Patty King, Toronto, ON

Seventh grade was a big year. Growing up in Montreal, seventh grade meant high school, and for a pre-pubescent thirteen year old, high school meant being suddenly thrown into the same hallway with much larger, older, bearded seventeen and eighteen year olds, which was more than a little terrifying. In case thirteen isn’t an awkward enough age, my high school’s dress code mandated that we wear what seemed like an impossibly embarrassing school uniform. So I was undersized, felt like a dork in my uniform, and now had to function in an atmosphere where my female classmates had traded in their tie-dye t-shirts from sixth grade to experiment with cigarettes and push the envelope on the “pleated kilts must not be shorter than one inch above the knees” rule. Yes, in Montreal, there was a big difference between sixth and seventh grades.

Another difference between schools, which will eventually lead to the point of this entry, was the cafeteria. No longer limited to the brown bag or lunch box our parents packed for us in elementary school, now, the cafeteria served food. I can’t honestly remember a single meal they served for lunch (probably because I still brought in a packed lunch every day – thanks Mom!), but for a guy who was still many years away from getting the courage to ask out a girl, recess in the cafeteria was probably the most exciting thing about seventh grade. I think we had two options at recess (at least, I can only remember two): gooey, half-cooked (if you chose carefully), hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies and Jamaican patties. We only had fifteen minutes, but that was just enough time to race to the cafeteria, pick up either a stack of cookies and a cup of milk in those individual cardboard cartons or a Jamaican patty and eat it before our next class. I’m not sure how the Jamaican patty became a ubiquitous lunchroom staple in the WASPiest neighbourhood of Montreal, but their flaky crusts and spicy meat fillings provided a nice alternative or supplement to the melt-in-your-mouth cookies.

(And while I’m in the process of churning out 1000 words on transitioning to adulthood and Jamaican patties, if the Royal West Academy cafeteria still makes chocolate chip cookies and I could get my hands on a hot batch of them, I think I could produce the War and Peace of food blogging.)

For the uninitiated, Jamaican patties are a Caribbean version of the classic meat-filled-dough foodstuff. Ravioli, empanadas, Jamaican patties… all riffs on the same theme. Jamaican patties really only consist of two components, both of which need to be good to make a good patty: crust and filling. Patty crusts are flaky like a pie crust, owing to a high fat content, but thinner and lighter. If done properly, there should be just the slightest crispiest exterior covering pillowy, steamy dough. The crust is golden yellow due to the addition of turmeric to the dough. Patties are generally filled with ground meat, curry blends, and hot peppers. I grew up on beef patties, but chicken and vegetable patties are relatively common too.

I’m not sure why I bothered with such a long preamble to get to a post about Jamaican patties. Did they represent some newfound freedom that high school brought about? Not really, but they were really, really good and since the early ‘90s, the Jamaican patty has been a staple snack or meal for me. There were two patty shops only blocks away from my house throughout high school, and my father often picked up a bag of them for lunches on weekends or for sustenance during long car trips. In college, when I moved into my first apartments with my buddies, frozen Jamaican patties (Lloydies: inferior in every way to a fresh bakery patty but much more convenient after a night at a bar or studying in the library) were always in our freezer. So while moving to Pittsburgh for graduate school was a huge step for me academically, personally, for my maturity, and so on, I was also unknowingly leaving behind a steady stream of quality Jamaican patties. The only specimens I’ve been able to track down here are barely worth mentioning: frozen for so long in a grocery store freezer that the crust ends up brittle and crumbling and filled with a dry, pasty gray meat. Disappointing to say the least, and the end of the 12-year Patty Era in my life.

So when one of my high school friends moved to Toronto last year and gave me an excuse to drive up there periodically, the one place I asked him to take me on my first visit was his neighbourhood patty shop. And he obliged. The Patty King, in Toronto’s Kensington market, looks like dozens of similar bakeries across Toronto or Montreal which are run and frequented by expatriate Caribbeans and a generation of young Canadians who grew up on patties in our high school cafeterias.


