Saturday, June 11, 2011

Long Weekend @ Toronto: Libretto and Thumbs Up

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The next day, I met up with Liz, Sarah and her cousin for lunch at Libretto.

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I remember reading about Libretto’s goal to get certified by the Vera Pizza Neapolitana a few years ago. It looks like they’ve succeeded!

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The complimentary bread with a side of olive oil, chili oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping was barely touched. We were all saving our stomachs for the pizza.

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Just like the last time I went to Libretto for lunch, I chose to share the Lunch Prix Fixe with Liz. Sarah shared hers with her cousin, Nicole.

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Liz and I decided to get the arugula salad (which included walnuts, pears and parmesan shavings) as our primi.

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Sarah and Nicole got the brushetta. I think it was a red pepper with goat cheese and pesto brushetta.

Lucy's Toronto
Vacation10
The pizza was beautifully blistered and tasted amazing with the bright tomato sauce. The other pictures of the pizza were really blurry, so I just posted the picture of my margherita pizza from my previous visit to show the blistering. It was pretty much the same.

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The marinara pizza was just as I remembered Libretto’s pizza to be. The thin and slightly chewy crust had a lot of character. The basil and thinly slices of garlic provided bursts of flavour with every other bite. Sarah and Nicole had the margherita (not pictured) and really liked it!

We ended our amazing lunch with a bit of gelato (not pictured) and then parted ways.


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I met up with my uncle in Chinatown and then headed down to Lakeshore to meet up with my cousins, aunt, and grandma. We picked up some french fries for them on our way down.

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My uncle had originally ordered two french fries and a poutine, but we ended up with two poutines and an order of french fries. Despite everyone saying that they weren’t hungry, the three orders of greasy fries were all inhaled before any seagulls had a chance to fly over.

The weather was really nice that weekend. We ended up chilling by the Humber River Bridge during the afternoon and then walked along Lakeshore a bit. No one wanted to cook dinner that night, so we decided to have dinner at my cousins’ go-to restaurant in Koreatown (the one along Bloor St. W).

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The Thumbs-Up Korean Fast Food restaurant is their favourite. They love how quick the service is, how good the food is, and above all, how cheap everything is. I’m guessing “Um Ji” means thumbs up in Korean?

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The waiter immediately brought out the banchan after my cousins placed our order. From the top; a slaw, string bean salad, glazed potato (gamja jjorim), and the obligatory kimchi.

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My cousins got us two orders of the Korean dumplings (goon mandu). I prefer Chinese pot stickers to be honest.

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The gamjatang (pork bone soup) tasted fine.

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The haemul paejon (seafood pancake) was pretty good. We also ordered a plate of chap chae (not pictured). The restaurant must've made a new batch because the chap chae wasn't as flavourful as it usually is. There was also a small pool of seasoning liquid that the chap chae sat in.

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My favourite was the yummy (braised beef bone). That's what the dish was called. Seriously. Anyway, the rice that was served with the dish was so delicious! I could eat this rice any day – and this is coming from someone who doesn’t like rice. It was so starchy and fragrant! The rice reminded me of sushi rice. Are they the same?

Everything fed 8 people and the bill came up to under $40. To be fair though, weren't very hungry to begin with. Still, the portion sizes would please any Korean. After dinner, we walked down Koreatown to help with digestion. We dropped by a Korean grocery store. I picked up some fresh dukk (rice cakes for dukkboki), and two large containers of goochujang (red pepper paste) and doenjang (miso-like bean paste). We walked a few more blocks before heading back to my cousins’ place for the night.


~*~*~

Addresses:

Pizzeria Libretto
221 Ossington Ave.
Toronto, ON
416-532-8000
Pizzeria Libretto on Urbanspoon

Thumbs Up
615 Bloor St. W
Toronto, ON
416-536-4106
Thumbs Up on Urbanspoon

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