Tag Archives: cocktails

Halibut Gone Wild @ Ration!!!

Queen Street West has gotten a lot fancier since back in the day…but for all the big chain stores around, you still can’t really find many decent places to eat. So when they opened Ration at the Beverly Hotel over a year ago, it really gave the area a big boost. The place is all about sustainability, making sure they use all their ingredients — they even put duck in the dessert, bro!!!!

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We’re starting off with a couple duck croquettes. These duck balls are hot and meaty — but I kinda wish there was more than two of them…

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On the other hand, the beef tartare is a pretty decent portion. Dry aged for 60 days, it’s got a nice chew and goes great with their soft miso bread.

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But now it’s time for the main event. The wild halibut comes in 3 or 6 oz portions — the 6 oz means you get two pieces of fish for the price of two. Fish is nice and flaky, with a good char on the outside…but the mussels on the side is what makes it!!!

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Now, this place doesn’t have any beer at all, so I ended up drinking a few cocktails instead. C’mon, you KNOW I wasn’t gonna stick with water, bro!!!!

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Brain Fog combines tequila, lime, pear, white wine and a “white chocolate fat washed pisco” for a drink that’s very citrusy.

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Wanna Tonka Bout It is their take on a special coffee, with rum, green chartreuse, tonka beans, bananas and espresso. All I really taste is the coffee, though…

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Make It Sexy gets down on it with crème de cassis, lemon, rosemary and soda water. It’s kinda like a soft drink gone wild!!!

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For dessert, they’re serving up a dark chocolate tart with butterscotch foie gras, Saskatoon berry sauce and ice cream with honey and smoked hay. The ice cream melts right away, and I wouldn’t know there was duck in this dessert if you didn’t tell me… But it was a nice, little tasty treat.

Chinatown meets Flavourtown at this funky Asian tapas joint!!!!

Now, we’re no strangers to R&D, this Asian fusion joint that’s been bringing some upscale funk to downtown Chinatown. But now there’s this new funky joint up the street that might be giving them a run for their renminbi — this is Bitter Melon, bro!

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We’re starting off with a glass of Lee Ho Fook, a drink named after my favourite place to get a big dish of beef chow mein, Bro-ren Zevon! This crafty cocktail contains El Gobernador, baiju, lychee and yogurt soda(!), filled with ice and topped with a lime leaf. Tart and tangy, but quite refreshing.

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You can’t actually get chow mein here, but they do stuff some beef in these potstickers, along with water chestnuts. Dude, that’s chest-nuts!!!!

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For relaxing times, they’re making this Shennong Old Fashioned with Suntory whisky, cane sugar and jasmine tea. And one big-ass ice cube, apparently. This drink can lip my stockings any time, bro!!!!

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One of the signature dishes at this place is baby octopus, which comes on a bed of bitter melon. These succulent little sea monsters taste even better with a great big dab of that yuzu donkey sauce, son!!!!

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Also sold separately is this chewy pork belly, with a nice little slaw-sa of pineapple, jalapeno and cilantro. Pig sooooooey!

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Who needs a lazy Susan when you’ve got a Lay Zi Fizz, son? This sweet young thing has rum, jackfruit, lemon and seltzer, topped with a coconut yuzu foam. Dude, that’s coco-nuts!!!!

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Of course, every good Asian fusion joint has some kind of chicken wings, and this place is no exception. These wings are tossed in Maggi sauce, with garlic powder and black pepper, and topped with sesame seeds. It’s kinda like honey garlic wings, without the honey. Good thing I saved these till the end…

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Of course, we’re not eating wings with a rum and jackfruit cocktail — this is Triple B, after all. So I’m glad they’ve got Collective Arts Life in the Clouds on tap, which is my second favourite light IPA. (Blood Light FTW!) A couple more of these and I might not need dessert…

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But you KNOW I’ve always got room for a Korean corn dog, bro! This good boy is equal parts cheese and Taiwanese sausage, smothered in honey mustard and hot sauce. Can I get like four more to go????

MUCH MORE MUNICH: Drunken Cow goes moo, moo, moo all the way down my piehole, bro!!!!

Now, Munich might be known more for leberkäse than burgers, but when I heard there was this funky burger and cocktail joint called Drunken Cow, within stumbling distance of the Alte Pinkakothek art gallery, you KNOW I had to check it out, bro!!!!

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They’ve got like 3 pages of burgers on the menu, so it’s pretty hard to choose. But I went with the Italian Burger, topped with mozzarella, prosciutto, pesto, zucchini, arugula (which they call “rocket” around here, haha), balsamic vinegar and their house DC sauce. Mamma Mia!!!

So, first of all, that burger patty is phenomenal. It tastes more like a backyard burger, thick, juicy and cooked to a nice medium rare. From there it’s a matter of substitution — the zucchini replaces pickles and adds an extra kick, while unfortunately the prosciutto isn’t as good as bacon, and kinda gets lost in the mix. But man, it’s all about the beef here, and this beef is TheBomb.de!!!

