I LOVE the Toronto restaurant scene. There are so many great chefs serving up hi-end food with a down-lo attitude. When I’m working in the city, I usually stay in the west end at the Gladstone Hotel, or in a loft that I have rented on and off since the days I was shooting Surreal Gourmet. So it’s not surprising that the majority of my go-to restaurants are in the Queen St. W./Ossington corridor. That said, everyone of them is worth the drive from anywhere in the city.

(in no particular order)

Ursa really interesting envelope-pushing nouvelle cuisine (my new fave)
• Queen St. W.
- everything I’ve tasted from the small seasonal menu is impressive
Parts & labor groovy, vibey
• Queen St. W.
- anything made from the roof garden rocks, as does Matty’s sea bass carpaccio
Cava cheffy nouvelle Spanish tapas
• Yonge just N. of St. Claire
- order one of everything
The Local cozy groovy local/Italian
• Queen St. W. at Ronsisvalle
Chiado upscale Portugese, great wines
• College at Ozzington
- eat at the bar and nibble. The bisque is a fave
Pizza Libretto hipster Neapolitan pizza
• Ossington
County General retro hipster, delicious food. Great for lunch
• Queen St. W.
- I still dream about their fried chicken sandwich
Golden Turtle great, cheap Vietnamese
• Ozzington
- #113, #116, #89, #172
Drake Café groovy and delicious lunch
• Queen St. W.
- the turkey club is dangerously good, as is everything else
Porchetta amazing pork sandwiches
• Dundas St.
- they basically only make one thing at this joint—and they do it stunningly well
Indian rice factory upscale Indian
• Dupont
- all the classics are great
Julie’s snack bar fun Cuban
• Dovercourt
- order the garlic bread, corn fritters and garlic shrimp
Lai Wah Heen very upscale dim sum
• Chestnut St.
-every plate is like a precious little jewel
Noce classy Italian, great wines
• Queen St. W.
- all the classic Italian dishes are classic
Mistura great contemporary Italian
• Dupont St.
-order whatever Massimo recommends
Enoteca Sociale hipster Italian
• College St
416 snack bar drinks + small plates
• Bathurst St. at Queen

I love sticking my fork (and sometimes my chopsticks) into the culinary melting pot that this city has become. The only reason this list isn’t three times longer is that I am a creature of habit.

(in no particular order)

Vij’s nouvelle Indian
• 11th Ave.
- the lamb popsicles are a must, but everything is stellar. (be forewarned that they don’t take reservations—but they do feed you at the bar)
Rangoli (vij’s sister restaurant) less expensive nouvelle Indian
• 11th Ave.
Tojo’s amazing (but expensive!) sushi
• Broadway
Kintaro Ramen awesome ramen
• Denman St.
Jang mo jib Korean bibimbap place
• Robson
-fun late night vibe and great, cheap dishes
Salt charcouterie and wine bar
• Gastown
L’abattoir nouvelle cuisine done right
• Gastown
Chung King dim sum
• Commercial Drive
- all the classic dim sum dishes and then some
Go Fish the ultimate fish shack
• Fisherman’s Warf, South Granville Island
- awesome salmon burger and classic fresh-cut fries
Congee Noodle House amazing congee + duck and pea tendrils
• Broadway
- Sea bass congee, garlic pea tendrils and BBQ duck. Ask for extra green onion salsa for the congee (well worth the 50 cents they will charge you)
Legendary noodle house hand-pulled noodles (as featured on an episode of Glutton for Punishment)
• Denman St.
- order the hand-pulled noodles and tell Brock I sent you
Sully’s Great bagels, smoked salmon schmear and cinnamon rolls
• 3 locations

L.A. is full of fancy-schmancy restaurants. And generally speaking I rarely go to any of them. When I am home, which is rare, I usually stay in and cook. When I do go out, it’s either to one of a small handful of casual favorites, or a strip mall.

