INTERSTEER RESTAURANT: 361 Roncesvalles Avenue - (416) 588-8054

The menu at the Intersteer

When I first moved to the Roncesvalles area years ago, the Intersteer was this notorious bar/restaurant that was filled with smoke & booze stained tables and patrons.  It was loud, raucous, and always fun.  A few years ago the Intersteer decided to move a couple of shops south of its original location and basically recreated the exact same bar, minus the stains.  It reintroduced itself to the neighbourhood with new and glorious shinny wood, clean brass, but kept the same old patrons and jukebox.

The chef at the Intersteer was Bart Murawieki, a Susur Lee trained chef.  He has apparently moved on and been replaced by Mike Cross, an old sous chef from Rain.  To me this was the most intriguing part of the Intersteer.  It appeared to be a kind of seedy old Polish bar but, if you braved its harsh veneer, it would reward you with some truly amazing food.

So with this in mind I invited a couple of friends out for a bite at the Intersteer.  Everyone, meet Daniel Neuhaus and Vanessa Heins.  You'll really like em both!

Daniel Neuhaus and Vanessa Heins

Daniel Neuhaus is a wonderful photographer and the photo editor at Toronto Life Magazine.  We have been working together since pretty much his first day on the job.  Much like the Intersteer, Daniel is a man on contradictions.  You meet him and notice his very boyish face, his sweet calm demeanor, and his almost childlike exuberance for just about any subject that comes up in conversation.  Basically he reminds you of that nerdy kid from the band room in high school. However, if you get a chance to listen to some of his stories, you find out that, for fun, he sometimes drops himself in the middle of the Australian outback with nothing but some bananas and cashews just to see, you know, how it'll all turn out!  The guy blows my mind!

Photographer Vanessa Heins is a Ryerson alumni who's name seems to appear all over the place.  A favourite photographer amongst musicians and photo editors alike, she is an incredible talent who also seems to be completely devoid of any ego whatsoever.  She makes the most wonderful and subtle photographs that have an airy and effortless quality to them.  She's a doll!

Nacho pierogi

Ok on to the food.  We arrived!  The cute waitress told me repeatedly how good I smelled.  It got to the point where she almost hugged me.  So far soooooo good!

We started off with the most intriguing sounding dish on the menu, the "nacho pierogi" which are pierogi with "the works".  Both Daniel and Vanessa ordered the crispy chicken sandwich with avocado and Thai bail, Daniel got his with fries and Vanessa got hers with salad, and I ordered the pan-fried fish and chips.  The pierogi arrived first and they were great.  They were topped with cheddar cheese, jalapenos, tomatoes, peppers, sour cream, and guacamole.  Never did I ever think you could properly fuse together Polish and Mexican foods but the Intersteer has found a way.  They tasted pretty good.  I mean its the kind of a novelty dish that I enjoyed but probably wouldn't order again.  Kind of like every single dish at a "Poutinery".  Nevertheless we gobbled them up real quick.  Even Vanessa had a bite and she's lactose intolerant!  So speaks the power of the pierogi nachos.

Vanessa looking cute
with her chicken sandwich

Our meals arrived looking, well, Polish.  Which usually means unpretentious.  I appreciate that!  It speaks to my eastern European Jewish heritage.  Vanessa and Daniel chomped down on their sandwiches and were pretty unimpressed.  According to them there was nothing wrong with em.  They were perhaps little dry but really they were fine.  Flavours were ok but nothing particularly special.  Fries were kind standard.  So was the salad.  Not really something you would expect from a supposedly high-end pub kitchen.

My fish tasted good but I could see what Dan and Vanessa were saying.  The accompanying homemade tartar sauce was great but the fish itself wasn't particularly special.  Perhaps I was being unfairly influenced by Intersteer's reputation, or perhaps I was expecting too much, but really the fish was entirely average pub fare. 

My pan-fried fish and chips

As I continue into this blog I'm starting to realize that reputations and expectations are an inextricable power in the world of restaurant reviews.  Thinking about a restaurant as a completely blank slate without any pretensions is pretty much impossible.  And to be honest, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.  There's something to be said about singing the praises of a five dollar dinner served from the back of a truck and tearing to shreds a five hundred dollar dinner served in a chic Mark McEwan-esque boutique restaurant.  I'm sure the whole process would work out entirely different if every review I wrote was from a blind taste test.  But that's for another blog.