Seriously, if this ain’t the best burger joint in Munich, I would LOVE to try any place that does it better, bro!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I would normally have a beer with my burger, but this place doesn’t have pints or litres, cuz they’re more of a cocktail bar… which I think is quite unusual around these parts. So I decided to go with a Munich Mule, with gin, mint, and homemade ginger beer, which definitely gives it a bit of a kick. No copper mug here, but there’s a nice, sour flavour, with a hint of cucumber, and the gin is local, too, so I’m not complaining…

Chased that with a Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, a rum-forward tropical drink that goes great with all the reggae on their playlist. Yeah, we be jammin!!!

Drinks and small bites with a view @ Writers Room

Although we’ve had a couple false starts along the way, it looks like it’s finally rooftop patio season in Toronto, bro! We’re hanging out at the Writers Room Bar, on the 17th floor of the Park Hyatt, where they’re serving up cocktails inspired by Canadian writers — like the Wordsmith, which has a quote from Mordecai Richler beneath it on the menu:

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This drink mixes dark rum with sweet vermouth and bitters, for a little extra kick at the end. It also feels a little strong — especially when you’re drinking on an empty stomach. 😉

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Speaking of which, these fried maitake mushrooms are some nice little bites, with a sweet chili honey and a side of ranch. Definitely in my top five deep-fried mushroom dishes, bro!!!!

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Their Mini Park Burger totally lives up to its name. It’s really just a slider (and a $19 slider at that). Still, it’s pretty tasty, with some onion jam on the bottom and gouda cheese on top…I just wish there was more of it to go around.

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If you’re looking for something bigger, their Korean fried chicken comes with lettuce wraps, a little bit of kimchi cauliflower and a little bit of donkey sauce and peanut sauce. I’m not sure you actually get more deep-fried nuggets here than you do with an order of maitake mushrooms…but hey, it does come with lettuce, so there’s that.

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Now, I wouldn’t normally order a beer at a cocktail bar…but when they told me about this off-menu, in-house special, you KNOW I had to try it! Their Kabosu IPA is brewed exclusively for the hotel by Folly Brewpub (which we already know is too legit to quit), and it mixes in some Japanese citrus fruit for a taste that’s both hoppy and sour. I think I’ll skip the Margaret Atwood absinthe/cognac cocktail and have another one of these instead… 😛

CHITOWN CHOWDOWN: This 1920’s speakeasy is legit hidden behind a bookshelf in a basement…

Now, the whole idea of a speakeasy started in Chicago during Prohibition, so when I heard that The Drifter was an an actual 1920’s style speakeasy in the basement of a neighborhood pub, you KNOW I had to check it out, bro!

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To be honest, I think I was expecting a bit more of a throwback — it kinda seems like a run-of-the-mill hipster bar, albeit one hidden behind a bookcase in true speakeasy style, with a battered wooden bar and an alt rock soundtrack. And I dunno if their cocktails are really true to the 20s — but printing them on tarot cards is kind of a quirky touch.

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Sun’s Out Guns Out has a nice little kick from the ginger beer, and just a touch of spice, leaving a fiery aftertaste. Not sure I taste the bourbon here, though — I guess it really blends in.

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Bye, Felicia is garnished with a pineapple, and you can really taste it in the drink as well. Fruity, citrusy with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

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Sherry Berry Cobler is very tart, with raspberry, lemon and grand marnier. The aftertaste is like something you’d put in a pie and bake it, bro!!!!

Put the absinthe in the coconut, and drink ’em both up, bro!!!!

Now, we don’t usually go to cocktail bars on Triple B. I mean, the name of this blog is NOT Burgers, Bacon and Bourbon…although that would still be a pretty sweet blog, bro. But man, I dunno how many times I have stumbled past BarChef on Queen West in one of my drunken stupors, so I figured it was time to finally go inside and check it out. And let’s just say you do not go here to order a beer…

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Instead, we’re kicking off this shindig with a Coconut & Absinthe Sour. They say it’s a pina colada meets the green fairy, and while I wouldn’t mind getting caught in the rain with a few of these, it tasted more like pineapple than absinthe to me. I’m also pretty sure I didn’t start hallucinating afterwards — so they couldn’t have put too much absinthe in there, could they?

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Up next, we’ve got the Charred Strawberry, with strawberry gin, scotchy scotch scotch, four kinds of bitters, two kinds of Marachinos and some charred caramelized strawberries blended in there somewhere. Although it comes in a manly rocks glass, this drink was quite fruity — you can get Girl Drink Drunk in style with this one, son!!!!

