The Tuesday Taste - Cherry Street Bar-B-Que (Pt. II !)

 

 

 

You spent the first five years

trying to get with the plan

And the next five years

trying to be with your friends again

Oh, you're talking forty-five turns

just as fast as you can

Yeah, I know it gets tired

but it's better when we pretend 

 

 

And now, the conclusion...

Most of what you read in Part I was written back this past March... and how things have improved since then! *cough*. Right. 

Well, things around Cherry Street Bar-B-Que have most definitely changed since this past spring. For you non-downtown Toronto folks, the area of the Portlands (on a map it's that big rectangular land mass that juts towards the islands) is undergoing a years long radical transformation/radical re-imagining. Basically, the idea is to take this long forgotten former industrial shipping port chunk of the city and completely transform it into more of a neighbourhood. 

Yes, there will be condos (it is f**king Toronto after all) but what they're doing is indeed remarkably interesting. Can't say I understand the details of the geological or environmental engineering myself... but what they've done is redirect the mouth of the Don River and create a new artificial river that runs through where a stretch of Commissioners Road used to be (there is now a new bridge going over the river in that spot, which opened just this February). 

They've completely changed the topography as well: with inclines and declines where none were before (the Portlands have always been very flat). It's an incredible and innovative feat of urban design that's just incredibly impressive and exciting (there are also several public parks planned) while making fantastic utilization of unused downtown land. Frankly, it's such a good idea I'm still amazed Doug Ford hasn't stomped in yet and demand they instead build a ferris wheel or a monorail or something asinine like that (ol' Dougie does put the 'ass' in 'asinine').  

Cherry Street itself has been completely changed to accommodate all of this... with a completely new Cherry Street (connecting to Lakeshore) just a baseball throw west of the now drastically shortened old one. Yes, at the moment there are technically now two Cherry Streets a block away from each other... Toronto is such a delightfully goofy city with these types of things, man. 

Sure would be weird if they change the name of that little block between Villiers and Commissioners though. Well, weird for Cherry Street Bar-B-Que anyhow... since their original location would then no longer be on a street named 'Cherry Street'. Just like if they renamed the nearby Keating Channel... what would the Keating Channel Pub and Grill do?   

Hey speaking of that barbeque joint, let me tear myself away from the map for a moment and get back into this review. I left you all on a cliffhanger after my bizarre half/pastrami, all processed cheese sandwich. Six months ago when I started writing my thoughts on that sammy, the thought occurred how I was leaving my evaluation of Cherry Street BBQ unfairly incomplete. I mean... you go to a barbeque joint with the intent to review it, and you don't even order barbeque? Such things only deserve the slowest of claps.         

Oversight corrected. Took me six months, but going back I went for the Cherry Street Bar-B-Que jugular:

 

This is their "pick 3 by 3" offering (which they do still offer, unlike that cheesy shredded pastrami thing). We have three meats and three small sides, coming in around 50 bucks (including the mac and cheese portion as an extra 10). While they also have sausage links and pulled pork also as options, the three meats I got are brisket, short ribs and chicken wings, alongside the sides (pardon the rhyme) of brisket beans, coleslaw and potato salad. And the mac and cheese, of course.

 

 

Seeing as this is the exact same type of coleslaw as that came with the shredded pastrami sandwich, we'll focus on the other two sides instead: the beans and the potato salad. 

Despite my considerable love for all potato things... potato salad is not an item I intake with any frequency. This potato salad at the very least certainly has some utility as a creamy compliment for these smokey BBQed things, but it's far from your generic "on sale at Shoppers Drug Mart" fare. Nice texture to it, with that distinct creaminess mixed with notable larger chunks of potato in there... plus some grittiness with the skins still on. A nice natural blend. Flavour-wise you get a strong hint of sour, like making a mashed potato mixed with a lot of sour cream, while the pickled onion on top (and the tiny chives within) gives an additional nice touch.

The beans? Now we're in a special place. Not just that you get sizeable bits of brisket in here (which is its own separate delight) but there's a strong mix of a root beer flavour in here that works absolute magical wonders on the tastebuds. Almost like a gloopy root beer jellybean, yet not as overwhelmingly sweet on the tongue as that would suggest. The beans themselves are soft and loose, blending perfectly into the mix, and when you get a good bit of brisket with all that the texture becomes simply sublime. I could eat a bowl of this (with some toast) as it's own meal. Just freaking fantastic. 

