In most of my articles, I talk about exercise, chronic conditions, supplements, and healthy eating. And people assume that because I’m a personal trainer, work in the fitness industry, and do things like this, I have no nutritional vices.
But boy, how wrong they are. My one-on-one clients who’ve given me chocolates or pastries as gifts in the past know how quickly, and with great delight that I devour them.
Now granted, I can’t walk around at 8-10% body fat, and in good health while eating these things very frequently, so they’re not super frequent. Maybe 1-2 times per week, plus I use a couple of strategies to mitigate their negative effects. I talk about those strategies in my article on the top 20 cheat meal strategies.
So in this article, I’m going to do the opposite of talking about healthy eating. I’ll talk about unhealthy eating, and my favourite unhealthy foods and restaurants.
Let the party begin!
My Favourite Unhealthy Meals
Let’s start with the desserts.
- Favourite chocolate: Lindt. Such yummy, rich, flavourful goodness!
- Honourable mentions, Ferrero Rocher, Godiva, and Ghirardelli.
- Favourite cake: chocolate lava cake.
- Honourable mentions: pretty much any cake that doesn’t have mint or licorice in it (I like mint in my toothpaste… not my sweets. Ruins the flavour). Strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, you name it, I like it.
- Favourite chocolate bar: Mars.
- Honourable mentions: like with cake, any chocolate bar without mint or licorice. Snickers, Twix, Reese’s, Kit Kat, etc.
- Bubble tea. Any city with a high Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean population will have a lot of bubble tea. And since I spent a big chunk of my life living in Richmond Hill and Markham, that counts.
- My favourite bubble tea flavour is taro. Don’t know what taro is? It’s like an Asian potato. Which doesn’t sound good. But when they turn it into a liquid form, add cream, and sugar (and who knows what else), it’s heavenly!
- Honourable mentions: hazelnut, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla.
- Pandan. I’ll bet you that this one stumped you! This is Filipino dessert, and since my fiancée is a Filipina, I learned about it, and now like it more than her (just like I speak Tagalog – the Filipino language – better than her). What is pandan made of? I have no clue. As I mention in a bunch of my articles, I like to eat, but hate to cook. So I don’t cook, but instead just order ready made meals. So asking me for the recipe of something is about as pointless as asking a cat to solve mathematical equations.
Favourite Restaurants
I’m a self-described foodie. I like to try new restaurants, and new cuisines. But I take things a step further. Not only do I like to do that, I’ll also often write reviews of my experiences on Yelp. Besides that, my fiancée and I add the restaurants we visit to our own Excel database, where we rate each restaurant on:
- Food quality
- Speed of service
- Décor
- Cleanliness of washrooms
So anyways, without further ado, here are my favourite restaurants (in no particular order):
Touro
This is a Brazilian steakhouse. They have 2 locations: one in Richmond Hill, and one in Vaughan. There are very few things that I can think of that are better than meat on a stick. Fourteen different kinds of meat. Yeah, they have other things there, like salads, soups, garlic bread, etc., but that’s not what people come for. The real attraction is meat on a stick!!!
My favourite is chicken covered in parmesan.
Frankie Tomatto’s
I was debating whether to put this one in there, since it closed in August 2020, due to covid, but in the off chance it might re-open again, I put it here.
This is an Italian buffet, and they have typical Italian stuff – lasagna, pizza, pasta, seafood, etc.
After I use to do my powerlifting competitions, my teammates and I had a tradition:
Step 1: Go to Frankie Tomatto’s
Step 2: Lie to the waiters, and tell them that it’s one of my friends’ birthdays (when it wasn’t)
Step 3: Watch the staff sing “happy birthday” to my puzzled friend.
Step 4: Take a video, while laughing so hard that tears go down my face, and my stomach hurts.
Good times!
Mandarin
Mandarin is another one of my favourites. I think it’s a Russian Jewish thing. For some reason, Russian Jews love Mandarin. I don’t know why. We just do.
This is another buffet, with lots of different foods, from beef, chicken and potatoes, to sushi, to pizza, and desserts.
Dragon Legend/Pearl
These are 2 sister restaurants that have the same cuisine, same décor, they’re just in different parts of the city. Dragon Legend is in Markham, and Dragon Pearl is in North York.
Whereas Mandarin is basically “Asian food for white people”, Dragon Legend/Pearl is real Asian food… although a lot of white folks still go there.
This one is also a buffet, but they’re what you’d call “Pan-Asian cuisine.” It’s Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.
My favourite item on the menu is Peking duck.
