About Marion Warhaft:

Marion Warhaft is the Free Press food critic.

• Ethnic gems sweeten pot in suburban locations

  Little ethnic gems are common enough in the North End; in River Heights, not so much. But there it is, on the corner of Corydon and Waterloo -- a pint-sized room at the edge of a wee strip mall, dishing up savoury Polish comfort foods and some fabulous pastries. The name, Bend, seems to have no meaning, and Bistro is stretching the term since there is seating for a maximum of 12 at three tiny round tables. But in this case size doesn't matter, since most of the food is precooked, and appropriate for reheating, and clearly much of the business is intended for takeout. Most packages and containers will cost under $10, and whatever is in the coolers for takeout will also be served at one of those tables, most for $8.99, with daily specials at $9.99.

  View Full Column | 02/3/2012 9:43 AM | 0

• Five-star bargains, relatively speaking

  Five-star restaurants are few and far between, and two of them have recently closed: Dacquisto has been replaced by Los Chicos, where the cooking is Tex Mex; Provence has closed but plans to reopen in the spring at Promenade Bistro's current location. In any case, five star restaurants rarely figure in bargain columns, but today I have two to offer. Both have everything one might expect of a five star rating: attractive decor, service that is attentive but not intrusive, familiar with every aspect of the menu, with the ability to advise without crossing the line into pushy. And, naturally, food that ranks high among the city's best. 529 Wellington's turn-of-the-century mansion evokes an era of gracious living, with its burnished dark wood panelling, art nouveau upholstery and lovely knobbly crystal lamps. The ambiance is classy but without pomp or pretension -- a description, as it happens, that could be applied to the food as well. Bargain hunters shouldn't come for the steaks (Canadian prime grade and priced accordingly) or for dinner either, when entrees range from $29 to $49, usually with veggies extra. Lunch, though, is another matter, and you may be pleasantly surprised by some dishes that are at least as affordable as lesser dishes in lesser places, and with no skimping on the portions either.

  View Full Column | 01/27/2012 9:56 AM | 0

• If Yougot you won't be sorry

  This week's bargain is in a little house on Pembina Highway, so tiny (24 seats, maybe) it's easy to miss, but with a Chinese menu as lengthy and fascinating as some of its bigger competitors down the road. But also (sigh!), with a server who, although charming and willing, knew little English and even less about the dishes. Inevitably some items we thought we'd ordered didn't turn up. Equally inevitably, some that we hadn't ordered did. But -- and it's a big but -- most of what we did get, whether ordered or not, was marvellous, and the reason for the full column review and the extra half star over Yougot's four star rating of a few years ago. The menu does list several familiar standards, but the bulk of it is devoted to food from the provinces, many of them from China's extreme northeast. Fortunately, the boss, who is fluent in English, turned up and led us through the labyrinth of unfamiliar dishes. I did ask his name for future reference, but he said, just ask for "the boss." I suggest doing so (even if you're an old China hand) and reserving your table as well, since the space is so limited.

  View Full Column | 01/20/2012 8:28 AM | 0

• Meals worthy of another jewel in the Crown

  When writing my January bargain columns I have always combined partial reviews of at least two previously reviewed restaurants, without stars. This time I am breaking with that tradition. When a restaurant shows enough improvement to raise its star level, I feel it is only fair -- to both the restaurant and readers -- to write a new and full review. Samosa Crown has an obscure location in a big strip mall, about a block south of Inkster Boulevard (look for the big Dairy Queen sign). It's a small place, with a small menu, and tables that are slightly cramped. But the setting is pleasant, with putty coloured walls and cherry red tables, the colour (my designer friend tells me) that is most effective in stimulating the appetite.

  View Full Column | 01/13/2012 9:17 AM | 0

• Dishin' up some delights

  I eat in -- obviously -- at least 52 restaurants every year. Actually it works out to many more than 52, and my "best of the year" column lists the most outstanding of those reviewed during the year. But there were so many more really good dishes that I would hate to see overlooked.

  View Full Column | 01/12/2012 4:26 PM | 0

• Marvellous menus

  The past few years have been marked by a welcome trend towards casual, moderately priced, chef-driven restaurants, where the food is as ambitious, and at least as good as what once was found only in pricey, formal establishments. PEASANT COOKERY — my nomination for top restaurant of the year — is a perfect example. The evocative French bistro ambiance alone could reduce this nostalgic Francophile to weeping into her wine — which, by the way, is excellent, sells for a less-than-double mark-up and offers many choices by the glass.

  View Full Column | 12/30/2011 10:35 AM | 0

• What? Decent Chinese food in Chinatown?

