A trip to P.A.T.

One of my favourite things about Toronto is all the distinct little cultural neighbourhoods. We straddle the border of the university-student supported sushi strip and Korea Town. Now, aside from awesomely cheap fruit and vegetable stores, my favourite part about this area is the P.A.T.

Photo from yelp

One of the many, many reasons I love this place is their vast selection of both Korean and Japanese foods. This is where I go for all of my Japanese pantry staples, but if I'm really lucky they'll have something pre-made that reminds me of Phil's local grocery store in Tokishi.

Today, for example, we scored two awesome finds:

Potato Korokke (link here for a recipe). Mashed potatoes, a few peas and grated carrots. Serve with tonkatsu sauce and you're in business! Honestly, you're probably in business without the tonkatsu sauce (it's a ketchup-worcestershire-allspice type sauce, if you didn't know). Deep fried potatoes are hard to mess up!

But really, the super find was this little beauty, which reminds me of something I'd get from the Gifu city train station:

 

It's a danish. 

With chopped hotdogs. 

And cheese. 

And mayo. 

And ketchup. 

Topped with parsley and nori.

The first time I had it, I thought it was the grossest thing ever. I thought it was going to be a sweet pastry, so the seaweed-mayo combination was especially distressing. I may have shouted "What is wrong with this country?" at the top of my lungs.

In the end, I don't know what prompted me to try it again, but I did. And then I did it again. And now I totally love that I can relive the taste, even if it's something I eat for nostalgia and smiles rather than for a taste-bud explosion of happiness.

Mmm. I feel like I'm confessing a dirty secret here! Perhaps the title of this post should be Things that Taste Good but Shouldn't. 

But, what's the fun of loving food if you're snobby about it? I'd call this little number the Vince Vaughn/Will Ferrell flick of the food world. Something like Dodge Ball.

Tell me I'm not the only one! Do you secretly love a food that you'd be embarrassed to admit to your foodie friends?