(in no particular order)

Conventional Restaurants

Loteria upscale Mexico City-style Mexican
• Hollywood Blvd (at Cherokee)
- order shrimp tacos, chicharron de queso, tortilla soup, chipotle salsa
Pizzera Mozza cheffy crust-centric pizza
• Melrose and highland
Osteria Mozza great Italian
• Melrose and highland
- order the fancy buratta. You will not be disappointed
Pit Fire Pizza every bit as good as Pizzeria Mozza, but 50% off
• downtown on 2nd st. + several other locations
- order the pumpkin pizza
Border Grill nouvelle Mexican
• downtown on Figura and in santa monica
- order the corn tamales
Baco Mercat hipster restaurant. Latin-influenced small plates
Daikokuya awesome ramen
• downtown on 1st Street by Japanese museum

Strip Mall Restaurants

Some of the best ethnic restaurants in Los Angeles are located in tiny, non-descript strip malls. They are usually run by owner-chefs who have arrived in L.A. with amazing culinary skills, dreams and passion, but none of the financing required to open a free-standing restaurant. What these places lack in décor and ambiance, they make up for in spades with authentic dishes and dirt-cheap prices.

Spicy BBQ amazing northern Thai, 16 seats
• Santa Monica Blvd. and Normandy
- order coconut noodle chicken soup, lemongrass sausage, BBQ pork
Palm Thai excellent Thai + Thai elvis!
• Hollywood Blvd/Bronson
- order green papaya salad, stir-fried morning glory, spicy fish soup + the usual
Soot bull jeep excellent Korean BBQ
• 8th street in Koreatown
Pollo al Brasa awesome wood-fired rotisserie chicken + jalapeno sauce
• Vine St. just north of Melrose
- its all about the chicken and the sauce
Mexicale Taco & Co. fire-grilled Mexican
• Downtown on Figueroa St.
- order one of everything, especially the “vampiro”
Guisados taco Mexico city-style tacos
• Boyle heights
- start with the sampler plate and discover your favorites
Loteria same basic menu as the Hollywood restaurant (see above), but in a food court
• Farmer’s Market 3rd & Fairfax

Much of my last year was consumed by shooting my new series World’s Weirdest Restaurants. Each of the 13 episodes features four weird, wacky and/or wondrous restaurants. If you do the math, that’s 52 weird restaurants (it was actually 55, but as in any war, there are always casualties). Along with a skeleton crew of four, I lived in Tokyo for three weeks, blew into Italy for a mere 18 hours and did an endless series of drive-by dinners in 8 other countries around the globe.

The show debuts on Food Network Canada April 4, 2012 (and hopefully elsewhere in the world later this year).

Here’s a taste of a few of my faves:

Clothing Optional

Imagine being in a small, windowless room with 30 total strangers, sipping cheap white wine and making small talk. Then without warning, they all peel off their clothes and continue talking as if nothing had changed. That was my reality in this bare-all segment that we shot in the heart of New York City’s Soho district. But what was even stranger, is that after a couple of hours of eating and drinking with the nudists, I began to feel uncomfortable being the only one in the room who was dressed (save for the crew who were focused—or attempting to focus—on their jobs).

Furthermore, I began to feel that as a host who’s job it is to dive into the deep end of weird restaurants, I couldn’t truly convey the essence of a nudist restaurant unless I experienced it from the other side. Up until that point, the only other time I had bared it all in public was at the height of the “streaking” craze many, many (many) years ago when I streaked into my local jean store to take advantage of a radio promotion that awarded a free pair of pants to anyone who streaked in. Now I am older—but clearly no wiser. In a truly spontaneous moment, I sent my producer Vera (the only female on our crew of four) out of the room, told Simon our camera man to follow the puck (a term we use for stay with the action—whatever the outcome), and peeled off all my clothes. I must admit it was a liberating moment. But more importantly it was a bonding experience with the diners who stopped treating me as an outsider looking in on their private club, and embraced me (in the figurative sense!) as one of their own for the rest of the night.

One memory that still makes me laugh was the reaction of our P.A. (production assistant). P.A.’s are usually local film students or aspiring filmmakers who are willing to work a long day humping gear, running out for coffee, collecting signatures for waivers and/or whatever else is required on the set. At this particular shoot, what the set required was a bartender, so we drafted our P.A. to fill the void. Our boy Friday gamely stepped in, but I think it is safe to say that when he got the call the job, he never imagined he would be pouring wine for a group of naked diners. I’m curious to see how it appears on his résumé.

Kayabuki Tavern

Kayabuki Tavern is a two hour drive from Tokyo in the tiny farming community of Utsunomiya-shi in the Tochigi prefecture. It’s essentially a typical local neighborhood bar except for one small detail—the beer servers are monkeys!

