manpuku

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is nothing that a couple of white people love more than to go for dinner at an Asian restaurant & find themselves to be the only non-Asains eating there. Tucked away in a grotty food court mall, Manpuku is small & pokey with a unconventional approach to decoration. There was a bicycle hanging on one wall, although whether this was intended as wall art or just because one of the chefs had nowhere else to put it was unclear. Regardless, you don't come to a place like this for anything other than the food, & the more ramshackle it is, the more authentic the experience we suppose, & with the abundance of Asian options in Toronto, the hunt for authenticity is the white whale.

Manpuku is an utterly affordable meal, for less than $10 you can be bursting at the seams, but without that pesky MSG hangover that often results from a place this cheap. J ordered a small salad with roasted onions. Although it looked pretty, the dressing was a disappointment, it tasted too much like a bottled dressing and most likely was. However, no sooner had it arrived...










































...than our udon showed up, J ordering the basic niku udon with beef onions and their "special blend of sauce"... . 








































L ordered the curry udon with beef as well

And it was at this point that our shared experience diverged, shaking the Toronto Food Diary to its very core, J liked it, L didn't. What now? 

If you asked J she would tell you that it was hearty, comforting & everything one could hope for from a big bowl of udon. The udon is authentic and light, just like the udon J was lucky to taste for herself in Tokyo. A far cry from the glutinous worms of wheat they call udon at Loblaws. J is not usually a fan of udon in broth,  but Manpuku's broth is subtly seasoned and best of all, didn't have copious amounts of MSG, which the prices would have lead you to believe

L on the other hand would be more inclined to wax lyrical about the cheese sandwich he made for himself after they got home. L just didn't care for the broth & had it been half the size he may have struggled on gamely, but the sheer unremitting vastness of the bowl sapped his spirits & although he enjoyed the beef, & the overall flavors were far from unpleasant he just found it way too much of one thing that wasn't all that good a thing in the first place. 

Conclusion: If you are already a fan of asian noodle bowls, get on your bike and head here immediately, you won't get better quality for the price in the city. If you are new to noodles and you like your food to kick you in the gut with its intensity, you might want to give Pho a go first, where hot sauce is readily available and encouraged

Check out their website

leslie jones

After the horrors of the previous evening where we tried & failed to get a satisfying meal at 9 different restaurants, we sought the warm embrace of Leslie Jones last Saturday, a trusted lover who has never let us down, or perhaps more accurately, a nice restaurant we enjoy going to from time to time.


If you put a gun to our head & forced us to find fault with Leslie Jones (an admittedly unlikely scenario, but indulge us) we would probably umm & ahh until eventually sheepishly muttering something about the appetizers not being quite as good as the rest of the menu. That's what we would have said until last Saturday anyway when J ordered the warm spinach salad with double smoked bacon, mushroom & grilled onion & L went with the tomato & roasted red pepper soup. We ended up swapping dishes, as the faintly mapley dressing wasn't one of J's favourites, although for the life of him, L cannot remember the last time a salad made him so happy. 

Both of us enjoyed the delightfully rich & flavourful soup, although L was perfectly happy to surrender his bowl to J, tomato soup being one of those things that he tries to avoid asking for & feels just has to be endured until it is over, even if he is secretly enjoying it, like a culinary prostate exam. 



As for the entrees, we invariably order the same thing each time we visit, L goes with the braised beef brisket with red wine, mushroom & green pepper corn, J with the piri piri pulled pork with braised onion, fresh herbs, and lemon yogurt dip. These just happen to be the dishes that lure us back to Leslie Jones over and over again, although we suspect that had we happened to order something different on our first visit, we would probably be rhapsodising over that instead. The peppery pork with the creamy but slightly sour herb sauce is one of J's favourite dishes of all time, including those she has devoured in Italy. The restaurant affords you a full view of the chefs as they work their wonders in the tiniest of kitchens equipped with just a standard kitchen stove. It's like gazing in wonder upon the Sistine Chapel ceiling only to be told that Michelangelo painted the whole thing with a toothbrush.

