Nibbles and Bites

Food sleuth is my name; sleuthing is my game.

In keep­ing with the above, I am report­ing on some excel­lent finds — two in the Strat­ford region where I still spend week­ends at my “coun­try home”, the other in Toronto where I am on weekdays.

Sim­ple Fish and Chips, 118 Downie St., just steps from City Hall in down­town Strat­ford is that rar­ity: a really good fish and chip shop. Ross and I had heard about the new eatery owned and oper­ated by a fel­low from nearby St. Mary’s (he recently closed the fish and chip­pery there and spends part of his time sell­ing sausages from a bar­row) but had not tried its wares until the other night.

Wow, the chips are top-notch: fresh-cut and freshly made, slightly sweet as good chips should be and only a tad soggy yet crispy — exactly the way I like them. They and the fish — fried in a crisp light bat­ter with­out being greasy — are first-rate. I had perch (locally caught and ter­rific if maybe a bit heavy on the bat­ter) and he had hal­ibut — both excellent.

This is an enlight­ened eatery. Note the menu’s Tofu Fish and Chips, Tus­can Crusted Tilapia and Lob­ster Slid­ers. At about $15 a per­son, the price is right too.

A coun­try drive away in nearby Sebringville, the de Mar­tines fam­ily raise her­itage pork. Proof of the porcine flesh is in the eat­ing and two large Berk­shire pork loin chops (only about $4 a pop) were quickly unfrozen to yield a deli­cious dinner.

Only prob­lem here is that most of the de Mar­tines meat goes to Toronto butch­ers and restau­rants who crave nat­u­rally raised meat so right now the pickin’s are slim.

In Toronto, I made a sec­ond visit the other day to the east end of town (Ger­rard and Pape) when the crav­ing hit for Turk­ish pizza.

These long, boat-shaped pies are delec­table at about $10 a pop and plenty for two peo­ple. The thin, crisp pas­try is a cross between usual pizza dough and pie pas­try with a choice of fill­ings that include feta cheese, spinach, spicy sausage, ground beef, chopped chicken, eggs, moz­zarella or com­bos of the above. Delish!