To be honest, I was as excited as a 10 year-old visiting Disneyland for the first time. After all, if you love monkeys and you love beer, it just doesn’t get any better. And I wasn’t disappointed. The two macaques really seemed to be enjoying the attention they were receiving. When we asked one to jump up on my shoulder, it sat perched there for a couple of minutes acting as though it was the host of the show and I was just an extra. It was also funny to watch the locals address the monkeys by name as any regular customer would speak to a server at their local.

One of the moments that flew by in the episode, was another highlight for us on the shooting day. In addition to being the owner/chef/monkey wrangler, Otsuka-san is a bee aficionado. When he met us, he was carrying a large killer bee’s hive he had found that same day in the wild. The hive was teeming with seething larva, and the sounds coming from it were straight out of a horror film. Otsuka-san plucked out the squirming larva with a pair of tweezers and sautéed up enough to fill a small bowl. He presented the bowl to me with a huge smile on his face indicating that it was a special offering. With the burden of international diplomacy resting on my shoulders and no place to hide, I had no choice but to choke down a few larva as well as a full adult killer bee. How did it taste you ask? Better than the balut (a partially formed duck embryo) I ate in the Philippines, and worse than the grasshoppers I crunched through a week after my monkey encounter in a Thai boxing restaurant in Tokyo.

With the exception of the sautéed killer bee larva, everything I ate at Kayabuki was simply prepared—yet mind blowingly delicious. If it existed near me, I would definitely be a regular. The dish I remember most was the Karaage (Japanese-style crispy fried chicken nuggets). It was the best I’ve ever tasted.

Here’s my interpretation of the recipe I watched Otsuka-san prepare:

Karaage Recipe: Cut four skinless, boneless chicken thighs (fat and all) into ¾-inch cubes. Marinate for 1 hour in a mixture of equal parts soy, mirin and sake + 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger. Drain, then toss in potato* or corn starch. Shake off excess starch, then deep fry in 350° peanut oil for 3 minutes, or until golden and crispy on the outside, and cooked throughout. Serve as is, or with a mixture of ¼ cup soy, ¼ teaspoon wasabi paste and 1 teaspoon finely grated ginger.

* Potato starch is available in specialty food stores and health food stores. It is the preferred type of starch for creating crispy chicken.

Modern Toilet

Of the 52 restaurants we visited during season one of World’s Weirdest Restaurants, no restaurant summed up the gestalt of the show better than Modern Toilet.
When I mention the concept to people: eating curry out of miniature ceramic toilet bowls while sitting on actual toilets and being surrounded by bathroom accoutrements, most people imagine a tiny restaurant that caters to a few novelty-chasing customers. But the truth is that Modern Toilet is a franchise with eight restaurants in Taiwan. What’s more, it’s a popular destination for students and families, as well as adventure-loving tourists.

To understand the success of Modern Toilet, one has to understand Taiwan and the Taiwanese. Taiwan is a tiny country of only 23 million people. Their struggles with mainland China have created a fortitude, nurtured a sense of strong national pride, and also fostered a wicked sense of humor amongst it’s citizens (much like how Canadians have developed a unique personality as a self-defense against becoming swallowed up by American culture). The first time I went to Taipei, I tossed out a little play on words and waited to see if my host would get the joke. Without skipping a beat, she spun it around, added a sexual innuendo and threw it back in my face in a way that was infinitely funnier than my original pun. (It was even more impressive considering the fact that English was her second language). I’ve been to Taipei three more times since then and every time I am struck by the wicked sense of humor and joi de vivre of the locals.

Beyond the friendly faces and fabulous food, Taiwan is a bustling modern city that is just coming into its own. If you have the opportunity to visit it, or to extend an Asian vacation, I can’t recommend it enough. And if you visit Modern Toilet, be sure to order # 2 on the dessert menu!

Buying a chicken coop, I quickly discovered, is a lot like buying a fish bowl—it’s the easy part. After it was assembled and ensconced in the backyard, the real work began. Picture a full-size bale of hay strapped precariously to the tiny roof of a Honda Del Sol as it navigates the winding streets of the Hollywood Hills, and you will get a sense of what I’m talking about. Then there was the extensive reinforcing to make the shoddy made-in-China hen house predator-proof, the feed sourcing, the extension to the yet-to-be inhabited coop, and finally the procurement of the actual chickens (four 2-month-olds, three breeds in all).

