Where to Eat Now
Best of the Burbs 2009
Uppity downtown diners, take note: strip malls and outlying towns are home to some of the best food around. Here, the top spots of the 905
Image credit: Jack Dylan
Gourmands with Tom Waits on their iPods and Twin Peaks in their Blu-rays head to Burlington for Blacktree’s gothic glam (a dressmaker’s Judy is a typical decor accent) and chef Matteo Paonessa’s theatrical creations (a lamb testicle arrives in a pool of partridgeberry preserve—need we say more?).
Thornhill’s Centre Street Deli has ruled the GTA’s kosher scene for more than 20 years. The fantastically fatty smoked meat is served ever-so-authentically with a side of fluorescent lighting and kvetching senior citizens.
Like an imperial court inside a Richmond Hill plaza, Golden Court Abalone serves its loyal expat regulars authentic Chinese—whether it’s a lowly pork dumpling or abalone braised tableside—with a formality befitting royalty.
Reservations at Hashimoto must be made at least a week in advance so ingredients can be flown in to Mississauga from Japan. Screw the 100-mile diet: each painstakingly crafted dish on the kaiseki menu is a tiny, tasty work of art.
For years, Sushi Kaji has vied for the title of the GTA’s best Japanese food with its suburban brother, Hashimoto. The friendly competition keeps standards ridiculously high. Destination diners know to sit at the sushi bar to watch Mitsuhiro Kaji improvise stunning omakase menus.
Chowhounders and critics have been celebrating the arrival of authentic American barbecue since Sweetsmoke opened in Oakville in 2007. Clearly, this isn’t any old barbecue pit—co-owner Andrew Taylor was a chef in Chicago and Dallas, and his wife, Miriam Folkins, is a Cordon Bleu–trained pastry chef—but the proof is in the perfect pulled pork.
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Centre Street Deli isn't kosher and has never claimed to be. Really good sandwiches though. Get their Old Fashioned .. the way it was meant to be (full fat).
November 5, 2009 | by theel