Rarely are veggies a favourite of J's, but at Leslie Jones they hold their own with the proteins and carbs. Her best guess is that the veggies are bubble and squeaked. Their lovely individual roasted goodness comes through, but they also taste like they've been hanging out in some hot and steamy lounge together, having some good ol times. 

L has played the field of Leslie Jone's entree menu a little bit more than J, having thoroughly enjoyed both the chicken breast with dijon & leeks as well as the gnocchi on previous visits when his pathological fear of ordering the same thing as someone else rendered the brisket out of bounds. But it's the brisket that he always comes back to; it really has no right to be so delicious, so seemingly simple does it appear on the plate. L has sampled some truly wonderful brisket in his life, from passover brisket in leafy London suburbs to redneck brisket prepared by toothless hicks in Tennessee, but Leslie Jones' still reigns supreme, although to be fair, L has heard wonderful things about Mrs Maurice Levy's too.   

For desert we had a flourless chocolate cake, a desert that we find it is sometimes best to give a wide berth too if you see it on a menu as so often it is a byword for unremitting chocolate tedium. This being Leslie Jones though, it was predictably delicious; audaciously moist, each mouthful of chocolatey bewitchment a perfect balance between light & dark, sweet & bitter. It isn't even the best desert we have had here, the sweet potato cheesecake being even better in L's opinion. Word on the street is that best of the bunch is their carrot cake but we're sorry, we just can't bring ourselves to order carrot cake.  


Service was lovely, drinks were marvellous, music was inoffensive, in fact the only thing that can possibly go wrong with a trip to Leslie Jones is if they happen to be closed for one of the frequent private functions they hold. Too busy taking care of business to tweet, if you don't phone ahead, you may be left on their doorstep, wailing & gnashing your teeth.


 

hey meatball

We won`t bore you with the details, but suffice to say it had been a particularly gruelling week & we were in need of a special meal to lift our spirits. It was Friday. Friday. You have got to get down on Friday, we said to ourselves, & jumped in the car to try out Cafe Belong. It was a simpler time, a more innocent time. How were we to know that when we returned home four hours later, we would not only still be hungry but would have been questioned by police & endured a death by a thousand cuts... 


It all started with a couple of closed roads, a smattering of missed turns & before we knew it we found ourselves heading west on the Gardner. Thinking on our feet we figured we might as well give the Liberty Belle Bistro a whirl if we were going to be in that neck of the woods. Not sure as to the exact location, L reluctantly wrestled with J`s Blackberry with all the grace of a mule trying to deal a hand of Canasta. Eventually he found his way to their website only to see Liberty Belle was unexpectedly closed that evening.


We got off the highway & decided to drive around Toronto trying to find not only parking, but also a table for 2 at 7:30 on a Friday at some of the city's more desirable restaurants. Enoteca Sociale had room for us, but they wanted the table back in an hour. Still full of pith & vinegar at this point we thumbed our collective nose at them & headed still further west. Campagnolo said they might have something in an hour and a half. The hell with Dundas, to College!


On College a cop pulled us over & gave J a grilling over suspected use of a Blackberry while driving. Had we not left our Tec in the dresser, our whole night could have taken a very different turn right there. Thankfully J kept her cool & L had already swallowed all his drugs way earlier in the evening so eventually the po po had no choice but to let us go.


No improvement on College as we continued to butt our heads against the windows of various restaurants like hungry bluebottles. Hungry bluebottles who, by this time, were in need of a washroom & were regretting having left home without a jacket. Acadia looked empty, but apparently not empty enough for the likes of us as they ushered us away. Grace at least had the decency to look busy before giving us the brush off. As a last resort, we decided to make do with Sidecar, but by this stage our desperation was clinging to us like an especially malodorous stench for they too wanted nothing to do with us. 