Little Caesar’s Pizza
I’m a big fan of pizza. Big fan. And I’ve tried a lot of different pizza places, from the fancy to the pedestrian, but this one just blows them all out of the water.
I don’t know what Little Caesar’s does to their pizza, but it’s the only one that makes me feel like a glutton. Most pizza places, I enjoy their pizza, but when I’m full, I stop. With Little Caesar’s, I’m full, and I keep eating. I can’t stop. It’s so damn good. Then I end up feeling 9 months pregnant with triplets.
Holy Chuck
There’s a tie for my favourite burger place, between Holy Chuck and (next on our list), Burger’s Priest.
To be fair, I only went to Holy Chuck once, and I ordered the Holy Duck (foie gras). Holy moly, was it ever good. I’ve been to a lot of burger joints (ironically, except for the really common ones, like Wendy’s, Burger King, Harvey’s, etc. I’ve only been to McDonald’s once, and that was because I was in Calgary for a speaking engagement, and every other restaurant closed at 6PM on a weekend), and only 2 places had burgers so good, I kept thinking about them, and meaning to go back.
This is one of those two. Holy cow, is it incredible!
Burger’s Priest
This is the other burger joint that makes me take note, and want to go back over and over. I just keep ordering the same menu item over and over – The Vatican. Yeah, there’s lot of other great items on the menu, but The Vatican is just so damn good.
What do they put in it? All the good stuff – cheese, bacon, patty, but that’s standard burger stuff. What makes it addictive is the bread. I don’t know what they do to it (probably add butter, and other things) that makes it soooo rich and flavourful.
One of these days I’ll order a different item off their menu, besides the 1500-calorie Vatican.
Chipotle
I’m a big fan of burritos in general, but Chipotle has a special ingredient that makes it my favourite: queso blanco. I’m a real cheese-a-holic, so any opportunity to add more cheese is a welcome opportunity. And Chipotle gives me that opportunity.
Café Landwer
Café Landwer sends a bunch of mixed messages: the décor is 1910s/1920s Austria, but the cuisine is well… mixed. Austrian (schnitzel), Italian (ravioli), and Israeli (rogalach).
But one thing that isn’t confusing is the taste: delicious. I’ve had a bunch of things from their menu, from the main courses to their desserts, and it’s consistently excellent!
WVRST
How can you have a restaurant name without any vowels? WVRST does it (fine, I’ll tell you how it’s pronounced: wurst. Like bratwurst). WVRST is a carnivore’s heaven. They have meat. Plenty of it. But what’s special about it is their meat is exotic. Not just your standard beef, chicken, and pork. What separates them is that they have game meat, like bison, venison, elk, and others.
I had no idea I even liked these meats (because I never had them) until I went to WVRST. Incredible!
Matsuda
I love sushi, so I’ve been to a lot of sushi places. That’s why it’s really hard to narrow down my favourite, but Matsuda is the winner here. Why? For one single reason: they have a roll that I’ve never tried before. I don’t remember what it’s called officially, but I call it the “white guy roll.” On the inside is I think cucumber, avocado, and salmon, but the top is a slice of cheddar. Hence why I call it the “white guy roll.”
I distinguish that from “Jewish guy roll”, which is anything with cream cheese (like Philadelphia rolls). Jews love cream cheese. And that’s how that name was born.
Le Gourmand
I figured I’d end my list of favourite restaurants with desserts. Le Gourmand is a cookie place. They only have 5 cookies on their menu. But each cookie is a hefty one. At probably 400-500 calories per cookie, you feel like you had a whole meal.
I first heard about Le Gourmand when Toronto entrepreneur Sol Orwell did a cookie contest, and of 30+ competitors, Le Gourmand won.
My favourite is the chocolate chip cookie.
Tru Tea
You know how I like bubble tea? Because of that, I’ve been to a lot of bubble tea places, which, like sushi, makes it hard to narrow down my favourite. There’s a bunch that I like (for instance, Chatime, the Alley, Ten Ren’s, Gong Cha, and others), but one place really stands out in my mind: Tru Tea.
Don’t ask me what they do differently (again, I can’t break down foods/drinks, and tell you what’s special about them). They have the same flavours as everyone else (taro, strawberry, etc.), but they just do it so much better than anyone.
I used to live in the neighbourhood of Tru Tea (around Leslie/HWY 7). And now that I don’t even live in that neighbourhood anymore, I occasionally come, and get some.
So now, my friend, you know what a glutton I am. Wanna share your gluttony with me? Which of these restaurants or desserts do you like as well?
