but I did get a nice one in mid-devouring.

Yes. Yes it fucking was exactly THAT!

You can see the name of the place. Please visit and find out for yourself.

Mother. FUCKER was that dynamite.

Item 3 devoured.

Since I’ve just now had half of a pea-meal bacon sandwich followed by half of this monster I was pretty close to full for the early part of the day.

Until I heard that there was a Portuguese place in the market.

That had these.

Pastel de nata. 

The fun part was ordering, paying and saying my “Thank yous” in Portuguese.

This was a damn good pastel. Not Portugal good.

I mean, c’mon on?

But it was a good representation of a pastel de nata. It wasn’t fresh from the oven and it did indeed miss the grating of fresh cinnamon that they add to it in Portugal but if you ate one of these from St Lawrence Market? You can honestly say you’ve had a pastel de nata.

Final full day of the trip was our excursion to Niagara Falls. 

On the tour we stopped in Niagara on the Lake. A very quaint old-timey town that had like 14 fucking ice cream parlors. Here’s a shot of the town clock tower.

They also had an amazing bakery.

Know what they had at that bakery? Item number 4 on my “Must try” list.

BUTTER TARTS!

I had a latte and a butter tart for a morning pick me up. The latte was made with fresh cream. That butter tart was INSANE.

Alas, there is no photo of my butter tart. Poor little fucker. Never stood a chance. I broke it in half to share and basically inhaled my half in a single bite.

Ridiculous.

Dear God it was sweet and gooey. The pastry was very obviously scratch-made. “Somebody’s grandmother made that tart” was the official conclusion.

Back on the bus. We did the Falls thing but that is not my story today.

We had an hour and a half at the falls which was plenty of time for as many photos/videos as you could possibly want and then some.

There was a restaurant bar there and it sounded like a good goddamn idea to grab a local brew and maybe a mid day snack for the ride back to Toronto.

So of course.

Short rib poutine.

You know what? It needed more gravy. That first poutine from Jack Astor’s had this one beat. Don’t get me wrong. The short rib was cooked perfectly and was tender, meaty deliciousness but it didn’t match a “classic” poutine.

Last evening of the trip prior to flying home the next day, I was engaging with a few of you folks on the blog and asked if I had missed something. Our own Dok chimed in with “Maple Walnut Ice Cream.”

I did a quick Google search from the room and guess what I found?

The view from our balcony looking across the street.

Are you fucking shitting me?

I went downstairs, crossed a street, crossed another at the light and here we are.

When I walked in the door I was the only customer there. At the time I arrived they were baking their own ice cream cones.

[swoons]

Have you ever smelled that? It was magical! I’ll remember that smell forever!

The service was fantastic and very sweet. As I left the girl at the counter just said casually. “See you tomorrow.”

Not a question just a casual one-off remark.

I bought this.

Maple pecan not maple walnut.

Hol-eee SHIT!

The experience of eating this ice cream must be similar to having your pleasure bits tongue bathed by a golden unicorn while dancing on a neon pink, cotton candy cloud.

That maple was still gooey in places but also basically turned the pecans into pralines. It also froze into these little maple sugar balls in the ice cream.

Fucking hell that’s it’s very own fucking food group.

All-in-all it was a wonderful trip to an unexpectedly awesome destination. Can’t recommend Toronto enough. Maybe go in the Summer though?

Motherfucker was COLD.

Thanks for reading everyone.

Today’s “fun” holidays courtesy of A Bit of Good News: “May 25 is Global Africa Day, National Bath Bomb Day, National Brown-Bag It Day, National Italian Beef Day, National Sing Out Day, National Tap Dance Day, National Wig Out Day, National Wine Day, Geek Pride Day and Towel Day”

It’s National wine day AND National Italian Beef day? We found our new holiday!

I have no goddamn idea just what the fuck a “bath bomb” is and I don’t really care enough to find out.

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.

Have some fun out there!

Stop by next week for something… A bit different.

Until then…