Eventually even Jesus's 'rents had to make do with a musty old manger full of straw & that seemed to work out ok for all involved, so we finally settled on Hey Meatball. We had high hopes that after such a tortuously prolonged preamble, the glorious release of finally eating something, anything, would thrill & delight. Sadly, delayed gratification can go one of two ways & the downward trajectory of the night proved too steep to reverse. 


To be fair to Hey Meatball, the fault lies at least partially with us. Hunger had rendered us incapable of exercising clear headed judgement over their limited menu & we found ourselves ordering not only the pork balls with tomato sauce on penne but also the vegetarian option, which was mushroom & ricotta balls on polenta with a parmesan cream. 

The first few bites were sufficiently euphoric (how could they not be?) but then Jack Nicholson seemed to enjoy making out with that dead naked woman in room 237 in The Shining, at least until he realised what he was dealing with. Not that we're saying that the mushroom balls tasted like kissing a corpse we hasten to add, just that at first the polenta was pleasing & the sauce was powerfully cheesy, but slowly it crept up on you, the awareness that what you were eating was meatballs for people who love animals so much that they don't mind eating unpleasant food. We love animals too, just, well you know... not enough to stop eating them, the deliciously tasty bastards.

Heartless monsters that we are, we fared somewhat better with the pork balls which tasted as if they had been freshly made with not a little love, but they just didn't compare with those at 7 Numbers; no shame in itself, but if all you are going to do is meatballs, then you had better make sure those are some pretty fine meatballs. Biggest disappointment was the tomato sauce which we both found way too sweet for our pallets. You may feel differently, that's fine, we can still be friends, it just wasn't for us that's all we're saying. On another day, under less trying circumstances, we might have shuffled into Hey Meatball for a quick bite & been thoroughly charmed, but this particular Friday it just wasn't the place for us that we needed it to be. Like so many things in life, it's a question of context. Take Pepe Le Pew for example. On the one hand, beloved children's cartoon character. On the other, inter-species rapist. 

Coda: When we left we were still a bit peckish & shamefully we decided to go to Off The Hook on the way home for fish & chips. As we sat & waited, & waited, & waited it became clear that the waitress had screwed up our order. After 50 minutes with no food and no apology & to be honest, a bit of attitude when we asked about the whereabouts of our food, and people being served who arrived 25 minutes after us, we did the march out without paying, although not before noticing the creepy centipede things crawling up the mirror on the back wall. Anyway, we're not going to make a whole song & dance out of it; it's a new place, the fish is really good & anyone can have an off day, but seriously, what a shitty Friday. And you know whose fault it is, ultimately? Of course you do. That little bitch Rebecca Black.

Check out their Facebook page

elixir bistro

Last Saturday, we headed West deep into uncharted territory, culinary Mason & Dixons if you will, & went for dinner at Elixir in Cambridge, Ontario with J's parents. Apparently Elixir used to be based in Toronto, situated somewhere in the Annex. It's not clear what drove them West, but whatever it was we're glad it happened otherwise we would probably have had to make do with the notoriously drafty Swiss Chalet on Hespeler, a place so inhospitable it is not uncommon to see patrons slicing open tom-toms & nestling in their innards in a futile attempt to maintain their core body temperature. 

J's dad skipped a starter, but her Mom ordered the lentil soup, J went for the goat cheese salad & L had the smoked salmon. Thumbs up all round, especially for the salad & its creamy cargo of cheese which seemed to have been applied with the reckless abandon of someone who had been bequeathed $300 million by their recently deceased great uncle on the condition that they can exhaust Ontario's entire goat cheese supply within 30 days. 

L enjoyed his salmon, but was somewhat disturbed by the mysterious cold wet patty that accompanied it. Everyone at the table tried a little bit but none of us could solve the mystery as to what it was, so he pushed it under a lettuce leaf & hoped it would go away. When the waitress came back to check on us, she said it was a potato galette, & although even she wasn't sure exactly what was in it, just the reassuring sound of the word potato led L to toss his lettuce leaf asunder & devour the rest of the galette with the zeal of the newly converted.

