Renowned food critic Keith Lee said he was impressed with Toronto when he awarded the city's culinary creators a rich ranking, making it the first international stop on a culinary tour. His latest reality.
“Toronto was probably one of the top three places we visited on this food tour,” Lee made the announcement in a video posted on Sunday as he left the city.
Lee, a Las Vegas food critic who was more than 16 million followers on TikTok, ventured to Toronto on his FamiLee food tour, after visiting Arizona, Indianapolis and Hawaii. They spent more than a week in Toronto driving throughout the city and suburbs, unleashing the “Keith Lee Effect” on local businesses.
After each of Lee's visits, people lined up outside the organizations he praised. Waiting times doubled for a shawarma place in Scarborough while a small bakery in Ajax had to close just to prepare for the weekend rush, and a pizza place in the city center lost a day. to replenish depleted supplies.
“This was my first international culinary stop, I didn't expect this reception, my mind was blown,” Lee said, summing up his time in Toronto and the boom in business he experienced. left behind.
In just over a week, Lee reviewed seven restaurants in the city. Here's how he ranked them:
Food critic Keith Lee visits Toronto, ranking the city in the top three on his latest food tour.
To kick off the Toronto leg of Lee's culinary tour, he started at a shawarma place in Scarborough, Ontario.
In terms of overall flavor, Lee rated the chicken shawarma an 8.2 out of 10 and the veal an 8.4 out of 10, favoring single proteins over a mixture of veal and shawarma wrapped in one.
“I feel like this will be one of our most exciting food tours yet,” Lee said.
Next, Lee heads to what he calls a “super Canadian” bakery located in a backyard shed in Ajax, Ontario.
While Lee said sweets weren't in his wheelhouse, he gave the Korean sponge toffee coffee an 8 out of 10. “It's unique. It's really good,” Lee said.
He ranked carrot cake with cream cheese a 7 and banana cake a 7.2 out of 10.
“We're all definitely shocked, overwhelmed, but we're really excited to see what happens,” Victoria Fliegel, store manager for Biscuits to Baskets, previously told CP24.
For his only stop in downtown Toronto, Lee visited a “very, very small” pizza shop, starting with a mac and cheese that scored an 8.5 out of 10.
Lee offers a pepperoni pizza with hot honey and pickled jalapeno that scores a 9/10 while the samosa pizza scores a 7.5/10.
Lee left a $3,000 tip and another $1,000 for Afro's Pizza to hand out free slices for the rest of the night.
“After he left, we gave people free pizza for three hours,” owner Rodney Best told CP24 last week.
Lee, a self-proclaimed eggs Benedict connoisseur, rated the restaurant's breakfast classic 7.7 out of 10.
As for the waffles, dipped in blueberry compote, with their soft and delicious buttery texture, Lee raised his rating to 9/10 for the brunch spot, which has locations in Toronto and Markham, Ontario.
When sampling a dense stack of earl gray pancakes, Lee claimed he couldn't taste the tea, but thought the flavor was “still really good” and gave it an 8.5/10.
This Bahamian treasure earned the highest ranking on Lee's list in Toronto.
“In my opinion, this [line] should get out the door. This is the best food we have had since we got here,” Lee said.
For his first dish from the Bahamas, Lee took a dense avocado pancake, topped it with guava butter and fried red snapper and gave it a 9.6 out of 10. “I would wait two hours for this,” Lee said. speak.
The fried chicken didn't reach the same level of amazement, receiving a more generic 7 out of 10.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Lee's first and last stops in Jamaica ranked the lowest on his Toronto trip.
The visit began strangely when an employee admitted she was drunk and initially mixed up Lee's order. After noticing poor customer service scores, Lee gave the Jerk chicken sandwich a 6.5 out of 10, the goat curry a 7.5 out of 10 and the oxtail with rice and peas a 6.5 over 10.
Bad Place responded to Lee's review with an Instagram apology from the owner, who explained that he was out of town and pledged to personally serve the critic the next time he to town.
Lee sampled the traditional Somali dish, goat and rice, and gave it an 8.2 out of 10, admitting that it might not be everyone's cup of tea.
The beef stew, which Lee claimed tasted “like pie,” scored 8/10 while he rated the milk cake 8.5/10 for flavor but only 3.5 for texture.
