Me Va Me
7000 Bathurst St., Thornhill
905-771-7377
$40 for dinner for two with beer, tax and tip
Mr. Combo
568 Sheppard Ave. W., Toronto
416-398-7877
$40 for dinner for two with beer, tax and tip
Bathurst Street is my people's corridor. When I was growing up in Toronto in the fifties, it seemed almost a straight line from a stetl in Ukraine to Bathurst and Lawrence. Those of us with families lucky enough to make money landed in Forest Hill, revolving around the hub of Bathurst and Eglinton. Those less affluent were the "Manor" people, settling in Bathurst Manor up around Lawrence and Bathurst.
But the gravitational pull of Bathurst Street on my mishpochech (kindred tribes) predated me by almost half a century. All four of my grandparents (our first generation in the New World) lived within three blocks of Bathurst, down south in immigrant territory below Harbord. In the 1920s and '30s, the new Jewish immigrants made that part of downtown fragrant with chopped liver and shmaltz, borscht both cabbage and beet.
Plus ça change. Go to Bathurst Street from Sheppard north to Steeles today and check out the Russian Jewish diaspora. In a plaza at Steeles and Bathurst, there are signs in Cyrillic lettering and just try getting a table at Me Va Me. On a Sunday night, when families mass there, you could wait 45 minutes. Even on weeknights, the oft surly maître d's won't hazard a guess at how long you might have to wait for a table on the outdoor terrace that overlooks a strip-mall parking lot. Gracious service is not the prime focus here.
It's huge portions of my people's comfort food that is. You may not be excited by chicken hearts, liver and breast and a side of mashed redskin potatoes with just the right number of lumps versus smooth, but I flash back to my mother's kitchen and the intense warmth of her cooking. With shmaltz - lots of it. Me Va Me's rendition of mom's specialty is swimming in lovable grease with a lot of sweetly fried onions. This is Jewish nirvana.
Speaking of nirvana, we may not be able to solve the problems of the Middle East, but clearly Me Va Me is getting somewhere. One evening there is a 50th birthday party of Muslims, including women in hijabs, hard by Russian Jews by the dozen and a few Indian women in saris.
These folks are all breaking pita together in cacophonous harmony in the big ugly room. The pita is always warm and fresh. Stuff it with the restaurant's supercrisp ungreasy falafels or tender chunks of lamb shish kebab with hummus tomato and cucumber. Why pita? Because the vast majority of Russian Jews in Toronto stopped in Israel for months or years en route to the New World, and there they absorbed Israeli eating. Hence Me Va Me's menu - mostly Israeli, with a soupçon of Russian.
Those frozen steppes are represented by kick-ass goulash with deep, rich flavour, an allspice undertone and chunks of carrot, potato, celery and tender long-stewed beef.
But Me Va Me's claim to fame is the shawarma, wherein thin slices of meat are shaved from pit-roasted lamb, veal, beef or chicken. But good luck getting some, because sometimes they sell out of shawarma by dinnertime. And they're so charming about it. Like the time I asked for chicken shawarma and the waiter said: "All out of shawarma." I asked whether he might find me some beef shawarma, or maybe some lamb shawarma. "Don't you believe me?" he snarled.
Me Va Me's shawarma is scented with sweet spices (cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg) and lightly browned; especially in its tender chicken rendition, it is the most charming fast food imaginable.
Although the majority of the resto's habitués are gaga over shawarma, my personal favourite is ground lamb mixed with lots of sautéed onions and topped with toasted pine nuts, sitting on a moat of smooth hummus. I like to cut the grease with fettush salad, an impeccably fresh green salad jazzed with fresh mint and toasted pita triangles with parsley and oil. Their chicken schnitzel - a huge chicken cutlet breaded and deep-fried - they can keep.
The Russian Jewish diaspora also favours Mr. Combo, in another Bathurst Street strip mall. Mr. Combo is much smaller than Me Va Me but it makes an attempt at decor, with still lifes on the walls and fake daisies on the pass-through from kitchen to dining room.
The restaurant's shawarma has far less seasoning than Me Va Me's, but the chicken is tender. Mr. Combo's great strength lies in it soups. Anyone who grew up with a beloved Bubby in the kitchen will be brought to rapture by their dill-inflected mushroom barley soup. There is also the deep, strong lentil soup and beet borscht.
When people say soul food, they mean it feeds not just the body but the soul as well. This is soul food because it awakens memory - not only of one's own childhood but also of the beloved departed and their poignant stories.
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RIP: Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner will close June 7, when the glorious light-drenched room will morph into a casual café.