The Patty King’s patties are better than most, and on each of my last three visits to the city, I’ve crossed the border back to the US with a dozen spicy beef patties in the trunk of my car. A new Patty Era is born! We try to make them last, but Tam and I usually end up finishing them off within a week or so. It’s not ideal, but zapping a frozen Patty King patty in the microwave and then baking it for a few minutes in our amazing new toaster oven beats anything that I can find in Pittsburgh by far.


The Patty King also serves up an array of Caribbean dishes and cakes: ox tail, curried goat, ackee, doubles, and so on, but I usually stick with the patties that I grew up on. One of my comfort foods.

Know a good place to get patties in Pittsburgh? I’d love to hear it!

Patty King is located at 187 Baldwin Street in Toronto's Kensington Market neighbourhood. Call (416) 977-3191 for more information.

Udipi Cafe, Monroeville, PA

At the end of the 1970s, George Romero put the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville, PA on the map by filming his Dawn of the Dead zombie classic at the local shopping mall. Around the same time, the opening of the Sri Venkateswara temple one mile from the mall was also establishing the area as one of the country's first hubs of Hindu and Indian culture. Since the 1970s, a handful of businesses have opened in the vicinity of the temple to provide services for worshipers, including, most deliciously, Udipi Cafe: an affordable diner-style restaurant specializing in South Indian vegetarian cuisine. Tam and her family have been frequenting Udipi for years, and we make regular visits for meals.

On one recent weekend afternoon, Tam dragged me out of my thesis-writing cave to enjoy lunch there with a couple of friends. I like to start my Udipi meals with a sip of salty lassi, a drink consisting of yogurt and milk laced with salt and whole toasted cumin seeds. Can you tell that I hadn't seen natural light in days?


We almost always start our meal with the dahi vada, an appetizer consisting of deep fried lentil doughnuts which are then soaked in water, chilled, and topped with yogurt, tamarind chutney, spices, and fresh coriander. This cool refreshing starter goes particularly well with a fiery bowl of Udipi's rasam.


Tam always orders her favorite, the chana bhatura (chick peas with fried bread). The chick pea curry comes served with raw onion and a piece of dough fried in oil until it blisters and puffs up with steam to an intimidatingly large size, like a deformed beach ball. It is always rushed piping hot from the kitchen to the table in its impressive inflated state.


Piercing the bhatura with a fork deflates the bread balloon which generally gets torn apart by hand and used to scoop up mouthfuls of curry and onion.


Udipi's dosas are excellent. They are large and expertly prepared: thinly spread like a crepe on a cooking surface until crispy on one side while being just thick enough (a few millimeters) that the other surface stays slightly soft. They are served wrapped or folded over a choice of curries and fillings, and accompanied with small bowls of spicy sambar and cool coconut chutney for dipping. The masala dosa filled with potato curry is particularly good.


Udipi is a no-frills Indian restaurant in the suburbs, but it probably serves the best Indian food in the Pittsburgh area. It's definitely worth a special trip, but you might want to keep your eyes on the Hindu calendar because on holidays, Udipi can be overflowing with worshipers enjoying a post-temple meal.

Udipi Cafe is located at 4141 Old William Penn Highway in Monroeville, PA. Call (412) 373-5581 for more information.

Duff's Famous Wings, Buffalo, NY

Is there something about eating food in the city after which it was named which makes it taste better? I've never had a hamburger in Hamburg, or a cheesesteak in Philly, but since moving to the US, I've had several opportunities to enjoy Buffalo wings on their home turf in Buffalo, NY. I don't know if they are actually the best wings I've tasted, but something about digging into a plate of them in northwest New York makes them seem impossible to beat.

Buffalo is located along the most direct route between my current residence in Pittsburgh and both Toronto and Montreal, and on one road trip, a quick internet cellphone search pointed our group toward Duff's Famous Wings, conveniently located only five minutes from I-90. Craving an alternative to the McDonalds-infested rest stops along the New York State Thruway, we decided a short detour was in order.