  I have a love-hate relationship with Pembina Highway. I hate the traffic. I hate the harrowing slow search for invisible addresses while the drivers behind me honk in impatience. And I hate driving home into the blinding sun in summer, and into the blinding headlights in winter. Nevertheless I often do drive on Pembina because these days that's where some of the best Chinese food in the city can be found. So the fact that good Chinese food can also be found at Foon Hai -- situated at the edge of our old Chinatown, a short drive from anywhere in the city, and clearly visible on its corner of William and Adelaide -- is a blessing. It's a cosy little place, simple but not bare-bones, with wood-panelling halfway up the walls and some lovely Chinese silk embroideries adorning the upper half. The menu is one of those overwhelmingly lengthy ones (just try choosing from 190 items without dithering), but it lists no unfamiliar dishes or any ingredient that might even remotely be considered esoteric. The prices are standard Chinese restaurant bargains, with most ranging from $10 to $14, and much as I love the new and often mysterious dishes I've found on Pembina, I also love such durable and omnipresent standards as hot sour soup, mu shu crepes and crispy chicken.

  View Full Column | 12/23/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• A bit of this, a little of that for the holidays

  Naysayers may disagree with me, but this city is blessed in many ways. Not least among those blessings are our bakeries, the array of European cured meats, and the wide variety of Asian foods, all of which make entertaining less stressful in this busy season. Add another new bakery to that wonderful list. The sign outside still says Hartford Bakery (an illogical name as well for its Polish predecessor) but the new cards and the product list read A l'Epi de Ble, which is a type of baguette said to resemble a sheaf of wheat. The one baguette in stock on my visit in no way resembled a sheaf of wheat. For that matter it didn't much resemble most of the baguettes I've had in France -- it was too smooth and too white for that, but it was good.

  View Full Column | 01/6/2012 9:51 AM | 0

• Homer's, sweet Homer's

  Read non-Greek menus and you'll often find such items as Greek salad, gyros and souvlaki. On the other hand, Greek cuisine has penetrated the restaurant culture just so far, and no further. For that matter, the same is true in some genuinely Greek restaurants, where certain items that once were standard have vanished. Moussaka, for instance. A few months ago it had become almost impossible to find -- due, I was told, to the price of eggplant. That price must have dropped, since it has been reappearing lately. I resented its disappearance -- it's one of my favourites -- and I resented even more the disappearance of octopus, another favourite.

  View Full Column | 12/9/2011 9:56 AM | 0

• Délicieux? Oui! Oui, Chez Sophie!

  Chez Sophie is one of those rare places that could accurately be called a bistro, in the original sense of the word. It's a tiny, tightly-packed space, basically simple but loaded with charm, with an eclectic decor of unmatched chairs (some bentwood, some straightback), a festoon of dried hydrangeas along one wall, and some charming little paintings -- mostly facades of French shops and restaurants. French chansons provide a soft musical background. It's also family-run and, not coincidentally, that family is a couple from Alsace. They emigrated here a few years ago, took over a pizza parlor (Aladdin's) and turned it into a little corner of France -- a very popular little corner, as it happens, and if you're planning on a Saturday night, you'd be wise to reserve early in the week. It may be cramped, and when it fills up it can be noisy, but what you get in exchange is traditional French cooking by a chef who knows what he is doing.

  View Full Column | 12/2/2011 10:21 AM | 0

• Common cause: Good food, low prices

  These restaurants have little in common. Just the fact that both are east of the Red River (where the restaurant pickings are lean), and both offer a few savoury ethnic foods at bargain prices. You'd have a hard time spending much more than $10 in either of them. Julia's is a quaint, cottage-like place with lots of latticed windows and cheerful yellow walls trimmed in royal blue -- a surprising little oasis of cosiness in this dreary stretch of Nairn Avenue. Much of the menu is devoted to sandwiches, burgers and such, none of which I tried. What I'd come for was the limited list of Ukrainian/Polish specialties. And please, don't write to question my spelling -- perogies and kubassa is how they appear on the menu.

  View Full Column | 11/25/2011 9:54 AM | 0

• Call it breakfast or brunch, it tastes good

  You might just call it breakfast since it's only available from 7:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. on weekdays, and from 8 a.m. to just noon on Saturdays. I'm an early riser though, and I call it brunch since there's no way I could eat like that first thing. Whatever you call it it's terrific. Dessert Sinsations may be known primarily for its rich pastries, but it does one heckofa job on its breakfast/brunch foods as well. And although it may seem odd to end a meal here without a sweet, chances are you won't miss it. The ambiance is simple and modern, particularly pleasant when sunlight streams through the huge windows -- the view may be of an unlovely parking lot, but the trade-off is that, even though you are in the heart of downtown, you won't have to scramble for a place to park.