In the meantime, Intersteer you disappointed us.  I think I would go back but only for the drinks, the patrons, the jukebox, and the waitresses who say I smell really good, not for the food.

Rating:  2.5

STAMPEDE BISON GRILL: 5 Brock Avenue - (416) 534-4999

Aristea and Reena outside
Stampede Bison Grill

Anyone who knows me, or who regularly reads this blog, knows very well that I have a kryptonite-esque weakness for hamburgers.  When I was a kid, burgers took on almost mythic significance as the highest form of food.  Of course, as a kid, all I really wanted on my hamburger was ketchup so it may have been less about the burger itself and more of a condiment delivery system.

I still to this day remember the moment when I was at the hooker Harveys by Ryerson University and, responding to the woman behind the sneeze glass, saying a phrase that, to me, always represented the ultimate form of adulthood. 

"I'll have everything on it.  Well except hot peppers.  Oh fuck it, just a few hot peppers."

My bar mitzvah did nothing for me.  Losing my virginity was just downright awkward.  Earning my first pay cheque from Loeb grocery stores when I was fourteen was entirely anticlimactic.  That moment in the hooker Harvey's was the day I became a man.  Lucky for me it didn't also involve a hooker.

Fast forward many years and I find myself approaching Stampede Bison Grill with my good friends Aristea Rizakos and Reena Newman with the giddy exuberance of twelve year old girl at a shopping mall autograph signing.  I had heard mixed reviews about Stampede from various sources.  Elizabeth Brandt from Underline Studio once told me it was her neighbourhood weakness.  Like after a shitty day, Stampede Bison Grill makes it all better.  However my local hamburger expert Justin Broadbent, also one of the best designers in Canada, told me that it was very overrated and he wouldn't go back.  Finally I would know the truth for myself.  Hallelujah!

Our dinner guests Reena Newman and Aristea Rizakos

But first a word or two about our guests for the evening.  Aristea Rizakos is a brilliant interiors photographers, producer, incredibly gorgeous, and the reason I didn't starve when I was first out of school.  We met when she hired me to assist on photo shoots, even though I was a pretty terrible assistant, and kept me employed semi-regularly for a year.  She is also a big reason why I became a relatively successful photographer.  My very first advertising photo shoot was for Applied Arts Magazine with the ad agency Bos.  The shoot involved 3 executions, 3 locations, 40 extras, lots of permits, and 1 day.  She worked as my producer on that shoot and made it happen flawlessly.  If it wasn't for that shoot, I doubt I would be where I am today.

Food photographer Reena Newman and I also met on that shoot.  Aristea hired her as an assistant that day and we've been friends and colleagues ever since.  She has just finished putting together a ridiculously nice portfolio of food photography which is already attracting much attention.  She also might not notice but boys fall in love with her constantly.  She is addictively cute!  (Fyi, she is also married)

This is what we ordered...
and what we could have ordered.

So, along with these two sirens of the photo world, I enter the Stampede Bison Grill.  The atmosphere is fairly light and relaxed.  There is single seating along the perimeter of the joint with three or four 4-person tables in the middle.  It's pretty full when we arrive but we score a table in the middle of the room.  I order a bison burger with a side of sweet potato fries.  Reena orders a beef burger with a side of poutine.  We also decide to split the dark-rum chocolate milkshake which catches our interest.  Aristea orders the veggie burger and a side of onion rings. 

The food arrives promptly and its already looking promising.  The burgers are a good size and smothered nicely with fresh-looking toppings and condiments.  The poutine is topped with cheese curds the size of eyeballs and the onion rings and sweet potato fries look damn yummy too.  We each take a bite of our burgers at around the same time.  A hush comes over the room.  It takes a few seconds for our palates to negotiate the flavours and come to any decisions.  But when they do, its unanimous.

The Veggie Burger

MMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!  OH FUCK YEAH!!!!  That's awesome!!!!!!

These were very very very yummy burgers.  Lets start with mine.  Often bison burgers can come out dry because they aren't nearly as fatty as beef but this burger was moist and plump, it held together nicely, and was chock full of delicious gamy flavour.  Sure the condiments were dominating my palate, as is the case with any burger, but you could still taste a gaminess to the bison that just made me weak at the knees!

Reenas burger was just as delicious but she did say it was a little overcooked.  However she also said that she likes her beef as rare as possible and, since they probably aren't grinding up the beef right before it hits the grill, a rare burger might be ill-advised.  She later admitted that she likes eating things that are as close to being "still alive" as possible.  God love her!