From the outside, Duff's seems to meet the requirements one would expect from a solid wing establishment. Neon lights? Check. Giant marquee advertising both how hot their wings are and the upcoming football game? Check and check. Inside there are more promising signs: televisions everywhere (including in the men's room), a bubble hockey table, and very large patrons wedged into cushy leather booths.


On all of my visits, ordering has been simple: wings and beer, and plenty of both. The wings come exactly how I like them. Wing flats and drumettes are deep-fried until crispy on the outside while staying juicy and tender on the inside. Then, from the fryer, they get tossed in lots and lots of sauce. Look at them glisten!


Before elaborating, let me digress by listing my six rules for a great order of buffalo wings. Duff's adheres to these rules pretty closely.

Rule #1. Wings shouldn't be obtained from undersized birds. I don't want wing flats that are so small that I need tweezers to pick out the meat from between the two bones. I want to be able to tear off most of it with my first bite so that I can wedge a finger in there to pry the rest of the meat loose.

Rule #2. Wings shouldn't be obtained from oversize birds. On the other hand, I don't want anything that looks like it came from a turkey. There should be a couple good mouthfuls of meat on a drumette, and that's it. Anything bigger, and I'm going to have too much meat in the interior that's under-seasoned and not in contact with any sauce.

Rule #3. The wings shouldn't be overcooked. I don't want wings that are dry, tough, or leathery. Too long in the deep fryer or too long sitting under a heat lamp and the wings are ruined.

Rule #4. Wings should be accompanied by fresh, crisp, chilled celery and blue cheese dressing. Buffalo wings are warm, the celery shouldn't be too! And is there anything less refreshing than limp celery? The creamy blue cheese dressing is great not only for dipping the celery, but for offsetting the heat with an occasional dip of a wing.

Rule #5. Sauce quality: I want them spicy, and I want some decent acid content. I don't want teriyaki wings, I don't want honey-glazed wings, I don't anything mesquite or dry-rubbed. Just emulsify a vinegary cayenne pepper-based sauce with some fat and go nuts. Keep it simple!

Rule #6. Sauce quantity: the sauce should be plentiful. I can't stress this last point enough. I hate it when an order of Buffalo wings comes with just a few tablespoons of sauce dripped over it. I want every square inch of wing surface area drenched in sauce. I want enough sauce on the bottom of the serving plate to swish my wing in both before and after taking that first bite. I want enough sauce to dip my celery in too. And if the sauce is good, I'm likely going to want to dip my fingers into it and lick them clean. I once had a roommate who used to keep the leftover liquid at the bottom of the bucket from our local wing take-out joint and incorporate it into his homemade pasta sauce. While I don't go that far, I do appreciate the sentiment and similarly treat a good sauce like the valuable commodity that it is.

So, how do Duff's Famous Wings fare? Perfectly sized and perfectly cooked, positively drowned in a quality sauce and accompanied by cool, crunchy celery and creamy blue cheese dressing. 6/6! I've had the medium, the medium-hot, and hot wings. I'd recommend the medium wings for people who like a bit of heat but have relatively sensitive palates. I didn't notice much difference between medium-hot and hot wings. Both caused a healthy amount of mouth and lip tingling without bordering on being unpleasant (for me), but I have a pretty high heat threshold. Some of my dining companions have struggled with anything hotter than medium. The folks over at the Hot Sauce Blog have tested the Armageddon Wings and their advertised 850,000 Scoville Heat Units, but I haven't been that brave yet. Maybe next time?

Duff's draft selection is relatively uninteresting, but I don't think you can go wrong with pitcher of Sam's Adam Boston Lager. Straightforward American beer for a straightforward American food in a straightforward American city. Since that first visit, a drive to or from Toronto or Montreal isn't complete without a quick pit stop in Buffalo.