Kate, it turns out, is a natural chicken whisperer. She swears they have unique personalities, and named them accordingly. Over time she began to recognize their individual grooming habits and routines. As Yolko, Lucinda, Josephine and Mimi grew bigger, I built a second bedroom and an atrium to accommodate their burgeoning girth. And then just as life in the hen house was finding its groove, Kate left me. To put a finer point on it, we didn’t split up, but she returned to Toronto, as was always the plan, to continue work on her PhD. And now I am the single parent of four rambunctious adolescent girls.

In my entire adult life, I have never had a single pet. In fact, I don’t even own a houseplant. I blame it on my busy travel schedule, but it also has a lot to do with my minimalist sensibilities. My life 2.0—the one with four pre-pubescent hens—began to resemble a sitcom starring Jim Belushi as a bumbling single dad trying to cope with his new responsibilities. There’s me reading up on the two pages of “dos” and “don’ts” that Kate left behind. That’s me hitting my head on the roof of the coop as I clean it, then stepping in the shit as I recoil (cue the laugh track). Piss yourself as I try to chase down the chicken that escapes when I open the door to throw in the feed.

Every day, I dutifully chop up my veggie cuttings and add a few handfuls of greens that I forage from the waste bins at the farmers market. Then I feed the girls, replenish the water and do a quick clean-up of their prodigious poop. When my day allows it, I take my lunch on my deck and scan the horizon for wily coyotes as the girls free range in the back yard. At first, corralling them back into the coop was a comical exercise in futility. But then I accidentally discovered that a cob of fresh corn is like crack to a chicken, and I instantly became the pied piper of poultry. After a couple of months on our own, the girls and I bonded. Now they follow me around and even allow me to pick them up without flapping their wings in protest. Come to think of it, why shouldn’t they be content? They have a personal chef, room service, and a lavish condo with a bird’s eye view of the Hollywood sign.

Despite the girls’ acceptance of my single parenting skills, I eventually began to lose interest in the whole Farmer Bob charade. Then a funny thing happened as I opened up the nesting box to tighten a loose screw. There in the hay, sitting like a glistening pearl in an oyster, was a perfect light brown egg. I picked it up and cradled it in the palm of my hand in amazement—it was still warm to the touch. Then I poached it.

When I cracked the egg open, the yolk was a startlingly bright orange. When cooked, it had a silky texture and a rich, intensely eggy flavor. To say it was the best egg I’ve ever tasted is a bit like thinking your child is the smartest kid in the class. But knowing its provenance and being nature’s accomplice certainly makes one appreciate every morsel. A week after the first egg, my second hen started laying, and a week after that all four were in full production, dropping 3 – 4 eggs in total per day. The Rhode Island Red lays a conventionally brown egg, while the Plymouth Barred Rock lays brown eggs with a slight rose tinge. Despite the fact that the remaining two girls were both purportedly blue egg-laying Ameraucanas, their shells differ significantly: One has a faint blue hue, while the other is decidedly putty-colored. They are all equally delicious—after all, a parent should never play favorites. So far, they’ve laid a fluffy omelet, several stupendous scrambled egg mash-ups, a creamy Caesar salad and a rich pasta carbonara.

As is often the case with presents, my surprise for Kate ended up being a gift for both of us. I gained a deeper appreciation for the humble egg, and learned to see beyond its traditional functions, recognizing it as a thing of great beauty and economy. Keeping hens forms a perfect loop in the ecological cycle of my kitchen: a gift that keeps on laying—four eggs a day.

egg-iliscious mash-up
8 eggs
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 pound pancetta or bacon, sliced crosswise into ¼-inch strips
6 green onions, finely chopped
2 – 4 garlic cloves, minced
1 handful fresh Italian parsley, or other herbs, chopped finely
2 roasted red bell peppers: fresh, canned or jarred, skinned and sliced thinly

In a bowl, beat eggs, salt, pepper, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Reserve.
In a sauté pan over medium-high heat, add oil and cook pancetta, stirring occasionally until it starts getting crispy.
To the pan add green onions and garlic. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until garlic shows the first sign of turning golden.
Add herbs and red bell pepper. Stir for 1 minute.
Reduce heat to medium, add egg mixture to pan, and stir until eggs are cooked to your liking.
Serves 4

I paired the Newton with a blue cheese bruschetta, inspired by a version I tasted in my recent travels. Toast sourdough bread until crispy, rub with garlic, drizzle with olive oil, cover with crumbled stilton (or any other blue) and drizzle generously with honey.

