Rolling Pot (Chinese hot pot)

Patrons are steamed. Dinner is boiled. Some people can't take it for too long. A man in a T-shirt retreats every 10 minutes or so from the mess-hall-cum-sauna that is the Rolling Pot into the icy air of the Pacific Mall parking lot.

The fogged windows contain long banks of tables. Built-in elements heat dozens of pots of broth bubbling in unison to create the steam bath atmosphere - and infinite variations of soup.

The appetite is the only limit to the all-you-can-eat piles of bits to be boiled - meat, fish, dumplings, vegetables, noodles. Retrieve the chunks and slather on sauce. Gobble it before it slides off, if you can.

There's the catch. When it comes to food, lubrication leads to frustration. Flavours trickle away, get watered down with so much moisture.

All the variety and play of Korean BBQ, without the sticky, spicy, fried joy.

$13.99-$15.99/adult

Rolling Pot
7077 Kennedy Rd. (Pacific Mall)
Unit 111
Markham, ON
L3R 0N8
905-946-0888
www.rollingpot.com

Silk Road (Uyghur)

What did we ever do to the Uyghurs?

All we wanted was to try their unique culinary offerings. A plate of cold homemade spaghetti with fried lamb. Maybe a kebob or two. But they were having none of us. We were given the bum's rush out of the Silk Road parking lot without even getting a good look at the food.

There are about 150 Uyghurs (pronounced wee-gers) in Toronto. These Muslim Turks hail from a western Chinese province annexed by Beijing in 1955. Approximately 150 of them were at the Silk Road on a recent Saturday evening. Thus, no room for the strangers who showed up unannounced.

Wait for a table? Probably not until 10.

Take-out? Nope.

We bought some M&Ms at the convenience store on the other side of the miniscule Etobicoke stripmall to tame the beast of hunger while we made alternative plans.

As we mulled over our dining options, the store owner came out to the parking lot.

"Are you trying to get into the restaurant?"

Finally, someone who wanted to help. Perhaps he would redirect us to another place. No such luck.

"You can't park here. Customers only. I'll have to ask you to leave."

Silk Road
438 Horner Ave. (east of Brown's Line)
Etobicoke, ON
416-259-9440

J-Grill (Japanese)

Some people can't stand it when their food comes with a side order of hypotheticals.

J-Grill offers up something truly unique in Toronto - rice burgers. These aren't much like your traditional grilled patties. More like Tokyo loose meat sandwiches. Sauted, sauced fillings are wedged between two warm, fried patties made of rice.

Three of the four varieties were sampled - BBQ beef, ginger pork, and vegetable tempura. All of them were yummy new sensations. (Be warned: the burgers are small, but the rice expands in your stomach about five minutes after you've polished them off.)

On the ride back from Richmond Hill, one of the diners refused to answer the question, "If you had to choose, which one would you get, the beef or the pork?"

"I don't have to chose."

"But say you did. Say you only had $4 left to your name and you could only buy one."

"If I only had $4, I wouldn't blow it on a rice burger."

Guess they were good, but not that good.

The menu also offers rice bowls, noodle soups, sushi, and intriguing Japanese curries.

Lunch for two $25 with tax and tip

J-Grill
815 Major MacKenzie Dr. E, #15
(south side, east of Bayview)
Richmond Hill, L4C 9X2
905-780-8600

Jim Chai Kee Noodles (Chinese)

Anyone thinking of opening a Chinese restaurant would be well advised to stay the hell away from the 270 West Beaver Creek in Richmond Hill. The competition in this stripmall is positively fierce.

The plaza is already home the Ambassador Restaurant with its Cantonese and Szechuan dinner delights, the Golden Court with its exceptional dim sum, not to mention a whole slew of smaller restaurants, Chinese bakeries and prepared-food shops. And that’s not to mention the half-dozen or so other stripmalls nearby, each with their own collection of gastronomic delights from China.

Still, Jim Chai Kee Noodles has something the others don’t. It’s called speed. A popular stop with the Richmond Hill office-worker set, Jim Chai Kee gets most customers in and out the door in under 15 minutes. Indeed, the door hasn’t so much as closed behind us when our server starts frantically motioning us toward a table, and then to the machine at the back of the restaurant where customers are expected to get their own tea. He later boasts that when customers tell him their in a hurry, he’s capable of ushering them in and out the door in under five minutes.