  View Full Column | 11/16/2011 11:26 AM | 0

• Terrific Taiwanese a twist on Asian tastes

  The path to the main dining area is a little odd. In order to reach it you first pass through a softly lit corridor lined with some very attractive areas -- some rooms for private dining along one side, and on the other a few small tables for two. It raises expectations for that rare experience -- Chinese food in an elegant setting -- which, when you do reach it, makes the plain and harshly lit dining room all the more surprising. Actually it is far from bare bones -- nothing that gentler lighting and some colourful artifacts on the bare walls wouldn't soften significantly. In any case we don't go to Chinese restaurants for decor, and what brought us to Lan May was the prospect of its locally rare Taiwanese specialties, many of which were good enough to make us forget about the lighting and the walls.

  View Full Column | 11/4/2011 11:05 AM | 0

• Portuguese fare helps fill void

  There just aren't enough Portuguese restaurants for me, but Viena do Castello does a little to help fill the void. It's primarily a bright and modern bakery-cum-grocery store, with no fresh produce, but a large selection of Portuguese canned goods, packages, cheeses and frozen fish, as well as olive oil and cured meats. Although its prepared specialties are primarily for takeout, it does have four tables for two along the windows that overlook Sargent, where it is possible to have a sandwich, and/or a pastry with coffee. Whatever else you do you have be sure to include some of the delectable little egg-rich pastries. One of the luscious custard tarts in flaky pastry, for instance; or the intensely flavoured honey tarts, or the dense coconut tarts. There are light and slightly lemony slices of sponge cake, and wee madeleine-like cakes, also with a lemony undertone and wonderful with tea. Even the cinnamon buns are great, with the substantial texture I love, the kind you can sink your teeth into. Some pastries are sold individually (most $1.49); others come in packages of six (most $3.99)

  View Full Column | 11/4/2011 11:08 AM | 0

• Top Chef's loss is Winnipeg foodies' gain

  I'm no fan of the Food Network's shoot-out competitions, partly because the brutality of the elimination process bothers me, and partly because I don't believe in creativity on cue. I know, I know, inspirations do come in flashes, but usually after reflection and under less pressure. However I made a point of watching Top Chef Canada, for one reason only: one of the competitors was Darryl Crumb, who happens to be the chef at Brooklynn's Bistro. Considered one of the underdogs, he nevertheless had a really respectable run, lasting through at least two-thirds of the series.

  View Full Column | 10/21/2011 8:34 AM | 0

• Air Canada crews in for some turbulent meals

  I'm as interested in serious matters as the next person, but if they are in any way connected to restaurants my personal obsession takes over. If I'm watching TV and there's a menu in the background I try to read it (the caf in Coronation Street offers a full English breakfast). If I overhear a conversation about a restaurant I'm shameless about butting in and asking perfect strangers, what restaurant. And when I learned that Air Canada was sending its flight crews to the Sandman Hotel, my second -- well, alright, my first thought -- was, where would they eat. Which led me back to Chop, one of two restaurants that are attached to the hotel, and is open for dinner only (the other is Denny's, which is open 24 hours). I don't know what kind of stipends the crews get for meals on layovers, but -- since there are no other choices nearby -- I'm assuming they'd have to have their dinner at the high-end Chop, and breakfast and/or lunch at the other-end Denny's.

  View Full Column | 10/14/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Worth the drive... and the wait

  I have it on good authority (i.e. the Weather Network) that the 14-day trend is for more mild, sunny weather, which gives us more time than usual to enjoy autumn's glory. One of the most scenic drives near the city is the River Road south of Lockport, but when it comes to fall foliage, well, there just isn't much of it. It's not as long as the River Road, and is less well known, but the drive south of Selkirk, which starts at Eveline Street, is an enchanting backwater with a winding, and sometimes even slightly rolling road, lined with houses (some quite old) and trees, affording some gorgeous views of the river.

  View Full Column | 10/7/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Le diable se cache dans les détails

  Originally a mini-cafe -- four tables only, attached to a bakery -- The Frenchway has split in two, with the cafe-bakery moving to Bread and Circuses' former location, and a new full-scale restaurant and lounge opening in what once was J. Fox's. Today's subject is the restaurant, an attractive place with one massive and dramatic wall of rocks, the other walls painted a cheerful tomato red, adorned by a few rococo sconces and one fascinating, antique-looking installation -- the top half of it a faded, Watteau-like painting, the bottom half a stressed mirror. It feels like a French restaurant and it operates like many in France do, offering the full menu at lunch as well as at dinner, but augmented also with a chalkboard of daily specials at lunch only. The food is mainly French, although in France you're more likely to get a baguette than the multigrain bread served here. But that multigrain is so delicious even the most fanatic Francophile wouldn't complain (and if you haven't had enough of it with your meal you can buy it by the loaf to take home).

