rice – Page 3 – Around the World in 196 Plates

Country 039 – Turkey (Kabab 49)

Published on August 7, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5308 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke
Website: http://kebab49.com/

So, here’s a fun fact (an actual fun fact, not E!’s version of a fun fact): Turkish doner was actually the first version of that particular type of vertically-rotisseried meat, preceding the similar shawarma and gyro by at least a few decades. I always assumed that shawarma was the O.G. vertical rotating meat-stack, but nope, apparently it’s doner.

And the version they serve at Kabab 49? It’s superb. I ordered the mixed doner plate, which comes with a salad, a big pile of sliced onions, a generous portion of delightfully greasy rice, a few slices of freshly-baked bread, and of course, enough shaved meat to feed a small family.

Everything on the plate is quite good (well, except for the onions — raw onions are the worst thing in the world, and no one is ever going to convince me otherwise), but the highlight is that amazing doner. The mixed plate features chicken and a mix of veal and lamb, and both were fantastic. The veal and lamb was a bit better than the chicken, but both were moist, had plenty of the crispy bits you’re looking for in this type of thing, and were really well seasoned.

The meat works just as well with the rice as with the fluffy, fresh bread. Eventually, you eat enough of the doner and discover a couple of bonus slices of bread at the bottom of the plate, suffused with tasty meat grease. And then you walk out of the restaurant clutching your stomach and wondering how and why you finished the whole thing, because seriously: that plate is enormous. But you kept eating it well past the point that common sense would dictate that you stop. That’s how you know it’s something special.

Country 038 – North Korea (Chaban)

Published on July 24, 2016July 24, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 872 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: http://chabantoronto.com/

No, this technically isn’t a North Korean restaurant — I think it’s safe to say that all Korean restaurants in Toronto (or any city, really) are South Korean. But I painstakingly researched how the cuisines in North and South Korea have diverged since their split in 1945, and I tried to order a dish that’s closest to what North Koreans actually eat.

Actually no, I didn’t do that at all; I just went to a Korean restaurant and ordered what looked good. Because I’m lazy, you see.

I ordered the Chaban Dolsot Bibimbap (it’s always a safe bet to order a dish that features the restaurant’s name). For the uninitiated, bibimbap is a dish in which plain rice is topped with various vegetables and meat, an egg, and is usually served with a tasty Korean hot sauce called gochujang on the side.

This particularly version is served in a piping hot stone bowl (which is where “dolsot” in the name comes from), which makes the rice along the edges delightfully crispy.

I’m generally a pretty big fan of this dish, and this might just be the best version of it that I’ve had. It has a really nice balance of flavours, and just the right amount of kick from the hot sauce. It’s one of those dishes where every bite is a little bit different. It’s pretty great.

Country 037 – Nigeria (Village Suya)

Published on July 10, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 900 Rathburn Road West, Mississauga
Website: http://www.villagesuya.com/

I think I should preface this review by saying that Village Suya has only been up and running for a few weeks; I wasn’t too crazy about the meal I had here, but it’s quite possible that they still have some kinks to work out. So you might want to take this review with a grain of salt.

For the uninitiated, Suya is Nigerian-style grilled meat, typically sold by street vendors on skewers. This particular restaurant serves beef and chicken; I went with beef, and got it with a side of fried rice.

The rice was easily the highlight. Though it looks fairly similar to Chinese-style fried rice, it definitely has a personality of its own. It’s a touch on the oily side (my mouth felt grease-slicked for at least an hour or two after eating), but it has a satisfying curry-tinged flavour, and just enough of a kick to put some sweat on your brow.

And whatever they’ve marinated the beef in is actually pretty tasty; it’s nicely seasoned, with another solid dose of spice. But (and this is a fairly big but) the beef was excessively chewy and dry — it’s kind of unpleasant (of course, this didn’t stop me from eating almost all of it, but I digress).

The meat was either severely overcooked, or they’re using a cheaper cut of beef that’s meant to be stewed (or, more likely, a little from column A, a little from column B). It’s too bad, because if the meat were a little bit more tender (or, more accurately, tender at all), it would probably be pretty good. The elements, otherwise, are all there. But when the beef is that jerky-like in its consistency, it’s kind of tough to enjoy — even if the flavour is pretty good.

Country 036 – Afghanistan (Naan and Kabob)

Published on June 26, 2016November 12, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 30 Bristol Road East, Mississauga
Website: http://nandk.ca/mississauga/

This is a probably a bit of a generalization, but there are a couple of pretty dependable rules of thumb for judging if an ethnic place is worth your time:

A nicer looking restaurant probably doesn’t mean you’re going to get better food. Don’t ask me why, but when it comes to non-Western eats, the tastiest stuff tends to come from sketchy little hole-in-the-wall joints.
This one is super obvious — a place filled with people who come from the country of the restaurant’s cuisine is always a good sign. If people who know what the real deal tastes like think the food is good, then the food is probably good.

Now, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but Naan and Kabob fails both tests.

For number one in particular, this seems like a particularly unfair complaint to make. What? Your restaurant is bright, clean, and stylishly designed? Ugh, no thanks. Kind of an insane critique, isn’t it?

Of course, arbitrary rules aside, the easiest way to determine if a restaurant is worth your time is to eat the food. Which I did, obviously.

I ordered the Qabuli Palau, Afghanistan’s national dish (according to Wikipedia, at least).

