T.O.bites | Toronto Food & Restaurant Blog

If you’d have asked me about 8 years ago whether I thought it would be difficult to become a vegetarian, I would’ve promptly answered “yes!”  Thankfully I have Helen, a sworn vegetarian who hasn’t consumed any meat or animal products in ages (aside from the odd egg or milk product here and there… hey, sometimes it’s hard to make yummy cupcakes without either one!), and she has shown me how easy and simple it is to cut out meat from your diet and still get to eat plenty of yummy food.  One of her favorite places to go eat happens to be King’s Cafe, a vegetarian Asian food and tea shop in the heart of Kensington Market.  It also happens to now be one of my favorite places because of one particular item on the menu – the soy chicken drumstick!  Though Helen would argue that the soy nuggets are much better than soy on a stick.

Since it’s my good friend Katie’s birthday, I offered to take her out to a belated birthday dinner at King’s Cafe (yes, it also happens to be one of Katie’s favorite places so it’s usually an easy choice when we decide on where to eat.)

For dinner, Katie and I ordered the kung pao chicken combination which comes with purple “bird seed” rice, a spring roll, some salad, and two nuggets.  It also rings in at about $13 each which is a bit pricey but well worth it.  I also ordered the chicken drumsticks for sharing… but they’re sometimes so hard to share because they’re so yummy.  Antony ordered one of their winter specials, which is a dish of turnip cakes in sauce with some veggies.  Finally, Helen went with a dish of soy nuggets and I believe it was a crystal roll she ordered with them.  It’s a cold roll wrapped in rice paper with chopped veggies inside with a hint of mint.

Each of the combination meals came with a soup as well which I believe changes daily as it’s called the soup of the day.  Our soup had a hint of seaweed flavor with chopped green onions.  It was nice as it wasn’t too strong of a soup and wasn’t salty at all.  I usually expect these soups to be salty because I’m accustomed to getting salty miso soup, but it was a nice change to have something refreshing.

The combo plates came in a bento box arrangement which I only think they started doing about a year ago to make it easier.  If I remember, they used to bring everything out on it’s own plate before.  The kung pao chicken was an excellent choice.  Sometimes, I can’t even tell the difference between the soy chicken they serve here, and the real chicken they serve around the corner in Chinatown.  In fact, I’d have to say I’d take King’s soy chicken any day over the other stuff.  The purple rice was interesting and had a nice texture but it does sort of resemble bird seed.  The side salad had a welcomed surprise inside of it – fruit!  You get a slice of orange, a bit of strawberry and a few other surprised tucked into those leaves of lettuce.

The turnip cake winter special was actually a bit of a disappointment to me.  I’m sure though if you love dim sum turnip, then you’d probably rave about this dish.  I don’t really like the turnips they serve at dim sum so I wasn’t particularly into this dish.  I did like the taste but I’m just not a fat of the sticky, clumpy turnip cake texture.

And here comes the soy drumsticks.  Really, this is what we all come to King’s for.  I’m sure some people will complain about them as soy chicken does have a slightly different texture than real chicken, but the fact is these things are awesome.  Since they’re still fried like regular chicken nuggets, I’m sure they’re probably still bad for you in some way, but it’s probably slightly redeeming that they’re made from soy and not chicken guts.

The best part about King’s is that they have their own little grocery store near the back of the store.  So all those soy nuggets and drumsticks that you just ate, well you can bring a bag of frozen ones home and eat some more later.  They are a bit pricey though coming in at $18 for a bag of soy chicken nuggets (where as a comparable amount of standard chicken nuggets at the grocery store would cost you around $6-$8).

Yes, I love King’s Cafe, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t tried it before, especially if you’re a vegetarian.

Having brunch in Kensington Market on an early Saturday afternoon means having to choose between a dozen different restaurants and cafes, each with their own unique pitch.  Especially going with a group of friends, you’re stuck between deciding on a place that all can enjoy.  Walking down though Kensington Market, we were hit with many different signs advertising brunch, but once we came upon the corner of Nassau, we noticed a small stand up chalk board sign which read “Brunch at KOS” with an arrow pointing towards the right of the sign.  Zam, Sara, Antony, and myself decided we would go check it out.

Walk a block to the west of the sign and you’re at the corner of Bellevue and Nassau streets, slightly outside from the heart of Kensington, which is where this greasy spoon sits.  KOS used to be at College and Bathurst, but they recently relocated here.

