Pita

406 Queen Street West | Toronto, ON
http://www.rosecitykitchen.com

Rose City Kitchen is a new addition on the Queen West & Spadina Strip, serving up quick and delicious Middle Eastern Sandwiches and snacks. Last week I was invited to a preview of what the restaurant was all about. This tiny shop makes everything in house and also has their own special pita sandwich recipe. How it works is you can choose from 5 different sandwiches and then you have the choice of 4 different protein you can fill your pita with, chicken, steak, falafel or halloumi cheese.

We got to try the Basic Vegetarian Poutine with aioli, tabouleh and grated cheese. A Great take on a Canadian classic. The poutine was delicious, it was light, flavourful and I couldn’t stop picking at it. You can get it topped with chicken, steak, falafel or halloumi cheese.

The Falafels (deep-fried patty made from ground chickpeas, spices and seasonings) have a fluffy inside with an incredibly crispy exterior, so good with he hummus.

The interior is small with a few high top tables and stools and is mostly a grab and go kind of place. The atmosphere has a clean industrial feeling with pops of red and black around the space. On one side of the wall there is a giant photograph of Petra (the archeological city in Jordan), the kitchen is open where you can see the gorgeous red titled stone oven where they make all their pitas in.

The RCK original with Steak (humus, tabouleh, home fries, carrots, lettuce, garlic oil, cherry harissa).

The Greek with Chicken (Tzatziki, pickled red onions, tomatoes, Cabbage, Iettuce, oregano, garlic oil, halloumi).

The Moroccan with Chicken (harissa, couscous, cabbage, red onions, tomatoes, almond. Apricots, parsley, chickpeas).

The Lebanese with Chicken (garlic sauce, pickles, lettuce)

They also have the Egyptian which isn’t pictured and it comes stuffed with eggplant confit, chickpeas, dates and garlic oil.
Rose City Kitchen is a nice healthy addition to the Queen West area and an alternative to all the burger joints you find nearby.

810 Queen St East | Toronto, ON
http://tabule.ca

Tabülè opened it’s second location on the east side of town in Leslieville, this new Tabülè is modern and chic with a combination of rustic and modern decor. During summer they even open up the front windows to create a bigger space.

They started us off with an array of pickled vegetables (cucumbers, olives, raddish and peppers).

We got the Babaganüj, pureed bbq eggplant mixed with lebanese tahini, garlic and fresh lemon juice, $5.50, to start. Come with some warm pita to dip, it was creamy, rich and flavourful.

Kefta – two skewers of charcoal broiled ground mixed lamb and beef with onions, tomatoes, parsley, garlic and spices

I love Tabülè’s Falafel vegetarian patties consisting of crushed chick peas, split fava, parsley, garlic, onions and spices fried and served with tahini $5.75. They were ridiculously crispy but the inside was soft with a fresh herbiness.

We got the Kefta (two juicy skewers of charcoal broiled ground mixed lamb and beef with onions, tomatoes, parsley, garlic and spices $14.95) to share. This was kind of a disappointing dish, I had such high hopes for it considering the rest of the meal was delicious, the skewers were dry and tasted like a not-so-good meatball. I just felt like the dish needed some sauce of some sort, in the end was asked for some hot sauce.

Overall the food was good but we got terrible service, we had to wave down multiple servers. Most of them walked off not even glancing at us. No one came over to ask how our meal was and it just seemed like everyone was too busy to pay attention to us even though the restaurant wasn’t packed.
I had so much more I wanted to try but I’ll probably head over to the original location to give Tabülè another go.

Tag: Pita

ROSE CITY KITCHEN

TABULE