National Post, (Canada)
May 26, 2007 Saturday
Toronto Edition
Suburbia is a state of mind
by Jon Bricker and Kate Swoger, National Post
ARMENIAN KITCHEN
1646 Victoria Park Ave., North York, 416-757-7722
A recent column about eating Sri Lankan in Scarborough elicited an
angry response from one reader. Burbchomp, as the name suggests, is a
column about suburban dining. Scarborough, our reader reminded us,
joined Toronto and officially ceased to be a suburb years ago. Which
got us thinking: What makes a suburb a suburb, anyway?
In the end, we agreed that the ideal suburb is a place with lots of
strip malls, little public transit and a nearby ethnic community big
enough to support restaurants that serve up something a little more
authentic than what often passes for foreign food in the giant
melting pot that is downtown.
Take the neighbourhood around Victoria Park, just south of the 401.
Sure, it’s technically part of the City of Toronto, but it also has
many of the hallmarks of a suburb. Plenty of strip malls. Barely a
pedestrian or public-transit user in sight. And an Armenian diaspora
that’s been keeping the Armenian Kitchen in business for years.
Inside the Armenian Kitchen, we’re immediately convinced that this is
indeed the real thing. Tahini squeeze bottles are on every table.
Posters on the wall feature quotes testifying to the fortitude of the
Armenian people. And the menu is filled with Middle Eastern classics,
as well as a handful of less familiar Armenian delicacies.
We started with Middle Eastern. A yellow lentil soup achieved that
rare perfect consistency, somewhere between watery and thick as
molasses. Falafel balls were almost alarmingly crunchy on the
outside, but delightfully soft on the inside. The lemony tabuleh
salad was wonderful. And kubeh, a meaty dumpling usually made with
lamb, was made here with well-spiced beef coated in a thin layer of
bulgur and then fried. We’d skip some of the other Middle Eastern
classics next time. The hummus and baba ghanouj were merely so-so and
arrived with a basket of dried-out pita.
The Armenian specialties proved to be more interesting. The spicy
garlic potatoes arrived soggy with orange goop that didn’t look
terribly appetizing but tasted wonderfully of garlic. And the sujok,
a beef sausage that’s heavily spiced then left to dry for several
days, had an unusual, pungent flavour; we were hesitant at first but
quickly came to enjoy it.
A word of advice: Leave room for dessert. All of the goodies at
Armenian Kitchen are made at the Armenian bakery next door. Indeed,
our chosen dessert was quite possibly the best part of the entire
meal. The mhalabia was a fantastic milky custard, swimming in subtly
sweet rosewater (a popular ingredient in Armenian cuisine, as it
turns out), and topped with crunchy pistachio bits that provided a
perfect ending to the meal. – Dinner for two (includes tax, but not
drinks or tip): $25