Restaurants
The Big Ragu: Italian, Even Italians Will Love
As a Toronto gal of Italian heritage, I rarely eat out at Italian restos. I could count the worthwhile ones on one hand -- and have fingers to spare.
When it comes to achieving the 'look' of an Italian trattoria, plenty of Toronto restaurants score well. A little textured paint, wine bottles on the walls, and those classic red & white gingham tableclothes all come standard issue. Achieving a menu just as authentic, unfortunately, works out to be much more of challenge.
Thankfully, in the tradition of la Ferrari or gli Azzurri, The Big Ragu is vying for top spot all around.
A couple friends and I dropped by this busy Lansdowne Ave hideaway on a Friday night and somehow manage to score a table. Even the regulars sitting next to our table remarked at how lucky we were to be seated so quickly without a reservation. Must be our night.
Co-owner, Carmine Accogli, greets us with a big smile a detailed personal interpretation of the night's specials before leaving us with fresh bread (made in-house) and some time to deliberate.
To start, we go with Insalata Gustosa ($10), a 'savoury' salad of tuna, beans, red onions, tomatoes and pitted black olives over dark mixed greens. It was a lovely way to start, and light enough to leave room for the incoming entrees.
Pastas arrive next: Pappardelle al 'Ragu' ($14) (pictured at the top) is the house specialty and due to popular demand, probably the only steady fixture on Big Ragu's always changing menu. It's a lamb ragu smothered over pappardelle pasta, which are similar to fettucine but wider and thicker. Layer on some parmesan, close your eyes, and you're at nonna's house.
Calling out to me from the daily specials was Pappardelle Boscaiola e Asiago ($15). Boscaiola usually means woodsier ingredients like porcini and portobello mushrooms sans tomato sauce -- my favourite. Having recently enjoyed this dish in Tuscany, Ragu's offering had a lot to live up to... and it didn't disappoint. Asiago shavings over top of the steaming pasta sealed the deal and soon had me sneaking a piece of bread to clean my plate with!
Lastly, a 4 Stagioni pizza ($11). Split into four "seasons", this traditional pizza features artichokes, fresh mushrooms, black olives and Italian ham & sausage. Generous on the toppings and piping hot -- key elements to a good pizza. Mix that with a thin baked crust and this pizza is rivaling Queen West's 'Terroni' for best 4 Stagioni in town. (Though if you're a big fan of preserved black olives, then Big Ragu is your winner.)
All that food left absolutely, positively, no room for dessert. Then we were presented with the dessert specials (all $7) and suddenly, possibly, miraculously, there appeared to be some room.
Tiramisu, boldly calling itself "The best in town!" did not disappoint. Made in a pan/tray (like it should be!) and then presented in a martini glass. It's both beautiful and challenging to family loyalties.
A Roman Sbriciolata combined chocolate cream and puff pastry. Try to think of something other than that for the rest of the day.
Finally, dare I say it, a Nutella CAKE! Yes, it's true.
Three espresso lungo's brought the night to a close and we rolled on home, already planning our next visit.
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The Big Ragu
1338 Lansdowne Ave
416-654-RAGU
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Even if a restaurant gives the reviewer a fantastic meal, if they get warned by health inspectors on every visit for failing to keep their kitchens clean, I think it would be worth mentioning. Health inspectors can rarely shut these places down, and restaurants continue their old habits without worry because few people are going to notice the little 'conditional' checkmark on the green card.
Thanks, as you guessed, Ragu is a spotless little place, but I will definitely keep the idea in mind for future reviews. At the time same time, I think if I noticed a conditional sign in a resto's window before going in, I'd probably skip on eating there.
The only review I can ever remember doing for a yellow card eatery was Tempo Chinese, and no surprise, they were on global news last week in a segment about rats. The review is here http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/tempochinese
Amazing food, Specials that reflect the season, amazing services and the food was off the charts great!!
Let me tell you that I was very happy with the food and the service.
We spent about 3 hours in there and time flew on right by us.
Our waitress was very accomodating and the owner was a very down to earth, humble and generous man.
Everyone loved the food and we all saved room for dessert, the Tiramisu and Nutella cake were awesome!
I will definitely come back again and will tell others to go there as well.
We will definately return, I just wish they had a warm crackling fire place for the cold winter nights and had a wine list that was slightly cheaper.
Will always go back though because the atmosphere is awesome and specials pretty reliable...plus, Carmine rocks and lights the place up. The perfect place to spend an evening. I look forward to experiencing the "Big Night" event soon
The atmosphere seemed great when I dropped in (two large families enjoying what looked like great dinners) and Carmine was super-welcoming.
Thanks for the recommend... I'll be back!
However, aside from the food, atmosphere and service scored great.
I'd rather go to a restaurant w/ good food alongside w/ the secondary components of a dining visit though.
It was Not Good. I ordered the pasta al limone, which ended up being the only smart decision I made re dinner. We also ordered the starter salad of pear, dried cranberries (hello, craisins!) almonds, some other little components and lettuce. Sounds good, yes? Well, the pear was hard and tasteless (an out of season anjou when bosc are almost always flavourful) and it was all dressed and tossed with ICEBERG LETTUCE. I know it's trendy to be retro, but this was altogether backwards. And WTF with the humongous salad tongs? Did we say we were sharing? No, but it certainly forces the issue when those things show up like giant shiny forceps sticking out of a single-serving bowl.
On to the pasta: the pasta with sausage and peppers was glopped together, as was the ragu covered papardelle, in a surfeit of sauce. Too intense altogether, and in a bad way. As I already said, my pasta al limone with spinach and capers was quite good. We also ordered rapini, which was fine, and a pork dish. The breaded stuffed pork was the evening's worst disaster - the meat was reheated by deep frying, and what delicacy might have initially been intended in the dish was totally destroyed by both the treatment of the cut used and by the oil being overheated. It was big enough for sharing so we all tried it and nobody cared for it. The dry and chewy hunk of meat was served with potatoes that had also been coated and likely deepfried after roasting. Blergh. If it isn't popular enough to keep fresh portions cooked a la minute, just take it off the menu.
Dessert and coffee? No thanks. One member of the party indulged in the nutella cake, and it was reasonable enough, but the bill was steep for what we had eaten up to that point and I had no desire to push my bad luck forward into more expense. We enjoyed ourselves, but it was the company, not the food, that carried the evening. I won't go back. There are far better restos serving Italian food in TO than this one, so much so that if this was my local dining hole, I'd move.