La Mexicana.

mexican food!...  My friend Park recently told me about a new mexican restaurant, so we went to check it out!  I headed over to La Mexicana just after lunch and Park introduced me to the owners, Jon and Alex.  This is the newest of their family's chain of mexican eateries in Toronto, as they also run 3 other restaurants (2 other La Mexicana's and their downtown location, Cocina Lucero). The newest La Mexicana restaurant is on Clark, just East of Bathurst where you wouldn't typically find authentic mexican food. I learned about La Mexicana's history in Toronto, a restaurant their Mexican mother Lucera, started in 1988.  What really caught my attention was how much they stressed using fresh ingredients to make all their dishes from scratch! We were given the menu and the first thing I saw were the Baja Fish Tacos ($16+ tax/tip)- had to try that!  This plate came with 3 tacos with pieces of battered and deepfried fish, topped with cabbage and chipotle mayo.  These taco's also came with a small plate of cheese + gaucomole + pico de gallo, which I loaded onto each taco, adding to the deliciousness! Each plate also came with a heaping serving of refried beans served in a small tortilla chip bowl.
After eating the fish Taco's, Alex insisted that we had to try one of their more authentic mexican house specialty dishes.  I had the Pescado a la Tropicana ($20 + tax/tip)- a fish filet poached in coconut cream with spinach + jalapeno.  This was a savoury dish, with lots of fresh flavours from the cocount and fish!  The fish was the highlight, with simple sides complementing it nicely (Rice/ salad/ refried beans).   La Mexicana is a great new addition in Vaughan and definitely a place to check out for quality, authentic, fresh made mexican food in Toronto! I was also told they serve a Mexican Brunch and on my way out I saw deep fried ice cream being served.  The owner, Alex is also a professional arm wrestler- Mexican Food makes you Strong!

La Mexicana

441 Clark Avenue W 

Vaughan, ON L4J 6W7

905-597-7272

Chipotle Mexican Grill: Boo-rito Review.

WRITTEN and EATEN by Hu-Yan Leung & Marron Law

burritos… Halloween, the time for costumes and free candy. But how about free burritos? Every year on Halloween, if you dress up as anything on Chipotle Mexican Grill’s menu they will complete your costume with a free burrito. This is only from 6 pm – close. For our costume, all we did was wrap ourselves in some tin foil. The people are pretty lenient with it since we saw some guy who just taped a piece of tin foil to his forehead. There was a sign at the cash register advertising this special giveaway, but surprisingly there weren’t that many people who knew about the free burrito. As usual, the store was filled with customers, but almost all of them had paid for their meal. Even though we did not have to pay for our burrito, Chipotle did not cheap out on us.
For those of you not familiar with Chipotle, it is a popular American fast-food chain that opened one location in Canada. This location happens to be beside the Future Shop across Eaton’s. Although Chipotle is considered fast-food, it is way more healthy and fresh than McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, etc. Chipotle offers burritos, fajitas, tacos and quesadillas. There are 4 types of meat to choose from such as steak, chicken, barbacoa (beef braised in spices then shredded) and carnitas (pork seared, braised in spices then shredded). You can fill your burrito with an assortment of fillings such as cilantro-lime rice, pinto or black beans (or a bit of both), mild to hot salsas (fresh tomato, tomatillo green-chili, tomatillo red-chili, roasted chili-corn), sour cream, shredded cheese, guacamole and lettuce. The burritos are a very generous size and once the woman even ripped and wasted several tortillas just because my burrito was too big to wrap! If you don’t like tortillas, and just like the fillings, you can get a burrito bowl. Chipotle’s burritos always taste fresh, delicious and very satisfying. Every item on their menu is around $8.25 (they raised their prices recently...) and guacamole is an additional $2.22. The guac is pretty expensive, and several times I have not added it. But honestly, it is just not the same without it. To save money and to not compromise on flavour, a good idea is to bring your own guac. On Halloween, we went with a total of 4 people and ended up saving around $45 including guacamole. The price is a bit more expensive than your standard burrito, but in addition to all of the fillings being made fresh in-store, Chipotle also prides themselves in having naturally-raised, unprocessed and hormone free ingredients. This in itself is worth those extra few dollars.

Chipotle Mexican Grill
323 Yonge Street
Toronto, ON M5B 1R7
(416) 596-8600

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Hu-Yan Leung and Marron Law are both Guest Stars/ Guest Writers for Good Food Toronto. They are both students who live and enjoy all types of food in Toronto. Marron is a student at York Mills CI, while Hu-Yan (who is my bro) goes to York University and shares my love for deals (especially free ones!).

Burrito Boyz.

hungerrrr... I had some intense hunger last night after partying it up downtown. As we were walking on Adelaide, we saw Burrito Boyz and it was a must visit. It was around 2:30 and the place was packed with Saturday night party goers lined up and eating in and around the restaurant. Burrito Boyz serves different types of Burritos including steak, chicken, halibut and shrimp in small and large sizes. I chose to go with the Large Halibut Burrito, recommended by a friend of mine from Ottawa who had done intense food research. This was an awesome choice as the fish tasted awesome in a Burrito loaded with beans, cheese, rice, salsa, guacamole, green onions, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and some other stuff. I never though fish would taste good in a Burrito, but its a definite winner! My friend ordered a steak Burrito, but was accidentally given a Shrimp Burrito in the mass chaos of people trying to get their food. Ironically, the mix up turned out to be good as the Shrimp one is also really tasty especially with the cheesiness of the Burrito.
Quick Notes: The Large Halibut Burrito ($10 flat after tax) was definitely the most popular item at Burrito Boyz as I saw many people order this. If you're planning to go after a night of mad partying, just be prepared to wait for awhile, as these Burritos take awhile for them to make. The order is a 2 stage process, where you wait in line to choose your toppings then wait in line again for them to put the Halibut, shrimp, chicken, etc into your Burrito and grill it up. Large is huge, but when your hungry late at night, you gotta go with large. Other than the Halibut one, the other Burritos are 1 or 2 dollars cheaper. Where is this Mexican burrito haven? It's at 218 Adelaide Street West and its open till 4 am on Fridays and Saturday (and until 9 pm on Sundays, until 11 pm on Thursday, until 10 pm Monday-Wednesday).