MITZI'S SISTER: 1554 Queen Street West - (416) 532-2570

Jess in front!  Smokers in the back.

I know, I know.  It's Mitzi's Sister.  Did I really start a blog so I could be writing a review of a very popular place to eat, drink, see music, etc.  Not really.  I started this blog to try out the places I would never go on my own.  But please, let me explain….

Ok.  So my best friend Tristen (AKA Papercrown) just got a job in Washington D.C. as a web developer at this legendary company called Development Seed.  I was feeling sad and nostalgic and I offered to drive him to DC.  He told me he didn't have much stuff, which he didn't, but I forgot to take into account that I had a really small car.  So we spent about three hours in the freezing cold trying to stuff my Subaru Impreza hatchback with more stuff than it could handle.  I was getting stressssssed!  I imagined having to drive 11 hours with no back or side windows.  I mean the fucking car has enough of a blind spot but now I was gonna have to drive 11 hours with the whole thing as one big blind spot!  And understandable, Tristen was getting stressed which was transferring over to me very quickly.

I finally got home at around 8:30pm to the warm hugs of my fiance Jess.  There was nothing to eat in the house so we decided to go out for a bite.  She looked at me in that "I know you're stressed and I'm going to make sure you get anything and everything you want" kind of way and asked "What do you want to eat?  We can go anywhere you want!  Anywhere at all".

My Beautiful Burger

Without missing a step. 

BURGER!

Oh the burger!  That wonderful glorious meat sandwich that always shows up just when you most need it.  Its kind of like a GST cheque in that way.  What is it about a burger that just transports you back to a time when you didn't have to drive a Subaru Blindspot 11 hours to Washington with a stressed out best friend.  Oh god, bless you Burger!  You never seem to let me down.  Your warmth, your slightly offbeat humour (aka: mustard and pickles!), I will always love you.  And I seriously mean that.  Burger, if you ever ordered me to sacrifice my first-born son, I probably wouldn't do it but I would give it some solid consideration.

"Let's go to Mitzi's Sister.  It's really close and I'm feeling like a burger."

"Ok!  You got it."

Mitzi's Sister is a always wonderful place for dinner.  It's especially wonderful when there isn't a band playing and you can actually have a conversation.  Well...it's sometimes wonderful with a band playing but the acts that play are really hit and miss.  We had been here many times before for drinks, nachos, and wings - all of which are great.  However this is the first time we went for a meal meal, not just a finger foods meal.

So I ordered the burger.  ;)  Cheeseburger to be exact.  I got it with fries and a coke.  Jess ordered the chicken tacos with a house salad. 

Jess' Chicken Tacos

My burger came with a mix of sweet potato and regular fries which I didn't ask for but was a welcome surprise!  On my burger was some melted cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, ketchup, mustard, relish, and LOVE with a capital L-O-V-E!!!  Maybe it was all the labour, the cold air, the stress, the annoyance, my still frozen hands, but whatever it was I seriously haven't stopped thinking about that burger.  I'm pretty sure if I went there under normal circumstances it wouldn't be as great as it was at that moment, but man what a beautiful fucking moment.  Every bite was better than the last.  Same with the fries!!!  Ok, I'm getting too excited here.

Jess also loved her Chicken tacos and the salad.  Hers came dressed with mango, onions, and red pepper with guacamole on the side and the salad was dressed in a slightly sweet vinaigrette.  I tried a few bites and liked it but, I'm sorry to say, I was still knee deep in burger country.  It's hard to wrap you palate around anything else when your still have residual mustard hangin' around, if you know what I mean.  But regardless of what I thought, Jess loved it and finished off her whole plate with little help from me.

So whats the lesson from this.  Restaurants are not just about the food you eat but the circumstance of your visit.  Has it been a good day, a stressful day, a busy day, and slow-ass day?  Is it raining?  Snowing?  Did you just get in a fight with someone?  Did you just watch Gaspar Noe's new movie Enter The Void? (you should, its great)  Because all these things inform and subsequently transform your dinner.  Just like in comedy, timing is everything.  And sometimes there is no substitute for food that feels like the hug from an overweight French Canadian woman (you should also see Léolo, its really great).