Duff's is located at 3090 Orchard Park Road in Buffalo, NY. It's a 5 minute detour from I-90 and worth the side trip. Call (716) 674-7212 for more information.

One year and counting!

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of Hungry Canuck! I wanted to write a quick post to thank my few regular readers for their support, suggestions, and comments which have helped me build this site up to its current nearly respectable status.

In one year I managed to review establishments in five states, four countries, and on three continents (counting a day trip to the Asian side of Turkey). Personal highlights include my Southern road trip through Tennessee and transcendent Grilled Cheese in London. I seem to be attracting about 20 readers a day (hi guys!) except the two times that I have been tastespotted when about ten times that amount swarm to the site. My post about Boustan in Montreal gets the most hits which is great, since it's one that I am happiest with. I'm glad to be another resource for stoned college kids at Concordia and McGill when they get their midnight cravings

I have optimistic plans for the next year, including some extensive traveling and eating in new parts of the world. Stay tuned for details! It's also likely that in a year's time Tam and I will be living away from Pittsburgh, and there must be a dozen restaurants in the city that I want to write about before we hit the road. I'll try to get to a few of them each month in the new year.

In honour of the past year, here's one favourite picture that didn't make it into a full post: the slightly less than appetizing Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati institution. A mountain of fluorescent orange cheese, overcooked pasta, and seasoned ground beef. Somehow, I failed to appreciate its culinary value.

Pittsburgh Rib Fest, Pittsburgh, PA

July 2010 update: While I haven't seen official word from the Steelers or Heinz Field, from what I can tell the 2010 festival will be held over Labor Day weekend, from September 2 - 6. The festival will kick off that Thursday evening (September 2) as the Steelers host the Carolina Panthers in the final preseason game.

August 2010 update: The Steelers have finally confirmed what I reported here weeks ago. The 2010 Rib Fest will indeed take place over Labor Day Weekend. See their press release for the full schedule of musical acts and activities. As usual, we'll be there getting our fingers messy with sauce!

As fall edges into winter here in Pittsburgh, I've been reminiscing about one of my favourite annual traditions in this city, the Pittsburgh Rib Fest.

At the end of every summer, barbecue teams descend on Heinz Field for a long weekend of outdoor grilling and competition. While awards are handed out at the end of the weekend for the best ribs, best sauce, and so on, the festival is moreover an opportunity for barbecue lovers to wander the area and sample some great ribs from around the country. Menus vary from vendor to vendor, with the one constant being pork ribs and sides like slaw and baked beans (although you should ask before you order since it seemed like most beans came from a can). Many also sell barbecue chicken and pulled pork, while brisket, beef ribs, and corn bread can be found too. Aside from the dozen or so barbecue joints, kiosks also sell Pennsylvania country fair staples like lemonade, funnel cake, and frozen custard.

But as regular readers of this blog know, I get most excited by barbecue. So every year, I make the trek down to Heinz Field and get 3-bone rib samplers (for $5-6 each) from as many different vendors as it takes to fill me up. If you're not craving a particular regional style of pork, there are many other ways to help you decide which ribs to eat. You can go with the stand with the shortest lines, the one that has the most trophies or award banners, order from the vendor with the catchiest slogan, or perhaps support the stand where the grillmaster is also pulling double duty as MC. It's hard to go wrong.

This year Tam and I started with Bad Wolf Barbecue ("The K.C. Legend", surprisingly based out of Toronto) which combined an impressive array of award banners with some kitchy statuary.


The Bad Wolf ribs were very good without being mindblowing. I'll give them points for the sweet sauce which made for both sticky fingers and a nicely caramelized, slightly charred crust on each rib. The ribs were also quite juicy, not having been cooked to the point of falling off the bone, and maintained a lot of richness from the fat which hadn't fully rendered out of the meat. Are they beautiful, or what?


We thoroughly enjoyed every bite.


