Pizzeria Via Mercanti

Before getting into the pictures and the recounting of a meal, I need to lay out some thoughts. 

I'm kinda a goal-oriented person. I always work best with a deadline, especially if it's a deadline towards something. For this reason I like making projects for myself. Drawn and Devoured is one such project. It's one of a handful I've had over the last several months, some longer in duration than others. Drawn and Devoured has never known a finish line! And I've generally been good about keeping my Tuesday updates going.

It's become less fun for me- somwhere play and work got too mixed up, even with my light updates. Making a post takes a few days and a lot of dollars. When I started I thought maybe D&D would make a nice next egg, and that was extra incentive. It hasn't panned out in that regard: I have, however, found a wonderful community. I think I'll cut this long story short; goodbye set schedule! I'd like to give myself more wiggle room to take on other fancies. For that reason, I'll still aim for Tuesday updates, but perhaps not as often as weekly. I'll still go to new restaurants, but maybe do some recipes, too. Try and keep the text a little lighter. Most importantly, I'm going to update when it's fun.

Cool? Cool!

Have some food.

With Mathew.

Awtash

When I started Drawn and Devoured last January, Awtash (at College and Bathurst) made my short list. I passed it regularly, I loved the lettering in the signage, and the booths looked very intimate from the outside. I have a friend who grew up in Abu Dhabi so I wanted to bring him with me to see how the place lined up with his vision of home. Later I even found out I have a friend who did the graphic design that I liked so much (that's Kassem Ahmed, by the way)! So many reasons to go!

We even wound up at the door one night for dinner, only to realize they're closed on Mondays. This is something I always check for now. So what I'm saying is that Awtash has been hanging in front of me tauntingly for some time! It was really good to get JJ and Erin together to try it out at last. I was really hoping to experience some interesting, strong Persian flavours while lounging in their sexy booths, with the gorgeous lights and intimate curtains, maybe with a shisha pipe. This is probably the nicest-looking shisha lounge in Toronto- it's a rare indulgence for me, since I'm not a smoker. JJ brings lots back from his regular visits home, and the shisha at Awtash was just as good- they also didn't charge for coal refills! Something that happens a lot in Toronto shisha houses. We did get hung up on the semantics of calling a shisha pipe a hookah, but I wonder, does it really matter much so long as the end product is tasty?

Not to me.

For a Persian restaurant, the menu had a lot of Italian themed or inspired dishes. There were pizza's and panini-like sandwiches. Actually, more than half the menu was more Italian than Persian! I don't understand why. The Persian style food we had come for could be got mostly from the appetizers, and a couple of the flat breads, which were still riffing off Italian style food. I like innovation and pushing food boundaries though, so even though the menu came as a surprise, it wasn't by default a disappointment. We wanted to try one thing that sounded more middle eastern, at least. There were a half dozen choices of dips and spreads that made up the bulk of the starter choices, some more curious than others, and we ordered a mix platter called paaeez ($14) that had a selection of them all. It's a combo of six offerings, and was served with Barbary sesame bread, which is flaky with a crunchy crust like filo pastry, and hot soft insides. There REALLY wasn't enough for all the dips, and we had to order more (which cost a few bucks).

Zaytoon - These were big fatty olives. They was a mix of size, colour, and flavour, all doused in a glossy coat of olive oil, with some pickled mushroom tossed in the mix. Fresh and briny, not too salty.

Zaytoon Parvardeh - Olives again but smaller green ones, a bit sweeter than the other mix. These were completely smothered in a paste of oregano that became very overwhelming- if there were other herbs we couldn't taste them. Unfortunately the strong oregano even overwhelmed what had enticed me to try these olives, pomegranate molasses and walnut bits, which were just hints under the herb.

Hummus - Very creamy! This was a smooth and rich hummus with a lot or paprika on top that added a nice smoky smoothness. It was both light and nutty.

Boorani Spinach - Basically a tzatziki but not as zippy. This was smooth with blended garlic that added a pungent intensity.

Bademjoon - A richer and fresher side than the others we were served, this is basically a cold stew of tomato and eggplant. It was so garlicky and refreshing! There was a taste of honey amidst the strong tangy tomato taste, and it was good to have something that wasn't creamy to clear the taste buds.

Russia with Love - A weird dip that taste like potato salad, or devilled eggs as a spread. I really enjoyed this, and thought it was quite pretty with corn kernel studs. The sesame sprinkled on top really represented, adding a strong taste and little pops of crispness.

