Hank’s Café

Rated this place:

9-1/2 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5E1M2

Hank's another J.K. success story: "...In the daylight, the room is bright, blue and spacious. The round tables are far apart and fat enough to hold all our goods (too many restaurants have teeny tables, barely large enough to accommodate the food). The café is excellent, with a friendly and informative staff. We're served a spectacular caffé latte ($2.75) on each visit.

Super-simple food, mostly soups and sandwiches, clock in under $10.

A whopper of a turkey sandwich ($7.50) comes with homemade potato chips (with a few purple ones that sort of lose their lustre by the time they're deep-fried) and gherkins. There appears to be twice as much meat between the red fife bread as there was at Gilead..." See Full Post.

Reggie's Old-Fashioned Sandwiches

Rated this place:

571 King St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 1M1

Reggie's has perfect sandwiches, at any hour: "...they hand me a tortilla wrap filled with a king's ransom of pliable duck confit ($7.55). There is not so much tomato, apple, sprouts or brie as to hide the main ingredient. It tastes like duck. It also helps mark me as a snob on my brother's walk (the most gruelling five kilometres I have ever gradually sauntered).

On another morning visit, they serve up a joyously obese pulled pork sandwich ($6.95), the pick of Reggie's litter. No, the pork is not smoked. Strings of braised swine shoulder ooze from a massive kaiser, each bite squeezing out more of the Southern Comfort barbecue sauce. Taking a big bite wraps the bun around my cheeks, like french kissing a very attractive pig.

Fries ($2.55) are frustratingly inconsistent. Occasionally they are overcooked, the moisture sucked out of them. But when they are good, they are great...See Full Post.

Barchef

Rated this place:

472 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5V2B2

Chef's fine work gets short shrift at Barchef: I'm sorry, Toronto. I don't know what the $45 cocktail tastes like. I also don't know what a diamond tiara looks like on a wire-fox terrier. I can't afford either and I can't bring myself to spend that much of my employer's money on a single drink.

Now, it would be easy to label all of this silly or, at least in regards to the current spending habits of Torontonians, ill-timed. But, sure enough, there are groups of twentysomething ladies playing Carrie Bradshaw, clinking glasses, leaning back into dark, plush sofas... See Full Post

Weezie's

Rated this place:

354 King St. E., Toronto, ON, M5A 1K9

There's a reason Weezie's is packed: Weezie's is a gem. Every neighbourhood deserves a restaurant like Weezie's. It is so pleasantly uncomplicated, it needs no references to 30 Rock or comic books to illustrate its value.

You won't find anything very ornamental on the walls or too exotic on the plate. It's just good food done right; a bistro for Corktown. And it's not too expensive.

In the past two months, not one high-end restaurant has hesitated to book a reservation at 7:30 on a Saturday night. Weezie's offers us a 6:30 or an 8 p.m. table. It's good to see a healthy, profitable restaurant... See Full Post

School Bakery & Cafe

Rated this place:

70 Fraser Ave., Toronto, ON, M6K 3E1

School Bakery and Cafe gets mixed report card: Despite the occasional glitch, School Bakery & Café has plenty of good food and a professional staff that treats the place like a business. No one would ever mistake it for a mom-and-pop restaurant.

There are joints, like Julie's Cuban on Dovercourt, filled to the brim with knick-knacks that are so clearly an extension of the owner's aesthetic, you feel as if you've walked into their home. And then there are dining rooms that feel like the showroom of a designer or marketing team.

In School's case, the theme is hollow, as authentic as a Lime Rickey's restaurant.

From end to end, the restaurant zeroes in on a concept so fraudulent that an animatronic host would not be out of place... See Full Post

Avani Asian Indian Bistro

Rated this place:

801 Matheson Blvd. W., Unit 1, Mississauga, ON

Avani bistro serves up flavourful fusion fare: Despite an overwhelming number of competitors on Mississauga's Indian restaurant scene, Avani is packed with loyal customers. Friday and Saturday are always bustling, and diners should expect to wait about 45 minutes for an entrée. The ambience, fare, and the care and quality the kitchen invests in its offerings make Avani worthy of the prices and the wait. See Full Post

Rawlicious

Rated this place:

3092 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M6P 1Z8

Hard to be rah-rah about all raw: When Rawlicious is not trying to bend reality, some of the food is dynamite.

A thick, crunchy collard leaf makes a perfect wrap for a nut loaf ($9), with lots of onion and tomato bursting out of it. Corn chip-like crackers made of flax, carrot and buckwheat come with a salsa (no need to substitute anything), guacamole and "sour cream" ($12).

For those who are uninitiated, but not to dwell on it, the belief central to rawism is that raw food contains digestive enzymes beneficial to our ability to process the food's nutrients that would otherwise be lost in the cooking process. I'm not here to debate that, only to see if these restaurants have food that tastes good.

And most people who subscribe to this are not zealots... See Full Post

Watusi

Rated this place:

110 Ossington Ave., Toronto, ON

Watusi lags a bit behind the neighbours: If you don't feel like waiting for a table at one of the strip's more established eateries, you could do worse than Watusi. The banquettes are supremely comfortable, though the tables are too small to hold multiple shared dishes. The lighting is dim, though it could be dimmer, the better to hide the pop art collages on the wall.

Chef Andy Kristoff has one sleeve full of dependable tricks. But when he tries to pull magic from the second sleeve, it is a flop... See Full Post

Charlie's Burgers

Rated this place:

Secret location, invitation only (signup online), Toronto, ON

Charlie's offers good deal on great food: There is an implied cachet to being invited to the table (applicants fill out an online questionnaire). I'm only here because they invited our food editor. The secrecy and status don't add much to my enjoyment of the meal. Previous underground restaurants I've been to had only mystery going for them. This one has great food... See Full Post