Nyood Brunch

If you think that Nyood is just a fancy place for dinner I have news for you, they also do brunch!





There's nothing like refreshing mimosas and Illy coffee to kick start your weekend. We had Strawberry & Lychee, and Mandarin Peach mimosas, featuring Moet & Chandon Champagne. Our coffees were an Americano and a Cappuccino, as they don't actually serve drip coffee. Interesting forced decadence.

We started our meal with a Cobb Salad: hard boiled egg, bacon, lettuce, avocado, roast chicken, tomato, and St. Agur blue cheese. The salad was eaten Korean style, using the lettuce leaf like a taco shell.



Next we had what looked like the most unique item on the menu, the Breakfast Banh Mi: Fried eggs, bacon, cucumber, chilli, cilantro, served on a baguette. That was very enjoyable. The fresh taste of the cilantro and cucumber contrasted nicely with the richness of bacon and eggs.



Moving up to a more substantial item, we had the Chicken and Waffles: Buttermilk fried chicken, maple chilli butter. That fried chicken was to die for. Crispy and juicy, with salty accents from the large-flaked salt crystals, it was succulently soft and pulled apart with the lightest touch. A little disappointingly, I found the waffles too firm. It had good flavour but it distracted from the goodness of the chicken.



To finish everything off we had the Italian Breakfast Flatbread: Nutella, bananas, hazelnuts, Frangelico cream. This is simple enough to easily be made at home, but I'm pretty sure it's still one of the more popular items. Who doesn't like Nutella?



This next photo looks like a postcard. Nyood is a luxurious place to have brunch. They really pay attention to the aesthetics of your food and your surroundings.








Here's an interesting concept: For those who don't want their Saturday night partyies to stop, Nyood hold's its Le Brunch parties on the last Sunday of every month, where folks can enjoy dancing and a $45 gourmet prix fixe.

Check out chef Ariel Coplan and others on our Toronto Chefs board on Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/tastingtoronto/toronto-chefs/

Source: flickr.com via Tasting on Pinterest

Nyood
1096 Queen Street West Toronto, ON M6J 1H9
(416) 466-1888


Posted by: Mark Rodas

Now Playing: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

While molecular gastronomy is at the cutting edge of food technology, sushi remains the state of the art.



Directed by David Gelb, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" is the story of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, considered to be the world's greatest sushi chef. His non-descript 10-seat sushi bar in Tokyo's Ginza subway station is the only sushi restaurant in the world to be awarded 3 Michelin stars. Reservations at Sukiyabashi Jiro must be made at least a month in advance, with some patrons having made reservations the year before.

Jiro serves only sushi. There are no appetizers or desserts. He doesn't like the idea of guests filling up on other food and ending up having only three pieces of sushi.

We were astonished to see just how much preparation went into producing the deceptively simple morsels. It all starts with the best and freshest ingredients from vendors that specialize only in that particular item, say tuna or shrimp, and ends with a 20-item, 15-minute meal for a price starting at 30,000 Yen (approx. 350 Cdn.) That's easily the priciest meal in the world if you're counting by the minute... and it's in a subway station!

He is really finicky with going above and beyond, such as when he massages an octopus for 40 minutes instead of the usual 30. I know, 30 seems excessive already. I didn't even know they did that. He also has procedures for keeping his rice at body temperature. Jiro is such a perfectionist that it took an apprentice 200 attempts at making egg sushi before Jiro was satisfied and called him a Shokunin (artisan).

I think the distillation of expertise used in making his sushi is like building a car. Let me illustrate that point. Again, it starts with the best ingredients. Fishermen bring fish to the auction, where Jiro's regular fishmongers pick only the very best. As his tuna vendor would say, "if there are only ten fish, there could be only one best, and I'll buy that one." The fishmonger can now sell Jiro the choicest cuts of the choicest fish. Jiro considers himself a sushi chef and not even close to as knowledgable as his suppliers in sussing out the best and freshest ingredients. His job is to bring out the best in the seafood and deliver that essence to his diners. Car companies don't really make most of the car, they only do final assembly and marketing of sub-assemblies made by the likes of Magna and Delphi, which in turn have other suppliers down the line making more basic components.

Come to think of it, Apple doesn't make iPhones either. They're assembled by a Taiwanese company called Foxconn in China, with parts made by Samsung of Korea and Elpida of Japan... but I digress. Jiro says after years of working hard and passing on the expertise to his son and staff, by the time the sushi gets to him it's already 95% done. The quality and skill resides in the chain, and that's the point I was getting at.