Even though it was an overcast day, we decided to sit outside on the patio, which was bustling with patrons enjoying their afternoon brunch.  Antony and I ordered the Brunch Special, which for $12 came with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, home fries, fruit, toast, 3 eggs, and a selection of brunch meat:  italian sausage, breakfast sausage, peameal bacon, and strip bacon.  Antony chose bacon, adding an “extra crispy, please” to his choice, while I went with the italian sausage over the usual breakfast sausage.  Zam went with the pancake special which came with the same choices as our meals did, but without the fruit and orange juice, but with an option between pancakes or french toast.  Zam went with the former.

If you’ve read the about page, you’ll see that Zam doesn’t eat pork because of his religion.  Unfortunately, there were no substitutes for pork.  No turkey bacon, no veggie sausage, nothing.  They did allow him to substitute it for baked beans though, but this was hardly the option Zam was hoping for.

Sara went with the egg special with peameal bacon, which was like our brunch special, but a few dollars cheaper, and without orange juice as she was already having a coffee.

Speaking of the orange juice, this one was definitely freshly squeezed.  It came with the pulp and the seeds all included.  Being used to getting a glass comparable to a thimble in size at most places, it was a welcomed surprise that the tall glass of fresh squeezed orange juice did indeed come in a tall glass.  It was just after Antony and I received our orange juice that a few of us finished our glasses of water, and asked the waitress for a refill.  I’ll let you know when we get our water.

Our meal came about 15 minutes after our order was placed, while our request for water still didn’t make it yet.  The eggs were great, with Antony, Zam, and my own being the toughest to make (over-easy), all of ours came with the yolks intact, ready to be punctured.  Sara’s came scrambled, as asked, but they did not come with any special spices or seasoning on them.  Antony’s extra crispy bacon came extra soft.  We’re unsure if the cooks just forgot to make it crispy, or if our waitress did not pass the request on to the cooks.  My italian sausage seemed a bit dry in the middle, and kinda hard and chewy on the outside.  I wouldn’t recommend that as a choice here if you’re deciding between italian sausage and the breakfast ones.  I didn’t hear any complains from Sara about her peameal bacon so I can say that she must have enjoyed it.  The home fries were excellent, nice and fluffy but fried with butter which gave it some crispy edges.  They were also fried with onion which gave it a nice taste, and added flavor to the potatoes.

The fruit sides came with a few grapes, a slice of watermelon, a strawberry, and a slice of orange.  The fruit was fresh, cool, and added a nice side to our brunch.  All of our meals came with two pieces of toast, which had a light layer of butter on them.  The toast was the standard texas toast, nice and thick, great for egg yolk dunking.

We still did not get our water.

It was finally after our 6th or 7th request for water that the waitress finally returned with a jug.  Unfortunately, during the filling of my glass, she spilled most of the jug on to our table.  It didn’t get any of us wet, and most of the water spilled off onto the ground, but we weren’t told “sorry” or ever given napkins to wipe up.  Before I continue on with the rant about our waitress, I’d like to point out that our table outside, and a few tables behind us, were the only ones who had this particular waitress serving them.  The other waitresses at the establishment seemed spot on.  Ours just didn’t seem to really care either way.  We don’t think she was a new hire either because she gave us the impression that she really didn’t enjoy her job.  As Sara said, “a crappy waitress gets crappy tips, then they usually end up hating their job and never get get better tips, believing it’s the job that’s crappy.”  So if you go to this restaurant, you get about a 1 in 6 chance of getting a bad server.

Overall, Zam and Sara both liked the place, but Antony and I were a bit dissatisfied.  We felt the poor service topped with Antony’s not so crispy bacon was a bit of a let down.  That’s not to say the food was bad, because it was pretty good and filling.  One thing I have to mention though is the brunch special Antony and I got for $10.95, is only $6 through the week.  I can’t remember if it comes with the orange juice or not, but at nearly half the price, that makes this place a much better place to go to through the week.

[note: the urbanspoon address is their old address, but I have sent in to have this corrected]

Average Price: under $10 per most entrees, cheaper on weekdays
TTC Directions: Coming from the Bloor subway line – Get off at Spadina Station, take the Spadina streetcar south and get off at College street.  Walk west three blocks to Bellevue (optional: or take the College streetcar west and get off at Bellevue)  Walk south two blocks to Nassau.  If you are coming from the Yonge subway line, it would be best to get off at College or Queens Park station and take the College streetcar west to Bellevue, and walk south two blocks to Nassau.