hot dog – Around the World in 196 Plates

Location: 896 Wilson Avenue, North York
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/La-Pasiva/174822035894964

Apparently steak and eggs are a pretty big deal in Latin America; I’ve had a version of this meal for Colombia, Ecuador, and now Uruguay.

The one they’re serving at La Pasiva wound up being almost exactly the same as the one I had at Comedor Popular Ecuatoriano. It’s a relatively simple dish: steak and eggs, a salad, and potatoes (you can choose between potato salad and fries — I went with potato salad).

I liked it even better than the version at Comedor Popular Ecuatoriano. The well done, thinly-cut steak was a little bit tough — but it was still much more tender than Comedor’s version, and the seasoning was nice and zingy.

It’s also a nice reminder of why steak and eggs is a classic dish; they go very well together.

The salad, with its standard vinaigrette, didn’t particularly stand out, but the potato salad was quite delightful. I’m generally not a fan of potato salad, mostly because it almost always features raw onion, and that’s not my favourite flavour (putting it mildly). But La Pasiva’s version was refreshingly onion-free; it was a little bit sweeter than I’d like, but the potatoes were nice and creamy, and it had enough of a vinegary bite to cut the sweetness.

I also tried the pasiva (because you should never leave a restaurant without trying its namesake dish), which consists of two hot dogs wrapped in fatty ham and served with melty cheese on top. It’s served on an enormous pile of fries.

Was it good? I mean, yeah, of course it was good. Did you not read what I just wrote? It’s a hot dog wrapped in ham and covered with gooey cheese. The hot dog had a nice smokey flavour, and the whole thing was quite satisfying.

The fries — which were thinly-cut and were very similar to what you’ll find at McDonald’s — were okay, but they had clearly been sitting out for a while, so they weren’t hot and they were somewhat dried out.

Location: 9 Milvan Drive, North York
Website: None

When I did Argentina for this blog about 30 countries ago, I tried a sandwich called a lomito, which I noted was served in Argentina and Chile. Well, here I am doing Chile, and yep — I ordered another lomito.

Kinda boring, but I wasn’t crazy about the first lomito I had, so I thought I’d give it another shot.

I tried this one at a restaurant called Auténtica in the Plaza Latina food court in North York. That’s a really fascinating food court that specializes entirely in Latin American restaurants.

The lomito from Auténtica consisted of sliced pork, tomatoes, avocado, and mayo. It’s served on a really interesting house-made bun that’s kind of like a cross between a traditional bun and a biscuit.

It wasn’t bad — the pork was nice and tender, and the tomato and avocado were fresh and tasty. But there wasn’t a ton of flavour here; the pork was barely seasoned, and I don’t think the avocado or tomato slices were seasoned at all. It was a decent enough sandwich, but nothing about it particularly stood out.

I also tried the completo, which is a hot dog topped with avocado, tomato, and mayo (they really love avocado, tomato, and mayo in Chile, I guess). The hot dog was smoky and tasty, but again, the other components were a bit bland. It really needed mustard or some other condiment to give it a bit more flavour. Still, it was enjoyable enough.

I finished with the tres leches cake, which was the highlight. A tres leches cake gets its name (which translates to “three milks”) from condensed milk, evaporated milk, and cream. This one also featured a layer of dulce de leche, which worked exceptionally well with the moist — but not soggy — cake. The only issue here was that the whipped cream tasted like it was actually Cool Whip or something similar, which was unfortunate.

Tag: hot dog

Country 078 – Uruguay (La Pasiva)

Country 066 – Chile (Auténtica)