Rating:  4

MOTHER INDIA: 1456 Queen Street West - (416) 588-4634

Ok I admit it.  Starting a food blog around the holidays might have seemed like a great idea at the time but jeez, after all of my future mother/father-in-law's wonderful cooking, I probably didn't need to eat for another month.  Nevertheless, faithful readers, Jess used her pryin' bar and managed to roll me out of my obesity hammock so I can bring you yet another completely unqualified restaurant review in Parkdale.  This one I was excited about too.  Mother India restaurant!!!

James Kachan - Dinner guest

For this outing I was joined by the bastard love child of Cameron Diaz and Julien Assange, the wonderful photographer James Kachan.  James and I have known each other since the Ryerson days.  He also moved into my ever-missed Kensington apartment right after I left.  An excellent model, ridiculously good looking, and, most of all, a brilliant photog, he is unfortunately, a......a............a....................vegetarian.  There!  I said it!  Please don't judge me, or him.  K?

So we arrived on a cold winter's night.  I was pretty hungry, James only a little bit.  The decor of the place was pretty sparse.  A takeout counter at the front of the restaurant with some generic tables near the back.  I got the impression from the decor and lack of background music that they would prefer you order take out but we ventured on.  We were greeted by a lovely waitress who immediately brought us a caraffe of water and, what we both thought was a revelation, stainless steel water glasses.  I think we must have discussed it for three minutes.

The water glasses

For our appetizers we split a vegetarian samosa and a pakora.  Both were....well....kinda shitty.  I mean we ate the whole thing because the sauce was lovely.  Unfortunately though, both of them tasted pretty dry and reheated.  And worst of all, not reheated enough.  Things were not looking good for Mother India at this point.

However that all changed with the entrees!  As per the rules of this blog, we asked the waitress to recommend what the restaurant did best.  For James, he got a saag paneer roti which is filled with potatoes, spinach, and cheese.  For me, the waitress brought a butter chicken roti which was a little disappointing at first because I usually think of butter chicken as the Indian food dish for people who don't really like Indian food.

James' Saag Paneer roti

To our surprise, they were both fucking lovely!  The naan bread seemed fresh and with just the right amount of crisp.  James' saag paneer roti was pipping hot and full of flavour.  And fairly complex flavour too.  Not something you would expect for such an inexpensive price (around 7 bucks a roti).  My butter chicken roti was also delicious.  The flavours weren't nearly as interesting as James' dish but they were sweet and buttery and  I ate all I could until my belly was full and I wish I could have finished the whole thing.  James said this was a really telling point and I promised to include it in the blog.  James must have had better belly than mine because even though he wasn't as hungry as me, he finished off his whole plate.

Vegetarian Pakora

We asked for a desert recommendation and they suggested a gulab jamun.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it never came.  The waitress came over and said that their batch wasn't looking particularly good and they didn't want to serve it to us.  So from there we just got the bill and spent the rest of the time discussing Wikileaks and the movie Knight and Day.

So all in all, this was a pretty good experience.  A completely unpretentious meal and really warmed us both up and didn't kill our wallets.  I think the total came to around $28 after tax and tip.  Jess has suggested I add a rating system to this blog which at first I resisted but then thought, why not?  There will be five ratings which will be mentioned at the end of each posting....

1. Avoid at all costs
2. I would not return
3. I would return
4. I would return and bring friends and/or my picky mother and/or my foodie Aunt Jenny
5. I will most likely lie awake at night fantasizing about that food much to the chagrin of my fiance.

I have eaten at many Indian restaurants however I admit that I haven't had too much experience with Indian rotis.  This one hits the middle. However that might change once I try out the other roti places in the neighbourhood.  Who's up for Ali's Roti in February???


UPDATE:  I went back again and decided this place needed a higher rating!  Its effing delicious!!!


Rating: 4