Toronto - Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar - St. Lawrence Market - etc

after a visit to buffalo/niagara falls, we made a short trip to Toronto... it was a bit unexpected, but turned into a great culinary adventure..

upon arriving we quickly took a gander on google for a good place to get poutine (not exactly the right neck of the woods, but plentiful there still).... and came across a reference to an upscale restaurant called Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar (JKWB)...

it just happened to be around the corner from our hotel, so we ended up there first meal. and what a meal it was!

some pre-knowledge: Jamie Kennedy is apparently a bit of a celebrity chef... not TV celebrity, but maybe he is to Toronto/Canada what Achatz is here. he has two places, this was his original at 9 Church Street. The wine bar is meant to be more casual, yet it's still pretty upscale. the menu isn't exactly tapas, but many items were very shareable intentionally (portions were pretty large). it's my understanding that attached is a restaurant with a more extravagant and even more upscale menu, though I *think* the entrance/storefront are the same and it fits under the same name of the wine bar? his other location is in the Gardiner museum. http://www.jamiekennedy.ca/v3/restaurants.html has all the details ... as it turns out the place is pretty well known, and despite being listed in a few of the touristy brochure type things I picked up, it didn't feel touristy at all. it seemed like all locals eating..

the space is clean and modern, but not stuffy.... "smart casual" type atmosphere... the outside block is very unassuming... one of those places you'll walk by twice before going back to re-read the street numbers to figure out which storefront it's in.

inside it was bustling with people having long late lunches... we were given a choice of where to sit... two bars... a regular wine bar then ... what's this? a chef's bar?? without hesitation that's where i wanted to sit...



http://flickr.com/photos/danebrian/2322030986/

...the menu was about two pages but had a lot of choices... not expensive at all. a lot of locally grown sustainable type food.

given we ended up here for the gourmet poutine (which apparently changes often, perhaps even daily), we had to try that... today it was a poutine with a braised beef on top (and there was actually some sort of other sauce too but I can't recall). it was amazing... the braised beef was wonderful and flavorful... it was obviously not the hormone induced beef found elsewhere, it actually tasted gamey but in a wonderful sort of way... and even without the gourmet spin on it, I think served as a regular poutine it would've been the best I've had..

for entrees... I had a duck confit with a sweet potato puree. I really need to find the menu to remember all of the other details!

SO had a grilled octopus, which was perfectly cooked... served with spanish chorizo and some vegetable i don't recall

for dessert we shared a chewy macadamia nut brownie... which was good of course.

all in all it was one of the better meals I've had anywhere.

sitting at the chef's bar (or whatever they call it) was a totally great experience. the place was busy but not so busy you couldn't chat it up with the sous chef (shown in the picture)... the exec chef Tobey Nemeth was also in the kitchen... we were a little later in the afternoon so we took advantage of the situation and picked his mind of where to eat, etc... he also was trying out a new recipe and told us what he was doing, what was in it, etc. (a vinegarette made of sherry vinegar, carmelized garlic... poured over roasted fennel and garlic chives... or something close to that. he let us sample some... simple, but good) ...

the wine menu offered 3 oz. 6 oz. 500 ml or 750 ml on all wines and the prices were very reasonable, even on the 1/2 glasses... (actually, some of the 1/2 glasses were slightly cheaper than full glasses in a few cases? can anyone explain this? we went to a number of places where when you did the math out, the smaller quantity worked out to be slightly cheaper than the larger???). The 1/2 glasses were basically what many restaurants would consider a full glass anyway, and were perfect for the food portion sizes. The wine menu changes often apparently... Among the choices and recommendations were Peninsula Ridge, a winery and praised restaurant a local chef friend of mine once was the sous chef at.

wine menu: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danebrian/ ... otostream/

our bill for a 2-3 hour lunch came out to be about $130. (most of the entreeish items were $10-13 CAD --which is on par w/ the USD right now--so it felt like a good deal for what it was). Somewhere I have the actual menu--I'll scan and post it. Here is a copy of the menu they have on their site, which is fairly similar.. http://www.jamiekennedy.ca/PDFs/WBmenu.pdf

for food recommendations, he recommended Bario as a place serving upscale but casualesque revolutionary food (he mentioned the chef was also a friend of his)... and Angkor for ethnic...

we took him up on the recommendation of Bario.. .it was a trolley ride away, so it was good to get out of the norm.

as far as the food... to me it was good but not refined enough. perhaps too trendy. i had a "surf and turf" which was a way-too-spicy crab cake (inedible spicy almost) on one side, and pork belly... it was good, but not great. the SO's dish...on the other hand was what made you realize why it was recommended.