There are funny moments in the movie, like when Jiro's sons were kids and couldn't afford to buy Coke. They finally were able to buy one and.... I won't spoil that part of the movie.

There are also serious lessons to be had, like hard work, pursuit of excellence, and satisfaction with your station in life no matter what your vocation may be.




The movie mentions that it takes 10 years for Jiro's apprentices to master their craft. That reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule from his book Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours or around 10 years to attain mastery of one's domain.



The best part of the movie is just gawking at all the delicious pieces of food art, and thinking one day maybe I'll find such umami elegance in my mouth, and asking questions like: Why do they looks so perfect? Why does the tuna look translucent? Why isn't Jiro making sushi in Toronto?

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a surprisingly good movie, being both informative and entertaining. The singleminded pursuit of perfection and diligence in his calling seems like such an honourable path to follow were it not for the sacrifices it inflicts on one's self and those around him. Nonetheless, the existence of people like Jiro make life much more interesting for the rest of us.


Posted by: Mark Rodas


Jiro Dreams of Sushi is now playing at:

TIFF Bell Lightbox
Reitman Square, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON - (416) 599-8433

On the level with Seattle's Best Coffee

A good cup of coffee is one of life's small pleasures that many people can feel passionate about. It's ubiquitous and, to a large extent, an essential part of daily life.

One can have coffee in a multitude of ways: black, with cream, with milk, or with foam. There are even choices of sweetener, from none, to syrup, stevia, aspartame, white sugar, brown sugar, or turbinado sugar. Just as important but often out of mind is the roasting level of the coffee beans. If one even has a choice it's usually between regular or dark.

I recently got to try a Seattle's Best Coffee curiosity pack.

Seattle's Best offers its premium coffee grinds in different degrees of roasting, from Level 1 to Level 5. The numbering system and vivid coloured packaging makes it easier to pick a coffee for one's particular taste profile. Level 1 for example is described as mild, light, and crisp, while Level 5 is bold, dark, and intense.

I personally found Level 3 to be my favourite. It had a velvety, round mouth feel, with a good balance of acidity and bitterness that one would normally associate with high-end hotel or restaurant coffee. All the Levels had a big caffeine kick which I found weirdly deceptive in the light Level 1. Level 5 loses the subtle flavours and comes closer to what would normally be called Columbian (or Starbucks, which incidentally owns Seattle's Best), with that heavy, burly punch that people associate with strong coffee.

Seattle's Best Coffee is available at Mac's convenience stores. The popular Level 3 is also available in whole bean... and decaf, which might be a good idea right about now, given how wired I am now!

Posted by: Mark Rodas

Cabbagetown cool: Winchester Kitchen and Bar

I've often found some of the most comfortable meals you can have are within your own neighbourhood.



There's nothing better than finding a gem of a restaurant around the corner from you. It doesn't have to be haute cuisine. It just has to be comfortable with good food, good drinks, good service, and a good atmosphere. It helps when it's located in the beautiful Winchester Hotel.

I also have a bit of a penchant for taking a walk after a meal out, just to explore the area. But it's even more fun when you can walk home, taking a different route than you do in your normal day-to-day activities, to discover more about your neighbourhood. I am notorious for stopping to read heritage plaques, and there are more than a few of them in glorious Cabbagetown. :)

Thus you can understand my excitement when we were invited to have dinner at Winchester Kitchen and Bar at the corner of Winchester and Parliament. The place bills itself as a spot for the "three Ds:" Dinner, dancing, and drinks. Indeed they had a live band that played after we finished our dinner, and indeed there was dinner and drinks to be had. The menu is divided by size of dish (small, big, etc) so that if you decide just to come for the music, you can order some drinks and small plates if you wish. We did a full-out dinner - I ordered from the $50 five-course prix fixe menu and Mark ordered from the main menu.

One thing I found more unique about this prix fixe compared to others was that an amuse bouche and a cheese course were built in. Lately when we've been out for prix fixes it's been app, main, dessert. Having a few extra bites was a welcome addition. I ordered the braised lamb ravioli, the roasted black cod, and the cherry cheese cake. Good value for $50.

In terms of the standouts, the Winchestacaesar was a neat take on a Caesar, which had a richer taste than a typical one and had a cute skewer of jerky, a pickle, a pickled bean, and olives lain across the rim of the glass. I do indeed love a good Caesar.

