It's not often that news about a chef or restaurant makes the front page of the Toronto Star. Unless, of course, the chef in question is Susur Lee, owner of eponymous establishments Susur and Lee, and he is being accused of allowing a culture of abuse and racism to infect his restaurants via manager Greg Ali.
According to Ashifa Kassam's exposé, Ali is alleged to have driven many servers and runners out of their jobs with torrents of screaming and swearing, and ex-employees are also claiming that they are owed unpaid wages ranging from $112 to $4,500. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.
On the less controversial side of things, Amy Pataki reviews The Abbot Pub, a seven year old spot in North Toronto that was a "gastropub" before the term was even known in these parts. She's especially taken by their trademark Buffalo shrimp:
Hefty shrimp are dunked in buttermilk, then plain corn flour and then hot oil for only as long as it takes to read this sentence. Perfectly cooked, they are tossed in a balanced sauce of ketchup, freshly grated horseradish, garlic, hot sauce, lime juice and scads of dry sherry.
Each bite is crunchy, sticky and tart, with a slow-building heat; the combination is so pleasing, I contemplate eating even the tails. The shrimp are served, wing style, eight to an order with blue cheese dip, carrots and celery sticks.
Also in the Star:
- Gordon Stimmell picks his favourite wines in five different styles from today's Ontario-themed Vintages release, including two from Flat Rock, and perhaps surprisingly, a pinot gris from Creekside that's labelled under the name of golfer Mike Weir.
- Sarah Sampson tests some skimmers, and suggests using one when making an Asian Shrimp Boil.
- In the Travel section, Susan Pigg visits some of the thirty wineries of Twenty Valley, an up-and-coming wine region a bit west of St. Catherines.
Over in the Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates surprises us by reviewing Cowbell without making a single scathing or snobbish remark about Parkdale. She also has very little bad to say about the restaurant, with the meat obviously being the main attraction:
[Chef Mark Cutrara's] mains are the sort of thing to bring strong carnivores to their knees. I am often ambivalent about choucroute garni (and, let's face it, about all Alsatian edibles, thanks to their tendency to the leaden); but Cutrara's is the ideal choucroute - a plate of splendidly delicate house-made sausages, pink moist ham and perfectly cooked parsley potato. As for the garni, sauerkraut hasn't had it this good in this town since Michael Stadtlander left. The kraut is about as delicate as cabbage gets, its vinegar applied with a light hand and the cabbage barely pickled.
Lamb shoulder and chop is the ideal "lamb two ways." Although his chop is not the huge red extravagance that you find at a $200-a-couple restaurant, it is perfectly cooked and full of flavour. His lamb shoulder, however, is a great triumph of deep flavour and tender texture brought out by careful cooking and sensitive seasoning. His barbecued beef ribs are almost ethereal, so so sweet and meaty and rich and moist. His steak frites is equally lovely - tender steak and big fresh frites.
Also in the Globe:
- Beppi Crosariol is enthusiastic about Altesino Rosso 2004, an Italian red in today's Vintages release that he describes as a "baby Brunello", which means pretty much nothing to a wine newbie like me, but the tasting notes make it sound pretty good.
- Lucy Waverman gives you all the recipes you'll need to make the British favourite, fish & chips with mushy peas, including a low-fat version, which seems wrong somehow.
- Sasha Chapman goes on the hunt for the rare (in Toronto, at least) Syrian spice, Aleppo pepper.
- In the Travel section, Laszlo Buhasz visits Burgenland, an Austrian province that's becoming known as one of Europe's best wine regions.
In the National Post, Gina Mallet is the first of the three Saturday paper reviewers to check out Mark McEwan's One at the Hazelton Hotel - although Mallet doesn't mention the celebrity chef at all, and instead names the restaurant's actual chef, Andrew Ellerbee. Which should make Ellerbee happy, as she's pretty complimentary about the food, despite her reservations about the serving style:
Both menu and server urge the sharing of dishes. I feel conflicted about this. It plays to the small-plate trend, which is a boon to restaurateurs who, I suspect, make more money serving lots of little plates than the trad three courses. Not so easy for the eater. Sharing a plate creates a certain anxiety -- will there be enough of something I like? You don't want to start a fight with a close friend over a plate of food.
I want the lobster salad, but I don't want to share it. The winemaker wants french fries with white truffles and reggiano and he probably doesn't want to share them. Both are so good that we heave sighs of relief. The lobster brings Atlantic surf right into my mouth, proving that it hasn't been comatose in a local holding tank. The citrus dressing is perfect. The fries are dusted with discernible flakes of the magic fungi, which give them the pungent must of an antique bookbinding.
Also in the Post:
- Michael Vaughan tastes some Ontario selections from today's Vintages release.
- Jon Bricker and Kate Swoger are disappointed by the appetisers but love the mains at Anatolia, a Turkish restaurant in Etobicoke.
- Julia Belluz chats with Tom Knezic and Christine Lolley, a Parkdale couple who have been hosting a monthly series of "Taste of Ontario" dinners, with each one focussed on a particular locally-grown fruit or vegetable, from fiddleheads to watermelon. (Note to Knezic & Lolley: If you're looking for guests for your next dinner, we live right around the corner!)
- Sarah B. Hood looks at the story behind the bake ovens in Dufferin Grove Park.
- Alyssa Schwartz tells us what we should already know: those 100-calorie "snack packs" of cookies and chips and other junk food are a big ol' rip-off.
- Bonnie Stern cooks corn. Lots and lots and lots of corn.