For entrees L had the coq au vin & J the beef tenderloin (not pictured are J's Mom's veal marsala or her dad's boeuf bourguignon). Another universal sea of raised thumbs. No one enjoyed their dish more than L though, who made a mental note that in the admittedly unlikely event that he is one day elected pope, he make his first point of order to replace the whole wafer shtick with a mouthful of the bacon & mushrooms in red wine that the chicken was braised in, then sit back & watch church attendances sky rocket.

No one had room for desert, but L played his rush & ordered the tiramisu anyway, safe in the knowledge that no one else would want a bite, which was just as well as they would have had to wrestle the spoon from his cold, dead fingers first. The custard was velvety & the balance between the rum & coffee was in perfect harmony. L had almost gone with the chocolate mouse instead, having enjoyed the tiramisu so much on his previous visit, he was nervous it could not live up the idealized image it had built up in his mind's eye over the previous months. He need not have worried. When it comes to Elixir's tiramisu, age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable experience, & despite the name, Elixir is an unpretentious place to take the family to eat. In fact if we have one complaint it is that a little extra pretension would do this place wonders. Don't get us wrong, it's not that we want our starter to consist of a plum served in a man's hat or anything, but the thing about pretentious places is that you never have to worry about Coldplay coming on the stereo.

Check out their website

Café Fiorentina

Cafe Fiorentina opened a short while ago on the Danforth in the space formerly occupied by the ill fated Dash Kitchen. Desperate for a latte but lacking the necessary fortitude to stand in line for 30 minutes in Broadview Espresso, L nipped in there the other week & entranced by the goodies on display, found himself heading back to the car with an unexpected chocolate mousse & a totally unprecedented freshly baked beignet. Sadly the latte was no good at all, but J & L both enjoyed the beignet & (especially) the mousse so much, that they knew they it was only a matter of time until the sweet siren song of delightful treats lured them inside. 

5 days & 15 hours hours later, our resolve finally cracked & we popped in for a lightning quick brunch. L made do with an outside latte he snuck in under his armpit, the cheeky monkey, but J ordered a freshly made sparkling lemonade, the like of which she had never tasted before, & she has tasted many. Made from their own in-house syrup that was gently infused with a hint of mint, J declared lemon love. The lesson being, when life hands you lemons, hand them back & ask life pass them onto the guys at Cafe Fiorentina instead because they really know what they're doing & those lemons would just be wasted on the likes of you anyway.

Normally we would never dream of doing this, but we both ordered the same thing; the tomato & chevre quiche. Is it possible that meaning of life & the key to end all human suffering could be contained within a savory open faced pie of vegetables & cheese in custard baked in a pastry crust? Dear reader, it is not only possible, it is a reality. Get yourself down to this place, order the quiche, disconnect the phone, book a week off work & prepare to have your mind blown. Upon paying the bill the only thing that stopped us both heading straight to the nearest tattoo parlor & paying tribute to this gorgeous morsel by having an artist's impression of it rendered in permanent ink on our faces, was that we had to rush off to Ikea to return a rug which hadn't looked quite right when we had got it home.

We also shared a pork, bean & noodle soup, although J had the majority as clean & crisp as it was, its subtle flavours were wasted on L's jaded pallet. Despite this, even he had to concede that these were some enormously satisfying beans.

The brunch menu also included a couple of panini and a handful of other treats, although whether the menu is extensive enough to tempt people from the Danforth's other more traditional (& vastly inferior) brunch options remains to be seen. Plus, as you can see, it does look a little like the sort of place you might take your gran for an afternoon treat. Go anyway. You won't regret it. And If your Gran isn't around anymore, take us instead. We're old. And we so rarely get out these days...

marben

Another unreasonably unseasonable wet & windy Friday evening in Toronto saw us buffeted back & forth along Spadina as we ran a few errands before stumbling into Marben like a pair of rain soaked yuppie soldiers back from the front line of the class war being waged deep in the bowels of the Eaton Center right by the MTO kiosk where J had to renew her sticker for another year.

