Anti-Semitic health inspectors close Steeles Deli

Took a drive down to the city yesterday, the day a bunch of not very Canadian b-ball players were putting Toronto on the map, to have lunch with Junior. He's just finished his third year at U of T, and since I haven't had a face-to-face with him for some time I thought this would be a day well spent.

He lives downtown but subbed up to the Finch station, the last stop on the Yonge line. We headed for the Steeles Deli, which has for over thirty years been a haunt for the Jewish side of the family.

It was closed. We ended up having lunch at the Red Lobster on Yonge about a mile north of Steeles. That was something of a selfish decision, since Junior doesn't care for seafood, whereas I like a fix of lobster every now and again.

On the way back to the Finch subway station we stopped at Centre Park to let Boomer have a romp before our drive back to the boonies. Boomer is the last survivor of our hound pack. At fifteen she doesn't really "romp" that much, but she appeared to have an enjoyable waddle.

Across the park was a house with a for sale sign. We speculated as to what it might be worth. We guessed a million and a half to two million. We were a little light in our guesswork, as you can see in the link.

That property is obviously being marketed as a tear-down. Somebody will spend two and a half million to buy that house, rip it down, and then spend another million putting up a 3,000 foot McMansion. This has become the norm in that neighbourhood.

What's truly remarkable is that Yonge/Steeles is by no stretch of the imagination a "posh" neighbourhood. In fact, it was developed as a typical middle-class suburb, where teachers and nurses and the like might build their nests.

But Toronto is a "world class" city now. If press reports are to be believed, folks were paying up to $60,000 for a chair at last night's Raptors game.  I assume those would be the same kind of folks who pay two and a half million for a house just to knock it down and put up a new build.

I don't mean to fire up a fresh conspiracy theory here, but has anybody else noticed what's happened to Toronto housing costs since the U of T lured urban planning guru Richard Florida to town?

It's obviously his fault...


When I got home the Farm Manager was keen to hear how lunch went at the Steeles Deli. When she heard the sad news, she had an immediate response; obviously the health inspectors on the north side of Steeles Avenue are anti-Semites.

Would you like fries with your liver and onions?

No I wouldn't.

I'm not a big fan of the long drive to the city and back. Promised myself a good feed of liver and onions at the Steeles Deli, where they've long claimed to have the best liver and onions in town, as compensation for the aggravation.

So we get Junior out of res at Margaret Addison Hall on Charles in the heart of downtown, up to his summer place at Younge and Steeles, and we pop over to the Steeles Deli, me and the Farm Manager and four of our five juniors and a couple of add-ons.

I know what I want, and I'm literally drooling in anticipation. When it's my turn to order I say liver and onions.

She says, how do you want it?

I say, on the light side.

She says, and what kind of potatoes?

Totally redundant question. There's only one kind of potatoes you have with liver 'n onion, and if you're reading this blog you already know.

Mashed potatoes.

She says, we're out of mashed, would you like fries with that?

Huh?

What the hell goes on here?

Best liver 'n onions in town but you're outta mashed potatoes?

Sorry, but that simply does not compute.

Fries? With liver and onions?

NO!

A thousand times no!

I'm the kinda guy who took decades coming to grips with the fact that pineapple on pizza is socially acceptable... but fries with your liver and onion?

No way Jose.

So I had a Reuben instead. Mediocre at best. I swear the sauerkraut came out of a jar.

By then my tablemates were gushing over their matzah-ball soup, and I didn't want to ruin the mood, so I made do.

Meanwhile, I've got the cell-phone addicts at the table furiously googling election results from France. Seems almost seven million voters opted for communism and a strategic alliance with Venezuela. Good showing but not quite enough.

France is going into the run-off with a choice between a rabid racist and a guy who met his wife when he was fifteen years old... and she was his teacher!

Not that there's anything wrong with that...  although I do imagine it would raise eyebrows at the College of Teachers were such an outrage to unfold here. In France it's never even qualified as a scandal.

Go figure.

But the highlight of our lunch date was when one of the add-ons, a guy who is just wrapping a Doctor Phil in Chem at U of T, googled the listing for the place he's been renting a basement apartment in for years. His landlady done put the place on the market just this week.

Even though it's a little threadbare, he figured a million and a half.

I figured, threadbare or not, if it's within a comfy bicycle ride of UT, it's probably over two millions.

They found the listing.

His landlady is asking 3.49 million for a tear-down that might have fetched 500 thou ten years ago.

Wynne and Tory have no clue.

Aunt Carole's brussel sprouts are a much anticipated staple at family gatherings

See?!


 

So I don't know what those elitists at the Washington Post are on about. They don't like liver either... get a life, food snobs!

Best liver 'n onions in town

I opened my menu at the Steeles Deli this afternoon and spied the liver 'n onion entrée right away. "Best liver and onions in town," the menu promised.

Closed up the menu.

Ya sure; they all say that, but since I'm a sucker for a good feed of liver 'n onion now and then, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Now, it did strike me that what they may have meant was best liver and onions in the Town of Vaughan, which is, technically speaking, where you are when you're sitting in a strip-mall on the north side of Steeles. The reason the north side of Steeles is wall-to-wall strip malls is because commercial realty taxes are lower in the Town (now the "City," apparently) of Vaughan than in Toronto, which is where you are when you cross Steeles Ave.

So, low taxes were the gambit that allowed Vaughan to poach Toronto businesses, but was this going to be the best liver and onion in Vaughan, or the best liver and onion in Toronto?

Long story short, the Steeles Deli serves up some really really delectable.... oh, but before I get to that, a couple of other noteworthy items.

First of all, there is a school of thought that claims eating animal livers is bad for you, because after all, the liver is the organ that filters toxins out of your blood.

Well, that's true. But look at it this way; what are vaccines made of? Toxins! And the entire edifice of modern scientific medicine agrees that putting a few toxins in your system inoculates against all kinds of nasty stuff.

So while I don't go for the flu shot and all that quackery, I figure I'm good to go thanks to an occasional feast of liver and onions... and touch wood, it's worked out so far.

Second noteworthy item, the Steeles Deli exhibits a very inclusive multi-culti hiring policy. They even have black people and oriental people working there! That's not something you run into in every deli in Toronto.

But I digress. Back to the liver and onions.

The liver and onions were utterly divine! While I can't say they were the "best" I ever had, they were certainly tied for the best. And portion-wise, there was absolutely nothing to complain about.

Having said that, I have to remark on the somewhat less than stellar potatoes and vegetables that showed up on the same plate.

For God's sakes people, throw some butter into the friggin' mashed potatoes! While edible, the mashed potatoes (and by the way, that's the only kind of potatoes you need with L&O) just didn't do the divine liver and onions justice.

And please, I shouldn't have to order gravy as a side! Liver and onions comes with mashed potatoes AND GRAVY!

Period! No debate required!

The veggies weren't up to par either. Edible, yes, but a C- compared to the A+ of the main deal.

Our party of five got out of there for a hundred bucks, which represents excellent value for a meal in the big city. My table-mates all had motzoh ball soup and corned beef sandwiches which unanimously got the thumbs up, except the guy who got the reuben and, if you can believe such a thing, had no idea what sauerkraut was.

Mind you, they don't have booze, or it would have been a different story, and I have to admit the tip was a little on the light side.

Overall, highly recommended.