King's Cafe

To see how the Buddha's advice can be put into practice in everyday life, treat yourself to a meal at King's Cafe in Kensington Market. You can eat like a king or queen for under $20.

This has to be the most peaceful restaurant in Toronto. It begins with the service staff: they have beautiful smiles. The tables are spaced out well, the decor is subtle but artful, and no matter how busy it gets, the place is never noisy.

Now, you don't have to be a vegetarian to follow the Buddhist path, but monks are advised to abstain from meat. What the Buddha did say was to "think about where the food came from and the amount of work necessary to grow the food, transport it, prepare and cook it and bring it to the table."

He also warned against pungent foods such as garlic, onions and spices. This is put into practice in the King's Cafe menu, where simple food is cooked with subtle flavouring. They don't even put soya sauce on the table, let alone a spice jar, mustards or other condiments you might find in a common Chinese restaurant.

Like many vegetarian restaurants, the menu at King's does a heavy spread of soy and gluten nuggets that replicate the textures and impressions of meat dishes. Soy drumsticks, kung po 'chicken,' and wheaty 'beef' strips. Don't fall into this trap when you order. Maybe one pretend meat dish, max. The kitchen staff does their tastiest treats with real vegetables, so make sure to order:

• Fried green beans. Sesame seed sprinkles are the stars of this dish.
• The Lo Chan vegetable platters. The widest assortment of veggies, with the most amazingly flavourful mushrooms.
• Spring rolls. I don't know how they deep fry with so little oil residue, but these are magical. The carrots inside the roll still crunch after cooking.

Another mystery? How the place stays so peaceful. There's a lot going on here. A dessert counter, a juice bar, and a little grocery store at the back. Plus the racket of Kensington Market through the doors, which are wide open to the patio in the summer months.

• King's Cafe site with directions & phone number

Dalai Lama vs. Halloween

Public Talk in Toronto, Canada on October 31: Organized by the Canadian Tibetan Association of Ontario. At the Rogers Centre. Ticket prices are $30, $40 and $50. Subject is 'The Art of Happiness,' but he might go off-topic.

Trick or treat?

Slideshow: Temples and Tiles

KungFu vs. Yoga

Who do you think would be most offended by this demonstration? The yoga devotees, or the kung fu experts?

I just had to laugh.

On and off the 'Sushi Train'

My ideal of fast food begins with the concept of the 'Automat,' something I came across in novels set in New York in the 1930s and 40s. These chains were the precursors of fast food restaurants. The best of 20th century technology served up supper. Diners would drop coins into slots, and windows would slide open to offer hearty, freshly-prepared meals.

The Japanese have a good take on fast-food with their version of automated dining. Food fuelled by technology in family-friendly restaurants. In the Kaiten-zushi outlets, booths for four or six are lined up beside long conveyer belts. Just grab what you want; the restaurant staff will count up empty plates at the end of the meal. Soft drinks, tea and juices are available at not extra cost, at self-serve stations at the front of the restaurant. Family of five = approx $30. I loved the automated restaurants in Tokyo and Narita.

Sushi Train, a new Toronto restaurant on Yonge St., just south of Bloor, is offering a similar kind of customer-oriented service. If you're in a hurry to get to a movie, this is a good quick-fix for a meal on the run. But not much else... and you'll be thirsty by the time you get to the movie.

Most of the sushi is prepared in advanced, and sent around to customers on a conveyor belt that runs around the oval sushi bar. Plates are colour-coded to a pricing system, and you grab whatever appeals to you. At your station by the counter, there is a hot water piped in to make your own tea, and boxes stocked with chopsticks, wasabi, and other fixings.

But Sushi Train is a bit too upscale in pricing and ambition, and the food is overdone. They miss the point of the simplicity of automated dining. Good rice and fresh fish is the essence of sushi, but the Sushi Train chefs are using bland rice here, and dolloping on extra toppings and too much of their rich version of Japanese mayonnaise. Salt, sugar and trans-fats are gumming up the works on that conveyor belt.

Now Magazine review of Sushi Train

Sushi for real

I’d rather not eat in such a rush. A block-and-a-half away, on Bloor near Church, is Ichiriki, a Japanese restaurant with a more spiritual -- and spirited -- approach to dining. The service is slow, the chef can be sullen and incommunicative, the servers are eccentric, and the meal takes about 2 hrs to proceed. Not a place for a pre-movie rush meal, but a place to settle in for the evening.

The setting is sublime. In the window of the restaurant are authentic Japanese sake drums, the kind stocked at Buddhist temples. Inside, a good selection of jazz on the stereo system, exquisite minimalist décor, attractive place settings, and fit for temples, exquisite platters and dinner settings, quiet jazz on the stereo system.


There are three menus: the regular menu, the specials, and daily sushi on a chalkboard, based on what’s come up at the market that day. But everything is prepared to order, and if you know your way around a sushi bar, you can ask for customized dishes. The fish is fresh, the rice is perfect, and there are no gooey sauces, no extra toppings, no mayo from a machine.

The real test was taking my 13-year-old goddaughter for a dinner. She doesn't like fish. Teenagers are pretty firm in their likes and dislikes. But we ordered the black cod and she became a convert. Then she tried the hamachi and and a couple of other bites from the sea.


It took me at least five visits over the summer to win over the wait staff and the sushi chef, who are pretty tough customers, so to speak. They tend to be more comfortable with their Japanese-speaking clientele, who often pack the place on Saturday nights. But they got used to my eccentric ways and on the latest visit, not only tolerated my camera and my questions, actually showed off their work and got into the spirit. "Take a picture!" the chef proudly demanded as he finished off a platter of inside-out sushi for another customer.

Toronto Life review of Ichiriki