We wanted to try out one of the fusion style dishes, and ordered an Awtash stew-topped pizza. The fesenjoon ($12) comes with chicken, walnut and pomegranate stew, topped with tiny diced pieces of sweet pineapple. So this is an Italian Hawaiian pizza with a Persian twist? Oh my. The dough was hot, floury and super fresh, very simple. It was a bit underwhelming, maybe because it didn't seem robust enough to hold up to the stew. The stew itself was sweet from the pomegranate, and was more like a sauce than a stew. I thought of teriyaki without the soy. There was nothing in the texture that was stew like sadly, no thickness or chunks of meat (where WAS the meat?). There wasn't much to give it interest, or much to chew on. Even the cheese was very mild, timid. I think I liked the crust with its sesame studs more than the main body of the pizza.

Rather than racking up a meal of many mains, we went right for the desserts after that pizza. Erin hadn't tried anything made with rosewater before. I like it occasionally, though it can be like getting a face full of perfume if too strong. She and I split the rose water waffle ($7), which we hoped would be a gentle introduction to the flowery flavor. The batter that made the lattice-like waffles was thin and crisp. It had what I can only call a fizzy quality, like carbonation in the bread, that crackled across the tongue. We got a bit of a shock with the strength of the rose! It was powerful, not mild at all. The ice cream, which claimed to be pistachio on the menu but was clearly strawberry, was milky and not too flavourful.

JJ got a dessert to himself, he was still very hungry. There were a couple dessert flat breads on the menu, including the nuts & banana ($7) which sounded intriguing. Nuts, banana, and strawberry slices? Toasted? Well, try it! The thing was HUGE. It was fully the size of the largest panini you can imagine, served on a bigger version of that fluffy, crackly Barbary bread, though lacking the sesame seeds. It was kind of a big mess, though. The whole thing wouldn't stay together. It was like a crepe gone wrong, where the bread didn't work with the slippery stuffing. The strawberries melted into jam in the heat, and lost all their flavor. It was impressively big, with had no flavor to make anyone want to finish it. Better to have a small and well made dessert than this boring monster.

Everything had had a fluffy and airy effect (even the flatbread dessert), so we weren't even close to full. at the end

I'd like to drop a special note about the service, which really wasn't there. The girls were nice enough...when they were around. We had coal refills forgotten twice, and the servers were very dismissive of our obvious dissatisfaction. The shisha pipes hadn't been cleaned from the night before, and tasted like old shisha. Getting anyones attention was nearly impossible, and we'd go for 40 minutes without anyone asking us if we wanted more beer, or dessert. Speaking of beer, the servers should pay better attention to the menu. If you're advertising a large Sapporo, and come out with a small bottle, I will be confused! Especially when the price suits the larger size. That's the sort of thing a server should tell you right off the bat- I don't really think our server knew much about the menu at all. Then again, Awtash is a place set for the pre-party crowd for whom the menu is secondary. Maybe because we didn't get one of their $200 bottles of vodka (more expensive even than some King West clubs), they didn't feel a strong need to cater to us- they didn't have any interesting boozes from the middle east either, which is a shame because Arak is darn tasty.

Pizza E Pazzi

There are days and restaurants that remind me that one of the reasons I began working on Drawn and Devoured was to further my education about food, especially food in Toronto which is such a mishmash of international styles. Neapolitan pizza isn't new here, I guess, with staples like Pizzeria Libretto having been around ages (I'm excited for the one opening near my home on Danforth!). I've yet to make it over, and my university days were spent mostly with the garlic rich, E.V.O.O. drenched slices by Massimo's. They're NOT Neapolitan! I think they New York style, but comparing the two is apples to oranges. My closest run in with a Neapolitan style pizza was a pizza pocket from The 416 Snack Bar. I will tell you, it is NOTHING like what I experienced later!

Recently a little place opened up in Corso Italia -that other little Italy that feels less like a club district than College West- called Pizza e Pazzi (1182 St. Clair Ave W). It boasts a wood burning oven and a traditional recipe that only need four ingredients (not counting love). I have wondered just what could make one pizza so different from the next, and this is where I learned that a pizza doesn't need to be folded in half and dripping with cheese, but can be torn, shared, and appreciated as more of a craft bread.

