T.O.bites | Toronto Food & Restaurant Blog

Last September, when Zelda’s closed and ran up Yonge street, people started to cry out that due to the rising cost in rent, the village was doomed to become a collection of high-end stale corporate chain shops and restaurants.  Heck, there was even a rumor that McDonald’s was going to take over the old Zelda location.  To make matters worse, Lettieri closed up shop a few months later and is now a Hero Burger.  Then Il Fornello decided to take off.  What’s going on?  Thankfully, there’s been a slight change in the doom and gloom of the neighbourhood: the Church St. Diner recently opened back up and a new comer, Chi-ko-roo, has taken up the space once formerly housed by Il Fornello.  I had the chance to sit down and have a bite to eat there just a few days after their opening. (more…)

New Yorker Deli

If you’re going to insert “New York” somewhere into the name of your restaurant, then you’ve got some big shoes to fill.  Does the New Yorker Deli live up to its name?

Sitting right up near Bay and Bloor, the New Yorker Deli caters mostly to the office crowd and probably gets the odd patron heading down from some high end shopping in Yorkville looking for a cheap eat outside of the ‘ville.  The deli was pretty busy on the Sunday afternoon when Antony and I decided to go check it out for brunch.  They do have an amazing breakfast deal for under $5 but unfortunately we weren’t early enough for that.

inside the New Yorker

Antony ordered the three eggs and hash special which came with toast and homefries.  I decided to order a burger with cheese.  Our food came pretty quickly, and we sat where we could see the front counter as the cooks prepared our meals.  Antony’s eggs came over easy, as asked.  The toast was nice and thick texas style toast which is the best toast for egg yolk dipping.  The meat hash wasn’t all that great, nothing too special.  No added spices or anything to give it a burst of flavor.  The home fries were you standard McCain frozen then deepfried variety, almost like the same ones you get from Frans Diner.

Eggs and meat hash

My burger was also the same mediocre patty you get from President’s Choice.  Actually, I think it was the same as those thick President’s Choice burgers, as they have a pretty unique gear-like shape, as did this thick burger.  Not saying using frozen supermarket burger patties are a bad thing, but they also lack imagination.  I prefer hand made burgers myself.  The bun was a great choice though, an onion bun, which you don’t see too often in Toronto.  The fries that came with my burger, shoestring, were actially a bit better than the home fries, as they weren’t nearly as potatoe’y in the middle.

Cheese burger

A note about the staff, we had a really great waiter serving us, but when he wasn’t present, we did ask the manager (I’m assuming she was the manager as she wasn’t dressed in the usual waiter uniform) for water as she walked by.  Instead of her getting it for us, which was right behind us, she snapped her fingers and told another waiter to grab us water.  Her hands were free and honestly, there was no excuse for her not to grab the water herself.  Antony wanted to add a comment about how she seemed like the type of manager who walks around and looks for stuff that has to be done, but gets everyone else to do it for her.  This creates a stressful environment for the staff and as patrons, we can feel it too.

Overall, the food was okay although most of it seemed to be frozen supermarket food rather than made from scratch. The price of it all was pretty cheap though considering the area, and service was quite fast. I’d definitely go back if I’m in the area for a cheap eat and not feeling up to shopping at the grocery store nearby.

Average Price: $6 – $10 per entree
Hours: Open 7 days a week [I'll get back to you on the actual hours when I find out]
Address: 1140 Bay St
Phone: 416-923-3354
TTC Directions: Get off at Bay Station, at the Bay Street exit, and walk south a block towards Charles St on the west side of Bay

When most of us think of Queen West, we tend to think of hipsters with a sprinkling of yuppies.  With it’s abstract photographic art on the walls and skeleton butterfly paintings on the back patio, Shanghai Cowgirl’s ambiance embraces the area’s distinct flavour but within a 1940’s diner like setting.

Skeleton butterflies on the patio

From what I’ve been hearing from friends, the dish to try at Shanghai Cowgirl would have to be the grilled cheese.  Yes, the grilled cheese is the usual bland dish Ashley and I sometimes have when we’re stumped on what else to order, but the cowgirl apparently does the triple-decker-cheesiness really well.  Unfortunately, I decided to be a little bit more adventurous and stray slightly off of the well beaten path this time.  So I went with the tuna melt (okay, maybe not that far off the path).

Tuna melt with home fries

The tuna melt, which was just shy of $9 bucks, came with a choice of fries or mixed greens.  I went with home fries over french fries, but I have to point out that these guys do make sweet potatoe fries (yum!).  They were an excellent choice too.  They were soft and buttery in the middle, but contained just enough crisp around the edges to make each bite a wonderful combination of crunch and ‘mmm’.  As you can see from the picture above, they were the excellent hand made home fries, and not the frozen toss-in-the-oven-and-bake kind that you usually get from most breakfast diners.

The tuna melt itself wasn’t too bad.  The tuna was not too wet with mayonnaise, and not to dry either.  The tuna, which was covered in melted cheddar, sat on top of a piece of lettuce, all of which was contained neatly on top of a bagel half.  Each half of the tuna melt was garnished with some sprouts on top.  It’s a bit too large to be a eaten like a sandwhich, so that made utensils mandatory for this meal.

Sara went with the perogies stued with garlic, chilli, ginger, onions, and BBQ pork, all for $12 bucks.  She felt that for the price, there wasn’t a lot of food, but the quality was decent.  The perogies were a little too doughy, but the touch of chilli, ginger, garlic, and onions added a nice burst of flavor.  One interesting thing to note is that the BBQ pork is the same BBQ pork you’d get in Chinatown, from the pigs hanging in the windows — the traditional Chinese BBQ pork.  It was a little on the dry side but wasn’t too bad overall.

Perogies with BBQ pork

I do plan on coming back here some day to try out the triple decker grilled cheese, or their famous cheeseburgers I’ve also been hearing so much.  Overall though, we felt the food was great, but the price was just a tad bit steep.  Then again, this is Queen West.  I highly recommend you do sit out on the back patio if the weather is great.  Hopefully though, there won’t be too many smokers out there as there were a few when we went.

Average Price: $9 – $12 per entree
Hours: Sun-Mon: 10:30am – Midnight, Tue-Thur: 10:30am-1:00am, Fri-Sat: 10:30am-4:00am
TTC Directions: Hop onto the Queen Streetcar and get off just east of Bathurst
Website: http://shanghaicowgirl.com