 

 

Mac and cheese! Hmmm. Not the best I've ever had but certainly far from the worst. I wish it was a bit creamier or cheesier, and the cheese flavour itself doesn't quite stand out (not sharp or light or rich or cheddary... the flavour has that same Velveeta taste the pastrami sandwich had). The consistency throughout this mac n'cheese is nice (and works better here than on the sandwich) but unlike those brisket root beer beans that have so much to them... this mac and cheese is very much one note that by itself doesn't leave much of an impression. Perfectly serviceable when combined with a bite of some kind of BBQed meat, sure... but alone it is not particularly distinctive or memorable. 

 

  

Time to meet the meats! (there's a pun that took me two seconds to think of). As mentioned earlier, we've got three featured here: short rib, smoked chicken wings and of course a slab of brisket... with some more pickled onions and thinly sliced jalapenos alongside just to add some additional zing. 

 

Starting off with the smoked wings! So these aren't quite your typical wings: these are smoked and served in their whole form with the wing tips on the end, rather than the split up kind you commonly find in pubs and what not. This results in a bit of a logistically tricky eat: you're often bending the centre of the wing trying to get a good bite in those trickier angles for your mouth to reach. There is a lot of meat on these babies (and there are only two of them in this "3 by 3" sampler) so you don't want to leave any of it on the bone. 

As for the taste of the wings... a nice pull apart consistency and cook throughout. Tender and plenty juicy, though not at all fatty, and a good helping of a distinct smokey flavour. Tasty stuff. As for the sauce/glaze on here... bit of a subtle tangy sweet BBQ thing going on, almost like a hint of balsamic to it as well. Not overpowering, the chicken is indeed the star here, but it's a fine light taste that gives it another flavour dimension. Quite good. 

I'd love to go straight to the main attraction of the meal but lets give the spare ribs (on the right) some well deserved love first. While not "melt in your mouth" they are deceptively soft and tender, quite fun to eat and they do slip off the bone (just watch out for the little bones in there). The flavour is mostly a peppery one, like sharp peppercorns, which matches with the general firmness of the rib itself. Not a sloppy thing to eat by any means, aside from saucy fingers.

And now... the brisket. Earlier this past summer I reviewed Dang Smoke BBQ and specifically had their brisket sandwich, which was absolutely wonderful. It was a very basic sandwich: just brisket, BBQ sauce and bun, and was good enough to not need anything else.  

Cherry Street's brisket... well damn I could (and mostly did) just eat this by itself. You don't even need a bun or sauce. So so soft, with just enough dry cake of pepper and spices on the edges to give the meat some zing... and the texture is simply delectable. Definitely on the fattier side compared with Dang, but there's plenty of meat in here and it's far from leaving any oily stains on your fork or fingers. It's almost like eating a slice of pie: the tougher crustier outside, the softer inside edge of the pie crust loaded with the flavour of the filling, and then the filling within (the filling within in this case just being incredibly tender and juicy beef brisket). 

Tons of great flavour, absolutely divine texture, doesn't even need a BBQ sauce. I did however make a homemade taco with a slice of the brisket, some of the leftover root beer beans and the purple coleslaw.

Needless to say, it turned out pretty, pretty, pretty good. I think Captain Picard back there would approve. 

---

 

Overall! While not everything on their menu is a total home run, certainly this is truly a Juan Soto (too soon?) among the Toronto BBQ scene. Even the weaker items (the mac and cheese, pastrami sandwich, the fries) are completely serviceable. Then you get stuff like the beans, or the brisket... the short rib is upper tier quality too... damn.

This is the good stuff, ladies and gentlemen. Cherry Street Bar-B-Que gets a significantly strong recommendation from me. I'm no BBQ expert, not really (we're not talking pizza here) and so I can't really comment on the difference of style/taste between what La Pianta does (which according to him is very influenced by Texas style) compared to other likewise excellent places here in Toronto that are inspired by other regions or techniques. Seeing people do this stuff first hand, even at an amateur level... barbequing is truly an art form (much like any other method of cooking).

I may be no BBQ expert in regards to nuance or specifics, but I can definitely describe if I like something and then how/why. Cherry Street Bar-B-Que? I definitely like them, and hopefully my descriptions how/why were insightful, dear reader. Check them out if you haven't (just, maybe not at the inflated prices of Scotiabank Arena)...

 

 

Tuesday Tune

 

Being depressed and feeling like your world has passed you by is a fun feeling. Certain songs like this one help put that feeling into something I could never contextualize (at least not without several thousand words you wouldn't wanna read anyway).

I love how a lot of LCD songs just sneak up on you. They're repetitive but the atmosphere builds so much and so subtly, you just get swept away into it.  

 

 

That's all for the double feature this week! Hope you enjoyed the extra-long edition (you know it's a long one if even I think it's best to split it into two parts). Until next time... stay safe, stay warm but most of all don't spill that mustard.