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Food Food & Drink

Crank the heat and veg out

ONE LOVE VEGETARIAN (854 Bathurst, at London, 416-535-5683) Complete dinners for $20 per person (lunches $15), including all taxes, tip and a freshly squeezed juice. Average main $10. Open Tuesday to Friday 11 am to 9 pm, Saturday 11 am to 6 pm. Closed Saturday (August 1), Sundays, Mondays, holidays. Unlicensed. Rating: NNN


Ikeila Wright and her husband, Iville Wright, are used to lineups.

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Every summer for the past 10 years, the couple have ladled out their signature vegan corn soup to thousands at Harbourfront (they’ll be there this weekend Saturday through Monday for Island Soul) who’ve patiently waited in line for up to 20 minutes in the blazing heat for a bowl of spicy sunshine. More than once, someone thought it must be something a little stronger.

“A cop asked us, ‘Straight up, be real with me. What are you selling?'” laughs Ikeila Wright. “He said nobody lines up in 30°C weather for soup!”

They’re already forming queues at the all-vegan café she opened in the Annex in June. Just across from the Bathurst subway station’s streetcar loop, and formerly home to Joyce’s, Toronto’s first Jamaican provisioner, the historic room’s still not quite ready.

We could mention that the AC has yet to be connected and that the fan alleviating the situation is so loud that you can’t hear what anyone’s saying, let alone the tinny reggae boom-box perched on a counter, and that the restaurant’s signage is waiting to be hung. Soon come, as they say – but we won’t. Instead, we’ll focus on some of the tastiest Caribbean cooking in town.

Yes, the corn soup’s ($3 small/$5 large) as spectacular as we remember, thick with Jamaican pumpkin and riddled with backyard garden peas. But it’s the Funky House Pizza ($5 slice) that’s the new star of the One Love road show. Topped with a stir-fry of sweet bell pepper, mushroom and fresh artichoke heart, this zesty ‘za comes built on a base of crusty whole wheat focaccia spread with house-made organic tomato sauce, basil pesto and scrambled tofu so cheesy you’d swear it was mozzarella.

Add a micro-dice of off-the-Scoville-scale Scotch bonnet peppers and induce meltdown.

Filigreed sheets of textured bean curd and buttery lima beans luxuriate in a mildly curried gravy and get plated extravagantly, like most mains, with sliced avocado, sweetly caramelized plantain, organic basmati rice ‘n’ lentils and a heap o’ salad and ripe tomato in sesame ginger vinaigrette ($10). Anywhere else, you’re lucky to get plain rice and canned kidney beans.

Roti are also a step above. Available in three different wrappers – paratha, dahl puri or whole wheat ($5/$8) – they arrive generously stuffed with either scratch-made curried chana and potato or nutty pumpkin purée. Both have a sly heat that sneaks up on you, so don’t automatically douse them in Pickapeppa sauce.

Bitter callaloo ($10) – Wright calls it “rapini’s Caribbean cousin” – comes tastily stewed with tomato in garlic, but sadly sided with leaden whole wheat dumplings as well as pasty yellow yam and boiled green banana, two starchy tubers too many in my book. I wash them away with a beet, carrot and coconut soy or rice milk smoothie inspired by Jimi Hendrix (Bold As Love, $5/$7) and old-school lemon-frosted vanilla muffins ($2).

“There was a time not too long ago when restaurants wouldn’t even mention vegetarian in their name because of the connotations of bland, boring tofu,” says Wright when asked what sets One Love apart from the competition. “We love to play with tradition, but with an interesting twist.”

stevend@nowtoronto.com

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