Quail Schnitzel, with a fried quail egg on top... over a bed of.... Oh I don't know. I tried some and it was indeed pretty fantastic.



(sorry dark pictures, but I find flash photography in a restaurant extremely tacky and annoying)

the chef sent out complimentary desserts, having gabbed it up and mentioned we were sent here by his friend at JKWB. it was a burnt carmel grape with a peanut butter mousse.... tasted just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. pretty good stuff.

for what it was, the food was reasonably priced... the place was a lot of empty tables though, and I don't think it had much to do with the food. the service outright sucked.

we spent a great deal of time at the St. Lawrence Market which was also just a block away from our hotel.... one of the better indoor markets I've been to (and highly ranked by others as such).

Highlights included:
-Peamill Bacon sandwich ...(a touristy must do, apparently... there was a big sign /letter from Emeril who had visited... and after we sat down with a food along came the Discovery Channel with a camera crew in front of the place). the server recommended the fresh horseradish as a topping that would wake you up... (HP sauce on the side) ... as touristy as it was, it was indeed pretty great...



in the downstairs we also had a fresh crepe that we just kind of made up what we wanted in it... peanut butter, banana, maple syrup... sounds canadian enough ehh...



other wares sampled were fresh oysters... we walked out with a lot of mustard... a honey kiosk where the guy insisted we sample at least 50 or so different honeys (ended up walking away with Tasmanian Leatherwood honey, he insists it is the best anywhere).. a great salt shop... and all the usual market stuff of course. there was a rice shop that had more rices I've ever seen... got a few obscure ones.

veal eggplant parmigiana from a downstairs shop in the market..


it was about as expected... but fulfilling. (and a lot better than any parm-ish sandwich I've had at Ricobene's or anywhere else in Chicago)


...some really not great poutine from a different downstairs shop in the market..


...we decided to skip Angkor (which was some flavor of Asian cooking) and get Indian instead... (as we passed by Angkor it looks like they were closed for the night anyway). went to a place called the Lahore Tikka House in the middle of the Indian village. apparently the food was "Halal Pakistani" cuisine..

it was quite an obscure treat... the place was pretty busy... it appears that it was actually made up of a front area with a register, a hallway that went down the middle of two trailers. each trailer had plastic chairs/tables. you sat down, looked at the menu, then went back to the register to order. (or the more experienced probably just order then sit down?). we were the only white people, which was a good sign I suppose. despite being in the Indian area, it felt pretty far off the beaten path.

for food we ordered some samosas (good, pretty standard), a chick pea dish that they highly recommended Chana Masala. It was great. a few kabab (beef and lamb) that were excellent.. and butter chicken. again, excellent. a friendly guy walked around offering roasted chili peppers off of a stick, I felt obligated to try one and wowsa regretted that!




...driving back in the blizzard saturday was fun... it usually takes 8-9 hours... it took about 12 or so, which actually seems good given that we were going about 25-30mph the majority of the route in canada... (the OPP actually shut down the highway after awhile and we had to take back roads)

dddane wrote:went to a place called the Lahore Tikka House in the middle of the Indian village. apparently the food was "Halal Pakistani" cuisine..

it was quite an obscure treat... the place was pretty busy... it appears that it was actually made up of a front area with a register, a hallway that went down the middle of two trailers. each trailer had plastic chairs/tables. you sat down, looked at the menu, then went back to the register to order. (or the more experienced probably just order then sit down?). we were the only white people, which was a good sign I suppose. despite being in the Indian area, it felt pretty far off the beaten path.

for food we ordered some samosas (good, pretty standard), a chick pea dish that they highly recommended Chana Masala. It was great.