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And now we’re got a BarChef classic, the Four Seven Two, named after the place’s address (472 Queen St West). This one takes a bourbon & coke — or rather, cola bitters — and mixes it with lime and mint for a little bit of mojito and mint julep, all rolled into one! This concoction has gotta be the most crushable of the three — and at $17, it’s also the least expensive. (Hey, their signature Vanilla & Hickory Smoked Manhattan will set ya back 55 bucks… although it does come in a smokey dome, so there’s that.)

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Of course, we ain’t crushing cocktails on an empty stomach, bro! These beef barbacoa tostadas put the small in small plates — but you do get a lotta meat in every bite.

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We’re chasing that with some chicken karaage, or as they call it, Japanese fried chicken. These hot, tender, crunchy fried chickens really hit the spot — I could pound at least 12 of these, bro!!!!!

Mother, tell your burger not to walk my way…

Now, I don’t always drink cocktails, but when I heard about Mother, this funky little cocktail bar named after my second favourite Danzig song (Twist of Cain FTW, bro!), you KNOW I gotta check it out! And it turns out they’re serving up a signature brisket and short rib burger…so I think I’ll have one of those.

Now their Mother Burger isn’t all that big, but sometimes good things come in small packages…like Glenn Danzig. Burger is nice n juicy, with minimal toppings on a soft brioche bun, and you can really taste that the meat is a cut above. Whoa-oh, bro!!!!

I was somewhat disappointed that they were sold out of the Lost Craft Neapolitan Stout, so I had to settle for their Skyline IPA, which was not a bad consolation prize. This brut IPA is light and dry, just a little hoppy, and packs an unexpected punch at 6.2% — kinda like that guy who knocked out Danzig.

Of course, you can’t go to a cocktail bar and not order a cocktail… This here’s called Porcelain, and it’s got all kinds of crazy stuff like dry sake, jasmine baiju and Italian violet liqueur, for a nice, sweet, and totally not evil taste. It can bang heads with me any day, bro!!!!

Oh my god, Icelandic cod… at a Lebanese restaurant???

Now, I don’t always eat fish…but when I do, it’s gotta be something funky. So when I heard that Amal, this fancy new Lebanese joint on Bloor, was serving up Icelandic cod, I knew it had to be outta bounds, bro! I mean, Iceland is a long, long way from Lebanon, right?

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We are starting off with a couple dishes that are a little closer to home…and by home, I mean Lebanon. On the left, you’ve got Bastrema Rakakat, which is kind of a cross between a samosa and a Greek tiropita… basically it’s a flaky pastry stuffed with cheese, and then a bit of beef. I could pound at least five of these — oh wait, I just did!

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And then we’ve also got Amal’s Hummus, served warm with chunks of beef tenderloin, pomegranate and pine nuts. Dude, you could put that on a flip-flop and it would still taste good…but on top of a warm pita, it tastes even better!!!

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But now it’s time for the main event. This broiled fish filet is smothered in a cilantro tahini and topped with pine nuts, and then you’ve got some more pomegranate seeds on the side, along with these deep-fried pita chips that you won’t believe it’s not nachos, bro! Fish was flaky and fork tender, and the squeeze of lime added a nice little kick. Man, this has gotta be in the top five Icelandic cod dishes we’ve ever had on Triple B!!!

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Speaking of Triple B, the only beer they serve here is Stella Artois…which I didn’t know was Lebanese, either. So instead I went with a cocktail called Beirut Forever that tastes so much like a Negroni that I think they might have brought me the wrong drink. They’ve both got Campari, Arak and bitters, but instead of gin, this one mixes in cognac, chartreuse and Martini Fiero instead.

Or at least that’s what it says on the cocktail menu. The only mixed drinks I usually drink are a mixture of hops, barley and water, bro!!!!

PATIO LIT EATS: Burger with a view @ Kost

Now, we’ve hit up some pretty nice patios these past couple months. Whether it was in the garden at Casa Loma or down on the waterfront at Cabana, some of these places give you amazing views of the city. But it doesn’t get any better than this — we’re hanging out at Kost, this funky joint on the 44th floor of the Bisha Hotel, where the only thing preventing me from getting a perfect shot of the CN Tower is this freakin’ patio umbrella, bro!!!

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Now, I don’t always take selfies, but when I do, there’s usually alcohol involved. This here’s The Selfie, a refreshing summer cocktail with Tanqueray gin, lychee, elderflower and lemon. You know those drinks that are so fruity that you can’t taste the booze? Yeah, that’s what you’ve got here. All that’s missing is a little pink umbrella, or something…

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But I didn’t come up here for a selfie — I came to crush some beef, bro! This Kost burger comes with lettuce, tomato, lemon donkey sauce, a whole lotta smoked cheddar and some black pepper bacon. Dude, this is body by black pepper bacon! Patty was thick ‘n juicy, you had a nice soft bun… even the fries were on point. This might be the best burger I’ve had all summer, and let’s just say I’ve had a few. 😉

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