Harbourfront’s Hot & Spicy
This weekend’s Hot & Spicy Food Festival at Harbourfront promises to be one of the most explosive entertainment packages of the summer. Alongside an impressive lineup of multiculti music and dance artists – all free! – there’ll be even more fireworks in the food court. Familiar names Ed Pottinger of the Real Jerk – who also gives a cooking demo Sunday at 4:30 pm in the Brigantine Tent – and Luz Adriana and Antonio Rodriguez from mariachi-mad El Jacalito will be dishing out incendiary noshes. As well, a slew of hot sauce entrepreneurs with names like Volcanic Ass will be flogging their firewater in the Red Hot Market . Other pyrophilic highlights include the return of Amadou , the sadly defunct West African café that’ll be deep-frying its terrific colonial French beignets. And Monday at 3:30 pm on the Lakeside Terrace, Musa ‘s Amy Fleischman shows you how how to recreate her peppery sautéed Mediterranean-style dandelion greens sided with spice-detonated cigarette rolls stuffed with pine nuts. Friday to Monday (July 30 to August 2). 235 Queens Quay West. 416-973-4000, www.harbourfrontcentre.com Rating: NNNNN
Toronto’s love affair with all foods spicy lasts year round but really catches fire during Caribana. Here’s a sweltering survey of the hottest Caribbean Rim dishes in town and a sizzling guide to our most inflammatory restos.
After years of exhaustive research, I can now reveal the secret ingredient in jerk chicken – lighter fluid. For any restaurateur considering litigation, that’s a joke. Not that there’s anything funny about the long-running Real Jerk ‘s (709 Queen East, at Broadview, 416-463-6055 ) plump, quality bird that’s as mellow – if a bit dry – as the laid-back vibe of the JA party palace and consistent NOW Readers Poll winner.
There’s always a lengthy and hungry queue out the front door of St. Jamestown’s Mr. Jerk (209 Wellesley East, at Ontario, 416-961-8913, and others), a bare-bones take-away that delivers a powerfully seasoned product.
Located in the same storefront that once housed the legendary Pringles, low-key Jerk King (603 Oakwood, at Eglinton West, 416-785-4706) has big shoes to fill. His subtly jerked juicy legs and thighs deserve their own reputation. Don’t miss the sweet potato pudding!
Open till 5 am on weekends, Albert’s Real Jamaican Food (558 Queen West, at Bathurst, 416-304-0767, and others) is Toronto’s quintessential jerk shack. Moist and nicely spiced, though full of chopped-up bones, its chicken comes sided with rice and pigeon peas and several optional types of gravy – stew beef, curried chicken, goat or oxtail.
Nine-month-old Garvey’s (1104 Bloor West, at Dufferin, 416-538-1257) does its jerk differently than most. While the firepower is reduced, the birds – sold by the pound – are marvellously tender, sweet and especially delish when sided with light, springy cabbage ‘n’ carrot slaw and slender slices of corn on the cob.
Rap’s (1541 Eglinton West, at Oakwood, 416-256-4426) also arrives tepidly spiced but is quite possibly the most succulent fowl we test. The last time we worked the jerk, Port Henderson (10281/2 St Clair West, at Crang, 416-656-5704) was our runner-up. Since then, the owners have changed, but the slow-roasted jerk chicken remains the same. Although its intensity has been toned down somewhat, the chicken still inspires minor meltdowns.
After a year of renovation, Soul Food (582 Lansdowne, at Paton, 647-438-9730) – the winner of our last jerk session – has finally re-opened. The St. Lucian spot puts its own spin on chicken. Striking a balance between understated spice and kick-ass flavour, its nutty dry-rubbed birds get plated with buttery plantain, sweet, creamy slaw, a golf-ball-size doughnut and first-rate pigeon peas and rice. Bonus: two first-time patios. New on the menu: jerk tofu!
Winner: Garvey’s .
Roti roundup
When NOW rated them last summer, we only sampled boneless chicken roti. This year, we search for Toronto’s ultimate veggie version. Our previous champ, Gandhi (22 ounces, 554 Queen West, at Bathurst, 416-504-8155), offers a mixed veg roti – freshly cubed potato, wilted sweet onion and firm garden peas in thermonuclear tomato jalfrezi sauce – with tortilla-esque flour wraps made on the premises with a pizza press. Past runner-up Bacchus (25 ounces, 1376 Queen West, at Brock, 416-532-8191) has the most variations – potato, chickpea, spinach, squash, green beans and ‘shrooms plus submarine-style lettuce, onion and tomato. It also has the oddest – cheese?!
Now down to one location, Vena’s (24 ounces, 1263 Bloor West, at Lansdowne, 416-532-3665) builds a substantial roti overstuffed with soft butternut squash, fresh chickpeas and limp spinach that shifts into overdrive after a splash of very thin but very deadly hot sauce.
The downtown Vena’s has morphed into A&S Roti (21 ounces, 646 Queen West, at Palmerston, 416-504-8159), but other than the name change its vegetarian roti is exactly the same as before. (Former customers will be relieved to learn that the stoner mural of a drunk Daffy Duck beating Mickey Mouse with a beer bottle while a reefer-toking Tweetie Bird watches also remains.)
Going by the incredulous expression on the counter person at Roti King (20 ounces, 1688 Eglinton West, at Glenholme, 416-781-8432), until I tried to order it last week no one has ever ordered the curried duck roti. Instead, I opt for the sports bar’s basic potato and chickpea combo, a fairly mundane rendition that gets extra points for its crumbly chickpea dahlpouri shell.
Winner : Vena/A&S (six bucks including tax).
I yam what I yam
Though the daily press breathlessly reports Renée Zellweger has been spotted nibbling on them at chi-chi Xacutti, we’ve been noshing on Caribbean sweet potato frites for ages. Seven years ago, when Universal Grill (1071 Shaw, at Dupont, 416-588-5928) put out fresh-cut yam fries coupled with its baby back ribs, it wasn’t trying to attract visiting celebs. And you won’t find any slumming A-listers at Island Thyme (872 Bathurst, at London, 416-538-9729), the intimate Annex spot whose Marcia Canby is to the sweet potato frite what Jamie Kennedy and David Chrystian are to deep-fried spuds.
Late-night rockers nosh on the sweet frites at Shanghai Cowgirl (538 Queen West, at Bathurst, 416-203-6623) in between swigs of Jagermeister. More wholesome sorts dig the pricey sweet potato fries at Fresh by Juice for Life (521 Bloor West, at Albany, 416-531-2635, and others) despite the juice bar’s acrid hot sauce and weird watery peanut sauce option.
Winner : Island Thyme.
