Pukka spices up St. Clair West

Originally posted to Ama’s weekly column on Toronto is Awesome.

For many of us in Toronto, good Indian food is a hard thing to come by. We’re accustomed to buffet style or muddled flavours. Thankfully, Derek Valleau and Harsh Chawla (both formerly of Amaya The Indian Room) have taken on what they believe has not been filled in Toronto yet: a fine-dining Indian food spot that leaves you comforting for more. That spot is Pukka (778 St Clair Avenue West).

The space is fresh and modern with reclaimed wood table and pops of green, purple and orange throughout. You’ll find lots of funky paintings and soft lighting, which gives it a bit of a romantic touch. I had mentioned to Derek & Harsh when I first arrived that when I lived in the St Clair area some year back, restaurants like this were missing. Derek told me candidly that the area and its residents have been quite kind in their support, especially over the winter months. When Yuli and I attended on a Tuesday evening, the restaurant had ever seat full. This was even on one of the coldest winter nights we were having.

Pukka sticks to classical Indian cuisine. The kitchen is equipped with a clay tandoor oven and the menu is chalked full of seasonal, locally sourced ingredients while using rich spices and creams to take on their house-made curries and rubs.

 

The menu itself is divided into snacks & eats. The snack portion has you covered with some intoxicating dishes such as: Baby Kale Salad ($8.90), which seems simple enough but with dates, cashew nut dressing and lotus chips – it brings it to a whole other level. The Vegetable String Chaat ($8.40) is serving up ripe mango and granny smith apple with a little bit of pomegranate seed just for flavour. Mix that in with some delicious yogurt and chutney and you’ve got yourself a winning dish. Another killer starter was the Chicken 65 ($9.60) which had all the feels of good fried chicken. But should you be in the South of India. This dish was spiced with curry leaf, red chili, tamarind, cumin, garlic and other spices and was pretty much, this was off the chain. I could really seem them developing this into a main. But that’s just my personal opinion.

After inhaling all of these delicious snacks, we thought it would be wise to test some drinks off of the cocktail menu. You know to – ahem – cleanse the palette. First up was the Snapdragon ($9.20) which consisted of vodka, pear nectar, ginger beer & lime. It was sweet and fun, not too over-powering and reminded me of summer. Thankfully, it went so well with everything we were eating. Yuli decided to test out the Chai Town ($8.40) which had bourbon, chai tea, pomegranate liquors and bitters. From my sip, it was pretty delicious.

 

 

Our servers (who were incredibly lovely and so helpful) brought out our dazzling course of mains, who informed us that most of the dishes were gluten-free. So fear not gluten-free fans, you are in luck! First up, we were brought out one of my favourite dishes of the night: Mushroom & Spinach Stuffed Paneer ($17.30). This dish was rich and bold and filling. Plus: paneer cheese is heavenly. Next up, the Pan Seared Sea Bass ($22.40) which consisted of coconut milk, curry leaves and roasted spices. The fish was beautifully cooked and the aromas of the curry was hypnotizing. You know you cannot visit an Indian food restaurant without having Butter Chicken ($17.90) and while it was good, it was not Pukka’s best dish of the evening. Oddly enough, I enjoyed everything else so much more than the Butter Chicken. The tomato infused butter sauce was rich and delicious but the chicken was a bit dry. Nothing terrible but again, not my favourite out of everything that came out. Next up, we had the Madras Pepper Steak ($19.70) which was tender, juicy and served up with caramelized onion and coconut. It was beautifully rich and delicious. This was probably my second favourite main of the evening.

Don’t forget, you have your options of sides too. We opted for the Green Beans ($8.70) with caramelized onions, coconut and turmeric and Rice ($4.60) served up in a lovely little jar (resealable) with so many aromatics. These pair deliciously with all the mains.

If you’ve left room for dessert, there is that. We opted for the Eton Mess ($7.60), which was a mess of all things delicious: rosewater-soaked meringues in pomegranate syrup and sweet lassi cream. Um, so into it.

So if you’re craving authentic Indian and feel like making the trek to St. Clair West, make a date for Pukka. You will not be disappointed. Reservations can be made daily.

