...on a cold winter day

The Counter is a relatively new 24-hour diner located just outside of the entertainment district downtown, right at the base of the Thompson Hotel.  I’m fairly ambivalent towards 24-hour diners in Toronto thanks to having a few bad experiences at Fran’s over the past few years, but how does The Counter stack up against its competition?  Well if having to pay $5 more per entree than any other diner doesn’t scare you away, then you may be surprised by how good the food is.  On the other hand, the decor gives off a pretentious vibe, and the menu is a little lacking in options.  Also, who has ever paid $12 for a slice of pie?!  Maybe $12 for a whole pie but just a slice?  Ouch!

We ordered a Reuben sandwich with onion rings, a chicken club sandwich with poutine, and fried chicken wings with mashed potatoes.  And for an appetizer, we all shared a spinach and artichoke dip.  One thing to note that by default, the side options are fries, onion rings, or salad.  The poutine cost an extra $2, while we originally were offered a side of mac & cheese, but unfortunately it cost an extra $4.  A steep price difference to replace a side.

spinach and artichoke dip

The spinach and artichoke dip was enjoyed by all and came with some crispy lavish for dipping.  It was nice and cheesy but our only gripe about it was that it was a little bit too runny which made it hard to keep on the lavish while dipping.

pastrami reuben and onion rings served on a cool wooden board

The pastrami reuben was done really well, it was nice and moist and each bite filled your mouth with the excellent spices contained within the meat.  Unfortunately, it didn’t come with pickles on the side, but when we asked, were given a few.  I was told to make note specifically that we were not given just one single pickle, but were given a few on a plate, and this made us happy.

The onion rings that came with the reuben were nice and crispy, done in their own special buttermilk batter.

chicken club sandwich and poutine

The chicken club sandwich was stacked with tomatoes, lettuce, three pieces of bread, two pieces of grilled chicken breast, and bacon.  It was probably one of the best clubs I’ve had in ages.  The poutine, on the other hand, was a little lackluster.  They didn’t use cheese curds in it (just a random sprinkling of mozzarella here and there), and the gravy wasn’t as plentiful.

fried chicken and masked potatoes

The fried chicken wings use the same buttermilk batter as the onion rings which is nice and crispy.  On the other hand, the batter slides off the chicken too easily, making it feel like it’s a completely separate component of the chicken — almost like there was no skin to begin with.  Another down side is that the batter, although nice and crispy, is a little bland and lacks any sort of seasoning.  This works great for the onion rings which already come with the strong flavour of fried onions already, but not so great for the chicken, which could use a healthy dose of herb and spices.

The mashed potatoes that came with the chicken was most excellent though it contained tons of butter.  But the sprinkling of cheddar on the top is what really made it special.

Even though The Counter lacked decent dessert options, we were all pleased with our meals, but were saddened that it doesn’t have a more central downtown location, especially for a 24-hour place.  I understand that a lot of people will wander out of the clubs (and the Thompson Hotel) and seek late night comfort food at The Counter, but it would be nice if they opened up another location closer to Yonge St.  The service was great though and our waiter was incredibly attentive to our needs, constantly keeping our glasses of water full.  I would definitely choose The Counter over Fran’s any day for a 4AM meal, but I can’t say I’d recommend it otherwise.

High/Afternoon Tea

The first image that springs to my mind when I think about high tea is a British grandmother sitting in a hotel lobby and sipping on some earl grey tea with her pinky sticking out.  It’s rarely an activity that I associate a group of late-twenties grad students participating in.  Interestingly enough, this is exactly what our group was composed of (not counting myself since I’ve yet to become a grad student).

My first introduction to the world of high tea, or afternoon tea, was last summer during my whirlwind trip to China.  I got to see the high and mighty eating yummy sweets and sipping their tea at the Penninsula Hotel while I merely walked by, drooling over their scrumptious arrangement of treats.  It was actually Antony’s idea to do high tea for his birthday as opposed to a yummy steak at the Keg (my poison of choice for birthdays).  Toronto actually has a fair share of choices for high tea such as the famous Windsor Arms and the chic Four Seasons.  We went with the King Edward since it had great reviews and wasn’t overly pricey (at about $20-$30 a head depending on the set you choose).

Teas for sniffing

We were first presented with a open box of all the teas, allowing you to sniff each one so that you can make your selection.  Sara went with the Darjeeling Oolong tea while Antony and myself went with the traditional English Breakfast tea.  Jenn decided on the house blend, her choice being influenced by having a tea that she can put both honey and milk into.

The tea strainer

The interesting thing about high tea is that the tea leaves are placed right into the pot with the water, otherwise known as loose tea.  The filtering happens through use of a tea strainer which is placed right on top of your china tea cup.  A couple of times, we’d forget to place the strainer on our cups before pouring and would have to pick out the leaves after.