Pizza e Pazzi is incredibly new and wet behind the ears. It has all the bright eyed eagerness of its freshness showing in the big flustered grins of the service, and the stern, concentrating frowns of the pizza makers. Everything is dark and gleaming, classy. The tables are small and intimate, and word of mouth has served this place well. Is it odd that I'm surprised by their lack of public twitter? There was a time when social media didn't factor into a restaurants launch! Yet the tables are packed, and even though my chronically half-hour-early self was there long before my friends to make a reservation, it was a 15 minute wait before we were seated. Make a reservation if you want dinner at a certain time. Walking into this place along is worth the wait, your mouth will start watering from the scent of floury dough and olive oil, the air redolent with basil. It smells amazing. It smells like dinner.

 We aren't seated long before we're offered beer, wine, and complimentary olives, mushroom tapenade and fresh red fife and pita. I'm surprised in the best way- so few places I've been to offer something for the table to snack on while orders are prepping and drinks are being poured, let alone something as delightful as this. The mushroom tapenade is marinaded and moist, not soggy. It's briny, it's juice doing well to moisten the spongy white bread and pita. The olives are firm, green, and drizzled with olive oil. I love the bread which is incredibly fresh, and polish off half the basket to myself, dipping the bread chunks  generously in olive oil.

Mains are ordered, as is a pizza to share. Despite my conviction that I would get a pizza to myself, the pasta selection is incredibly tantalizing, and all three of us opt for different kinds of semolina entrees.

To keep things simple in the anticipation of heavy mains, and out of consideration for the vegetarianism of one guest, the simplest pizza is ordered- a classic Margherita ($13). In the traditional style, this pizza is only tomato sauce and mozzarella. Such simplicity requires the very best ingredients, which are readily supplied. The pizza arrives steaming, blisters on the soft and dusty crust. It's great. My first Neapolitan pizza! The dough is really the most important thing here, I realize, cutting through it with a knife and a bit of difficulty. Incredibly naan-like in thickness and doughiness, I felt like this recipe could have been passed down from nonna to nonna for centuries (it probably has been). Sensitivity and though has gone into selecting the fixings of the pizza. The buffalo mozzarella is melted and sultry, just adding enough sharp kick to work with the pool of fresh tomato sauce held in the thick dike of crust. It doesn't taste like PIZZA SAUCE, just like gorgeous vine ripe tomatoes, fresh and pureed with nothing to complicate them.

In a move mimicking her hair style, Amanda ordered manicotti. I don't think it was a deliberate choice, but the two big round rolls did look a bit like the big curl on one side of her head. In retrospect, I can see how drawing dinner like this might make Pizza e Pazzi a little less appealing to future patrons...we found no hair in our food! Not even our own. So forgive my drawings, sometimes I forget that putting one and one together occasionally equals eww.
Understated and simple, the manicotti was pleasant and satisfying without doing anything unpredictable, or being bold enough to really shock the taste buds. Soft spinach and ricotta stuffed pasta was ladled with that same fresh, sunny tomato sauce. It tastes sweet since there isn't too much salt, and everything is brought together simply with little added frills. The thick pasta makes it a pleasantly heavy dish, and it's alright that there's no side of salad to go along with it. The fresh basil leaf added a nice kick, and there was a taste of mushroom throughout.

Let's swing over to another extreme- the amazing experience Laura ordered. If the manicotti was a bit plain, Pizza e Pazzi went out of their way to make this spaghetti alla puttenesca ($14) incredibly bold. They combined the saltiest, briniest ingredients- puckered black olives shrunken with ripeness, juice laden capers (I've never been a fan), and stringy bits of tuna and zippy anchovy. The tomato sauce was lumpy with fish, just like mariners take on a bolognaise. It was INCREDIBLY fishy! I wonder if they needed two kinds of fish? Everything was salty but the tomato sauce was still fresh, so in the end it wasn't an overpowering experience- just bold and flavourful. And huge! What a generous portion of spaghetti!

 I also ordered a pasta dish to myself, choosing the appealing sounding ear-shaped pasta, oreciette alle cime di rape ($14). When it arrived, I kept thinking of ninja turtles- it reminds me a lot of more of turtle shell than of ears! Dude. This was another dish with anchovy, a fish I'm happy to see get so much love on a menu (it's one of those oft-sustainable fishies). Like the manicotti before it, the orechiette may have suffered from a lack of boldness! It was buttery with olive oil, and bitter from the rapini, two flavours which did make for a fun back and forth over my palate. I wish there had been more to it than those crisp first notes. Even the spice from the anchovies and a few chili flakes left quickly. Perhaps it isn't bad to have a light and fresh pasta in the summer, but I should know that when I order pasta, I want something that leaves me feeling heavy. I enjoyed the smoky finish with my beer, and it was over all too quickly. Next time, I'll order something with cheese!