The "Three Little Pigs" started us off, with pork rillette, porchetta di testa, and a stand-in for the terrine as it wasn't available at the time. Very, very rich - we were already starting to feel a little full after having the Caesar and this "small" plate - they give you good value - was more of a "medium" plate.

Mark and I both had fish dishes (menus are in the slideshow - he had the BC sablefish and I had the black cod). Both were perfectly cooked with a crispy seasoned skin - but I can't say I loved my ravioli as much. I've made my own ravioli dough and had a disaster the first time around when I didn't make it thin enough. It took me another year or so to want to even tackle the damn task again, and this time I made it so thin I thought I'd rip a hole in it, but thankfully that didn't happen. I smiled, thinking back to my first ravioli attempt with the too-thick dough that was hard and uncooked no matter how long I left it boiling. I had the same issue here. It wasn't NEARLY as bad as my first attempt, but it could've been thinner - the corners were thick and chewy. The filling was good though. Nobody's perfect :)

As a stickler for details, I study a menu carefully and I get a bit thrown off if I don't get what's on it. I guess I have to realize this can't always happen (things run out, or maybe there is a supply issue, whatever the case may be) - I just couldn't find the bee pollen on my cheesecake. Mark searched too since he's had bee pollen before and had described how much he loves it, so I was excited to try it but had no such luck locating it within the dish.

Again, I'm kind of a stickler for details - we are who we are :) All that said, I had a really good time there, again loving the vibe of the neighbourhood and the building as well as the interior, which is really neat as you'll see in our pictures. I think I still dream of the perfectly-executed fish. If you are in the area you should stop in and try it for yourself - that prix fixe is quite a good value and the cocktail list is pretty extensive. I'll cheers to that!

Yours in food,

-Stacey

Valentine's at Sorrel

A Valentine's Day prix fixe dinner is kind of a tradition for Stacey and me. For some reason there didn't seem to be too many establishments with a Valentine's Day menu this year. It must be the economy. Even more difficult to find is a place that offers a high calibre meal at a decent price. Luckily we stumbled upon a 4 course $65 prix fixe at Sorrel.

Well I didn't exactly stumble upon Sorrel. I had occasioned to go there on an office Winterlicious lunch and was surprised at how far they stretched $20. At the time I was impressed with the quality and artfulness of their cornish hen wrapped in prosciutto, when many a Winterlicious restaurant would've peddled you some form of protein-free pasta.

When we arrived for Valentine's dinner, we were mightily impressed with the effort they took to celebrate the evening with candles visible from outside and rose petals all over the sidewalk and on every table inside.




ONE:


Prosciutto, warm figs & goat cheese, balsamic glaze



Grilled calamari, tomato black olive relish, grilled treviso


Warm figs and goat cheese have a similar consistency, and almost coat your tongue in a complimentary blanket of sweet and salty goodness. The grilled calamari was surprisingly tender with accents of crunchy char, and bathed in a fresh tomato relish with the perfect level of acidity to balance out the calamari. I was doubly surprised since although I knew it was going to be grilled, I had this image of deep fried and battered calamari rings in my head when I was ordering, as I had often been disappointed with most forms of calamari in a tomato base in the past. Ah, signs of the long work day were showing.


TWO:



Sweet pea & bufala ricotta ravioli, prosecco sage butter



Tagliatelle, black truffle mushroom pesto, basil, parmigiano


The ravioli was some of the best pasta we've ever had, ranking up there with Massimo Capra's wild boar and cherry ravioli and Matt Kantor's hazelnut ravioli. The richness of the sage butter opened up against the light creamy sweet peas and moist bufala ricotta. Sadly the tagliatelle was not so impressive. It tasted too healthy for me. More like some dry whole wheat thing Stacey would sneak onto my plate if I wasn't looking. Maybe morels would've added more punch to it rather than the sparse amount of black truffle flecks.


THREE:



Prosciutto wrapped cornish hen, sweet pea mash, natural reduction



Beef tenderloin, stilton, thyme jus, sautéed chanterelles, tomato confit


Chicken wrapped in bacon à la Bourgeoisie! The cornish hen was an outstanding haute extension of a culinary classic, richly flavoured with its natural juices and sitting on a fluffy bed of delicious sweet pea mash. I usually have a more flavourful cut than tenderloin since it's usually a choice between taste or tenderness. However this time, the supple specimen of meat was infused with the earthyness of thyme and chanterelles and lightened with the fresh acidity of tomato confit. Rounding the high and low notes was the rich creamy saltiness of stilton.


