restaurant – Page 5 – Around the World in 196 Plates

Country 005 – Dominican Republic (Mi Tierra)

Published on April 12, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 828 Saint Clair Avenue West, Toronto
Website: None

I was watching the Dominican Republic-centric episode of No Reservations, and a hearty soup called sancocho was highlighted as that country’s quintessential dish. After a quick consultation with my good friend Google, I found myself at Mi Tierra — though it’s technically a Colombian restaurant, they’ve got the ‘cocho on the menu (what’s that? No one calls it ‘cocho? Okay fine. Your loss).

It’s alright, I guess. It’s perfectly tasty, but I have a hard time imagining anyone getting too hot and bothered over it (but again, like with my recent experience with doubles, it’s possible that I got a mediocre version of an otherwise great dish).

The base is a pretty basic chicken stock; it’s a nice clean broth, but there isn’t a whole lot of flavour there. It’s filled with some fairly sizable chunks of potato, plantain, cassava (which is like a starchier potato), oxtail, and roast-beef-esque chunks of meat.

It’ll certainly fill you up, though I wish there was a little bit more meat in there; there was only one piece of oxtail, which was really tender and probably the best thing in the bowl. There were maybe three or four chunks of beef, which were a bit dryer than I’d like, but otherwise pretty good. The rest was all potato and cassava and plantain. It was hearty and very filling, no doubt about it, but a little bit ho-hum. The dish primarily consists of starchy vegetables that all taste like starchy vegetables; there’s not much here that elevates them.

It came with a coleslaw-esque salad on the side, which had a bright, citrusy flavour, but which was a little bit too strong on the onion for my tastes (but I’m admittedly not a huge fan of raw onion).

Country 004 – Trinidad and Tobago (Leela’s Roti & Doubles)

Published on March 29, 2015March 29, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 900 Rathburn Road West, Unit 1, Mississauga
Website: http://leelasroti.com/

Well, that was disappointing.

I’ve never tried a double before (a doubles? Does it have to have the S?), and I’d certainly heard good things about Leela’s. Trying something new? At a reasonably acclaimed restaurant? Yeah, I was excited.

And the place was packed — so packed that I couldn’t even eat in the restaurant (I ate in the car, which is always fun).

If nothing else, it’s crazy cheap. I got a double ($1.25), an aloo pie ($1.50), and a bottle of Trinidadian soda ($2.00), and the whole thing came up to just over five bucks. And it was a fairly substantial amount of food, I should note.

I tried the double first. A double, for the uninitiated, is essentially a chickpea curry sandwich made with a special type of fried bread.

It was actually pretty bad. It probably didn’t help that it had obviously been sitting around for quite a while, giving the bread a mushy, unpleasantly sodden texture that was really unappealing.

The filling is essentially bland curry mush. It’s just kind of there, without any real personality: a gentle, ineffectual poke to your tastebuds. Nothing about it pops.

It also had an unpleasant undertone that I can’t quite put my finger on. The closest thing I can compare it to is particularly ripe boiled cabbage. That flavour wasn’t too strong, fortunately, but it was definitely there, and it was definitely off-putting — to me, at least. I think it’s safe to assume that, in the process of updating this blog, I’ll be eating dishes that would be classified as acquired tastes. So I don’t know if this was just a bad version of a double, or a taste I simply haven’t acquired.

The aloo pie was clearly the superior of the two items. Featuring a spiced potato filling surrounded by a crispy fried pastry shell, it was nothing particularly mind-blowing, but it was tasty at least.

The filling is essentially like a smoother, less dense version of what’s in a samosa. It tasted okay, but again, it was kind of bland. It was spicy, at least, which helped give it some personality.

The fried pastry shell had a crispy exterior and a pleasantly chewy bite, but it also tasted very strongly of stale oil.

So no… not a fan. But if you’re looking to get full on very little money, then sure, come here with a few bucks in your pocket and go nuts. Just don’t expect anything that great.

Country 002 — Colombia (Las Delicias)

Published on March 2, 2015March 15, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 59 Dundas Street West, Mississauga
Website: None

Hidden away in a sketchy little plaza in Mississauga, Las Delicias is pretty much the very definition of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

The friendly proprietor quickly sussed out that it was my first time in the restaurant — and my first time eating Colombian food, period. She recommended the Bandeja Paisa, a decadent smorgasbord that pretty much dares you to finish it (I did).

Clockwise on the picture above, starting at 12:00 – a fried egg, Colombian sausage, fried plantain, crispy pork belly, corn biscuit, and steak, all served atop white rice and beans, with an addictively spicy bowl of hot sauce served on the side.

Nothing here was particularly great — in fact, I suspect that almost all of it is probably better served elsewhere. The pork belly was tough, and bordering on leathery. The corn biscuit was almost rock hard. The steak was overcooked and chewy. The plantain was soggy.

And yet I enjoyed it more than you’d think. Everything taken together, and topped with that great hot sauce, added up to something surprisingly satisfying.

The sausage — which had an odd, yellow colour on the inside and a unique texture — was a highlight. And it’s hard to mess up a fried egg. The beans, too, were quite good — kind of like a less dense refried beans.

I was disappointed at first, but the dish slowly won me over. It was a huge amount of food and I cleaned the plate. Of course, that probably speaks to my gluttony just as much as it does to the quality of the food, but still. I enjoyed it.