Sweet and Sticky Pork with Apples at Cafe BelongMoe Doiron/The Globe and Mail
Although the restaurant adheres to a strict local, natural aesthetic, Café Belong's summer squash and duck-egg appetizer is weirder than anything dreamed up in the most avant-garde molecular gastronomy lab. The squash in question is thick wedges of green and yellow zucchini that have been rendered sopping wet, apparently from a light pickling. They come with a soft-poached duck egg – its runny yolk cold, gloopy and thoroughly unappetizing – grey slices of duck meat, gobs of stewed Saskatoon berries and a bitter, bright orange sauce that is possibly meant to be romesco, but tastes like the sensation one gets when touching a live battery to your tongue – not pleasant. It's easy enough to see how someone might come up with duck and berries as a combination, but adding egg, voltaic sauce and drenched squash makes for one bizarre combination.
Café Belong is the long-awaited restaurant from Brad Long, the former executive chef at the Air Canada Centre and a regular consultant on the television program Restaurant Makeover. Located in the Evergreen Brick Works, a community environmental centre, the café was originally supposed to open last September and then again in April. It finally did at the end of July. Despite the delay, it still very much feels like a work in progress.
Like the rest of the Brick Works, the dining room maintains a raw, rustic look. Rough lumber studs are left open in front of the kitchen exposing both the chefs at work and the brick structure beneath. Rusting beams still retain traces of graffiti. An enormous tangled fixture, like something out of a Terry Gilliam fever dream, looms overhead. Vast windows look out over the sculptural living wall that doubles as a map of Toronto's watershed. The overall effect is quite charming, particularly in light of the friendly service and the high-quality garnishes that give the room its focus.
Set among the wooden beams are dozens of colourful pieces of Le Creuset cookware, seemingly the entire catalogue's worth, and the sight of them is enough to cause envy in anyone with a kitchen. Spotless cutlery adorns every table, elegant wooden tables set in steel frames rest on the polished cement floor and the black Emeco chairs – made from recycled pop bottles – are as comfortable as they are ethical.
If only the cooks paid as much attention to the dishes as the designers did to the room. I think they were going for rustic and natural in their presentation, but the results look more careless than casual. Slices of cured fish, stained red from pickled beets, lurk beneath a pile of grilled fennel and mixed greens drizzled with crème fraîche. The dish looks like a crime scene and tastes like pickled beets.
The question of why the big salad of ripe, fresh heirloom tomatoes is covered with cooked pot barley is secondary to the fact that the further you delve into the dish the more acidic it becomes. By the time you get to the bottom, the slices of garden and lemon cucumbers are practically floating in harsh vinegar. At this time of year, with the summer we've had, a plate of those incredible Vicki's Veggies tomatoes with only a little salt and oil would be infinitely better.
Vying for the title of most beige dish in the city is an entrée of milk-braised lamb. Light brown and riddled with connective tissue (was it butchered with a woodchipper?), the lamb sits on top of even more brown cooked spelt, the whole thing resting in a loose brown sauce. A greasy branch of fried sage provides the only colour in an otherwise all khaki bowl. Flavour-wise it's pretty monochromatic too, tasting of lamb and spelt seasoned with salt and pepper.
If you're in the mood for something slightly darker brown, the sweet-and-sticky pork is served with a dark sauce made from apple cider and maple syrup. The thick slab of pork belly is beautifully cooked, steam rises from the fluffy layers of fat every time you pull a piece off, but the sauce is mainly just sweet. Sticky, too.
Not all is lost, though. The beef has that great, gamy taste that good quality, well-aged beef can acquire and pairing it with a combination of chimichurri and crispy shallots, as the kitchen does, is a good idea. Ordering that beef with a side of the thick fries, served in a thick white bowl with a dollop of aioli, would make a good meal especially if you ended with the intense brownie made with ChocoSol chocolate (a community-minded operation based in Toronto that works with small-scale farmers in Mexico).
There is much to admire about Café Belong, the friendly staff, the bright, cheerful room and the laudable commitment to supporting local farmers and ethical suppliers. Good intentions alone, however, do not make a great restaurant.