When we arrived they warned us that we could only keep our table until 9:30. Given that it was barely 7 o'clock, we dismissed their pronouncement with an airy wave of the proverbial hand, two & a half hours seeming like more than enough time to take a couple of pics, stuff our faces & think of a few unnecessarily pretentious half baked allusions. Not having dined at Marben before we were unaware of the unhurried to the point of Zen nature of their service.
.      

As you can see, almost everything on the menu bears the name of its creator; Denise's Beef, John's Burger etc, an affectation approximately as "charming" as the baby pictures of the staff which festoon their website. In retrospect, we may have had more luck had we had a two year old bringing us our drinks, as L ordered (let's just call her) Bertha's Gin & Juice but ended up with Edna's Vodka & Prosecco or something or other. Thankfully J's nameless blueberry lemonade arrived intact, & let's just be totally honest here, both were absolutely delicious. The lengthy gaps while we waited did allow us to ponder the logic of naming the dishes after their respective authors, after all, who is the true progenitor of Rodney's Oysters? Can Rodney really claim the credit, or does the buck stop with God for filling the ocean with oysters in the first place? Obviously a menu promising God's Oysters is going to have its work cut out managing expectations, & now we think about it, Allah's (praise be to him)  Pork Loin probably isn't going to fly either.

After nibbling on some bread accompanied with a mysteriously soy like oil & balsamic, our shared appetizer of pulled pork fritters arrived. So sumptuous were these fritters that a powerful rush of pure piggy goodness went straight to our collective cerebral cortex & rendered us incapable of describing them without resorting to cliche, so let us just say the pork was fantastically melt in the mouth succulent & the chipotle aioli had quite the kick. Although neither of them said it aloud, both L & J, as they glowered at each other like Spassky & Fischer in Reykjavik, were thinking the same thing: how much better a world this would be if they had this incredible dish all to themselves.

This misguided Commie pinko compulsion to share lunacy continued with the mains where we went with Dianne's roast beef, Giggie's white fish, & bastard gnocchi & roasted fingerling potatoes with Rosemary (the herb, not a person, presumably) sheeps' cheese. After a long wait, the waitress reconfirming our order, another long wait, the couple next to us getting our food, our food being whisked away again, followed by another long wait, it finally arrived. Obviously the food is going to have to be pretty spectacular to make up for such shenanigans, but once again, as much fun as it is to have a good bitch, everything so was so wonderfully flavorful, that neither of us gave one of Cassandra's flying figs about the service. In fact, it's only now that the glorious memories of the brown butter hollandaise, crispy brussel sprouts & heavenly whitefish have begun to fade slightly that we feel able to even broach the subject of the poor service, & we still feel a little bad for doing so, like the victims of some gastronomical Stockholm syndrome. 

We just about had time to squeeze in desert before our 9:30 curfew. We shared an ice cream sandwich & in a cruel twist of fate it was vastly inferior to everything else we had ordered, & yet there was so much of it that sharing was a necessity rather than an annoyance. It was perfectly pleasant in a self consciously post modern way, but after the dizzying highs of the rest of the meal it felt like a crashing return to earth, like watching a reformed Televison play a concert & when the crowd calls them back for an encore, Franz Ferdinand come on & play Marquee Moon.

Overall? We'll be back, definitely for brunch. Probably for dinner too. Oh who are we kidding Marben you cruel master, you treat us so bad, & we love you for it!

Check out their website

lolita's lust

In an uncharacteristic display of brutish masculine derring-do, perhaps brought on by one too many afternoon lattes, L brought his proverbial foot down last Saturday evening & dragged J out to Lolita's Lust. Lolita's Lust, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Why do we visit you so rarely?