Poutine, onion rings, and sweet potato fries

Aristeas order was the wildcard.  Often burger places will treat their veggie options as an annoying afterthought.  They will throw together a haphazard veggie burger recipe because they know its not their principal clientele.  It's basically on the menu to appease that one vegetarian who chagriningly goes along with the rest of the family to the burger joint.  But, according to Aristea it was freakin delicious!  It was moist, held together well, had a bit of a nutty flavour and a very hearty texture.  She said it was one of the best veggie burgers she had eaten in a very long while.

And now, to the sides.  The onion rings were perfect!  Seriously.  These were exactly as onion rings should be.  Anyone who regularly eats onion rings knows that a low-quality onion ring will crawl out of its deep-fried bready shell like a scalding hot earthworm if it isn't bitten down upon with the force of a guillotine.  These ones seemed to have partially melted into the breading and separated without any real force or conviction.  And they tasted delicious to boot.

Our dark-rum chocolate milkshake
(and proof to our spouses that
we used two straws)

The sweet potato fries were great however I thought they were a bit over-salted.  The girls disagreed.  Aristea and Reena described them as "highly addictive".

However the two big highlights of the night were the poutine and the dark-rum chocolate milkshake.  Sorry to dwell but the cheese curds in the poutine were just fucking huge.  And yes a lot of factors go into making a good poutine (the flavour of the gravy, the quality of the french fry, etc.),  but if you start out with huge cheese curds, you're already like 60% there!  Lucky for us the fries were great and the gravy was pretty good.  It wasn't the most flavourful gravy but still pretty good.  Perhaps we were just so focused on those cheese curds that it overshadowed the gravy.  Regardless, the poutine was fantastic.

The bison burger with cheese!

And the dark-rum chocolate milkshake was a revelation!  Sure it was expensive (like almost 8 bucks) but man was it tasty.  Reena and I were a bit nervous about this one but we were very happy to have followed our curiosities.  We were also glad that we split it because, had we not, we would have probably arrived home in a wheelbarrow. 

Ok, at this point I feel like I'm gushing!  Needless to say we were all relatively smitten with Stampede Bison Grill.  Go check it out friends!  And be sure to order the dark-rum milkshake.  Sure its an indulgence but c'mon, we only live once, right?

Rating:  4.25

PHOENIX RESTAURANT: 1345 Queen St West - (416) 532-2971

Outside the Phoenix Restaurant

Looking back now, I think it was the Phoenix Restaurant that inspired me to start this blog.  The exterior looked like a lot of other Parkdale restaurants, the sign read Chinese and Canadian Food (a piece of advice here:  any restaurant that advertises itself as "anything + Canadian food" is never a good sign, kinda like a video monitor menu at the door ..beware!) but it also had these charming cartoon drawings of whole fish and whole chicken.  To me this was the kind of restaurant that might be a hidden gem.  Something that looks like shit but tastes like heaven.  So I saved this place for some very special dinner guests.

The dinner guest theme of the evening is "the best people I met in 2010!"  Everyone!  Please meet Shelbie Vermette, Matthew Tammaro, and Andrew B. Myers.  A word about all three in a moment, but first if you've ever wondered what goes on during our Parkdale dinners, here's a bit of a taste...

I actually met Shelbie Vermette in 2009 when she was working as an interim photo editor at Report on Business Magazine and she assigned me the harrowing task of photographing Ron Joyce, the co-founder of Tim Hortons.  However then we only knew each others voice.  We finally met in person at an event I held at my studio in 2010 (I won't mention the event, I'd rather forget about it entirely).  She then did a brief stint as a photographers rep at Westside Studio and is now the photo editor at Eye Magazine.  She is the walking definition of wonderful.

Shelbie, Andrew, and Matt

Speaking of wonderful, our next guest is Matthew Tammaro.  Matt and I met last year when has asked about doing an internship with me during his final year as a photography student at Ryerson University.  At first I was a bit reluctant about taking on another intern but when I saw his work I immediately said yes.  It is, simply put, some of the best work I've seen in years.  Intelligent and beautifully crafted without being hokey, his work really grabs you by the face in the most gentle way possible, but still grabs you.  He also turned out to be the one of the sweetest guy I've ever met.  So that worked out well.