FOUR:



Chocolate mousse, vanilla bean crème brûlée, fresh local berries

To finish off the evening we totally polished off a dessert trio, leading the waiter to exclaim "You did very good!... You did very good."




Sorrel
www.sorrelrestaurant.ca
84 Yorkville Avenue Toronto, Ontario Canada M5R 1B9. Ph. 416.926.1010



Posted by: Mark Rodas

Prairie Girl Bakery, our local cupcakery!

You know a place is bound to be good when the lineup is out the door. It was also Valentine's Day so of course that had something to do with it. :)



My top two "beefs" with cupcakes in general are A) there is often not enough icing to go with the cake - I like the icing thick & B) that the cake can sometimes be a little dry - a moist cupcake with the right icing-to-cake ratio is crucial!

And I'm happy to report I think I've found cupcake ecstasy - where all my cupcake conditions are not just met, but exceeded - over at King / Victoria, just a short jaunt from our home. That's where you'll find our local cupcakery Prairie Girl Bakery (I believe there is also one in the First Canadian Place concourse BUT I heard a lady in line at our shop say the lineup there was three times longer since it was drawing in the work crowd, so keep in mind it'd be busier).

The chocolate cupcakes are made with dark cocoa - they were so rich and delicious. Mark especially loved them. We didn't get to try the chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing [they were out of all cupcakes with strawberry icing in fact - think it was due to Valentine's Day volume but I got there at about 11am and waited for 20-25 minutes in line, so I think the people ahead might have gotten their hands on some - CUPCAKE FIGHT TO THE DEATH! No. Well, I had to talk myself down LOL :)]

You can also select large or mini cupcakes, so if you only want a taste, try the minis. I'm sort of an "all or nothing" cupcake girl - I had to go big or go home!

Some are made with a butter icing, others with cream cheese icing - the most unique cupcake we had was peanut butter icing on a banana cupcake. I think it'd be better on a chocolate cupcake (the banana cupcake was a little drier than the vanilla and chocolate) but the peanut butter icing was TO DIE FOR!

If you've already tried each of their offerings, they also do a "treat of the week" - for Valentine's it was a cinnamon icing with cinnamon hearts on top on a golden vanilla cupcake.

Cupcake ecstasy will cost you $16.95 for half a dozen large cupcakes - but oh what a wonderful indulgence! It took Mark and I three glorious days to eat them.

Yours in food (and cupcakes, more specifically),

-Stacey

Do you remember the first thing you and your significant other ate together?

Think back - in any of your relationships, current or past, do you remember the first thing you and your significant other ate together?

Mark and I are coming up to six years this August since we began dating. We were set to meet each other in-person (we had chatted online, but never met) by the fountain at the Eaton's Centre and from there we were planning to go to the Chinese Lantern Festival. It was actually me who asked him on our first date because I didn't have any family or friends who were interested in coming to the festival and he seemed nice and we really enjoyed chatting to each other online, so what the heck - why not! Must say it was the best decision I've ever made! Upon meeting at the fountain, Mark surprised me with a lovely little bag of Monsieur Felix and Mr. Norton cookies which we munched on together while we rode the streetcar. I have a fond memory of that day, and also of those cookies - I had never had them before.

So when we heard from the folks at Monsieur Felix and Mr. Norton a couple weeks ago, we were thrilled because we hadn't really seen any of their storefronts in downtown Toronto anymore and we missed their soft, chewy cookies. We tried out their frozen cookie dough, available at Sobeys (check out this product locator to see exactly where you can get them). Actually, since you bake them yourselves, they work out to be cheaper than buying them from the storefront. There's also the convenience involved with having them on hand anytime, and you could tell the quality of the ingredients was good. They tasted exactly like the ones we remember (just make sure you don't overbake them).

I prefer the container packaging to the ubiquitous cookie dough tube packaging because the cookies are already pre-cut so there is no need to fuss with it.

The funniest part was all I wanted to do was eat the cookie dough, while Mark demanded continually that we bake cookies like normal human beings do :) I know eating cookie dough is not really considered safe and, as I recently learned, it's not necessarily the raw egg that can be an issue but it can also be the flour that poses a concern. As people in the comments of that article say, there are much riskier things we do everyday and the sheer joy we get from eating raw cookie dough is just something most of us are not willing to give up!

Yours in food,

-Stacey