Could it be the prices? Not that it is super expensive, but the experience isn't opulent to the point where you become immune to the sting of the bill. Could it be the seating crap shoot? The front room is nice, but the back room which houses the majority of tables always reminds L a little bit of the type of musky basement where you find naked men dancing to The Fall with their tackle tucked between their legs. Could it just be the name, which, let's face it, is irredeemably naff, conjuring up images of those 70s coffee table books fusing sex & food with photographs of piles of strawberries & cream nestling between pert bosoms.

Anyway, we called ahead, got a nice booth by the wall of wine & enjoyed some splendid cocktails.

J skipped a starter & contented herself with the complimentary bread & garlicky bean dip, which was nice without being the type of tasty that makes you approach random strangers in the street, grab them by their lapels & scream into their faces "Oh my God, you have to try the bread & garlicky bean dip at Lolita's Lust! In fact, why aren't you there right now? What's the matter with you? Are you crazy? Sorry if I got spittle on your face by the way."




L started with the lobster dumplings & mushroom salad with miso chile sauce, a plate so consistently delicious that it has led him to make several less successful lobster related choices over the years at other restaurants, chasing the high of these gorgeous dumplings & their lip smacking accompaniment. Having read David Foster Wallace's celebrated essay "Consider the Lobster", L does accept that boiling a creature alive to enhance the consumer's pleasure is an act of unnecessary & frankly unjustifiable cruelty. However, so good are the lobster dumplings at Lolita's Lust that if the waiter had told L that getting them to his plate necessitated the boiling alive of a random human in some sort of karmic exchange program, L would have been like, "yeah whatever, can we have some more bread too please when you have a moment?"

L went with the filet of beef with gorgonzola cream. J chanced her arm with the lamb shank braised with caramelized onions, red wine reduction & feta. We shared a couple of sides too; the feta scallop potato & the sautéed field & wild mushrooms. We can say for certain we thoroughly enjoyed it, but some nagging doubts remain. Dig, if you will, the picture. It's 1969, you're at the Fillmore having ingested a heroically large dose of LSD & you're watching Jerry solo his way through a 40 minute version of Dark Star. Sure it's amazing, but is it actually amazing or is it just the drugs? In this tortuous analogy, the mind altering hallucinogens were the feta & gorgonzola sauces that made the bad stuff (the mushrooms) tolerable, & the good stuff (everything else) incredible.

Throughout dinner a collection of 80s classics rearranged into jazzy cocktail standards played at a surreptitious volume. We're fully aware of how horrendous that sounds, but it was at least nice to go somewhere with a commitment to mood after so many restaurants where the i-pod is left on shuffle. Adding to the soporific air was the lighting, which would plummet at irregular intervals still darker & darker. We skipped desert, because by that time, it was so dark in there, you wouldn't have been able to make out the photo anyway & ultimately we live to please you dear reader. If you can't share in our vanilla creme brulee then we would just as soon go home instead & eat some chocolate on the couch while we watch X Factor & ponder just what the hell is up with L.A Reid & his bizarre head movements.

Check out their Website

off the hook

Off The Hook is a self styled gourmet fish & chip shop that has opened up at Broadview & Danforth in the spot where Deep Blue (the restaurant, not the super computer) used to be. Living in the neighborhood & loving fish & chips as much as any right thinking English people, we tried many times to make it to Deep Blue, but you know how it is; you keep saying I'll go another day, I'll go another day, & when you finally make it, the place has been boarded up. Well we weren't about to let something like that happen to us again! Once we saw that Off The Hook had opened unexpectedly & with minimum fanfare it felt like being given a glorious second chance on life & we popped in one rainy Friday evening.

Just about the only visually pleasing aspect to the decor is the large chalkboard menu above the counter, half of which is pictured above. The remaining half has well priced fish sandwiches, a wide selection of poutines and for dessert, the infamous deep fried mars bar. On special they had fish tacos, which J is really hoping they have on offer next time they visit.


There are plenty of tables for those that want to dine in, & the take out was doing fairly brisk business too; perhaps too brisk, because the service we had was slow & unenthusiastic, or "traditional English style" if you want to put a positive spin on it. 


