the stockyards is exactly the kind of place that i love: small, unpretentious, and most importantly, run by people who are genuinely passionate about food – and are dedicated to their project. too often one finds that establishments, particularly new ones (because most don’t last), are lacking something; they try to do too much at once and end up failing with most of their plates (ahem, reggie’s), or they’re uncreative in what they do, or they straight up don’t know their ass from their elbow when it comes to food. the stockyards smokehouse and larder, however, is the real deal, making what proprietor and sandwich mastermind tom davis refers to as a range of peasant foods. they’ve been at it for almost a month now, and the place is in need of very little tweaking. i can guarantee it will be a destination spot for people city wide – i’ve already made the mission uptown four times in the last two week, and there’s still more good stuff to try.
if you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning, you’ll be familiar with what exactly a porchetta sandwich is. in a nutshell (or ciabatta), it’s a traditional tuscan roasted pork loin, stuffed with fennel pollen/fronds, and slow cooked (in a warm corner of tom’s home-designed mobile smoker that he keeps behind the restaurant) for a number of hours. the sandwich consists of thinly sliced juicy pork, crunchy cracklings (the skin, chopped up and seared hard before serving), and garlic aioli – also, for a buck fifty you get sauteed rapini on that bitch, which completes a beautiful overture of operatic sandwich proportions. i don’t joke around or exaggerate when it comes to sandwiches – and this one really, truly, is the shit. as good if not better than the nyc version. with other options to try, i found myself reordering this anyway, disregarding my duty to try everything on the menu.
secondly – let me tell you something, trusty readers: i really hate it when the reputation of a place is greater than their product. kaplansky’s, which has operated in the monarch tavern on clinton for about a year, was the first place to try and fill the city’s gaping void of a market niche for jewish deli-style smoked meat. problem is, despite all the fanfare (the food-nerd blog arguments have been hilarious and prolonged), the product was just never THAT good. i gave mr. kaplansky three opportunities to impress me, and each time the meat was dry and i found his home made mustard to be a try hard failure of ‘look-what-i-can-do’ over indulgence. anyway – what kaplansky’s does alright, the stockyards does right. when i first tried a sample of the smoked meat, fresh out the smoker, it was a bit of a mind-blowing experience. when i came back to eat the sandwich, it was merely excellent. just really flavourful and not too smokey, there was a good balance of juicy fatty bits and tender beefy goodness. in all honesty, there was a bit of dryness to speak of – but this is the kind of thing that will improve as more people order it more consistently. and they will – especially when the st. clair streetcar construction finishes and folks can park nearby. because smoked meat needs to be consumed quickly for maximum juiciness (think how much product moves at schwartz’s), and takes four or five days to brine and smoke – it’ll take some fine tuning to figure out how much they need to make and when to start the process, to assure maximum freshness and regular availability. AND – they explicitly use yellow, standard deli mustard, which is how it should be. i’m a big fan of all different kinds of mustards (like, six in the fridge right now), but hot dogs and smoked meat need the classic american stuff.

as meaty as the place is, they don’t make the mistake of asking for veggie hatred by producing a half-assed afterthought of sandwich for non-omnivores in the crowd. this caprese sandwich was really tasty, with both fresh and smoked/stewed grape tomatoes up in there. there’s ample fresh basil, and they grill the thing so the bocconcini gets melty and even more awesomer. although it might be good as is to most, i gave mine a little bit of salt and went about demolishing the thing. also, they’re going to be hand-making their own mozzarella sometime soon, and you can be sure that’s going to bring the sandwich to a whole new level – although pizzeria libretto made a similar claim some time back and never came through…and their product remains top notch regardless.
there are a bunch of items that i’m personally really looking forward to trying. my good friend ian milne first told me about the place one night when we were working together at ferro, which is right down the street – and earlier that day he’d eaten the buttermilk fried chicken combo, which he said was incredible. on two separate occasions that i’ve gone up, friends have had the pulled pork and pulled chicken sandwiches, both of which were consumed very swiftly. and i’ve heard that the burgers are proper as well, although i will not attest to such a serious matter without sampling the goods myself. they also do racks of ribs on friday nights, which you can imagine are no joke either – the smoker is real, and it’s large.
in any case, the neighbourhood has slowly been discovering this place, and it will not surprise me if there are lineups out the door and a twenty minute wait in the near future. with the beautiful new wychwood streetcar barns park down the christie street (which is a reason to go to that neighbourhood on its own) you should really go up there, get your food to go, and go hang out in the sun. honestly, what could be better? let’s just try to keep the hype on the downlow.







were absolutely killing it. these little bundles included a double pack of saltine crackers(known as premium plus up here in canuckistan), a pack of lime flavoured mayonnaise,and a pack of ketchup. i saved the ketchup packets to accompany grilled cheese sandwiches later on, but everything else all put together was fantastic. i bought this bottle of costa rican habanero sauce that was really quite serious (american customs confiscated a sealed bottle, the fuckers!??), and all put together this was one serious snack. the fish and its brine was really cold and limey, spiked with lots of cilantro and red chillies, and balanced with a bit of cold mayo on the cracker. really and truly, as good as snacking gets – especially on a blazing 37 degree afternoon in the middle of nowhere. 

when i was a kid, i thought my dad was a classy guy – particularly when he’d pop off a bottle of 