  View Full Column | 09/30/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Spicy star returns to its former pad (Thai)

  This, my visitor from Thailand pronounced with delight and astonishment, is the best, most authentic tasting curry he's had in Winnipeg, the only one (he says) that could compare to the curries he dines on regularly in Chiang Mai. It was a red curry with chicken, a beautiful balance of sweet, spicy and salty, so flavourful it led my own, less Thai-educated palate to the same conclusion: the best I've ever had. There's more than one red curry on the menu, so make a note of this one -- Gang-Pet, No. 34, fleshed out with green beans, red peppers and broccoli in a coconut creamy sauce.

  View Full Column | 12/6/2011 3:20 PM | 0

• Uneven performance from longtime star

  La Scala was one of the first of a wave of upscale restaurants on Corydon, and almost 20 years later, despite the greater number of competitors, it is still going strong. Of the original staff, only the owner remains, and these days he does the cooking. It's the kind of cooking that was rare when La Scala started out, but now is found in myriad establishments -- mostly Italian (often with international twists), with the occasional nod to France, and several more nods to Asia, as well as other parts of the map. Eclectic, and/or fusion, I suppose, comes closest to describing it, The ambience is casual, but you can combine culture with cuisine here -- one of the restaurant's attractions is the collection of Tony Tascona prints that lines the walls. Other parts of the decor in this cosy subterranean place are the mirrored wall at the deep end of the room, creating the illusion of greater space, and a fascinating fish tank, with denizens that changed my misconceptions about the placid nature of fish -- the nasty aggressiveness of some makes for compelling viewing. There's also a nice little sidewalk patio, open for as long as the weather holds.

  View Full Column | 09/16/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Eat at home, but let them do the cooking

  SOMETIMES the privacy of eating at home is more inviting than eating in public, but there’s no reason you have to do the cooking. It is possible to eat well in the following three, but their seating arrangements may make take-out more appealing.  

  View Full Column | 09/9/2011 7:01 AM | 0

• Vast menu offers up Garden of delights

  For about a year there were two problems with eating at the Pembina branch of Dim Sum Garden. The first was finding it in the first place; the second was getting any dim sum. Despite its name, there weren't any. There are now. More about this later. It's one of those Pembina Highway nightmares, where most of the addresses can't be seen from the road, and finding this one was even harder than usual since both the building and the roadside signs are dark. So make a note of the fact that it is south of Chancellor Drive, and look for the brighter Pizza Pizza sign of its neighbour.

  View Full Column | 09/2/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Two for tea

  A reader's request for a tea house recommendation reminded me of those often charming, sweet little places which used to dot the countryside, and which, at their best, served good sandwiches and homestyle baking, with a selection of loose-leaf teas. There used to be more than I could review in the course of a single summer, but these days tea houses are no longer a growth industry. The trend is in the other direction, with fewer and fewer to choose from. And in the city itself? Forget it. The only surviving example of the genre was recently replaced (inevitably) by a sushi-cum-Korean restaurant. Fortunately there are still a few within a short drive of the city, although neither of the following two serve a classic afternoon tea -- i.e. dainty little tea sandwiches, small sweets and scones. You can have most of what they do serve at tea-time but the sandwiches will be full size, and the small sweets will have given way to big ones. In both the service is attentive and friendly, and for both reservations are recommended.

  View Full Column | 08/26/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Extra! Extra! News Café fare worthy of page 1

  Few café openings have evoked as much buzz as the Free Press News Café -- the first of its kind in Canada, apparently. There was also some interest, I've been told, in whether or not I'd be able to review it. Part of the café's philosophy is to allow patrons to interact with working journalists, something which -- given the anonymity necessary for my job -- I had to avoid. And even if I managed to remain anonymous, would I be able to give my honest opinion? Those who know me knew that I would. In fact, I was ordered by "she who must be obeyed" (editor Margo Goodhand) to do precisely that: to give my honest opinion, whatever it might turn out to be.

  View Full Column | 08/12/2011 1:00 AM | 0

• Beloved ethnic fare reappears after vanishing

  One of this city's blessings is the number of good ethnic restaurants, and one reason they are good is because most ethnic cooks know their cuisine in their bones. They have grown up on it, have probably been cooking it most of their lives, and have an understanding of it that goes beyond cooking-school training. Still, granted that most ethnic cooks are proficient at what they do, some are more proficient than others, like the following two. What they have in common is that both have had restaurants in the past that left their loyal patrons bereft when they closed. Now it is possible to enjoy their specialties again, although in both cases getting them won't be as simple as it used to be. But what they also have in common is that they are worth the effort.

  View Full Column | 08/5/2011 1:00 AM | 0

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