pasta – Around the World in 196 Plates

Country 099 – Liechtenstein (Little Bavaria)

Published on December 29, 2019May 3, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3222 Eglinton Avenue East, Scarborough
Website: http://www.littlebavaria.ca/

Mac and cheese is delicious. That’s just a fact. I think it’s fair to say that if you don’t like macaroni and cheese, you have faulty tastebuds and are generally wrong about the way you live your life. All I can tell you is that you need to do better, and leave it at that.

It’s hard to put that much cheese into anything and for it not to be delicious. But of course, as cheesy as mac and cheese is, it’s made with stuff like milk and flour to balance out the its cheesiness and to create a creamy, cheese-infused sauce.

But then there’s käsknöpfle, Liechtenstein’s national dish (Little Bavaria serves the German version, called käse spätzle; it’s the same dish with a different name).

Käsknöpfle is basically like mac and cheese if mac and cheese just wanted to cut straight to the point. Milk? Flour? Sauce? Nuts to that stuff, let’s just cram more cheese in there. It’s intense. Aside from the addition of sauteed onions, it’s basically just chewy pasta (spätzle, a short, chewy pasta that’s typically served as a side dish) and melty, sharply-flavoured cheese.

The version at Little Bavaria is absolutely delicious; it might also be one of the heaviest things I’ve ever eaten. I could literally feel myself getting fuller with each mouthful. The amount of cheese was profound, and the plate was basically swimming in oil when I was done. It’s so good.

Country 084 – Vatican City (Sugo)

Published on December 16, 2018September 22, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1281 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.sugotoronto.com/

I might be cheating with this one.

Okay, I’m definitely cheating with this one. The food they serve at Sugo isn’t Italian, per se; it’s Italian American. That’s actually a pretty huge distinction, but let’s face it — Vatican City is barely even a real country anyway. Certainly, there’s no such thing as Vatican City cuisine. So why shouldn’t I cheat a little bit?

Mostly, I was just looking for an excuse to check out Sugo, which I’ve been hearing nothing but good things about.

I’m glad I did — it’s as delicious as its reputation would lead you to believe.

The menu is pretty basic: three pastas, a few different sandwiches, and a handful of appetizers.

I tried a couple of the pastas, which were both saucy as hell and exploding with flavour. Certainly, “subtlety” is not a word in this restaurant’s vocabulary (that’s not a bad thing).

My favourite of the two was the rigatoni, which features a creamy pink sauce (a mix of tomato and alfredo) with a satisfyingly zingy flavour. I also tried the spaghetti with meat sauce, which has a meaty substance, but is lacking in the assertive flavour of the rigatoni.

And of course, you can’t come here without trying the baseball-sized meatball, which has a slightly mushy texture, but is otherwise quite good. It compliments both pastas quite nicely.

Country 057 – Kyrgyzstan (Chaihana)

Published on May 7, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1000 Finch Avenue West, North York
Website: http://chaihana.ca/

Chaihana is tucked away in a fairly anonymous office building; though there’s a small sign outside, it’s very easy to miss. My dining companion and I had the entire restaurant to ourselves — outside of the staff, the place was deserted. It’s pretty much the definition of a hidden gem.

A lot of hole-in-the-wall joints like this can be dingy and unwelcoming, but Chaihana is clean and colourful; they’re definitely trying to attract more than just the grizzled regulars you’d expect in a place like this.

They specialize in the ‘stans: the website mentions Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. The dish I ordered is actually the national dish of Kyrgyzstan, so that’s a fourth ‘stan to add to the roster.

I ordered beshbarmak, which a pretty simple dish — boiled beef (which is sliced), topped with sauteed onions and served on a bed of very broad noodles. There’s really not much more going on than that — there’s some green onions, dill, cracked pepper… and that’s about it. It’s basic, hearty comfort food.

The pasta was a bit mushy and it was incredibly greasy (you know when you’re eating something really greasy, and your lips get grease-slicked with every bite? Yeah), but it was pretty satisfying. The tender beef, the noodles and the onions all go quite well together.

It’s served with an equally simple bowl of soup — basically just broth (mutton, according to Google) with a little bit of dill and some green onions for colour.