I can’t really comment much about the tea besides that it took a while to steep and become strong enough to taste in the back of your mouth.  Infact, with Sara’s tea, it didn’t finally come on strong until the tea was already cold.  Fortunately, this is somewhat remedied by our server who would kindly pour more hot water into our tea pots through the course of the meal.

The King's Tea set

For our food platter sets, we each went with the traditional choice of the King’s Tea serving.  This comes with a few finger sandwiches, some scones with clotted cream, and a few tarts.

The seafood based sandwich had a very overwhelming fishy taste.  It only consisted of smoked salmon with chopped bits of shrimp and mayonnaise.  Thanks to my shellfish allergy, I couldn’t try it, so my previous comment is actually based on the opinion of my friends.  On the other hand, the ham sandwich was great.  It was a nice melody of chopped ham and chicken with some herbs and a bit of mayonnaise.  The set also came with a cucumber sandwich and an egg salad sandwich, both were okay but nothing too special.

Clotted cream.. clotted for clotting your arteries!

Now onto the scones.  First off, allow me to display my shallowness by saying that my original thought behind clotted cream was “yuck!”.  Why does this make me shallow?  Well because on an episode of The Girls Next Door (see?), the girls went to London and tried clotted cream and were mostly disgusted by it.  Fortunately, I loved the stuff.  I know it’s pretty much composed of all of the fat and bad-for-you stuff of milk, but it’s so darned smooth and good, especially on the cranberry scones.  Plus, top it off with some jam and you’ve got yourself one of the best afternoon snacks you could treat your taste buds to!

The treats at the top weren’t too noteworthy.  I guess the meringue tart was probably the most memorable with it’s crunchy meringue and fresh raspberry sitting on a chocolate filled tart.  It makes a great taste all together if you manage to fit a bit in your mouth.  I ate my meringue first.

It was a nice experience trying out high/afternoon tea for the first time, and I regret not doing it while in London or Hong Kong, but I do plan on doing it when I visit said places again.  Oh, and since this is mainly an experience piece, I thought I’d make note of Sara’s bathroom experience.  While she was utilizing the facilities post-tea time, she could hear the pleasurable ecstatic moans of a female coming from the service room.  Hopefully her experience at the King Edward Hotel was as tasteful as ours.

(I can hear Sara already saying, “Aww why did you have to write about that on your website?”)

Smoke's the Queen of Poutine?

I can’t resist poutine.  It’s probably one of the worst meals you can eat but at the same time it can also be one of the most tastiest.  A few years back, I tried my first Montreal poutine and haven’t been able to find anything nearly as good within the confines of our city.  Everytime I mention how much I long for Montreal poutine, someone usually brings up Smoke’s.

Smoke’s opened their first location about a year ago and recently opened up another one, with plans to open up about 3 more locations.  So it seems they’re doing quite well for themselves, but do they live up to the poutine hype I’ve been hearing about?

The menu

With it being so close to the holidays, I decided I’d try their festive special which is some poutine, with ham, turkey, cranberry sauce and homemade stuffing.  It only came in one size though, regular.  Antony went with the double pork poutine while Tona decided to try the curry chicken poutine.  Three very different poutine choices.

The festive meal

My festive poutine dinner was pretty good, actually.  Sure, it’s no Swiss Chalet festive special, but going to Smoke’s, it’s more about the poutine.  I like the fact that they use cheese curds and their gravy is pretty good as well (a mix of beef and chicken gravy).  The fries they use are fresh cut and seasoned, making them a few steps above what you’d get from New York Fries.

double pork

Antony’s double pork contained too much pork!  A mix of smoked meat and bacon, he says he should have just gone with the regular smoked meat poutine (single pork, I guess?).  I tried a few pieces of his smoked meat and they were excellent, with a nice hint of smoky flavor cooked in.

curry chicken

Then we came to Tona’s curry chicken poutine.  It was probably the worst of the bunch.  The curry wasn’t really all that great and tasted more like a watered down version of the curry you can get on your fries at the french fry truck.  And the chicken, I know it’s slow roasted, but it had a really weird texture.  I’d say it’s almost like it was soy vegetarian chicken, much like the kind you get from King’s Cafe except no where near as yummy.  Infact, it was a little gross.  Tona asked for light cheese on her poutine, and oddly enough the receipt came out printed as “Light Cheese Bitch”.  Not sure if this is a characteristic default in their for when someone asks for light cheese, or if it’s just the snarkiness of the cashier.  I’d probably go with the former here but Tona was a little bit shocked.  She said the cashier tried to hide the receipt from her, then wanted to scratch out what it said but she told him it was no biggie.

light cheese...wah?!

So is Smoke’s a good substitute for the excellent Montreal poutine?  No, not really… but it’s a good start, and I look forward to seeing a few more openings though I’m sure my clogged arteries aren’t.