Last Sunday was another biweekly foray into
Toronto's foodie scene out in the boonies with The Anime King...although I sometimes think that for these food outings, I really ought to be dubbing him The Foodie King. I guess the theme for the 25th should have been called
"SPICY", and I intentionally put that up in capital letters. Our first stop was at a strip mall at the southeast corner of
Sheppard and Kennedy. Right next to a
Hakim Optical branch, there was a
Pakistani restaurant called
Pakwanchi that the Anime King has been a regular at for several years. It's a small eatery and we were the first ones in the place. There are a few tables but The King has told me that even at high noon, the place isn't all that busy since the regulars take it more as a takeout place than a sitdown dining experience.
Our first dish was
The Beef Nihari, an oily, soupy curry with chunks of beef so tender that you can utter a swear word at it, and they'll fall apart. We got our good share of naan to dip and scoop up the beef with the curry. And boy, those spices will do more than the most powerful antihistamine to clear your sinuses. My stomach was still doing a cha-cha several hours later. Good stuff, but I would beware. The nihari came with condiments such as fresh ginger strips, lemon, lemongrass and hot peppers (for those with a death wish for self-immolation). Guess which three I went with.
Then it was
The Chicken Biryani, long-grained rice with a lot of spices mixed in, including saffron, and a couple of pieces of grilled chicken underneath. This was also a killer dish, and to emphasize that point, the waiter also left us a pot of yogurt to spoon onto the biryani so that our esophagi wouldn't end up corroding.
Very good stuff, but we sure drained that pitcher of water really quickly.
