a toronto food blog
I know it’s sunny outside, but for those of us stuck in the office doing working lunches, here ya go!
beet cake from tiger in a jar on Vimeo. ribboned asparagus salad from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.
Now back to spreadsheets and mail outs for me, love the life as an admin assistant :P
If you’re out early around Queen Street East on Sunday for some brunching with friends, make sure to check out the Leslieville Farmers’ Market. I got some tomatoes and freshly picked beans for a nice salad (and sunflowers for my room). Unfortunately, there was no cheese or burrata to be found…so my attempt at recreating the dish we had a Joe Beef is a fail…for now.
Welllll, this has been a long time coming. After three weeks, here are some pictures of our dinner at Joe Beef. I’ve resisted posting about it because I fear nothing I say can convey what a lovely evening we had there. Good and simple food with exceptional sauces and broth (the rouille in Leo’s fish/mussels dish was amazing), great atmosphere, attentive and happy staff, what more could you ask for from a restaurant? Within moments of sitting down, I knew that I would love Joe Beef – and I was right. I will give full and absolute credit to Leo since it was his pick…I cannot wait to go back again…:)
If there is one thing that you cannot miss when you go, it’s the oysters. They were to die for. Really. They were the perfect combination of salty and sweet with a fresh, clean finish, very much like breathing in ocean air. Speaking as someone who is not a fan of oysters, though I suspect it’s because I’ve never had any that were thaaat good, I could have eaten twenty more and just that.
The rest of our meal wasn’t too bad either. Our burrata salad was a bit on the heavy side – too much mozzarella casing and not enough cream – but I appreciated the lovely green and yellow beans it came with.
Leo got the colin roti (baked pollock fish) while I went with the safe Cornish hen with lobster. This is when we realized that despite its name, Joe Beef is a great seafood restaurant. The fish was flakey perfection and my chicken was completely overshadowed by the pieces of lobster scattered on my dish. Throughout the night I watched longingly as others ordered the popular lobster spaghetti, which was massive and generous on the lobster…I was so jealous! While my stomach complained, my brain quietly thanked me for not putting myself through what I knew would have been a torturous night of gluttony had I ordered their spaghetti.
For desserts we shared the donuts with smoked cheddar in maple syrup. They were these perfect little bites of sweetness, the kind that are toothachingly sweet, but then came the smokiness of the cheddar that balanced it out somehow….I don’t think I’m doing a good job describing it, but it was good.
As mentioned before, I would go back in a heartbeat! Officially counting down to our next trip to Montreal.
Sorry for the lackluster posts lately. I plan on taking some time this evening and the weekend to wrap up my Montreal visit pics and post some film stuff I took. I have to run and meet Leo now. I can’t be late after complaining to him about waiting for others…