If you enjoyed that, you might try one of the many Chicago halal Pakistani/Indian kebab joints written up here, including, for example, Khan on Devon, Zaiqa on Orleans etc.

Lahore Tikka House has been around for a long time, and has been a Gerrard street favourite, though I believe they are not quite up to the same standards they used to be. At one point they were successful enough to open up at least one other outpost in another burb, which I believe has since closed. I haven't been there in ages, but I do have fond memories.

JeffB -- good point, count me as a big fan of Chicago's Pakistani food, though I will say the Greater Toronto Area rivals Chicago in this game.

dddane -- nice report, glad you enjoyed my town.

The Montreal High Lights Festival every year has a dozen chefs in from somewhere in the world to put on a several-night show. This year's Festival featured—for the very first time—chefs from Toronto. And both the Anglo- and Francophone communities were extremely impressed. An entente cordiale has been declared between the two cities as a result.

Jamie Kennedy was THE hit of the show. So while ddane was in TO, Jamie was over here, cooking up a storm.

Here's the Anglophone review, from the Montreal Gazette:

http://tinyurl.com/2dygbc

Geo

yah i had heard that about the lahore tikka possibly being not as great as it once was.. but it was still pretty great, and better than anything like it i've had here...

)

...geo that was a great article and very insightful on montreal vs toronto!

can anyone else think of any other restaurants (here or elsewhere really...) where it's kind of upscale and you can just walk in and sit at a chef's type table (or in this case, a chef's bar where you actually can talk /watch without anyone walking towards the other?)... i know there are "chef's tables" at a lot of high end restaurants but these usually are pretty exclusive/reserved, and at tables not bars (?).. it was a great experience, would love to find other places that did something similar.

On a quick trip to Toronto last week I ended up at Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar. It was a fantastic experience. I was dining by myself so it was nice to be served smaller plates; allowing me to try more things on the menu.

The space and the approach to the food reminded me of Avec in good and bad ways:

1. Decor was heavy on the wood and wine bottles.
2. Seating, at the bar at least, was uncomfortable.
3. Wine selection was good and fairly priced.
4. Food was sourced locally, and everything on the menu was something that, in theory, I could make at home; however, I could never accomplish this level of execution.
*Note-the style of cooking is nothing like Avec as I am sure you will note.

I started with the Charcuterie plate: Pate, Pork Rilletes, and two types of Terrine Apricot and something else that I could neither catch from the food runner or taste.

The consistency of the pate was fantastic, but I felt it could use a little more umph. As you can probably guess from not being able to tell what the second terrine was, I was not overly impressed. Don't misunderstand it was good, but not excellent. The Rilletes...fantastic; porky, salty, meaty; very good. In fairness to JK, I compare all charcuterie to Mado and that is a standard that almost no one could live up to.

Next I had the hot smoked Whitefish on a fennel salad.

I cannot tell you how much I loved this fish. It was smoky but still super moist. The little bit of creme fraiche and the scallions made the Jewish boy in me wish for a bagel. The fennel salad was just enough to pick the palette back up. Beautiful.

Pork Belly with Sauteed Vegetables.

Another great dish. Crispy, fatty pork belly. Great fresh local vegetables. Simplicity and perfection. I was stuffed and shouldn't have finished but I did.

Lemon Tart with fresh blueberries and apricots.

This was my least favorite dish of the night. Consistency of the tart and the filling was great but the flavor, or flavour as they say in Canada, just wasn't quite there. The fruit, especially the apricots were fresh and fantastic, but I don't know where you get local apricots from in Ontario.

I wanted to try the Poutine, it had a lamb ragu on it this trip, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to eat anything else. My only complaint about this restaurant is that the menu lacked anything even remotely vegetarian. Don't get me wrong, I obviously love meat but I felt like a little salad with some of the local produce that they are so proud of sourcing would have been nice.