Wow. What a long, strange couple of weeks it’s been of celebrated faces and crazy travel. It all started 12 days ago in New York City where I found myself sitting in a make up chair for the Today Show next to Dee Sneider. This was an auspicious beginning to a week of promoting my new cookbook/memoir (as it has been called) because before I my accidental food career began, I was in the music biz, and one of my first jobs was being the “T-shirt puke” for Twisted Sister. T-shirt pukes, FYI, are the low man on the rock tour totem pole. I mentioned this to Dee who was kind, but not nearly as excited as I was about the coincidence of our reconnection. In fairness, lead singers never venture into T-shirt puke territory on the road unless they need some swag for a “special guest.”

My Today Show segment was with Kathie Lee and Hoda. Hoda’s first question for me was something to the effect of “so I understand your mother had a lot to do with this book”. Well, as it happens, my mother has been dead for 30 years (a fact I chose not to bring up), and my recollections of her cooking have more to do with burned chocolate chip cookies than coconut shrimp lollypops. I recovered as best i could and buried the two of them in a little Glutton triathlon for some sweet revenge.

Later that day I attended a party at Hill Country BBQ where I ran into Mario Batali. His empire continues to expand as his waistline shrinks. Mario is one of the coolest guys in the biz and Eataly, the newest addition to his empire, is nothing short of stunning. And speaking of cool guys, I was fortunate enough to have a 3 ½ hour lunch with Jeffrey Steingarten, my food-writing hero, at Ma Peche, a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant that is part of David Chang’s empire. Jeffrey is as enigmatic in person as he is in print, and never fails to amuse with stories about his experiences as a judge on Iron Chef America and columnist for Vogue. I am trying to convince him to publish a third collection of his Vogue articles and offered to work for him for a month for $1 to help him compile the material. BTW, his first compilation, The Man who Ate Everything is a must-read for any inquisitive foodie.

Jeffrey Steingarten in the test kitchen of his NYC apartment

From New York, I flew to Tampa to do a surreal cooking demonstration on a Holland American cruise ship for a fund-raiser for the new Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, FL.. The original Dali museum played a pivotal role in my evolution as a Surreal Gourmet, and I was happy to return the flavor. Before my appearance, I was treated to a half hour tour by the ship’s executive chef of the ship’s cooking facilities. I saw miles of kitchens and walk-in freezers capable of storing 2 weeks worth of food for 1300 passengers and 600 crew members. My favorite part of the tour was the crew mess hall which housed two kitchens, one featuring Philippine food and the other Sri Lankan—designed to keep the crew members from those respective countries happy and well-fed. (note to self: if I ever end up on a cruise, eat with the crew).

Twenty-one hours in the air later, I found myself in Hong Kong having dinner beside the Travel Channel’s Samantha Brown. I had met Samantha in Hawaii while shooting my Kona coffee-picking episode a couple of years ago. And when I say “met”, it was literally a 15 second conversation after which I concluded that she was a bit of a diva. Well as it turns out, I was quick to judge (another note to self: maybe 15 seconds isn’t enough time to sum someone up). Samantha is quite hilarious. As we ate and drank our way through an awesome Szechuan meal, she compared how humans meet for the first time, with the butt-sniffing ritual that dogs go through.

Sniff sniff.

My bacon & eggs dessert, as served at the TLC launch party in Hong Kong

Samantha and I were in Hong Kong courtesy of Discovery Travel & Living (the network that carries Glutton and Surreal Gourmet in Asia), along with the fabulous Janet Hsieh, to host a huge party in celebration of the global rebranding of the network to TLC. For the occasion, they built a life size “replica” of my Toastermobile. (It wasn’t exactly an Airstream, but it was damn impressive non-the-less). To top it off, the chefs at the Four Seasons prepared my bacon and egg dessert for the 400 guests in attendance. Suffice to say, those Discovery-cum-TLC folks know how to have a good time.

Life size replica of the Toastermobile created for TLC (Asia) launch party in Hong Kong

And the adventures continue…

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