Learning to Meal Plan with Mealspirations

By Siobhan Ozege

When Mealspirations approached us to write a review of their product, I jumped on the chance. As part of my New Year’s resolutions, I vowed that I wanted to cook more, but I’ve found that lately it seems like I don’t have the time to actually get groceries and prepare meals to the extent that I’d like to.

Enter Mealspirations, a service that is unique from other grocery-delivery type services in that they deliver the ingredients for a meal, and not just groceries. It’s a pretty easy system: they create the recipe, you order how many meals you’d like and for how many people, they deliver it to your door, and you cook it up to (hopefully) many accolades. Before you get the delivery, they tell you what items you’ll need from your pantry. This includes things like vinegars, salt, pepper and oils, for the most part. If you cook at all, you should have most of these things.

I love to cook, but I decided that I would write the review exactly how the recipes are spelled out to give the most accurate depiction, since sometimes being kitchen-savvy means doing your own tricks and modifications. When the box arrived, I was excited about the menu: macaroni and cheese with field greens, rainbow trout with panzanella salad, and steak tortillas with pico de gallo, guacamole and cabbage slaw. Yum.

I decided to make the macaroni and cheese first. The recipe included thyme, onions, garlic and panko – delicious items I wouldn’t have expected. Now, mac n’ cheese is one of my favourite foods, so when I looked at the recipe they provided, there were a few red flags that popped up. The recipe suggested that the onions be cooked in the butter, to be used in the base for the roux. This was concerning because additional moisture in a roux can cause it to prevent your sauce from thickening – in a macaroni and cheese; this isn’t what you’re going for. I also noticed that the cheese wasn’t super flavourful when I tested it, but I thought the other ingredients would help boost the flavour.

I made the sauce as instructed, and indeed, the roux did not adequately thicken the sauce. I ended up having to add a lot more flour to give it the proper consistency. What I didn’t realize until after, was that the cooking time for the onions was also not long enough, meaning that my macaroni and cheese was essentially full of raw onions when I went to eat it.

Overall, it was not the best – I definitely think that this recipe could use some tweaks. If you’re someone who’s new to cooking, you may not have known to a) cook the onions longer and separately – caramelized onions could have gone a long way in adding flavour, b) to add more flour to thicken your sauce. I would suggest that using either multiple kinds of cheese, or a different cheese altogether would help – the bland flavour and the raw-ish onions made it unpleasant to eat, though it did look delicious at least:

The next night, we made the rainbow trout. I was feeling a bit nervous after mac n’ cheese night, but I was very optimistic. The fillets were so beautiful and fresh, and I had never tried a panzanella salad before. Traditionally, panzanella has tomatoes and sweet peppers in it, but Mealspirations accommodated my allergy to these very things by substituting it with an avocado. Yum.

While my partner prepared the fish, I made the salad – cucumbers, basil, bread pan-fried in olive oil, capers and red onions. Finally, I opened the avocado to find it had gone completely bad on the inside. Yuck! They had sent a second avocado to make guacamole for the next meal, so I decided to use that one since the first was unusable. When I cut it open, it was mostly rotten as well – I used as much as I could, and made a note to buy avocado for dinner tomorrow.

The meal itself was delicious and very fresh tasting. I will say, that the recipe called for too much oil for cooking the fish for my liking, making it a bit greasy, but the taste was really great and complimented nicely by the salad. I was very unimpressed by the two rotten avocados.

The final meal was what I was most excited for. I rarely buy steak because I don’t really know how to cook it, so I thought this would be a great way to learn. The meal included a lot of peppers and tomatoes, so it was a bit sparse in terms of ingredients, but it was still delicious. I whipped up some guacamole, and let that sit while I shredded the ingredients for the slaw.

Again, there were a bit of strange things about the recipe – calling for lime zest but then not having that anywhere in the recipe, very short cooking time for a giant flank steak, and using radicchio and brussel sprouts in a cabbage slaw. Radicchio is bitter. In fact, it’s overwhelmingly bitter, and the dressing for the slaw didn’t quite cover this up, so I ate it with the guacamole in the tortilla to mask the taste, rather than on the side, and I didn’t keep the leftovers.

