The Musket
By Gina Mallet gina@ginamallet.com


German deli – and by that I mean the takeaway food of the peoples of the former German and Austro-Hungarian empires which stretched like the Iron Curtain from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic and beyond – is one of my favourite tastes. Sweet and sour like Elizabeth Schwarzkopf’s soprano voice. When I lived in New York, I’d go to Bremen House on Yorkville’s Broadway, E. 86th street, and buy lachshinken, translucent slivers of cured pork loin, marinated cucumber salad, dill flavoured potato salad, that very fine light rye…

Bremen House has been pushed out by the gentrifying condos but the Heidelberg restaurant, right next door, is still selling food with the deli taste. Dark varnished walls, Boots of beer (8 mugs), schnitzels, potato pancakes, sausages most of all a fragrant grilled sandwich, dark rye topped with limburger cheese and onions. Next best thing to the extinct Luchows, once the mittel European queen of 14th street, At Christmas, Luchows looked as enchanting as the set of the Nutcracker.

Once Torontonians could get a taste of Schnitzeland from the  Hungarian restaurants which dominated Bloor W – I remember Jewish friends, from Romania and Czechoslovakia respectively, finding an excuse to come from Boston just to scarf down authentic goulash, others came to eat stealthbomber-shaped schnitzels. Breaded, fried escalopes of veal, that gave the molars a workout, and non-pareil red cabbage.

But Franz Josef has been swept away by the Asian tsunami. Now it’s hard to find the rich cornucopia of central European food  - dumplings, noodles, goulash, sauerkraut, cabbage rolls, sauerbrauten and arguably the lightest pastry anywhere…

So when I lunched at the Hilton a couple of months ago and spotted Wiener Schnitzel on the menu I fell on the groovily crisped veal escalopes, marinated cucumber salad and sautéed fingerlings as if they were long lost treasures.

Same feeling when I sampled white asparagus flown over the day before from Germany, thanks to the German Trade Commission which holds an annual Asparagus dinner - because white asparagus is gene-spliced into the culture the way foie gras is with the French.

You can buy here local white asparagus and Peruvian white asparagus tinged with purple (which means the growers let the sun in but neither approach the delicate rye grass flavour of the German spears - terroir is everything particularly  when you’re eating grass.

Just as a white spear dabbed with Hollondaise was slipping down, I was told about The Musket a schnitzel outpost in light industrial  Etobicoke.

The Musket does its best to suggest the old country. Trees screen the chalet from the car works next door. Inside it gleams with cheerful student prince décor, lots of bright woodwork and stained glass, superb pale fine woven rye from Dimpflmeiers next door – and of course schnitzel.

Pork schnitzel – they don’t have the Viennese kind with veal – which was created for  Marshal Rudetzky who won the Austrian Idol competition and was rewarded with a march by Strauss.

My pork schnitzel is nicely bronzed and crinkly, chewy not to say tough, but tasting excellent and going so well with sublime red cabbage. The plate is huge and includes carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, the vanished veg of the expensive Toronto eatery.
 

I look around. Parties of four are snuggled into booths under a rainbow of stained glass broaching hefty plates of food. At one table, two are sharing a are sharing a vast hamhock for one – why it could feed four. The sacred drink is beer, Warsteiner, Becks, Hacker Pschorr and Weissbier on draft which is being sipped by a couple at the bar who are quietly watching Austria vs Serbia on a low decibel TV.

The House white, gruner veltliner is great too, $5.95 a glass -over its rim I observe regulars eating alone, goulash soup is one order, the others are eclectic, the menus ranges from rollmops and sour cream to ribs and wings to rouladen. Outside a group is smoking peacefully over steins. The waitresses exude good temper. A bucolic scene. I could be in Garnisch Partenchirchen.


I landed back in Toronto with a bump - at Trevor.

I missed Trevor’s opening l8 months ago but I know the restaurant was immediately rated a serious food destination. And so when a friend kept singing Trevor’s praises recently I decided I had to drop in.

Lots of things can happen in 18 months and at Trevor, it seems that the original brief has been changed along with the original chef.
When Trevor Wilkinson opened his eponymous restaurant he said he left his last gig at Lobby because he was tired of seeing his dining room customers fleeing every night at 10.30 “when the music got too loud to talk.” 
"I tried my hardest to make Lobby into a restaurant, but that place is a club,"

From the frypan into the fire Trevor! You’re in club scene east now! The traders just boogie over to Trevor for relaxation 101 not *** food. At 8 sharp, the music pounds louder and when asked. the waitress says - without explanation - that Trevor is noisier than most fine dining restaurants. (Even Lucien next door where I see a trader clogged bar?).

Who said Trevor is a fine dining restaurant?

I order barbeque sucking (sic) pig with high hopes. I once roasted a sucking pig in my tiny apartment oven and my tastebuds remember the sweet melting baby flesh. Trevor’s long plate is filled with clumps of grayish pork pulled from the flesh of a pig past puberty and then I assume, frozen.

The meal hadn’t started badly with pan seared foie gras with duck confit and a mouthful of cherry pie – but then it went south with soupy cheddar risotto and a thick slice of taste-challenged red jelly called seared venison.

I mourn for Trevor a fine chef who couldn’t beat the zeitgeist. 



**The Musket. Anyone who wants to taste German food/beer must go there. 40 Advance Road, Etobicoke, 416-231-6488. Wheelchair accessible. Lunch for two, food plus  tax: $45

One Star in memoriam.
 Trevor Kitchen and Bar, 38 Wellington St. E 416-941-9410 No wheelchair access. Very noisy. Dinner, food plus tax: $125