But the food here is hardly what one typically associates with fast food. Rather, Jim Chai Kee ensures its speedy service by keeping the menu simple. Diners have a choice of two dishes (soup or lo mein), three meats (fish ball, sliced beef, or shrimp wontons), and three kinds of noodles (egg, rice, or vermicelli). The soups are particularly good, with broth that’s subtle instead of salty, and meats that are flavourful without overwhelming. The ginormous shrimp wontons are particularly good. Finally, for diners looking for something green in their meal, Jim Chai Kee also offers a line-up of vegetable dishes. In keeping with the theme of simplicity, however, this part of the menu consists of just one item – sauteed chinese broccoli served as it should be, with tangy oyster sauce.

Admittedly, some diners may find a bowl of soup and a small side of greens less than filling. But therein lies the other great thing about Jim Chai Kee: we get to the register and discover our meal was dirt cheap, leaving us with more than enough money in our wallets to march over to one of the other wonderful restaurants located at 270 West Beaver Creek for a bit of dim sum, and to finish the job of satiating ourselves.

Lunch for 2 ($11.50)

Jim Chai Kee Noodles
270 West Beaver Creek Road, Unit #18
Richmond Hill, ON
L4B 3Y9
905-881-8778

The Kebob (Punjabi)

The kebobs in question here are not of the Middle Eastern persuasion, but Indian. They're delightfully spicy, made of tender ground or sliced beef. Choose one of four varieties.

Go ahead, add salad and an enormous naan on the side, and it'll still likely cost you less than $10. But you might want to get a lassi to cool the heat on the tongue.

The vegetable samosas were smaller than average and tasted much like a really fresh spring roll. Well worth the 75 cents.

The menu also offers an array of chicken dishes, as well as lamb, veal, and vegetarian options.

Tucked into a small shopping plaza, it's just a short ride from the airport and Woodbine Racetrack, should you want to flee the country or bet on the ponies after your meal.

Dinner for 3, including drinks ($30)

The Kebob
3417 Derry Rd. E
Mississauga, ON
L4T 1A8
905-678-2324
www.thekabob.com

Memphis BBQ (Ribs and wings)

Pork is a many-splendored thing at Memphis BBQ.

The most splendorous is the ribs. These juicy arcs of tender, slightly-carbonized pork are smoked for four hours. They're sold by the bone in threes or by the side, if you're especially hungry or have a pack of lupine friends to feed. A side of pig has a dozen ribs.

The pork also comes pulled. The salty meat mixed with sweet, tangy BBQ sauce is a plentiful delight.

This hole-in-the-wall's other specialty is wings. They come in two forms - fried with a choice of 14 sauces, or smoked like the ribs.

Those who can't chose can tackle the Elvis Platter. Those who can chose, should go for the ribs.

No liquor licence yet for this two-month old joint run by the former owners of The Purple Pig chain. These friendly boys have been honing their BBQ craft for over a decade, picking up tips and trophies at barbeque competitions across the land.

Dinner for two $30

Memphis BBQ and Wicked Wings
8074 Islington Ave. (north of Hwy. 7)
Woodbridge, ON
L4L 1W5
905-265-9003

Wang's Kitchen (Chinese-Indian Fusion)

Meh. This was pretty decent Chinese food. But it didn't seem especially Indian.

The honey crisp lamb tasted very much like good General Tao's chicken (and not very much like lamb). The prawns Manchurian had a nice tanginess to them, but didn't really distinguish themselves from curried prawns at other Chinese joints. The Hakka noodles were fresh, but bland.

The one stand-out item was a house specialty appetizer - the chicken lollypops. The name alone made them worth ordering. Then these intriguing treats arrived - the meaty joints of chicken wings with the grisly end parts stripped away so they really did look like lollypops. The boney ends are ingeniously wrapped in foil to keep your fingers clean of the spicy Kung Pao-type sauce.

A fine Chinese meal, if you're in the 'hood, but not worth the trip to Mississauga.

Dinner for two $40 (before tip)

Wang's Kitchen
4559 Hurontario St. (and Eglinton)
Unit 12A
Mississauga, ON
905-712-4370

Saravanaa Bhavan (South Indian Vegetarian)

This modest mall joint in Mississauga has lots going for it. The dishes pack a lot of flavour punch and the price is right. Everything was fresh and tasty. But, on our first visit, we left wishing there had been more variety on our plates.

