We've got a couple of additions to our rag-round up this week.
While CBC Radio's Metro Morning is most definitely not made of paper, Catherine Jheon's Beyond Burgers spot runs on Thursday and offers up a weekly restaurant review. And of course, a print version can be found on the CBC website. This week, Jheon visits Chocolate Heaven Dessert Company, a homey down-to-earth dessert place on the Danforth.
We've also added the Thursday food articles from the daily Metro paper, where they're preparing for Oscar-night parties with related cocktails.
The weekly rags both seem to have a bit of a brunch theme going on. At Eye, Kathryn Borel drags herself out to the earnestly vegetarian Sadie's Diner.
Sadie's stumbles – ever so slightly – into the trap many vegetarian eateries do. It is earnest. Very earnest. If the buckwheat pancakes ($8, with either apple, banana, blueberries or maple syrup) were people, they'd be the honest, hardworking fellow who comes to clean out your gutters every spring. (“Hello, sir. Good day to you, ma'am.”) The trio tastes the way you expect a trio of buckwheat pancakes to taste: mildly nutty, a little chewy, well-leavened but not dramatically so, crispy-skinned but not aggressively so. On our order of flapjacks, a stoic little trio of nicely ripened bananas. Satisfying and without fanfare.
Borel also offers up four other choice brunch spots in a selection of online exclusive mini-reviews.
At NOW, Steven Davey experiences the anti-brunch, aka. "lupper" at Rosebud, where chef Rod Bowers makes no excuses for his desire to sleep in or his restaurant's lack of smoothies.
"Go to Juice for Life if you want smoothies," barks Bowers. "You come to Rosebud for real croissants, extra butter and too much bacon."
Lupper runs on Sundays from noon until the supper hour, features scaled-down versions of the restaurant's regular dinner menu, and might just be the answer to the Sunday brunch aversion suffered by so many of the city's restaurant staff.
Davey also reviews Crêpes à GoGo, recently moved to a new location at Yonge and Yorkville, and Graham Duncan writes up a side-splitting wine column where each of this week's selections come with a "why" component.
When I'm at the mall I always go to No Frills, the Battery Store and then the Wine Rack for a bottle of icewine. It's on the shelf next to the Spumante Bambino. Delicious: candied fruit, beeswax, mandarins and a long citrus finish. Brown bag it in the food court and then go crazy at Dollarama.
After paying $69.95 for a bottle of icewine, Dollarama is about the only place I'd be able to afford to shop.