It’s pretty simple: spiced rice, topped with shredded carrots and raisins, and served with meat (in this case, braised veal, though you can upgrade to lamb for a couple of bucks). They also serve it with a bowl of chicken curry on the side.

It’s not bad. The rice is a little bit bland, and the sweet carrots combined with the even sweeter raisins makes for a dish that’s a bit more cloying than it probably should be, though the savoury chunks of braised veal help to offset some of the sweetness. However, while about half of the meat was unctuous and fork-tender, the other half was stringy and dry.

There’s the curry, too — and it’s not bad — though to be honest, I’m not sure why it was even there. It felt a bit out of place with the other flavours in this dish.

The whole thing is decent enough, but I can’t imagine anyone walking out of the restaurant raving about it.

Maybe there is something to those generalizations after all…

Country 033 – Syria (Reyan)

Published on May 15, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 75 Dundas Street West, Mississauga
Website: http://reyan.ca/

I think I could make the argument that lamb is the most underrated food out there. Yes, not just most underrated meat, but most underrated food (here in North America at least. Many other countries quite sensibly eat a lot of lamb, because it’s delicious). Prepared well, it’s super tender, and jam-packed with enough flavour to put even a really good-quality piece of beef to shame. What’s not to love?

I guess Syria is one of those sensible, lamb-loving countries, and if this dish is anything to go by, they’re eating pretty well. They’re also going through some not-so-great times right now, but that falls way outside of the purview of this blog, so… lamb.

I actually discovered this place thanks to an article in the Toronto Star, which described the Lamb and Rice as follows: “The fat is so soft you could spread it on toast for breakfast. The meat and rice are perfumed with the spices, none of them competing with the intensity of the flesh.”

It’s really good. The article nails it; it’s perfectly spiced, but the star of the show is clearly that tender, immensely flavourful lamb. A knife is provided, but the meat is so perfectly tender that it’s barely even necessary.

The rice is cooked with the lamb stock, which infuses it with so much great flavour. The slivered almonds on top add crunch, and the small plate of very rich plain yogurt helps to cut through the richness. It’s a fairly no-frills dish, but man, it’s so good. In the case that the simplest dishes are often the best, this would be exhibit A.

Country 026 – South Korea (Cho Dang Soon Tofu)

Published on February 7, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5130 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke
Website: None

If the whole point of this blog is to try new things, then I’m failing pretty miserably with this entry; not only have I been to Cho Dang Soon Tofu several times before, I’ve even written about it for another blog.

Still, I haven’t written about the restaurant’s namesake dish: an intensely flavourful, bubbling hot stew that I can’t get enough of.

Like any Korean restaurant worth its salt, the meal starts with a generous selection of banchan — essentially a variety of small appetizers. My favourite here are the crispy, addictively salty fried sardines, but the silky cubes of soft tofu (made in house) with a little bowl of sesame- and green-onion-infused soy sauce for dipping are also quite memorable, as is the obligatory (and delcious) kimchi.

But of course, the reason to come here is that delicious, piping-hot stew. I got mine with pork, though several other options are available. It’s spicy, flavourful, and seriously hearty — aside from the aforementioned pork, its absolutely suffused with the restaurant’s creamy house-made tofu, not to mention the egg that you crack into the bowl yourself, and the generous bowl of purple rice that accompanies the stew (made that distinctive colour by mixing black rice in with the white).

The best part? All that food? Eight bucks. Yeah, it’s a deal.

Country 015 – Taiwan (Mama Bear Taiwanese Cuisine)

Published on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 324 Highway 7 East, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.mamabeartaiwanesecuisine.ca

Unlike most of the countries I’ve written about so far for this blog, I’ve actually been to Taiwan. While I was there, one of the dishes I was looking forward to trying was minced pork rice. But when I got to the restaurant, it was packed, there was a surly-looking man behind the counter and a total lack of any pictures for me to point to. I wound up loitering for a couple of minutes before finally losing my nerve and leaving sad and pork-and-rice-less. Yes, trying to order food when you don’t speak a word of the language can be a challenge.

And now I’m sad all over again, because the version of this dish at Mama Bear Taiwanese Cuisine was pretty damn good — so I can only imagine how good the real deal in Taiwan must have been.

It doesn’t look like much, but with a surfeit of tender, perfectly cooked fatty pork in a richly flavourful, sweet sauce (served on a heaping mound of rice), it’s easy enough to see why it’s such a treasured dish in Taiwan.

We also ordered the Taiwanese-style popcorn chicken, which was crispy, juicy and well seasoned, and easily on par with the fried chicken I had in that country.

The oyster omelette, sadly, was like it came from a different kitchen altogether.

This was another dish that I tried in Taiwan, and the one I had there was almost transcendentally good, with super fresh, perfectly cooked oysters melding with the eggs in a way that was downright magical. Those eggs, which were lightly crispy on the outside (thanks to a judicious amount of starch mixed in) and soft and creamy on the inside, were among the best I’ve ever had. Served with some sweet sauce on the side to cut the briny richness of the oysters and the eggs, it was pretty much perfect.

I knew this omelette wasn’t going to be as good as that one, but man was it bad.

More starch than egg, the omelette was chewy, gummy, and crammed with overcooked oysters that tasted fishy and canned. And it was absolutely doused in a gloppy sauce — though in this case, the abundance of sauce was probably necessary to disguise the off taste of those oysters.

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.