Amy Pataki is back in the Toronto Star this week after taking last week off, and she reports on her hunt for a suckling pig to be served at her husband’s 40th birthday. Her pre-purchase research took her to Sam Woo BBQ, where she was disappointed by their formerly “lusciously lacquered pork”, but she had better luck at PeakTop Cuisine:

The pork ($8.50) certainly looks more elegant than at Sam Woo. It arrives on a modern white plate garnished with fresh coriander and slivers of pickled carrot; a small dish of hoisin sauce is traditional but unnecessary. A portion of loin has been hacked into finger-length slices. The meat tastes purely, sweetly, of pig. The salt is restrained, the skin properly crisp and the fat rendered out. It is champion pork (and this from a Jewish girl).

Elsewhere in The Star, Gordon Stimmell and Marion Kane are both away, but Susan Sampson tries out several recipes (with varying degrees of success) from last year’s commemorative edition of Edna Staebler’s classic Food that Really Schmecks: Mennonite Country Cooking.

Over in the National Post, Gina Mallet is quite taken by the Niagara Street Café and their menu of locally sourced meats and seasonal veggies:

The second courses ($18 and $19) confirm the chef as a promising texture- meister and frugal gourmet. It’s good to see lamb neck on a menu, not as good-looking as the pricey glamour cuts but so much tastier. Here it is braised with crispy parsnip and rutabaga gratin. Meltingly tender and stuffed Cornish hen is matched with nutty pearl couscous and slippery braised bitter endive. Crunchy red onion petals swirl around a grilled hanger steak (toughish) and creamy celery root puree and a surprise — a grilled slice of veal tongue, another great innards’ texture, slick and thick.

Elsewhere in the Post:

• Jason Chow livens up some chicken with an El Salvadorian spice combination known as Tamal Mix.
• Michael Vaughan suggests some sweet dessert wines to help fight the “Farch” (February/March) blahs.
• Bonnie Stern recommends three recipes - kebobs on cinnamon sticks, Moroccan chicken cigars, and a goat cheese & beet salad - that were prepared as part of a series of kosher dinners presented last month by the Jewish National Fund.
• Kate Swoger wonders why women don’t eat more meat.

In the pages of the Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates can barely contain her love for Colborne Lane:

Claudio Aprile is a fine chef at the top of his game, working his hardest because for the first time in his life, he’s working for himself. He’s using a few machines to play some games with food — like making cubes of aloe vera, wasabi foam and frozen soy fragments; but that is not the core of what he does. Aprile’s main mission is cooking great food; he is undistracted from that.

He often cooks in themes. The plates are smallish, halfway between apps and main size, so we are advised to order three plates per person. Some are meditations on a colour (potato tart), others on a cuisine (Chinese squid) or an idea (smoke and spice on squab). But no matter what he cooks, Aprile gives his whole heart; his technique is flawless, his flavours big and bright, his textures almost erotic.

Also in The Globe:

• Beppi Crosariol prepares us for St. Patrick’s Day with some Irish whiskey recommendations, as well as suggestions of a few wines that would pair well with Irish stew and other pub favourites.
• Lucy Waverman dishes up some fresh & light fare to get us in the mood for spring.
• Julie Traves visits Mela, a new Italian vegetarian spot in the cozy Yorkville space formerly occupied by Wanda’s Pie in the Sky.