I heard about the Black Hoof and its changing chefs, the former Hoof Café and its popular brunch, and all things pig served at said places awhile ago. And I didn’t care to go to any of them because of the pig part, but if you swap out the pig for sustainable seafood, I’m in. I had one night only in the city on my way to London, so I had to make it count. And because there’s this whole movement of taking sustainable fish and serving them very simply in a Mediterranean style (“Let the fish shine” – aka olive oil or butter and salt and pepper, perfectly seared or steamed or poached) I’m not interested. We just don’t get the best fish here because it’s mostly not local. Pickerel is pretty bland, or Walleye. Then mackerel is all well and good, but it’s going to taste like mackerel. Salmon (sockeye, chum, pink, keta) will always be better in Vancouver, Seattle, or San Diego where it’s maybe even served the same day it’s pulled from the water.
So the point is that to have great fish (for the most part) in Toronto or Montreal where there’s a lack of fresh fish, you need to do something interesting with it. And that’s where the affordable cured fish board at Hoof Raw Bar comes in. Take a few slices of four very flavourful cured (either smoked or sweet cured like gravlax) fish and you’ve got a new fish palette. The world is your oyster, so to speak. And you can start with those here, but I don’t. Instead I go straight to the board.
From right to left (if I remember correctly): Simple smoked tuna (yellowtail), smoked tandoori Pacific wild salmon, brined(?) and salt-cured mackerel with sweet pickled fennel, and very smoky smoked scallops. The brown onions are sweet pickled and are a great compliment to the salty fish. Now it’s not overly salty. It’s smoked very lightly. After my little rant there about how I don’t like simple fish, the best of the above was the unadorned tuna. The tandoori spices on the salmon were a little bitter (they were interesting, but I didn’t want more than a few bites), and the scallop just made me sad because smoking gets rid of the creaminess and salt mutes the sweetness. And the mackerel needed sugar to mask that fishy taste. Fortunately that’s why the fennel was there, and with it, the mackerel was perfect. So I guess I like simple, great fish more than overly seasoned fish. There’s something Japanese in me that cries out for better quality. And flavour enhancers should be added with a light hand. Generally, smoking is not a light hand. But I think I liked this less than I hoped because I’d just come back from eating all sorts of delicious smoked coho salmon in Seattle – so fatty and naturally sweet with all its delicious monosodium glutamate (the natural kind, not the kind tossed into Chinese sauces for fake umami). So the salmon and tuna here just couldn’t match up.
Next: wine. This I loved.
This is an awesome, awesome wine list. They have a great selection by the glass of carefully chosen private imports. And the descriptions are actually interesting. For example, the mauzac, Causse Marines, Gaillac 2008 ($13/glass, $59/bottle):
“Crazy nose, and I know this won’t sound like a selling point, even though it is, but it smells like pickles and flowers with a back note of anise and thrills gum. Just wickid.”
Or the Muscadet (sur lie) Marc Brédif, Sèvre et Maine, Loire 2010 ($10/glass, $45/bottle):
“Man, do I love this wine. It is a wash-away-the-pain, high acid delight.”
Sure, it gets into flowery descriptions that involve green apples and cinnamon, but it’s honest, as though you’re reading the original, unedited tasting notes of the young, hip sommelier who really loves good wine. The rest of the food menu should have the same kinds of descriptions.
You can also tell the sommelier loves wine when you’re offered a few samples before you choose. And a few samples can turn into four when you get really excited about the funky tastes. It’s sometimes hard to choose a wine without the food in front of you, but in small plates restaurants like this where you get so many different flavours, it’s really about going with something you enjoy rather than something you think will match your main course perfectly. If I’d tried to match something with the halibut with plantains dish that came an hour later, I would have suffered through the cured fish board, smoked mussels, ceviche, and raw scallops before getting to a proper pairing.
The smoked mussels were oily and soft and mushy and ultimate comfort food. Basically any one in need of comfort should order that and the Chawanmushi (a Japanese steamed egg dish that’s soft and a little gooey and warm) and you’ll be A-okay.They come with bread to soak up the salty oil, but I didn’t get to do that, gluten-intolerant as I am.
The raw scallops were lovely, as they should be. Much better than the smoked ones. But if you didn’t call the smoked ones scallops and I didn’t know how good they could be raw, the smoked ones would have been fine too. Lined up in a single raw and garnished with strands of things to add texture and a little flavour from a sauce of some kind (it clearly didn’t mean much to me since I can’t remember), I was happy as a clam.
Now, that ceviche. Just a little hot pepper, but no sweetness from corn or sweet potato in the Peruvian style that I like. Instead, this was more Mexican. With just lime and heat. It looked awfully pretty, though, and the raw tuna hadn’t been sitting too long getting tough in the marinade. Green onions, carrot strands and cilantro oil I believe. Plus some twisted thick slices of radish?
Finally the halibut and plantain. At $19 it’s deemed to be a main and it was the only hot dish ordered. And it was to die for. the plantains weren’t soaking in oil and refried to order. They were sweet and not starchy and creamy compared with the perfectly tender and well-salted halibut. In a place that salts a heck of a lot of fish, it’s hard to hold back on this kind of dish, especially when you know the diner’s palate will have adapted to excessive salt (because everyone orders the cured fish board to start). It’s hard to taste raw tuna in ceviche after that, and it’s harder still to taste much more neutral halibut, but it was stupendous. I’m sorry to not have a photo, but go order this dish. You can’t find it anywhere else in the city. Sure, lots of Caribbean places do fish and plantains, but it ain’t like this and it ain’t sustainable. A perfect sear, a delicious heap of green with halibut juices soaking into it. And just enough wine left to enjoy a pretty stellar meal-long wine pairing. Sure, there’s the Hood Cocktail Bar across the street where there’s a sign crying out against vodka, but I’d rather sit here in the raw bar with a plate of halibut and plantains and smile along to a great meal.
Hoof Raw Bar
926 Dundas Street West
Toronto
647-346-9356
Tues-Sat 5:30pm-midnight
How Much: A lot, so it’s a splurge but it’s worth it. Expect to pay $50-$60 per person with a glass of wine.
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