Not yet full, we wandered the length of the festival before deciding that our second stop should be at Ron's Ribs ("The King of Ribs"), based out of Mansfield, OH. A huge factor in our decision was this larger-than-life size poster of the King of Ribs himself.


There's a lot to be said for a man who can proudly don a crown on top of his chef's hat, epaulettes, a golden sash (literally proclaiming him the "King of Ribs and Sauce"), five medals (presumably for excellence in ribs and/or sauce), and white gloves (not very practical for a barbecue grillmaster), without a hint of irony. And is that a scepter he's wielding?

While waiting in line, we noticed that the King himself was manning the grill, thankfully having traded in his scepter for a pair of tongs and his crown for a King of Ribs ball cap. After purchasing our ribs, we settled down on the curb and pulled them apart with our hands. These were exactly my style. Achingly tender, lean, and with a perfect balance of sauce to smoky pork. Long live the king!

The Pittsburgh Rib Fest takes place outside Heinz Field and generally runs over the long weekend which contains the first Pittsburgh Panthers home football game in late August or early September. Check back on this page in the summer of 2010 for an update on the upcoming festival's exact schedule.

Similar events periodically take place across the country. The Kansas City Barbeque Society keeps an excellent searchable list of events they sponsor on their website.

Round Corner Cantina, Pittsburgh, PA

Tam and I were meeting a friend at a local bar for a drink in September when he made a passing comment about a new, excellent Mexican restaurant that had only been serving food for two weeks. Regular readers of this space may remember that I've often bemoaned the lack of quality Mexican food in Pittsburgh, so this news excited us tremendously. It took us about ten minutes to settle our tab before we raced down to Lawrenceville to check it out for ourselves.

The Round Corner Hotel had been a Pittsburgh dive for as long as anyone I know here remembered, until a trio of Lawrenceville residents bought out the previous owner and transformed it into the Round Corner Cantina, a bar which also happens to now serve the best, high quality, straightforward Mexican street food in the city. We enjoyed our first meal there so much that we went back with friends the next week. Then popped in for a birthday dinner the week after that. And met another set of friends there last week. This place has quickly become our go-to spot for a low-key, fantastic meal.

We've tasted most of the menu by now, and our favorite item is the escabeche, fresh vegetables lightly pickled with vinegar, cilantro, and a hint of fresh hot pepper, which we've ordered on each visit. It comes in a mason jar with the lid popped off. A few thin wooden skewers are provided for diners to spear their veggies. On our first visit in late summer, the escabeche featured local cauliflower and snap peas, but as we move into fall, the contents are shifting towards carrots, pearl onions, and baby turnips. The crunchy veggies in the jars offer a glimpse at what our local farmers are currently harvesting in Western Pennsylvania.

Another of our favorites is the queso fundido con chorizo, which is divine in its simplicity and is directly inspired by similar dishes in taquerias across Mexico. The Cantina's version consists of a tiny cast iron pan filled with chihuahua cheese and finely diced chorizo, broiled until completed melted and bubbly in the middle, and slightly crispy around the edges. A basket of fresh, warm tortilla chips is provided to help scoop up each bite. This dish is laden with grease from the melted cheese and salty chorizo, but the small serving size keeps it from weighing the diner down.

Also, its hard to go wrong with the tacos. Served two to a plate in very lightly grilled corn tortillas, filled with the protein of your choice (with seitan available for vegetarians). I tend to prefer the carnitas, topped with queso fresco, thinly sliced radishes, diced onions, cilantro, and a wedge of lime. The pork doesn't have the salty crispiness of my favorite carnitas, but they are nonetheless sublime in their stewed smokiness.

The small menu will satisfy your inner carnivore with the carnitas or chicharrones, while vegetarians can enjoy interesting options ranging from a cactus salad and guacamole to elote.

The extensive drink list features over a dozen types of tequila and mezcal, inspired cocktails, and our favorites, the micheladas (we prefer the Mexican over the Spanish). The Mexican michelada consists of a mason jar of Mexican lager topped with a sprig of cilantro, a pinch of salt, a spear of hot pepper, and a splash of lime.

