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King West

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buca-dat

After touching down in Toronto, Flo and I went to Buca on King Street for dinner. It’s been a few years since I’ve been here but I will remember they had some pretty damn good Italian food. They have 2 more locations Buca Bar and Buca Yorkville.

Like always, remember to make reservations or else you will be out of luck. We managed to snag a reservation on Open Table at 6pm a day before due to cancellations.

buca-dining

We were seated in their wine room and it was really beautiful seeing all their varieties of wine.

buca-inner

There are lots of tables and seats in the area. It’s much more calm and relaxing here compared to their main dining area.

buca-beer

Peroni is served in a large wine glass. I never felt more sophisticated drinking beer out of this glass. I like Peroni because it’s light with a hint of citrus.

buca-plate

We chose two types of their Salumi Di Buca, which are their daily meat.

  • Prosciuttini, which is a cured leg of pork with colonata spice.
  • Coppa, cured pork shoulder with ciociare spice

Then we got 2 of their formaggi, which are their cheeses:

  • Ricotta Di Bufala, is their whipped water buffalo milk whey cheese
  • Pecorino Toscano, Tuscan DOP Sheeps milk cheese, aged 8 years

All the the choices were great and they came with their daily preserves. It’s a fun item to pick a few meats and cheeses and enjoy a good chat with friends while picking at the plate.

buca-dumpling

Gnocco Fritto ($7) are Tuscan spiced crisp dumpling. It is basically a big dumpling that is hollow. It is served with lardo, which is basically fat.

I thought it was an average dish. It looks beautiful, but I didn’t like the idea of eating fat and deep fried hollow dumplings.

buca-pig-ears

Orecchio Di Maiale ($8) is a great dish to share. It is crisp pig’s ears with wild fennel and sale di cervia. It is so crispy and is music to my ears. It was good for the first few pieces, but it did get quite salty after a while.

buca-funghi

Fungi Pizza ($24) has sauteed seasonal mushrooms, marscarpone, gorgonzola and marjoram. This pizza was quite rich and heavy. The mushrooms didn’t shine through as it was overpowered by the various cheeses.

buca-pasta

Bigoli ($18) has torchio-cranked duck egg pasta, duck offal ragu, venetian spices, mascarpone, and basil . The portion was small for the price, but it tasted good.

Their food is pretty good but you have to choose the dishes carefully. Here is my last visit from 2012. I do like the atmosphere of Buca and it is quite lively.

We Rate Buca:

Address:
602 King Street W.
Toronto, ON

Website:
http://buca.ca/

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Lee-menu

Lee offers private dining experiences for group of 10 – 30 people. It’s a cozy space for special occasions for friends and family…or even an office party. I was here for my friend’s rehearsal dinner for her wedding and gathered in the room to celebrate.

lee-private-room
Photo by Lee

The space has a long table to seat all your guests and cozy up to the fireplace.The room over looks their narrow private garden.

Lee-room

The room is located past their kitchen and has their own washroom away from the rest of the restaurant.

Lee-saketini

Saketini has moonstone Plum Saké, Tozai Living Jewel Junmai Saké, Belvedere Vodka, Yuzu, and Flower Petals.

Lee-slaw

Singaporean-style Slaw has green onions, taro root, rice vermicelli, cucumber, carrots, jicama, daikon, tomatoes, sesame seeds, ginger, peanuts, edible flowers, purple, basil, coriander, daikon sprouts, shallots, pickled red onion, with their salted plum dressing and onion oil. This is an amazing dish! Everyone must order this.

Some people love this so much that they just order one of these to themselves.

Lee-curry-top-chef

Top Chef Green Curry Chicken has crispy multi-grain rice cake, pine nuts, spiced tomato jam, oven dried pineapple, and chili mint. This was the Top Chef award winning dish when Susur Lee was on the show. I always find this dish ok and not as jaw dropping as what some other people say.

Lee-chocolate-cake

Warm Molten Chocolate Cake has caramelized jackfruit & banana with vanilla bean ice cream. Oh man, this dish was a surprise. It seems pretty normal, but once you cut into the cake, it oooooozzzzeeessss with the chocolate inside. So good! I ate most of this and I kept craving more.

Lee-dessert

The vanilla ice cream with the blue berry sauce and chocolate decoration paired nicely too.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the meal. We had a lot of dishes, but I kinda enjoyed the meal a little too much. I usually don’t forget to take photos. For more dishes, you can view my previous review of Lee. When in doubt, always order the slaw.

We Rate Lee

Address:
603 King St W
Toronto, ON

Website:
http://www.susur.com/lee/

Lee on Urbanspoon

Lee-inner

Lee was created by Susur Lee. He has appeared on a few Food Network shows such as – Chopped Canada, Top Chef Canada, Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef America, and Restaurant Makeover to name a few.

The dishes served here have modern Asian & French influences. I came here to dine with Flo, Fabo, and M. I tried coming here a few years ago, but it wasn’t open on Sundays, so we went elsewhere. This time, I was determined to dine here.