I ended up having to throw the steak back into the pan due to how undercooked it was – the recipe had said it would cook to medium-rare, but it was rare. However, even without the pico de gallo, these were still very tasty and probably my favourite meal of the three.

Overall, Mealspirations is providing a good service, and it’s reasonably affordable. I think the recipes could use a little work in terms of cooking times, and quantity of ingredients. I would have also liked to see a nutritional breakdown for the recipes – the website says that each serving is about 500-600 calories, but having done some basic calculations, I believe it’s actually more than that.

I’ve decided that I need to make more time in my own life to cook the food I want to eat, but this experience has taught me the importance of meal planning, and how much stress planning in advance can alleviate in a busy week. If you’re interested in learning how to cook and don’t know where to start, I think Mealspirations could be the right fit for you.

Getting the S’MAC Attack in NYC

Let’s make one thing clear, Fat Girl Food Squad: I am on the quest to find the perfect Macaroni and Cheese — or at least try all of them.  First up, we headed to New York’s own S’Mac to test out the multiple flavours they have of mac and cheese.

S’Mac currently has two locations in NYC, both in Manhattan, and they offer dine-in, take-out, free delivery and catering for all your many cravings. If I lived in this city I would probably turn orange from the amount and frequency that I would order.

After looking at their extremely large menu (and being indecisive), we decided to test out the S’MAC Sampler.  Served up in a skillet for $16,  you receive 8 different varieties of Mac-n-Cheese. This is the only version that accepts no substitutions, so they pick the flavours and it is only regular pasta. Thankfully they let us add breadcrumbs on top for that extra added crispiness.

The sampler comes with a visual wheel showing you which flavours lay where which helps both the picky folks, and those deciding what to order in a larger size next time. Flavours include: All-American, 4 Cheese, Cheeseburger, La Mancha, Cajun, Napoletana, Alpine and Parisienne.

Trying all of the flavours provided us with a daunting task, even for 2, but we managed to leave no noodle uneaten. The verdict for best flavour goes to the Cheeseburger. Made for the hearty meat eater, it comes with both cheddar and American Cheese combined with seasoned ground beef. There is not too much ground beef, and it’s definitely gooier and tastier than anything I’ve had like it before. With the breadcrumbs added on top it was like eating the best cheeseburger but a step above. Coming up in a close second would be the Alpine. This swiss mac goes a different route than the other traditional american styles and uses gruyere cheese and is filled with slab bacon. It was the perfect melty stringy cheese that stretches as you try and take a spoonful out for yourself, very hard to share. Our least favourite had to be La Mancha.  It may have very well been my personal distaste for onions leading that one, but if you’re looking for a taste of Spain in a dish, this is the one for you.  It was Manchego Cheese mixed with fennel and onions.

What was the most fascinating to me is that those were not the only flavours available.  They have another 4 recommended flavours to choose from as well as a build your own category with four different sizes: The Nosh, Major Munch, Mongo and Partay. Having been here before I felt that the Major Munch was enough for two but we each got one and it’s a really good portion leaving plenty of leftovers should you have the hankering for more later.

S’Mac makes sure to cater to everyone having the option of multigrain and gluten free pasta, as well as reduced lactose and dairy free cheeses as well! And for those who want the full cheese option but are worried about a tummy ache, they offer lact-aid’s at the counter just in case.

As a special secret if you check in at any S’MAC location on foursquare they have different loyalty specials. Including the 25% off for newbies and also 25% off on every 3rd check in for loyal customers. And on every other trip the option of 50% off (max $5 discount). I’ll definitely be going back for all those deals, and to try building my own soon!

REDs Wine Bar

Sneak peek at the images from our visit to REDS Wine Tavern. Squad Leader Ama got to speak with Chef Michael Hunter and bartender Greg before we tasted the new Tavern Time Starter & Cocktail menu. Full post coming to Toronto Is Awesomesoon.

Photos by Yuli Scheidt