Speaking of some of the best work I've seen in years, meet Andrew B. Myers.  I was first introduced to his work through Heather Morton's much missed blog about a year ago.   His work made me want to kill myself.  Or at least abandon photography altogether and become a farmer.  It was unlike any work I had ever seen.  His work is amazingly mature, hilarious, and features the most beautiful colour palate of any Canadian photographer I've seen in a long time.  Before I met him I was convinced he was some kind of wizard or some horrible turtle-neck and blazer wearing asshole who used to be into The Tallest Man on Earth but now they're just too commercial.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Much like Matt and Shelbie he's an uber-talented humble sweetheart!  The best qualities to have in a friends and colleagues.

Our Won-Ton Soup

So enough about the guests, on to the dinner!  Like I said, The Phoenix Restaurant was actually the place that made me start this blog.  For some reason I found those drawings of whole fish and chickens in the window incredibly compelling.  I thought if any restaurant in Parkdale would be a hidden gem, this would be it.  Much like its name, the Phoenix Restaurant would rise from the ashes of crappy Parkdale food.

Yeah, not so much.

We arrived to a restaurant that was filled with what looked like reject tables from Spadina Avenue restaurants, a loud TV, and buzzing fluorescent light.  Matt arrived first and Shelbie and Andrew shortly after.  The menu was a bit confusing as it featured Chinese, South American, and Canadian food.  So we asked our waiter to recommend a few things.  By the way, our waiter was a 15 year old kid who turned out to be awesome but not particularly helpful.  He said that everything on the menu was good and if we came back on Monday we should try out their famous Oxtail Soup.  Apparently it takes 3 days to make and is only available on Monday and sometimes on Tuesdays.  I plan to return for a follow up lunch review.

Matt trying to eat his soup
in the sexiest way possible.

So in the end we decided to try a mix of foods.  Matt started out with a hot and sour soup.  Shelbie and I each ordered a won ton soup because we're awesome.  Andrew mooched off us all!

For our mains we ordered a plate of sweet and sour chicken balls, some pork spareribs in a garlic sauce, an arroz co pollo which is a chicken fried rice latin style, and a chalet de cerdo which is a breaded beef steak.  

The soups were great!  Hands down the best part of our meal.  Shelbie and I both appreciate a good won-ton soup and its exactly what we got.  Pipping hot and not too salty.  Matt also seemed to really enjoy his hot and sour soup.  So far so good.

sweet and sour chicken balls

The sweet and sour chicken balls were somewhat misleading.  It really should have been called deep fried sweet and sour breading with a pea sized piece of chicken buried somewhere deep within.  They were pretty horrible.  Even the sweet and sour sauce was kinda gross.  Too much sour and not enough sweet.  Normally when I go out for Chinese food, the sweet and sour stuff is always the first to go.  I believe this is the first time we had some sweet and sour leftovers.

I thought the pork spareribs in a garlic sauce was the worst dish of the meal although Andrew seemed to like it.  Maybe he was just hungry or we were tasting different things.  There was barely any meat on the ribs and the sauce just tasted like brown flavoured water, and the flavouring wasn't particularly good.

Chalet de cerdo (breaded steak)

We can skip arroz co pollo (latin style chicken friend rice) since it was basically no different than any other fried rice dish you've ever had at the Eaton Centre food court.  It was kinda dry, without much flavour, and we barely ate any of it.

The surprise of the night was the chalet de cerdo (the breaded steak dish).  When it arrived it looked kinda like a baseball glove sitting on bed of rice and not particularly appetizing.  Matt sprinkled some lemon juice on it and, surprisingly, it wasn't that bad.  Not great, but not bad at all.  It tasted a little bit like schnitzel and the lemon flavour really went well with the, well, meat and breading.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think I would order this again.  In fact I don't think I would go back to the Phoenix altogether (except to try the Oxtail Soup).  But this dish was probably the winner of the night.  However that's not saying much.

Andrew trying to eat
a chicken ball in the sexiest
possible way.

The night ended with some fortune cookies, a reasonable bill, and some drinks over at Mezrows down the street (The Phoenix doesn't have a liquor license...if you go bring a flask).  At the end of the night I asked our guests to rate their meal.  Matt gave it a 2.5, Shelbie the same, Andrew gave it a 3.  I thought they were all being a bit generous.  Perhaps they didn't want to give the impression that they had a bad time, which I know they didn't.  While the company was amazing, the 15 year old waiter was incredibly charming, and we had a great time, the food was very sub par.  It's  a shame too since I had such high hopes for this place.

Rating: 2