potato salad – Around the World in 196 Plates

Location: 2943 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.facebook.com/PlanBHandmadeburgers/

You wouldn’t necessarily think that South African cuisine would be all that difficult to find, but apparently it is. Outside of a catering company that opens for brunch on Sundays, Plan B appears to be the only restaurant in Toronto that specializes in South African eats.

That’s a lot of weight on its shoulders. They’re basically the ambassadors for South African cuisine for the entire GTA.

Thankfully, it’s quite tasty. Plan B specializes in braai, which is South African-style grilled meat. They also sell a variety of hamburgers (so a second visit for another blog might be in order), but I ordered the mixed braai platter, which comes with boerewors (a South African sausage), chicken, lamb (steak is also an option), and two sides.

Everything is very nicely grilled, with that great smoky flavour you only get from food that’s been cooked over a flame. And the meats are all quite good — in particular, the boerewors was seriously delicious. The texture was nice and tender while still being satisfyingly meaty, and the spicing was unique and tasty.

The chicken was fairly plain, but perfectly cooked. The lamb, however, was overly tough and almost impossible to cut into with the knife provided.

I ordered potato salad as well as pap and tomato chutney on the side. The potato salad was run-of-the-mill, but the pap (which is a South African version of polenta) really stands out. It’s a bit bland on its own, but once you pour some of the sweet tomato chutney on top, it comes alive.

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.

Tag: potato salad

Country 090 – South Africa (Plan B Handmade Burgers, Boerewors and Braai)

Country 078 – Uruguay (La Pasiva)