It didn't take long for word to get out, and the Round Corner Cantina has quickly emerged as a popular spot for drinks and bites among Pittsburgh's 20 and 30 something crowd. Early problems with understaffing seemed to have been sorted out on our last visit.

In the warm weather, the fenced in, grassy back yard takes on the feel of a mellow house party, with the wait staff shuttling out drinks and food from inside to the picnic tables and and benches filling the space.

Our same friend recently whispered a new rumour that the menu might be getting touched up for the winter. I know we'll keep checking it out, and suggest that anyone who's ever bemoaned the lack of good Mexican food in this city does the same. The drought is over!

The Round Corner Cantina is located in the beautiful Round Corner Hotel building at 3720 Butler Street in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighbourhood. You can check out their public Facebook page or call 412-904-2279 for more information. As a bar, entry is restricted to those 21 and over.

I apologize for the low quality of the pictures. The dim lighting and rich interior colours in the Cantina make for great atmosphere but difficult photography without a tripod.

Kanlıca Yogurt, Kanlıca, Turkey

One of our more memorable days in Turkey was spent taking a ferry from the Eminönü docks in Istanbul along the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavağı, on the mouth of the Black Sea. With the warm sun on our faces, any real life stresses rapidly sublimated in the strong sea breeze.


While the ferry made stops at several suburbs and towns along its route, a lone food vendor made his rounds, first selling simit, a dense sesame-encrusted, bagel-shaped bread, and then ubiquitous glasses of steaming black Turkish tea. As Tam and I were headed for the end of the line, we stayed in our seats, munching and sipping our purchases.

When the ferry pulled into the Kanlıca dock, we could tell from our perch on the rear deck that the town was special. Two boys were swimming in the water outside a cafe advertising yoğurdu. Even though I barely speak Turkish, yoğurdu sounded like it had to be delicious.


As the ferry pulled back out into the strait, the vendor started selling small tubs of yoğurdu (which unsurprisingly turned out to be yogurt) from a crate which had been freshly delivered on board. For two turkish liras (about $1.40 USD), the vendor popped off the lid and heaped two giant teaspoons of powdered sugar onto the surface of the yogurt.


The yogurt was thick, almost solid. Legend has it, it used to be sold in blocks which were cut by knife. The fermented whole milk (a blend of cow and sheep milk) was tangy and creamy, topped with a thick skin of milk solids. We blended the yogurt and sugar together, and savored every spoonful, each bite balancing the intense sourness from the lactic acid with the added sweetness. It was a fantastically refreshing summer snack.

Our ferry voyage ended at Anadolu Kavağı, where we explored some ruins on a cliff overlooking the Black Sea before hopping on a meandering bus back toward Istanbul. The bus route followed the Asian shore, through small coastal towns and past markets. Hungry, we decided to get off the bus when it passed through Kanlıca, and quenched our hunger with pide (perhaps the original "football pizza"?) and another yogurt from a small shop behind the town square. We took it to the waterfront and ate it on a park bench, savoring every perfect spoonful.


It's easy to make a weak, although still delicious approximation of this treat using widely available Greek-style yogurt, like Fage. Unfortunately, in North America, I've never tasted a yogurt as good as what they sell in Kanlıca.

Kanlıca-style yogurt
1 cup chilled thick, greek yogurt
2 heaping teaspoons of powdered sugar

Blend. Eat it in the sunshine, preferably somewhere where you can feel a sea breeze.

The town of Kanlıca is located 20 km north of Istanbul, on the Bosphorus' Asian shore. There are a handful of yogurt vendors around the small town selling tubs of creamy yogurt which you can order with sugar or without. For a heartier meal, the Kanlıca kebab ve Yemek salonu on Halide Edip Adivar Caddesi serves delicious pide from a brick oven and provided complimentary salad and friendly conversation with our meal.