In all honesty, our expectations were not high, bitter experience having taught us that your chances of finding good fish & chips in Toronto are roughly akin to those of finding a delicate aesthete at a Nickleback concert. Maybe we've been spoiled having sat at Gods right hand & tasted the finest fish & chips anywhere in the world (Bizzie Lizzies, Skipton, UK in case you were wondering). Until recently we had found the fish and chips at Allen's to be the most palatable. However, on the last couple of visits there, the fish had been much smaller and the batter too thick and greasy. Not to mention, it's almost impossible to get a table if the patio isn't open. Not that they care, they know we'll come crawling back to them because the fries, (oh the fries!) are simply divine and really have to be tasted to be believed.







Anyway, last Friday at Off The Hook, J had the halibut, fresh cut fries & homemade tartar sauce & the halibut was almost as good as that incredible fish we had in the UK! The batter was crisp and the thinnest she had every tried. The portion of Halibut was huge, it was thick, flaky and ever so fresh. Every bite had J shaking her head in disbelief. The fries were fairly decent but the tartar was a bit too plain and mayonnaise-y for J's taste. She preferred L's chipotle mayo by far. 

L ordered the sea bass, sweet potato fries & chipotle mayo & had much the same experience as J. If they ever get around to adding "meh" to the Oxford English Dictionary, then flip to the definition & expect to see a picture of the sweet potato fries from Off The Hook. The sea bass though was out of this world, so much better than any other battered fish L has tasted anywhere in North America; like the gulf between Alexander Skarsgard & Rob Ford, technically they are both men but, well you get the idea...    

Conclusion: A visit here would be solely be for the fish. It's miles better than any other place we've tried including Chippy's, Allen's, The One That Got Away and Old Yorke Fish and Chips. Don't go if you're expecting great service, tasteful decor or thoughtful music, though having said that, it's fish & chips! Get over yourself!

7 numbers

In the interests of full disclosure I should just come right out & say that J & I have been to 7 Numbers on Danforth many many times over the years & will continue to go many more times in the future. J feels that it's the closest she has found to the incredible meals she's been fortunate to eat in Italy over the years. It is a place so firmly ensconced in our regular behaviour that on those admittedly rare occasions when we have a less than great meal here, we pin the blame squarely on ourselves for ordering the wrong thing. Those fiendish bastards have us exactly where they want us.

L started with the linguine with spicy shrimp & roasted tomato. It was either that or lasagne & he figured the shrimp might be more pleasing for you to look at. The plate, much like the restaurant, was rustic bordering on ramshackle but the shrimp was reassuringly plump & spicy in an unobtrusive way.  

J tried the heirloom tomatoes with bufala bocconcini. She's tried a number of lovely salads in the past at 7 numbers, but this one was a little too simple for her tastes, she felt a little bit of balsamic would have worked wonders.

One of the things J likes most about the pasta at 7 Numbers is that it always comes with a bit of veg and the kitchen tries different variations on tomato sauces depending on the season and the dish. This time J ordered the fusilli with red kale and ricotta salata. The pasta was superb, but the sauce was a shade less stellar than usual. 

Most visits to 7 numbers end with L grappling with the age old question, like Jacob wrestling the angel, meatballs or braciola? Recently the braciola has been winning out, L enjoying the sense of danger that comes with both the hot peppers & the hidden toothpicks that hold the whole thing together, but last Friday gluttony got the better of him & he went with the meatballs. If there is a finer, meatier, more succulent pair of balls anywhere in Toronto then L would dearly love to get his hands on them. 


Just a quick word about the food we did not order. Like the similarly themed, but vastly inferior Gio Rana's Really Really Big Nose you might want to think about ordering a side or two otherwise the meat can look a little lonely on the plate. Top of the pops is definitely the grilled oyster mushrooms with shaved romano cheese. Also we've worked our way through most of the deserts over the years & they're all marvelous, although I'd skip the coffee if I was you unless you want to sully an otherwise lovely meal with bitter disappointment.


check out their website