The meal started with idly, steamed rice and lentil patties that are white and fluffy, like the traditional bread dumplings that Mom used to make for Irish stew. But instead of accompanying bland root veggies and tough meat, these babies soaked up an array of colourful, spicy chutnies and sambar. The onion bajji were a bit different from the usual - a round slice of onion with a thick, smooth, fried batter. More of the dipping sauces with this one.

Mains were rava masala dosa and the thali plate. The dosa was delicate and crisp, stuffed with curried potato and onion. The chutnies made yet another appearance here. The thali plate offered more selection with about 10 small dishes, ranging from soothing yogurt to firey pickles, surrounding steamed rice, a pappadam, and two puffy fried breads.

The real novelty on this trip came from spying the resto next door - Wang's Indian-Chinese Fusion. It sparked much curiosity. An inquiry on the Chowhound board informs us that Wang's is not alone and that this type of food - Hakka - is quite tasty. Stay tuned for an investigative report.

Dinner for two $34 (before tip)

Saravanaa Bhavan
4559 Hurontario St. (at Eglinton)
Unit 12B
Mississauga Market Place
Mississauga, ON
905-290-0769

Carnaval (Brazilian)

Is there an adjective for a meal that features an excessive amount of well-cooked meat? I think meatiful best describes the plentiful fleshly offerings at Carnaval Brazilian Grill.

The concept here is pretty straightforward. You pay a flat price - $30 most nights, $40 on Saturdays when there's a floor show - and get to eat all the meat you could ever possibly desire. Fourteen different cuts. A buffet of sides and desert is also included.

Each patron has a wooden marker by their place-setting. When you want meat, you turn the green side up. When you're sated, you turn it over to the red side. Such is the binary world of gluttony.

A team of waiters circulate through the dining hall with large skewers of grilled meat for the taking. There are seven kinds of beef, two cuts of lamb, three pork offerings and two chicken. All are juicy and tender. And you can choose a cut cooked to your liking. (A full inventory of the types of meat, including photos, can be found on Carnaval's website, listed below.)

To top off your meal, there's also grilled pineapple with cinnamon making the skewer rounds.

Dining at Carnaval on a Saturday night feels like being at a big family wedding reception without a bride and groom to distract you from the meal. Or what I imagine it must be like at supper time on a cruise ship. The food is abundant. The crowd is all-ages and game for a good time. The floor show involves a lot of booty-shaking, and audience participation is encouraged.

Dinner for 4 on a Saturday $160 (plus drinks, tax and tip)

Carnaval Brazilian Grill
160 York Blvd. (East Beaver Creek and Hwy. 7)
Richmond Hill, ON
905-709-4900 (Reservations recommended)
www.carnavalgrill.com

Halleluia (Uzbek and Middle Eastern)

There's a diner in Montreal that describes its hashbrowns as 'God-like potatoes.' Well, there's another contender for that title in Halleluia. Their home-style potatoes seemed last night like the pinnacle of garlicky-buttery heaven. Perhaps the dill was the secret ingredient that kept us saying, "OK, just one more," until the plate had only one golden, starchy chunk left on it to feebly testify that we weren't complete gluttons.

It seems wrong to rave about a side dish when there were many other delights to this modest resto tucked into the side of a strip mall. The menu is a mix of Middle Eastern with a Greekish influence and several 'Uzbekian' specialties. Lots of Levantine spreads, salads and fish on offer.

We started with a flavourful eggplant salad, and Uzbek samsa, a meat-and-onion-filled pastry with a mildish hot sauce on the side. Mains included another Uzbek dish, manti. These hearty lamb dumplings are wrapped, as our charming waitress described it, like a diaper. That is to say, these dumplings are bigger and bit more loosely wrapped than their Far Eastern counterparts. Our other plate was a whole batter-encrusted trout laced with garlic. It was crisp and not terribly greasy considering it had likely taken a quick bath in a deep fryer.

There was also entertainment - quirky, but obviously meant to fit the mixed-ethnicity menu and clientele. A woman with a synthesizer crooned soft-rock classics in English and folk songs in Russian, then threw a smattering of Hebrew into her between-song banter.

Dinner for two $40 plus tip

Halleluia Restaurant
2150 Steeles Ave. W. (1 set of lights E. of Keele St.)
Concord, Ont. L4K 2Y7
905-738-4492

Second location at 870 Eglington Ave. W at Bathurst