FROM DECEMBER 2021 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX

We asked WEP readers what menu item you still crave from a Toronto restaurant that closed its doors, recently or long ago. You gave us all the toothsome details – how it became your special, what else is wrapped in the memory of it, and why nothing can take its place

The Silver Rail’s Spaghetti Bolognese

225 YONGE ST.

I know what you’re thinking: What does a bar known for its martinis and louche patrons know about Italian food? But if you left the gorgeous bar and went downstairs, you entered a time machine where Caesar salads were made tableside, the waiters were hilarious, and the light was always flattering. I had some of my first dates with my husband there, and he continues to make the Silver Rail’s spag bol to this day. If I had all the money in the world, I’d bring that place back to life. — Liz Renzetti

Madras Durbar’s $6 vegetarian thali

1435 GERRARD ST. E.

I think they closed their doors in the early 2000s. But for me, going there was a once-a-week thing, normally with my friend Sam Allison. It was basically our food church. We always ordered the same thing – everyone did – the $6 vegetarian thali. Maybe it went up to $7 by the time it shut down. It came in five or six aluminum dishes with sambar, rice and my favourite, the curry potato. The contorted pepper at the edge of the dish I always gave to Sam, who’d swallow it whole. When you were finished there was no way you could go back to work or do anything. Too engorged. Painfully. Blissfully. Just kind of had to sleepwalk it off the rest of the afternoon. I crave it still. — John Southworth

Café la Gaffe’s curried chèvre pesto pizza

24 BALDWIN ST.

I love Café la Gaffe on Baldwin, which is right around the corner from [CFNY radio host] Dave Bookman’s old place on Beverley, and I particularly loved (still do) the Gaffe’s curried chèvre pesto pizza. I ate a lot of pizzas there in the ’90s. And for a twenty-nothing back then, anything with chèvre was fancy food. One night in 1995, on the Gaffe’s front patio, Bookie and I brainstormed a little comic book idea featuring all the players in the upcoming Tragically Hip-headlined Another Roadside Attraction tour, and starring [WEP publisher] Dave Bidini as our ubiquitous superhero. Over the next three weeks, in what I remember to be an unusually humid-gross early summer, I drew and drew in the dank cool of my basement. I wasn’t working that summer, so I had no money. All I had was a freebie case of strawberry Snapple iced tea no one wanted at Bookie’s radio station (because who would?), and that’s what I subsisted on. Sad.

As an incentive tool, Bookman occasionally sent over, via late-night taxi into the wilds of the West End, a curried chèvre pesto pizza from the Gaffe, wrapped tightly in tin foil on a big heavy black plate. Of course Bookie knew the chef, who was happy to support a real starving artist, because any friend of Bookie’s.... No need to return the plate.

Three decades later, I can still have that pizza any time I want, and it’s pretty incredible the Gaffe is still going, and still offering it. More than ever, I should really get there again soon. But that fancy-pants pizza delivered wrapped in tin foil on the heavy black plate they didn’t need back, despite its profound deliciousness, is more profoundly about a friend, encapsulating his kindness and the extensions of kindness he inspired in others. Now, with Bookie’s polyps he couldn’t taste much, so he could never know, and yet he did know, just how delicious that cozy-warm-spiced-creamy-salty-pesto-whole-wheaty-crusted-holy-geez-pizza was to me.

I still have the plate. — Erin McLeod

Combo’s roast chicken and Greek salad

AT BLOOR AND BATHURST

It was dirt cheap – around six bucks for a huge portion of perfectly done roasted chicken and a Greek salad in a creamy feta-garlic dressing. I would go with my pals from the band I played in and we would put the meal on our lead vocalist’s Mastercard. The card was way over its limit and Combos didn’t have a card zapper, nor did they call in for authorization – this was back in the late 1980s. Combos would fold in the early 1990s, and the brothers Kilgour would consolidate their efforts that they put into Combos and into the recently departed Kilgours Bar Meets Grill. — Sean Welsh

Sushi Xtra’s Guha special

423 QUEEN ST. W.

They had a Guha special. Anyone who knew could ask for the Guha special. The server would then ask, “How much?” And whatever price you wanted to pay, Hayashi would make whatever HE wanted. And it was always worth more than what you paid for. I miss Hayashi. — RJ Guha

Vena’s roti

646 QUEEN ST. W. AND 1263 BLOOR ST. W.

It was my stepping stone to becoming vegan when they had the store near my old practice space at Queen and Bathurst in the ’90s. My kids had Vena’s roti for Christmas dinner, just before its owner, Mashud Siddique, passed away. The chickpeas were always bright, and he made the best roti wrap. It was a culinary chapter of my life. I will never look at Ms Pac Man without remembering Mo. — DR MacDonell

La Hacienda’s chicken burrito

640 QUEEN ST. W.

With the side of cheesy nachos before they stopped doing that. It was the very first restaurant I frequented in Toronto when I moved here in 1990. I lived in a shitty apartment around the corner. The music was loud, the food was good, they treated me badly, and I loved it. It felt like a real city place to me. I went back hundreds of times over the years until they closed. When they stopped doing the side nachos I asked what was going on. The reply from Yanic was, “I could explain it to you but who has time for that.” La Ha never lost its real city place vibe to me. — Justin Stephenson

Hunan Palace’s hot and sour soup

412 SPADINA AVE.

I miss Hunan Palace on Spadina. It was the greatest misnomer in history because this restaurant was the furthest thing from a palace that can be imagined, but Henry made the best food on the strip. His hot and sour soup was so good that my friend Gord and I would order a big tureen of it for a starter. We would eat a load of anything made with black bean sauce and finish with another tureen of that soup. — Russ Musgrove

Chi-chi’s table salsa

AT MARKHAM AND ELLESMERE

We used to go to Chi-Chi’s with my dad and step-mum in Scarborough back in the ’80s and I loved that salsa. I’ve since become a professional cook, travelled in Central America, lived and cooked with a Mexican, and searched high and low, and have never found the flavour in that salsa. I even found an old BB post from the late ’90s from a guy who worked at a Chi-Chi’s in the States, and he posted their recipe and there’s something missing. I suspect it has to do with the brand of pick- led jalapeños in it, but it could just be that my memory has altered the flavour to a point where I’ll never find the answer. — Chris Schryer

Sgana Landing’s fish stew

40 STADIUM RD.

I loved their fish stew that came bubbling to the table with hunks of homemade bread. That it was secret and secluded was a bonus. It was a time when the Toronto waterfront was part of our city. I loved the pace and the fresh ingredients. We’d sit at rickety tables on gravel, looking out at the sail boats lilting on the water, feet away from us, and could imagine we were anywhere. — Erella Ganon

Caffe Brasiliano’s $1.50 rice balls

849 DUNDAS ST. W.

For the longest time when it was on the north side of the street, it was only cops and cab drivers that ate there. The fried rice balls for $1.50 were a meal if you had a salad at home. Fragrant homemade sauce on a bit of cheese wrapped in rice, then fried to a golden orb. Oh my. — E.G.

THE DISH YOU MISS