Fish’n’Chips as potent Cultural moment
If you were say in New York you might get the impression that the only restaurant in Toronto is Caplansky, the deli which opened last year on College and Brunswick. Caplansky has been praised four times ( as far as I know), twice in Gourmet and twice in the New York Times.
Not so in Toronto where controversy rages over Caplansky’s version of smoked meat. It seems you either love or hate it.
Among the lovers is home-smoker Stephen Temkin writing in City Bites, who defines Caplansky’s as uniquely Toronto and rates it over Montreal’s acclaimed Schwartz’s smoked meat: “ It’s more fragrantly cured, tends to be less dry, and the presence of real smoke fulfills the promise of its billing.”
The haters are all over the blogs. A typical comment on my blog comes from Larry Tanebaum “I’ve been there three times, each time worse than the other. The smoked meat is downright horrible and don’t get me started on the poutine….oy vey.”
The passion is infectious. Jewish gastronomes are fighting to keep alive one of their most potent cultural memories. In comparison, most of us are wusses. True, the French have asked the UN to make their cuisine a cultural heritage site, and the Italians have specs for authentic pizza but, unlike the French and Champagne, they haven’t passed a law decreeing “pizza” may only be used for Italian-made pizzas.
What would pizza be called here?Cheezywheezy?
This sends me out to check my passion for my potent cultural food memory – fish and chips.
We kids ate them before the movies. We biked into our market town and picked them up from the chipper – hot,vinegary and tinctured with lead leached from the hot type of the tabloid newspaper in which they came wrapped. While we developed a palate for Ch. Haut Brion, which has that same irresistible lead pencil flavour, we sucked up the headlines. “Footballer strangled by 18 year old Tabby”, “Bride dies in underwater tryst” which were more sensational than the movie, our cinema alas wasn’t on the Paramount circuit.
Word of mouth guides us to Kingsway Fish and Chips, Royal York and Bloor W. This is an old Anglo neighbourhood and the place is packed on a Friday night. Atmosphere exudes friendliness. The staff, like our waiter Jackie, are buoyant lifers. We order a single fish and chip plate $9.89. A beautiful golden bubble of fish arrives, the fragile pastry flaking, then melting in the mouth. Divine. Firm but tender, fresh wild halibut cooked just right. I don’t remember any fish so good. We send for another order of fish $7.49 stat.
The homemade tartar sauce is creamy, spiked with pickle, the chips charged with malt vinegar are crisp, perhaps the Caesar salad has too many coarse romaine leaves but the coleslaw is crunchy sweet and sour. From a list of other fish dishes, we pick ten grilled fat shrimps on a skewer $ 12.99. V.good. There’s beer, and the highest price for wines by the glass is $6.49 for an Oz Chardonnay.
Bowled over, I ask the owner Gary Blokhuis how he’s made a British tradition even better.
Turns out he’s Dutch!. Proof again that Toronto IS fusion. Gary’s family came from a seaside village. He says “They knew good fish.” After settling in Toronto, Gary’s father got an offer he couldn’t refuse. The St. Lawrence Fish Market, which preceded the present market, wanted to move a glut of halibut and helped new immigrants get bank loans to open chippers. Gary enthusiastically followed his father, opening his first chipper in 1968. Since 1971, he’s been in Etobicoke. “This is my third shop. I outgrew the first two locations.” Now he’s passed the baton to his son Gord and Gord’s wife Rachel – just taking it back on Fridays to keep his hand in.
***Kingsway Fish and Chips 3060 Bloor W. 416 –233-3355
Wheelchair access. Dinner, food plus tax – under $30
Toronto Loosens Its Corsets, New Breed Chefs Scuttle the Staid is how Food Arts Magazine headlines my story about Toronto restaurants in its April issue – now available at the Cook Book Store 850 Yonge St. 416- 920-2665. Did you know that Toronto, so many miles from any ocean, is the best place to eat oysters in all of North America?