Lee-water

When asking for hot water, it comes in such a cute tea pot with some lemon slices on the side.

Lee-cocktail

Flo wanted a non-alcoholic fruity drink, so she asked the server for a nice suggestion. He basically just surprised here with this beautiful creation.

Lee-salad

Singaporean-style Slaw ($20) states that it serves two, but its pretty big. We shared it with a group of 4 and it was no problem. It has green onions, taro root, rice vermicelli, cucumber, carrots, jicama, daikon, tomatoes, sesame seeds, ginger, peanuts, edible flowers, purple, basil, coriander, daikon sprouts, shallots, pickled red onion, with their salted plum dressing and onion oil. It was like a garden! The dish actually looked more impressive when it arrived at the table, but the server helped us mix it, so I missed getting the shot. If you are dining here, this is a must have dish. It’s refreshing and has a ton of flavour.

Lee-curry

Top Chef Green Curry Chicken ($28) has crispy multi-grain rice cake, pine nuts, spiced tomato jam, oven dried pineapple, and chili mint. This was the Top Chef Award Winning Dish. The dish was ok, it was definitely creative but it lacked depth in the sauce.

lee-kalbi

Korean Style Marinated Beef Striploin ($35) has garlic mushrooms, roasted pear, blue cheese & dill sauce, topped with arugula.  The beef is 8oz, so it a good size. The striploin was tender and flavourful. It didn’t taste very Korean at all.

Lee-scallops

Spice Crusted Diver Scallop ($28) has crispy bacon, squash purée, pomelo, and spiced Chinese sweet bean pesto. The scallops were seared perfectly, but we didn’t like the combination of squash and pomelo.

Lee-skewers

Assam Thai Satay ($25) comes with 2 skewers of chicken, shrimp, and beef. The sauces that comes with it are chili mint, peanut sauce, and spicy mango salsa. It was pricey for those 6 skewers.

 

Lee-tataki

Black Pepper Charred Tuna Sashimi & Spicy Tartare ($28) has soya bean, tonnato sauce, and lotus root crisps.

Lee-tuna

It was a delicious dish! The quality of the tuna can really be tasted. Good mix of ingredients.

Lee-Wrap

Peking & Char Sui Duck ($29) has Beijing duck garnish, steamed pancake, and foie gras pâté. This was one of the last dishes to come and we thought it could have come earlier in the meal. By this point, we were already stuffed.

Lee-wraps

It is a fun dish to put together as you have everything to make the wraps. Just mix a little bit of everything in the steamed pancake and you are set. It was a nice twist on the original duck wraps. I really loved the fried bean curd because it adds a nice crunch.

Overall, the one dish that blew our minds was the Singaporean-style slaw. Every dish that came out after that wasn’t as exciting. They tasted good, but not as much excitement.

We Rate Lee

Address:
603 King St W
Toronto, ON

Website:
http://www.susur.com/lee/

Lee on Urbanspoon

Buca is an Italian restaurant in King West area of Toronto. It was recently named one of Canada’s Top 50 restaurants. The food is simple, but is known for the amazing flavour and quality.

We were originally going to Lee, but they are closed on Sundays. BaguetteGirl decided to take us to Buca instead and it was not disappointing at all.

The interior is quite rustic and has some cool interior decor. They even have cured meat hanging in certain places of the restaurant.

It’s usually busy and its hard to get a reservation for weeks apparently. Fortunately, without reservations, we were able to get a table for 3.

Their menu changes daily depending of their ingredients that they have on hand.

Orecchio Di Maiale ($8) is crispy pig ears with wild fennel salt. It was very crispy and most delicious! It also wasn’t too oily too. I would highly recommend this item!

Pomodoro E Tartufo ($29) has preserved tomatoes, basil and truffled burrata cheese finished with scorzone truffles. It’s a simple pizza, but it is incredibly thin and super crispy. They even give you scissors to cut it up into pieces. You must get pizza here!

Spaghetti Al Nero Di Maiale ($22) has hand cut blood pasta with n’duja, soffruitto and wild leeks finished with burrata cheese. The pasta was surprisingly spicy, but if you can stand the extra kick of spice, you’ll like it. The burrata cheese gives the pasta a nice creamy texture.

Orecchiette ($27) has hand-made pasta with basil fed snails, soffrietto, brussel sprouts and fresh fava beans finishes with butter and crisp pancetta. The pasta was soft and the snails contrasted nicely with the salty pancetta.

Overall, it was a great dining experience at Buca. I can see why they are one of the Top 50 restaurants in Canada. Their pizza is to die for and I’ve never had anything close to it in Vancouver. The service was sparse and it would be hard to get the attention of the waiter.

Words of Wisdom:

  • Pizza and crispy pork ears is a must!
  • Make Reservations

We Rate Bucca:
Address:
602 King Street W.
Toronto, ON
Website:
http://buca.ca/
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