There’s no doubt that Toronto diners have been feeling very carnivorous lately. The hottest openings in 2007 included nouveau steak joints like Jacobs & Co. and Prime, and other places with meat-heavy menus like Cowbell and One, and many are predicting that the trend will continue in the new year.

So the timing is perfect for Joanne Kates to push her Globe & Mail expense account to the limit with reviews of the waygu and Kobe offerings at four different restaurants. She establishes that the most expensive - a ludicrously overpriced $265 Kobe strip loin at Harbour Sixty - is the least impressive, and she’s so-so on Jacobs & Co. as well. But Prime and Edo win her approval, especially the latter:

If one is going to try Japanese wagyu beef, Edo is the place to go. Think roots: It’s Japanese meat, bred in Japan, and shouldn’t be treated in the Western manner. Wagyu is appropriately used as an accent, a small special flavour hit in a Japanese meal.

Chef Ryo Ozawa of Edo only does wagyu with two days notice, as part of a $150 omakase menu. You get a three-ounce Japanese wagyu rib eye, broiled rare. As with foie gras, a little goes a long way. Served small in the middle of omakase, wagyu morphs from overwhelming and obnoxious to divine decadence.

Also in the Globe:

• Beppi Crosariol shares some of the reader mail he received regarding his previous column on the increasing lack of reasonably priced wines at the LCBO.
• Lacy Waverman shares some light recipes for those who over-indulged a bit over the holidays.
• Kate MacLennan sips an Apple Star Martini, a signature cocktail at Vancouver’s Goldfish Pacific Kitchen.

Another food trend that has recently returned to Toronto with a vengeance is “tapas”. I put it in quotes because what most of the plates being served in the city’s newer “tapas” restaurants are really just smaller portions of main course dishes, called “tapas” regardless of their cuisine, and with prices rarely being lowered to reflect the smaller size.

So it’s a pleasure to read Amy Pataki’s review in today’s Toronto Star of Lambros, where one-named chef Aristedes brings tapas back to the Mediterranean with an assortment of fresh and tasty and reasonably priced Greek dishes that are sized for snacking or sharing:

Think Greek food is souvlaki? Try Lambros’ flatiron steak ($13), perfectly bloody and toothsome. It is almost outshone by a smoky eggplant dip that is what every babaganoush recipe should aspire to. The house’s take on pancetta ($11), a rich strip of grilled pork belly brilliantly partnered with sour cherries and quince, is quite possibly the city’s best pork dish.

Not to mention Aristedes’ dishes for vegetarians. “After Indian food, Greek food has the most vegetarian dishes of any cuisine,” he says, citing religious fasts and historical poverty. It’s hardly deprivation to tuck into artichokes richly blanketed with smoked cheese ($11) or grilled asparagus and haloumi ($9) with watercress and thyme honey.

Also in the Star:

• Gord Stimmell finds five gems in the sub-$20 category of today’s Vintages release.
• Claire Rosemberg accompanies a group of 10-year-olds to a lesson in tasting food at France’s venerable Le Grand Vefour restaurant.
• Richard Ouzounian has six meals in Chicago.

In the National Post, Gina Mallet starts 2008 by looking back at 2007 in her typically unorthodox fashion. Her pick for restaurant of the year is Amaya, and she points to this high-end Indian restaurant as an exception to the gourmet rule in Toronto:

Surely the excitement of a multicultural city is that everyone has a chance to have a go at someone else’s food, not just fiddle around with fusion. We don’t have anything like Montreal’s Raza, a Canadian take on South American food, Rick Bayless’s addictive everyday Mexican at Chicago’s Frontera Grill nor his classical Topolobampo, nor do we have a Thai restaurant comparable to David Thompson’s Nahm in London, which doesn’t taste sugary at all. We do have serious Italian takes from Andrew Milne-Allan at Zucca and Alida Solomon at Tutti Matti. I’d like someone to take on Spanish cuisine; we don’t have a true Ferran Adria acolyte, and where’s the successor to the shuttered Barmalay?

Also in the Post:

• Michael Vaughan gives a run-down of the good and not-so-good in today’s Vintages release.
• Jon Bricker and Kate Swoger brave the all-you-can-eat meat at Richmond Hill’s Carnaval Brazilian Grill.
• Mark Medley looks into a coffee shop controversy that was sparked by Torontoist’s picks for Heroes & Villains of 2007.
• Speaking of coffee shops, Sarah Lazarovic pops by Niche Coffee and Tea Company in their new(ish) Queen West location.
• Jason Chow previews the Niagara Ice Wine Festival.
• Amy Rosen tries the fine spirits from three micro-distilleries on Vancouver Island.
• Bonnie Stern chooses her three favourite recipes of 2007.
• Greg Beato investigates the stupidity of expensive bottled water. (OK, he doesn’t exactly call it stupid. But how else to describe water that is “infused to the same frequency of the Earth revolving around the Sun”, or bottled while “inspirational music” is played because “water has a memory”? Pretty fucking stupid.)